Whole Grain Bread and New Furniture

Last Sunday night I prepared and baked a loaf of Erica’s Multi Grain Bread. This recipe is so easy to throw together and tastes fabulous on it’s own, with savoury toppings or sweet ones.  Along with eating it straight up a few times this week, I’ve also spread Fruit & Nut butter on it (thought I had a photo, but I don’t seem too) and I’ve dolled it up with avocado/LC cheese mash: I’ve even turned it into scrumptious French Toast!
I drizzled it with this agave:

I find that this bread lasts a solid week if kept tightly wrapped in the fridge.
In other news, DS’s hockey season came to a close on Tuesday.  It’s bittersweet for me because I know he loves to play so I’m sad for him that it’s done, but I am very excited that my weekend (and most weeknights) will now be free to do as I please without having to plan around out of town or mid afternoon hockey games.
We also bought new living room furniture last weekend which has now taken up residence in our living room.  I’m not sure how the exact placement will end up because the chairs are bigger than I thought they’d be, but I know that if I just let it be for a bit it’ll come to me.  Here’s what the room looked like before with our old, well worn stuff:
(Just ignore the mess around the couch, please!!)  And with the new, improved pieces!
Much, much better!!
Monday night I set the crock pot to make a big batch of steel cut oats.  I used 2 cups of the oats, 2 cups of unsweetened vanilla almond breeze and 6 cups of water.  It worked it’s magic for just over 8hrs.  My hubby and I have been eating it everyday since!  Here are my portions, all dolled up: Something really unusual happened this morning.  I let this fur ball: 
out on to our deck (he likes to go outside for a bit in the morning before I leave for work) and as I was at the sink doing the dishes I looked out the window and another cat was up on the deck railing teasing him!  Now, our deck is not ground floor; it’s a second story baby.  This was taken in the summer, but gives you an idea of the height: Here’s the scene this a.m.! (note the crap load of snow we were once again “blessed” with)
The only way I can figure this cat got up here was by scaling the support post.  Now that’s determination.  Poor Pepper was poofed up like a blow fish!!  LOL  Can’t say I’m too impressed, though, because my cats are declawed and the deck is was their only safe haven outdoors.  *sigh*
Well, that’s all for me on this fine Friday night.  Tomorrow I have plans to help my parents source out some outdoor playsets for my niece and nephew.  I’m sure my kids will try to hop on, too!  Bring on summer!!!
Bye for now!

Impromptu Road Trip and Some Food Buys

Today is Family Day here in Ontario so NO WORK for us!!  Hooray!  We aren’t doing anything much as most everything is closed, but we did go on a fun adventure yesterday!  DS had a soccer practice yesterday morning and we found out from one of the other Dad’s that the Washington Capitals were playing in Buffalo in the afternoon.  Said Dad convinced us to buy last minute tickets and so the adventure began!  We kinda felt like the Griswald’s heading to Wally World on the way there, but it all worked out in the end.  :)  Here’s how it went down, in point form;

• flew home from soccer practice and ordered tickets online
• hopped in the Jeep at 11:15 am for a game that started at 12:30 (did I mention that it was a 1.5hr drive??)
• waited for tickets to be emailed to us on the drive down
• call ticket seller to find nearest FedEx location to the HSBC Centre so we could print the tickets once across the border.
• beautiful, sunny drive down
• 30 minutes from the border a rock shot up at our windshield and chipped it
• 10 mins from border have to stop for gas (left home so fast we didn’t think to check the gas tank!!  DOH!)
• get to border and encounter a 40 minute wait to cross.  (The last few times we crossed on a Sunday afternoon we didn’t have to wait at all!)
• PASS HSBC Centre  to get to FedEx, print tickets
• FINALLY get to the game half way through although we did listen to the game on the radio in transit.

Comical or what?  But it was 100% percent worth it because the Capitals Ovechkin is DS’s favourite team player ever!  Pictures! Yes, we were CANADIAN’s in Buffalo cheering for the WRONG team.  LOL  That earned us a few dirty looks.  But you’d be amazed at the amount of Washington fans that were there!  And I found it amusing that each time Ovechkin was on the ice he got booed.  HA!  After the game we met with our soccer/hockey family at the front doors and walked over to TGI Friday’s for some grub. None of us had been before and we all enjoyed our meals.  I ordered a bruschetta pasta which was divine.  I didn’t take any photos there, but I do have a picture of my leftovers that I ate at lunch today.  There’s also a small piece of my hubby’s salmon from his meal on my plate: And the 4 kid acting like hams before leaving the restaurant: Truly a fun, spontaneous, amazing way to spend a day that started out having zero plans.  I should mention that I live pretty much smack dab between Toronto and Buffalo.  The drive to the Air Canada Centre is the same length of time as the drive to the HSBC Centre.  However, NHL hockey tickets are MUCH cheaper to buy for games in Buffalo.  We are fortunate to have the option, though….
It’s been a very long time since I posted about any groceries on Krista’s Kraving’s, so I took a few photos after I shopped at Costco and the “big” grocery store on Saturday.  I still haven’t done our regular grocery run, yet.  By “big” grocery store, I mean the one across town that stocks certain items which I love/need that my regular store does not carry.  Costco was a big haul this time because we needed stuff like toilet paper, toothpaste, etc… 
I was thrilled to find the individual Greek yogurt’s.  I have Kristie the thank for that.  She keeps me in the know as to what our Costco is carrying!!  :)  And from Zehrs; Nature’s Path and Kashi are 2 of my favourite brands and are well stocked at the “big” grocery store.  I bought other items as well, but mainly stuff for the kids lunches, etc.  What been popular in your grocery cart lately??
I’ve been enjoying some pretty fab eat, too.  Check them out! Well folks, that’s the end for me.  I’m off to do some laundry, make some muffins for the week and hang out with my fam!  Have a great rest of the day!
Bye for now!!