25 Was Good to Me

As I've said before, December is a very special month for me. Especially because my birthday is so close to the end of the year, it's usually the time for me to reminisce about the past year; the time for me to remember the obstacles I've faced and also the good times that I've had.

Yesterday, I turned 26! As usual, I didn't feel any older ... and I am glad. 25 was good to me. 2015 was a good year and I couldn't be more grateful. I finally finished a year of articling that felt like it would never end, I got called to the Ontario bar (officially became a lawyer!), I got a job in BC, I moved to Vancouver, I got called to the BC bar, two of my closest friends got engaged ... and that's just to name a few. It feels like I just celebrated my "quarter of a century" birthday with my friends in Toronto. It feels like just yesterday that I was thinking about what 2015 would bring. It's both thrilling and scary to think about how fast time "flies". Thrilling because I've experienced so many new opportunities in such a short amount of time and scary because I realize that time passes no faster now than it always did. It just seems like it goes by quicker because we forget to live in the moment.

As much as I hate to admit it, living in the moment is actually something very hard to do (at least for me). I'm a "planner" and perfectionist ... and if you are too, then you will understand what I mean when I say that oftentimes it's very difficult for me to enjoy the present moment without (over)thinking about or planning for what's ahead. Nonetheless, I am very aware of this, so I try to catch myself when I'm not being present.

On Friday, Sameer planned a surprise birthday dinner for me. The plan was for us to go to Chewies downtown Vancouver for dinner.  I thought it was just going to be the two of us, but he had invited a lot of our friends without me knowing and it was an awesome surprise. At the beginning of the night, I caught myself obsessing about insignificant things i.e. whether I was over/underdressed for the restaurant, I forgot to spray on my perfume before I left the house, whether I seemed surprise when I walked in ... and the list goes on. There was actually a moment that I remember very clearly when I looked around at all the people who had come out to celebrate my birthday and I realized that likely no one really cares. And in that moment, (believe it or not, in my state of semi-inebriation), I had some form of epiphany ... in 10 or 20 years, what I'm going to or want to remember from the night is not that I was over/underdressed or that I forgot to put on perfume, etc ... What I would want to remember is:

1. how happy I felt to be able to enjoy such good company;
2. how grateful I was to have someone who cared about me so much to go out of their way to plan a surprise for me; and
3. how lucky I am to have so many people who would take time out of their day to celebrate my birthday with me.

"Forever is composed of nows." - Emily Dickinson

Tis the Season of Giving

If you are not already familiar with the Christmas song, "My Grown Up Christmas List" ... listen to it! (the Michael Buble version is my favourite). It's a great song and I've really been relating to it this holiday season. As much as I have been enjoying the season's celebrations, I've also been very mindful to all the adversities that people are facing around the world. Especially with all the tragedy that has been happening around the world recently, I am reminded everyday that I am incredibly blessed to be living the life that I live. With my birthday also coming up, I've had a lot of people ask me what I want for Christmas or my birthday. When I think about it, I realize there's nothing that I really need. 

When I used to think of Christmas or my birthday, the first thing that would come to mind was presents, food, parties, and more presents. Now, I think of love, happiness and family. Maybe it has to do with maturity ... maybe it has to do with moving across the country... maybe it has to do with being away from my family. Regardless, I am determined to do my best this year to help out those who are less fortunate. Everyone deserves to be able to celebrate love, happiness and family 365 days a year.

So, I am starting a personal tradition this year (and I hope some of you will join me!) to pledge gifts to the homeless in my community :) Homeless Partners is a great non-profit organization that allows homeless communities to post their personal stories and gift requests online. You can then pledge/donate gifts based on the wish lists and drop them off to different locations. 

Unfortunately Homeless Partners does not include homeless communities in Toronto. But for my Toronto friends, who are interested in doing something similar, Covenant House and United Way have created lists of items they are collecting to gift to those living in poverty.

With that being said, if you are someone who is thinking of what to get me for Christmas or my birthday, please save the money and donate it or a gift to someone in need this December! (or donate to cause/organization/charity of your choice).

Love openly and give generously, my friends! 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This post is long overdue!

Although I'm not a huge fan of the winter season, December has always been my favourite month and Christmas has always been my favourite holiday of all time! There's something about the spirit of the holiday that cheers me up even when I'm in the worst mood. It also helps that it's also my birthday month :)

In light of that, I was very excited to be able to decorate my apartment this year. We haven't had a Christmas tree at home for the last several years because we were travelling during the holidays. So, I made sure to get one this year. And because I'm a true believer in spreading Christmas cheer, here are some pictures that will hopefully do just that:

Of course I had a festive candle burning in the background - Frosty Pines!

I actually didn't get this one from Bath & Body Works (I felt so guilty).  I got this one on sale at the Superstore and it smells just like a live Christmas tree!

Since my tree wasn't real, the candle really did its job. Got this 6.5 footer from London Drugs and it was super easy to assemble.

Although the whole tree decorating process took awhile, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. We used to decorate the tree as a family every year when I was younger and it was always a really good bonding experience. It was something that I looked forward to every year as December approached. Even as I was decorating my own tree this year, it brought back a lot of fond memories I had from my childhood. It actually made me realize how lucky I was to be able to associate this holiday with so much love, warmth, and happiness.

After we assembled the tree, we obviously had to stop and enjoy the sunset...

As always, Dollarama saved the day.  I got all of my tree decorations there for around $30.

... Oh Christmas tree! :)

Yes, I took this picture a day before I wrote this post.

A quick look at the rest of my apartment:

Welcome!

Snowflakes galore!

And now that decorations are done ... onto Christmas cards! Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!! xoxo

I <3 Avocados

I LOVE AVOCADOS. They are yummy, nutritious, and filling.

Fun fact: an avocado contains more potassium than a banana. 

As much as I would love to say that I love avocados because they are healthy ... the reality is that I love them because they just taste so good. If we're friends, you'll know that I always have a craving for comfort food. For some reason, avocados taste like comfort food to me. So actually, I'm just lucky that they're good for you.

In any case, since I eat avocados pretty much everyday, I figured I would share my favourite ways to eat them.

I rarely measure ingredients precisely when I'm making food so I can't attest to how much of anything I'm really using. The exception to this is when I'm baking - I'm always very exact with all my measurements.

1. Avocado on toast.

Aside from cereal and granola with yogurt, avocado on toast is probably my #1 go-to breakfast. It's quick and easy to make - perfect for mornings before work.

I use one avocado for two pieces of toast. After I mash up the avocado in a bowl, I add in some lemon juice, garlic powder, black pepper, and salt, and then mix it all together. I spread that onto my toast ... and I'm good to go!

Banana AND avocado.

Sometimes, I like to get a bit fancier on the weekends. I add in some chopped up red onion to my usual avocado mix, and then I top it up with some chopped up grape tomatoes, green onions, and eggs.

I love eggs benny :) (almost as much as avocados)

2. Baked eggs in avocados.

This one is another one of my breakfast favourites - tastes great and looks nice too. It takes a bit longer (since you have to wait for the eggs to bake), so I usually save this one for a weekend morning.

To make room for the egg, I scoop out a bit of the avocado. Fear not! The excess does not go to waste. I usually mix up the avocado in a separate bowl and then save it for later to dip my crackers in as a snack. I bake them in my toaster oven because I don't want to bother preheating my standard oven. I keep the avocados in the toaster oven until the eggs whites solidify. Once they're ready, I top them with some sriracha sauce, salt & black pepper, and paprika.

Sriracha makes everything better.

3. Avocado in salad.

If you follow me on Instagram (@lamcj), then you've probably seen this picture already.

This was a quinoa salad with chicken, red peppers, red & green onions, baba ganoush ... and avocado! Avocado added to chickpea salads and green salads are also awesome.

4. Avocado sauce on zoodles.

I almost feel like this deserves a blog post on its own. I only discovered zucchini noodles (aka zoodles) recently when I bought a spiralizer. I found one sale for $12, and figured why not? Turns out it's super useful and easy to use.

All you have to do is chop off one end of a zucchini and feed it into the spiralizer in a twisting motion. I cook the zoodles on a pan with some olive oil, salt, and black pepper until they become soft. To make the avocado sauce, I chop up an avocado, then add it to my magic bullet with some water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I would've added in some cilantro to the mix too, but I didn't have any that day. Once that's all blended together, I just scoop it out onto my zoodles.

Lots of love for this green duo.

5. Guacomole!

This one is a given. I mean, who doesn't love guac? 

I make mine with: avocado (obviously!), lime juice, cilantro, roma tomatoes, white onions, minced garlic, salt, and black pepper. If I'm not having this with nachos, then I'm most likely having it in some tacos :) 

Birthday Cake With a Twist

I'm so happy to be finally able to make a post about the "making" of this cake:

About a month ago, I got the idea to make a hat-shaped cake for Sameer's birthday. Initially, I had no idea how to even go about doing it. So naturally, I searched "how to make a hat cake" on Google and watched every YouTube video tutorial out there on making hat-shaped cakes. 

Another piece of interesting information is that I've also never baked a cake from scratch. So, on top of my hat cake research ... I also did a bunch of research on tips for baking a perfect cake. Thankfully, I came across Yolanda Gampp's amazing blog (How to Cake It) - she had the perfect vanilla cake recipe for cake decorating and also a YouTube video on making a baseball cap cake. And so, I decided to go with her vanilla cake recipe for my cake. 

Here is everything I used to make the cake:

- 1 and 1/2 cups of unsalted butter
- 3 cups of sugar
- 1 and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
- 6 eggs
- 1 and 1/2 cups of milk
- 3 and 3/4 cups of flour
- 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of baking powder
- 3/4 tsp
- 2 large mixing bowls
- 1 stainless steel bowl
- 1 hand mixer
- 1 sift
- Duncan Hines' vanilla buttercream
- Bristol board
- Wilton's Black and white fondant
- Wilton's fondant decorating tools
- 1 cake board
- 1 rolling pin (or wine bottle)
- 1 serrated knife
- 1 sharp paring knife
- 1 mini paintbrush

I had planned on taking pictures of every step ... but at one point, I got way too into it and completely forgot to take pictures. Here's a collection of pictures I did take:

I took the butter, eggs and milk (I poured the amount needed into a bowl) out of the fridge in advance so that they could be at room temperature. This allows the ingredients to blend together better.

Step 1: Sift the flour, salt and baking powder and whisk them together in one bowl.

I made sure to level off each measurement with the back edge of a knife to make sure the amounts were exact.

Step 2: Cream the butter and sugar.

I put the butter and sugar together in another mixing bowl and used my hand mixer to blend them together. A good tip I learned for using the hand mixer was to place the mixer in the ingredients before turning it on ... as opposed to starting it and then going in from above. Yes, I learned this the hard way because the latter method caused A LOT of splattering. Once the butter and sugar is well-blended, the mixture should be completely smooth with no lumps or bumps.

My rubber spatula came in really handy when I needed to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl.

Step 3: Add the eggs.

I cracked the eggs into one bowl and added them to the mixture two at a time (as suggested by Yolanda Gampp). I made sure the eggs were fully blended into the mixture before adding more.

Step 4: Add in the dry ingredients and milk to the mix.

I followed Yolanda's instructions for this step and it worked really well. She suggests adding the dry ingredients alternatively with the milk, starting with the dry ingredients - 4 parts of dry ingredients and 3 parts of milk.


Step 5: Dye the batter (if you want to).

I wanted to dye the batter a dark purple colour (for the Raptors!!!). I started by adding the red food colouring... then the blue food colouring.

Step 6: Line baking bowl with parchment paper and grease bowl.

I cut slits into a circular parchment liner to line the bottom of the stainless steel bowl and then greased the sides of the bowl with some butter.

Step 7: Pour in the good stuff.

... and after this, I started slacking on the picture-taking. I followed Yolanda's instructions - pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees, and then plopped the batter into the oven. Based on the amount of batter I made, the bake time should have been 1 hr and 20 min. BUT because the bowl I used to bake the batter in was so deep, it took closer to 2 hrs for the whole thing to bake. I checked on the cake periodically and stuck a knife down the centre to see if if it would come out clean. Once the knife came out clean, I took it out out of the oven and let it cool over night. I draped a clean dish towel over it to keep the cake from drying out. 

Step 8: Remove the cake from the bowl.

I had a HELL OF A HARD TIME taking the cake out of the bowl. I ran a knife along the side of the cake and tried to shake it out while holding the bowl upside down, but no luck. It took me about 15 min to finally get the thing out. I had to eventually use my knife as a lever to pry it out. When the cake finally felt loose, I flipped it over to let us fall out on its own ... and

IT FELL OUT IN 3 SEPARATE PIECES. After having a panic attack and nearly crying over the cake disaster ... I improvised a bit and glued the pieces back together with my vanilla buttercream. Surprisingly, this actually worked out pretty well. 

Step 9: Shape the cake.

I used one of my Blue Jays hats and traced the shape of the base of the hat and the brim onto a piece of bristol board. I then flipped the cake upside down and trimmed it with a serrated knife to the shape of the base of the hat. I also trimmed all around the cake until I got it to look more or less like the shape of a hat.

I set the template for the brim of the hat aside until I got the fondant ready.

Step 10: Frost the cake.

In the professional caking world, I believe this step is called "crumb coating" ... because it coats the outside of the cake and keeps the crumbs in. I put layer of vanilla buttercream evenly over the entire surface of the cake. Then I let it set in the fridge for about 30 - 40 min.

Step 11: Put cake on cake board.

Once the frosting on the outside of the cake was set (it's hard to the touch), I carefully removed the cake from the baking sheet and placed it onto my "cake board". You can buy actual cake boards that are specifically used for cake presentation. I used a canvas board that I got from Dollarama for $2. To get the cake to stay put, you can put more frosting on the bottom of the cake before placing it onto the board (and then let set for another 30 - 40 min). I didn't bother with this because I didn't have time. I placed the cake directly onto the board.

Step 12: Fondant time.

I got my fondant from Michael's. I bought 1.5 lbs of black and white Wilton's fondant. I wasn't sure how much I would actually need. I only needed the white for the lettering on the front, but I figured I would get extra to be safe. 

I started off by kneading the fondant to get it softer for rolling. After that, I used my rolling pin to flatten out the fondant. At first, I rolled it in all directions. When it started getting thinner, I started rolling it out from the centre to make everything even. I think the general rule is to get it to 1/8th of an inch thick. Once I got it to the right thickness, I lifted it up on one side and rolled it halfway onto my rolling pin ... and then I VERY quickly flipped it onto the cake. 

The one thing I've heard time and time again about fondant is that you have to work very quickly when you're covering the cake because the fondant stretches when you lift it and can rip easily. 

When I was happy that my cake was covered evenly, I cut off the excess fondant (leaving about 1 inch around the cake) with a sharp paring knife. Then I pushed the fondant that was left gently towards the cake, in a tucking motion. I've heard that fondant tends to shrink up the sides once it starts to dry, so I wanted to avoid that. After that, I used my paring knife again to cut away the remaining fondant, keeping as close to the cake as possible. I used the template I had made out of bristol board for the brim of the hat and traced around it to cut the fondant into the same shape. I cut slightly bigger around the template, to avoid the same shrinking problem I mentioned earlier. Before connecting the brim to the rest of the hat, I rolled a random piece of fondant to place under the brim to give it a natural curve.

Step 13: Decorating & detail time!!!

This part was my favourite part of making the cake. It was so fun to add on all the details and slowly watch as it became more like a hat. 

Here are the fondant decorating tools I used: 

The stitching tool (mini pizza cutter looking thing) was so clutch for making this hat cake.

I started by rolling and flattening out a bit of fondant for the top nub of the hat. Then I used the stitching tool to create the stitch lines on the brim of the hat.

I used one of my Blue Jays hats as reference for doing the segmented lines. The hat is actually divided by 6 lines that all connect to the top nub. I used the side of a fork to lightly imprint the lines on the fondant. Then, I went over the lines with the end of the stitching tool with the bigger wheel. On either side of those lines, I noticed there were finer stitched lines. So, I used the other end of the stitching tool (the one with the smaller wheel) to create those lines. Lastly, I used the sharp pokey tool to poke 6 vent holes around the hat, in the centre of the lines. To make the vent holes stand out more, I cut out tiny circles from the black fondant to place on top of the holes that I had poked. 

Last, but not least ... I cut out the "WE THE NORTH" letters from the white fondant that I had rolled out. Initially, I had printed out the words onto a piece of paper to use as a template for the letters. However, the knife I was using wasn't sharp enough, so I was having a really hard time cutting through the paper and the fondant. So, I ended up free-handing the letters.

To attach the decorative fondant pieces to the cake, I added a small amount of water to the pieces with a mini paintbrush.

To finish it all off, I used a tube of black glitter sugar gel to write my birthday message onto the cake board :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMEER!!!

Happy Halloween!

Hurray to my first Halloween in Vancouver and another successful year of costume-making and dressing up!

Here's a sneak peek of my party treats for the night:

I got too tired to prep Friday night, so I only let the Jell-O set and the gummy bears soak for 4 hours on Saturday.

Tip: I always substitute half of the cold water with vodka for a good mix. Let it set for 6 hours.

Tip: Add in just enough alcohol / mix to cover the gummy bears and let them soak overnight.

Every year we spend so long thinking about what we should dress up as, but it's all part of the fun. We were so happy with the way our costumes turned out :) Sameer's Grinch idea was fairly last minute, but thanks to some YouTube makeup tutorials ... we managed to pull it off!

Did anyone guess my costume from my earlier post?

The friendliest Grinch there ever was. 

And of course, no Halloween is complete without some good company. Thanks to everyone who showed up and made it a great time!!!

Pretzel Screamers

As one of my post-work projects this week, I decided to make some cute little "pretzel screamers" to share :) I saw them on Pinterest and decided to try.

Yes, I know there are a couple of eye-less pretzels and pretzels with mismatched eyes.

They're actually pretty simple to make, provided you don't scorch the chocolate when you're trying to melt it.  All you need is:

- Mini pretzels

- Chocolate chips for melting

- Food colouring (optional)

- Butter/vegetable oil/olive oil

- Reese's pieces (or some substitute for eyeballs)

- Wax paper

Step 1: melt the chocolate. 

Good thing I got more chocolate chips than I actually needed because I had to do this step twice. On my first try, I used the double boiler method (as I usually do when I'm trying to melt chocolate). 

EXCEPT, this turned out somewhat disastrously because the chocolate got way too hot, too quickly. I've never used a gas stove before I moved to BC, so I'm still trying to get used to it. Water boils so quickly on a gas stove!!! Also, I've always used dark chocolate for melting and didn't realize that milk & white chocolate gets burnt a lot quicker. So, my first batch of chocolate chips turned into a nasty, mud-like concoction that I had to say goodbye to. 

The second time around, I went the microwave route and heated up the chocolate in a bowl in short intervals (I think I did 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds). I added in a bit of olive oil to the mix each time I took it out of the microwave, until the consistency became "coat-able". 

Step 2: coat the pretzels in chocolate.

I lined a baking sheet with wax paper and then placed the chocolate-covered pretzels on to set.

Pretty straightforward.

Step 3: create glue for the eyeballs.

Using the same microwave method of chocolate-melting, I melted the white chocolate chips.

I then used food colouring to create three different colours of eyeball glue. 

Then I scooped the colours into little plastic bags, so I could squeeze them out onto the pretzels.

I snipped off a corner so I could "pipe".
The purple-ish colour hardened almost right away for some reason, so I had to abandon it :(

Step 4: stick on the eyeballs.

I used Reese's Pieces because I conveniently had some lying around from a box of candy I recently bought from the superstore ... but anything eyeball-like works. I saw pics where people used sprinkles, smarties, m&ms, etc.

I just left some of them without eyeballs because I thought they looked kind of creepy as is.

After put all the eyeballs on, I stuck them all into the fridge to set.

Step 5: SHARE :) 

I got these adorable Frankenstein candy bags from London Drugs for 99 cents (for a pack of 10)! I put the pretzels in a separate plastic bag, so they wouldn't be touching the rest of the candy.