Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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We had a fantastic long weekend

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You know what? I had a really good weekend!

I had sort of been dreading the long weekend because I’d started a new medication for my migraines about three weeks ago and it’s making me feel really odd (spacey, forgetful, mixing up words, tingling hands and feet etc) and on top of that my nephew and niece (and her fiance) were coming in from Chicago for the weekend, and my in-laws were coming in to town for a day or two to see all of us.

When I’m not feeling all that well I don’t really like having other people around or worse, I don’t like having plans to go out, especially when I’m not sure if I’m going to be feeling up to going out.

Luckily everything turned out ok.

My husband picked up our niece and nephew t the airport and took them to our family friends house where they were going to stay for the weekend. Oh and on the way there they stopped off at a restaurant bar and my husband bought my nephew his first legal drink. He’s 19 and thus it was legal for him to drink in Ontario. Our nephew was thrilled … oh and he’s the one who asked Chris to buy him his first legal drink. LOL

The next day my husband went over to the house with our dog to see the kids and to drive them to where ever they wanted to go in the city. He did that every morning – Saturday, Sunday and Monday so he got to spend a bit more time with them and they got a lift to where ever they wanted to start there day.

Surprisingly – for a 19 year old and two 23 year olds they didn’t spend a lot of time going out and partying. They did hit a few bars, especially on Saturday, but they didn’t go out clubbing like we thought they would. Instead they did things like taking a tour of the Rogers center, walking around the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), touring a micro-brewery (SteamWhistle) and tasting their beers, going to the CN Tower, shopping, and going to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I stayed home on the Saturday and just rested up.

On Sunday my in-laws came into town and we got together in the late afternoon with them and the kids at an Irish restaurant called Murphy’s Law and had dinner. My father in law usually doesn’t drink, but when he does he normally only has one drink. That night he had 4 double Bailey’s! It was interesting!

After dinner the in-laws went back to their hotel. Usually they stay at our house, but we’d warned them that with this medication that I’m on I’m feeling really off and that maybe staying over wouldn’t be so great. Usually they come in threes – Chris’ mom and dad and his aunt (although this time Chris’ aunt didn’t come) … so that’s a lot of people to land on someones doorstep when you’re not feeling so hot.

I wasn’t feeling too bad after dinner – a little wonky … I’ve found if I don’t drink enough water on this new medication (Topamax) I kind of feel drunk (and no I didn’t have any drinks with dinner) so we drove the kids back to the house and sat with them on the back patio for an hour or so talking. They were kind of tired. The day before they had walked everywhere they went .. we worked it out and we figured that they walked over 15 miles!

The next day, yesterday, was Labour Day Monday – my Birthday. So we all met up at Cora’s downtown for brunch. Well … ok breakfast … but it was 1 pm. I haven’t been to a Cora’s for a long long time and man – it’s delicious! I had French toast Brioche covered in a mound of assorted fruit, and a sunny side up egg and a few slices of bacon. I think it’s called “1990’s Harvest” on the menu. Delicious!

Shortly after we finished our meal at Cora’s it was time to take the kids to the Island Airport for their flight to Chicago. However, since there was a little bit of time before they had to board the Ferry to the island we walked over to an Irish Memorial.

I have to admit that I only glanced at the huge black stones at the Irish memorial at the port because just as we reached the memorial area jets flew overhead and I realized that the airshow was starting.

I’ve never been to an airshow! So while most of our relatives looked at the Irish memorial my husband and I stood by the waters edge and gazed up at the sky as jets and the famous Canadian Snowbirds did amazing areal feats overhead. I never thought I’d enjoy an airshow that much, but I loved it.

As we walked back to the Ferry area and airport check-in the airshow was still going on, so I was a little distracted in those last few minutes with our nephew, niece and her fiance. I actually almost tripped as I was walking along. Someone had stopped right in front of us to watch the jets do a fly by and I just missed tripping on the wheels of one of the most unusual baby strollers I’ve ever seen. I stopped long enough to ask the lady what it was and she said it was called a phil and teds explorer. I couldn’t help laughing at the name – do you remember the movie – Phil and Ted’s excellent Adventures?

Anyway … The weekend that I thought I’d struggle through because of in-laws and relatives being around turned out to be quite nice. I had two fantastic birthday celebration meals and seeing the airshow just topped off my birthday. I loved it.

How was your long weekend?





I’m taking the Activia 14 Day Challenge

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Dannon Activia

September has arrived and I decided that I want to start a new health regime so I decided to take the Activia 14 Day Challenge.

Activia has been advertising their Activia 14 Day Challenge for several years and I guess it’s about time that I gave it a try. Yogurt is supposed to be good for you, isn’t it?

Activia Yogurt contains a probiotic bacterial culture, an exclusive strain of bifidobacteria, called Bifidobacterium (animalis) lactis, or BL Regularis. We need some good bacteria in our digestive tract in order to digest our food properly, so it only goes to reason that eating a yogurt that has live bacterial culture in it would help out our digestive system.

I’m not normally a yogurt eater. My husband is. We always have yogurt in the house, but I usually only have one once a month or so. Obviously this is going to change over the next two weeks as I do the Activia 14 Day Challenge.

Yesterday I went out to the grocery store to scope out the selection of flavors. Activia comes in wide selection of flavors in both regular fat and fat free. Some of the flavor choices are vanilla, strawberry, prune, peach, apple and raisins, pear, raspberry, sweetened plain, peach and cereals, red fruits and cereals, apple-müesli and nuts.

I bought two 8 packs for my 14 day challenge. One of Fat free Raspberry and one Fat Free Strawberry and Rhubarb. Yummy. I have enough for at least one a day and a few extra for snacks. Of course, knowing my husband, he’ll eat a few, so I’ll probably have to buy a few more before the challenge is over.

So let’s see. I’m feeling pretty good right now, let’s see if I feel even better by the time I’m finished the challenge. I’ll post again next week at the half way point and tell you how the challenge is going.

Has anyone else taken the Activia 14 Day Challenge? If you did it, how did it go? Are you still eating Activia? What’s your favorite flavor?

Activia yogurt

Beat the heat with homemade iced coffee

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It’s hot here in Toronto this week. We’re having a heat wave and it will only cool down a little bit by the time the weekend roles around.

So seeing as it’s so hot here, I decided that I wanted to try making my own iced coffee. I love love love Tim Hortons Ice caps. So I figured that there had to be a way for me to make something as tasty at home.

On Monday I started experimenting with cold brewed coffee in order to make iced coffee. I made up my first batch in a 32 ounce mason jar.

It’s easy to make, just use 1 cup of coffee grounds and about two 2 cups of cold water. Place them in the mason jar and let it sit on your kitchen counter for 12 hours, then strain it through coffee filters into a bowl. Chill in the fridge and then mix equal parts coffee concentrate and milk in a large glass filled with ice and ta da you have iced coffee. Sweeten to taste.

Homemade Iced Coffee

Here’s an easy step by step way to make your own:

What you’ll need:

* Container to brew coffee grounds in (32 ounce = 1 quart)
* Strainer
* Coffee filters (largest size you can find)
* Coffee beans and grinder or pre-ground beans
* Bowl to strain coffee into

Place ground coffee in container, fill with cold water. Cover and let sit for twelve to fifteen hours. Place strainer over large bowl and put coffee filter inside. Slowly pour about half of the coffee into the filter and let sit until strained. Replace filter and repeat. As you’ll see from what I say below, this will work better if you use course ground coffee.

To make regular coffee: place equal parts coffee concentrate and water in cup and heat.

To make iced coffee: Place equal parts concentrate and milk in glass. Add ice, sweetened as desired.

Of course you can always just save some of your hot brewed coffee and cool it off in the refrigerator for later use, but it will likely have a bitter after taste and be more acidic than using a cold brewed method.

I actually found this recipe to be a little too strong for my tastes – even when diluted equally with water (for hot coffee) or milk for iced tea. However I’ve found that if I use 1 part coffee to two parts milk or water it suits my tastes better. So adjust as to your own tastes or use a little less coffee when you start your cold brew.

It took quite a while to filter my cold brewed coffee – at least two hours! I think it was because I was using fine ground coffee. It clogged up the filter pores.

Anyway .. after spending so much time filtering I decided to buy a Bodum French Press. It’s made for making hot coffee, but after doing some research I discovered that a lot of people use it to make cold brewed coffee as well. They just use cold water and let it sit for 12 hours or so before pushing down on the plunger.

I figured that since I love iced coffee, but I didn’t like all the time I spent filtering that a french press would do the trick.

I ordered the French Press early Monday morning from a company just outside of Toronto and would you believe that on a standard shipping order it actually arrived today? Pretty fast! Unfortunately they sent me the wrong size. I’d ordered a 12 cup model and they sent me an 8 cup. Oh well, they’ll pick up the one they sent me tomorrow and with any luck I’ll get the new one at the same time or perhaps on Thursday. Then I’ll be ready to easily make my own cold brewed coffee for either hot or iced coffee.

Did you know that cold brewed coffee has 67% less acid than hot brewed coffee?

I happen to have acid reflux and I don’t drink “real” coffee very often as a result. Now that I’ll be able to make cold brewed coffee easily I think I’ll be enjoying a nice cup of coffee more often … oh I think that while we’re in the midst of a major heat wave tasty iced coffee will be consumed regularly.

Along with the cold brewed coffee I’ve also been busy making several other cold drinks. On Monday I made batches of iced green tea, iced Earl Grey tea, and homemade lemonade. We have lots of cold drinks to get us through this heat wave! If anyone wants the recipes for my homemade iced teas and lemonades just let me know and I’ll write up a post about them too.

Enjoy!

Waiting for dinner – it smells heavenly in here

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I’m currently waiting for a slow cooked beef stew to be finished. It smells delicious in here! Mmmmm.

I added extra vegetables … like a couple more potatoes than the recipe called for, and carrots – for some reason the crock pot recipe I’m using didn’t list carrots and the pot is just full! I think we’re going to be eating stew for a while. I’ll have to freeze some of it I think.

I have a feeling that after finally eating dinner tonight I’m going to be on the computer looking for the top weight loss products LOL. Nah … the recipe is actually fairly low calorie and low fat. The stewing beef I used didn’t have any visible fat and I browned it in a pan before adding it to the crock pot. Plus the beef broth that I used was all fat free. So it’s going to be a health dinner, especially with all those fresh veggies.

If you want the recipe I wrote it out on my blog “My World” (see the link at the top of this post). I’ll let you know if it tastes as good as it smells!

It’s been a busy holiday season for us!

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I’d like to take a moment to wish all of my regular readers and visitors a belated Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I hope that you’ve been having a great time with friends and family.

We had a great Christmas. In fact, I guess getting ready for the holiday and then having house guests are the main reason why I haven’t written a new post for a while. Sorry!

Our Christmas celebrations started on December 20th! My husbands brother drove down or is it up? from Chicago with his two teenage sons. Chris and I were supposed to go to his parents house (in Brantford (an hour and a half away)) for an early family Christmas dinner, but wouldn’t you know it … our furnace started making a high pitched whining sound late Saturday night!

We quickly called our furnace repair call center services line to see if someone could come right away to fix our furnace. I mean, it was so loud we, at first, had thought our crazy neighbors had a circular saw running outside in the driveway between our houses! So we’d turned off the furnace as 1. it didn’t sound healthy, and 2. who could live with that god awful sound!

Did you know that furnace repair people won’t come out to your house on an emergency basis unless your furnace has totally stopped working? Yeah … so .. we scheduled an appointment and as it turned out I stayed home to await the furnace repairman while Chris went to his parents house for Christmas dinner. Doesn’t it just figure that my mother in law actually cooked a turkey for the first time in years and I missed it?

It also turned out that the furnace repair guy canceled on us and didn’t come until Monday! Luckily the whining sound the furnace was making was only really loud the first time it occurred and our furnace kept on running until it was repaired. (it was a bearing problem).

Chris returned home last Sunday night with his brother and our nephews (and a little care package for me full of turkey dinner, yum). Our house guests stayed for two days. Once they cleared out we started getting ready for Christmas day. My sister and her boyfriend came over to join us for Christmas.

I’m sure many of you went through the same things I did as you got ready for Christmas. By this I mean the house got a major cleaning and so did the good china and silverware that hadn’t been used for a year or so! LOL Then I had to start getting the food ready.

I decided to brine a turkey this year. It was soooooo good! It had a mildly salty taste but oh it was so very very moist! Brined turkey is the best!

I brined our turkey in an extra large ziploc bag placed inside a cooler. The brine mix consisted of Kosher salt, brown sugar, and Rosemary, Thyme and Sage spices. Unfortunately the bag started leaking in the night – luckily I checked on the turkey at 2:30 am in the morning and struggled to get it into another bag and made more brine to soak it in!

I spent most of Christmas day preparing for the big meal. I cooked candied sweet potatoes and carrots, green peas, mashed potatoes with garlic, stuffing with garlic, onion and walnuts, a pumpkin pie and of course the brined turkey. The meal was delicious and we had a great time with my sister and her boyfriend!

If anyone would like my recipe for brined turkey just let me know. I’ll make a post with the recipe if there’s enough interest.

After a busy week of cooking, cleaning and visiting with family Chris and I have spent the weekend recovering! No boxing day shopping for us! I would have loved to gone out and bought some items at great prices (ie a washing machine maybe) but we just can’t afford it right now. BTW boxing day in Canada is like Black Friday for Americans- it’s the day with the best sales!

Now I’m gearing up for more house guests. My brother from Vancouver and his wife are flying in on Tuesday evening for my nieces wedding on the 30th and they’ll be here until the 31st.

We’re looking forward to our last guests of the holiday season, but also, by the time it’s over I’m sure we’re going to be in need of a few days rest as we’ll have been going for two weeks straight with visitors and holiday prep and goings on.

I hope that you had a great holiday! What are your plans for New Years?

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