This and That

Give it up for hump day!  We’re in the last stretch to the weekend, peeps!  Hopefully you are all having an awesome week thus far.  No complaints over here.  When I posted Monday night I mentioned that I had some baking in the oven so we’ll start with that today.   A wonderful loaf of Erica’s delicious Multi Grain Bread.
This bread is so versatile.  I usually pair it with sweet, but I’ve done savoury with amazing results as well.   My intention for it this week was to replace the bars that I’ve been eating before the gym.  I’m all out and didn’t want to make a special trip to the store for them.  Not that I even had the time!  So yesterday I spread some zucchini jam on a thick slice:
And today I partnered it with peanut hazelnut butter.
The absolute best aspect of this bread, IMO, is that it tastes really buttery with not a hint of it in the recipe.  Me loves!
The mornings have been rather brisk so I’ve been sticking to my oats for breakfast.  Yesterday was a blend of Nature’s Path hemp seed oatmeal topped with blueberries and pumpkin butter:
This ended up being a bit too sweet.  Lesson learned; don’t use blueberries and pumpkin butter together in oats.  Today followed a tropical theme with coconut extract, crushed pineapple and Hawaiian trail mix & yogurt chips on top:
This bowl was really good!
Tuesday’s gym session included day 7 of level 2 of the 30 Day Shred and 10 minutes of incline walking on the treadmill.  I’m excited to hit level 3 because I’ve never made it that far.  When I first did the DVD a year ago I buggered up my ankles by day 15.  Back then I was doing the disc every single day and I know that’s how I injured myself.  Keeping it tame with Tuesday’s & Thursday’s seems to be the ticket.  Today I popped on the elliptical.  I was feeling really tight across my back and figured the motion of the machine would loosen things up….and it did.
Lunch has been all over the place.  Yesterday I had tuna on a toasted multi grain English muffin with a LC cheese wedge:
Like the birthday plate?  LOL  These English muffins are perfect for me because they have seeds in them which give them some great texture.  And we all know I’m a texture kinda gal!  Today was totally random; cottage cheese, Crofter’s jam and thawed blobs:
Sorry for the less than stellar set up.  I was too lazy to walk halfway across the building for a pretty bowl.  :/
I ate a bit bigger of an afternoon snack yesterday.  I didn’t get out of work until 5:15 and wanted to be at the rink by 5:30 for DS’s game (I made it).  That and dinner was uber late for us.  I had a ginger gold apple plus some walnuts rescued from the depths of my desk drawer.
Today’s 3pm-er was much lighter; a chopped up navel orange:
I’ve been keeping to the meal plan for our dinners and it’s been going smooth.  Last night was pasta night and the fam had the regular spaghetti and homemade meat sauce.  I went with a cup of the WW pasta but topped mine with a mixture of tempeh bacon, 2 diced garden tomatoes, garlic and some grated Romano cheese.   It was splendid!  The only issue is that pasta NEVER sits pretty in my belly.  I know this but thought I’d see if things have changed.  Nope…..I was chomping on Tums at 10pm last night.  What a bummer!  Dinner tonight made my tummy happier…chicken stir fry night!
I kept this simple in using red & yellow bell peppers, chicken breast, oregano and fig balsamic dressing.  A bed of brown rice sealed the deal.
Random snacking that has happened looks like this:
Homemade oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookie x 2 from co worker;
Lots of ginger chews.  I also just polished off a bowl of Wildroots cereal that missed the camera.
In other news, the boys won their hockey game last night 3-0!  As you can imagine, they were pretty stoked!   Tonight’s soccer practice turned into a 2 hour one.  The weather held out so it wasn’t too bad.  Plus I had a few other Mom’s to chat with so the time whipped by.  ;)  Tomorrow is free and I’m SO looking forward to it!  As for the rest of tonight?  I think I’m gonna hit the sack early and read a little longer than usual. 
Tell me something exciting you’ve done so far this week!!
Bye for now!!

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!!

Weekend Shenanigan’s and Back To School

I’ve been feeling a little scattered today.  Not sure why because everything has gone pretty smoothly.  I guess it’s just getting back into the groove of things!  Did you all have a fabulous long weekend???  The weather here was pretty crappy but I’ll never complain about extra time off work.  Sunday I rendered myself to couch potato status leaving the house only to get the groceries done.  And only because I absolutely had to in order for the kids to have some food for lunches this week.  LOL  My eats were ho-hum, but compared to yesterday they were saintly!
Dark Chocolate Cherry Mocha oats…
A great big kale salad with tomato, roasted butternut squash and zucchini dressing with fig balsamic and nooch.
More than my fair share of kettle corn.  Loving this stuff…maybe a little too much!
This was a superb “BLT”….Tempeh bacon, yellow tomato (from the garden), cassata cheese, lettuce and mayo on Silver Hills bread.
Monday dawned gloomy yet again but the sun started to peek out and it warmed up some by 1-ish.   We had been invited to a pool party by one of the sets of parents on DS’s hockey team and decided it was nice enough to go.  The kids were thrilled because all morning we had been saying no way.  But back to breakfast and lunch first because my eats sorta went downhill after that!
-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-raisins
-Enjoy Life Foods mountain mambo mix
Lunch was the last little bit of my Fage mixed with zucchini jam and granola:
There was a crap load of food at the party; not much of it on the healthy side.  I (unknowingly, at the time) approached it like I was drinking on a weekend night (cuz I do so much of that…enter sarcasm).  The consumption went like this; 2 Timbits, slice of watermelon, a handful of chips, slice of watermelon, a chocolate chip cookie, slice of watermelon.  I had myself a good chuckle later in the evening when I realized I did this.  Food aside, the kids really did have a blast.  They went from pool:
To hot tub, to trampoline, to a hockey game:
Imagine that!  ;)
We were back home in front of the TV with no appetites whatsoever by 5pm.  We all just grabbed random food items for dinner as the evening progressed.  My hubby polished off the last 2 chicken drumsticks and beans from the night before, DD had some Nature’s Path PB granola, DS had a grilled cheese and I stuck with my “sweet” theme for the day by having a toasted Ezekiel muffin slathered with some Maranantha dark chocolate peanut spread:
Oh yeah, baby!!  I needed that like a hole in the head, but figured; “what the hell”!  I may or may not have topped that off with a handful or 2 of Boulder potato chips.  ;) 
I finally got to the point where I did not want another morsel to pass my lips and the only way to cure me was to get in the kitchen and start baking.  If I’m working with food I do not want to eat it.  Am I weird or what??  I went with a fool proof Mama Pea recipe that I’ve made before; Blackberry Oat Bars.  Last time I made these beauties I used apricot marmalade.  This time I rolled with my homemade zucchini jam because it really needs to get used up before it goes funky on me.  I made them late enough that they were too hot to handle before I hit the sack so no “taste testing” for “quality control” took place.  I did pack half up to spread the love at the office this morning.  Seeing as I work at a school board and today is the first day back for all the kids, I figured everyone could use a little something tasty.   
I cut the pieces smaller than the ones at home so the plate had 12 squares on it which all disappeared before the noon hour.  YES! 
I kept my eats MUCH cleaner today.  I started off with the last of my beloved Old Wessex:
-1/2 cup each coffee & water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5 grain cereal
-cinnamon
- chopped almonds
-yogurt chips (OK, maybe those aren’t the cleanest around!!)
I went into work late so I could take the kids to school.  Not that they care too much; they took off on me before I had a chance to get the keys out of the ignition!  It’s all good.  I really just wanted to find out who their teachers were gonna be for the year then I left.  They even grumbled about me taking first-day-of-school pics!  
Can ya tell??!!  Buggers!  I told them they’d appreciate my efforts one day.  I guess only time will tell on that one, eh??   I did get DD to take a picture of me in my newest top:
I found this at Le Chateau reduced from $69.95 to $19.99.  Score!  I also bought this cute bracelet for $3, regular $10…
Purple’s my favourite colour so there was NO way this was staying in the store at that steal!   I snacked on a Nature’s Path PB granola bar before heading off to torture Tuesday with Jillian:
It was just 2 of us shredding today.  One gal hurt her shoulder and 3 were off for the day.  It was still kick ass, though.  When we were done the DVD I hopped on the treadmill for 15 minutes to round my time to 45 minutes.  Seeing as that’s all the time I have I like to make the most of it, ya know?
Lunch was a beautiful kale salad, very similar to the one earlier in the post only this one had salmon on it:
I also packed some grapes and strawberries but only had time to pick the grapes out.  DS ate the berries for me.
I made a stir fry for dinner using this pouch of seasoning:
I used chicken breast, mushrooms and a red & yellow bell pepper.  We served it over brown rice for a quick, tasty meal. After dinner DD and I went to buy me some more Almond Breeze, try on a pair of jazz shoes that I found on Kijiji (they fit DD perfect and saved me $50.00!!) and then over to the Pilates studio to pay for my next session.  Once we home grabbed KC and took him for a walk with my parents.  I took my very last chocolate Bliss bar walking and shared it with Mom who loved it!
I’m off now to browse through the awesome looking Smart School Time recipe book that I downloaded today.  You can get one, too…and for FREE by going here OR here.  It looks like it’s going to have some amazing recipes written by many lovely bloggers!  Can’t wait to check it out!
Bye for now!!