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We had a nice Easter dinner with Rosemarie and Rob on Monday night. Rosemarie came over in the afternoon so we could have some sister-time while Scott was at work. Gotta squeeze in as much sister-time before she leaves!! By the way, have I mentioned that she’s going to FIJI FOR A WHOLE YEAR ON EXCHANGE???????!!!! SO jealous, although hopefully Scott and I will be able to visit her at some point so that is pretty exciting. She has started up her own blog so check that out: http://threepiece.wordpress.com/

Anyway back to last Monday.

Rosemarie and I made a tourtiere (French Canadian meat pie). It was actually extremely simple to make, and very tasty. Pie dinners are so tasty.

We also had salad, mashed potatoes, peas and gravvvvvy. Om nom nom.

Rob made us a nice fruity dessert. I liked the strawberry sauce a lot.

We played some Dominion, but that game kind of annoys me. Why are the rules so vague?? I always have this feeling like we are not playing the game correctly. We also played a couple games of cribbage with my new crib board that I found in the mail room. Scott thinks I’m gross for taking it, but I think it’s ok!!!

I had a big midterm yesterday and had a lot of work due this week so I’ve been studying all week. Very boring. We have today off though because BCIT is having an Open House. I have to go in tomorrow for two hours to help out. I plan on getting a big chunk on one of my papers that is due in a couple weeks today, but so far I’ve just been procrastinating. Oops.

I got volunteered to make a poster for the Open House about nuclear medicine heart imaging. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on it due to midterm, so I just kept it extremely extremely basic. Does the poster explain anything new to you? Scott coloured in the letters for me while watching hockey.

Speaking of hockey, my dream of a Canucks-Senators final is not off to a great start. :/ I will continue to believe it could actually happen though, until one of the teams gets knocked out.

Ok really I should do something productive now. This is a busy busy weekend so I should not be wasting precious time.

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We spent too much money on food and drink in March. We’re usually very thrifty but last month we got sloppy I guess. We went out to eat a lot, drank at bars, and spent a lot at the grocery stores.

To get back on track we’ve decided to try and bring that food and drink amount way way down, and back under budget for April.

Some ways that we cut costs:

1. Don’t eat out as much. Duh, that one is a given. If we’ve been invited out we can eat at home first so that we don’t end up hungry while out, even if it means eating at an awkward time of day.

2. Make a meal plan. Scott and I do this together on the weekend. We try to plan ahead for the next 5 or 6 days, so that we have lunches and dinners arranged and can do all the shopping at once. I’m pretty sure that you spend less when you do the shopping once than if you do the shopping every day. And we almost never end up having to buy lunch at work/school.

  • check the flyers for sales, and plan a menu around that. The stuff on sale is usually the stuff that is in season, so as well as saving money you are getting nicer quality.
  • take inventory of the food you already have in your fridge, and plan a menu around that, so less gets wasted.
  • plan out meals that have similar ingredients, reducing produce waste.

3. Eating cheaper stuff. This doesn’t mean we have to eat Mr. Noodles every day, just maybe not eating steak every day. This blog has tons and tons of very economical recipes: http://budgetbytes.blogspot.ca/ Nearly every single thing that Rosemarie or Scott or I have made from this website has been a success. I’ve mentioned her blog before and I continue to stand by it. She’s got an amazing website there.

Um well I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Some common sense tips that you probably would have come up with on your own. Saving money isn’t too hard!

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On Sunday we made homemade Montreal style bagels. I used this recipe, and they turned out pretty nice! I was surprised at how simple it actually was to make our own bagels. We just had to make the dough, knead for 10 minutes, cut up the dough and shape it into bagels, then boil for 90 seconds, dip in sesame seeds, and bake for 20 minutes.

Before baking:

I forgot to take an after baking picture. They puffed up a bit in the oven and got a nice brown colour.

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Oh my. Our house smells sooooooo good right now. Scott made blueberry muffins and despite me not liking cooked fruit, I am drooling all over the place.

We also had a lovely dinner. Banh mi and some excellent homemade fries on the side. Nice work Scott!!

Yesterday revolved around dips. Scott made jalapeno cheddar hummus, I made guacamole, and spinach and artichoke dip, and Rosemarie made 7 layer dip. We ate everything with baby carrots, corn chips, and crusty bread. We also had some spicy wings. All while watching the Superbowl playing boardgames and having a few drinks with the Superbowl on in the background.

The hummus was nice!! I wouldn’t make it for an every day snack, but it was a nice change from regular hummus. I never would have thought of putting cheese in hummus, but it was goooood.

Unfortunately we took no pictures of the food. Blogger fail.

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I tried another Budget Bytes recipe yesterday. Slow cooker non-fried refried beans!

I don’t have any pictures (not very photogenic) but they turned out awesome!!! SO much nicer than canned refried beans, and way cheaper. Also they must be pretty healthy because the only ingredients are dried pinto beans, water, onion, garlic, jalapeno and some spices! No oil whatsoever, they just cooked in the slow-cooker for 8 hours and then I mashed them.

The recipe made about 5 servings of beans for less than $2. I bet I could even get cheaper dried beans if I bought a bigger package or got them in bulk. We ate yummy shrimp burritos last night, and we froze the remaining four servings for another time.


Scott did end up making the choc ripple cake. He whipped the cream by hand!!


It was tasty. I ate it with breakfast….. I’m still off chocolate after the morning. Actually speaking of sleep I’ve been pretty good at it lately! I fall asleep much quicker than before, although I still do have the occasional insomnia night when I’m really anxious/nervous but it’s really way less frequent than last spring/summer.


Dinner last week. Quinoa with shrimp, avocado, butternut pumpkin, corn, red pepper, green onion, lime. I made the quinoa in the rice cooker, stir-fried all the vegetables, removed them and seared the shrimp, then mixed everything together, added avocado, and doused it all with the juice of one whole lime. YUM YUM.

I’ll be back with another awesome gift post later today.