Triple Green Iced Tea

This is a recent concoction of mine, inspired by the warmer weather I hope is on it's way, and the fantastic combination of mint and lime (and the Mojito!).

Ingredients:

• 12 cups Water
• loose leaf Moroccan Mint Tea* (enough for 2, 6 cup, pots)
• 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup lime juice

Method:

Boil 6 cups of water (this is as much at my kettle and tea pot will take).
Put some Moroccan Mint tea into a "tea ball" and drop into tea pot.
Fill the tea pot with the hot water and steep for 3-5 minutes.
Pour resulting tea into a jug.
Repeat with the rest of the water and tea.
Add the sugar and lime juice to the tea and refrigerate.
Enjoy your iced tea.

* Moroccan Mint tea is a combination of green tea, and mint (both peppermint and spearmint). Hence the Triple Green name for green tea, green mint, and green lime.

Earth Hour day's events

I unofficially celebrated Earth Hour for the first time this year. I say unofficially because I wasn't at home for Earth Hour so, by default, all of my lights in my apartment were off anyway. In any case, here's a breakdown of my Earth Hour day's happenings.

5:30 am: Woke up to take birth control. Then went back to sleep.
(Yes, I wake up every morning at 5:30. It's the earliest time I get up throughout the week for work and, since it's disastrous when I try to regularly take a pill in the middle of the day, I keep myself in check by always doing it early.)

8:00 am: Alarm went off again. This time I got up and ready for work.

8:30 am: Prodded Andy to wake up.

9:00 am: Prodded Andy to wake up again. He's my Saturday ride to work so if he's late, I'm late.


9:45 am: Arrived at the bakery beside my work and supported their general awesomeness by buying a muffin and some juice for breakfast.
(This place is great, they knew my lunch order... roasted vegetable sandwich on ciabatta... and co-worker's lunch orders by heart after only a couple visits.)

10:00 am - 6:00 pm: "Worked" at one of two part time jobs, selling Apple computers at a reseller. It only pays minimum wage but is worth it for the only one day a week commitment and added perks including getting everything at cost, access to "Not For Resale" copies of software, and the most laid back atmosphere imaginable.

6:05 - 7:45pm: Went to Tim Horton's and then Chapter's with Andy. Purchased Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the latest issue of BUST magazine, and the Veganomicon cookbook. I realized while in the checkout line that I probably looked like an indy stereotype, then shrugged, and paid for my books.

EARTH HOUR: Ate the best westernized Chinese food, made by actual Chinese people, that you can get at the Golden Dragon in Oakville. Their hot and sour soup makes visiting this place worth it all on it's own. Andy and I are somewhat regular customers, our first visits dating back 4 years to my first year at Sheridan College across the street. The owner and Andy also share a love for the Blackberry so our ordering process is always overshadowed by them talking about said device. The benefit of our loyal patronage is getting discounted (and some free) food with each visit.

9:00 pm: Rented Michael Clayton for viewing tomorrow night and headed home.

Nigella Express

Another cookbook to explore!

First Ever Top Ten List

Everyone has there own top tens in every category whether it be films, songs, places to go or anything else they can think of. Being inspired by all the lists out there, I've decided to start putting out my own monthly top tens starting with:

Top Ten (Fiction) Books

10. The Twits, Roald Dahl

The lives of the worst married couple you could ever imagine.
(I felt compelled to put a children's book in this list. And out of children's books, this is just about the greatest one.)

9. Pilgrim, Timothy Findley

About a man that can't die... but wants to.


8. The Hitchhiker Trilogy (in Five Volumes), Douglas Adams

Intergalactic mayhem.

7. The Gate to Women's Country, Sheri S. Tepper

A future where women live in peaceful towns, and men live in the surrounding badlands playing war games.

6. Life of Pi, Yann Martel

A boy is lost at sea for over 200 days... with a tiger.

5. Anthem, Ayn Rand

The experiences of one man in a future where individuality no longer exists.

4. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

An "ultraviolent" young thug is jailed, then volunteers for a radical rehabilitation program in exchange for reduced time.

3. Island, Aldous Huxley

A journalist travels to a secluded island utopia.

2. Self, Yann Martel

A boy miraculously turns into a woman on his eighteenth birthday.

1. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

A false utopia where everyone is "happy", but everything is trivial.

Organization Mayhem!

I have to admit something.

Until last weekend, both my kitchen and my book collection were in disarray. I had no storage proper storage space for either my books or my dried food goods. My books were sitting in boxes, left in the dark since I moved into my apartment... last July. My dried goods were where ever they could fit, on top of the fridge, in barely accessible cupboards, and drawers intended for utensils. But no more.

I freed myself from the shenanigans of disorganization* by making a trip to Ikea and picked up two key pieces of furniture. They are a bookshelf, and metal kitchen shelf... organizer thing. My results are below.* Shenanigans include: rummaging through boxes, and climbing on counters to reach out of the way cupboards.

Vegetarian fried rice

As seen in the picture above, this recipe is right out of Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking. It's a fantastic fried rice recipe that cooks up in a couple minutes and is everything that fried rice should be, not too greasy or salty, has a confetti like mix of ingredients, and is a comfort food without feeling heavy. I do need to mention though, that while this recipe is vegetarian it contains eggs so it can't be called vegan. To create a vegan version I would replace the scrambled egg with firm tofu or, if you can find it, fried bean curd or "tofu puffs" which have a texture much closer to scrambled egg.

To make this you will need:

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 4 cups steamed rice
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/3 finely shredded Chinese (Napa) cabbage leaves
• 1 small carrot, peeled
• 1 cup fresh bean sprouts
• 1 small red onion, finely sliced
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped coriander (cilantro) root and stems*
• 1 tablespoon finely diced ginger
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 100g fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps finely sliced
• 2/3 cup finely sliced spring (green) onions
• 2 teaspoons sea salt

Heat half the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly, Pour Beaten eggs into wok and leave to cook on the base of the wok for 10 seconds before folding egg mixture over onto itself with a spatula and lightly scrambling for about 1 minute or until almost cooked through. Carefully remove omelette from wok with a spatula and drain on kitchen paper. Set aside.

Using a vegetable peeler, finely slice carrot lengthways into ribbons and then into a fine julienne.

Heat remaining oil in a hot wok and stir-fry onion, ginger, mushrooms, and salt for 1 minute. Add carrot, rice, cabbage, bean sprouts, coriander, soy sauce, and reserved omelette and stir fry for about 1 1/2 minutes. Use a spatula to break up the egg into smaller pieces while cooking. Lastly, toss in spring onions and stir fry for 30 seconds or until well combined and rice is heated through.

Transfer rice into a bowl and serve immediately.

*I leave out the cilantro due to my, previously mentioned, inability to enjoy it's taste.

Glass fridge magnets

In an effort to make my fridge a little prettier I put together these magnets. They only took about 5 minutes to make and the materials cost $3.00 in total*. All you need are some small glass tiles, small magnets, and super glue (or hot glue gun, but I'm a super glue kind of girl). To put together the magnets just glue one magnet onto each tile, making sure that the "stronger" side of the magnet is facing outwards, and let dry. *I love the dollar store!

Triple Thick Smoothie

This smoothie, thankfully, has no relation to Mc Donald's at all. It's actually a bit of an homage to the insanely intense smoothies you can get at Mr. B's in Port Dover, ON. The smoothies cost about $5 and consist of a literal pound of frozen fruit (your choice of mix, of course) and a bit of ice, pulverized into smoothie form with a gigantic, industrial, immersion blender. And that's it. There's no juice or milk, or yogurt. Just fruit and ice. The first time I ordered one I asked for raspberry, only raspberry. I think it almost killed me.

It's the greatest, freshest tasting smoothie you'll ever have. It's also almost impossible to drink through a straw... or drink under any means. It's so thick that you best ask for a spoon when you order this smoothie.

My home version of this is a little less intense, but only because I lack an industrial blender. This smoothie contains some frozen fruit mix, whatever amount fills your glass, and is topped up with some juice, in this case apple. Blend the whole thing until smooth, then add another handful of frozen fruit for added thickness and blend some more. Poor into a glass, and get yourself a spoon.

The unexpected meal.

For almost a couple months now I've been making up weekly meal plans. I've really grown to love the meal plan system since it saves me the time of standing, blank faced, in my kitchen every night trying to decide what to make. The resulting grocery list for the meals is also very handy, both because it saves money, and it gives me the ability to delegate grocery shopping to Andy. So far it has been a great system with only one hiccup... the unexpected meal.

The Wednesday dish on my past week's meal plan was "Steamed fish and vegetables", so on the grocery list I included "fish" and an assortment of veg that would work in all of the meals I had planned. Andy went out and picked up all of the groceries on the list (salmon for the fish) and the early week meals went as planned. Then Wednesday evening rolled around.

About to make dinner, I reached into the freezer to pull out some salmon filets, and instead pulled out... smoked salmon. Smoked salmon. What was I going to do with smoked salmon?

At times like this, when I have an ingredient with no idea what to do with it, I like to turn to The Joy of Cooking for inspiration. So that's exactly what I did.  I opened up the big book, turned to the index and found,

Salmon, Smoked:

• Bagels and Lox "No, I have no bagels or cream cheese, and that is hardly a dinner"
  
• _ and Egg Sandwiches "I don't enjoy egg sandwiches without smoked salmon"
• Eggs with _ "What is this strange obsession with eggs and smoked salmon together?"
• Spinach Fettuccine with Asparagus and _ "...I don't have those ingredients either, but pasta seems like a good direction to take"

So I whipped together a simple white sauce, threw in some broccoli, peas, parmesan cheese, and the smoked salmon and then tossed the whole thing with some cooked spaghetti noodles. Then I tasted it. And it was... pretty good! A dinner debacle was averted. And, in the end, I had fun with the challenge of coming up with a meal based on an ingredient I never use.