The time had come. My hair was so long that it was starting to bother me and it took forever to wash. I never did anything with it but tie it back in a ponytail. It had no style. It deserved a better home. Since I had planned on cutting it pretty drastically I decided to donate it to charity — the first thing that came to mind was Locks of Love, but I saw that this was for people in the United States. Then I found Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which accepts hair donations to make wigs for cancer patients in collaboration with the Canadian Cancer Society. So I printed my form, researched on the web for a Vancouver stylist who would tell me what would look good on me, and headed out!

You can see the results by clicking on the image, it will take you to the gallery where I have before and after shots. I LOVE the haircut! It’s the best hair cut I’ve had in my entire life. I went to Taylor Smit at Ego Salon on Granville Street and he was amazing. I didn’t really know what I wanted, and he convinced me to go shorter than I had anticipated because he had to cut off some of my dead ends before donating my ponytail and we wanted to donate as much as possible — over a foot! There were layers, which I was afraid of since the last time I had layers it looked more like a mullet… granted, it was a $12 hair cut from First Choice Hair Cutters, so I guess you get what you pay for. He chose the style and cut my hair and it is so easy to maintain! I even got a fringe! I will go back there for all my hair cuts until I move away from BC, LOL.

For those who are still left in the dark, Lionel and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in mid- to end-October. We’re very excited! We had our ultrasound on May 23, 2008. Unfortunately we couldn’t take a video — we bought an HDTV camcorder for this purpose, but it was against hospital policy. In fact, the technician said that if she caught Lionel she would ask him to leave. We thought that was a bit unnecessary, as we are very cooperative people, but there it was.

During the procedure the technician didn’t want me to ask questions because she was concentrating, and I couldn’t really see the screen, so Lionel would tell me what he was seeing every now and then — torso, foot, head, etc. She had some trouble getting some of the pictures and she shook my abdomen kind of roughly and I could see the baby shaking around! Eep. She said he was fine though. After she got her measurements and determined that everything was OK she was nice enough and showed us Baby’s face, feet, etc. It was hospital policy not to tell the parents the sex of the baby, but we asked very nicely and she said it was a boy — and yup, the image confirmed it. Definitely not a girl!

When we heard it was a boy Lionel and I just looked at each other and were like, “Uh oh!” We didn’t have a name picked out for a boy! We still don’t… but we’re working on it. All this time I was envisioning that it would be a girl, I guess because we have two nieces and I found it easy to imagine, and we had a name picked out for a girl, l and I was imagining my life raising a little girl… then this was kind of a shock, lol. I’m happy of course — we wanted more than one and I think it’s best to have an older brother, it worked out great for me!, it’s just that I was surprised. We’re going to get peed on!

We have to wait 30 days to get the digital copy of the ultrasound photos, but the technician gave us a print out of a few that we’ve scanned in. Click the image to see the rest!

The first time I made a chocolate soufflé I used the Betty Crocker Bridal Edition cookbook that my Aunt Diane gave me. The soufflé was terrific, but very rich. It helped me to learn how a soufflé works and what I could do better! The original recipe was made with flour and a lot of sugar. Lionel and I found it a bit sweet, so I reduced the overall sweetness and used Splenda for the sauce base since the sugar did not make up the dessert structure (I left the same amount of sugar in the meringue). Also, I replaced half the butter with Butter Buds, a flavoured butter substitute made from natural butter, that I bought in San Diego, although unfortunately you can’t get it in Canada, and used less egg yolk. The recipe will work using the full amount of butter just as well. In edition, I added some mandarin oranges to break up the deep chocolate taste, and added more vanilla. You can’t tell it’s gluten-free and half the carbs and fat! I hope you enjoy it :)

It is important to have everything ready to go once you start because the hot sauce will form a skin if you have to wait between steps.

Ingredients

For the hot sauce:

• 2 tbsp Splenda*
• 2 2/3 tbsp Cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• pinch of salt

* Sugar can also be used if preferred.

To add after cooking:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp Butter Buds*
• 1 tbsp water*
• 1 tsp vanilla
• mandarin orange sections

* If you don’t have Butter Buds, omit water and use an extra 1/2 tbsp of melted butter.

For the meringue:

• 1 egg white from egg above
• 3 tbsp egg white product
• pinch of cream of tarter
• 1.5 tbsp sugar

Preparation

	Combine Splenda and cocoa in a small saucepan. Mix cornstarch with 1 tbsp of the milk to form a paste. Add milk to cocoa mixture and cook over medium-high heat until cocoa is dissolved and hot, but not boiling. Add cornstarch mix and continue cooking until mixture thickens, about 1 minute. Let cool slightly.
	Temper the egg yolk by adding a small amount of chocolate mixture, stir completely. Keep adding chocolate mixture a little at a time until the egg yolks have warmed - this prevents them from curdling.
	Once tempered, transfer chocolate mixture to bowl with the vanilla and add the yolk mixture and melted butter. Stir.
	Beat the egg whites to soft peaks then gradually add the sugar and beat to stiff peaks. Take a small amount, about 1/5 to 1/4, of the egg whites and gently fold it into the chocolate to lighten the mixture.
	Add this lightened mixture to the egg white and fold gently until half mixed.
	Add the mandarin orange and fold gently together.
	Pour into souffle dishes and put in a pan. Fill with hot water 1/3 to 1/2 way up the sides. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes for a firm souffle, or 38 minutes for a traditional French souffle with a runny center. Do not open the oven door! Top with powdered sugar and serve immediately. Serves 2.

So Lionel and I upgraded to the Nikon D80 camera a few weeks ago with Linda and Charles’ help and we’ve really been enjoying it! I have some pictures of my greenhouse assembly to post, along with a big backlog of pictures from the Toshiba, but in the meantime I thought I would share these cool bug shots. THE CAMERA IS INSANE!!! If you look at the large version of the picture you can actually see the little hairs on it’s body!!

I’m not sure what kind of beetle this is but we see him or her every now and then on our patio, it sticks around for a few days, and then goes away for another month or two. Despite the long seven-story climb it never comes inside our house even though we leave the patio door open all the time. It likes to stay by the patio glass. When I saw it again I just had to take a picture! My attempts at documenting it with the Toshiba have been laughable and in no way as cool as these!

Before	After	Description
		Repaired tears and folds. Could have done better, but I’m pleased with the results.
		Adjusted colour and levels, removed mold and burns, corrected for camera motion blur.
		Adjusted colour, levels, and smart sharpened.
		Repaired several folds, cloned over holes. Adjusted color and levels. Sharpened.
		Gradient color adjustment for nonuniform colour deterioration. Sharpened.
		Adjusted color and levels. Sharpened.
		Repaired fold, adjusted levels, sharpened.
		Gradient levels adjustment for nonuniform darkening. Sharpened.

To see these and other photos from the past visit my Oldies album by clicking the photo to your left. Lionel did a great job on Sam and Steve’s photos where they’re wearing sweaters and just graduated from Kindergarten because they were printed on textured paper and he removed most of the texture using a Fourier transform. You can see these by going to Sam or Steve’s album within Oldies.

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 small sweet red pepper
• 4 stalks green onion
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 large handful of fresh parsley
• 8 or so fresh mint leaves
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Quinoa (keen-waa) isn’t that popular in North America, but it’s nice to try something different. Quinoa is the edible seeds of the goosefoot plant and is grown in South America. It was highly appraised by the Incas who called it the “mother of all grains” (Wikipedia:Quinoa). This was the first time I have tried to cook it and I’m quite pleased with the results. It’s not hard to cook at all!

Before you use quinoa you should wash it really well in a large bowl by swishing it around. The seeds are covered with a soapy substance that will make your quinoa taste bitter if you don’t wash it off. Transferred it to a strainer and ran cold water through it.

Put the quinoa in a non-stick pot and add the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer 15 to 20 minutes or until quinoa is translucent and the white thread-like attachment just starts to separate. Let it cool to a warm (but not cold) temperature.

While the quinoa is cooking toss your pine nuts in a small non-stick skillet to toast them. They will taste much more flavourful when they’re toasted and less acidic. Keep on eye on them until they start to brown up, stirring when necessary. You don’t need to use any oil for this, the nuts have enough oil already. Put aside when done.

Chop the green onion into 1/4″ thick segments and place in a large bowl. Dice the red pepper and finely chop the parsley and mint and add them to the bowl. Grate the zest from half a lemon and add. Toss in your pine nuts. Into a smaller bowl, squeeze half the juice from the lemon half and add about 1 tbsp of olive oil. Mix and set aside.

Add your warm quinoa and mix. Add the lemon dressing and salt/pepper to taste. Stir well and serve.

This salad has a great fresh taste and is very filling and nutritious. Serves 3 generously.

• 1 whole tilapia
• 1/2 lemon
• fresh dill
• fresh parsley
• salt & pepper to taste

You can use frozen tilapia for this recipe, or any other whole fish for that matter. The fish should not smell “fishy” and the eyes should be clear. Make sure it is gutted and de-scaled. Rinse out the inside of the fish well. Cut lemon into slices and put inside cavity of fish. Add parsley and dill. Salt & pepper the skin and place on a greased pan. Bake at 350F until fish flakes easily, approximately 15 minutes.

The cooked fish. I added onion powder on top but I wouldn’t do that again, it interferes with the fresh taste of the natural flavours. To serve, pull off the head and carefully cut the top fillet away from the rib cage and backbone. When the top fillet is removed, peel off the backbone, ribs, and fins, then serve the bottom fillet. Serves 2.

In either case, I was so proud of the supper I made today that I had to blog about it :) I baked trout with fresh dill from our urban garden, butter, and lemon juice. I’ve done this a lot before but never with fresh herbs :) With that a made a chickpea salad with chickpeas, tomatoes, green onion, sunflower seeds, chopped pecans, and fresh cilantro and basil from the garden, seasoned with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

To go with it I made a sweet tossed salad to balance the savoury chickpeas. I used romaine lettuce, cucumber, dried cranberries, and dried blueberries with raspberry vinaigrette. Woo! And to top it off as a snack that day we had edamame, which is steamed soy beans in the pods with salt, a really good chip substitute and delicious too!

Two days before this Lionel made an AMAZING pasta salad. He lightly steamed some fresh broccoli and mixed it with whole wheat bowtie pasta, tomatoes, boiled egg, fresh basil, dried oregano, olive oil, salt, and pepper. WOW. Best broccoli EVER!!!

I’m so excited to do some more cooking soon :)