The Week In Yum Jan 11-16

even the little signs at Bobette and Belle are pretty


This was another slow week around here. Thankfully, the weather has warmed up but I've been feeling a bit lazy and have spent too much time catching up on my Scandal and Justified. Do you watch Scandal? It is ridonkulously insane, completely unbelievable and so over the top it's one stop from cartoonish and I LOVE IT. I finally caught up yesterday so I am all ready for the third season to continue at the end of February. I was so stressed out by the way Huck is treating that poor girl that I couldn't do as much cooking as I would have liked to but I am sure you understand.

ceviche from Seven Lives

Last Saturday we made our regular jaunt to Kensington Market for ceviche at Seven Lives and this time , for the first time in a couple of weeks, we snagged a seat. If we can't get a seat, we don't go in so it means that we can go a couple of weeks striking out. They had a fresh, delectable snapper and shrimp concoction this week and even though we both ate a big plate of it, Shack decided he needed more so we bought most of the things we would need to make it at home and then stopping for fresh talapia and fresh shrimp from The Beach Fish House in The Beach. If you are in the east end, make sure you stop in because not only do they sell really clean, fresh seafood, but they usually have something yummy to eat like lobster rolls or oysters and the owners are lovely. Anyway, I made a big batch of ceviche and we spent the night grazing on that until it was almost gone. There was just enough leftover for me to make the boys some tostadas for dinner on Sunday. Sometimes you just have to binge on something and you can't choose anything that is going to be healthier than ceviche unless you are binging on steamed kale. Ceviche is nothing but fresh seafood, lime juice, tomato, onion and lime. There is no oil, no fat, no sauce - it is the epitome of fresh, clean eating and I would much rather eat a ton of this than steamed kale, let's be honest.


I threw a bit of chopped avocado into The Kid's bowl to fatten him up like a christmas pig





We take our popcorn seriously around here and we all like it prepared differently. The Kid likes it dry. He doesn't even put salt on it because he is insane. Shack likes it with more butter than I care for and I often like a bit of freshly grated parmesan on mine. The Kid and I have been popping it in a brown paper bag in the microwave while Shack makes it in a big pot on the stove but I have kind of had enough of his stove top endeavours. Everytime he makes it, he burns it and it sticks to the bottom of my pot which I also end up cleaning out because he just leaves it on the stove but I can't talk him into just popping it in a bag like we do. We tried an air popper last week but we both hated it. Popcorn was flying out willy nilly and it was more trouble than it was worth so we took it back. This weekend, Shack came home with this Hamilton Beach hot oil rig and although I wasn't thrilled at first, it works really well. Yes, it's another one trick pony that takes up valuable storage space in my miniscule kitchen but it really does make good popcorn. In the end, it's about the popcorn and I will just have to find a storage spot for it.

Has anyone noticed that there appears to be some sort of popcorn shortage, by the way? I went to four grocery stores looking for a bag of popcorn kernels. I don't want Orville Redenbocher, or microwave or jiffy pop, just a bag of popcorn and every store was out of it. Instead, we went to Bulk Barn and bought a bag of each type they had there. There were larger, yellow kernels and then tiny, white"gourmet"  kernels and we came home and popped a bowl of each. The tiny, white gourmet kernels gave us light, crispy, fresh tasting popcorn, leaving almost no unpopped kernels but the yellow kernels produced popcorn that was almost twice the size and much darker in colour. Unfortunately, it also tasted like stale cardboard. It was all very scientific.



Because I still had corn tortillas left from the weekend, I made tacos a couple of times during the week, perogies one night and last night Shack made a big batch of pasta with meat sauce. I didn't venture out much at all, to be honest, and just caught up on some stuff that I needed to catch up on and didn't put a ton of effort into thinking about what we were going to eat.



Almost makes me want to have a wedding. Almost.
On Thursday I had lunch with Kate at Mimi on Gerrard in the east end Chinatown, where we almost always have lunch and ate rare beef Pho, which I almost always eat when we go there. It is still one of my favourite things to eat and Mimi is still one of my favourite places to eat it at. The broth is light and flavourful without being too salty and oily like some pho broths can be. They make their own hot sauce, in house, and I eat that shit up like candy. After lunch, we went to Bobette and Belle on Queen East for treats. I am always just happy to look around in that shop because everything in there is so pretty. It's all light and white and pastel colours and pretty things with lovely baked treats everywhere. Kate assured me that their carrot cake is one of the best she has ever had so I decided to bring a slab of that home to The Kid, who really loves a good carrot cake. My only misgiving was the concern that it contain raisins because we are not big fans of the raisin and I was thrilled when the counter person told us that because one of the owners doesn't believe in raisins, they leave them out of their baked goods. I don't believe in raisins either!

it really was one of the best carrot cakes I have tasted in a long time

Pin of the week:  I need this pork right now

Facebook share of the week:  everyone should know this stuff

Instagram of the week: looks sooo tasty

Tweet of the week:






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