Back to Meal Planning

How was everyone’s weekend?  Although mine was busy, it was a good busy.  Yesterday consisted of 1.5hrs of soccer, 1.5hrs of hockey and dinner at my parents place for my sister’s birthday.  Soccer practice was pretty cool at 8am, but no rain so it was all good and hockey was at a mall that has a rink in it so some window shopping ensued. 
Because we had to leave the house rather early I toasted an Ezekiel English muffin and topped it with sunflower seed butter and zucchini jam:
And yes, it was still dark enough that the flash went off!  Yikes!  As soon as we got home I hopped into a nice hot shower to take the chill out of my bones, then I made a cup of coffee and read all your fabulous blogs until it was time to head out again.  Oh!  And I made lunch to go, too!
This Silver Hills sandwich is layered with a LC cheese wedge, mortadella, tomato (from my garden), lettuce and dijonnaise. Lip smacking good!  I’m not generally a sandwich kinda girl, but ones like these make me wonder why I don’t eat them more often. 
We had a great meal at Mom’s.  That just goes without saying!  I didn’t seem to pack too many veg in, though!
Sweet potato fries, zucchini and bean salad, chicken breast and a small piece of steak.  I wasn’t too concerned about the lack of veggies’ on my plate when I spied my hubby’s meal:
Holy meat!  And he was in heaven!  :)  Dessert was a family favourite that only makes an appearance a few times a year; Drumstick Cheesecake:
Hit. The. Spot.  As I sit here typing this I realize that we never did sing Happy Birthday to my sister!  Funny how she got outta that one turning a quarter of a century and all!  Here we are:
I woke up to a massive thunder boom this morning.  Thanks, Mother Nature!  We had some serious rain for about 15 minutes and then the sun came out like nothing had ever happened.  Weird, but I was glad to have it out of the way so the kids didn’t get drenched walking to school.
I knew I wanted to crack open my new bottle of maple agave today but didn’t have the inclination to get too fancy with breakfast so I just topped my oats wit it:
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-maple agave
-almonds
What a delight!  I’ll never complain abut dessert-like breakfast food.  I have a feeling this bottle won’t last me too long and it was the only lonely on the shelf at Winners.  Boo!
Morning snack-a-roo was a Clif Mojo bar:
Nice, bright yellow file folder under there!  I’m on 12:30 lunch so when I got to the gym the elliptical was open.  Perfect!  I hammered out 45 sweaty minutes while watch SYTYCD Canada reruns.  Lonchi was 2 garden tomatoes topped with half a can of tuna; nice and simple.
As I mentioned last week I had full intentions of getting back into menu planning.  Here is what this week is looking like commitment and food wise:
Monday-dance (6-7:30) hockey-out of town (5:30-8:30)
    **pulled pork sandwiches
Tuesday-hockey (4:45-6:30)
    **Pasta
Wednesday-soccer (6-7:30)
    **Chicken stir fry
Thursday-FREE!!
    **pork chops/noodles (fam) & veg
Friday-hockey (2:15-4:30)
    **tuna melts & Caesar salad
So, pulled pork tonight it was!  I put a pork shoulder in the crock pot this morning with some salt & pepper and set it on low for the day.  When my hubby got home he shred the meat and added the BBQ sauce.  The boys ate at that point because they had to leave the house by 5pm.  DD and I ate our sandwiches after they left.
This also had a wedge of garlic & herb LC cheese on it.  Dessert was some sliced strawberries with just a tad of vanilla ice cream:
So DD is now at dance, the boys are gone and I’ve got some baking in the oven that I’ll post about tomorrow.  I still have almost an hour to myself and I think I’m gonna make a tea and read my book.  Sounds perfect!
**Before you sign off for the night pop on over to visit Faith for a chance to win a $65.00 CSN Stores gift certificate!!**
Bye for now!!

Flu Take 2

Happy Monday! So I disappeared again yesterday! I did have full intentions of blogging last night but then the inevitable happened and by 8pm it was DS’s turn to ride the porcelain school bus. *sigh* It hit him fast, too. He was perfectly fine until 7pm and then BAM, he was sick. So needless to say, I was otherwise occupied. The one good thing to come out of it all is that both kids have it out of the way now so we should be clear from any illnesses for a while.

For breakfast yesterday I made a bowl of Dark Chocolate Cherry Mocha Oats.
This time I just mixed all the cherries right into the pot. Call me impatient! LOL!

DS had a ball hockey game at 10am at the rink just down the road from our house. Seeing as there’s no need for DD and I to be there half an hour early, we opted to walk down. I love being able to do that! The boys played great and tied 5-5. Here’s a shot of their warm up. DS is #21 and you can also see my hubby, too:
In this next shot DS is behind the ref.
Right after the game DD and I went to Walmart as I needed some new curtains for my rec room windows. I picked up a few other items and my wallet was none too happy about it! Eeek! For lunch I toasted a flatout wrap in a pan after stuffing it with sunflower seed butter, a LC cheese wedge, chicken breast, grilled zucchini and ginger wasabi sauce;
I also enjoyed a small bowl of fresh, juicy pineapple!
After lunch I hit the backyard to weed, weed, weed. Ontario has a pesticide ban (which I happen to agree with) which means that there are more than your fair share of dandelions out there. I half debated picking, washing and eating the greens like Mom did when I was a wee thang, but I hated them then and didn’t want to chance all that work only to still not like them. Hehe! After an hour and a half on my hands and knees picking weeds and trip after trip down and up my sloping backyard, I was a hot, sweaty mess. Homemade iced coffee to the rescue along with a granola bar. (Erica’s recipe)

I relaxed for about an hour before getting dinner ready which happened to be chicken again. Ooops! The BBQ ran out of propane almost right away so I finished the meat in my Rachael Ray grill pan (LOVE!) and served it with brown rice and steamed broccoli. My rice had a scoop of peach and Vidalia onion salsa on top. Mmmm…I ate 3 chocolate chip cookies at Mom’s but they were camera shy. We already know how the rest of my evening went but I did manage to watch The Amazing Race through all the drama….and eat another granola bar!

After a less than stellar sleep, I dragged my bootie out of bed for work. My hubby decided to stay home with the sicko today, so he got night duty. I really wasn’t feeling like a hot breakfast so I broke out of my mould and ate a big bowl of Wildroots cereal instead:
Doesn’t that strawberry look great? I love freeze dried fruit! As usual when I have cereal, this was paired up with USAB.

Work chirped by at a nice pace today. I knew the gym was not an option as it’s yoga Monday so I brought….you guessed it….a granola bar for a morning snack (as opposed to something more calorie dense to power me through a work out). LOL!
I also drank more coffee than usual this morning but switched it up to water for the rest of the day. Upon arriving home at lunch I heated up what I packed last night…beer butt chicken, brown rice and broccoli. There’s also a squeeze of mango wasabi sauce for dippage;

The afternoon saw the rest of my pineapple chunks disappear!

When I got home from work I changed, popped back a handful of cocoa roast almonds…

And went back out to do more weeding. They keep calling for rain so I wanted to get more done beforehand. After an hour and a bit I came in to clean up and take DD to dance class. Dinner was next and came in the form of a HUGE salad!

This was 1 head of romaine, chopped tomato, cukes, grated marble cheese, falafels, walnut pieces and honey mustard dressing. T’was wonderful, but gave me a big food baby! And just because that wasn’t quite enough fibre (enter sarcasm) I ate a chocolate chip All Bran bar:

So, that’s my story for now. I’m looking forward to a great, solid sleep tonight!!! I’ll sign off with a photo of a squirrel teasing my baby cat.

Bye for now!!

A Worthy Cause

Happy Wednesday, everybody! I’m having an especially good day because I became involved in a huge movement that will help feed less fortunate families over the holidays. The campaign is called “Project Feed Me” and is aimed solely at keeping people less fortunate than us fed. The premise is very simple. Each Monday starting this week (October 12), Natalie will post a “food item of the week” per se. The items are picked from a Food Bank approved list and are very inexpensive. Everyone who registers is promising to purchase 2 of each item for the next 9 weeks. At the end of the 9 weeks, simply bring all your collected food to your local Food Bank. Easy peasy, right? So PLEASE make your way over to the website to register (and read much more information about this GREAT initiative)! Just a head’s up…this weeks item is canned chilli! I am so excited to see the final results!
On to breakfast, shall we?
-1 cup coffee
-1/2 cup rye flakes
-dried cherries
-macadamia nut butter
-cinnamon plum tea jam
Nom, nom, nom….
Work was busy again today, but I did manage to squeeze a pre workout snack-a-roo in!

I dipped these crunchy guys into my tea. Mmmm… I got a cute pen today for donating to a co-workers Walk for the Cure fund raiser. Check it out!
I rode the elliptical at the gym today which was rather delightful. Or, as delightful as sweating can be, anyways!!!
-Time: 45 minutes
-Avg Hr: 153
-Max Hr: 173
-Calories Torched: 442
-Distance: 5.1 miles
I made myself a very tasty sandwich for lunch today.
Soft flax bread, sunflower seed butter, dried cherries, carrots and lettuce. I’m not a big sandwich girl, but this was da bomb! I also enjoyed a mocha cappuccino in my Hallowe’en mug!
I started feeling snacky a few hours later so I broke into my (huge) grapes;
The kids had swimming lessons tonight, but I was done work at 4 so I had time to put a decent meal together. I roasted up a squash into fries as well as a pork tenderloin. Steamed green beans added some colour to the plate.
Dessert was a piece of pumpkin coconut chocolate chip bar;
Swimming went well. I enjoy going to the pool because I can spend the hour reading while the kids do their thing. I’ve got a few more things to get done tonight and plan on getting to bed early because DS is on the ice at 6am to 7:20 and I have to be there to pick him up. Fun times. Have a great night!
Bye for now!!

I Guess If You’re Reading This….

Things are working again. I have no idea what happened yesterday….WLW still looks way different today….but I think what I had ready to go is a lost cause. I’m interested to see what this looks like once posted! Anyways, here’s breakfast;

• 1/2 cup USVAB & water
• 1/4 cup Windy Hill Farms Cremo cereal
• cinnamon
• almond butter
• Crofter’s Asia preserves
• cinnamon sugar

This managed to keep me full for HOURS!

The morning dragged on but I think it was because I was excited to go see DD run her last cross country race of the year. I took a later lunch to ensure that I didn’t have to leave before she was done. At noon I broke into the wrap I had packed myself.

This is a flatout wrap with sunflower seed butter, lettuce, carrots and dried cherries. A great combination of flavours, in my opinion!

Here’s 3 shots of my girl; one at the start line, one 1/2 way through and one crossing the finish line…

She placed 59 out of 159. Pretty good for a kid who isn’t naturally athletic! I felt kinda bad for them because there was one heck of a COLD wind out there. Not something I would want to run in. There’s a Starbuck’s across the street from where she was so I popped in for a grande NF pumpkin spice misto to take the chill out of my bones:

Even a scarf and gloves couldn’t keep me warm, but that baby did the trick. DD even took a pic of me freezing my a$$ off;

LOL! See those nasty clouds behind me? Brrr…

About 3pm I pulled out a Kashi PB granola bar to nosh on.

This has never been my favourite flavour, but I try it every now and again to see if it’ll grow on me. Today was not the day. :~)

For dinner I baked up a pork tenderloin that was sprinkled with Club House Thai seasoning. On the side I had some steamed veggies and the leftover butternut squash fries;

I’m going to keep this short

Go Team, Go!

Hump day! YAY…we’re half way to the weekend. I guess I shouldn’t be wishing my time away, eh? :) Now that fall is here I dug my seasonal tea flavours out. This morning I enjoyed a Holiday Chai in my travel mug;

Here’s breakfast!

-1 cup water
-1/4 cup Quaker oats
-2.5 tbsp Ruth Chia Goodness Cranberry Ginger flavour
-cinnamon

This was just okay. I’m not too sure about the chia mixed in there. It made everything kinda…..”slimy”….for lack of a better word. The flavour was awesome; the consistency was just off for me. Ah, live and learn, right???

Things at work picked up today which was welcome. The day always moves along better the more work you have to do. At 11am I pulled out a toasted coconut banana macadamia nut bar to nosh on;

Then I ate the walnuts out of this pack;

I snacked on the almonds yesterday and forgot to post about it!

I remembered my gym clothes today and rocked it out on the elliptical today.

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 159
Max Hr: 182
Calories Torched: 489
Distance: 5.1 miles

BOOYA!

Lunch today consisted of spicy bean chilli with a scoop of whipped cottage cheese (to cool it off a wee bit!)

There were also 6 unpictured WW crackers that I used as scoops here and there.

Just before going home I ate a sweet gala apple;

And a few spearmint flavoured jelly leaves…

For some reason, I have always had a soft spot for these sugary morsels.

As soon as 4pm hit I was out the door, picked up the kids, went home and assembled 3 meatball subs for the fam, grabbed a few granola bars and put my wrap together. We were on the road by 4:30. Speedy!

The game was so fun to watch. It was an exhibition game and the first the boys have played together as a team. I managed to snap a photo of DS before they went on the ice.

He was a little annoyed with me, but that’s OK. Doesn’t hurt my feelings any! They ended up winning 4-1 and were all pretty psyched about it! GO STORM!!

I finally remembered about my wrap when we got in the Jeep to come home. In a WW wrap I put sunflower seed butter, lettuce, shredded carrots and cranberries,

This is quickly becoming one of my go-to, on the move meals. I just love the combination of flavours and it fills me up. I also ate one of the granola bars I had packed;

I took the wrapper home and make sure to photograph it like a good little blogger! DS ate 1/2 his sub before the game and the other half on the way home, plus a granola bar, plus a donut. When we got home he ate a PB & nutella sandwich. Holy smokes! Hungry boy!

The kids are both showered and in bed and I even had 20 minutes to take KC for a walk around the block. Lunches still need to be made, but other than that my night is finally free. I think I’m gonna watch a little TV before hitting the sack with my book. See you all tomorrow!

Bye for now!!