Cleaning Out

Happy almost Friday! I went missing again yesterday, huh? Once dinner was done I got into my book out on the porch and before I knew it SYTYCD was on. That happens, no? Something I wanted to mention was that I decided last Friday to skip my usual grocery run because after looking into the freezer and pantry I realized that we have a lot of food to use. All I bought was fresh produce at the market on Saturday. So, you might see some odd combinations popping up in the next few posts! Moving on…

Yesterday, breakfast started out looking like this:

But turned into this!

I just could NOT get into those overnight oats. Not sure what I did wrong, but they tasted like ass. After a few bites I’d had enough and went for a bowl of Nature’s Path optimum cranberry ginger cereal with a sprinkle of All Bran buds. Much, much better!

Morning snack was one of 4 bars sent to me for review:

I’ll do a full review once I eat all 4, but let’s just say that we’re off to a very good start!

I hopped on the treadmill for a sweaty incline walk at lunch. I bumped the incline to 8% and the speed to 4.2mph.

• Time: 35 minutes
• Avg Hr: 162
• Max Hr: 178
• Calories Torched: 358
• Distance: 2.5 miles

Lunch was a great salad with red leaf lettuce (from my garden), fresh peas, tomatoes, leftover steamed veggies, feta and roasted red pepper dressing!

Later on I broke into my fruit which was 2 plums, sliced strawberries and grapes:

Unfortunately for me, the only tasty fruit in there was the grapes! The rest was a little too far gone. I made it up to my belly with some almonds!

Dinner was fab! I made some chicken burgers with lean ground chicken breast, scallions, nooch, and some other seasonings. My hubby grilled them on the BBQ along with some zuke’s from my parents garden. On my burger thin was hummus, a LC cheese wedge, pickles, roasted red pepper and lettuce.

Dessert was the last vegan cookie; a triple chocolate one to boot!

Entering reading, taking KC for a 45 minute walk, SYTYCD and bed. Ahhh….

After my 6:30am wake up call and a shower, I set out to make myself some pancakes. It’s my go-to Hungry Girl recipe that I jazzed up with a packet of Amazing Grass powder:

This turned my flap jacks green!

Those are pecans pieces and blueberries that were tossed in the hot pan with some coconut butter. I also drizzled some agave on top.

A great way to start my day! I noshed on a dark chocolate coconut Kashi bar before the gym,

I brought my laptop to shred again and had one of the ladies from Tuesday join in. The other was off today, but my gym/payroll buddy decided to do it so there was 3 of us again! Gym buddy thought it was a great workout, I think she was pretty skeptical at first. Having some people do the disc with me is seriously motivating. I just love the company! :)

• Time: 30 minutes
• Avg Hr: 141
• Max Hr: 174
• Calories Torched: 230

Lunch was somewhat different for me lately, but awesome none the less! I brought an Ezekiel muffin and spread one side with PB and honey, the other with cream cheese and blueberry jam:

This was the perfect meal to accompany the work I had to do this aft which required me to be pretty hands on. I also ate a mix of grape tomatoes and cherries later on.

Dinner turned out fabulous considering I had NO idea what I was gonna make when I got home! I forgot to pull something out of the freezer this morning so I had to wing it. I went with a shrimp and chicken stir fry that used the last of my scallions, celery and carrots, not to mention the shrimp! I added a tbsp of hot sauce and stir fry sauce that I I saved and froze from our last Chinese take out meal. Some brown rice served as the base.

For being random, this ROCKED! There’s none left so I guess everyone liked it. Nice. I ate 2 Skinny Cow fudgecicles for dessert but didn’t take a picture. There was also some random kettle corn snacking that escaped the camera!

We just got back from soccer about a 1/2 hour ago and it just started to pour. We’re under another thunderstorm warning and my satellite is currently going on the fritz. Bummer! I hope I can still tune into the SYTYCD elimination show in 10!!!

Bye for now!

The Market & The Lake

Oh, has it ever been a gorgeous 2 days! I’ve not spent too much time inside. In fact, I’m typing this from my front porch. I’m just going to breeze through my eats in this post so I can get to some other fun things.

For breakfast yesterday I mixed a packet of Amazing Grass powder into my oats for a little Friday morning boost:

Looks funny, eh? This was my usual 1 cup water, 1/3 cup Quaker oats, the Amazing Grass, frozen cherries, dark chocolate chips and 3 pecan halves.

Before I went to the gym for my typical walk I ate a WCMN Luna bar:

This was resting on top of my still frozen lunch. I really liked it cold! I’ll spare you my gym stats today because I really can’t be bothered to go inside for them. :)

Lunch was some asparagus barley risotto that I froze just for a day like this when I didn’t want to make anything:

I added about a 1/4 cup of hot water before heating and it was like I’d never froze it. Then I ate strawberries.

My hubby felt like Chinese for dinner so I picked some up on my way home from work. We went for combo plate this time to keep the cost down and was it ever a load of food! Mine was sesame chicken with vegetable fried rice and veggies. Isn’t that a ridiculous amount of food for 8 bucks?! I ate all but the rice cuz I’m just not a fried rice fan. My hubby’s was pretty much the same except he had beef & almonds. He couldn’t finish his, either. I was WAY to full for dessert, but Pepper was happy to lick the ice cream remains from mu hubby’s plate!

Then he was full, too…

LOL! I had a glorious sleep after spending so much time outdoors and woke hungry! I’ve been waiting all week to make another batch of French toast with the apple bread.

This time I topped it with coconut butter and strawberries. Divine!! After breakfast the kids went to the neighbours place which gave my hubby and I a chance to go to the market ALONE. Us going anywhere alone doesn’t happen very often at all so this was a real treat. We hit the jackpot with produce this week. Check it all out!

Cherries, 8 ball squash (a la Averie) , purple scallions, golden beets, bloobs, cherry tomatoes, and peas. Just gorgeous. We also bought some fresh spring rolls:

And the mandatory vegan cookies!!!

There’s 6 in there, a few were just camera shy!! It was lunch time when we got back and I put together a fabulous “snack” plate!

How freaking amazing does that look? I loved each bite and was stuffed afterwards! We chose to enjoy the afternoon trail walking around the lake by our house. The great thing about where we live is that it’s right on the edge of town and a 5 minute drive brings us here:

The kids were into skipping (and sitting) on rocks:

DD is still covered in Canada Day tats. ;) Then we got goofy with the camera and took pictures of each other walking back to the Jeep.

We cooled off with some DQ! YAY! I indulged in one of my favourite Blizzards; a chocolate turtle cluster:

Me loves! Soon after we arrived home the kids took off for the park with my neighbours grandkids who were down for the day visiting. This gave my hubby and I some quiet time. I read outside for a bit, pulled some weeds and chatted with the man. Before we knew it, it was 5:30 and time to get dinner going. My hubby bought some steaks at the market which he threw on the BBQ along with the 8 ball squash. I made a big Caesar salad for the fam and a garden salad for me. Mine was a bit of Boston, lots of beet greens, tomato, cuke, purple scallion and Renee’s Caesar parm dressing. Little did the fam know that the bulk of their Caesar was made with beet greens, too! Nobody notice, in fact, they went back for seconds. LOL Here’s my plate!

The sauce on the plate is new to me and something I discovered while waiting on our Chinese last night; Mango Coconut.

I wandered into a little chocolate shop (imagine that!!) and found a whole rack of sauces in the back. I couldn’t leave this one behind and I’ve very glad I didn’t. Like the label says, it’s sweet with just a bit of heat and paired excellently with my steak. The ingredient list is short too; mango, sugar, water, OJ, apple vinegar, coconut, starch, lime juice & Habanero pepper. Maybe not fantastic that sugar is #2, but I can pronounce everything there so I can overlook that. ;) I ate one of the vegan cookies for dessert just a few minutes ago, but didn’t take a photo….my camera is on the charger!

I’ll be up early tomorrow to take DS to 8am soccer practice. Gross! I already have my breakfast brewing in the fridge so I don’t have to think about that in the morn. I’ll leave you with a photo of DS waiting on the boys next door to come play soccer with him:

Bye for now!!

Cookies!

We had another wet, dreary day in these parts today. Seems like we’re paying for the very nice first part of September we had. Eh…hopefully next weekend will be brighter and warmer!

Mmmm, pancakes! I was thinking last night that I hadn’t made any in a while, so I whipped up a batch today with a pack of Amazing Grass;

I also added a sprinkle of chopped walnuts to each pancake before flipping and when they were done I spread some Crofter’s Asia superfruit jam on them.

Ah-mazing!

DD participated in a babysitting course today from 10-4 so we went out to the farm once she was settled in. On the way home we stopped at Knapp’s to buy the “pie of the day”, peach blueberry, which just so happens to be my favourite fruit combination.

Lunch was some more cauliflower barley pilaf with the rest of the buttercup squash;

Then I had me a smallish piece of warm pie with the insides oozing out….

You bet I did my fair share of oohing and ahhing while eating this! :D

After getting myself beautified I drove over to Costco for some much needed snacks for school. I find it so much more convenient buying drinking boxes and granola bars in bulk. Here are some of the treats that I bought for all of us to enjoy!

The kids are gaga over the chocolate chip Weetabix and I must admit they they are pretty good! I’m eager to try the Maple Pecan Crunch cereal and the Kashi granola bars are ones we’ve had before…7 grain, pumpkin pie spice and toasted almond…but they’re all ones that are safe for the kids to take to school. I also bought some of my favourite turkey sausages for tonight’s dinner;

It seems like they had stopped carrying this brand for a period of time and I’m sure glad to see it back!

Once I picked DD up, we came home and I helped her with her homework. They’re learning about politics which certainly isn’t a favourite topic of mine, but I guess I learned along with her! Once that was done I dappled with another ED&BV cookie recipe…Thumbprint Jam Cookies!

I went with the hulled hemp seed version and used spelt flour in place of the barley flour. I also polished off the Crofter’s Asia superfruit jam. I got 15 big cookies even though the recipe was to yield 11-13 and they are GOOD! The kids lurve them, too! SCORE!

To accompany the sausages, I made some maple baked beans (from a can) and steamed mixed veggies;

Dessert? 2 cookies! YUM-O….

We just got back from my parents house. I nibbled on 2 more cookies while there.but just the packaged ones. Now I’m enjoying a chocolate spice tea and The Amazing Race. I plan on an early bedtime so I’m fresh in the morning….

Bye for now!!

I Got Nailed!!!

Now, get your minds outta the gutter! LOL! Read on to get the whole story….

I started the day off with a batch of marvellous pancakes.

• 1/3 cup oats
• 2 tbsp WW flour
• 1 pkt Amazing Grass chocolate powder
• 1 tbsp cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup egg whites
• squirt of agave, dash of vanilla extract & salt
• 3 tbsp water

I mix the batter up in the MB to get it very smooth. Once I poured the batter in the pan, I topped the cakes off with some fresh blueberries. Post cooking, they received a layer of macadamia nut butter and the last of the strawberry banana jam. Divine!

With a full belly I sat down to cruise the net for a bit and at 10am we set out to enjoy the beautiful morning with a bike ride to the lake. The path we decided to travel on is off a 2 lane highway, about 3km out of town. We live on the edge of town so it only took us 15 minutes to get lakeside. The scenery was breathe taking and I kept repeating to the fam that I can’t believe I have lived in this city my whole life and have never been down this trail until today. Here are a few pictures I took along the way.

And a few of us enjoying the adventure!

You are looking at me sans make up here! :D

What a GREAT time! Just as we were about to get back on the highway home, I noticed that my rear tire felt odd. I looked back to see this;

Uh-oh!! With 30secs, the tire was flat as a pancake. I told the fam to go ahead and I walked the rest of the way home. I’d estimate that I arrived home only 15mins after them. And I was one hot, sweaty, thirsty gal! That aside, I actually enjoyed the peacefulness of the walk. Now I have to make the decision on either a new bike or fork out the cash to fix the tire on this OLD one.

After a much needed shower, I settled down to a fabulous lunch. I toasted up a Stonemill English muffin, topped it with thinly sliced Ginger Gold apple, whipped cottage cheese and cinnamon. The remainder of the apple found it’s way on the plate as well;

The afternoon was really low key. I made the Hungry Girl “Can’t Believe It’s Not Potato Salad, read my book and played with KC. We also got a beer butt chicken going on the BBQ. I enjoyed a mid afternoon snack of an iced coffee and a Kashi Mocha Almond bar;

So, my dinner was pretty predictable! Chicken and salad!

Dessert was a cool Skinny Cow bar;

I just spent some more time reading and now DD and I are going to get KC for a nice walk. Lunches are done for tomorrow and school bags are packed and ready to go in the morning. YAY!

Bye for now!!