Whole Grain Bread and New Furniture

Last Sunday night I prepared and baked a loaf of Erica’s Multi Grain Bread. This recipe is so easy to throw together and tastes fabulous on it’s own, with savoury toppings or sweet ones.  Along with eating it straight up a few times this week, I’ve also spread Fruit & Nut butter on it (thought I had a photo, but I don’t seem too) and I’ve dolled it up with avocado/LC cheese mash: I’ve even turned it into scrumptious French Toast!
I drizzled it with this agave:

I find that this bread lasts a solid week if kept tightly wrapped in the fridge.
In other news, DS’s hockey season came to a close on Tuesday.  It’s bittersweet for me because I know he loves to play so I’m sad for him that it’s done, but I am very excited that my weekend (and most weeknights) will now be free to do as I please without having to plan around out of town or mid afternoon hockey games.
We also bought new living room furniture last weekend which has now taken up residence in our living room.  I’m not sure how the exact placement will end up because the chairs are bigger than I thought they’d be, but I know that if I just let it be for a bit it’ll come to me.  Here’s what the room looked like before with our old, well worn stuff:
(Just ignore the mess around the couch, please!!)  And with the new, improved pieces!
Much, much better!!
Monday night I set the crock pot to make a big batch of steel cut oats.  I used 2 cups of the oats, 2 cups of unsweetened vanilla almond breeze and 6 cups of water.  It worked it’s magic for just over 8hrs.  My hubby and I have been eating it everyday since!  Here are my portions, all dolled up: Something really unusual happened this morning.  I let this fur ball: 
out on to our deck (he likes to go outside for a bit in the morning before I leave for work) and as I was at the sink doing the dishes I looked out the window and another cat was up on the deck railing teasing him!  Now, our deck is not ground floor; it’s a second story baby.  This was taken in the summer, but gives you an idea of the height: Here’s the scene this a.m.! (note the crap load of snow we were once again “blessed” with)
The only way I can figure this cat got up here was by scaling the support post.  Now that’s determination.  Poor Pepper was poofed up like a blow fish!!  LOL  Can’t say I’m too impressed, though, because my cats are declawed and the deck is was their only safe haven outdoors.  *sigh*
Well, that’s all for me on this fine Friday night.  Tomorrow I have plans to help my parents source out some outdoor playsets for my niece and nephew.  I’m sure my kids will try to hop on, too!  Bring on summer!!!
Bye for now!

Dempster’s Bagel Thins – A Review

In just about a week’s time Dempster’s will be introducing a new line of bagels to add to their collection of amazing bread products; 100 Calories Thin Bagels.  When I was contacted to see if my family would be interested in trying the bagels before they hit the shelves, I was quick to say yes.  Dempster’s 100% Whole Wheat bread is the only bread that we buy and have been doing so for many years, so I’m always happy to hear when the company brings out a new product.   We received a bag each of white w/ whole grains, multigrain and cinnamon raisin to sample.    Can I just say that my kids, DS in particular, LOVED these bagels?  In fact, they ate them so fast as after school snacks that I only had a chance to taste the multigrain!  In fact, I jazzed those babies up real nice! French Toast Bagel Thins!  DS was at a sleepover last weekend so I decided to use the multigrain bagels to make French toast for my hubby, DD and myself.
I soaked the bread in a combination of egg whites, unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, cinnamon and vanilla.  The bagel slices absorbed the mixture beautifully and toasted up evenly in the pan.  I also made a quick blueberry sauce as a topping by combining 2 cups of frozen blueberries, a 1/3 cup of OJ, a ¼ cup of sugar and 1 TBSP of cornstarch.  Just bring it all to a boil and let cook for 10mins or so. Scrumptious!
DS ate the whole bag of cinnamon raisin bagels himself.  Lucky for him that his sister doesn’t like raisins!  He mostly ate them toasted with either butter, PB or Nutella spread on top as an after school snack.  I asked him what he liked about them and he said they were “delicious, soft, the perfect size for him and easy to grab and eat”.  Straight out of the horse’s mouth, that is!
The bag of white w/ whole grains was used to make lunches for the kids for the week.  They really enjoyed them stuffed with mortadella, cheese and sub sauce.  As a Mom, it’s always nice when the kids eat their sandwiches instead of bringing bits and pieces home!  And because they’re a bit smaller than a regular bagel, they’re easy for the kids to handle…and eat.
A few fun bagel facts!
-Thin bagels have a soft texture and great flavour with only 100 calories each
-They are low in saturated fat, contain no trans fat of cholesterol
-As of March 18, 2011 Bagel Thins will be available across Ontario and Eastern Canada in the bakery section of major grocers.  They retail for approximately $3.79/pkg
-keep your eye out for $0.50 off coupons at select grocery stores!
I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for these come next week.  I thought they made for a wonderful snack and were perfect packed in the kids lunch boxes.  Tell me, how would you put these bagel thins to use?
Bye for now!!

Back in Action

Geez Louise, have I been MIA or what?  My life has been busy, yet oddly boring all at the same time.  I guess because it’s the same stuff over and over again, which while keeping me tied up, doesn’t make for very interesting blog posts.  I did have some dental work done last Tuesday which made me positively miserable, but the following night all the parents on DS’s soccer team met up for a meeting with the coach which went very well!  We threw a lot of ideas around for the upcoming season, found out about some awesome tournaments they’ll be in and brainstormed fundraising ideas.  Very productive indeed.
We ended up eating out WAY more than usual the past week.  I actually talked to my hubby about it yesterday to let him know that I think we need to tone it back a bit.  I’m all for a quiet dinner out every other weekend or so, but from a financial stand point anything more than that is wasteful when we have plenty of food at home.  As well as the issue of my tummy not always appreciating restaurant food which can make me uncomfortable at best for a few days.  *ahem*  That being said, mostly everything we ate out was delish!  The one meal I did not enjoy was our lunch at Subway on Saturday after DS’s out of town hockey game.  What I wanted was an orchard chicken on WW, but they were out of all bread aside from white (and it was only 1:30pm!!) and the chicken salad was still frozen (??) so I wound up with a turkey and Swiss on white.   BLETCH!   White bread just sticks to my teeth in the nastiest way possible which ruined this whole sandwich for me!  One meal I did enjoy thoroughly happened last Saturday.  My hubby and I went out for a quiet dinner at a new to us restaurant that serves mostly Indian fare.  We started with avocado spring rolls which were to die for: They were served with a spicy dipping sauce that really took them up a notch.  For our entrees I went Greek with a grilled chicken & feta dish served over basmati rice with a side salad: My hubby went Indian all the way with a seafood dish served with naan and basmati rice: We both LOVED our meals.  Mine was so huge that it didn’t look like I even made a dent in the pile.  I took my leftovers home which took care of 3 lunches through the week!  By chance, we had parked the Jeep in front of a little café that just opened up so with full bellies we decided to go in and grab some dessert to go.  My hubby ordered an all natural mocha cupcake which he ate to fast for a picture to be taken and I went with a coconut lemon cranberry square: This was melt in your mouth amazing!  We’ll be going back to this place again soon!  Friday was a long, hard day at work so I made the executive decision to take the fam out for Thai.  The boys started with shrimp spring rolls:
DS adores spring rolls!  And the gals started with fresh shrimp rolls; No fried food for me!  DD wasn’t terribly hungry so she rolled with an appetizer for her meal; crab blossoms to be exact:
DS and I went with drunken noodles.  Mine was tofu, his shrimp.  This is a photo of mine, My hubby went with a seafood stir fry and a side of rice! FUNNY STORY ALERT!!  My hubby and I usually frequent this Thai restaurant on Friday for lunch b/c it’s close to our places of employment and is small so you’re always in and out of there quick.  The owners are the cutest pair and really make you feel at home on each visit.  More often than not my hubs will grab me a rose from the flower shop next door which “Cindy” tells him is very romantic.  When we showed up Friday evening with the kids she was shocked to see them because she thought we were dating!  We both wear our wedding bands so I think she figured we were having an affair!  LOL  I got the misconception straightened out ASAP!  LOL 
One night last week we had an appointment and when we got back home the kids had made us dinner…..and it was pretty darn good, too!  They made us yellow pepper, mushroom & asparagus panini on the George Foreman grill! It’s unfortunate that I didn’t take a photo of the whole table because they had candles going, grapes in a bowl and coffees made.  100% sweethearts, they are!!  I think they were inspired by the grilled veggie panini I had at WF a few days earlier: What do you think?  LOL
As much as we ate out, I did make some awesome meals at home, too.  One night saw bruschetta pasta which I made with EVOO, diced tomatoes, garlic, onion, parsley and some shredded rotisserie chicken from WF: There was also a mushroom, broccoli and chicken stir fry: Snacks have been plentiful and, for the most part, pretty darn healthy!   And though breakfast still consists mostly of oats, there have been a few other goodies thrown into the mix…  
Oh!  And I had this Kashi meal for lunch one day last week that I bulked up with extra broccoli:
And can you believe that this means “NF decaf pumpkin spice misto”??? Neither could I.  PHEW!  I think that’s it.  Well, most of it, anyways.  Before I leave I want to send out a HUGE thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my hubby’s guest post.  He truly appreciated all the helpful information and has even started to incorporate some of the great ideas in his day to day life.  The blogging community is the BEST!!  :) 
Bye for now!!