Kelly Burns (500 calories)

From Out and About

My double XL muffin top that I got for Christmas (thanks Santa) has resumed it's regular size. *phew* Thanks in part to my faithful friend Paula who encouraged us all to sign up for the Robbie Burns 8km race (and then proceeded to book a vacation to the Dominican Republic on the same week.)

The Robbie Burns Run is an 8km race in January. JANUARY. 9 am!!!!! What was I thinking?! Right: January is usually the time my muffin top gets out of control.

I trained a decent amount for this race, and never having run in cold, cold weather, I had a goal to run the 8km in less than an hour. I'm proud to announce a final race time of 52:57!

From Out and About

From Out and About

Dustin does not train. He finished the race in 37 mins. I think it was his steroid-laced breakfast of peanut butter and concord jam toast. (Perhaps it is the bizarre way he eats his toast from the outside in...)

From Food

Our post race festivities included excessive amounts of breakfast food at Cora's. I've been told that if you run a race in the name of Robbie Burns, the food you consume immediately after the race turns directly into muscle. It's called burnsmosis. The (smaller) tire around my waist must be made of a special kind of muscle.

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Check out my muffin tops!

From Food

Chinese people have a philosophy about food and healing: if your liver is weak, eat liver; if you have heart problems, eat heart; if your pancreas is subpar, munch on pancreas.

As my love-handles grow, and my consumption of muffin tops increase, I can't help but wonder how much truth there is to the (ridiculous) Chinese philosophy.

Several CSA food boxes ago, our pantry item was Red Fife Flour. I'm not a bread maker -- not unless I use my parents' bread maker. So the flour just sat in our pantry until this past weekend when I decided to use it in my usual banana bread recipe.

From Food

My go-to recipe for banana bread is actually a low-fat banana cake recipe from the Eat, Shrink, and be Merry ladies, Janet and Greta. The recipe works great for substitutions: change the cake to muffins, swap out the chocolate chips for coarse chocolate powder, add oatmeal for a heartier muffin... Everything works. And substituting half of the white flour with the red fife flour worked like a charm.

I've read, watched, or heard somewhere that whenever you want to swap out white flour for whole wheat you should only swap out half of it. Sounds like something Alton would have taught me (likely whilst dressed as a wheat germ.) I decided that since the Red Fife flour was a whole grain flour, I should do the half-swap.

I also got some amazing frozen blueberries in a CSA box not too long ago: a perfect addition to the modified, modified, banana bread. How many cups of blueberries did I add? LOTS. The frozen blueberries kept the dough deliciously moist.

My concoction became Red Fife Banana and Blueberry Muffins!

Here is the original recipe. I used 1 cup white flour and 1 cup Red Fife flour. I got rid of the chocolate chips, and added at least a cup and a half of blueberries. Fill muffin tins almost all the way with the dough: they won't rise that much. Bake for 30 mins or until golden on top and a spaghetti or toothpick or skewer comes out clean (make sure you check the ones in the middle of the pan.) Enjoy!

From Food

From Food

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I Love Lamp

Photo courtesy of the workroom

So... remember the beautiful Rouenneries by French General fabric that I fell in love with? I finally made that fabric lamp shade! It now sits next to my bed by my fabric hoops. So beautiful! So easy! I love lamp!

From sewing

From sewing

From sewing

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To Serge, With Love

From sewing

I was "Lulu" and my brand new Bernina Serger was my "Sidney Poitier." My sewing life had gone astray and I needed inspiration, motivation, and a reason to sew! For Christmas, my mother in law, my sister and my mom got me gift cards to the workroom. I was finally going to get myself a serger to inspire me to do all those sewing projects that I've been meaning to do. Sure, I didn't *need* a serger, but it sure made sewing more exciting!

For those that don't know: a serger is like a sewing machine, but is perfect for overlocking the edges of fabric so it won't fray. Take a look at any tshirt: the hem is usually serged.

From sewing

On Sunday afternoon, I read through Stylish Dress Book and decided on dress 'B', which is actually a shirt. (I have to admit that Karyn's fabulous dress 'B' was most inspirational.) I had this beautiful Moda fabric that I purchased several months ago: dragonflies and hummingbirds!

From sewing

I had previously made two dresses from the book: both from taking a class at the workroom. The entire book is in Japanese, and although the tourists in Morocco would argue that I couldn't possibly be anything but Japanese, let alone Canadian, I can't read a word of Japanese. The class taught us how to *assume* what they are telling us to do: plan the whole thing out and look at the pictures. (A recipe stand comes in really handy as well: this was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law. It folds up and tucks away like a book!)

From sewing

I spent all afternoon tracing the pattern, cutting the fabric, serging, and sewing. After many uses of the seam-ripper, I was one sleeve short of finishing the entire shirt!!!

What dedication! What progress! On Monday, not only did I finish the shirt, but I started another -- which I promptly finished the next evening. Don't I look fabulous?

From sewing

From sewing

After three dresses/shirts from this book, I realized that I was terrible at bias tape. TERR-ible. Since I had borrowed Funny Girl from the library, I decided to do all the bias tape by hand in front of the tv. Doesn't the sleeve look perfect? I also decided to keep the serged hemline: I've moved up in the world. No more frayed edges! No more double folded hems! "Those schoolgirl days, of telling tales and biting nails are gone..."

From sewing

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A kiwi disguised as a dragon

Photo courtesy of informationonhealth.blogspot.com

If you've ever been to Chinatown (or Markham, ON) you've likely encountered one of these crazy dragon fruits sitting in a bin outside. I've never had the desire to try one, probably because Chinese fruits (read: durian) can taste (or smell) so bad.

From Out and About

Over the Christmas break, I spent a lot of time relaxing at my parents' place. One particular night, whist sitting by the fire, playing a geeky (read: amazing) boardgame, my mom cut up one said dragon fruit and lo and behold it looks like a party in there! And it tasted much like a kiwi. The seeds were soft and the fruit was mildly sweet. If a kiwi decided to dress up as a dragon at the Exotic Fruit Halloween party, that's what it would look like.

From Food

From Food

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Cute to the Max

This Christmas holiday, I had a date with my new nephew Maximus. Okay, so we didn't take long walks on the beach, but I got to burp him, and cuddle with him, and tell him all about how goofy his mommy is. Then I gave him back to my sister so he can throw up on her.

Truly one of the best babies I've ever had the pleasure of canoodling. Here's to Max: a special 14 picture collage.

From Maximus

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Boy, am I ever beet.

From Food

December came and went and I only blogged 3 times! So terrible, but as Scarlett said "...tomorrow is another day" and things can only get better.

I've wanted to post about beets for a while now. We've gotten them twice so far in our CSA box and we are expecting more this week.

My first attempt at cooking beets was in a steak salad. I can't even remember which recipe I used, or if I even used a recipe. Yes, it was that unmemorable. I decided to boil the beets rather than bake them; I seared up a steak like I usually would, and then I made a delicious garlicky dressing.

From Food

Sure, it was tasty, but mostly because the steak and the other salad ingredients masked the taste of the beets. I do have to admit that beets are one of the prettier vegetables.

From Food

My second attempt at a beet dish was a roasted root vegetable soup. There were only two red beets, 3 or 4 light coloured beets, two celeriacs, sweet potato, turnip, and multi coloured carrots. It still came out beet red. (I've used that term dozens of times and only now do I realize what vibrant shade of red I was depicting.)

From Food

From Food

From Food

Again: a very pretty tray of roasted vegetables, but this is not a food pageant. I didn't think it was possible, but the soup had too many layers of flavour. The beets, turnips, and celeriac were all too strong. Next time I will just pick one strong flavour (maybe two at the most) and add mild root vegetables. Not exactly yucky, but not the most delicious bowl of soup.

This Thursday comes another chance at beets. I'm beginning to realize that perhaps beets need a recipe. Someone who has spent many a day in the test kitchen finding the perfect recipe. Any suggestions? Because this beets the heck out of me.

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