You have not experienced a tomato until you've sliced into one that you've just picked, still warm from the sun. Unfortunately, we only had one ripe tomato, so we supplemented with others that we got in our weekly vegetable delivery. I didn't think growing my own food would make such a difference, but the flavour of this tomato was so different than the others. You could really tell.
Sometimes you've got to take a little time. That’s not me. I am the person who opens the microwave with three seconds left. I am the person who runs to make the crosswalk. I am the person who fast forwards through the opening sequence of a tv show (except for the ones with awesome intro music… I’m looking at you Game of Thrones).
Two years ago today, I decided to carve out a space for myself on the internet. However small, it was a place where I could share my passion for baking, my highs and lows as a PhD student, and any other thoughts that happened to be littering my mind at the moment.
I’m very bad at estimating things. Numbers, age, weight. Don’t ask me to guess how old you are, you’ll probably be offended. This rarely poses a real problem until you end up buying 2 kg of butterscotch chips.
I didn’t THINK it was 2 kg.
Just in case you’re sick of all the salads, and soups, and overall greenery that’s invaded Pinterest and the internet since January, here’s some pudding.
I didn’t think I liked pudding. I was wrong.
When I imagined this dessert, it was the first snow of the season. It wasn’t fluffy or pretty. It was blowing hard and it didn’t stay on the ground, but it made me think of a winter wonderland. What dessert speaks of mountains of fluffy white snow better than the fluffy peaks of a pavlova with its mounds of whipped cream?
That’s a rhetorical question.
4-3-2-1 we’re having cheesecake! This is an attack.
Am I a little late with this fall inspired pizza? Maybe.
Am I the only one that feels like everyone else is more organized than me? It seems that way.
All my favourite food bloggers are already talking about all the cute, amazing, DIY holiday gifts that they’re making, and here I am with my apple butter.
Oh hi! Welcome to the first post of a new segment I’m starting called Snack Attack. These will be simple recipes, sometimes hardly even recipes, for quick snack/meal/dessert ideas. When you get back from work and you need a little something before dinner is on the table. If you’re craving dessert but don’t want to whip out the stand mixer and all your bowls. If you need a fast, on-the-go lunch.
For the most part, I feel like exactly the same person as I did when I was a kid. Maybe I have a couple more responsibilities and a little more independence, but I haven’t really changed, right?
I can’t lie; I hated oatmeal as a child. I did whatever I could to mask the taste of it going down. That usually included topping with large spoonfuls of jam until it was more like jam with oatmeal than oatmeal with jam.
Spicy maple pecans are delicious.
These guys will be going into several desserts that I am experimenting with. They will also be going into my mouth. I would like them to go into your mouths too.
The kids are back filling the streets and the campus, making the Starbucks line that much longer. I find myself missing the feeling of back to school. The fresh start, with a new agenda, new notebooks, and new coloured pencils. In grad school, everything just keeps on going like it always did.
Sometimes the recipes that I post on this blog come to me in a flash of inspiration. Roasted strawberries and coconut, yes! Sometimes, they are developed from necessity, like needing to get rid of overripe bananas. But sometimes, there’s something that I make so often, that I decide it’s cheating if I don’t share.
I feel like fried pickles have been haunting me. Everywhere we went seemed to have fried pickles on the menu. I wanted those fried pickles. And everywhere I was met with the dreaded words: “Sorry, we’re out”, “we just changed our menu and took those off”... etc.
Things are a bit of a whirlwind lately. Got back from Boston with just enough time to do laundry and pack again it seems. I’m not complaining. This trip to Strasbourg is last minute and exciting. But making dinner after a full day of traveling when there’s no groceries in the house can be daunting. Especially when you only have a couple of days at home. Don’t want to stock up too much fresh food. But don’t want to eat out after a whole weekend of eating away from home.
I like salads without lettuce. Lettuce is just filler that you have to pick around to get to the good stuff. Chewing through a pile of leaves doesn’t make me excited. But then I realized that I can control my own salad fate. Lettuce forget about lettuce (haha).
We’re always working, striving towards the next success. The problem is, once we achieve something, our idea of success changes. My grad school work is a perfect example of this. When I first started my project, I told myself that all I wanted was to express my protein. I’d be so happy if I could just have that. And I got that, about 7 months in. And yet, at that point, I was already working on other things that weren’t going well. And so my original milestone went by almost unnoticed, overshadowed by the next, greater milestone that I had set myself. If happiness is on the other side of success, our brains never get there.
When I was in Boston recently, I had the chance to meet up with my very first PhD mentor from the very first lab I worked in. Back then I was scared, inexperienced, shy, and Catherine made it so easy to get started. She made science cool, and no doubt is a big reason why I am still in science now. Not only that, but she was instrumental in getting my first TWO peer reviewed publications. And although I now realize that I did a lot of the repetitive work that she didn’t want to do, I will always appreciate every minute of it. It shaped me as a person and as a scientist.
There are some memories that I will have forever from that time. Our daily walk to Tim Horton’s in the morning. Talking about yoga and sometimes demonstrating poses. And eating spicy beans. These things were brought by another co-worker, and they were dangerous. We must have demolished at least one bag of spicy broad beans a day.
So when I showed Catherine my food blog and she asked me to post some recipes for vegetarian snacks, I decided recreating the spicy broad beans was perfect.
My darling hubby Alex (see, trying to wean you off “hubby”) is gone for a whole week on business. And without him here I feel like I revert back to all my “bachelor” habits. Mostly, I have overwhelming urges to have a bag of chips for dinner. It’s so easy, there’s no one here to see, no one will know... are some of my best excuses.
It’s so good while it lasts, but almost invariably results in feelings of guilt. Being someone who works hard to maintain her weight, I want to share with you some of the best advice I’ve read in a while about this type of situation. So you ate chips... that’s FINE. It’s one bag of chips. Get out of the mindset that you’ve now ruined your day, week, diet, and get right back on the horse. Don’t let one slip be your excuse to eat terrible things all day/week/life. Therein lies the real problem.
So let’s make salad!
