Hi, everybody! We had a wicked t-storm here early yesterday afternoon that knocked the power out for almost 8hrs! I have a gas stove so I was able to light a burner to cook some dinner, but otherwise, we were “roughing” it. LOL
After making some dorset cereal with blueberries and raspberries for breakfast yesterday…
I looked out my front door and saw this little fella having some breakfast of his own!
Cute little whipper snapper! We spent an hour and a half at a blazing hot soccer field with DS before we had to rush home, clean him up and bring him to a b-day party. Fun times! Seeing as the party was over the lunch hour on the other side of town, my hubby, DD and I decided to treat ourselves to lunch out. We ended up at Crabby Joe’s, which was a first for me. After browsing the menu which was full of your typical heavy-on the-cheese-pasta dishes and big-as-your-head burgers, I settled for a turkey pesto “melt” with a side salad;
Meh, it was okay. I would say it was closer to a glorified grilled cheese myself and was a bit on the salty side. I certainly didn’t hate it, though; I did enjoy the red peppers and onions that were on it and it was a decent size for lunch:
No sooner did we get home and I snapped this picture of my almost eaten vegan ginger cookie…
…that it started to storm. DS ended up going home with the b-day boy so the 3 of us parked our butts in the garage to watch the show. This would be when we lost power. Let me tell you; nothing brings the neighbourhood together like a power outage! Everyone was outside wandering around trying to figure out who had power so they could watch the FIFA finals. HA!
Eventually we went to get DS from his friends house and ended up hanging out there for over an hour. They live in the country and the parents have a HUGE garden, chickens and bunnies. I was drooling over her produce! I decided on chicken Caesar salads for dinner using 3 heads of lettuce from the garden and some precooked, sliced chicken breast. The fam had traditional dressing, mine had Renee’s Caesar parm on it and no croutons:
I crashed after watching Criminal Minds and a new show called “The Glades”. I woke up to a dreary sky on my day off. Bummer. I figured hot oats were in order!
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup Quaker oats
- cinnamon
- blueberries
- boathouse vanilla chai
I got the kids dropped off at Italian school and made my way to Pilates. We did a lot of work on the stability ball which was a fun and different change. Bet I feel it tomorrow! When I got home I vacuumed the house. That is the one chore that I loathe above all. What chore do you just hate doing? Before I knew it, it was time to get the kids and drive up to the soccer club to get DS officially enrolled in the All Star soccer program. **Read: hand over my VISA**
Lunch was simple, fast and delish! I scrambled one farm fresh egg with some scallions and a LC cheese wedge and served it with a side of cranberry pumpkin seed toast.
This is the bread I used;
My Uncle very recently found out that he has a gluten intolerance and gave us everything he can no longer eat. This bread was part of that loot which also included scads of pasta, oats, muffin mix and cereal. Shell fish is another no-no for him so we scored a bag of shrimp, too. I feel for the man….he’s swimming in unknown waters right now. But he’s doing his research which I think makes him feel better!
DS had a friend spend the afternoon so I was basically stuck making sure they didn’t wreck the place. Sheesh! Boys sure do have a lot of energy! The fam had pasta for dinner and I made myself a wonderful veggie dish featuring quinoa, golden beets, tomatoes, fresh peas, feta and a drizzle of garlic infused olive oil,
Freaking amazing! A pleasure to all the senses, for sure. The colour alone made it so appetizing, but the flavour was phenomenal, too.
I wanted to touch a bit on an article I read in a magazine today that was about “food separation”. The jist of it is when couples eat differently from one another and how that can affect a relationship. Say, one wants to eat healthy, the other wants you to join in on burgers and fries all the time. The author states that people bond over food rituals and that it is a sacred time together. Not sharing what we eat is another “nail in the coffin of intimacy”. It goes on to interview different couples ranging from a woman who started eating differently from her spouse for weight loss reasons to another women who went vegetarian and now refuses to cook meat for her husband (he now orders out regularly) to a marriage that ended because the wife was heavy when they got married and the husband resented her eating differently and losing weight. I can’t find the actual article online, but it was from the August edition of Chatelaine magazine, if you’re interested. This caught my attention because I eat very differently from my hubby and I can honestly say that it rarely causes us any stress. Maybe because I do the majority of the cooking and usually make something different for myself, therefore I’m not “putting him out”? Comments fly back and forth occasionally with me saying that he eats too much processed food and him saying that I don’t eat “real” food…AKA meat and potatoes. I guess I’m surprised that anyone would care enough about what their spouse ate to make it a deal breaker. The issue of sabotaging was also mentioned and I guess I could see that if one partner was intent on losing weight and the other consistently filled the house with trigger foods, tension would build. Hmmm… I’d love to hear your thoughts and start a conversation per se in the comment section on this topic. Please chime in!
Bye for now!!
Wow 8 hours without power! Way to still make up a delicious meal. Such an awesome Mama. And a beautiful breakfast with all those berries. That article kind of cracks me up. Obviously because I am a veg and Josh is not....we rarely eat the same thing (in fact, I'm doing a guest post on meals and moves soon on the topic). I always make sure we share some common ingredient and try to eat together whenever we can (despite our different schedules). I feel no less close to him ;)
ReplyDeleteWe had some insane wind storms today here as well, power out at a lot of cities! My husband eats meat and eats differently than me but it seems to workout. We split cooking duties and although I never cook meat he enjoys the veg meals I make for him, especially since it means he doesn't have to cook!
ReplyDeleteSUCH an interesting topic! (Food separation) My fiance and I often eat dinner separately because he works late. I love it when we get home at the same time and can eat together. And we eat every meal together on weekends. I tend to eat less meat than he does, but he's adopted a lot of my vegetarian ways :)
ReplyDeleteI think not enjoying the same foods would be hard for a couple since eating is such a large part of our lives. I don't think it's a reason to get divorced though!! It doesn't mean you can't enjoy the same foods either. It's not like the healthy person eats grass all day and the other eats burgers/sausages/etc/ you know? Couples can still enjoy some of the middle ground foods together.
ReplyDeleteDang, that is one heck of a power outage! We just had one recently that the authorities told us was going to last 38 hours!!! Imagine me, coming home late one night after a few drinks at the bar to a dark, empty house and trying to get up the stairs! Interesting, to say the least, haha.
ReplyDeleteCriminal Minds is one of my favorites too! Isn't Shemar Moore gorgeous?
I love that you put chai in your oats. That sounds so unique, but so delish! I'm definitely going to try that ASAP.
Sounds like a very interesting article! I often eat different foods from the rest of my family (and I buy numerous foods "just for me"), especially for breakfast and lunch. However, in recent months I am making a real effort for us all to eat the same dinner. In the past, I often used to cook for the family and ate something completely different myself. I do somehow like the idea of us all eating the same dinner. I don't really know why.
ReplyDeletei don't see any problem eating different food than my hubby, although we do less often now but we used to eat different food all the time and I don't see any tension at all.
ReplyDeleteI love thunderstorms but not when they leave you with no power for hours!! And your uncle must be going through some huge adjustments. There's no way I could just up and drop all my gluten containing foods cold turkey..or at least it'd be really, really tough!! But at the same time it's a chance to try all new foods :)
ReplyDeleteWe eat different foods a lot, and never once has it caused problems. I guess that's because when it counts, I eat the cake, or the big steak, and when it counts the other way, Ryan eats the salad and the 'good for you' cereal.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting this could be such a cause of problems.
I secretly love bleary summer mornings because they give me an excuse to make hot oats :D
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, Lee and I eat the same (he just eats the same food in MASS quantities, hehe) but the boy will ALWAYS love his fast food and prolly could eat it every day. We have never argued over food issues! Seems crazy to me.
ReplyDeleteseriously right now as i type this we're getting the HUGEST tstorms! i hope we don't lose power for 8 hours! that would not be fun.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness that salad looks amazing!!! Yum!
ReplyDeletexo
Very interesting topic! Food really is considered "social glue," isn't it? However, as a vegetarian dating an omnivore, I've never really experienced the "separation" mentioned in the article.
ReplyDeleteI can see how there could be a food separation. When I came home from college eating organic, barely touching meat, and not big on the heavy cheese dishes, it was hard for my family and I. We're getting loads better at making it work though. I cook my "healthy" meals for the family on occasion which can be a hit or just a "meh." We had a ton of fun when I was making falafel one night. Nobody in my family had heard of it, so they were very curious.
ReplyDeleteI despise when the power goes out...glad you're all safe though! I don't think food should be a make or break deal in relationships, but I'm sure it'd be a plus to share like meals together. But everyone's different, and people should go with whatever works for them!
ReplyDeleteI know lots of couples who eat differently, and it doesn't seem to be an issue. I think that if it becomes one, there are probably deeper problems that are really the issue, not the difference between what's on their dinner plates.
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