Mince Tart Bites

My church had its annual Christmas craft and bake sale this past weekend. I bought these delicious mince tart bites that my friend S spotted. I also bought stamps for the Christmas cards I mail out. Are you starting to get ready for the season?

New granola bars

I signed up for these free samples on a website that my friend had told me about, and received 2 new granola bars among other things. One is a Kellogg's nutrigrain cranberry nut bar, the other was a blueberry nut bar. Everyone liked them and so we bought a box of the cranberry nut ones. It makes a change from the rice krispie squares son K takes to work for snacks. The problem with the free sample site is that you are supposed to do quick reviews of the product, I didn't read the fine print. So I will be receiving an email survey soon, but I might refrain from getting more free samples. I felt obligated to try the detergent, pain reliever, and daughter L tried some of the hair products and creams. Fortunately I had only requested stuff I thought I might really use. Here is the website if you think you want to join.

Leafy Pathway

Alexandra's Sunday Sketches has been postponed as she is ill, hope she feels better soon.  Anyway, I had this piece  ready to go, entitled 'Leafy Pathway'.  It is done in my art journal (8 1/2" x 11") in watercolour pencil and crayon.  It very much looked like this around here last week. Today it has gone very cold and is more like winter.

New Spiralizer

I got this inexpensive new Veggetti Spiralizer device that turns vegetables into neat spaghetti-like spirals. It is really fun to eat these. This small manual device is great with zucchini, cucumbers and carrots so far. It's not so good with beets and larger vegetables. Maybe the larger machines are better for those. But so far it has encouraged us to eat more vegetables in a fun way. I did cut my finger already, you have to pay attention when you are cutting anything.

Paint Party Friday - The Girl

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! Thanks to our hosts Kristin and Eva. This piece entitled 'The Girl' in done in my art journal (8 1/2" x 11") in watercolour pencil and crayon.

Intriguing Story

This new cottage cheese treat is available in our area, it tastes like cheesecake, we have tried the vanilla bean and lemon flavours both are delicious. It says it's 100 calories per 100g serving.

This is an interesting story I read in the paper recently and saved for you.

It is entitled 'The stabber, the victim, the lost son, and the wedding'. 'In 1999 Sean Clifton stabbed a stranger, Julie Bouvier. This summer they stood together, attending a wedding only made possible by the extraordinary aftermath of the crime and the filming of a documentary about it.'

Tortilla Soup

Fish Ceviche

Banana Eel Sushi

Tortilla Soup

It would be remiss if I didn't talk about the food we ate at the all-inclusive Secrets Resort on our recent vacation. Being all-inclusive you eat too much to begin with. I tried to taste food from the region as much as possible.

It was my first time trying jicama (pronounce the 'j' as an 'h'), it is a Mexican turnip and delicious eaten in raw strips, with none of the bitterness of fresh raw turnips.

One night featured Mexican food from the region. It is where I had this delicious tortilla soup for the first time. It starts with ladling a tomato based soup into your bowl. Then you add tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream, roasted peppers and avocado. It was sooo good. I also tried a fish ceviche at another meal, which I also enjoyed.

There was an Asian restaurant that surprisingly made delicious sushi. Apparently the chef had trained in Japan for a year.

It was also fun going on the trip with friends.