Home for the Day!

Oh, it was SO nice to have been off work today! I got up at 7 and followed my normal getting ready for work routine because DS had hockey camp from 8:30-4:30 across town that I had to get him to. I also started off the morning with my much missed oats!
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-1/2 banana, 2 strawberries, handful cranberries all mashed up
-cinnamon
-sprinkle of Nature’s path pumpkin granola
YUM! I loved all the fruit in this meal! I set a goal for myself this week to try to squeeze as much fruits and veggies into each meal as I can. This was a good start!

After DS was safe and sound at the rink, DD and I headed over to Walmart to get ourselves some rain boots. Hers were too small and I missed the boat last year and regretted not buying any!
Aren’t they the cutest??? I walked out of there with minimal damage to my wallet, too! The only other things I bought were Dino Egg porridge for the kids as the grocery store was out last week and a bag of frozen blueberries. Pretty good for me!!

The 2 of us spent the morning playing Big Brain on the Wii. I really need to practice at this because she kicked my butt at almost every challenge! I ate many a medjool date in the process….probably 5? I’m gonna have to hide them because I can’t stay away!!

We had eggs, toast and salad for lunch. DD’s were easy over with 2 pieces of WW toast and a Caesar salad, mine was egg whites on WW toast with jalapeno hummus and another huge salad like last night only this one had leftover steamed veggies on it instead of fruit.
Spectacular! In hindsight, I should’ve taken a photo of DD’s plate, as well. It was pretty impressive, too! ;) After lunch I put ingredients in the bread machine for pizza dough then we hit up the mall. There wasn’t really too much happening there, but it was nice to walk around for a few hours! Before we left we stopped in at Starbucks where I got a grande NF Vanilla Rooibos tea latte.
DD noticed that they had their small size V-day tumblers on sale for $6.00 so she decided to use the $10.00 that she brought with her to buy one. She then proceeded to get a complimentary hot chocolate along with a double chocolate chip cookie. She was very proud of herself for that buy!! ;)

Before I left for Pilate's, I ate the other half of my Clif Bar from Saturday....
Then I prepared the pizza's for the oven. All my hubby had to do was pop them in when he returned from picking DS up. Here's mine before it got all toasty....
This was 4oz of dough, red, orange and yellow bell pepper, green and black olives and hot peppers all topped off with 2oz of a mix of orange cheddar and smoked cheddar. And I'm not embarrassed to admit that I ate the whole thing! It all started with these 3 pieces...
Then I realized how hungry I actually was and downed the rest! No sweet end, though!! I do have about a cup of mango waiting for me should the need for a snack arise later on!

I totally multi tasked while making the pizza and prepared lunches for tomorrow, too. I washed all the sheets today so I still have beds to make and as I type, DD is in the tub with DS in line behind her. I plan on getting those 2 off to bed a little earlier tonight because they both have colds and haven't been sleeping well. Then I plan on finishing up my book! I'll catch you all tomorrow!!

Bye for now!!

Lazy Sunday

I had trouble falling asleep last night and slept horribly so I was very glad that I set my alarm for 7:15am to get up and make the boys their promised pancakes! I blame my sleep issues on a cup of coffee that I drank to close to bed time. Lesson learned! Anywho, DD got up shortly after me and helped out in the kitchen by preparing a bowl of sliced strawberries and a bowl of blueberries. For the fam's pancakes, I used 2 cups heart healthy Bisquick, 1.25 cups milk and an egg. I also threw in a handful on mini semi sweet chocolate chips. I made a Hungry Girl blueberry pancake recipe for myself. Here's my plate complete with strawberries, blueberries and sugar free maple syrup...

DS at 3 big pancakes, but caved on the last bite so I ate it for him. You know what? I found their pancakes WAY too sweet. Glad I made my own healthier batch! I also sipped on a big cup of green tea.

Once clean up was done and I was all showered, we drove out to the farm. While there, my hubby cracked open a box that had 6 different kinds of nuts and trail mixes in it. Needless to say, I ate way too many nuts and 3 cookies!! What the heck? Talk about random snacking...I wasn't even hungry so I "failed" at this temptation! But man, they were tasty! I managed to capture a picture before they all disappeared....just kidding, we didn't eat all of it!

Getting back to some good for me foods, I was feeling rather snackie late last night and decided to eat a huge, juicy orange instead of some random empty calorie crap.

I forgot how good oranges are when they're in season!

I was not hungry when lunch rolled around due to my nut consumption, so I decided to pull out my Wii Fit instead. I finished all the yoga poses (15 of them) and 14 out of 15 strength moves. I tried #15, but couldn't figure it out. I'll try that one another time. I put my HRM on for shits and giggles and burned 200 calories in just over an hour. Not a super star workout, but I wasn't looking for one. I felt nice and loose and limber when it was over, but more importantly, I was RELAXED! It was just after 2pm at this point and I was starting to feel a bit hungry. I threw ingredients in the bread machine for pizza dough and then made myself a little something to eat.

This is a peeled and diced apple, a single serve container of FF vanilla and about a 1/4 cup of pumpkin granola. I also filled my Starbuck's tumbler with another round of green tea. I decided to spare you all a repeat picture! I ate this up while blog reading.

I never did make that energy bar recipe last night, so I made it today while I waited for the pizza dough to rise. I got the recipe out of and Ellie Krieger book called "The Food You Crave". It's actually called "energy bars" and is chalk full of dried fruits and nuts and oats. It was easy to make, as well....just pop all the ingredients into a food processor and spread in a 9 x 13 pan. The recipe yields 24 bars. Here they are just out of the oven...

Here they are all cut up into bars;


These bars are SO yummy! My hubby and DS had no problem gobbling them up! There are quite a few tasty looking recipes in this cookbook that I want to try that I think I may just by it! Has anybody else checked out this cookbook? If so, what do you think of it?

Next up was pizza assembly. I made a big one for the family because they like all the same things on their pizza. This one had pepperoni, yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, roasted red peppers and cheese. My hubby's side also had hot pepper rings on it.

My had all the same veggies with no meat and the addition of olives. Also, I didn't have as much cheese on mine...

That's a leftover piece of dough that I had thought to make into a bun. I didn't work out very well at all, though. :( Here's piece # 1;

I ate one more this size and packed the rest up for tomorrow's lunch. My sweet end was an energy bar, of course! You had to know that! :) We went to visit my parents for a little bit after dinner and when we got home I chatted with a friend for awhile . He's going through a nasty personal situation right now and needs to vent every now and then. Poor guy! Left on the agenda tonight is lunches and one last load of laundry to fold. I'm aiming to get to bed early again due to my poor sleep last night. First up tomorrow is a dentist appointment. Yuck. Not looking forward to that! Anyways, enjoy the rest of the night!!

Bye for now!!

Guest Blogger, Birthday Dinner

I got all my "chores" done last night that I wanted to, including a 1/2 hour of cardio. I decided to play Outdoor Adventure on the Wii. There is an area where you can choose to play as a single player. Bingo! I opted to do the "exercise" tab which included everything from easy/hard full body, easy/hard upper & lower body and full body exercises. I wore my polar F4 and was utterly shocked at the results! Check it out;

TIME:26:58
TIME IN ZONE:26:36
AVG HR:155
MAX HR:182
CALORIES BURNED:225

Not bad for a game! I would've burned maybe only 100 calories more running on the treadmill for 30 minutes. I was feeling the pain in my muscles pretty much all the way through and was a sweaty mess at the end. I really gave it my all keeping in mind that it was my cardio for the day and I'm impressed with the end result! And it was fun! I did things like log jumping, hurdles, kayaking, pipe riding, mine cart racing....Yipee! I highly recommend this game.

I got up at 8am and made myself a lovely bowl of oats;


-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5-Grain cereal
-cinnamon
-1 Tbsp pumpkin butter
-1 Tbsp crunched up pecan pieces


After I ate I got to work on the lasagna for my hubby's b-day dinner. First, I got the sauce going. I used 1 lb of extra lean ground beef, an onion, 4 cloves of garlic (we like our garlic!), 1 can of tomato sauce, I 28oz can of diced tomatoes, 2 Tbsp of tomato paste, hot pepper flakes, basil, oregano, S & P.


I like to use this type of tomato paste. Because it's in a tube and stays in the fridge, it doesn't go bad like the canned stuff does. I found this particular one at Whole Foods.


Another layer that I always put in my lasagna is made up of 1 egg, 2 cups of ricotta, 1 package of frozen spinach, thawed and drained and 1/3 cup of grated Parmesan cheese. For my hubby's b-day lasagna I use 2 cups of cottage cheese because that's how he likes it best.


Last but not least, the final component....noodles. I usually use WW noodles and I don't bother boiling them first. I almost always make my lasagna ahead of time, so the noodles absorb enough moisture from the sauce while it sits.


I baked the lasagna in a 375* oven for 45 minutes, covered. Then I uncover it and put it back in for another 15 minutes. Once it comes out of the oven, I let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. This makes it easier to cut. Here's the finished product!
The charity hockey game we went to started at noon so I packed myself something to eat. Good thing I did because when we got there, the concession booths weren’t open. DD and I quickly went on the hunt for eats for the three of them. The only thing we could find was French fries. Wouldn’t you know that by then time we got back, the concession stand had opened?! Mind you, the line up was about a mile long! Anywho, I brought a gingerbread Clif bar (YUM) and a gala apple.

Of course, I ate a handful of fries….who can resist fresh hot fries?!

And now, on to my guest blogger....DD! She was extremely excited to do this because she watches me write my blog pretty much every night. Occasionally, she asks me to take picture's of her food to post. She really gets a kick out of reading my comments and I think she is my biggest fan. She wrote a little blurb and took a few picture's to share. I hope you enjoy it!

Hi I am DD and I am going to help my mommy with her blog!!!!! I had a container of French fries for lunch (I was not to fond of that.) We got to go to a hockey game!!!!! After that we got to skate WITH the Storm players and got autographs. This morning at around 9:00am Charlie and Pepper are becoming friends because Charlie was in a box and Pepper jumped up and Charlie did not like that at all so he started swinging at him and Pepper must have thought he was playing so he swung back at him it was hilarious to see :D!!!!!! Well do not mind my spelling because I am only 9 years old. Oh by the way my name is Sarah :). Here is a picture of my lunch and a picture of Charley and Pepper!!!!





Thanks, DD! As you can see, 2 of the cats are becoming accustomed to one another. My oldest cat is still on the fence with this whole kitten thing! What is it with cats and boxes??? I've yet to meet a cat that doesn't like a good box!

After the game, DD and I ran a few errands at the mall and then came home and relaxed a bit. It was nice to finally have some down time!

So finally we make it to the birthday dinner. My hubby decided while I was out to make a fresh loaf of bread in the bread machine....oh yeah! Here's my plate (I even pulled out the fancy ones!)....

Here's my naked cheesecake....


And this is the coveted pecan caramel sauce that my hubby loves so much...


And this here is my piece of deliciousness!


I am sitting here now like a stuffed pig, sipping on a peppermint tea to help digest all that food. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I don't eat pasta because it sits too heavy. Well, I will confirm that things haven't changed! While it tasted superb going down, I'm paying for the heavy meal now. You know, some things are just worth it and my hubby's b-day is certainly one of them.

I've got a pile of magazine's sitting by the couch waiting to be read and I think tonight will be the perfect time to make a dent in them! I hope everyone enjoyed this post! I had fun writing it...

Bye for now!!

Merry Christmas 2008!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

I hope that everybody had a fantastic day! I know I sure did! Because I realize that today is a very busy day, I decided to make this post picture heavy and text light.I'm hoping this will make it easier to read through on this hectic day! Here we go!! :)

Starting off with the end of Christmas Eve....Santa always get Turtles and beer and carrots for the reindeer at our house. We figure that he's had enough cookies and milk by the time he gets to our place! :)


Every year Santa manages to leave a piece of his beard(AKA cotton ball) on the plate! The kids are always just thrilled by this!

Here's DS with his Santa present...Guelph Storm Hockey Camp...Santa brought him a team t-shirt and a letter explaining his gift to him.

DD with her much wanted Nintendo DS and fashion game....

By 7:30 the fun was over and I was hungry! I made a bowl of oat bran with a tbsp of cinnamon bun coffee mate and a sprinkle of cinnamon sprinkles.


We had the kids showered and were out the door by 9:30 to do presents and brunch at my parents house. Here's DS with my Mom...

And DD with my sister...

It's a Christmas tradition at my parents to have eggs, toast and fried homemade salami for brunch. My Dad makes his own salami, but it's not cured by Christmas, hence the frying. Well, in most recent years, Mom has taken to cooking it in the oven to try to healthy it up a bit! When cooked, it's deliciously salty and tastes wonderful with a hunk of bread! Here's my plate...

I also shared a Honey Crisp apple with Mom and my sis. Sorry, no pic!

When we got home, I put my turkey in the oven and hopped on the treadmill for a 5.5 mile run. Lovely to know I burned almost 500 calories before a big festive dinner! It makes me feel like I have a little leeway when dessert comes around!

After my run and a nice hot shower, I ate about a third cup of plain yogurt with the last of the cranberry sauce. I didn't want to be ravenous by dinner time! I put the finishing touches on the table and peeled the potatoes for the mashed taters, cleaned and halved the brussel sprouts and put the dessert out to come to room temperature.

Fast forward 7 hrs and here I am! Dinner was a success! My in laws came over and we all ate until our bellies were busting! It's almost 10:30 here and too late to post any dinner details so I'll leave all that for tomorrows post! Catch ya later!!

Bye for now!!

Calling All Readers!

I was wide awake at 6:53 am this morning! There should be some sort of rule that our bodies abide by to the effect that waking up before 8am on the weekend is just not allowed!  In all honesty, I felt well rested. I heard DS downstairs watching TV so I trundled out of bed, made a big cup of green tea and snuggled under a blanket with her on the couch until 8am. What a treat! By 8:30, the girl and I were both showered and ready for some eats. She ate her usual…a peanut butter and banana sandwich….and I had the most scrumptious bowl of oats yet!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Oats

-1/2 steel cut oats (quick cooking) 1/2 unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, ½ water
-1/4 cup pumpkin puree
-1 Weight Watchers single serve cream cheese cup (softened slightly in the microwave)
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg
-1 Tbsp maple flakes

*combine oats, milk, water and spices and cook for a few minutes
*add pumpkin puree and cream cheese. Stir until well blended and thick.
*pour into bowl and sprinkle maple flakes on top.
*Enjoy your bowl of cheesecake!

So, I need to ask all of you readers for some recipe help. Every year I make Halloweén treats for my kid’s classes at school. This year there are a few allergies I need to be VERY mindful of. There is a diary allergy, a peanut allergy and a gluten and corn allergy. I would like to still make something festive and fun, but don’t want anybody suffering because of my baking.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

We went out to the farm for our Sunday visit at about 10am. My hubby and in laws took the trampoline down for the winter. It was way too cold for this gal so I sat inside and watched the Food Network. Once they were all done, we sat down for a coffee and piece of pumpkin pie. My MIL follows Weight Watchers so I know that the pie has been slimmed up! You sure can’t tell taste wise!

I only had a sliver because I was still pretty full from breakfast. From there, we went straight to the Legion for DS’s hockey picture day. It was actually pretty well organized and we were in and out in less than an hour. I had made bagels ahead of time to eat on the car ride from the farm to the hall.

This is a muesli bagel with half a mashed banana mixed with a tablespoon of almond butter spread on it. Before I ate it, I put the 2 pieces together, cut them into 4 pieces and nuked it for 30 seconds to soften it up. Hit the spot!

After pictures, we drove over to Sam’s Club for Hallowe’en candy, pumpkins and a few other items. Finally, it was 4pm and time to head home! I was feeling pretty snacky by then so I ate an apple and a handful of green grapes.


There was also a handful of dry mini wheats snuck in there! DS had his hockey game from 5-6pm today. I opted to stay home in order to have supper ready for 6:15pm which is when they got back. Earlier in the day I had made pizza dough in the breadmaker. I subbed in ½ cup wheat germ for some of the flour (always trying to find a way to “healthy” it up). I always make my own little pizza because I like some toppings that no one else does and the rest of la famiglia likes A LOT of cheese!

On here we have tomato sauce, yellow pepper, asparagus, mushrooms, hot peppers, roasted red peppers, ham and some mozzarella cheese. Delish! I ate three quaters of this baby and packed the last of it for lunch tomorrow. No sweet end tonight, either....I was too full. That's something you won't hear me say often!

Well, the 'rents (hehe!) are here so....

Bye for now!!

Pizza-rific!

I was up nice and early this morning because my son (DS from now on) had to be on the ice for 8am. I opted to stay home alone (my daughter….DD…went, too) to get the housework done so that it was out of the way nice and early. Before I made breakfast I sorted all the laundry and got a load going. Then I made a nice pot of oats with my new snack mix as a topping.



-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Flax Seed Porridge
-1/3 cup pumpkin puree
-1/4 cup wild blueberries
-1/4 cup Sahale Snacks in Dauphine (walnut)



This was SO good with the nut mix on top. They have a few other flavors that I really want to try now! The stats on them are pretty good, too. 130 calories, 10 grams fat and 2grams of fiber all for 1/3 of a cup. And all natural, cholesterol free, no trans fat and low in sodium. I’d say it’s a nice mix of sweet and salty. I would try this mix sprinkled on a salad, too.

After breakfast, I vacuumed, washed the kitchen floor, unloaded the dishwasher, took apart and washed up the stove top and got some pizza dough going in the bread maker and caught up on some blog reading.

Last night, I snacked on a muffin while watching TV...



Hey! Look who was hiding behind the muffin shot! That’s Charlie, the Brat.



By the time 12:30 rolled around I still wasn’t really hungry but I knew we had some things to do this afternoon that would keep me out of the house for a few hours so I prepared a light lunch.



Some beets and sweet potato fries that I roasted off last night. There’s also some Dijonnaise on the side for dipping. When I roasted the beets I just sprayed them with my oil mister and seasoned them with salt & pepper. Then I covered them and popped them in a 450* oven for 45 minutes. When they cool down, the skin peels off very easily. I just like them plain or with a little S & P. As for the sweet potato fries, I seasoned them with cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, coriander, dried basil and salt & pepper. They went in with the beets but came out after a half hour. YUM!

I also ate a Kashi chewy Honey Almond Flax bar to get some bulk in my belly!



My DS had a play date from 1-3 so DD and I went to the library after we dropped him off. For school this year the kids in her class are required to read for at least 15 minutes a day. DD likes to read so it’s never an issue around here…we just have to make sure she is well stocked with books. Lately, her read of choice seems to be the “Goosebumps” series so she came back with 4 of those. I grabbed a few for myself and DS, too. While out, I enjoyed a Tim Horton's 1/2 decaf, 1/2 hot chocolate....



As I mentioned earlier in the post, I made some pizza dough in the bread machine. The recipe was simple….3/4 tsp salt, 3 Tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp active dry yeast, 4 cup all purpose flour, 1 3/8 of a cup of water. The only change I made was to the flour. I did 1/2 all purpose, 1/2 whole wheat. Here it is just after coming out of the machine...



And three hours later after being punched down twice...



I set aside a tennis ball size piece of dough for myself and used the rest for a cookie sheet size pizza for the family.



This pizza is topped with salami, ham, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, hot peppers, marble cheese and Romano cheese. Here it is after baking for 20 minutes in a 450* oven!



On my pizza we have ham, mushrooms, roasted red pepper, hot peppers, 1/2 oz shredded feta, 1/2 oz smoked Gouda with sun dried tomato and a very small amount of marble cheese.



And hot out of the oven...




I ran the ingredients through the recipe calculator over at Spark People to get a rough idea of the nutritional value on my pizza. The approximate stats are...335 calories, 12 grams fat & 5 grams of fiber. I think it's probably a bit higher than that. I ate 3/4 of this pizza before I'd had enough. My sweet end was a handful of dried fruit trail mix...



And I couldn't possibly not show a picture of my big boy after featuring his brother, so without further ado, I give you Octavius!



PHEW! What a day! The laundry and other chores are complete and Mom & Dad should be here any minute for a visit. Hope everyone enjoys their Saturday night!

Bye for now!