First off, I’d like to share some fabulous news: Last weekend, we sold our house where we lived before and bought a loft in Toronto on the same day! I won’t even get into the details, things have been nuts. Lots of paperwork to fill out and back and forth emails with lawyers, bankers, realtors…the list goes on. But if you’ve sold or bought before, you know the drill. Glad we have professionals to deal with all these tasks and that my partner is meticulous with details, I hate paperwork! We have another month in our sublet, then we move into our new place! We found the loft of our dreams so I am very happy!

In the midst of all of this madness, I’ve still been trying to enjoy what the city has to offer. I am going ballistic because I finally live in a city where I can actually do things!!!

Let’s talk about food.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are so many inexpensive food joints here. We have continued our weekly dinner date but have managed to eat for less than $20-25 for both including tip! Here, you don’t need to eat disgusting greasy food. You can actually get healthy inexpensive meals, mostly from ethnic restaurants.

I haven’t taken pictures of all of my food, but here are two meals I’d like to share with you:

This meal is called Soon Vegetable Tofu and comes with a bowl of hot bubbling soup (think lava!!)  filled with soft tofu, a yummy broth and veggies. If you are vegetarian, they give you an egg to crack in the boiling soup, it supposedly cooks it! It also comes with 4 mini side appetizers (including Kimchi…mmmmm!) and a bowl of stone pot rice AND tea. This entire meal cost me $8. No joke. If you are in Toronto, check this place out: Tofu Village. You won’t regret it. I went back there a few days later for dinner with a friend and ordered the BibimBap which was $8 as well.

I needed a quick and inexpensive lunch near my apartment. Luckily, there are MANY sushi places within a few blocks. I searched for the least expensive combo. $5.99 for what you see below. I was so stuffed afterwards that I needed to go for a walk. Great deal and healthy too. I’ve noticed that most sushi places around here have $6-8 lunch combos and they always come with miso soup, salad and tea. I feel so spoiled. Where I lived before, I couldn’t even get ONE decent roll for $6!! Here, I get an entire tasty combo for that price. Yipee!

At one of the the farmer’s markets last week, I picked up this amazing organic combo of locally grown sprouts and greens for a mere $6! My partner isn’t always fond of all greens but he loved this mixture, as did I. I ran out and will be picking up another bag tomorrow. Can’t wait. I’ve been adding some cucumber and red pepper to it as well and have also used it in sandwiches.

As far as homemade dinners, I’ve been making a lot of tasty food because the local and organic ingredients here are so fresh, affordable and amazing. Here is a vegan breakfast that I made which we ate for dinner last week. ALL local and/or organic foods. Scrambled tofu with red pepper and kale, toasted seed bread (with local organic pumpkin/apple butter & organic jam) and some roasted organic/local carrots and potatoes.

Now let’s talk about coffee.

I had already booked my Level 1 Barista Course a few weeks ago and even though I was very tired because of all this house selling/buying madness, I went. But I am so glad I did. There were 5 of us in the class which was supposed to last 3 hours but it went on for 4…most of us were curious coffee nerds with a lot of questions! We learned the ins and outs of making a perfect espresso and touched on espresso based drinks as well. I learned a lot. We also got a free bag of coffee with the class! Good thing, because I had run out of the good stuff at home. Here are a few photos that I took that night. I will be taking Level 2 which focuses on latté art, even using soy!

The three stages of espresso extraction, we had to taste them all. Interesting!

Latté Art. Our teacher was showing off…and so he should be. Look at this lovely cup of goodness?

The end of the night. We were all pretty wired after all that espresso making and tasting!

That’s all I have for you right now but again, I will keep trying to post once a week with any news, updates or even recipes! Thanks for not giving up on me, I am still here.

HAVE YOU ALSO MADE ANY GOOD INEXPENSIVE LOCAL AND ORGANIC MEALS LATELY?