Computer Issues

Sorry I didn’t post last night! Our computer is having some issues! First, it wouldn’t allow me to download my pictures. I decided to leave that alone and start on the actual post and the keyboard was dead…..ugh! Anyways, my hubby is working on it today. I’m hoping it’ll be an easy fix!

I’ll do a short recap of yesterday before I get on to today. I should also mention that the computer ate some of my photos last night, too! Bugger! The day started off early because DS had his first day of the hockey camp that “Santa” brought for him! That started at 8am. I slept until the last possible minute then had no time to make my oats! Luckily, I had one last bowl of Kozy Shack porridge in my fridge.


This held me over until 12:30! AMAZING!!! I also had a café latte with a shot of pumpkin spice syrup from Choco Latte while at the rink.

DS had a BLAST on the ice. One of his buddies from school was there, too so that was an extra bonus. They all got Guelph Storm jersey’s with their last names written on the back. Too cool!

I got creative with the turkey for lunch by making a turkey salad. I didn’t keep track of any measurements, but here’s what went in the mix:

-turkey, chopped up into small pieces (about 1 cup)
-about 4 chunks of artichoke hearts (the ones that are packed in water)
-maybe 8-10 green olives chopped up
-a tbsp of honey mustard
-1/4 cup-ish of plain Greek yogurt (I used Oikos)
-S & P

I lined a Flatout wrap with lettuce and plopped about a 1/3 cup of turkey salad on top. Rolled it all up and voila!

I also ate the rest of the container of Oikos with some fig preserves mixed in. Terrific lunch!! DD ate one, too and she gave it the kid stamp of approval! :)


We went out to the farm for a visit in the afternoon seeing as we didn’t make it out there on Sunday like usual. My MIL bought this great new game set for the Wii called “Active Life: Outdoor Challenge”. Holy moly, what a blast! I’m going to go buy it for the family sometime this week. It has canoeing, log jumping, cart racing, hurdles just to name a few of the activities. Does anyone else have this game? What do you think about it? I’d be interested to hear any comments, good or bad!

I had some tofu in the fridge that was quickly approaching its expiry date so that’s what I made for my dinner.

It was very good! I browned up a ¼ of the block with some leftover brussel sprouts and when all was toasty and brown, I added a tablespoon of pomegranate chutney. YUM! I added some steamed veggies to the side for bulk. My sweet end was 3 clementines.

Another lost picture was my snackie! Pretty simple, really. I toasted up a 100 cal English muffin and spread one half with mighty maple PB, the other with dark chocolate PB. I just sat around watching TV all evening. Vacation is making me lazy!!

No on to today! So, I had to work. BOO!! There were only 3 of us in and it went surprisingly quick. Thank goodness! I made my eggnog oats again because I really need to use up the carton before it spoils.


Lunch was very similar to what I ate yesterday…the rest of the turkey salad. Today’s was served up in a toasted Arnold Thin.

It was better today than yesterday! I guess all the flavours enjoyed each others company over night! :)

I’m just getting ready to leave work now. It’s a little later than I’d hoped….3:30pm, which is only an hour earlier than usual. Oh, well….I’m a bit more ahead of the game for next week when we have to jump right back in feet first! We’re going to a hockey game tonight and seeing as we’ll be late and I don’t know if the computer at home is up and running yet, I’m going to post now. If you don’t see me for a few days, you’ll know that I’m still computer-less. I highly doubt that’ll be the case….my hubby is vary apt at solving technical issues….but just in case…..have a HAPPY and SAFE NEW YEAR!!

Bye for now!!

BSI: Carrots!

Hello all! Hope you've all had a good weekend so far! I was wide awake at 6am this morning. I haven't the foggiest idea why, but there was no way I was getting out of my warm bed at that hour so I just stayed put and relaxed until 7:15. While relaxing, I realized that for the first time in a long while, I didn't feel like oats! I know! Anyways, I decided on English muffin French toast with cranberry sauce, of course!

I mixed together about a 1/3 cup of egg beaters with lots of cinnamon and about 1 tsp of vanilla. I soaked an English muffin and the bum end of some WW bread in the mixture for a few minutes and then cooked them until they were nice and gold in colour.

Once on the plate I topped them with some heated cranberry sauce and a sprinkle of maple flakes. Oh, so good!

After breakie, we drove out to the farm for a quick visit as DS had a b-day party from 12-1:30 today. My MIL has been busy baking cookies and put some out for us to eat.

I had one chocolate chip and 2 of the peanut butter oat ones. Delish! These guys were quite busy trying on their "But I'm starving" faces in hopes of some sweets. I'm sure they weren't crazy about our decision not to share!


After dropping DS off at his party, we came back home for some lunch. I wasn't too hungry because of the cookies so I decided to break out one of the Kozy Shack porridge bowls that I bought at Wegman's. The stats on these are not too bad....3PTS if you follow Weight Watchers.

I was skeptical at first because at first glance it looked just like a bowl of goo. I heated it up in the microwave and gave it a try.

I must say, not bad!! It was the Maple & brown sugar one which I found a bit on the sweet side, but I haven't put sugar in my oats for eons so I guess that was to be expected. The consistency was pudding like with a little bit of chew.


Overall, I would have to say that I enjoyed this product. At 7oz a bowl, the serving was smaller than I am use to, but did a good job of filling me up today. I would by them again, but probably the plain kind instead of a sweetened one.

Shortly after we ate, we went to get DS from the party and went straight to his hockey game. DD and I dropped the boys off and hightailed it to the mall to grab a few last gift for my hubby. We made it back in time to see the last 25 minutes of the game. Thank goodness the mall is just around the corner from the rink!! I munched on an apple (no pic) while at the game. While it was good, it was a bit cool of a snack for an arena!

I started on my BSI recipe when we got home. There are SO many things you can do with carrots, but I knew that sweet was the way to go in my household! Here's what I came up with!

Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal

-1 cup Unsweetened Almond Breeze
-1/2 cup Egg Beaters (or 2 eggs)
-1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
-1/4 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 ½ tsp baking powder
-1 Tbsp cinnamon
-2 cup oats
-1 tsp salt
-1 cup shredded carrots
-1/2 cup raisins

*preheat oven to 350*
*Combine wet ingredients in a large bowl
*Add all dry ingredients to the wet mixture
*Gently fold in first the carrots and then the raisins
*Pour into a greased 8 X 8 baking dish and bake for 40 minutes

Let cool completely before cutting into 12 squares.

This recipe was VERY easy to do....it came together before the oven was done preheating! Its fabulous as a snack or even a grab n'go breakfast. Drizzle a little white chocolate on top with a sprinkle of icing sugar and serve for dessert!' Or crumble it over ice cream....the possibilities are endless!

Here are the nutritional stats according to Spark People...

Nutrition Facts
12 Servings

Calories 113.6
Total Fat 1.5 g
Saturated Fat 0.3 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.4 g
Cholesterol 0.5 mg
Sodium 291.4 mg
Potassium 160.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate 22.3 g
Dietary Fiber 2.3 g
Sugars 6.1 g
Protein 4.0 g

Thanks to Catherine @ Stevia and Spice for choosing the ingredient this week! If you haven't stopped by her blog, you should do so....once you're done reading here! :)

While my creation was baking up, I got started on a simple pork and rice dinner. I cooked up some fast fry pork chops then added 1.5 cups of water and half a cup of salsa to the pan. Once that was bubbling, I stirred in a 1/2 cup of brown rice, covered it up and let cook until the water was gone, about 20 minutes. The last step was to sprinkle about a 1/2 cup of grated jalapeño Havarti on top to melt. I also had some of my leftover soup from last night on the side.

And that's my day! Another busy, fun filled adventure! My hubby is on vacay for the next 2 weeks, but I have to work for the next 3 days. It'll be tough getting out of bed in the morning while he's still snuggled in! Ah, well...I'm sure I'll survive! Speaking of work, I brought some home with me that I need to get started on. I know, it sucks, but I'll be glad to have it out of the way tomorrow so that I can leave work on time (I hope!). Tune in for tomorrow's post. I found some neat around the house tips that I'll be sharing with you!

Bye for now!!

A Quick Recap of the Day

Hi everybody! I hope everyone's weekend is going GREAT! This will be a post with lots of pictures and not much text. I have 1/2 an hour to get this done as I was in Buffalo all day (Wahoo!) and my parents are due here shortly. I will be back to norm tomorrow, but I hope you enjoy the post regardless of it's lack of narrative!!

Breakfast;


Snack on the ride down. We made it from my front door to the mall in Buffalo in 1hr 45mins!

After some successful Christmas shopping...and some "me" shopping, we hit Panera for lunch. I had the Orchard salad and tomato mozzarella panini....delish!!


I saved my apple and ate it on the way home. While at the mall, the kid's enjoyed this "bear band"!!!


We hit up Barnes & Noble, Target and Wegman's...I skipped Kohl's this time as DS was becoming increasingly hard to deal with after his 5am wake up call! DD spent some time with good ole Jack Daniels at the duty free store.....:)

We were at home with a quick supper on the table by 5:45pm! On the menu was baked cod fillets, veggies and mac n' cheese (for the family);

And here's my loot!!! Here we have 100 calorie English muffins and WW & multi grain Arnold sandwich thins!! I've seen these ALL over blogland recently so I was stoked to come across them!


Next up---dairy! Fage (and LOTS of it!), whipped cottage cheese (can't find that here), Oikos yogurt (another recent star in blogland), a Weight Watchers yogurt, cinnamon plum tea jam (found this at Panera's), Kozy Shack Ready Grains oats (to try out)

Lastly, oat milk (finally found it!), Wessex 5 Grain cereal, Quaker bars, hazelnut milk, cinnamon bun Coffee Mate (a treat!), sweet potato puree, box of chocolate chip Z Bars, Progresso soup, seasonal clif bars, eggnog coffee and flatout wraps!

Of the non-edible variety, I bought a cute snowman bowl and a penguin cup at Target. I saw a Santa cup, but I didn't want to become Eating Benders cyber stalker!

So, there you have my stash!! I promise to be back to normal tomorrow. I'm hoping to have some time later on to do some blog reading, so please know that I'm not ignoring anybody!!

Bye for now!!