Just Baking in the Slow Cooker.

Hello friends!

I hope your weekend was lovely. And if you have today off, I hope it’s enjoyable as well!

I’m on my reading week, so I actually have the entire week off from classes – but I will be working, I can guarantee that. Woot grad school!

So let’s talk about my weekend, shall we?

If you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen my excitement over what I discovered on my way home:

The variety store that is half a block away from my house sells these. Why am I discovering this after I’ve lived here for 6 months?! I had a vanilla coke obsession as a kid, so the fact that these still exist make me so, so happy. I try not to overdo it on pop, buuuut…considering that I walk past said variety store 2-4 times a day, this will be happening once in a while.

For dinner, I made up the lobster tails I had originally planned for Valentine’s Day (the picture of which got eaten by the camera). I made them the same way I did on New Years, and served them with quinoa and green beans. Delicious.

Eric and I had decided that we were going to exchange gifts on Saturday, but he sprung mine on me Friday night.

so…do you think I like chocolate much? I’ve got two Aeros, two Caramilks (all in large size), two packs of Reese’s, a Mr. Big, gummy bears, and Werther’s Chewy Caramels. I think the chocolate stash is pretty set for a while.

And here’s what I got him:

Chocolate and alcohol. We’re all about the vices on Valentine’s Day, apparently.

I’m not a huge whiskey fan, but this stuff is pretty delicious. I might make him share a little!

Sushi Date

My handsome date and I went for all-you-can-eat at Sushi Eight, our favourite sushi place in town (it also helped that we got a buy one get one free coupon in the mail earlier in the week).

(hello, bright lighting directly above my head and staticky hair. Winter, please go away)

Any sushi experience should start with seaweed salad, in my opinion.

And sashimi should go in there too.

We also split an order of veggie tempura to start.

Before dinner, I decided that I was going to order us rolls that we had never tried before. We tend to gravitate towards the same things…so, that wasn’t allowed this time. I picked all new ones for us, including some of the more creative offerings on the menu.

First up was a Shrimp Crab roll: shrimp tempura, crab meat, eel sauce. I had actually ordered this as a hand roll, but I didn’t care enough to correct them.

Next up:

• Toronto roll (on the left): cream cheese, surf clam, eel, avocado, crab meat.
• Special Sushi 8 roll (middle): shrimp tempura, eel, crab meat, avocado, tobiko.
• Eel special roll (right): spicy crab roll topped with eel, avocado, tobiko and eel sauce.

Brantford roll: deep fried roll with red snapper, crab meat, cucumber, tobiko, eel sauce, spicy sauce.

We both agreed that the special eel roll was our favourite – but, I always gravitate towards eel (notice how it appeared in 3/5 rolls). I’m pretty sure that has become my favourite item when I go out for sushi – salmon would be my second choice. The Toronto roll was pretty fabulous too, I loved the cream cheese addition.

Neither of us were big on the Brantford roll – there was just too much going on there! The deep fried aspect didn’t really do much for me; it just felt unnecessary.

We both definitely had to be rolled (HA!) out of there when we were finished. So full, so delicious.

Sunday

Sunday, typical Sunday. I went to the gym, did some reading, did some cleaning. Annnd…I baked. Sundays just feel like baking days, don’t they?

But I wanted to try something different. I got a Crockpot cookbook for Christmas, and the last few recipes are all things I never would have thought to make in a crockpot: desserts (pudding cake and cobblers) and drinks (lattes, mulled teas). The very last one was for a banana walnut bread, so I decided to test it out.

I made a few alterations to the recipe – I subbed out two tablespoons of butter for applesauce (because I ran out of butter), used 3/4 whole wheat pastry flour, reduced the sugar a bit, and subbed the walnuts for chocolate chips – because banana bread just needs to have chocolate chips, in my humble opinion.

It turned out pretty good! The one side turned out a bit crispy, but the flavour is definitely there. I don’t know if I would make banana bread this way all the time (because when I want banana bread, waiting 40 minutes to an hour in a regular oven in long enough. 3 hours is a tad painful) but it was fun to try.

Dinner was quick and easy:

Oktoberfest turkey sausage with ketchup, honey mustard and banana peppers on a toasted whole wheat bun and a side salad that I topped with balsamic and olive oil (seriously, I love those oils and vinegars as salad toppers). Yum.

Even though it’s my week off, I’m not planning on going home at all – but, my parents are going to come down to visit and treat us for dinner. I’m always excited when they make the trip! I’m also planning to hit up a new-to-me gym this morning. The gym I attend at the university is closed for the holiday; but I was told yesterday that the Y a few blocks from me allows students to have 2 trial passes. I’ve never been inside, but it looks nice and I’ve heard good things. I’m excited to check it out.

Have a great day!

<— What did you get up to this weekend?

<— Have you ever made anything unconventional in a slow cooker?

The “Violent Girl” Problem.

In yesterday’s post, I eluded to a public lecture I attended at my university. In an earlier post, people mentioned that they would be interested in hearing about what I’m learning in school right now (I’ve just started a criminology Masters program, for those of you who are new readers). So, expect these posts once in a while!

Tuesday night, Laurier Brantford kicked off a series of Public Criminology lectures. It’s a 4th year class, where they have a collection of experts on various topics in criminology. The lecture is open to the public for the first hour, then it resumes a class setting. This is only the second time in North America that this sort of class has been offered, so of course I’m extremely excited to be able to be a part of it.

 

Dr. Chesney-Lind

The first speaker in this series was Dr. Meda Chesney-Lind. Dr. Chesney-Lind is a professor of women’s studies at the University of Hawaii, and is world-renowned for her work in women and crime. Considering that this is one of my areas of interest, I was extremely excited to hear her talk! Basically, if you’ve taken any women and crime courses in the last few years, she likely wrote the textbook you used.

Yes, she is pretty brilliant.

I want to talk a little bit about her lecture (I won’t go word for word though…she seems like a nice person, but I’d really rather not run the risk of being sued).

 

The “Violent Girl” Problem, Corporate Media and Racism

Basically, the lecture focused on the rise of the “violent girl” as seen in the media. The media leads the public to believe that issues with girls committing violent crimes and being involved in gangs are much worse than the situation really is. The pictures shown in the media portray girls (often of colour) carrying guns and weapons – even though few girls in gangs carry guns on them. Even in popular culture, girls often get portrayed as being cruel – and the white girl is always the victim.

Good points that stood out to me:

• Prevention programs in detention centres and in the justice system are aimed at boys. These programs will not be as affective for young girls.
• In 2010, girls counted for 33% of the juvenile arrest rate, up a significant amount from 10 years before. The arrest rate for simple assault went up, while rates for murder actually went down.
• Zero Tolerance in high schools actually created more problems than it solved – it leads to a possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy for students who actually weren’t doing anything dangerous to begin with. If you tell someone often enough that they’re a deviant or “no-good”, they will start to believe it, and act upon that belief.
• For girls, the arrest rate is highest for simple assault.
• Females are far more likely to be arrested for domestic assault than males. Although statistics show that men are more likely to commit domestic assault, police are more likely to arrest a woman.

 

Information taken from Dr. Chesney-Lind’s presentation at Wilfred Laurier University-Brantford on Tuesday, Sept. 19th, 2012.

 

It was definitely a fascinating lecture and I’m looking forward to hearing from more speakers.

 

Workout

Because the rain ruined my running plans Tuesday, I went for it today – 5 miles, done.

 

Splits:

• mile 1: 10:02 – I was definitely dragging at the beginning of my run. Holy lead legs, Batman.
• mile 2: 9:42
• mile 3: 9:36
• mile 4: 9:15 – much better!
• mile 5: 9:32

 

I had originally planned on going for 6 today, but by the time I hit 5 I had had enough. Gotta listen to that body!

 

The Meals

Protein pancake. Of course. I still don’t have ground flax, so I used a tablespoon of whole wheat pastry flour and it worked great. Topped with the usual banana slices and a drizzle of almond butter.

Whenever I put almond butter (or any kind of nut butter) on ANYTHING, I always end up putting a small spoonful directly into my mouth. Because it is wonderful. I’m thinking I need to pick up some nutella/chocolate peanut butter…girls got a craving!

 

For lunch, I took some leftover quesadilla filling and threw it on a salad with more guacamole, sour cream and salsa. I crumbled a few Red Pepper and Salsa chips on there for crunch – definitely liking these chips! A few made it right into my mouth for good measure.

Dinner was more salad (apparently I was really feeling the romaine?) with tomato, red bell pepper, feta cheese and this dressing. For the main part of the meal, we had some Oktoberfest turkey sausage I picked up from the market last weekend on whole wheat buns with honey mustard and ketchup.

Definitely a fan of those sausages! I want to pick up some more soon and use them to make a jambalaya. I love sausage, but I’d rather get some where the meat is a tad leaner – this definitely fit the bill!

 

Almost Friday! (Well, I have Fridays off, so today is like Friday for me. )

 

<— Any comments you can make about the violent girl problem? How do you feel about the representation of violent girls or girl gangs in the media?

<—Any one else have the “spoon to face” issue with nut butters? It’s just so yummy!