Two Days of Goodies

Hello, hello! Well, I took a food blogging break yesterday to post a Green Pan product review so we have some eats to catch up on today. Ready, set….GO!!

I had brunch plans with the girl’s yesterday morning but knew my belly would never make it until 11am without something in it so I whipped up a strawberry kefir smoothie:
In this gem we have 1 cup thawed strawberries, 1 tsp of honey and 1 cup kefir. This was the perfect choice in that it kept the hunger at bay but didn’t fill me up so much that I didn’t enjoy my eats.

I love meeting with my girls! The 4 of us used to work together but have since all gone our separate ways. We try to get together for some type of meal every few months. One Chiquita now lives in MI so weekends are obviously best for her. We met at a popular breakfast joint known for its good food and I was not disappointed in the least with my meal. I started out a bit luxurious with a chai tea latte:
OMG is all I have to say about how good this was. Then I went a bit “healthier” with 2 poached eggs, rye toast and a fruit cup.
Good food + good company = a great Sunday morning!

I had about an hour to myself before the fam came home from the farm and my brother came over with my niece and nephew. It was so good to see the kids again…it’s been FAR too long. The kids *just* traded Christmas presents! Granted, they live 2hrs away so such is life sometimes. Better late than never, right? It was warm enough on my deck yesterday (it’s protected from the wind and was 15*C!!) that the kids pulled out the patio cushions and hung out.
LOL! It was wonderful for them to get some fresh air instead of being cooped up inside.

My babes requested pasta for dinner once our company was gone and I had no issues with making such an easy meal seeing as I had a container of sauce in the freezer ready to go! I plated myself 1 cup of high fibre pasta (10g!!!!) and a half cup of marinara. A little freshly grated parm was the finishing touch!
While the pasta was cooking a small piece of pizza from Saturday mysteriously ended up in my hand!
Love cold pizza!

Aside from a few random pieces of chocolate and 2 cookies at my parents place, that’s all she wrote for food on Sunday! I watched The Amazing Race and Criminal Minds while my hubby watched the hockey game. In light of the outcome, I’m glad I skipped it. Meh.

The kids were off school today for a PD day so the usual morning routine was a bit more relaxed. DS spent the day at hockey camp (surprise, surprise) and DD went to the sitter for the morning and then spent the afternoon with my Mom. Lucky bums!

Not only was my breakfast scrumptious today, but it stayed with me forever! I wasn’t even really hungry by 12:30pm! Here’s the deets:
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-craisins
-warmed up strawberries
Oh lala! And I may not have been very hungry, but there’s always room for chocolate, right? ;)

There was a yoga class in the gym today and I’m late lunch (12:30) so I couldn’t make it in. I went home instead and did a load of laundry. Fun times. The weather today is as crappy as yesterday was nice! Check out my windshield when I got into the Jeep to go home:
Humpf!

Once the laundry was doing its thing I re heated Saturday’s homemade pizza and showed it who was boss:
I picked the bacon off and fed it to my oldest cat who deemed me his BFF….until there was no more bacon, that is! But shhh….my hubby doesn’t like when I feed the cats “people” food! LOL!

Later on in the day I munched my way through a bowl of mixed fruit:

The boys were at hockey from 4:30 until 6 so after I came home from getting DD at my parents place I made a very quick, simple dinner. There was some leftover potatoes, onions and pan juice from Thursday’s pork tenderloin so I popped that into a pan with a bit of water and set a few haddock fillets in to poach. Edamame added colour to the plate.

Here’s dessert!

Can you believe I’m still eating this???? Thank God it’s almost gone! I just got back from picking DD up from dance class. The roads are pretty slick so I’m happy to be off them. I just made a coconut chai tea latte to sip while relaxing on the couch. I used 1 cup of USVAB, 1/2 a cup water and this tea:

Love. Anyways, I’m gonna sign off for now. Hope you all had a fantastic Monday!!

Bye for now!

A Chess Player???

Hola! Was it snowing where you are today? We were supposed to get this “storm” but nothing really came of it. No skin off my back. DD was ecstatic that the snow pretty much stayed away because her grade traveled to the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto today to see the Human Body Exhibit. Had the weather been bad the trip would’ve been cancelled. So, after a few nights of not so good sleep, I rocked dreamland last night and got a solid 7hrs in. Nice! And here’s what I ate to start the day off:
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-PB&Co cinnamon swirl PB
-USVAB
The PB totally made the bowl. Mighty Maple is still my favourite, but this one comes in a close second; which is a good thing because Mighty Maple is one that I can’t find in my area!

My morning snack was a muffin a la blueberry:
I’m still sporting the v-day Ziplocs!! :D

I decided to take today off from the gym. Wednesday’s are a good rest day for me being smack in the middle of the week and all. I had some pants I needed to drop off at the tailor before I went home to veg out with Dr. Oz for a bit. I reheated last night’s leftover stir fry to eat:
I wasn’t 100% satisfied after that so I chomped on 2 Ryvita muesli crackers.
Then ate this on my way back to work.
Prime example of why I pack my lunch. Had I done that today there would’ve been no crackers or chocolate. Meh.

The afternoon plodded along a bit but my strawberry & orange fruit bowl brightened it up significantly!
Doesn’t that look like a ray of sunshine???

As promised, here’s one of the necklaces that I bought at Smart Set on the weekend:

Purdy nice for $3.99, eh???

Apparently at some point in this school year DS joined the “chess club”. Huh? Who knew? Not us! Anyways, I think that’s pretty cool especially seeing as he “qualified” to advance to the next “level”. Keep in mind that we only found out about all this last night. After school today he had a “practice” in the library from 3:30-5:30 with some kids from other schools. This worked out perfectly as DD’s bus was due back to the school at 5:30 so I was able to grab them at the same time. This also meant that I was child free for 1.5 hours!!! Nobody to pick up after work, no rushing home to get supper started….BLISS! So what did I do? NOTHING!!! And a whole lot of it, too. It was glorious.

Once the kids did get home we had a very simple supper of eggs and toast. Mine was a WW bagel with a LC cheese wedge, Sabra hummus and a 1/3 cup of egg beaters, some of which ended up on the side of my plate.

Dessert was 2 small scoops of bacio (chocolate/hazelnut) gelato:

After dinner it was pool time, then I helped DS write his V-day cards as he needs them for his class tomorrow. I just settled in with a coconut chai tea…

And an unpictured raspberry oatmeal muffin. My plan is to watch Criminal Minds and then hit the sack-a-roo.

How’s your week going so far???

Bye for now!!

A Tired Blogger

Phew! It’s 8:30 and I finally made it to the couch. Hehe! DS had hockey practice from 5:30-6:30 and then both the kids were in the pool at 7pm. Thankfully the rink and pool were in the same facility…and close to the house!

Let’s get on with my eats for the day!!

• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup Windy Hill cremo cereal
• cinnamon
• cranberry sauce
• chopped peanuts

Purr-fect start to the day!

Pre-gym snack was a Blueberry Crisp Clif bar;

The gym kicked my ass today. I was so not feeling it! I managed 40 minutes on the elliptical, but it felt like 400. Ugh…

• Time: 40 minutes
• Avg Hr: 146
• Max Hr: 161
• Calories Torched: 360
• Distance: 4.3 miles

Lunch was a dish you’ll all be familiar with; Curried red lentil soup with chickpeas & quinoa.

This is such a great meal, but don’t fear…I put the last serving in the freezer! :) I also crunched on a Doctor Kracker Pumpkin & Cheddar flatbread;

These pack a serious crunch! The girl in the cell cubicle next to me must’ve been wondering what I was crunching on!! Much later in the day I ate most of these raspberries;

It was one of those situations where it was eat’em or throw’em out. There were a few that ended up in the trash….

We ate a very early dinner. 5pm to be exact! I just heated up a store bought pizza for the fam and for myself I baked up some tofu and served it on a toasted WW Arnold Thin with goat’s cheese mozzarella & sliced cucumber. There was also some kabocha on my plate, but I didn’t end up eating it.

The sandwich was awesome!! There was such great texture to it….creamy, crunchy, chewy….mmm…..

Next was hockey, pool then home, snack time and blogging! I made a coconut chai tea and an English muffin with some almond butter and pumpkin butter;

Crappy picture, tasty snack! I just finished that up before starting this post. I do have to apologize for the quickness of this entry, but I am exhausted and have plans to hit the hay shortly. On that note…

Bye for now!!

All My Squash In A Row

It was SO windy here last night! When we left this morning there were branches and leaves ALL over the place. To be honest, I love crawling into bed on nights like that. The wind howling outside the window makes the bed that much more cozy and warm.

*2/3 cup water
*1/3 cup Quaker oats
*cinnamon
*1/2 cup thawed mixed berries
*scoop of almond butter
*cinnamon honey (the end of the jar *sniff sniff*)

This was a great breakfast. All those berries really helped to bulk it up and the almond butter always makes the oats extra creamy. Yum….

I was kept pretty occupied at work all morning and didn’t break into my fruit until 11:15. I had some grapes and pineapple from the staff kitchen;

And some dark purple grapes from home that were badly in need of being consumed;

I’ve really been trying to snack on fruit before the gym because I feel like I’ve been consuming too many bars unnecessarily. The fruit seems to be holding me over just as well. I do still pack an emergency bar in case the munchies catch up with me later in the day. I also had an Earl Grey tea. Here’s my “saying” for the day..

Today was my elliptical/weight day at the gym and I was looking forward to getting warmed up because the office was chilly all day! I did 30 minutes on the machine and 15 of weights.

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 155
Max Hr: 180
Calories Torched: 379
Distance: 3.4 miles

Lunch was leftovers again, my friends. I packed the last of the chickpea/marinara/green bean mix with the last bit of ingera. Thanks to the reader who reminded me on what it was called! Check out the link for a full description!

Remember that emergency bar I wrote about up above? Well, I broke into it at 4pm! I was getting pretty hungry and decided toe at ½ this Clif bar to tie me over until I could get some supper into me;

I actually had time to cook a decent dinner tonight! I sautéed some tri coloured peppers in this here oil

I grilled up some chicken breasts and made some WW couscous as a side.

My sweet end was 2 cookies (again);

My hubby went down to the garden and picked my 4 butternut squash for me. The vine is starting to look sickly and I didn’t want to chance them rotting on me. Aren’t they cute??

Can’t wait to cook them up! Well, I’m multi tasking yet again…blogging, SYTYCD Canada and enjoying this coconut chai tea latte;

To make this I combined 1 cup of USVAB with a 1/2 cup of water and a coconut chai tea bag. I let it simmer on the stove top for a good 5 minutes and then it sat for another 5. So good and a well deserved treat for after a tough Pilate’s class!! Have a great night, all!

Bye for now!!

It's Contest Time!

It was cool enough last night that the furnace kicked back in. Hello…it’s JUNE! Grrr. Getting out of bed was tough because I was so cozy under the covers. Then I remembered that I had a new topping to try out on my oats this morning and that got me going! Nothing like the thought of food to get me out of bed.
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Old Wessex 5 Grain cereal
-cinnamon
-banana
-diced fresh strawberries
-1 tbsp hulled hemp seeds!!
I loved these little sprinkles! Yet another food related item that I’ve seen on blogs and decided to try. If it wasn’t for you guys, I never would’ve know what to do with hemp seeds.

Backtracking to last night for a minute here; I was dying for some chocolate and found myself staring into the kid’s lunch snack drawer. Not good! I quickly closed it up and grabbed a chocolate chip z bar….
Just what I needed to smack the craving in the face! Earlier in the evening I also tried out the coconut chai tea. I added some honey and a splash of milk as per the instructions and it was mucho tasty!
So glad I bought it…and at a reduced price to boot! It was regular $10.49 and I grabbed it for $6.89

Work went by pretty quick today. I ate a few figs and 2 bites of a co-workers rhubarb cake before going to the gym;
The cake was really good, but I could tell it was loaded with white stuff which I try to avoid. I’ve become very picky the last few years about what kind of treats I decide to indulge in. My sweet tooth isn’t as sweet as it used to be!

I ran my first 5 miles today since my ankles bummed out on me! YIPEE! I was thrilled, if you can’t tell.

Time: 50 minutes
Avg Hr: 160
Max Hr: 183
Calories Burned: 476
Distance: 5.01 miles

I didn’t get there quite as fast as I had been, but that’s irrelevant because my goal was to just get there.

Lunch was some leftover love with a little extra broccoli for some added veggie;
Just as good as last night! Lunch dessert was a Strawberry Rhubarb muffin.
After dropping DD off at dance (this is the last lesson of the year) and before going to soccer with DS, I made 2 egg whites served up on a toasted Ezekiel English muffin with tomato slices and Franks hot sauce. There were also steamed green beans on the side and the rest of the tomato……
My sweet end was the last vegan cookie, chocolate chip shortbread;
This was only half as DS ate the other piece and it set off a bit of a sugar need. Unpictured is a Kellogg's chocolate chip all bran bar and 2 handfuls of cinnamon chips. Ooopps!!! Thank goodness it was time to leave for soccer or who knows what else I would've eaten!

As the title of this post indicates, it's contest time! Full Bar has teamed up with Krista's Kravings for a great give away. You can catch my review of Full Bar right here. If you've ever wanted to try this bar out or have just been curious about, this is the contest you really want to enter. As I said in my review, the bars themselves are really tasty and make a great grab n go snack, or you may want to use them to aid you in a weight loss journey. Either way, you can't go wrong in winning this great prize pack! In order to enter this contest you only need to follow 2 easy steps to win!

1) Go to Full Bar and browse their flavours then leave me a comment on this post letting me know which you would like to try and why

2) Link back to this post on your blog (if you don't have a blog you can still enter, just skip this step)

It's that easy! The contest will run until Sunday, June7th at midnight. I will use a random number generator to pick the winning entry and post the winner on my blog Monday, June 8 in the pm. And the best part? The winner will receive a weeks worth of Full Bars shipped to you directly from the company, anywhere in the world! And you will be able to choose whether you want one specific flavour or a mix. How's that sound?? Go on now...it's time to go flavour hunting! :)

One last thing before I sign off...Angela is hosting a very cool giveaway for My Hip-T's! You must check this contest out!! These little inventions are the greatest!

Bye for now!