De-stress your life

Those of you who know me, know that I’ve been a little stressed the past week or so (to say the least). But of course, nothing helps me de-stress more than cooking my favourite meal (and a large glass of wine).

This one of my favourite easy/healthy/tasty meals in my repertoire:

Taco Salad:

1.     1 lb of ground beef (I use ground turkey because it's healthier but you can also use a soy-based taco “meat”)

2.     your favourite taco fixins including:

a.     Lettuce

b.     Cheese

c.      Salsa

d.     Ranch dressing

e.     Black beans

f.      Tomatoes

g.     Crunched up taco chips to sprinkle on the top

Combine and enjoy! 

Gnocchi, gnocchi, who's got the gnocchi?

As a (very) busy student, it's easy to overlook nutrition and good quality food.

I'd like to share one of my favourite recipes with you (and one that I came up with myself, thank-you very much). It's nutritious (sort of) and delicious.

You will need:
1 pkg of whole wheat gnocchi (you can just use regular but whole wheat is healthier. I haven't found whole wheat gnocchi in the grocery store but I get mine at Bulk Barn)
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
splash of olive oil
1 pkg (1 lb) of turkey Italian sausage, casings removed (you can use the regular pork sausages but I like to try and cut the fat a bit)
Large handful of fresh basil.
s & p

What to do:
1. Brown off the meat in a large frying pan. Drain the fat and remove. (You can also add some fennel seed at this point if you like. Fennel seed is the traditional flavouring of Italian sausage)
2. Meanwhile, cook the gnocchi according to package directions. (Basically, throw it in boiling water until they all float to the top) Set aside.
3. Saute the garlic and onion in olive oil until they're soft.
4. Add the can of crushed tomatoes and the meat.
5. Add the gnocchi and roughly chopped basil.

If you'd like, top with a little parm and enjoy!

Keen-What? Keen-Wah! (or Quinoa)

I'd like to dedicate this blog to sharing with you guys one of my favourite (vegetarian) recipes.

Quinoa salad! Yay!
I've made this salad before with couscous but to my understanding, quinoa is healthier and they are virtually the same size and texture. I like to make a big batch and keep it in the fridge. It will last a few days.

You will need:
There are really only a few essential ingredients you will need for this salad.
Quinoa (or couscous if you prefer)
Can of chickpeas
Any kind of cheese (I like feta but really anything will do - grated or in little chunks. You can leave this out for a vegan version)
An assortment of vegetables and/or herbs. Ones that work well are: peppers, red onion, cherry tomatoes, snap peas, broccoli, parsley
Salad dressing of your choosing - I like Greek.

1. Make the quinoa according to the package directions. Then cool it off (for Winnipeggers in winter, this means sticking it outside for 10 minutes).

2. Chop all your vegetables into bite size pieces.

3. Mix the works together!

My new fav Winnipeg restaurant

I am a meat eater.

That's right. I'm not ashamed to say it. I have, however considered becoming a vegetarian a few times (especially after seeing Food, Inc. and reading Skinny Bitch. For me, it's just not the right decision. I respect my friends who choose not to eat meat though (there are a lot of them, surprisingly).

Anyway, what this long preamble goes along with is the fact that I have fallen in love with vegan restaurant, Mondragon. I've been there twice already in the past two weeks and I absolutely love it. Seriously, you don't even miss the meat when you're eating this food. The most amazing part of the restaurant to me is that all of the baking and desserts are vegan as well. I had a cookie and I honestly could not tell that it was vegan. There were no weird textures or flavours; it just tasted like a normal cookie. Even the chocolate chips were just normal. I was amazed.

Another thing that I really like about this restaurant is the fact that you don't have to feel guilty about eating almost 100% of the menu (and no, I don't mean emotional guilt from eating animals. I mean guilt from eating too many calories). When the meat, eggs, and dairy are all cut from a dish, it reduces the calories significantly. The worst part about going to restaurants is the fact that I feel like 90% of the menu is "un-orderable" because it's so fattening (I am actively trying to watch what I eat/lose weight right now).

My favorite dish they have is the roti. Roti is like a burrito filled with vegetables and chickpeas (mmmm, chickpeas) except instead of a flour tortilla, the wrap it's made with chickpea flour. They use just the right amount of curry and spice and they serve it with this apricot chutney and it's so amazing.

Mondragon is on Albert Street right across from The Line Up and just a hop, skip and a jump from where I go to school at Red River College.

**This isn't the actual Mondragon dish but this is what roti looks like.

Battle of the social media

Today's blog post may be off topic, however it is a useful topic to get into.

Facebook vs. Twitter - which to use when and why?

Facebook to me, is useful for keeping up with and communicating with friends or acquaintances. It's used almost solely for pleasure as opposed to business. I think it's a helpful tool for keeping in touch with people and for sharing lots of pictures. I love that I know where people I knew in high school are and what they're doing and occasionally, I communicate with them via Facebook message. It's useful in that sense if you don't have someone's email address.

Some people aren't on Facebook (frustrating, I know) but I totally get why. It's easy to forget how many people can see your photos and what you're saying. There are a lot of creeps out there and let's not kid ourselves, who doesn't like to troll their ex's Facebook to see what they're up to or more importantly, who their with now.

Twitter, although many people don't quite understand it, I actually think is more useful than Facebook. Unlike Facebook, you follow people you actually have common interests in. Tweets I read are often fun and funny but often they are of genuine use to me. I also like to follow celebrities to see what they're up to. However, some celebrities can get just plain irritating (*cough, cough, Kanye West, cough). With that said, there are way fewer people I actually know personally that have or use Twitter.

I love Twitter for the fast updates but I love Facebook because I can waste a lot more time. The pictures, videos, status updates and wall posts take a lot more time to read/view. With Twitter, I can see what's going on without wasting a lot of time.

I'll just take a moment to express my distaste for people who block their Twitter accounts. I don't want to have to send a request to follow you. It seems quite self absorbed to set your Twitter account that way. Twitter was not meant to be private. A good rule to follow: if you don't want the world to see your tweet, don't tweet it. Enough said.

Off Topic: To self-publish or not to self-publish

To read or not to read - that is the question.

I pick read. I think it's better to share you work than to not share it, regardless of the means of that sharing. This is why I'm a strong believer in self-publishing. Why not give people the option of reading your work - even if it's just your aunts and uncles who buy it. I think to have a book that you can hold in your hand and say, "I wrote this" is special, even if a publisher didn't think so.

This brings me to the question: electronic publishing or hard copy publishing? Maybe this makes me sound old but I love real books with real pages. I'm not intrested in reading a book on any type of hand-held device. I know they're smaller and lighter but they're a lot more expensive too. Imagine being on a beach in Mexico and reading a book on your iPad. Yuck! What do you do if you want to go for a swim? That thing will be gone in a flash. No one's going to steal a $12 paperback. And if they do, it's not the end of the world.

Call me crazy but I also love cover art. It's probably the main thing that attracts me to reading the back cover. (I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Don't judge.) You can't beat going into a real bookstore and browsing the shelves for your next great read.

One thing that would be interesting to see Julie Wilson do is observe what people read in airports. I'm a sucker for buying books at the airport because it's like they sort through the book store for you and just carry a small selection for you to pick from. Some of my best reads were purchased at little airport convenience stores. The departure lounge is the best place to read a novel.

The Delicious Miss Dahl

I'd like to dedicate this blog post to my new favorite Food Network show called The Delicious Miss Dahl. It stars British former-supermodel Sophie Dahl.

The show started on BBC but was met with some bad reviews. Now, it appears Food Network Canada has picked it up and it's on once a week on Sundays at 5p.m.(which is definitely not enough, as far as I'm concerned.) A lot of the reviews I've read just say the world doesn't need another Nigella. But I say, it does.

Here's a video of the lovely Sophie making one of my favorite foods, guacamole:


Why is it that every word that comes out of a British person's mouth sounds so wonderful? Let's face it, it's probably why learning grammar was actually enjoyable in Writer's Craft. (Thanks Dr. Petty!)