Waverly

Beautiful beautiful Waverly.

The little things in the right direction

out the
I don't know about the rest of you but I find all the talk about being good to the environment, eating organic, leaving small foot prints, etc etc. daunting. Overwhelming in fact and when I feel that way it tends to make me throw up my hands and think "what can I possibly do". Then I watched Food Inc (highly reccomend) , watched Jamie Oliver's Fowl Dinners (about eating free range chickens), and started reading up on organic whole foods as well as other ways to be more enviromentally friendly etc.
I decided this, small steps in the right direction are better then none. I set out when P got his new job, to buy more enviromentally contious products b/c we could now afford to.
Truth be told though, we STILL can't afford to be eating organic meat and dairy all the time. Its just not in the budget for us to do so, as much as I would love to. So again, I felt overwhelmed, new job , more money but still unable to to particpate in the way I would like to.

Well... fine but I said small steps in the right direction not giant leaps. So here are my small steps, that I vow to take.

1. we buy two dozen eggs per grocery order, one dozen of those will be the free run $5 a carton eggs, the other our normal eggs $1.98 a dozen.
2. I vow to make at least 3 vegetarian meals a week. There is no reason to have meat 7 days a week, and eating less meat is much better for the meat industry.
3. I vow to buy one organic meat product per week.
4. Our grocery order is done in a hybrid van (at least that is my understanding, I will confirm the next time her comes), and uses boxes (we swap them out each order), and very very few bags (meat is wrapped in a small plastic bag sometimes). I vow to keep using them for the majority of my shopping, and to not use cabs from the cheaper grocery stores.
5. keep using reusable bags for when I do walk to the grocery or market for fresh produce.
6. Spend more time and money shopping locally at fresh markets , st jacobs is right around the corner so there is no excuse not to.

Phylio Bundles. MMMMM

this is such an easy scrumptious and impressive looking dinner, its in regular rotation around here, and never disappoints.

Skillet cookie!

need i say more?

Lobster Mac and Cheese. Heaven in a Bowl.

There are no words or pictures that can do this meal justice. I was in the worst mood today then I made this. (there is something soothing about whisking a thick cheese sauce, then adding perfectly al dente pasta and sweet sweet lobster meat. SIGH, heaven I say, heaven.

http://timeinthekitchen.com/2008/08/lobster-mac-and-cheese/

April

ROFL, Well you wanted pictures right? Here they are. This is a little bit of April. Easter morning, I unfortunately didn't get any good pics of W searching for eggs, but I posted one anyways. Then we went to Waterloo Park and fed the animals, and had a picnic of chocolate pancakes (with Easter chocolate in them, I didn't have any but W liked it), blue corn nachos, capicola canapes and fresh fruit.
Then some pics of W dressing herself, lol pay attention to some of the outfits, its a riot. Her riding her new bike that I scored on kijiji for $20. its awesome , disney princess and really well made.
Then her shoes, omg, the marvel comic shoes that she desperately had to have, love them and they cost $5 at Zellers.
Oh and the dog lets not forget the dog, you know she had to sneak in there :).

March

So I never stopped taking pics, just didn't blog them. Here's a little look at March around here. We spent alot of time at the park around the corner, and W has been experimenting with picking out her own clothes, always fun, lol!

Some good home cooking :)

Butternut Squash Ravioli in a browned butter sage sauce.
Getting the hang of the pasta maker. Still need some work on the size and shape but the texture and flavor was perfect.
Pea and mint crustini's, topped with bacon. This recipe came from the Inspired magazine in Sobey's. It was an app for Easter dinner, looked and tasted like spring :).

Our easter dinner spread included , capicola canape's, pea and mint crustini;s, peanut crusted pork loin roast, goat cheese stuffed cherry tomatoes, bacon cheddar torte (not pictured), 4 cheese manicotti (not pictured) and an Orange Ginger Bunt Cake (also not pictured).

Lastly (first picture), Duck Ala Orange, I have never cooked a duck (that I remember anyways), and was VERY nervous about attempting this recipe in particular but yummo batman! It was delish!