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!!

Bar Review and Valentine Day Treats

I had another great sleep last night. That’s 2 in a row! Go me! Actually, the whole day was super productive which leaves me feeling satisfied. I revisited an old favourite for breakfast this morning:
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-chocolate PB2
-carob chips & walnut pieces
I lapped this up with pleasure! :D

I ate a Sencha Green Tea Bar in “Morning Lychee” this a.m. before hitting the gym:
THOUGHTS:
-at first I was very hesitant because I’ve never tried a lychee fruit before and the smell kinda threw me off. I couldn’t quite place it, but it reminded me of some type of alcohol. Not gonna lie, the first bite threw me off, too because it tasted boozy!! But I’m a champ and kept at it. After a few more bites the taste really grew on me. The packaging states “a tropical fusion of lychee berries & sweet coconut”, I couldn’t taste any coconut at all which was a bit disappointing.
-I love the texture of these bars. They’re chewy like a rice crispy square, but there are loads of seeds to give it a great consistency.
-They’re 220 calories but a good size bar so I feel it’s totally worth it. Because they are thicker and denser than a lot of bars, they take awhile to eat so there’s no rushing through it. And they are gluten & wheat free which I appreciate even though I don’t have issues surrounding those ingredients.
-1 bar = 3 cups of green tea. Enough said.

RATING: 4/5
**NOTE: This bar was not sent to me for review. I bought them myself to try. See here for my thoughts on the “lively lemongrass” flavour.

The gym was awesome today! I decided to run and did I ever show that treadmill whose boss. BOOYA!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 164
Max Hr: 193
Calories Torched: 501 (!!)
Distance: 4.4 miles

That is hands down the best run I’ve had in a long time; since at least before Christmas. I got into a groove early on and never looked back.

I packed myself a serving of quinoa stew for lunch today:
I always add a little hot water before heating my (thawed) frozen foods in the microwave. It helps to loosen the mix up a bit so it’s not like a glob of paste in my mouth. LOL! I also found a box of cute cookies in the staff kitchen so I helped myself to one:
This was SO freaking good! The base was cracker-like and the chocolate topping was filled with caramel. SO worth it!!!

Just before quitting time I ate a pink grapefruit that I butchered cut up this morning.
Grapefruits are something I’ve always loved, but I hate the pith on any citrus and I find this in particular to be the worst culprit. Cutting and sectioning the fruit, while a pain in the ass, eliminates this problem for me. Oh…I’ve still been eating way to many of these:

My hubby and I put a Valentine’s order in with one of our local high school’s (CHSS) bakery for some treats. This particular school is a trade school so it’s the students that make and decorate all the food. I always support them come “special occasions” such as V-day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc and have never been disappointed with the product. Take a look at this stash that landed at my desk this aft!
This is a 4 layer chocolate/banana cake with chocolate ganache. My hubby ordered 2. Yes, you read that right…2! Next is 6 dozen cookies.

One dozen is my hub’s, the other 5 are for the kids classes. Read on to see what we did with those.

I popped a roast in the crock pot this morning because the boys were on the ice at 4:30 and DD had skating lessons at 5:20. Us gals ate first. Along with my meat I ate a few potatoes that were also in the crock and some mixed veggies:

Once back home the kids and I assembled their Valentines using a cookie, some chocolate and v-day baggies. Here are a few of them….

So right now I’m in the middle of baking mini muffins for a “coffee break” my department is hosting at work tomorrow. I used this recipe for blueberry chia muffins and replaced the blueberries with cinnamon chips. I doubled the recipe but only have 1 mini muffin baking tin so the second batch is still in the oven. I’ll take a picture of the finished product for tomorrow’s post.

Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty exhausted right now. I plan on making a tea and settling in to watch Vampire Diaries. The only kind of candy I want right now is eye candy!! ;)

Bye for now!!

Ugly Christmas Sweater??

Ohhh….I’ve got lots to talk about today!! I’ll start with our “ugly Christmas sweater” day at work today. Apparently I was not the only person that was unable to find something truly ugly. Not many people showed up in the dress code for the day! :( Being a good sport, I wore my “not my style” sweater all day long. Here’s what it looked like;

Not only is it not me, but it also makes me look about 50lbs heavier than I am!!! HA! And in true tacky form, I kept the tags on and returned the damn thing to the store tonight. My bad. Hehe!

Breakfast ended up being a bit rushed because I took long than expected to get dinner in the crock pot. Silly me!
-1 cup water
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice
-pumpkin puree
-crunchy, natural PB
To be honest, some raisins woulda made this bowl better. Ah, well!

I partook in some sweets again today. I’ll show you the photos now because I ate the stuff in the a.m.;
Brownie cookie, shortbread cookie
Mint chocolate, peanut brittle. I only ate one bite of the brittle because I almost broke another tooth on it so it got chucked. I did have a healthy snack, too!!

Silly orange! Why you gotta be so tasty yet messy???

Gym time! I really need to get something of my chest about running…..lately I’ve been hating it! **GASP!!!** I know, right? I don’t know what’s up but the last few times I’ve had a “scheduled” run, I’ve dreaded it. And I don’t want to dread it. To try to combat this I’ve decided to lay off running for a bit. I know that I’ll wake up one morning (soon, I think) and really have the desire to run. Then it will be “right” to go at it again….with enthusiasm! That being said, when I went to the gym today someone was already on our lone elliptical so I trudged over to one of the treadmills with the attitude to just do whatever. I ended up having a great, stress free work out! Here’s what I did;

35 minutes at 6.25 mph with a 0.5% incline
10 minutes at 4 mph with an 8% incline

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 169
Max Hr: 185
Calories Torched: 522
Distance: 4.4 miles

Not too shabby, eh? I was really impressed with the calories I shed because usually I burn about 470 on a 45 minute run. Seeing as I walked for 10 minutes I figured the calorie burn would be less. Goes to show what I know!! ;)

I brought a portable lunch today because we were running payrolls so I knew I’d need something hands free. I brought an Oceans tuna salad in a can which I’ve had before and enjoyed. I believe the other one I tried was an Italian salad. This one was a Spanish salad;
Here are the stats for the whole 170g can;
This was SUPER yummy! Check out all the veggie goodness packed inside;
Isn’t that colourful? There’s tuna (obv), corn, kidney beans, red pepper, onions and a dressing made up of vinegar, sunflower oil, salt, sugar, paprika, white pepper, chilli and cumin. That pretty much the ingredient list. The only 2 “bad” items are citric acid & xanthan gum. This mix in particular would be fantastic mixed with pasta for a super fast and easy pasta salad. I bet rice would work, too! The only place I’ve been able to find these handy lunches is at Walmart, though.

I gulped back a few of these as the afternoon went on;
There’s some pumpkin pie “creamer” in there…

As I mentioned earlier in this post, dinner tonight was courtesy of my crock pot. I was watching Rach Ray yesterday and she did up a one pot chicken dish with a sauce that I though sounded unique so I borrowed the recipe for my roast! It’s a 3 ingredient sauce to boot! Into a bowl pour a ¼ cup each molasses and grainy mustard. Stir to combine then add 1 cup of stock (I used chicken) and stir, stir, stir until it’s one happy family. Done. How easy is that? I poured it over a roast and set the crock to low. This was 8am. Around noonish I had my hubby add some potatoes and baby carrots to the pot. Here’s the finished dish with a bit of spinach, too.

I’ve had a serious baking bug in my drawers for a few days now, but I’ve been refraining from making anything because there’s already SO much stuff around this time of year. It’s really driving me nuts, though! Just a random thought!

DD and I just got back from a few stores. I bought some neat things I but I think this post has gone on long enough! I’ll show you tomorrow. Right now I have a cozy fur baby on my lap and I think I’m going to take full advantage of his heat!!

Bye for now!!

Nothing New Here

Woot woot!! It’s Wednesday! Only 2 more days until the weekend is upon us. Anybody planning on going to see New Moon on Friday?? We’re going to a hockey game so I won’t be in any crowded theatre. I plan to take DD next weekend when it’s (hopefully) quieter.
-2/3 cup coffee
-1/3 cup Quaker oats
-cashew baby
-cranberry sauce
-chopped peanuts
-USVAB
I still have a few of the cashew babies left so I melted one into the pot today. Yum-o!

I tried a new (to me) bar before the gym today. It was a choco-walla bar;
This was great! It had a rich chocolate flavour, dense consistency and chunks of chocolate through out. I’m gonna have to give the other Odwalla flavours a go!

The gym today was rotten. Somebody fiddled with the thermostat and it made for an exhausting run. My legs felt like lead and it felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. It was extremely tough and by the end I felt like passing out, but I finished. By the skin of my chinny-chin-chin!

Time: 45 minutes
Avg Hr: 163
Max Hr: 185
Calories Torched: 488
Distance: 4.6 miles

I seriously don’t know how you girls who live in hot weather places do it. Kudos to ya!

At least I packed a refreshing lunch! I brought some Fage;

And topped it with TJ’s blueberry muesli and fresh raspberries;

Dinner was our planned roast in the crock pot. I almost forgot to take the meat out of the freezer again. DOH! I just seasoned it with some Montreal steak spice and let it go for 9 hours. I served it up with some baked potatoes and steamed broccoli;

I also had some of this pomegranate chutney on the side for dipping;

We just got back from the pool and I’m thinking about watching Twilight again. My hubby is leaving soon for hockey and there’s not much on TV. What a life! Before I sign off I wanted to tell you all to head over to Coco's blog for a chance to win some Pop Chips!!!

Bye for now!!

Wish I was Doing Yoga

The day started out mild and sunny and ended up wet and cold. Urgh. Tis the season, I suppose!

• 2/3 cup coffee
• 1/3 cup PC 5 grain cereal
• currants
• Enjoy Life Foods trail mix

As you can see, it’s now dark enough in the morning to warrant the flash. Bugger. Still looks pretty, though, eh?!

I was a little miffed to find out today that for the next 10 weeks on Thursday’s the gym will be “closed”. There’s a yoga class going on in the upper level which I did know about but can’t participate in because the department I’m in rotates lunch hours. Initially, we were going to be able to use the lower level where the cardio machines are, but the committee changed their minds. I ate this Kashi bar while I mulled over what to do during my lunch hour;

I decided to make a trip to the bank to get some American moola while the exchange rate is still pretty good seeing as I’ll be doing some State side shopping in November. Then I dropped my prescription off and went home to throw some food into the crock pot. Productive, no?

Lunch was the leftover tofu and kabocha squash from last night. **WARNING** ugly food photo ahead!!

Ya just can’t make something like this look pretty, but it sure tasted good! As you can probably tell by the dimness, the clouds had rolled in.

I wore my new trial contact lenses to work today. I’ve been using the Acuvue for a few years, but can’t wear them to work because I get a major headache by noon from looking at the computer so much. My Dr. is having me try the Acuvue Oasys and they worked out OK. No headache, but the screen was still a bit on the blurry side. I’ll wear them again tomorrow and see if it gets any better. I’m hoping my eyes just need to adjust. Anybody have any tips for me??

When I got home from work I had a present waiting for me! Nature’s Path sent me their new gluten free cereals to try!

Crunchy Vanilla and Crunchy Maple. Both sounds mouth watering to me! Thanks, Kari!!

Back to my crock pot dinner. Into the insert I tossed a smallish pork tenderloin, chopped, 1 cup dry kasha, 2 red bell peppers, 2 chopped carrots, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can each of chickpeas & kidney beans and a can of mini corn cobs. Seasonings included oregano, coriander, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. I didn’t measure, just gave each a good shake or 2. I set it on high and washed my hands of it until dinner time. The fam had theirs over pasta, I ate mine With some Goat’s milk yogurt.

I had used one of my POM coupons the other day to buy some POM iced tea. I drank some of that with my dinner;

It was refreshing and a bit tart. My kids really enjoyed it, too! Dessert was some grapes that I shared with DS…

I just got home from a meeting at the school and plan on snacking on some yogurt with cranberry sauce while watching the rest of CSI. And then it’s time for Vampire Diaries! You may not see me around tomorrow. DS has an out of town game that we have to leave right after work for and I’m not expecting that we’ll be home before 9:30pm. Make sure you all have a fantastic Friday!!

Bye for now!!