Bar Review and Valentine Day Treats

I had another great sleep last night. That’s 2 in a row! Go me! Actually, the whole day was super productive which leaves me feeling satisfied. I revisited an old favourite for breakfast this morning:
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-chocolate PB2
-carob chips & walnut pieces
I lapped this up with pleasure! :D

I ate a Sencha Green Tea Bar in “Morning Lychee” this a.m. before hitting the gym:
THOUGHTS:
-at first I was very hesitant because I’ve never tried a lychee fruit before and the smell kinda threw me off. I couldn’t quite place it, but it reminded me of some type of alcohol. Not gonna lie, the first bite threw me off, too because it tasted boozy!! But I’m a champ and kept at it. After a few more bites the taste really grew on me. The packaging states “a tropical fusion of lychee berries & sweet coconut”, I couldn’t taste any coconut at all which was a bit disappointing.
-I love the texture of these bars. They’re chewy like a rice crispy square, but there are loads of seeds to give it a great consistency.
-They’re 220 calories but a good size bar so I feel it’s totally worth it. Because they are thicker and denser than a lot of bars, they take awhile to eat so there’s no rushing through it. And they are gluten & wheat free which I appreciate even though I don’t have issues surrounding those ingredients.
-1 bar = 3 cups of green tea. Enough said.

RATING: 4/5
**NOTE: This bar was not sent to me for review. I bought them myself to try. See here for my thoughts on the “lively lemongrass” flavour.

The gym was awesome today! I decided to run and did I ever show that treadmill whose boss. BOOYA!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 164
Max Hr: 193
Calories Torched: 501 (!!)
Distance: 4.4 miles

That is hands down the best run I’ve had in a long time; since at least before Christmas. I got into a groove early on and never looked back.

I packed myself a serving of quinoa stew for lunch today:
I always add a little hot water before heating my (thawed) frozen foods in the microwave. It helps to loosen the mix up a bit so it’s not like a glob of paste in my mouth. LOL! I also found a box of cute cookies in the staff kitchen so I helped myself to one:
This was SO freaking good! The base was cracker-like and the chocolate topping was filled with caramel. SO worth it!!!

Just before quitting time I ate a pink grapefruit that I butchered cut up this morning.
Grapefruits are something I’ve always loved, but I hate the pith on any citrus and I find this in particular to be the worst culprit. Cutting and sectioning the fruit, while a pain in the ass, eliminates this problem for me. Oh…I’ve still been eating way to many of these:

My hubby and I put a Valentine’s order in with one of our local high school’s (CHSS) bakery for some treats. This particular school is a trade school so it’s the students that make and decorate all the food. I always support them come “special occasions” such as V-day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc and have never been disappointed with the product. Take a look at this stash that landed at my desk this aft!
This is a 4 layer chocolate/banana cake with chocolate ganache. My hubby ordered 2. Yes, you read that right…2! Next is 6 dozen cookies.

One dozen is my hub’s, the other 5 are for the kids classes. Read on to see what we did with those.

I popped a roast in the crock pot this morning because the boys were on the ice at 4:30 and DD had skating lessons at 5:20. Us gals ate first. Along with my meat I ate a few potatoes that were also in the crock and some mixed veggies:

Once back home the kids and I assembled their Valentines using a cookie, some chocolate and v-day baggies. Here are a few of them….

So right now I’m in the middle of baking mini muffins for a “coffee break” my department is hosting at work tomorrow. I used this recipe for blueberry chia muffins and replaced the blueberries with cinnamon chips. I doubled the recipe but only have 1 mini muffin baking tin so the second batch is still in the oven. I’ll take a picture of the finished product for tomorrow’s post.

Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty exhausted right now. I plan on making a tea and settling in to watch Vampire Diaries. The only kind of candy I want right now is eye candy!! ;)

Bye for now!!