Mellow Sunday

Hi all! Hope you’ve all had a great Sunday. Can’t believe the weekend is already over, though. Nuts! I enjoyed a pretty low key day….just what the doctor ordered. It all started out with a great breakfast;

• 1/2 cup water/USAB
• 1/3 cup sunrise blend with quinoa
• cinnamon
• dried blueberries
• banana
• carob chips

Delicious! We spent some time out at the farm this morning. I visited with the baby horses for a bit while my hubby helped my in laws with some settings on their computer. On the way home we stopped at Knapps Country Market for a strawberry/rhubarb/peach pie;

I haven’t had a piece yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful! I also bought some cashew butter which I used in my lunch. I toasted a WW bagel and spread some on top. On the side was some watermelon chunks;

I didn’t want too heavy a lunch because we had dinner plans at Mom’s place for Lisa’s b-day. After I ate I went down to the garden to pick some veggies. I have SO MANY tomatoes coming! I think I’ll have to bring some to work for people to take home with them because I’m sure I’ll never get through them all. Check out what I picked!

There’s probably triple this still on the plants that aren’t quite ripe yet. And I do believe that this will be the last zucchini of the year. The plants are starting to yellow and look generally unwell. Typical for when the season is done.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and blowing my nose. I swear it’s like a tap today but I’ll take it as a sign that this cold is starting to break up. *relief*

At 4 we made our way to the ‘rents place. I was teasing Lisa that her birthday has turned into “Lisa-Fest: A 3 Day Event”! :D She had a good laugh over that! Mom put out a fantastic spread. Here’s my plate;

Grilled zucchini, flank steak, pork tenderloin, potato salad, bulgur & bean salad, roasted cherry tomatoes. All super tasty. I never even got to the buns and garden salad….had to save room for dessert. Drumstick Cheesecake!!!

A scrumptious mix of cream cheese, Cool Whip. chocolate sauce, PB, Crispy Crunch Bar, crushed chocolate chip cookies to name a few! This beauty makes an appearance at all b-day’s around our family. After dinner my Dad pulled out my uncles old accordion from when he was a kid so he could bring it home with him. The kids were very intrigued by the strange instrument and both had a go at it!

You can see by DD’s face that she was supremely confused!!

I spent some time talking to my bestie when we got home. She became a third time Auntie this morning and is quite pleased about it! I was happy to hear the good news. Left to do tonight is lunches and preparing school bags for the morning. DD has cross country in the morning so we’ll need to leave the house a little earlier. Also, she starts dance class tomorrow night at 6:15. Oh, Mondays…..the joy!

Bye for now!!

Run, There’s Mosquito's!!!

Happy Friday! The weekend is finally here! I was off work today and enjoyed a nice, relaxing day. I started off by sleeping in until 8am and taking my time getting ready. Then I enjoyed a great bowl of rye flakes!

• 1/4 cup POM Wonderful
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup rye flakes
• dried currants
• pecan pieces, carob chips, shaved coconut

My hubby commented that my bowl looked like the filling of a butter tart! That’s how good it tasted, too! :)

After we dropped the kids off at Italian school we set out on a nice long walk. Part of said walk was on a trail where my poor hubby was getting eaten alive by skeeters. They never bother much with me. To keep them off him we decided to run out the rest of the trail….I would guess a good mile. As it was we were gone for almost 2 hours.

• Time: 1hr 40 mins
• Avg Hr: 117
• Max Hr: 178
• Calories Burned: 508

I’d say we walked a good 7 miles. We got home with enough time to go seal the deal on the Jeep Liberty! YAY! We’ll be picking it up next Wednesday. Very exciting stuff!

Once the kids were picked up we settled in for lunch. I made a toasted WW bun with a 1/4 cup egg beater, pepper jack cheese and Sabra hummus. On the side was some strained yogurt with strawberry banana jam and a sprinkle of Dorset cereal…

I took the camera down to my garden today to take some progress photos to show you. Here are my tomatoes…

Flowers from the bell pepper plants;

My crazy butternut squash vines!

You can see the last 2 heads of lettuce, too. And lastly, my zucchini plants;

As you can see, things are coming along nicely!

Later in the day DD and I went to run some errands. DS decided he wanted tacos for dinner but all the ground beef was still frozen so I went to the grocery store to buy some. I can never leave with just what I went in for so when I saw this Mocha Almond Fudge coffee creamer I knew it was coming home with me!

An indulgence for sure but it’s not like I use it everyday.

Tacos are not my thing and never have been. Yucky. I decided to make a batch of vegan chilli that I have made before. I found the recipe over at Mara’s place this winter and loved it! I cut the recipe in half this time and still have plenty leftover for lunches. This batch had an onion, garlic, 1 cup bulgur, 2 cups water, a large can of tomato sauce, 1 can each of red kidney beans, lentils and chickpeas, green beans and 3 chipotle’s. I left those out last time and boy, oh boy did they EVER spice it up!

I topped my serving off with a good 1/3 cup of plain NF yogurt and some grated marble cheese…

Very, very good! I cooled my mouth off with another grocery store treat….cappuccino fro-yo with espresso bean flakes…

As good as it sounds and looks! I even went back for another bowl. *blush*

After all that food I figured I’d better move around some so I played “baseball” in the driveway with DS for a 1/2 hour. This meant he threw the ball at me while I dodged it and he laughed hysterically! What a kid. They’re down at the park now so I plan to tuck in on the front porch with my book until they get back. I’m aiming for an early night because I want to go to the market tomorrow to stock up on fruit for the week. Hope it doesn’t rain! Enjoy your evening!

Bye for now!!

A New Breakfast Idea

I tried out a new hot grain breakfast this morning that I’m super psyched to post about! So, without further ado, I give you……drum roll……

Bulgar Breakfast

-1/4 cup Bulgar
-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze
-½ mashed banana
-handful blueberries
-splash of vanilla extract
-cinnamon
-splash of French vanilla International Delight coffee creamer

Here’s what I did – last night I combined the Bulgar, water, almond breeze, cinnamon & vanilla in a bowl and nuked it for 2 minutes. When it was done I gave it a quick stir and let it cool before covering it and putting it in the fridge. This morning, I nuked it for 1 minute, added the banana and nuked it another minute, added the blueberries and nuked it 30 seconds, then stirred in the coffee creamer.

OH HEAVEN!! I’ve been toying with a few new breakfast ideas and this was one of them. I reasoned that Bulgar is a grain just like oats or oat bran, so why not incorporate it into breakfast? I’m so glad I did! This is definitely a winner! You could certainly mix & match the flavours here….the possibilities are endless!

I picked up a latte at 7-11 after swimming last night. Seems to have become a bit of a “tradition”. They were out of the blueberry and I wasn’t feeling the pumpkin spice so I bought a FF French vanilla.

This was good going down but actually upset my tummy a bit. It was VERY rich…..too rich, I do believe. I’ll have to remember that next week!

I was feeling snacky all morning, but knew that I wasn’t really feeling hungry. I was just excited to eat my coconut cream pie Lara bar. How sad is that?! I brought ½ of the bar because I was not falling for my mental game of “you have the will power to bring the whole bar and only eat half”. I know very well that I do not have the will power to not eat the whole bar. Anywho, this was my pre-run munch.

Good Lord, I love this flavour!

I enjoyed another fantastic run at the gym today! I am so, so happy the place is finally open! Running on this new treadmill feels like I’m running on air. It’s very smooth. And I downloaded some great tunes to listen to which really helps pass the time. Here’s my stats!

Time: 45:00
Avg HR: 165
Max HR: 182
Calories Burned: 429
Miles: 4.53

After my run was done, I heated up some of Mara’s chili for my lunch. I had a little tub of yogurt that was suppose to go on top, but I forgot it at home. Oh, well…it was still delish!

Then I ate a bowl of grapes. These guys were kinda sour. EEEKK! Pucker up!

Look who I found in the fridge this morning!

Another raspberry oatmeal muffin!! I guess my hubby took it home yesterday from his lunch. This made a great late afternoon snack! I promise that this is the last one this time!!

Tonight was DD's skating lesson, so I hit up the library again. It's so convenient that the rink & library are in the same facility! Unfortunately, I didn't find any cookbooks that interested me. I did pick up a bunch of easy readers for DS. Before we left, I ate an apple with a scoop of Mighty Maple PB.

On the way home I stopped by the health food store to part with my PB Lara Bar. I exchanged it for a pistachio one. I've never tried it before, so we'll see how I like it! While there, I picked up a can of Amy's split pea soup for dinner. I was getting pretty hungry and really didn't feel like preparing anything. I served it up with 2 pieces of WW bread & butter.

I was disappointed in the soup. It was kinda blah. I had expected a stronger flavour than what it had. It served it's purpose, though, I guess. I had a coupon for $0.55 off so at least not all was lost. I usually really like Amy's products. :( No sweet end as of yet, but the night is not over! :) I bought a tin of Camino dark hot chocolate at the health food store so I think I may just enjoy a mug of that. CSI is on at 9 and I have a few things to take care of before then so I must sign off.

Bye for now!!

A Busy One

Look what I woke up to today!



Now, I know it’s just a dusting, but only an hour and a half away they had 15cm!! YIKES! That’s just too close for comfort. They’re still calling for warming temps on Friday, though.

Breakie was a simple but good one today. I just felt like something more traditional in my bowl for some reason.



-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5-Grain cereal
-1/2 a banana, mashed
-1/4 cup Sahale snack mix, walnut



Extremely tasty and crunchy! I ran out of cinnamon last night and I did miss that. I love my cinnamon! This kept my going for 5.5 hrs! Killer fuel!

I must say that I am so disgusted with the blue team on The Biggest Loser that at one point during the show last night I got up to bake a little something. Anyone out these following the show feel the same?? Anyways, I’m out of WW flour, so I dug out this recipe from halfmysize.com. Check out the original recipe. I did a few ingredient swaps. Here’s my adaptation:

Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal

-1 cup dry oatmeal
-1 cup oatbran
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 cup unsweetened almond breeze
-1/2 cup egg beaters
-1/2 cup pumpkin puree
-2 Tbsp agave
-1.5 Tbsp cinnamon (the last of my bottle)
-1 tsp coconut extract

*preheat oven to 350 deg
*Combine wet, add dry
*mix well and pour into a 8 x 8 pan
*bake 35 mins
*cool before cutting into 6 pieces

**the recipe says to use either 2 cups of oats OR 1 cup each oats and oatbran**

Here she be out of the oven.



Of course I ate a piece, but forgot to take a picture! Can’t believe it, but I did! It was still a little too warm to really tell how the taste was, but I love the texture of it! (keep reading for a taste update!) **I'll post this in the sidebar under my recipes for convenience sake, but it's not really my recipe...just a spin off of the original

The morning at work was absolutely INSANE! I went non-stop for 3.5hrs...not even a washroom break was squeezed in there! Good thing I had that bowl of oats to power me through! PHEW! I channeled all that built up “buzz” my body was functioning on in my run. Wow! Considering that I really wasn’t feeling like a run today, I powered myself through an intense one! Aren’t those always the best workouts?

Lunch today was an oddball . I had a lonely President’s Choice oat bagel in the fridge and ½ of a yellow pepper. I decided to make them into a sandwich with a Weight Watchers cream cheese cup, salt and pepper. I toasted the bagel, spread the cheese on it, put the pepper on it, then nuked it for 20 seconds. Voila! I ate the leftover pieces of pepper on the side.



A little later on I had a piece of the Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal. I’m happy to report that the taste was right on! I loved the coconut flavoring and the moist texture. The wedges are a generous size...you could probably cut it into 12 pieces for more of a snack size. I picked at a container of grapes throughout the afternoon, too.



Here's a neat recipe I made for dinner;

Acorn Squash stuffed with Autumn Bulgur

-1 cup chicken stock
-1/4 cup each onion, carrots and celery
-1/2 cup bulgur
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
-tsp each cumin, coriander, chili powder, dried basil, garlic powder, salt & pepper
-2 Tbsp grated Asiago cheese
-1 acorn squash

*preheat oven to 375 deg
*cot squash in half cross-way and brush with olive oil, salt & pepper
*place flesh side down on a baking sheet and roast for 35 mins

*Bring stock & veggies to a boil. Stir in bulgur, cover and reduce heat. Cook for 5-10 mins taking care to make sure liquid doesn't completely evaporate
*stir pumpkin puree and spices into the bulgur mixture. Continue to cook over low heat, uncovered, another 5 mins
*Place about 1/2 a cup of bulgur mixture into the well of the acorn squash, sprinkle with cheese and place back in oven another 5 mins.
*Serves 2




I loved this, but boy am I FULL! I ran the recipe through the spark People recipe builder and came up with this:

266 cal
2.4g fat
11.9g fiber
10.3g protein

This is per serving. While I was cooking away, I munched on 2 (OK, I went back for another!) amaretti cookies....



Okay! Off to pumpkin carving I go! Then SYTYCD Canada is on! I have a good night in store!

Bye for now!