Chill Day

Let's try less words, more pictures!

Omlette that hubs made with red pepper, mushroms, asparagus and parsley

Our sushi lunch when we got lazy hehe

Chicken Teriyaki

Shrimp and Yam Tempura Roll 

California Roll

Red Dragon Roll

Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

♥B

Island in the Sun

Today was so fun! It was ridiculously warm outside today and we had to take advantage of it, duh. Hubs, baby and I headed downtown for a day of walking, shopping and eating. I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to mostly because I was stuffing my face with food lol. But I'm going to say this is quite a pic-heavy post compared to my previous posts. Look how gorgeous it was today!

We went shopping and decided to buy shoes.

Matching shoes :) I know, we're so corny. Take a look at our purchase!

 His: Converse PC2 in Black/White (similar here)

Mine: Converse All Star in Black (similar here)  

My AS on me. Teehee. They're sooooooo comfortable it's unbelievable!

 

To end the day off before hubs went to work, he spoiled me with chocolate. But not just the regular chocolate from convenient stores... Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. YUUUUUM.

I wish I remembered the exact names of these things but I think the white ball is a cheesecake chocolate bomb, and the flat chocolate piece is a chocolate and caramel pretzel mogul. There was also another one that I quickly shovelled down my mouth right outside the store and it was a banana cream pie white chocolate bomb. It was soooooooo gooooooooood omggg. Then hubs bought some chocolate almond brittle for take-home. He really knows how to treat a woman ;)

To end the day...

DINNER: 

Grilled Chicken with Mushroom Sage Gravy

Garlic Bacon Mashed Potatoes

Garlic Pan-fried Asparagus

Goodnight!

♥B

Happy St. Patty's!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! A great excuse to get trashed for most people, but since hubs is working and we've got no one to watch the little ones, it's a stay-at-home day for me. I'm sure most people did their nails green so I jumped on the bandwagon.

Nails: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Green with Envy

I hate how hard it is to capture the real colour of nails in photographs. From the left, I shot that at night. Second picture from the left, that was during the daytime. Both look like two completely different shades. But the best way to describe the true colour of this would be "celery". Yup, I was chopping celery earlier today and realized that it was an identical match. This was about 3 coats with top and base coat.

As for dinner...

Chinese Ginger Beef on Rice

Hope everyone's getting completely wasted tonight!

♥B

Temporary Gluttony

Doesn't it feel so good when someone else makes a delicious meal for you? Yes it does! I'm a sucker for comfort food, and of course hubs knows that. Being the wonderful chef that he is, he loves to take comfort food to the next level and try to keep it nutritious at the same time. Most of the time it is much healthier than eating out so I don't complain!

This was Monday's dinner: Mac and Cheese... Or is it?

Well, it sort of is! It's penne and cheese. Looks great doesn't it?

This may be one of the less nutritious ones, but hey,

we can all be gluttons sometimes!

Of course we can't complete a meal without fruits...

Strawberries and sugar.

I know what you're thinking, "you're crazy for dipping strawberries in sugar!".

JUST TRY IT ONCE.

Thanks for reading :)

 

♥B

Another Long Day

I had to go downtown for a training workshop early in the morning. Grabbed myself a little pick-me-up.

SURPRISE MEL!

I ordered one of Mel's fave by the way. Caramel Macchiato. YUMMMMMM.

It definitely hit the spot when I needed that morning boost.

Got home this evening to make one of my comfort foods. I wasn't going to post the recipe since I hardly think this is authentic to the real thing but I guess this is just my adaptation of it. Mel wanted to know how I made it so I decided to post it. Plus, the recipe is easy peasy.

Minced Pork on Rice
1 lb ground pork
1 cup of julienned carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 small white onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of chinese five spice
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water
2 stalks of green onion, sliced
2 eggs

Cook some rice however you would usually make it. I use a rice cooker.
In a small pot, bring water to a boil and gently submerge two eggs in for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take out of water and run it under very cold water for a few seconds. This helps the shell come off a lot easier, trust me. Set these gorgeously peeled hard boiled eggs at the side.

Brown your ground pork on medium-high heat and season with salt and pepper.
Add carrots, white onions and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes with the meat.
Add chinese five spice, soy sauce and chinese cooking wine and cook for another 10 minutes. Now, add the 1/2 cup of water and put the hard boiled eggs to soak in the sauce. Bring to a simmer and cover with lid for about 15 minutes.
Remove the lid, add the green onions and let the water boil out some more.
Mix the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of cold water to make a cornstarch slurry. This is used in many asian dishes to increase their viscosity and thicken the sauce.

Then, serve with rice and you're done! Notice how I didn't have to use any salt besides on the meat? Quite healthy!

Hope you enjoyed it. Time for me to catch up on my hockey and basketball games. Goodnight :)

♥B

Catching Up

Finally got the chance to blog. I'm typically busier on Mondays and Tuesdays than I am any other day of the week. The biggest reason being that hubs has these two days off, and work is always hectic on these days as well. Wednesday is almost one of those relief days for me since I get to just sit back and relax after a long day of work and errands. Errands being... cook, clean, tend to the daughter and whatever else that needs to be done.

Anyway, for the past couple of days, I've been eating such yummy food I had to take pictures and share them! Most of them were actually made by hubs (he's the chef in the family) but no recipes though. If you want them, feel free to email us at belleplusmel@gmail.com and I'd be happy to let you in on some secrets hehe.

A) Roasted Lamb with homemade fries, green beans and grape tomatoes - Okay, I can't take credit for this at all. Hubs totally made this for dinner on Monday night and mymouth had several orgasms.

B) Shredded Chicken open-face sandwich - Made with crisped up potatoes, some carrots and drenched in delicious gravy over whole wheat toast

C) Mapo Tofu with vegetables and spam - This is one of my daughter's favourite meals. It's literally just rice, tofu, green beans and little bits of spam. She already knows what comfort food is!

D) Chicken in mushroom gravy with asparagus and garlic whipped potatoes - This was just my dinner tonight :) Nothing special but still good.

Hopefully that made your stomach ache a little because it definitely makes me hungry all over again...

On another note, I have a clinical addiction to oranges lately. I seriously eat 2-3 a day almost everyday. I have one a day at least. I guess it's better than being hooked on someting unhealthy. So in celebration of having such a nutritious addiction, I painted my nails just that colour! Yay!

This polish is from Joe Fresh, most commonly found in Canada's Real Canadian Superstore (formerly known as Loblaws). I bought these for a ridiculously great price at $10 for 3 bottles or $4 per bottle. And these weren't even on sale... Surprisingly the formula was great. It's heavily pigmented which only required two full coats. The colour is Pineapple but as you can see, it's almost identical to my oranges! I would've thought pineapples were a bit more yellow but oh well. It's a really cute colour especially for spring. Definitely check out Joe Fresh if you can find their products.

Goodnight. 

♥B

Friday Night In

TGIF! I've honestly learned to appreciate my weekends a ton more now that I'm working full time again. Usually I bring work home to do, but I opted to take it out of my bag to refrain from going into workaholic mode on a Friday night. Instead, I made a nice meal while waiting for hubs to get off work.

Chicken Stirfry with Steamed Egg on Rice

I decided not to do a specific recipe because this is totally easy to recreate. In fact, you could add whichever vegetables and meat that you want. It's one of those "clear your fridge" meals! All I used were carrots, red bell peppers, green beans, onions, garlic and shredded (already cooked) chicken. In terms of the sauce and seasoning, I added a bit of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, chinese five spice, sugar, salt and pepper. For the steamed egg, believe it or not, just mix eggs with a bit of water, salt and green onions and pop it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes. I topped the stirfry with chopped salted peanuts. The peanuts gave some crunch and flavour since I only used a pinch of salt for the entire plate!

This yummy and healthy stirfry was just THAT simple. I love to make meals that are colourful since they always say: You always eat with your eyes first. Mel and I enjoy plating most of our meals prior to eating, picture or no picture. There's nothing like sitting down, visually enjoying your culinary creation, and then emptying your plate. Hopefully some of our recipe-less posts will inspire you to reach into your inner chef (we all have one!) and create food on the spot that is delicious yet nutritious. Happy Friday everyone!

 

♥B

On the Grind

Today was an extremely hectic day at work. I couldn't wait to get home, play with my daughter, and get some grub in my tub. Mel's meals are making me ridiculously hungry all the time so I decided to treat myself to some comfort food since I've been relatively light on my meals lately.

Entree Pan Fried Meatloaf in Bell Peppers (adapted from Sunny Anderson's recipe)

1 bell pepper (any colour), sliced in 1-inch rings

Stick these in the oven at 350F for about 15 minutes while you prepare your meatloaf.

1 lb ground beef

1/2 onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 egg

2 slices of bread, torn into little pieces

Herb du Provence, salt and pepper to your taste

In a mixing bowl, put all the ingredients together and mix well. Take out the bell peppers from the oven and heat up a pan with a nub of butter or oil. Simply stuff the meatloaf into the bell peppers and saute them for about 5-7 minutes on each side until done. Garnish with parsley!

On the side Onion Potato Gratin

4 potatoes, thinly sliced

1 onion, sliced in rings

2 garlic cloves

2 cups cheese (preferably gruyere or parmagiano reggiano)

1-2 cups milk

3 tbsp butter

1 tbsp rosemary

1 tbsp thyme

1 bay leaf

Preheat your oven to 350F and prepare your baking pan by rubbing butter on it to prevent sticking. Thinly slice your potatoes - I used a mandoline. Meanwhile, saute your onions and garlic in 1 tbsp of butter until they have softened. In a separate pot, melt 1 tbsp of butter and add your milk, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. Let that boil for about 5 minutes. Now layer the potatoes, onions and 2/3 of the cheese. This is what I did:

One layer potatoes... add a bit of salt and pepper

One layer onions

One layer potatoes... add a bit of salt and pepper

One layer cheese

And I kept doing that until I finished using the potatoes. Pour the boiling milk mixture into the potatoes and top off with remaining butter. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Then pull it out, and put the remainder of the cheese and finish in the oven for 15 minutes.

Ta-da! Okay, this does take a bit of work, but boy was it well worth the wait and effort.

Just like Mel, I completely demolished it. Teee heee. Now excuse me while I delve into a new episode of Criminal Minds and unwind :)

♥B

Hump Day

Am.
Time to get back on that health tip. I love having a cup of jasmine green tea in the morning.. it instantly warms me up and makes me feel refreshed! Lunch consisted of a seasoned chicken breast, broccoli florets, sauteed mushroom, and avocado. I made sure I had an extra large portion of vegetables to sub for all the carbs that I had devoured the past few days.. can't go wrong with having too much veggies! As a snack I had a kiwi.. not a huge fan (because it makes my tongue feel funny) but it was the only fruit laying around the house for me to eat.

They call me "Miss Teacher"

Outfit of the day.

Nude lips - to be blogged, Striped long sleeve shirt - H&M, Trousers - H&M, Faux Leather Bag - H&M

Pm.

Here's another simple recipe that turned out DELECTABLE - Chicken Souvlaki w/ Tzatziki sauce. The idea came from out of the blue.. but somehow putting together ingredients that I had to use up worked! For those who aren't familiar with this, it's a popular Greek food which can be made of small pieces of any type of meat (usually pork, chicken, or lamb) often served with vegetables, rice and/or potatoes, and a 'tzatziki' sauce. My sides were wild rice with sauteed mushrooms (as you can see I love mushrooms) and zucchini. Here's the deal.. you will need: 

for the Chicken Souvlaki 

1 Chicken Breast

1tsp of each S&P

2 tsp oregano

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp olive oil

for the Tzatziki Sauce

3 tbsp plain yogurt

1 tbsp sour cream

1 tsp of each S&P

1 tsp oregano

1 tbsp creamy cucumber salad dressing (due to my lack of cucumber I replaced this with a Kraft salad dressing which substituted it quite pleasantly!) 

1 clove of garlic, finely minced

Note: I strongly stand by Michael Smith's secret to a recipe which is simply cooking without one! Most of my measurements are done by eyeballing or by taste and personal preference - so don't be afraid to alter the proportions. I was highly impressed by the results of making this for the first time.. It was absolute heaven and I can't wait to make it for my family and friends! I definitely see my self making this in the future and tweaking it to perfection. Enjoy!

GOOD night.

♥M

Mini Thrift Splurge & A Scrumptious Dinner

I've been sick for nearly two weeks and finally, I'm physically getting better! To treat myself for enduring a fortnight of broken tastebuds and insomnia, I went for a mini shopping trip after work. I didn't by any means go on a full out shopping spree because I intend on doing that in about two weeks, but this was just a little indulgence. Pluuuuus, I was running severely low on makeup.

I have recently been reading reviews over drugstore cosmetics and see that they have stepped up in quality. Thank goodness, because I can't afford to go to Sephora and MAC on a regular basis. Anyway, I picked up a few things that I've been hearing great things about and thought I could share my thoughts on them with you too :)

First one we have is the EOS Lip Balm that many of you may have already heard of, or even own!

This lip balm is quite intriguing, both in packaging and performance. It comes in a little egg/oval/circular shape. At first I thought it would be really small and hard to handle, but not at all. It applies on well and didn't need reapplication for at least 4 to 5 hours. Even after feeling I needed to reapply, my lips already felt softer and hydrated! I paid about $4 CAD (plus tax) and I think it was well worth it. It comes in various other flavours including Lemon Drop, Strawberry Sorbet, Honeysuckle Honeydew, Medicated Tangerine and Sweet Mint.

Next up, I've got the Maybelline Falsies Mascara, the regular one, not the lacey or the flared one.

Personally, I'm not a suck for mascaras since my eyelashes are next to non-existent so basically no mascaras truly work on me. This one wasn't too different. It did not extend my lashes at all but it does give my lashes a more "full" look, as it promises on the packaging. The good thing about this is that it doesn't clump, and it has more of a pasty formula which is better for hold. I would've probably went with a waterproof mascara instead, but all in all, for $7 CAD (plus tax), it wasn't too bad.

Last is my favourite! This is the Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel Eye Liner.

Despite the unnecessary length of the name, this product is by far one of my favourites in all the cosmetics I own. Many people have compared this to the MAC Fluidline Gel Eye Liner and I really think it's quite up there. If you look at the brush, it looks very "cheap" and doesn't seem like it would do the job. However, upon trying it, it glided on smoothly and produced a very defined and sharp line across the lid. It even went on thin enough on my waterline, though I imagine it would smudge a lot faster there. It claims to stay on for 24 hours, which I highly doubt. I'm not even sure I would want any eyeliner to stay on that long to begin with. However it does stay on for quite a long time. For me, I have monolids but not oily so it did stay on for about 4-6 hours without smudging or fading. I paid $10 CAD (plus tax) for this and I can gladly say that I will definitely buy this again. Very impressive product!

*      *      *

All in all, not a big grab but hopefully I'll have goodies to show you when I go on my next shopping spree. Of course after a long day of work and solo shopping, hubs had a delicious dinner prepared for me when I got home.

FEAST YOUR EYES!

Mustard Pork Steak with Roasted Sweet Potato Rounds

fried onion ringlets and red peppers for garnish

♥B

Currently Eating..

Warning: This post just might make you hungry!

It should be obvious that we absolutely lovelovelove food. We love to eat it, cook it, look at it, take pictures of it, you name it! FOOD = LOVE. Here's a little peak at what was on today's menu. Enjoy!

Brunch

Avocado, Garlic Mushroom, Seasoned Chicken Breast, Swiss Cheese Melt opened face sandwich w/ a refreshing Avocado Salad on the side

Dinner

Lemon & Pepper Salmon, Garlic Zucchini, and Butternut Squash

♥M

Valentines Date Night

Oops! Looks like we're both a bit delayed with our Valentines wishes.. Nonetheless, I hope everyone shared an amazing day with their loved ones. My day consisted of last minute prep for Valentines (baking & crafting!), work, and a wonderful dinner to start and finish yet another perfect Valentines!

Happy Valentines Day

A Deconstructed Red Velvet Cupcake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting
bottled and ready to be indulged!

Korean BBQ over a charcoal grill
nice and toasty

What are the chances we'd both have a korean meal on Valentine's day?
100%

This makes me feel like a kid again ♥

♥M