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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Blue Mountain anyone?


I can't believe it's almost Christmas and I JUST finish having my last final exam today and I'm glad it's all over. Although it's been cold and snowing for a while now, it still felt to me like it was summer/fall because I was literally stuck at home studying or going to work once a week. Until my bf took me to Blue Mountain this past Saturday that I started feeling Christmas around the corner and realized that winter IS here already…
The village you can see the hills on the background =]
My bf and I and a couple of friends went to Blue Mountain to snowboard and I was so excited for this trip because it's my first time going to Blue Mountain although it was not my first time snowboarding nor skiing. I don't mind snowboarding/skiing anywhere but I really wanted to go to Blue Mountain for its scenery so I was glad my bf took me to Blue Mountain. What got me super excited was the night view at the village, I was expecting a ginormous village but it turned out that the village is quite small. Perhaps it’s because I was comparing it to the village at Mont Tremblant which is a lot bigger although Blue Mountain is not bad at all for its distance (1.5 to 2 hrs drive) from my house as well as the price for the rental and lift. I also thought the night light would be blue for some reason, perhaps from the name itself LOL. Aside from all of this, one thing I really liked about Blue Mountain are the lessons they had. They will teach you step by step first letting you get use to the board on a small hill on the side of the walk way before letting you go on the bunny hill. This ensures that you have a good base before heading to the steeper hills. Now, if I were to go snowboarding again at a more frequent rate I would much rather go somewhere closer rather than driving 1.5 hr. I’m so glad that my friend Jenny introduced me to that place because it is only 5-10 mins away from where my bf lives. Not bad right? Although I have to say the view is not nice at all and the hills are smaller but that’s okay because if not like I’m a pro at snowboard that would need those Black diamond hills =P

Mont Tremblant s2

Anywyas that’s all I have to say about my trip, I cant wait to go again soon. I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year/Feliz navidad y un prospero ano.
I need to fill this up soon ^^

Monday, December 13, 2010

Baked Fish and Chicken

The other day, my bf and I wanted to experiment with the oven for an alternative healthy cooking method because if you guys know us we eat pretty healthy or should I say ‘HE’ eats pretty healthy. For those who doesn't know us yet we used to steam everything and season before serving with pepper, garlic powder, mixed seasonings with no salt or sauces like BBQ or ketchup. I know this doesn't sound too appetizing but it’s really not THAT bad just not the best tasting thing in the world but it is somewhat the easiest and healthiest thing that I've ever eaten. So we wanted to change it up and add a tiny little bit of flavour into our usual. We searched a few video on youtube for the easiest and healthiest recipe out there that we can use to mass produce our meals because we eat at least 4 meals a day up to 6 meals a day and that’s a lot of cooking so we just cook up everything at once and just microwave it later =]. Alright about our usual, we always eat chicken breast or thighs(no bones and no skin),  fish fillets, sometimes shellfish scallops, shrimp but never pork (well I sometimes sneak in some homemade wontons made by my mom which is usually made out of pork and shrimp but what the heck a little bit of fat is alright =] ).

We experimented with chicken breast and fish fillet and find that fish fillet cook best under a 400 F oven for 10 min, and chicken breast under 350 F oven for 20 min but you know us we want something easy and fast so the second time we baked these we cooked double the amount a total of 4 trays full of fish and chicken under a 350 F oven for 20 min and the fish turned out find it didn’t over cook. This way, in 20 min we have cooked maybe about 2 day worth of food. By the way we buy everything at Costco so everything comes in big packages, great for this because we are trying to mass produce everything so it will last us for a longer time lol

Preparation and Cooking...
First preheat oven at 350 F then rinse chicken and fish and pat dry with paper towel. Coat baking sheet/dish coated with some kind of oil, we used coconut oil because it's healthier than conventional vegetable oils and extra virgin olive oil shouldn't be used either because in high heat olive oil looses its nutrients and benefits so it should always be consumed under low to no heat for example drizzling it on top of salad as a dressing =]. Anyways moving on, chicken breast should be slices in half if it’s too thick so it cooks more evenly, place them into one layer of the baking sheet/dish with minimal overlaps then lightly season with salt pepper and garlic powder then bake for 20 min. Note: Easy on the salt because most garlic powder already has salt in it or at least it has a salty taste to it. I just eyeball the seasonings but remember you should start with little seasonings and add to taste when it is served.

Here are some pictures of our first time baking I didn’t take any picture of the second time when we mass produced 4 tray of meat lol and I know these pictures don’t look too appetizing but is much better than steaming everything =P plus half the fault goes to my crappy photography skills =]

Excuse this, this was after poking it to make sure it was cooked and after serving out dinner so this is basically our leftovers

Chicken! all seasoned and ready for the oven

Fresh out of the oven, the ones on the edge is a bit more brown because we tried to cover the whole dish with aluminum foil but we ran out so the part that aren't covered will brown up more so if u guys like that then go ahead and bake it with nothing covering it.


Next stop I really want to try baking sweet potato chip/fries to substitute yummy, unhealthy french fries that I love oh so much, who doesn't? s2