New Product, CousCous Review & Intervals

I decided to eat my second favourite breakfast this morning – OAT BRAN! I need to remember to slide oat bran into my morning “oat” rotation. Normally, I switch between Quaker oats, Old Wessex 5-Grain cereal and flax seed porridge. I think I forget about the oat bran because the box always manages to get stuffed into the corner of the cupboard!

-1/2 cup oat milk
-1/2 cup water
-1/3 cup oat bran
-1 Tbsp coconut spread

I scraped the bottom of the pot when it was done cooking because there was quite a bit still in there (and I need it ALL out) and I noticed when I licked the spoon that the oat milk is on the sweet side. Nothing wrong with that….just an observation. By the time I tried yesterday’s bowl, I had already mixed everything in so I didn’t catch the sweetness. Still wishing I bought more than one carton!

I tried this new tea out this morning by Petit Tea.

They are actually tea sticks! Pretty cool little things, I must say. The box claims that they’re recyclable, too! Here’s what one looks like…

This is Chai, but they had a few different flavours. No more fishing the tea bag out of the cup with these babies!! Some (evil) person brought a box of chocolates into the office today so I felt it my duty to eat 2 pieces. :) I’m such a sucker!!

Here at last is my dinner from last night…..

Chicken with mango chutney, sautéed kale and Israeli couscous. It’s no coincidence that my lunch just so happens to be the exact same as my dinner! I won’t bore you with a repeat photo! Instead, I’ll let you know what I think of the couscous!

Israeli couscous is a lot more pasta like than regular couscous. It reminds me of the little “bullet” noodles that my Mom used to put in her soup when I was a kid. This is the first time that I’ve ever tried/made it, so I just left it plain. Because of this, I found it very bland. I think it would be fabulous cooked up in any kind of broth with lots of Moroccan type spice…..cumin, coriander & cinnamon. A ¼ cup dry (which yields a good cup cooked) is only 190 calories, with 2.5g of fat and 2g of fibre. Not bad! I’m definitely going to have fun playing with the rest of my container.

I snacked on an apple with almond butter last night, too…

I switched things up a bit on the treadmill today. I read and interesting analogy in a magazine the other day that really put things in perspective for me. It compared cardio to you car. Weird, I know, but follow along! We all know that cruising a the same speed down the highway doesn’t do much damage to our gas tank, but as soon as we are in stop-go traffic, the gas needle falls alarmingly fast. Same goes for our body. Running at the same speed for the same time everyday means that you burn pretty much the same amount of calories each day, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the more your body becomes accustomed to the routine, the less you will burn. Introduce intervals and/or inclines a few times a week, though, and suddenly your body is a calorie burning machine. Now, I always knew this to be true on some level, but comparing my body to a car really brought it home for me. So, that being said, here’s what I did today;

-3 min walking/jogging warm up
-2 minutes of sprinting
-3 minutes walking at a fast pace
-repeat 1 & 2 five times
-3 minutes slow jog
-2 minute cool down walk

Distance:3.35 miles
Time: 35:16
Time in Zone: 34:12
Avg Hr:162
Max Hr:186
Calories Burned: 321

Not bad! I certainly felt the burn much more than what I’ve been doing and I think it stayed with me much longer through the afternoon. I was PUMPED UP!! Hehe!!

I had a snack attack later in the afternoon and was glad that I packed the last of my 0% Fage with some pumpkin butter for a snack so I was able to stay away from the chocolate box!


I’m pretty bummed that I’m out of Fage! I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and get a passport done up so I can cross the border. The things are just so darn expensive!!

I heard on the radio on my way home from work that it's suppose to get REAL cold tonight. Like -30* Celsius with the wind chill. CRAP! I'm all for the environment, but I think I'll be starting the van a good ten minutes before I leave in the morning!

For dinner tonight I roasted a pork tenderloin, potatoes (for the fam) and carrots. I also steamed up some edamame for moi.

Here's the meal hot out of the oven...

I used my oil mister to finely spray the pork, then I rubbed it with coriander, cumin, oregano, S & P. The veggies got the same treatment minus the rub! This cooked for 20 minutes at 500*. I'm told the potatoes could've used a few more minutes, but they must not have been too bad because there's none left! :) Here's my plate with a dollop of honey mustard for dipping.

For my sweet end I ate a slice of WW bread with about a tablespoon of coconut spread on it. I tried to get a good picture, but this camera just wouldn't do it. Didn't matter what I did, it looked like a big white square! Oh, how I miss my camera!!

Tonight is Biggest Loser night! WAHOO! I have to run out at 8 and grab DD from her friends house, but I don't think I'll miss much....just last week's review. I promised myself that if I felt snacky, I would nosh on carrots. Seems wrong to eat anything else while watching that show! Catch ya all tomorrow!!

Bye for now!!

A Neat Quiz

Hello everybody! How did Monday treat everyone??

I’ve noticed some new reader comments the last few posts and wanted to welcome all my new “guests”!! I really enjoy hearing what everyone has to say and sourcing out new and exciting blogs to read!

As usual for Monday, getting out of bed was a chore! I always feel so much better once I’ve had my morning shower. I made the most scrumptious bowl of oats this morning! They helped wake me up, too!

-1/2 cup oat milk
-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-cinnamon
-3 huge frozen strawberries, thawed and chopped up
-1 Tbsp crushed up pecan pieces

This was seriously like dessert. OMG! I was sad to see the end of it. This is the brand of oat milk that I used.

I found it at Wegman’s on my last State side trip. I only bought one carton because I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not. I regret that now! Maybe I’ll get lucky and find some around here.

Had a good lunch run today even though my calves are sore from my Friday night Wii adventure!

Time: 32:16
Time in Zone:31:06
AVG HR:161
MAX HR: 225 (yeah, right!)
Calories:283

Not sure about the spike in my heart rate, but I can assure you that it didn’t get that high! It beeped there for a second and then went back to about 171. Weird stuff! I’m excited to get back to my Wii Wednesday’s now that my schedule is back on track. I’ve missed doing it!

Lunch was a hodge podge of stuff. I started with a few blueberries before I went home to run…

When I came back, I ate the last bit of my Mango Shrimp Salad from Friday. I guess it was about a ½ cup. Still tasted really good! It left me wanting much more than what I had!

After a bit of a busy spell at work, I ate about a ½ cup of 1% cottage cheese with a tbsp of apricot preserves. I love jam in my cottage cheese! You can buy them with the fruit on the bottom already, but it’s more cost effective to buy the plain cottage cheese and mix your own favourites into it.

Yesterday I posted a link for whether to keep or toss foods from your fridge and freezer. Another article I found worthy of mentioning in the January 2009 issue of Prevention Magazine was called “healthy cabinets”. It has loads of info on what to keep and what to toss in cabinets such as the medicine cabinet (where, it turns out, you should NOT keep medication) to items in your garage cabinets. Check it out here. There's a cool "what do you know" type quiz to see what you would keep or throw away. Some things are common sense, like a dish sponge. Others threw me. Send me a comment to let me know what you think of the article!!

So, I pulled a real stunner today which means I can't download my dinner pictures. Seeing as I'm using old Bessy until my camera is back from repair, I also have to use this ancient USB "thingy" to transfer the photo's. During the week I always get my post started at work because the internet is much quicker there and the picture's load really fast. Well, today I followed my trend and forgot to unplug the USB "thingy" so it is still at my computer at work. DUH! For the record, I had grilled chicken breast with mango chutney, Israeli couscous and sauteed purple kale. I will post the pic's tomorrow and give a review of the couscous, too.

As for me, I'm going to spend some time blog reading, then I have some more laundry to get done. DD is preparing a speech for class and I promised to help her with that. Her topic is "cats". She actually dug up some pretty good facts!

Hope everyone enjoys their Monday evening!

Bye for now!!

Home Sweet Home

Hello, everyone!

Before I forget...a few of you have been asking where I get the cheesecakes cups I've been eating. I buy them at Metro here in Canada. I know they're a hard item to find, but here's the link to the website if you want to check it out.

I was hardly home at all today! We left the house at 9, made a quick stop back around 2 and then took off again until 6! Yowers! I almost wasn't feeling the oats today but I wasn't feeling anything else enough to stray from my old stand by so oats it was!

-1/2 unsweetened chocolate almond breeze
-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup Quaker oats
-1 Tbsp dried fruit

After I ate and showered, we drove out to the farm for a quick visit. My MIL had a small Biggest Loser cookbook in which I found a simple black bean soup recipe. Keep an eye out for that sometime this week. While there, I ate a few clementine's while everybody had cheesecake for my hubby's birthday. I wasn't being a party pooper or anything, I was just still content from my oats.

From there, we went straight to DS's hockey game. That was 12:30-1:30. A girl that I know was there so we chatted it up the whole time. I love catching up with people! DD informed us that we were "gossiping". HEHE! She'll get it soon enough! Just before the game was over my belly started to rumble so I pulled out my handy Cinnamon Roll Lara bar....

I ate the apple on the drive home. This is still my favourite flavour of Lara bars.

We got to the house by 1:45, had quick washroom breaks, my stinky boy freshened up and changed, I switched a load of laundry, ate a handful of beer nuts (don't ask) and we were off to a Storm game for 3pm. It was a televised game so it lasted a good half hour longer than usual due to commercial breaks and such. Unfortunately, we got clobbered 6-1. Blah! I think the boys will have some tough practices coming their way this week!

Once home (at 6pm), I reheated some lasagna for everyone, but not me. You don't need to hit me over the head with a brick twice! I was still feeling last night's meal well after midnight! I opted for some steamed asparagus, a small sweet potato, steamed as well and a piece of grilled cod.

I also gnawed away at a small piece of homemade bread while cooking, but it was camera shy! This meal was MUCH lighter than yesterday's and suited my tummy just fine. I didn't have an issue with scarfing back a slice of cheesecake, though!

This cheesecake is pretty light so it doesn't take much to get it down! There's actually no cream cheese in it. I can't post the recipe because it's from my Looneyspoons cookbook, but I will say that it has 2 cups light sour cream and 1 cup 1% cottage cheese. Those are the 2 main ingredients.

I read a great article in Prevention magazine about knowing when the food in your fridge and freezer is past it's prime. Check out this link for the scoop! There's some really good information there on whether to "eat it or toss it".

I'm off to organize for the morning and then I plan to chill out with a nice cup of Stash ginger peach tea. Mmmmmm.....

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!!

A Short Work Day

There was another pile of snow out there when I got out of bed this morning! Actually, when I’m all warm and toasty inside, it looks very pretty!

I bought this new creamy coconut spread last night at Market Fresh and it is to die for.

It’s really creamy with loads of shredded coconut blended in. It made by a company called “Reserva De Minas Natural Foods”. I’ve never heard of this place before, but they are most definitely on my radar now! If your guys ever come across this brand, you must give it a try!


A tablespoon of this delight is only 60 calories, to boot!!

You just know it went into my breakfast today!!! :)

-1 cup water
-1/4 cup Bob’s Redmill 10 grain cereal
-1 Tbsp creamy coconut yumminess


Dinner last night was a Lean Cuisine meal. I had ½ an hour to get home, get organized, eat, and out the door and this Asian Citrus Wild Salmon did the trick!


Skating lessons went very well last night. I picked up a wicked new latte flavour at 7-11 on the way. Blueberry Tea Latte!


OMG…..I loved it! Too tasty. If you’re near a 7-11, go buy yourself one! By the time skating was over, groceries were done and put away and lunches were made, it was pert near 9pm. I grabbed a z-bar and sat down to watch Law and Order:SVU. After that, I was off to dreamland!

Back to today! I made my through this bowl of fruit through out the day. A little in the morning, a little in the afternoon. I was so glad to have some fresh fruit in the house again!

Because I worked so much the first 3 days of the week, I decided to use some of my lieu time and took this afternoon off work. My hubby was home today as his place of employment is down to a 4 day work week due to the economy. Blah. It's rare for us to get any time alone so we took the opportunity today to go out for lunch while the kids were at school. We both felt like Thai, so Thai it was!

Tea, anyone??

Hehe! You can see our reflections in the teapot! Gotta love the retro tables! I started with fresh shrimp rolls. I adore shrimp rolls. They have such a burst of wonderful flavour thanks to the mint leaves. Whenever we go for Thai, I always start with an order of these. At the top of the photo, you'll see my hubby's fried shrimp rolls.

I picked another favourite for my main dish...Mango salad! This time, I added shrimp for some protein.


Awesome. There is just no other words to describe this! I almost finished the whole plate, but some ended up coming home with me.

From there we ran a few errands and then it was time to grab the kids from school. I had to make a trip to Best Buy (which is a 1/2 hour away) because my USB cable for my camera decided it didn't want to fit all the way in it's little slot anymore. After waiting 45 minutes for them while they "tried" to find another cable, I was told that the camera would have to be sent out for repair. UGH! Thank God I bought the warranty on it so it won't cost me anything except the loss of my camera for 3-4 weeks. BOHOO! I guess that is my warning to all of you that you are about to see some crappy food picture's because I'm back to using old Bessy for a few weeks. At least she works!

It was 5:30 by the time we finally got home so I whipped out this meal by Archer Farms that I picked up while at Target before the holiday's.

This is what the fam ate. I had a pouch of this tuna....

with a side a veggies.

Two (blurry) medjool dates stuffed with almond butter rounded out the meal for me.



My hubby's birthday is Monday and he's requested lasagna, caesar salad and Caramel Pecan cheesecake for his special dinner. We'll be celebrating tomorrow night so after I publish this post, I'm going to get the cheesecake and sauce made. I'll tackle the lasagna first thing tomorrow morning so that it's ready to pop in the oven when we get home from the charity hockey game. While the cheesecake is in the oven, I plan to do some form of cardio for at least a 1/2 hour....probably in the form of a Wii game.

My guest blogger will be featured tomorrow, as well, so be sure to pop back over to check it out! Enjoy your Friday night!!

Bye for now!!

A Holy Yum Award!

I stayed up late last night and managed to post the picture’s that were giving me such a hard time because I knew I didn’t have to go into work early. I set my alarm for an extra 20 minutes of glorious sleep with a smile on my face and went to sleep. Move ahead a few hours to 6:15am….not the time I set my alarm for….and BOTH kids are wide eyed and bushy tailed and the 3 cats are up from their lair, meowing in tandem for some food. Trust me; they are not starving as they are free fed. It’s just the idea of food that sets them off. So up I was, earlier, hence more tired, than I planned for. Isn’t that life for ya? Rebellious as I can be, I savored an extra long shower. HA! :)

Here’s my “breaking the fast” meal;

-1 cup water
-1/4 cup Quaker oats
-1/4 cup oat bran
-cinnamon
-a few raisins
-a drizzle of cinnamon bun coffee creamer


Morning snack….


Are you getting sick of the tea/medjool date pictures? I am, so this is the last one you will see!

Work was much more bettah today!! I cleaned up all the paperwork that accumulated on my desk over the past 3 days so now I can see desk top! Before I forget, I need to post about my dinner last night. I whipped up a quick stir fry using mixed veggies, cooked chicken breast and some pomegranate chutney. Uber delicious and I threw it together in about 10 minutes!

My sweet end was a lemon cheese cake cup...


I was sure to make extra for lunch seeing as the food supply is steadily dwindling so instead of loading basically the same picture twice, I decided to give you all a peek at what I see while running on the treadmill and part of the actual (old) treadmill!


I did a panoramic view of what I see when I’m on the treadmill. To my left are 2 great big windows which can be a wonderful distraction depending on what’s happening outside. In front of me is the TV which is ALWAYS on while I run. The room is a bit messy because the boys were playing PS3 last night, but I didn’t tidy it up because I figure this is real life, right?


Here is the display on my treadmill. No bells and whistles…just get on and go. My hubby bought this for me for Christmas of 2004. When I first started using it, I could barely last 20 minutes just walking at a fast pace. Then I would hop off and eat because I figured I’d burned all these calories. Boy, have times changed for the better since then!

Here are my stats for today;

Time: 30:12
AVG HR: 162
MAX HR: 174
Calories Burned:276

I did nosh on a piece of WW bread with some Sabra Pappadew hummus on it after I finished my run. It was 1:30pm at this point and my oat power had finally diminished!

On to some exciting news…well, exciting for me, for sure! The lovely Megan of Megan’s Munchies honored me with her Holy Yum Award! Check out this post to see what I did to win! I was totally shocked when I went to her blog and saw my dish there! THANKS, MEGAN!! WAHOO!

DS starts skating lessons tonight at 5:30. I have a quickie dinner planned for beforehand, and since the rink is right beside a grocery store, I think I’ll get some food back in the house! That’ll make for a later evening so I think I’ll reveal dinner in tomorrow’s post. As I finish this post up, I’m munching on a juicy Gala apple that I bought at a VERY quick trip to the store this morning before work.


I hope this post was more enjoyable than the past few! Work life has returned to normal and I’m feeling more like myself. **SIGH of relief!!** Be sure to check back over the next few days as I plan to have a very special guest blogger featured on kristaskravings!

Bye for now!!