Balsamic Glaze

I received this balsamic glaze as part of a gift at Christmas and decided to try it with some sliced tomatoes. It is delicious!

yogurt blue cheese dressing

I paired some celery and baby carrots with a yogurt blue cheese dressing and it is of course a classic  combination, celery is something I should have more of and the blue cheese dressing makes it a lot more palatable!

Sunday Sketches - The Lighthouse

Welcome to Sunday Sketches, this piece is called 'The Lighthouse' inspired by a photo I saw recently. I added a sunrise. It's (8 1/2" x 11") in watercolour pencil and crayon.

I took a photo hoping the pinks in the sunrise might be more visible than in the scan above:

Sago Taro Milk Tea

These Bubble Tea drink shops are popping up everywhere. Son K and I shared this delicious Sago Taro Milk Tea the other day, requesting 30% sugar. It was delicious. The sago are small tapioca balls that you see floating on the bottom. Then I googled the nutrition information for tapioca balls. Tapioca is pure starch extracted from the cassava root, albeit gluten free. So a cup of those balls amounts to 540 calories, a carb counter's nightmare. Delicious as it is, I think I will avoid these drinks in the future.

It is Chinese New Year today, Happy New Year if you celebrate, the year of the Rooster.

Paint Party Friday - Coming Up Roses

The title for this piece popped into my head as I was making this post for Paint Party Friday. It's done on green cardstock (8 1/2" x 11") in acrylic, outlined with a waterproof black pitt artist pen. 'Everything's coming up roses' means 'life is excellent, just wonderful'.  I wish you some of these happy moments in 2017!

Here is a photo that shows the work in progress, based on some silk roses I arranged on a piece of paper as a reference:

Good Friends

This is a healthy spinach salad I put together quickly. It is no more trouble than making a sandwich and is surprisingly filling and satisfying. I added a handful of sliced almonds, some blackberries, carrots and cherry tomatoes. A dash of raspberry vinaigrette dressing finished it off nicely.  Do you like salads?

A good friend took me to lunch at Whole Foods a few days ago.  She thought I needed to have a break.  We chose the stir fry bowl.  So you select your preferred vegetables, noodles, rice.  Then you add your preferred sauces, they had quite a range (teriyaki, Korean bbq, sweet and spicy, Thai, etc).  Then you choose a protein (chicken, beef or tofu).  You give it to the chef and he stir fries it for you in a few minutes.  It was delicious, we will definitely do this again.  And I appreciated my friend's  thoughtfulness.

A Great Movie

Raspberries and blackberries have been on sale at the grocery stores and they have been really sweet. They make for a great snack with some milk!  I also bought lots of fresh, green leaf lettuce and hope to be making wonderful salads in the hope of losing some unwanted pounds.

We just saw the 2016 movie 'Lion' with Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman and loved it, a definite 'recommend'!