Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian

Rhubarb Pizza – Yea or Nay?

I have a decent patch of rhubarb growing in my garden. I LOVE rhubarb. I love rhubarb pie, jam, crisp, muffins… There are so many delightful options out there. My backyard is slowly turning into a happy little food forest. Maybe more of a food brush as I’ve currently only a single apple tree (but I’m getting there and enjoying the journey). This rhubarb is my favourite plant in the entire garden. Once Fall comes I will split off a small section of it to add a second plant. More rhubarb – more incredible recipes.

Generally, rhubarb is used to make sweet baked goods and jams. I tried making rhubarb wine last year but a patch of mold forced me to discard it. I’ll try again if I have enough left at this year’s end. I am definitely going to be making pie and jam sometime this season. I’ve already made rhubarb muffins and they were good. I wanted to branch out and try a savory recipe. I know they have meat recipes (pork?) and I know there had to be others. I found this recipe on facebook: Rhubarb pizza!!

I’ve never heard of rhubarb pizza! How have I gone this long without knowing rhubarb pizza was a thing?? Was it good? What else is on there? So I made it.

I am happy to report rhubarb pizza is in fact delicious! I used a raw store-bought crust and an electric pizza maker. The recipe is a blend of cheeses, nuts, honey, thyme(I used dried because that’s what I had), nuts, oil, arugula, and rhubarb. It was a wonderful combo. My spouse and I had it again the next day for lunch. As in we liked it so much we made an entire new pizza. Was it as good as a traditional pizza? Not quite, but traditional pizza is a hard one to beat. Would I make it again? For sure I would. Would I recommend the recipe? Definitely.

Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian

Commuting And Cooking Aint Easy

My spouse and I commute – a lot. Almost two hours a day. We’ve noticed a significant decline in our energy levels and health since we started 5 years ago. The main culprit – take out. We’re usually pretty hungry by the end of the day and often we cave in. We are commuting from a large city, so there are a lot of options. The majority of the takeout we get is from burger joints, pita places, and the odd burrito. The pita – not so bad, but no one is ordering salad at the burrito, or burger joint.

After getting home and walking the dogs it’s pretty late and we’re both hungry. We bought a box of granola bars. It’s helping us home without temptation. We need something easy, fast, and healthy. I found an old love that fits all these things. Spring rolls!

I love spring rolls! They are perfect and I found three packages of rice paper in my cupboard! They are so easy to make. First, I chop up 8 pieces of tofu (that usually takes half a thick block, or 2/3 of a thin block, of extra firm tofu). I don’t drain it. I probably should, but I’m not a chef and not that concerned about it. I dump them in a container and toss them with tamari (I don’t measure – sorry). I cut eight pieces for the two of us – four each. While that is marinating I cut up the rest of the ingredients.

I grate mushrooms (I ended up needing more), chop mango into long thin slices, and have a bunch of basil ready.

I soak the rice paper in hot water in a pie plate until it’s soft and pliable. I put some spinach down and two basil leaves, per roll.

Then I put in a bunch of grated mushrooms, a piece of tofu, and two slices of mango. The mango really makes it. I like the mango at the firm, but still easy-to-cut stage, for this recipe.

Roll it up tight (I still haven’t quite got this down)

and serve it with sweet chilli sauce. No particular brand, I generally like them all.

They are so good! I’m making them again tonight. Mr Lobster Shorts wasn’t fond of the basil, so I’ll leave it out of his from now on. From start to finish, it took 42 minutes to have them ready and served on the table. That’s really impressive to me. It’s not unusual for dinner to take me a couple hours. I think I can have these ready in 20 minutes after the refresher.

Another bonus of spring rolls, there weren’t too too many dishes. There were definitely some, but not heaping countertops full of them. I made myself a tea of fresh mint and let the last bit of the evening fade out.

Lobster Shorts cooking, Food, foraging, vegetarian

Foraging For Lilacs With Old Man Oats

Lilac flowers are abundant in my area. Last year I had my heart set on making lilac syrup and ice cream, but I missed my window (lilac season is over in the blink of an eye). If you don’t have lilacs in your area, just know, they smell incredible! The scent is strong, the flowers are pretty, and there is a ton of them nearby.

Now was my chance, prime lilac season! We decided to take Old Man Oats foraging and Oliver to the puppy park. As you can see from the above photo, Oaty is a lazy bear skin rug, but he loves his walks. He’s super calm and Oliver is still young and bouncy. We haven’t got him leashed trained enough to take him foraging, yet. Hence, Oaty went hunting for lilac flowers, and Oliver to the puppy park when we returned.

Here is the haul we came back with. We picked them from a few different trees to avoid over-picking. There were so many flowers, that it likely would have been fine, but I want to forage responsibly.

It took HOURS to pluck all the flowers off the stems (the stems are apparently bitter, or I wouldn’t have bothered).

The recipe I started with was for lilac syrup. First, you start heating sugar and water.

Add a ton of lilacs and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Then let it steep for 3-8 hours (I left it overnight).

The next recipe I made was ice cream (looks pretty eh?). The recipe I chose didn’t add the lilacs until the recipe had cooled. I didn’t want chunks of flowers in my ice cream so I dumped them in to flavour the ice cream this way (like lavender ice cream which I love!). The flowers did turn brown after being exposed to heat, so I see why the recipe creator didn’t add them at this step). I had lots of leftover flowers, so I threw the rest in the pot and let the mixture steep for a few hours.

I strained out the flowers and put the batter in the fridge to cool.

Because I made this into a double batch of ice cream the ice cream maker couldn’t handle it. It didn’t freeze at all. I threw the whole thing in the freezer overnight until it froze solid and then ran the ice cream maker again. Terrible idea. I ran it a really long time, but the texture stayed icy instead of creamy.

Here’s how the syrup turned out after being strained. It was more green than lilac. I was really hoping for a pretty pale purple colour.

All this hard work was for Epic Sunday Breakfast. Sunday breakfast is a big deal for us. You have to go the extra mile and it’s for all of us (pups included). I chose to make waffles with the lilac recipes and have mimosas too. I did not put the lilac syrup in the mimosas, but maybe I should have? Missed opportunity. How did I like the lilac recipes? Sadly, they were meh. Not awful, but not great. I wanted to love them. I didn’t. They were just okay. The lilac flavour didn’t come through very much, even though I added extra flowers and steeped longer than mentioned in the recipes. The ice cream was mostly my fault, I didn’t follow the recipe and I messed up processing it in the ice cream maker, but the lilac flavour wasn’t there. In the future lilacs will be a garnish only.

Oliver impatiently waiting for his waffle.

As for the pups, they didn’t get any of the lilac recipes because I have no idea if lilacs are toxic for dogs. They got waffles with blueberries and maple syrup.

Lobster Shorts vegetarian, weight loss

What’s For Dinner – April 4 2023

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Dinner was a spicy one today! I wanted something quick and easy and this recipe for spiced halloumi and pineapple burgers caught my eye. I love halloumi and a burger is generally quick and easy to make. I didn’t have a lot of the ingredients so I winged it. I mixed lime juice, salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes together with a couple handfuls of spinach. I had baby carrots in the fridge and chopped them up to mix with the lime mixture and added a tablespoon of avocado oil.

I was cooking for two so I tossed a couple slices of canned pineapple rings and halloumi into a frying pan with a generous squirt of hot sauce to both sides. I fried it until the halloumi and pineapple were browned on both sides.

The recipe called for chipotle paste on the pineapple and cheese, which I didn’t have, so I used this hot sauce that I already had.

I didn’t have burger buns, but I did have English muffins – good enough. I added the halloumi and grilled pineapple to my English muffin.

Added a handful of the side salad.

And voila – there was dinner. It was okay. I’m sure if I followed the original recipe it would have been way better.

I was craving dessert and since I have been skipping lunches again, I went with it. I picked up a big slice of cake from a bakery and split it with Mr Lobster Shorts. I usually love the baked goods from this bakery, but this slice of cake wasn’t one I liked that much and I only had a couple bites.

Lobster Shorts Pens and Ink, vegetarian

Cakes and Pens

Pen and cake: I made them this weekend. The most impressive thing about this cake is that it only has 2 TBSP of sugar! The rest of it was sweetened with orange juice. The recipe (found here on youtube) didn’t call for any salt, but I added 1/2 a teaspoon. It felt strange not having salt, you know? I have never baked with citrus and wasn’t sure how it would turn out leaving the rind on. I peeled half the slices so I could compare and I definitely preferred the rind off. The rind was chewy and didn’t break apart with a fork while eating it, but it wasn’t bitter. If I make this cake again, I would make it with peeled and segmented oranges instead of sliced with rind. It was sweet, but not too sweet. The only sugar was sprinkled over the orange slices. I was so impressed! It was good, but not amazing. Just good. I used Cara oranges from Costco, which are super flavourful, juicy, and sweet. So so good. It took four oranges altogether. Two for the juice (what sweetened the cake) and two to slice.

And look! I’ve made my first pen! I did a pretty good job on my first try. If you zoom in, you can see the barrel is a little ridgy and banded. I couldn’t get it turned very even on the lathe and didn’t have the right sandpaper to fix the mistakes. I’ll know next time.

It was my first time using a lathe. I watched a lot of videos about pen turning and what I would need. I’m glad I did because there were a couple attachments I needed. I’d never heard of things like chucks and pen mandrels before. I wasn’t even aware I could make a pen at home until a lovely friend of mine gifted me a beautiful fountain pen turned by her father-in-law. I went down a rabbit hole. The first video I clicked on from YouTube was The Pen Nook’s How To Make A Fountain Pen. Lucky for me, I believe this YouTuber is a fellow Cannuck and the product links was for a Canadian store. I bought the basic starter kit that was specifically for my type of lathe and a couple other things I needed.

The kit came with enough products to make five pens. I chose this orange block of wood (I believe it’s Padauk). The wood block with the most distrinct stripes is my favourite. I’m saving that one for when I’ve had the most practice.

The first thing I needed to do was cut the pen blank. I don’t have the appropriate saw, so I used a mitre saw I already had. I find this saw intimidating, I find all power tools intimidating, but I want to use them. I’m embarrassed to say I needed a lot of supervision. My spouse had to keep reminding me to take the chuck keys off the lathe before I turned it on. I almost did that three times. They are not attached and would fly off after turning the lathe on. I also forgot to secure the tailstock once. Luckily Jay caught that too before I turned on the lathe. I’m getting better, I was trying to cut this piece of wood in half, but it ended up being way off centre. Both pieces were still long enough to make the pen though and I used the lathe to make the rest of it. Some people use a drill press to cut the holes down the centre of the pen blanks, but I used the lathe to drill it out. The drill bit was super sharp and poor Jay cut his hand while he was moving the lathe into the garage. Now I know why it had a safety tip on the end.

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I see beautiful pens in my future. Beautiful pens, beautiful paper. All the more meaningful when I write letters to my wonderful friends. As for my first pen, my spouse is taking it to work with him. He asked if he could have it. He really liked it. That made me so happy and my heart melt. He earned it after all. His blood was literally drilled into this very pen. I’m hoping all future pens are free of blood sacrifices. Just love.

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian

Secret Mission Three: The Beer Igloo

Secret mission number three of giving my spouse a Winter he loves was a dinner date at The Village Biergarten in St Jacobs.

For only $10 extra you can rent a heated outdoor igloo on the patio. The fee is incredibly low and you can rent the tent for up to eight people for around two hours.

To start, we ordered a tray of mac and cheese croquettes – they were okay. For drinks, Mr. Lobster Shorts ordered a beer and I a white wine sangria – yum!

We both ordered vegetarian burgers for the entree, which were really good. I would definitely go back if I was craving a burger, we both loved them. For a non-veg restaurant with a fairly small menu, it was really fantastic to see two veggie burger options. I got the falafel burger and he the portabello burger. We are both wearing our coats in these photos, but the igloo was pretty warm and toasty. I was not cold. There were only two of us and we were there for under an hour. You can see a lot of condensation on the inside of the igloo(we are full of hot air). When we were ready to leave, the condensation was beginning to drop down. It was starting to rain indoors. If you were a larger group and were planning to stay in the igloo for the entire time you rented it, you might get a little damp.
It was a fun experience and for only $10 extra it was defiitely worth it. I would do it again.

The town of St Jacobs is an incredible place to visit. The whole town looked like it was a movie set for a Christmas movie. I loved it. While we were there we picked up some hot sauces from Taste The 4th Sense, to do a spicy sauce challenge. I posted the video above if you want to watch us challenge ourselves to some spicy delights.

Lobster Shorts cooking, dog adoption, dogs, Food, The Great Outdoors, vegetarian

Oliver’s First Birthday And The Weekend

This weekend we celebrated our puppy’s first birthday and the weather turned towards real Winter. It’s still technically Fall here, but November is usually when the real cold starts. It was -5 today, which is not bad, but it’s also windy, making it feel colder.

I had a cavity repaired on Saturday which brought us to the city, and we decided to go shopping for Winter coats. Sport Chek was having a huge sale and I got the coat I wanted for 40%-45% off! I was so happy and it is so warm. Mr Lobster Shorts found one too.

I was in the mood for warm and hearty when we arrived back home. I made soup from yellow lentils (moong dal), potatoes, cauliflower, vegetable soup cubes, potatoes, spinach, and a heaping scoop of curry powder. It was my intention to put a can of coconut milk in the soup, but it was fine without it. It was delicious. I turned off the lights, lit the candelabra, and loved how cozy it made the table. The bread was a multigrain loaf from the grocery store and it was delightful. It was a romantic, cozy ending to the day. We curled up on the couch together to watch a movie but were both falling asleep before it ended.

Sunday started with this super simple, delicious breakfast made with sweet potatoes, I got the recipe here. It was yummy and easy! We made one for the dogs too (minus the blueberries for Otis. He gets explosive diarrhea from blueberries. Although I’m pretty sure after all the sweet potatoes and cupcakes, we’re going to be waking up to something horrible tomorrow morning). Sunday is usually pancake day for the whole family and the dogs love it. They circle the table and kitchen like sharks until it’s their turn. They are not patient. Today we had something a little different. We all loved it, puppies too. Aren’t blueberries and sweet potatoes such a pretty mix of colour?

After breakfast, we took the dogs for a trek through the woods and tested out the new Winter coats. They did really well! We were both toasty warm. Otis still fit in last year’s boots thank goodness. For a street dog, he’s got sensitive little toes! Oliver doesn’t need them unless there is a lot of salt. The pups had fun in all the snow and didn’t seem bothered by the cold at all. I figured Otis would be okay, with his thick golden retriever fur, but Oliver is half-spaniel and his coat isn’t very thick. No coat, no shoes, no problem. He wasn’t cold at all.

Lunch was the leftovers from last night’s dinner (minus the candlelight). Isn’t soup always better the next day?

Oliver was wondering why we weren’t sharing lunch with him! He IS the birthday boy.

Doesn’t Otis look adorable in a birthday hat? This only lasted long enough to snap the photo, then he pawed it off his head.

Oliver was less chill about the hat. His expression here says it all. He took off running with the hat in his mouth after the photo. We had to chase him down before he ate it. Good times little buddy!

Birthday shenanigans ended with mini vanilla cupcakes (from the grocery store) and a new toy. Both dogs are currently having a late afternoon nap sleeping off their treats and morning walk. I’m sitting in a beam of sunlight enjoying a hot cup of tea, content.

Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian, weight loss

Shark Week Begins and Wednesday Week Two Of Calorie Counting

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professiona

Shark week started today. I mean it sort of started yesterday but wasn’t really fully committed yet. Today it came full steam ahead, but with only minor cramps. I’m pretty sure there are fewer cramps because of all the lattes I’ve been drinking lately. More calcium seems to make a big difference for me. This evening I had a delicious matcha latte sweetened with maple syrup while working on the 3000-piece puzzle. Still not done yet and I miss my table.

Today’s fine dining pleasures consisted of an English muffin with egg and avocado, black coffee, lots of tea and sparkling water, a can of chili, apple sauce, and a granola bar. I had a bit of time before I met up with Mr. Lobster Shorts so I headed to a local gourmet shop (Vincenzo’s) looking for rosewater and espresso beans. They grind their beans for you at the shop while you wait. I kept smelling the bag on the way home. I love the smell of coffee beans. I picked up the rosewater because I want to make some sort of floral cookie this weekend. I don’t even know if I’ll need that, but I probably will and if not, I’m sure I’ll find something to do with it.

I was feeling worn out from shark week and walking the dogs, so my spouse offered to make dinner. We both love gnocchi and he’s been super excited to try the gnocchi dinner from Hello Fresh. He followed my request and gave me a 75% smaller portion than his. The calories on the bag per serving were 690 calories. Since I didn’t make dinner and I forgot to ask him if the gnocchi was in a separate bag with a separate calorie count, this could in fact be way higher in calories than I think it is. I left the calorie count as a full serving to try and make up the calorie difference if there was one.

WednesdayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
avocado160
chili400
apple sauce45
granola bar150
apple sauce45
hello fresh gnocchi690
matcha latte205
orange juice50
total calories1963

Here is a chart with my calories for the day. Again it might be way higher. I wanted something comforting before bed and that’s when I had the matcha latte. I was also thirsty and had about 1/2 a cup of orange juice.

Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian, weight loss

Tuesday Week Two Calorie Counting

Today I had breakfast: an English muffin with egg, avocado, and black coffee. On the way to work, Mr. Lobster Shorts suggested lattes. I rarely say no to a latte, so we made a stop at the Snapping Turtle. Even though I had breakfast not that long ago I was starving on the commute, a little queasy even. I’ve no idea why. I ate not that long ago and was drinking my latte. I had some apple sauce and that did the trick and I was okay again until lunch. Lunch of course was a bowl of chili.

On the way home from work Mr. lobster Shorts and I stopped at Costco for a couple things. We got granola bars raspberries and some other essentials. Whenever we get any kind of berry at Costco, we bring them up front to snack on and we call them “road berries”. Does anybody else make up cute names for things? They were awesome and I ate a ton of them – about a cup. I also had one of the new granola bars, a strawberry yogurt one from Quaker. YUM!

Dinner was a bocconcini pizza on naan, from Hello Fresh. The calorie count for Hello Fresh was 690 calories, and I couldn’t finish the last two bites, I ate all the salad first. My spouse isn’t super into peppers, so I loaded all the pepper onto mine, put spinach on his instead, and gave him a bigger portion of cheese. As you can see they were very generous with the amount of cheese, this one being the one with less cheese. I love the texture of bocconcini cheese.

TuesdayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
avocado160
chili400
latte160
apple sauce90
granola bar150
Raspberries 1 cup65
Hello Fresh – Pizza690
banana105
total calories2038

Before bed I had a banana. I wasn’t even hungry and I knew I was already over my calorie count for the day. I’m not sure why I wanted it so much. I saw them on the counter, they looked really good and I hadn’t had one in a long time. I don’t know who else has banana loving puppies, but if you have a banana in this house you have to share it with the dogs. I think I had about half the banana and the dogs had the rest.

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Monday Week Two Of Calorie Counting

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

It’s the start of a new week and I did really good today. As per usual, I had an English muffin with egg and avocado for breakfast, with coffee. Lunch was chili and lots of tea and later a snack of apple sauce. All the Hello Fresh meals were gone and I wanted a Harvey’s veggie burger.

The calories for a Harvey’s veggie burger are awesome! 310 calories! I thought that must be for the patty only, but I checked and the patty is only 150 calories. Yes, please! I love their veggie burgers. Since this likely didn’t have any toppings calculated in, I just guessed my toppings were around 150 calories. For toppings, I always order “everything” which is ketchup, mustard, relish, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion. They messed up my order and instead of putting on the sauces I asked for, they put chipotle on my burger. Good enough, I didn’t go in and exchange the burger. It was still good, but I definitely prefer my menagerie of toppings. The messier a burger, the yummier.

My spouse likes to order fries with his meal and I pretend I don’t and eat his fries lol. He is also trying to lose a few pounds and opted just for the burger. I wanted to get some extra veggies into my diet and ordered a garden salad with balsamic dressing. I ate the salad while we waited for the burgers. I wasn’t able to eat the last bite of my burger. This is a pretty good strategy for me, eat the salad first. I ended up being over full because I liked the burger. That is another issue I have with food. If I really like something, I end up eating more than is comfortable for me. I’ve been pretty good about not over-stuffing myself lately, but I did end up doing that with the burger.

MondayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
avocado160
chili400
apple sauce45
garden salad40
salad dress90
veggie burger310
burger toppings150
wine200
popcorn160
total calories1773

I did really good today and stuck with my goal – 1800 calories or less. I did get hungry later in the day and split a bag of popcorn with Jay. I also had a glass of wine while I worked on a puzzle. It all fit into my calorie budget and I’m happy with how the day went.