baked tilapia in smoked bacon with rosemary

I bet there are some of you out there who were expecting my next post to be beet cake. Sadly, the beet cake is in a big black garbage bag on my back deck, waiting for tomorrow's garbage pick-up. What went wrong? Well, I'll save those fascinating details for when I'm able to successfully write a post about beet cake. I will succeed if it is the last thing I do!

I found myself relatively near to Atwater market today and escaped with bags bursting with baby zucchini, patty-pan squash and red chiles. There's just something exciting about tiny vegetables. They remind me of French restaurants. I also left with wood-smoked bacon and tilapia - there's a recipe for cod in Jamie's Food Revolution that I've been dying to make for ages and, given that tilapia was going for a good price at the fish market, I decided to try it out with that.

ciabatta burgers

Yes, I overcooked the fries. Whoops! Let me tell you why.

I am one of those girls who squeals with delight when she passes a cat on the sidewalk and insists on stopping to pet it. There is another orange cat in our area and from time to time I see him passing through the back alley, in our landlord's back yard, or on the neighbour's balcony. This weekend, he was close enough to my balcony that I said "hello kitty!" and made kissy noises at him through the open window. He quickly bounded down the fire escape, crossed the roof of my landlord's shed, made his way up our fire escape, and attached himself to the windowsill.

sizzling beef with cilantro and hoisin sauce

Last night, I had a dream that I borrowed Lady Gaga's bathroom scale and broke it. So tonight, it felt like the right thing to do to make a somewhat more health conscious meal. I have to say, blogging about food isn't spectacular for a girl's figure, you know? Especially one who spent the entire day napping, baking, reading in the bath and watching Being Erica and Six Feet Under (what a perfect rainy Saturday!). In any case, even though tonight's fare wasn't exactly vegetable heavy (and was perhaps a bit high in sodium), at least it did not contain any butter or cream, which I have been consuming way too much of lately.

pea and mint soup

It was not my plan to make pea and mint soup tonight. I had another soup planned. One that involved potatoes and sausages. Perhaps you might be wondering what led me to change my mind. Well... okay, I'll admit it, but not without a hefty dose of shame.

Every month, my office holds "treats day." This means that the lunch room is filled with treats. Cookies, cupcakes... you name it. It changes every month. Well, today it was treats day, and the treats were Easter candy. Mini peanut butter cups, mini eggs, gummy worms, jelly beans, ju-jubes... I think you can see where I am going with this.