Easy Peasy Egg Salad

Ingredients:

5 Hardboiled eggs
1 Small finely diced onion (red or white)
2-3 Tablespoon of mayonnaise
2-3 Tablespoon of white vinegar
Pinch of salt, black pepper, red chili pepper

Add everything to a bowl and start rough chopping the hardboiled eggs in the bowl. Once it is in small chunks, mash with a potato masher or fork. Give it a few stirs to ensure everything is thoroughly mixed. Serve on bread or melba toast crackers.

I served mine on tiasted miniature ciabatta buns.

*I did not have any at this time but I usually like to add finely diced red peppers for a nice pop of colour.

Pizza Night

This was for dinner tonight - Wholefoods freshly made pizza. Whole wheat dough, parmesan/mozzarella cheese blend, pepperoni, mixed peppers and jalapeños, plus lots of garlic and chili flakes. Semi-healthy, right?

Lady and the Tramp

Delicious homemade Friday night dinner.

Spaghetti and meatballs. Portobello mushrooms and onions in the sauce, with a light lemon/oil dressing for the greens.

Going Abroad

Hi all,

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer so far. I generally try to limit any personal posts about me to a minimum but this opportunity that I have been presented is too big to ignore. I have always wanted to travel overseas for a work/volunteer project but my crazy school schedule prevented me from doing that. However, now that I have graduated from university - this opportunity seemed like such a perfect fit. I am excited, nervous and eager to go. The thing is, I literally found this out yesterday and I depart in early September, less than 2 months from now. I am required to fund-raise a minimum of $3,200 for this exchange, the costs are to help support the organization and send youths on the exchange. In conjunction with a Canadian team, we are also paired up with an international team. Together we will volunteer in my home country and their home country for 6 months together. I would appreciate it if my readers can help support me in this cause.

Details: The organization I will be going with is CANADA WORLD YOUTH which is a non-profit organization promoting intercultural cooperation and education.

From CWY:

Canada World Youth has been running its programs for 40 years. It is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that offers international educational programs to youth between the ages of 17 and 29. Canada World Youth's mission is to increase the ability of people, and especially young people, to participate actively in the development of just, harmonious and sustainable societies. Canada World Youth is not just about travel. CWY programs make it possible for young people from all around the world to live and work in different communities in an active way, learning more about community and international development.



Thank you so much for the continued support!

Society Pages

Something about me is that I love to read, it has always been something that I have thoroughly enjoyed throughout my life. When I am not currently reading a good book then I spend much of my reading time preoccupied with online news stories and blogs. I especially enjoy blogs pertaining to food and fitness. I feel that blogs provide a very personal insight of one's experience and perception. However, be mindful to take everything with a grain of salt because the opinions and information content expressed in blogs can be very biased and not necessary the absolute truth. A sleepless night has lead me to this fascinating website: The Society Pages. It offers a critical lens into society and encourages us to challenge those embedded social notions that have within ourselves.

There here is an article that I found particularly interesting on the website. It is part 3 of a series of articles focused on the sexual objectification of women in society, and offers witty advice to combat it - the advice offered offers comedic relief from the seriousness of the subject. I am currently making the ways through the articles in the series in a backward order.The themes and issues brought up in these articles are very reminiscent of my social science courses taken in university. Reminiscent is a funny word to use considering I only graduated 2 months ago! I myself will be reading more articles from the site until I can fall asleep, 4:30am! Anyways, I have linked the article below for your reading pleasure.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Link to article: Sexual Objectification (Part 3)

Lemon Squares

I was looking for a summer appropriate dessert and found this  recipe from the Allrecipes website. I decided to use it for my lemon squares based on the high percentage of positive reviews and its relative simplicity.I have added asterisks besides the points that I have modified to the original recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour*
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 lemons, juiced**

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust.
5. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven. The bars will firm up as they cool.*** For a festive tray, make another pan using limes instead of lemons and adding a drop of green food coloring to give a very pale green. After both pans have cooled, cut into uniform 2 inch squares and arrange in a checker board fashion.
                                                                  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-lemon-bars/
   
   *I used an 8x8 baking pan and found it to be too much crust so if you plan on using any pans smaller than the recommended 9x11inch pan then make sure to cut down the flour by 1/2-3/4cups if you want to avoid the dense crust layer.
   **It will be just as effective if you use lemon juice concentrate, you would need about 3/4cups worth. I used about 1/2cup of concentrate and a freshly squeezed lemon as well. It produced a little over 3/4 cups of juice - I did this to ensure that the tartness would be preserved. (Tip: Microwave the lemon for about 20 secs to extract the maximum amount of juice from it)
   ***I added icing sugar to dust the tops of the squares for presentation - make sure to cut the squares first then ice it, otherwise, it will be very messy and there may be smudged prints on the lemon squares.
   
   I hope you all will enjoy this recipe. It was my first time making lemon squares and I was pretty pleased with the final results. A fairly simple recipe for novice bakers and a great dessert to share with others. ENJOY
   

Soon enough

Upcoming post on a recipe for lemon squares very soon.

BTW, Summer is finally here. Smiles all around :)