Daddy's Birthday!

Hello wonderful humans of the interwebs!!!

This past weekend, a lot of wonderful things happened! On Saturday, I attended my cousin's bestfriend's wedding. The food was pretty good, and there was a dessert and seafood buffet at the end of the party. It was also open bar! (I swear I've got my drinking under control ^-^) So...being the horrible glutton that I am, I totally forgot to take pictures of all my food before eating it. (I know, I know...you expected it) BUT! I did manage to remember to take a picture of the adorable fruit shaped ice cream. ;)

The outside shell was orange flavoured and I think the inside was butterscotch. =3

Lucas did a silly thing and made the ice cream into an alien XD

I also took pictures of mine and Lucas' drinks at one point of the night.

On the left is the KamiKaze, and on the right is the Pink Panther.
I had a Green Lantern earlier on in the night and I preferred it over these other two.
Both myself and Lucas ended up going up to the bar multiple times. The bartender was really nice and sweet.
Definitely deserved the large tip we ended up giving him by the end of the night.

We took some pictures of our time there, but I'm not sure which of them would be ok with their faces shown...sooooooo I will only show these two ;)

Nice photo of myself and Lucas at the reception. Taken by my lovely lil bro.

The lovely lil bro mentioned above refused to hug me.
He is fussy about his image, so I blocked his face with an equally cute smiley.

Then on Sunday, it was my dad's birthday! I was going to go out to buy a cake since I was feeling pretty tired from the night before (but not hungover =D) But I knew he's been wanting me to bake him a cake for a while. So I put my big girl pants on and braved a day of baking. I ended up making more than just a birthday cake...but if you know me, this shouldn't really come as a surprise. XD

The final result of the birthday cake I worked so hard for.

Left: Extra cake batter so I made cupcakes
Middle: Lemon poppy seed quinoa muffins
Right: Gluten-free strawberry lemon muffins
I also made mini lemon poppy seed ones, but I forgot to take a picture of the cuties.

My daddy loved it! <3

We ate our cake with fancy tea cups. I chose the one with roses that night. 

This morning I had my green tea in a purple fancy cup. =3 

Anyways~ I hope you guys enjoyed this small update as to what has been going on. I've been super busy with helping out at my dad's work and at home, but it's been really fun and eventful. I hope everyone is enjoying their debut to the fall season! I am hoping to have one day to un-vacuum pack my winter/fall clothes and pack away my summer clothes (and officially saying goodbye to the warm weather)

See you all next time~

-Chrissymon

Dumplings and Deliciousness =3

Hello wonderful world of the interwebs!

How is everyone doing? Here in Toronto, the weather has been cooling down quickly. I have had to transition into my tights, leggings, and sweaters already! It is sad to see Summer go, but I have go to say that I am loving this fall. =) I can't wait to cuddle up to something fuzzy and drink hot drinks in front of the fireplace. ;) Share with me your favourite things about fall?

So, remember last time when I told you all that I had guests over for a month? Well...I've been greedy and keeping this to myself a little too long. I had the pleasure of having the traditional home-made dumplings. Everything was made from scratch; from the dumpling skins to the delicious mixture on the inside.

If you've never had them this way, you will have to try it out. I swear to you that you will never want to go back. (But realistically, no one really has the time to make this all the time.)

These little babies are ready to be chucked into a pot of boiling water. 

Freshly done dumplings. These didn't have shrimp in them (cuz I'm allergic)

Oh the delicious concoction of chilli oil and soya sauce. Can't have dumplings without it.

This...I have no name for this. We called it "Da Lu Mien" It's just super delicious =3

Then the next morning, I decided to reciprocate and make a delicious omelette breakfast/brunch.

Spinach, ham, tomato, havarti cheese omlette with sprouted toast and a spinach salad on the side.
Nutritiously delicious. 

The weekend after that, I also made pancakes! I made a gluten-free version as well.

There are layers in this plate. Normal pancakes and the gluten-free ones. Served with fresh berries!
Gluten-free - 1 banana and 2 eggs (Recipe found from Cassie from Blogilates)

We've been having some really simple and delicious Chinese dinners too!

Top Left: Steamed ground pork with a salty preserved egg on top
Top Right: Bitter melon stir-fried with bbq pork (not traditional, but oh so delicious)
Middle left: Boiled Shanghai bok choy
Middle Right: Boiled spinach
Bottom: Tomato and scrambled eggs
All this served with a steaming hot bowl of mixed rice (brown, white and wild grains with quinoa)

Top Left: Stir-fried Chinese broccoli
Top Right: Potato, Green pepper, Carrot, pork stir-fry
Bottom Left: Potato, carrot, apple, cucumber salad
Bottom Right: Beijing style stewed pork

Last but most definitely not least, something tragic but interesting happened while at work with my dad this week. You know how you go buy a cup of coffee, but you fall asleep and then it gets cold. You decide to microwave it to warm it up? Yeah...that normally works well. Until you press the wrong times on the microwave.

That's all! I hope to write more often soon! Stay tuned! ;)

-Chrissymon

Wonderful guests have arrived!

Hello there internet friends!
Can I call you guys my friends? =) If not, then you can consider yourself just a normal human ;) I don't mind. Anyways~ Something exciting happened recently! My stepmom's parents came to visit form Hong Kong on Friday, and they will be staying for a little over a month. It's been pretty cool so far.

I wanted to make them lunch today, and I made it diabetic friendly because one of them is diabetic. It was a most delicious meal. It consisted of:
Cilantro-lime quinoa stuffed into a small tomato
Bed of Spinach
3oz Salmon fillet

My portion of healthy diabetic friendly lunch. 

First, I cooked some plain quinoa. Then I started to grill the salmon. As soon as the salmon was almost done, I juiced half a lime into the quinoa and added a tablespoon of cilantro. (You can do this to rice and it will taste heavenly) After seasoning the quinoa, I stuffed it into a small tomato (you can choose to bake it in an oven at this point) I continued to add some spinach to a plate (you can choose to cook your spinach or use other veggies here), place the salmon and the stuffed tomato on top of the spinach and fill the other side of the plate with an assortment of other vegetables. (I used cucumber)

This lunch had a really good response ^^ they both loved it and wanted to know what quinoa was called in Chinese. (Unfortunately I didn't know the answer to that....and I still don't)

Right when the lunch was finished, I proceeded to prepare ingredients to make dinner. :3

Home-cooked Real Chinese food.

This is what I ended up making. I consider this "real" home-cooked Chinese food, but this is only what certain regions of China will consider that. My dad is from GuangZhou so this is what we like to eat. Top left we have steamed ground pork with a salty preserved duck egg on top. Top right we have stir-fried bitter melon with bbq pork (not very traditional, but we just wanted to use up the leftovers). Under the steamed ground pork we have boiled Shanghai Bok Choy, and beside that we have boiled spinach. At the very bottom we have Tomato Scrambled eggs (a very delicious dish). The tomato scrambled eggs from GuangZhou will tend to be sweet (made with add sugar) while the very same dish from Beijing will tend to be more salty (cooked without sugar). Interesting how the same dish can be so different to people of the same nationality, but from different regions of the country eh? (Eh. I'm so Canadian ;3 jk...) All this served with a bowl of mixed rice (white, brown and wild rice with quinoa)

We really enjoyed this meal. It was simple, and still quite delicious. When I went out to buy groceries for the food, I bumped into some Girl Guides. I needed to add this into this post because I haven't seen Girl Guide cookies in about 10 years. I have not had the chance to taste those delicious cookies in that long, and it really made me excited when I saw them today. I stopped and didn't hesitate to buy those damn mint chocolate cookies. They are so bad for me, but I couldn't help it. Those things are freaking expensive! $5 for a box of cookies (I ended up buying two boxes). But it was so worth it.

Girl Guide cookies. The mint Chocolate ones. (The best ones of course)

I hope you guys are enjoying your weekend too! I plan on making either pancakes or French toast tomorrow for breakfast/brunch for the family and guests. I don't think I'll be doing another post tomorrow, unless something unexpected or awesome happens. If you want to stay up to date with my food and pictures, feel free to stalk me on my instagram. ;)
http://instagram.com/rikateddy

Until next time ~
-Chrissymon

Am I a fussy eater? Also...I passed!

Hello my wonderful addicts to the interwebs!

How are you all on this wonderfully rainy day? (it's pouring in Toronto) I have some wonderful news to share with you guys! If you read my post ... a while back about my drivers license being expired, I was pretty sad about that. Since I would have to do my testing all over again right? NOPE! Apparently if I went into the centre to book a test, they would give me a temporary license and I would be able to keep driving and take the test to get my permanent license. =D

My test was this past Thursday. One small detail about me that some don't know is that I get really anxious/nervous with anything labelled a test/exam. I normally don't look like I'm a bundle of nerves since I keep to myself and just listen to music, but inside I am definitely freaking out and sometimes you can catch me shaking. On this day, I had the support of my dad, step-mom, and boyfriend. They also had more faith in my abilities than I did. They had no doubt that I would pass. (Love them ;))

First of all, I would like to say that I passed! Yay~ Secondly, I wanted to share what happened during my test. So, when the examiner came out to check the car, he told me one of my wheels didn't have enough air, and he wouldn't conduct the test like that. So I had to pump up the wheel and wait in line again. After that, we were ready to go. Now, I was waiting at a light to turn right (I know I can turn on a red, but keep reading) as I stopped behind the thick white line, I was getting ready to check and turn right. There were no other car(s) in front of me, but suddenly a car reversed from the intersection into my lane. In my head, I was already freaking out because something else unplanned just happened.
I tried to make light of the situation and told the examiner "Well that's new and unsafe...heh..."
and what he said to me really surprised me. "I passed that guy two weeks ago........"
I'm not sure if he was for real or not, but that was hilarious and sad at the same time! Hilarious cuz he remembered, and sad because now we know people drive like arse-holes outside of the testing centre.

After that, I waited for the green to turn because the guy in front of me clearly wasn't turning. After we turned, we saw that the guy was reversing because there was a traffic jam because of an accident. Now we were behind schedule and I was stuck in traffic with an examiner for 20 minutes. We just made small talk because it would be too awkward and unnerving to sit there in silence. (I think that might be one reason why he was nicer in his testing my driving) After the section passed, we went onto the highway and all was good. I came back to the centre and he said "Well, after taking that long on your test, your family probably thinks I kidnapped you, but congratulations, you passed."

I have to say that man was really nice and I had a great experience taking a test (for once).

Yup, that's all I wanted to say about my driving test experience. Sorry you had to read a giant block of text and I don't have pictures to show you (my new license is being processed and mailed).

On another note, my voice seems to be good enough to continue my YouTube adventures. I posted a video titled "The Fussy Food Tag" and explained myself (my absence due to sickness...jeez this feels like I'm making an excuse for not going to school. Lol) to my "viewers". You can be the judge to whether or not I'm a fussy eater. ;) I would say I'm an indecisive eater more than a fussy/picky one.

Anywhos, I hope you all enjoyed this LOOOOoooooong block of text and I will hopefully have a nicer looking blog for you all next time (with more pictures ^-^).

-Chrissymon

Got my Arse kicked by a common summer cold

Well hello again my internet friends =)

I have been MIA for a week now...and will probably continue to be away for longer (on the YouTubez) because my sickness. Yes, I got my bottom handed to me by a summer cold. I don't remember ever catching a summer cold before, and this one is killer. I take pride in having a pretty awesome immune system. I can usually beat out a cold in 2-5 days if I catch it at the beginning sore throat stage. Although I caught it at the sore throat stage this time, it is still taking long. I even lost my voice completely. My family has been making fun of my whispering then at my squeakiness, then at my "croaking", and even now at my cracking voice. They have been making fun of me this whole trip. =( I blame whoever it was that coughed over my keyboard (not that I caught anyone doing that...but if I did...). I swear someone infected me...

Now enough of the pity party. I wanted to share somethings that kept me going and helped me survive this horrendous time. Three things:

1. Honey Citron Tea (the Koreans know their shiet)
2. Honey Lemon Tea/Water (Chinese parents know best)
3. Chicken Noodle Soup (the "White" folk have some good stuff)

If you're Caucasian, you'll be all like "well DUH. Chicken Noodle Soup is the way to go. Screw all that other stuff." But if you are a Chinese kid, growing up in a traditional Chinese family...you know what I mean by "Chicken is taboo when you are sick". They take this stuff so seriously, I was banned from having anything made with chicken...from my best friends. My dad never really restricted my diet when I got sick. If I were to ever feel like having chips, he'd be like "k. Your choice. You know the consequences. If you still wanna eat it, go crazy." I loved that about him. He trusted me as a 7 year old to know my limits. Now, I never went crazy and devour bags and bags of Lays. I had maybe a handful to satisfy a craving. I would even take my meds before I ate junk foods. ;) So I guess you could say I was kinda spoiled, but yeah. I love me some Chicken Noodle Soup especially when I'm feeling sick. 

Chicken noodle soup! I was a little naughty and played with my food here. Goldfish crackers FTW!

The Honey Citron Tea thing is the newest addition to my "Sick person regime". One of my best friends bought a jar of this stuff and made it for another one of my BFFs. They then went on to rave about how comforting it is to have it when they're sick or feeling icky. Me being the all Korean things loving person, went out to buy a jar for myself a while before I even got sick just to try it out. Thank goodness I made this purchase. It was heavenly when I got sick. 

The brand of Honey Citron Tea that I bought. So delicious.

I would put approximately one tablespoon of the Honey Citron into my giant Eeyore mug, and fill it up with piping hot water. Depending on my mood, I added a slice of lemon on top. Sometimes I would squish the lemon slice to release some more of it's juices/taste into the water. 

Onto the good old Honey Lemon Tea/Water. I grew up drinking this whenever I had a sore throat, or when I went to karaoke. It soothes the throat and it just tastes good. Some humans like to do this with green tea, others would just do it with plain water. I do either depending on my mood, but for this sick period I tended to do water more than tea mainly because I didn't want to be drinking any diuretics at all. I wanted to retain as much of the fluid as possible to use it to flush out toxins. 

Honey Lemon Water. Deliciously fresh. 

To make this drink:

Prepare a nice large mug. Put one tablespoon (or more depending on your love of sweetness) of honey into the mug. Add some water to dissolve the honey (I use hot water, but some people don't like using hot water because hot water plus honey = constipation or something?) Then slice 3-4 slices of lemon (also depending on your taste) and add it to the mug. Fill the mug up with hot water and mix. If you would like (and it is better this way), use a spoon to smoosh the lemon to release some of its juices. 

Of course a lot of resting helped me heal faster as well. I was in bed most of the time. I had to get out of bed to make food and feed myself, but one of those days my boyfriend brought me soup and a grilled-cheese sandwich (because I was craving it so much I just couldn't stand it any more). On all the other days, I tried to stay in bed and rest for as long as possible. I would only get out of bed/my room to refill my cup with water, or make myself one of the drinks mentioned above. I had some apple juice boxes too. Those were pretty amazing. Oh! Here's a picture. They're amazing because look how cute!!!

Winnie the Pooh juice box. AND it's organic. How amazing is that? <3

If you have to fight this awful battle with a summer cold, or any cold for that matter, give those drinks a go. It might help you heal faster, or it's just really comforting to drink these hot liquids that taste heavenly. If you're not sick at all, you can STILL drink them. They don't harm you in anyway. Remember to stay rested, drink hot liquids, dress appropriately, and be safe and smart!

Hopefully I'll be back soon with a more cheerful and awesome post. Look forward to it? ;)

Enjoy the last bit of summer!

Until next time humans~

-Chrissymon