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A few weeks ago I made a salad for Kendras Christmas dinner party. I wasn’t sure how  well it would go over, it’s a favourite of mine, but most people don’t like what I do. To my surprise and delight, it went over well and I have been receiving compliments on it ever since.I figured I would post the recipe up so others can make it if they please (Andrew).

There are three parts to this salad and it likely works best if they are prepared in the following order:

1. The Mushrooms
2. The Dressing
3. The Greens  

First, The Mushrooms Ingredients:

•  1/2 cup of any cooking wine, white is preferable
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tabelspoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinager
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 big portobello mushrooms, stems removed

In a bowl whisk togethor all of the ingredients, save for the mushroom caps. Marinate the mushrooms in the mixture for 30 mins.While the mushrooms are marinating, heat up your oven to 400f. Place the mushrooms, upside down, onto a deep baking sheet and spoon some of the marinade into the caps. Cover with aluminium foil and roast for 30 mins, at which point you should flip the mushrooms and roast for another 10 minutes, uncovered.After 10 mins is up, remove from the oven and let cool till they are still warm, but not burning hot. Slice the mushrooms and put aside.

Second, The Dressing

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 cup spicy mustard

Blend all the ingredients togethor…simple.  

Third, The Greens

Ingredients:

• 8 cups of greens
• 1 avocado sans peel and pit, cut in 2cm cubes
• 1 red onion, julienne
  
• 1 15ounce can of chick peas, rinsed

Combine all ingredients togethor in a salad bowl.    

Togethor 

Combine the greens, with the salad dressing and serve with a couple warm mushroom slices overtop. Enjoy      

Edit:wordpress is f-ing up the formatting on this for some reason. Apologies. Turns out wordpress does not like Google Chrome :-/

As anyone who has known me for a while will know, my right eye has teared pretty much constantly for the last 10 months or so. This all started on August 2007 when it was actually painful enough that I couldn’t work. My eye doctor and family physician both seemed to be under the impression that I just got something in my eye and that it would come out soon enough.

For about a month the tearing went away, however it came back, only this time it didn’t actually hurt, just teared. I informed my family physician again and he told me that he would start setting up an appointment with an eye specialist. I saw the eye specialist in May and he wanted to do some tests to try and determine the cause. We couldn’t actually do the test in his office since I continually passed out due to the drops he was putting in my eyes (Fantastic eh!?), so we scheduled an appointment at the hospital to do the tests.

That appointment was today and involved him sticking a syringe down my tear ducts on both eyes and squirting saline down them. I guess the point was to see if I could taste it in my mouth when he did. I could only taste it when he did my left eye, so he deduced that my right tear duct is blocked and that my left one is 80% blocked.

So now, since I know it is no longer a vision threatening issue, I have a choice. Have surgery on both of my eyes to unblock them, or simply don’t and have to continuously wipe my right eye for the rest of my life. :-/ I would be able to go home after the surgery, but would have tubes in my tear ducts for a week. I’m fairly certain I will go for the surgery, since I don’t want a constant red spot under my right eye due to wiping.

And yes. I know I haven’t posted in ages, but I’ve been busy. I have a tonne of stuff I could post from the last few months, but would be weird to post it so far after the fact, no?

Well, it has now been officially one year since I took possesion of my car. What a year. This one little car has change my life in such a positive manner, my social life has improved dramatically (well, up until recently that is), I look forward to going out, I have a massive new hobby to occupy my time, and I have made a lot of new friends. Oh, not to mention the money I saved in fuel costs .

Cost Analysis:

Total Value of Fuel: $754.13 CAD
Total of All Repairs: $323.35 CAD
Total of All Service: $451 CAD
Overall Cost To Run: $1,528.48 CAD ( 8 cents / KM )

Fuel Economy Analysis:

Total Times Refuelled: 48
Total of Fuel Quantity: 785 Litres
Total Distance Driven: 19,411km
Overall Fuel Economy: 4.00L/100km (71mpg)
Overall CO2 Emissions: 106g/km
Best Tank of Fuel: 3.09L/100km (91mpg)
Worst Tank of Fuel: 7.06L/100km (40mpg)
Total of SMILES: Tonnes!