Starbucks' Chinese clientele in Richmond.

The other day, a Chinese woman with a thick Northern Mandarin accent (I know, because my Dad has the same accent) in front of me ordered a grande Americano, and asked for 2 more empty grande cups.

I was puzzled at first. However, after she received her order, she waved to her two comrades standing at the far corner. The three of them proceeded to push everyone (myself included) out of the way and hogged the sugar/milk service bar and began to split the grande Americano into 3 equal parts amongst the 3 grande cups they had in total. Two of them filled the rest of their grande cups with coffee cream, while the woman (who originally made the purchase of the grande Americano) walked straight back to the kiosk and asked the barista for "a lee tell beet of soya pwease, vewy ah-lar-gic to cweam and milka". At the end, all three of them laughed, chatted, and walked away with a grande Starbucks coffee each in their hands.

Discuss.

Garfield would've been proud.

It looks like my guest blogger (see previous entry) is a little bit disappointed that there were zero buzzes to his post. Hopefully, he won't be discouraged by this and will make another guest appearance soon.

Anyways, I'd like to share with you an awesome lasagna recipe that I tried out last week. I had alot of cheeses in my fridge and I had a craving for cheese and pasta. I also wanted to make something worthwile so that hubs and I can have leftovers for lunches (which, I always try my best to do... it's healthier and waaaay cheaper than eating out!). So what did I make? LASAGNA. I've never really enjoyed making lasagna in the first place, because I hate that the top of my lasagnas always get crusty and somewhat burnt on the edges, and when I cut them up they turn into a soggy pile of mess and everything falls apart. For the life of me, I could never figure out why. But this recipe gave me the perfect lasagna. It's also great because it's so darn easy to make, and you can't possibly screw it up. They cut into perfect layered squares and oh, and I didn't get any burnt tops/edges! If you love lasagna or you want to make something to feed a small party of hungry people for dinner, this is awesome!

Sausage, Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna


Sauce:
8 oz light Italian sausage (I used Italian sweet basil sausages, because it was on sale.)
8 oz extra-lean ground beef
1 c chopped onions
2 t minced garlic
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried basil
1/4 t dried red pepper flakes (I didn't have any.)
1 jar (700 mL) pasta sauce (I just used whatever I had in the pantry.)
1 can (540mL) tomatoes with italian herbs, undrained, cut up (I used regular PC diced tomatos.)
1 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 t pepper (I never bother with measuring salt and pepper, or any seasonings.)

12 uncooked whole wheat lasagna noodles (I just used regular lasagna noodles.)
2 c light ricotta cheese (Couldn't find light, so I used the real ricotta cheese. That's ok, I've been working out alot these days!)
1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1/3 c grated parmesan cheese (Hubs dislikes parmesan cheese so I didn't use any.)
1 egg
1/3 c chopped FRESH basil (I used dried basil... sue me).
1/2 t salt (I used kosher salt)
2 c packed shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (I just add whatever amount I wanted... and I also added cheddar cheese because I happen to have some in the fridge).

Directions:
1. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.

2. To make the sauce: remove casing from the sausage and break into small pieces in a large lot pan with a tiny bit of olive oil (I used extra virgin) . Add ground beef, onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat until the meat is no longer pink. Stir in oregano, red pepper flakes and dried basil.

Cook 1 more minute. Add pasta sauce, tomatoes, vinegar and pepper. Bring to a boil, and then simmer until you're ready to use it (at least 20 minutes).

3. While the sauce is simmering, cook the lasagna noodles until they are just ready (about 8-9 minutes). Rinse noodles with cold water (or they'd stick into a huge slab!).

4. In a medium bowl, mix together the ricotta, spinach, basil, parmesan, egg and salt.

5. To assemble the lasagna: start with 1 cup of the meat sauce on the bottom of the 9x13 pan. Top with 4 lasagna noodles. Spread 1/3 of the remaining sauce over the noodles. Top with 4 more noodles. Add 1/3 of the sauce again, then add ALL of the ricotta spinach mixture. Top with 4 more noodles. Add the rest of the sauce and spread evenly.

6. Top it all off with the shredded mozzarella. In my case, I added a load of mozza and cheddar cheese. omg, cheese!!!

7. *This is important*: Spray some oil on a piece of foil and cover your lasagna. Bake at 375F for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes. Let stand for about 10-15 minutes before serving (or everything will become soggy).

8. Eat!



Mr.C and I really enjoyed this lasagna. We were also happy that we had awesome leftovers for lunches!

Uh Oh

This is a blog down memory lane. The year is 1997 and the dial up modem is in full effect like Wrex N' Effects (but 5 years later). The world is crazy about the interweb and alladvantage.com is about to revolutionize the way we surf the net. If you can identify with any of the crazy bantar written above, you sir/mam are ready to officially enter dwayne's World.

ZZZZZZZZ, ffffffffffffffff, kkkkkkkkkkkkkk, deeeeee is the keyboard reenactment of a dial up modem. 36 seconds and 28.8k later, you are offically connected to the internet. But before you double click the Internet Explorer icon, a question cuts through the air drowning out the sound of your brother pretending to practice piano in the background. It's your Mom asking you why everytime she hears ZZZZZZZZ, ffffffffffffffff, kkkkkkkkkkkkkk, deeeeee, none of her friends can phone the house. You smile and reply, "Not sure, I guess it's just a busy signal. Kind of like a faxee gay."

With the formalities out of the way, you aim your mouse arrow and proceed to double click your two button, non click wheel, geometrically shaped mouse. It's officially e-mail time. If you're lucky, there will be a message from a buddy who you haven't heard from in a while. And if it's a really good day, you'll get an e-mail with a subject line that looks like this fwd: hilarious jokes. Now it's on like donkey kong. Time to go nuts and laugh out loud.

As the e-minutes tick away, and your Mom's phone calls have mysteriously vanished, a more pressing issue is at hand. It's time to double click the little flower. You know, the yellow centered flower, surrounded by the nonchalant green petals and lonely single red petal. Yep, it's ICQ time. For all you new chat program users (MSN and later), ICQ = I Seek You. Don't act like you're not impressed.

You then login into your user account like this:

ICQ: 53886449
Password: password

After a few revolutions of the single red petal, your e-world is connected. Instant yellow rectangles blitz your 17" CRT monitor. A bombardment of Uh Oh's rip through the speakers giving you all the e-props you need. And so it begins....the beginning of the end. E-minutes tick into E-hours. The sound of birds chirp to the morning sun. "Just a few more minutes Mom, I'm going to fun gow right now!"

dT

Bubye 2008.... Hullo, 2009.

Hello, kiddos!  I didn't forget about this place.  I guess my lack of blogging has been a result of (or combination of) 1) lack of time, 2) laziness, 3) lack of interesting things to say.  Maybe I'm the only one who still read this blog.  That's ok, I have no problem talking to and reflecting on myself.  The year of 2008 has whipped by quickly before my eyes and I still can't believe it's 2009 already.  2008 has been a fulfilling year with lots of blessings and excitement along the way.  Let's recap, shall we?

• Visited Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong with my hubby in March.  It was our first vacation together!  Originally, we didn't plan on vacationing after the wedding (we didn't even have a honeymoon).  But alot of my families (including my 93 year old grandma) from my mom's family were unable to attend our wedding back in 2007, so we decided to use the 1.5 weeks we had in spring break to visit my grandma and relatives in HK.  We found a great deal in the end so we stopped by Tokyo for 3 nights before our HK trip.  It was a fun trip.... too short, though.  We hope to return to Japan some day.
• Celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary.... actually, we didn't really celebrate.  I think we went to Kingspark for dinner (mmmm, honger mini-meals) and rented a movie afterwards.  We didn't even have gifts for each other or anything.... just cards.  But, we did go to a nicer place for dinner later on to celebrate our 10 years together as a couple.  The best part was, the meal was free because we had a gift card.  Double woooooo!
• My best friend gave birth to a healthy, handsome little boy!  He's probably the best looking baby I've met so far, and he melts my heart!
• Went to Vegas for 6 days.  It was an impromptu trip as hubs and I weren't planning on vacationing again after the Asia trip.  However, my coworker was able to score us a deal on a 1 bedroom apartment (with full size kitchen!) right on the strip for $40/night.  We also flew on Allegiant Air out of Bellingham to save money because, well, it was $80 per person for flight.  Score!
• Hubs and I both got into grad school and started our programs in September.  It was crazy going to work full time and doing school part time, but we survived our first term and did really well in our courses.   I was proud of the fact that I still managed to cook at home most of the days (besides eating with our parents).  And we didn't kill each other. Let's hope this keeps up.
• My brother got into VPD.  We are all so proud of and excited for him.  I think my dad even recorded a VHS clip of him being interviewed on the news... lmao.  Our families are looking forward to him graduating from the academy this summer.  (I want a ride in the cop car... with sirens on!  weeeee!)

The hubs and I were very lucky to both have 2 weeks off from work and school over the holiday break, so we took the opportunity to bum around and do nothing.  It was weird for the first day or two... not having any work or readings to do at home, and I was constantly on my Blackberry doing work emails.  It didn't take us long to start learning how to relax (I think hubs is better at this than me).  We mainly vegged at home, rented movies, braved the crowded malls, got caught up and finished Heroes' Season 2 (Yattaaaa!), spent time with our families, and hung out with a few good friends over the holidays.  I was happy to have time to cook and bake for families and friends.  Aside from getting small presents for our parents and brothers, we tried to stay away from overspending on things we don't really need because really, we're already blessed with far too many things we don't deserve.  But, I did get a coffee card for the hubs at his favorite coffee shop (not Starbucks!), and he got me a pair of iPod headphones so that I can use my iPod when I'm at the gym.  Have I mentioned how sucky the stock ones are?  They never want to stay in your ears and don't even try to work out with them on... they just slide right off your ears as soon as you move.

Anyways, there are many things I hope to accomplish in 2009.  Some of which include:

• Having more patience at work.  Oh dear, I couldn't count how many times at work I've lost my cool and was really close to killing anything that moves near me.  Not good.
• Keep up with my work out sessions at the gym (I completely stopped my exercise routine over the holidays, so I'm looking forward to getting back on it next week).
• Find time to do devotions.
  

Happy new year, everyone.  I hope this year brings you much love and happiness along the way!

Working hard.

I'm on my way to Week #6 of my class and I'm happy to report that I'm still alive! I did better than I expected on my first paper, so let's hope this pattern keeps up for my next 4 papers and my final course paper. I'm also extremely excited about this coming week as there is no class due to Thanksgiving long weekend. I'm hoping to get ahead (crazy) in my readings, and start thinking about my final course paper.... because I have no clue what to do for that yet. But maybe I'll just panic... later.

Ever since school started in September, I knew I'd be in for a long ride filled with sleepless nights, stress and lack of energy. I was determined to be in good shape and have a healthy body to keep up with work and school. Actually, I've been feeling out of shape since I got married (marriage leads to laziness?! whuh.), so starting school with full time work this fall was more than enough reasons to finally kick myself in the derrière and do something to get myself in shape and in good health. The other reason was that apparently I'm in the higher risk group in terms of getting diabetes (since that runs in both my parents' families), so I gotta watch out for that. I'm no expert in fitness, healthy living or nutritional science, but I've been doing the following in the past year that I think are good for me (I hope they are!).

• Decrease sugar intake in my diet (None of the sugar-free stuff with aspartame crap, etc. No sugar means no sugar!). Examples: drinking water, tea or unsweetened beverages instead of juices, pop. Or I try to dilute my juices with water if I really need juice! When I bake, I just do half (or even less) the sugar amount required.
  
• More protein, vegetables and fruits in my diet (I'm not a big fan of fruits for some odd reason, so this requires discipline on my part)
• Decrease carb intake (I'm a sucker for carbs of all sorts... so this is going to take ALOT of discipline).
• Go multi-grain whenever possible!
• Decrease amount of fatty and junk food intake - bye bye fried goodies, nummy chips, chicken wings.... have I mentioned I'm a huge fan of savory snacks!? :(
• Always eat breakfast
  
• Plenty of fluids throughout the day
• No over-eating. Smaller meals throughout the day with healthy snacks or fruits in between meals if I get hungry
• Cook at home and avoid eating out too much (this has been easy, since we already eat at home most of the time).
  

I try not to cut out certain foods, but only have smaller portions or limit myself if they are not within the "good" food group. I've also been hitting the gym 2-3 times a week at work since mid-September. It's pretty awesome because my employee monthly pass only costs me $20 and it's all-you-can-workout-in-a-month! It's good opportunity for me to get out of the office once in a awhile since I have the bad habit of working through my lunch and not take any breaks. I also go for walks around my neighborhood on the weekends whenever possible, but lately it's been walking around the malls because of the gloomy weather we've been getting (and for the next 6 months). Sigh.

Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this up. So far, I've been feeling great. Although I must say at times it's been tough. There's always this evil, repetitive voice inside your head saying things like...

"You already exercised yesterday, give yourself a break!"
"This big plate of pasta is yummeh! Eat it, you'll feel so happy after eating it and you can work it off later!"
"Hello, I'm a big bowl of rice. If you don't eat me now you'll just crave me more later!"
"It's ok, you gotta enjoy life once in awhile. Eat this slice of gooey cheesy pizza for the ultimate satisfaction in life."

meh.

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm really thankful for Mr.C, my families, my friends who care for me, and mostly, the Big Guy upstairs for loving me.

Returning to where I left off.... 8 years ago.

Today marks the first day of my triumphant (insert rolleyes emoticon) return back to school! I must admit that I've been having butterflies this past week leading up to today, accompanied by the occasional sleepless nights, the sudden thoughts of "omg what the hell am I getting myself into?", to the random thoughts of "maybe I wouldn't have to worry about anything if I fail my first course". Talk about lack of confidence; who on earth thinks about failing something before attempting it?

Anyhoo, I was pretty nervous all day today at work until I started driving to UBC. That was when everything suddenly seemed so familar and brought back many fond memories of my undergraduate studies there. Not much has changed, yet many things were noticeably different. Thanks to my supportive boss, I was given the go-ahead to leave work early so that I could sort myself out on campus; get my ID card, arrange for parking, orient myself (which took a mere few minutes). It was also interesting to see the changes (or lack of) in a span of 8-10 years.

Things that have changed:

• Parking passes are no longer a flimsy, plastic card (which you stored in a flimsy plastic pocket glued permanently to your windshield so you are left with a nasty residue when you try to remove it) that you insert everytime you enter/exit a parkade. It's a pass that is attached to your windshield by a suction cup. All you need to do is drive up to the gate, let your pass activate the gate through a sensor, and bam, the gate opens. It's high-tech, yo.
• People no longer use pagers, or cell phones. They use text messages, on their fancy blackberries.
• Roundabouts at W.16 and Wesbrook Mall (why would they build such a thing, when it seems like nobody understood how to use it properly?)
• A Timmy Ho's on campus!
• I'm actually one of the younger people in my class. Wow.
  
• I'm married.
• I don't have any friends or know anyone on campus! :(
  
• I can't carpool with my hubby to save money, or hang out with him at the arcade before or after class. :(
• Everyone carries a laptop.
  

Things that haven't changed:

• Houses (read: Mansions) along SW Marine are still very nice... and not very affordable.
• Parking is still expensive. $1.50 per half hour? Is this the airport or something?
• There are alot of Chinese people.
  
• Chinese people speaking (and giggle) very loudly.
• The Fraser Parkade is dark, filthy, and still plastered with moss and whatever weird looking flora that are all over the walls and stairs.
  
• Buchanan's washrooms are nasty.
• Plant Operations technicians working (or trying to look like they are working) in groups of 3 or more. Yet, nobody seems to know what they are trying to accomplish (imagine 3 or 4 guys holding shovels, gathering around a pothole, chatting over coffee).
• My stupid looking grad photo is still on the alumni wall in the Geography Building! Hahaha!
• Lack of healthy food/drink choices on campus.
  
• Bumpy highway.
• The average car found on campus costs no less than $30K. Popular brand names include BMW, Benz, Porsche - mostly driven by Asians.
  
• My last name; after many attempts in sending over proofs/documentation, the Office of the Registrar still have difficulty realizing that I've changed my last name. After talking to what seems like 10 different staffs at the office, I eventually gave up. I'm happy to announce that I'm still a Chiu! Puhaha.

One thing that was intriguing was how much information was associated with my student ID, and how far back UBC tracks my personal information. All I had to do was give my student number to UBC Parking Office, and they were able to retrieve my DL#, and all the license plates, make, model and color of the cars I use to drive to campus between 1996 to 2000. I mean, they don't even use the same parking systems anymore since I left. Freaky.

Anyways, I hope He gives me the sanity to get through this year.

mmmmmuffins.

I forgot to post a picture of the blueberry muffins I made the other day. I think I may have found the best muffins recipe (for now). The texture is very soft and not too crumbly..... even after being left overnight. The recipe also calls for a crumble top, but I didn't make it as I fear it may be too sweet. I might try it another time. I cut the sugar in the recipe by a bit more than half and it was still really good and sweet enough for me. This is good as the husband and I have been trying to eat healthily and we have cut down our daily sugar intake. I also cut the sugar amount so that my Dad can eat the muffins too (he's a diabetic). I hate that splenda crap. Splenda makes everything taste .... fake and chemically altered?!

Super Delicious Blueberry Muffins (stolen from allrecipes)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar (I cut the sugar in the recipe by a little more than half)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (I only had corn oil at home and it worked well!!)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk (I used 1%)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

(Crumble topping)

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

I doubled up the recipe and made about 17 decent sized muffins! If you have a ton of fresh blueberries at home right now (snerk!), I recommend you try this :)