Small explosions that are yours to keep

Can't remember when I ate this. But anyway. That's not the point of this post. The point of this post is about banana bread. I had this fantastic idea to make some cocoa-banana bread. SO, Wilson & I did.

Now, I have this obsessive thing I do where I like to substitute ingredients in a recipe for more healthful alternatives. Mostly it's just typical substitutions like flaxseed meal + water for eggs or honey for sugar. What I don't realize is that my substitutions more often than not don't make sense or work in the recipe. They make things drier, wetter, thicker, take longer to bake, and sometimes taste like cardboard.













Looks pretty good, right? Don't be fooled! It was a massive fail on my part because I kept insisting that it hadn't finished baking so we left the banana bread in the oven for longer.. and longer.... and longer.



Until it was a rock solid mass of terrible. The muffins were goners because they were seriously like little boulders. You could knock someone out with them. The loaf was a bit (only a bit) better because the center hadn't completely overbaked yet so some of it was salvageable. I put them in an airtight container afterwards and the water vapor made it a lot softer and more edible. Despite all this, I still thought they were pretty good or at least had potential had I not overbaked it. But I'm not sure if I'm just thinking that to make myself feel better because Wilson still claimed they were awful.





C'est la vie.. Maybe baking is just not my forte.

We also played with Wilson's new close up filters for all these photos. They're pretty awesome. It's like a poor man's macro lens! You like? I like.

If Stars Shouldn't Shine

STILL LAST WEEK

Saturday
Our phototrip for this month was to Maplewood Farm in North Van. I vaguely remember going there when I was very little but seeing it again, I had absolutely no recollection of it. I was mostly just looking forward to seeing the bunnies. :)








This was pretty funny. There was probably food in her stroller!


In the greenhouse! It felt like Hong Kong weather in there.



And then, the most exciting part of the farm! We saved it for last. The "Rabbitat"!





They were all so obese. I guess they don't get out much.





After we finished with the farm, and after my eye stopped watering like a garden hose (I may have pet a goat and then rubbed my eye.. oops), we drove to Deep Cove to explore a little bit of North Van. The houses there are huge and probably cost a couple million.





Deep Cove is a lot of water, a lot of mountain, a lot of kayaks, a lot of rich people, a lot of steep hills, and some pricey ice cream.

Foodimicon

LAST WEEK

Monday
I made almond butter! It was an extremely messy process but tasted omg-so-goood. It smells heavenly and tastes really good too. I was surprised how little almond butter my 2 cups of almonds yielded. It's going to be gone by next week! My mom said it tastes better than commercial almond butter but I wouldn't know because I've never actually tried the store bought kind.







Wednesday
Dinner was leftover quinoa from Tuesday with greens, broccoli, & sweet basil. I tried quinoa for the first time, from Bob's Red Mill. I was kind of disappointed how much it tasted like brown rice, which I love, but I was expecting something more distinctly quinoa.





Friday
Breakfast was chocolatey overnight oats! The base was equal parts rolled oats & milk, a few spoons of plain yogurt, honey, cocoa powder, and cinnamon. I kind of cheated and microwaved it in the morning though. The idea of cold oats is weird to me. Anyways, in the morning, I added a banana, strawberries, agave nectar, dried cranberries, and mixed nuts. The verdict? This was yummmms. Don't think it was enough to convert me to oats though. I will forever love my cereal.





For dinner, I finally annihilated the butternut squash I bought on a whim. It was the most difficult I've ever had to cut! I seriously thought my knife was going to snap or that I'd throw in a few fingers for garnish. Never, ever trying to cube butternut squash again.

I roasted it with honey, cinnamon, olive oil, salt, & pepper and after that was all good and done, I threw some on a bed of mixed greens and added toasted pine nuts, walnuts, a drizzle of agave, and had some (unpictured) dijon mustard for dippage. I forgot to throw in the dried cranberries. This was delicious! I had tons of leftovers too.





I also made Laraballs (a la Camilla and Jessica for the ballz idea). I used a combination of dates, dried cranberries, cinnamon, almonds, and some shredded coconut on top as an afterthought. Incredibly messy & sticky process but it was kind of fun. Like being a little kid and squeezing playdoh through my fingers ..and then licking it off my fingers afterwards... hmm. Like when we used to cover our hands with white glue and peel it off after it dried. Where am I going with this again? Oh yeah, these laraballs were awesome for a quick sweet fix.


Here they are still in their plastic wrap. They look like meatballs!





Whoa, okay sorry for all the long posts. I'm clearly trying to cram my backlogged photos onto my blog so that I can cross them off my list. I have 2 more sets of photos from last week and then I'll be caught up. But by the time I finish those, I will probably be behind on newer photos. Geez, this is starting to feel like a job! I'm going to try to make an effort to post every other day after I catch up.

I'm really bad at keeping up with my photos

LAST WEEK

Tuesday & Thursday
Played volleyball at Windermere with the guys on Tuesday, the day I went home from Ray's at 5am. Came home with bruised arms & went again on Thursday. This time I just refereed. We also played football until it got too dark to see where the football was. And also when we were already half devoured by mosquitoes. They were FEASTING on us, I tell you! I had to keep jumping and running around to keep them off me. I still scored two mosquito bites that night though. I'm loving these chill sports sessions in beautiful weather & awesome people.









Three of Raymond's friends from UBC came out to play with us and it turns out I went to preschool with them at SFX! They only remembered me because of my uncommon name and I only remembered that there was a Calvin in my class. We would have had no idea otherwise!

Friday
Went to the beach with some girls and tanned for a bit while reading a Martha Stewart magazine but that didn't last long because the sun makes me so drowsy. Everyone else was trying to finish the crossword in the 24 newspaper.





Afterwards, we tried looking for somewhere to eat but failed at that so we settled for Red Robins.






I got a veggie burger that was pretty good but nothing exciting.


We signed Isa's petition against the closure of Bruce elementary.


Amy took this one!

Sunday
Wilson & I biked 9.7km today! We biked from Jericho Beach, through Locarno, and to the very end of Spanish Banks where the bike trail actually ended. The folk music festival was happening at Jericho and so biking through there involved A LOT of weaving through people. I almost ran into a little boy. But there was really laid back music playing throughout the beach and so many bohemiam-looking vendors. I wanted to stay and just look around the festival! The ride along the coast was awesome. There was fantastic, hot weather, great music, great view, and tons of other bikers. This was my first "long" ride since I learned how to bike. Yep, since a few months ago, I couldn't ride a bike! I felt so accomplished by the end of the day!