Christmas 2016

Back from a 2 week hiatus from the blog.
Chirstmas Food ->
Christmas this year was held at cousin Henry and Linda's place.

Henry & Linda's Christmas Tree.

As usual we had tons of food.  Probably enough for 3 meals.  Also as usual, we stuffed ourselves silly.  The highlight this year was a "small" 30+lb roast pig Uncle Chin brought from Montreal!

Huge Roast Pig.

Butchered Roast.

For some reason my pics didn't turn out so I have no pics of the appetizers and main courses: ribs, turkey, salmon, veggies, salad, sushi, shrimp cheese and gyoza.
Lots of different desserts.  Michel made a black forest cake from scratch.

Desserts.

4 layers and good.  I took half of the cake home.

Good Black Forest Cake.

Christmas day dinner was at my parent's house.  Ben made a turkey.

Ben's Turkey.

We also had potates, sweet potatoes, and chow mein for dinner.

Christmas Day Dinner.

Dessert was  Limoncello cake, pastries, and chocolates.

Limoncello Cake.

Pastries and Chocolates.

This year's gifts from my family. 

Family Gifts.

Got Batman socks and a scale from Susanna.
Chinese music toys and money from Ben.
Scented Buddha and money from parents
Money from Grandparents. 
All the money turned into a new pots and pans set.

Optimus Prime Christmas Tree Topper

Possibly last entry of 2017.  I might post something between now and New Years.
Hockey Pool guys: Set your lines before going on holidays!

Lunch today -> Big Pork Bun and Samurai Tea.
I bought a big pork bun from the Kanata Asian Grocery Store.  I thought it was similar to the ones from Montreal, but it's slightly different.  It's got the usual filling of pork and cabbage, but it also has a slice of sausage and half an egg in it!  It's really good.  $2.99 but worth it.

Big Pork Bun and Samurai Tea

I washed it down with hot Samurai Chai tea with honey.  It's from Teavana.  It's got a nice sweet-cinnamon taste and extra sweet from the honey.  I should have used a infuser as the bits were floating everywhere and it was hard to drink around it.

Useless Project News:
I finished the Christmas Tree for this year.  I want a few more frosted blue ornaments, but they were sold out at Micheal's.  Just need to wrap a bunch of gifts and put it under the tree.

Christmas Tree 2017.

I topped the tree with the mighty G1 Optimus Prime :)

Optimus Prime Topper.

Wednesday Milestones

Dinner today -> Milestones
I was still under the weather, but I went out shopping for my final Christmas gifts tonight, and Julie tagged along to help me.  We took a break for dinner at Milestones.  It happens that they have a "Wednesday Date Night" special, and today was Wednesday.  The deal was very good.
We started with Coconut Calamari.  It was amazing!  The squid practically melted in your mouth.  Perfectly fried in coconut bits and the dipping sauce had a good spice to it.  It helped that I couldn't taste the mango in it too.  We destroyed the dish before I took a pic.
For entree we both got the Steak Frites.  Mine was a perfect medium rare.  It comes pre-slice which was a nice touch.  The fries were like good chip wagon fries and sprinkled with salt and Parmesan.  The were good at first, but I found it got really salty later.

Steak Frites.

Julie ordered a Blackberry Vanilla Bourbon Sour.  I took a small sip as I was still taking medicine.  The berry flavour hits you at first, then the sour, and finally a slightly smokey bourbon aftertaste.  Very nice drink. 

Blackberry Sour.

For dessert we chose the Ganache Torte.  Never had a Ganache before, but it was good and chocolatey.

Ganache Torte.

This meal was totally worth $50.  Individually the Calamari = $13.25, Steak Frites = $21, Ganache Torte = $???, but atleast $6; so you save about $11.  The bonus was the receipt is a coupon for $5 off my next meal in 2017!

Christmas Treats

Snack today -> Christmas Treats.
Someone at work made a box full of Christmas Treats and shared it in the kitchen.  There was some really good stuff.  Too bad I couldn't taste them well because I was eating a cough drop and it numbed my taste buds.

Christmas Treats.

Dinner today -> Liver and 3 Meat Sandwich.
Broiled some chicken liver in the oven today.  I have been marinating the liver for 2 days with soy sauce and cha shu sauce.  I broiled them for a few minutes, flipped them and brushed on some No Limits BBQ sauce, and broiled it some more to caramelize the BBQ sauce.

Chicken Liver.

I also made a couple sandwiches for dinner.  I filling was a slice of horseradish cheddar with 3 different kinds of cured meats from FarmBoy (Chorizo salami, some kind of prosciutto, and a hot prosciutto).  Nuked it for 11 seconds, just to have it abit warm.

3 Meat Sandwich.

Definitely Sick

Yep, definitely sick.  Got up this morning and was coughing right away.  I also had a scratchy throat and stuffy nose which I tried to drown all day with green tea, chicken broth, and DayQuil.  I would have gone home early, but I had review meetings all day for a project deadline on Tuesday.  I was getting abit light-head towards 4pm too.  It didn't help that we got tons of free snacks from the building owner and wasn't hungry to try them all.

Useless Transformers News:
Picked up the new Titan's Return Megatron last Friday at Walmart.  Haven't had a chance to open it yet.  Didn't see the new Prime that was also in the same case.

Megatron.

Weekend Report -> Caught a Cough

This sucks.  I caught a cough and a slightly sore throat.  This better not get worse and go away by Christmas holidays...

Food this weekend ->
Made Chicken Pot Pie in my pressure cooker on Saturday.  I replaced the pie part with spaghetti.  I put a big handful of spaghetti on the bottom of the pot.  Then added some frozen chick drumsticks and frozen vegetables.  I then added a pack of chicken pot pie sauce and a some water.  Topped it with some salt and pepper and pressed start on the "Soup/Stew" mode.

Raw Chicken Pasta Pie.

It came out really good.  I stirred up to mix all the stuff and the spaghetti was bunching (but fully cooked and soft).

Cooked Chicken Pasta Pie.

Plated my first bowl.  I then proceeded to eat the whole pot in a few hours.

Very Filling Meal.

Went to Bai Du on Sunday for a family dinner.  We started off with alot of nicely made sushi.

Bai Du Sushi.

Then we got the grill stuff going.  Lots of meat was ordered.  Table service was excellent but the cooks would forget to bring some items.  We ordered squid twice and told them to bring it, but we only got it on the 3rd order of squid.

Grilling Food.

I found near the end of the meal that grilled sweet pineapple wrapped in savoury lamb was an amazing combo.  I also found that dipping the meats in sesame oil (from the sauce station) helps in not stick to the grill.

Useless Project News:
Susanna's friend made this amazing 3D pop-up Christmas card.  This the card flat.

3D Home-Made Christmas Card Closed..

This is the card opened.  It looks so professional, but it was completely hand-made!

3D Home-Made Christmas Card Opened.

Susanna made a card at her house too.  It's very good.

Susanna's Home-Made Christmas Card.

Useless Christmas News:
I started wrapping some gifts tonight.  I wrapped Kyle's manga in a Halloween Rice Krispies box.  I put some packs in as protection and resealed it with a glue gun.  LOL.

Kyle's Gift.

Susanna and I also went to 15 Rickey Place in Glen Cairn to checkout the Christmas Music and Light house.  The lights match the music on station 92.7FM.  It's OK this year.  Not as good as last year, but it could be because the songs when we were there weren't very upbeat.  Worth checking out if you're passing by.

15 Rickey Place.

PC Strawberry Lemonade

Long day today.  I went to an intended 1 hour meeting at 9:30am, and it didn't finish til 4pm.  It went straight right through lunch!

Drink today -> PC Strawberry Lemonade
I got the PC Strawberry Lemonade from SuperStore the other day.  I really liked the Wendy's Strawberry Lemonade from the summer, so I was hoping this will as good, but cheaper.  I was wrong.  This stuff tastes like plastic!  It's not even sour like lemonade.  I'm tempted to dump this stuff down the sink, but I think I force it down as it is drinkable and I don't want to waste my money.  Do NOT buy this!  Get the PC Cranberry Black Cherry drink.  That stuff is really good.

Tastes Like Plastic!