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Since I have a few extra minutes I figured I might as well continue playing catch up and throw up a second blog post for y’all. :)

This be Friday.

Shocker…almond butter on an English muffin. 

Super shocker:  Fast food made an appearance for lunch.  It may have been one of the best McChickens ever.  EVER.  And the fries were so hot and crispy!

Worth it!

I spent over an hour waiting to get my Winter tires off (yay!) and had to make a post office run, so lunch was whatever was handy.  Sometimes a little guilty indulgence helps make the day go smoother.

The rest of the day was spent making sure work was all done for the weekend and tidying up my pad in anticipation of the arrival of Miss Cat!

Here we are when we first met in Toronto in 2009.  Look at my short hair!

As always, Cat brought the wine…

And I brought the cheeeeese.

La Dauphin amazingly creamy brie, delicious fresh chevre, and for something different caramelized onion white cheddar.  All from the lovely ladies at Charelli’s Cheese Shop.

Hey Cat, remember this?  Also from the 2009 Blogger Girls GTG.  Wine, wine everywhere!

Cat and I spent our evening just catching up on girl talk, eating our snacks and sipping our wine.  Even though we are now just a ferry ride apart (instead of a whole country!) we still find it hard to get together as often as we’d like.  We’re working on fixing that!

Another fun surprise from Friday was that the package I picked up at the post office wasn’t what I thought it was.  Shockingly it was my loot from Laura all the way from Australia!!

The package I sent her took a month to get there, but hers only took 9 days to get to me!!

I will give you three guesses what my next post will be about. :)

Keen Wa

Oh Monday, why must you arrive so soon?  After my little partay and an overnight visit with my Mom I would have been quite happen for the weekend to stick around.

I found myself missing my Blogger Girls a fair bit recently so I broke out my memory mug for this morning’s much needed coffeeeee…

This morning’s breakfast smoothie got a little creative.  I had a fun recipe I was going to make for the party on Friday so I bought this bigass tub of fresh dates, but we were on food overload (and I totally ran out of time…shhhhh!) so now I’m looking for other uses for all of these yummy dates.

I ended up with a Banana Date Coconut Smoothie.  Nom!

In the KA: ice, small banana, 2 fresh dates, flax meal, unsweetened coconut, final drizzle of coconut milk topped up with UVAB.

Sprinkled with a little extra shredded coconut garnish…

It was quite deeeelish!  Much sweeter than my usual green smoothies but still yummy and healthy.  The dates are so fresh that they didn’t blend right into the drink so I had a few chunky surprises at the bottom.

At lunchtime I could seriously hear the crack hummus calling me from the fridge. It said “come make a sammich”! so I did. :)

Toasted Squirrelly bread, hummus, extra old white cheddar, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.  Nom.

Afternoon sweet tooth was satisfied with a leftover Coconut Crack Bar from the party…

Salad was on the menu for dinner, but…

1) An entire bag of spinach went off.  I hate that.

2) It’s literally the most blustery, cold, disgusting day of the year and salad just wasn’t going to cut it.

Enter:  Roasted Veggies!

How to clean out the fridge….roast your root veggies.  Carrots, rutabaga, beet, red onion, and orange peppers.  Drizzled with EVOO and sprinkled with coarse salt and cracked pepper.  Roasted in the oven at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, tossing once.

My plan for a poached egg as my protein wasn’t going to work with this change in menu so I opted for a serving of quinoa (keen wah!) instead.  Cooked up and added the juice of half a lemon and about an ounce of crumbled feta cheese.  Lemon & Feta Quinoa.  If only I had fresh herbs.

Served up quinoa on the bottom, veggies on the top with a little extra feta.

I love it when a random meal comes together!

Apparently I hear food talking to me a lot today because these beautiful chocolates wouldn’t shut up until I opened them.

Julian:  I’ll blame you if I don’t fit into my Hallowe’en costume!  :)

Pumpkin Spice Truffle!

Ganache Truffle topped with raw Cacao nibs…

Sugar buzz complete.  Time to lay on the floor for the third time today and perform a few “sloppy cobras”.  It’s weird but I think it’s working.  My pain has dropped from a 12 to a 9 on the pain scale (on a scale of 1 to 10).  Maybe he’ll tell me I’m allowed to workout tomorrow.

Then I can the rest of the box of chocolates.

PNE 2010–Part Two

The PNE was not all fun and games…there was some serious carnival food to be partaken in! 

When our tummies started to grumble (how could they not…the whole exhibition smells fan-freaking-tastic! well, outside the barns!) we headed for the food alley.  Basically two almost park-long rows of food stands…there really is a taste of everything!!

We found the heart attack booth:

Yes.  If you haven’t heard…some genius has invented Deep Fried Butter now.  Um, ew.  At almost $6 I couldn’t bring myself to order it just to settle my curiosity.

We did however track down the Deep Fried Oreos.  Conveniently served in a set of four, we couldn’t turn them down!  (Available from the Funnel Cake people if you are ever looking for them…also up for grabs were Deep Fried Jelly Beans!  Apparently you can batter up anything!)

None of us were sure what to make of this over-the-top sounding treat…but holy moly sister!!  Were we ever pleasantly surprised. 

Think warm donut stuffed with warm almost gooey Oreo.  *swoon*  The cookie was softened to the point of seeming almost home baked and the icing became more of a oozy glaze in the middle.  It wasn’t tooooo terribly sweet and being able to share was just perfect.  We all gave it a thumbs up!

A little later we decided to find lunch.  The choices were actually totally overwhelming.  We all wandered around a little lost, changed our minds a couple of times, then ended up at the Ukrainian booth. 

To me, carnival food really should involve a hot dog but the perogies were calling to me…so I got the best of both worlds…perogies with a grilled sausage. 

I skipped most of that sauerkraut and didn’t touch the bread…but the sausage and perogies totally hit the spot.  Thankfully I wasn’t partaking in any rides though because that meal sat like a pretty heavy rock in my belly for a while.

Wisely, I did wash it down with water. 

Later after Tarilyn arrived Cat and I were feeling the mid-afternoon lull.  While on our way back to find the coffee cart we decided to stop for something a little more refreshing.

Not really shakes…more like watered down smoothies…but the Caribbean Colada did a pretty good job of helping to perk me up and rehydrate me a bit.  Can’t really go tooooo wrong with coconut and banana.

After Breanne and Chris finished torturing themselves on a few more rides and we all finished perusing the sand castles and caught a few minutes of the afternoon parade we decided it was time to load up on the road snacks and head home.

Honestly, the most famous thing about the PNE is the MINI DONUTS! 

How do they keep up?  Fried right before your eyes all day long!

Cinnamon-sugar of course.  There are a few different donuts stands around the park, but apparently these are the famous ones.  Bite sized little pieces of heaven.  Nom.

And lordy lordy, as if our sugar buzz wasn’t complete there was cotton candy to eat and play with in the car on the way home.  The gigglefest that ensued was a perfect tell-tale that we may have overdone the sweets…..wait, what?  No way!!!

Don’t worry.  Cat and I spent our evening eating healthy lettuce and carrots sticks.  If by that you know I mean cheese and cookies.

What?  It’s a mini vacation dammit. 

PNE 2010 – Part One

Even though I grew up just a short ferry ride away somehow I’ve never been to Playland or the PNE!  Weird I know.  I’ve never been big on rides and I guess our trips to the mainland never coincided with the Exhibition each year.

So when I happened to mention it to Cat and she told me she tries to go every year I was pretty excited and invited myself to join her. *tee hee*

Cat, Breanne and Chris planned for us to head into the city early so we could find decent parking and be ready to rock when the gates opened.  Our timing was perfect, and although we waited with a large crowd to get in the place was actually quite deserted when we were allowed in.

Cat and I only got passes for the park, but Breanne and Chris had plans to do all of the crazy rides.  Watching them was enough to make me pee my pants!

They were the first riders of the day on Drop Zone….it’s kind of a super extreme bungee jump sort of thing.  The blood curdling scream that came from Breanne when that elastic let go was enough to make your arm hair stand up.

If that wasn’t enough they went on Revelation - this crazy propeller thing that spun, flipped, turned and flung them at warp speed.  Insanity I tell you.

Later in the day they also hit up the Hellavator which doesn’t look quite as scary but goes freaking fast. Just watching them made my stomach flip.

They did a bunch of others too, but those are main ones that freaked me out!! 

The crowd built quickly!

For a little tamer experience we visited Farm Country where we learned about bees…

and saw the oxen.  Nice bum, where ya from?!

We learned about baby cows and saw a milking demonstration.  This little fella has some love on his head!

We tried to watch the Lumberjack Show but it started out really slow and boring so we lost interest and wandered off.  It was next to this odd art exhibit…all inside cargo containers…not sure what we made of it.

I think my favourite part may have been the Marketplace!  I didn’t even know this part existed!!  A whole exhibit hall filled with crazy-ass products.  As seen on TV – now seen in person. Soooo fun. 

Nothing in particular I wanted to buy at the time but I am now kicking myself for not at least asking how much an iPig was.  Cute and functional!

Lookie what was there though!!  Vitamix.  Not that I need a $400 blender but I knew y’all would think it was cool. 

And the super duper sharp kitchen knife folks had fun veggie sculpture!

In the afternoon Tarilyn came along to meet us.  This girl and I have been internet friends for years now so it was sooooo nice to finally meet her in person!!  We wandered through the carnival playing a few games trying to win an ugly stuffed toy, but no luck!! 

While Bre and Chris continued to induce puke on a few more rides us gals wandered through the sand castle competition statues, got a cold drink and sat to rest our feet for a while.

After about six hours of fun in the sun we decided it was time to take our sugar filled selves on home.  Next year I swear I’ll need to book a week off work to make sure I see everything there is to see.  I think the trick is to take a mid-day nap in the car, then go back for the night time fun!!

Part Two coming up soon….featuring FOOD!