Calling All Readers!

I was wide awake at 6:53 am this morning! There should be some sort of rule that our bodies abide by to the effect that waking up before 8am on the weekend is just not allowed!  In all honesty, I felt well rested. I heard DS downstairs watching TV so I trundled out of bed, made a big cup of green tea and snuggled under a blanket with her on the couch until 8am. What a treat! By 8:30, the girl and I were both showered and ready for some eats. She ate her usual…a peanut butter and banana sandwich….and I had the most scrumptious bowl of oats yet!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Oats

-1/2 steel cut oats (quick cooking) 1/2 unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, ½ water
-1/4 cup pumpkin puree
-1 Weight Watchers single serve cream cheese cup (softened slightly in the microwave)
-cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg
-1 Tbsp maple flakes

*combine oats, milk, water and spices and cook for a few minutes
*add pumpkin puree and cream cheese. Stir until well blended and thick.
*pour into bowl and sprinkle maple flakes on top.
*Enjoy your bowl of cheesecake!

So, I need to ask all of you readers for some recipe help. Every year I make Halloweén treats for my kid’s classes at school. This year there are a few allergies I need to be VERY mindful of. There is a diary allergy, a peanut allergy and a gluten and corn allergy. I would like to still make something festive and fun, but don’t want anybody suffering because of my baking.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

We went out to the farm for our Sunday visit at about 10am. My hubby and in laws took the trampoline down for the winter. It was way too cold for this gal so I sat inside and watched the Food Network. Once they were all done, we sat down for a coffee and piece of pumpkin pie. My MIL follows Weight Watchers so I know that the pie has been slimmed up! You sure can’t tell taste wise!

I only had a sliver because I was still pretty full from breakfast. From there, we went straight to the Legion for DS’s hockey picture day. It was actually pretty well organized and we were in and out in less than an hour. I had made bagels ahead of time to eat on the car ride from the farm to the hall.

This is a muesli bagel with half a mashed banana mixed with a tablespoon of almond butter spread on it. Before I ate it, I put the 2 pieces together, cut them into 4 pieces and nuked it for 30 seconds to soften it up. Hit the spot!

After pictures, we drove over to Sam’s Club for Hallowe’en candy, pumpkins and a few other items. Finally, it was 4pm and time to head home! I was feeling pretty snacky by then so I ate an apple and a handful of green grapes.


There was also a handful of dry mini wheats snuck in there! DS had his hockey game from 5-6pm today. I opted to stay home in order to have supper ready for 6:15pm which is when they got back. Earlier in the day I had made pizza dough in the breadmaker. I subbed in ½ cup wheat germ for some of the flour (always trying to find a way to “healthy” it up). I always make my own little pizza because I like some toppings that no one else does and the rest of la famiglia likes A LOT of cheese!

On here we have tomato sauce, yellow pepper, asparagus, mushrooms, hot peppers, roasted red peppers, ham and some mozzarella cheese. Delish! I ate three quaters of this baby and packed the last of it for lunch tomorrow. No sweet end tonight, either....I was too full. That's something you won't hear me say often!

Well, the 'rents (hehe!) are here so....

Bye for now!!

It's a Cool Whip day!

I had a really relaxing evening last night which is just what the doctor ordered! We all ended up watching a cute Halloween themed movie that had the Olsen twins in it. I can’t remember the title, but the girls looked to have been no more than 6-7 years old. You know, when they were still cute?! About half way through the movie, I ate this snack,

It consisted of the last bit of plain fat free yogurt and pumpkin puree. I’d say it was no more than a third of a cup total. I topped it with a tablespoon of Cool Whip free and some maple flakes. Delish!

Now, more about the maple flakes. They were really good! I mean, very sweet, of course, but as a topper they rocked. I ate a pinch plain and it was just like maple syrup. I also sprinkled some on top of this “latte” that I made at home and it was a real treat. Very coffee house chic! :)

To make this I used...

-1 heaping tsp of instant coffee
-1 heaping tsp pumpkin spice coffee mix
-1 cup hot water
-1/4 unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
-2 TBSP Cool Whip free
-1 tsp maple flakes

I drank it this afternoon around 3pm to tide me over until dinner time.

I see I’ve gotten quite ahead of myself here! What about the star meal of the day…breakfast?! How could I forget about that? Here’s what I enjoyed while gazing out my big beautiful kitchen window!

-1 cup water
-1/2 Flax Seed Porridge
-cinnamon
-1/4 cup cranberry sauce
-2 Tbsp Kashi cinnamon Harvest “crumbs”

My definition of crumbs is all the broken off pieces of wheat that come off the little squares and hang out at the bottom on the cereal bag. Know what I mean? I hate to waste that stuff so I usually mix it into something else as a filler. After all, it is still perfectly good cereal (or maybe I’m just that I'm a cheap-o! :~) ) Hehe!

After breakfast was Saturday chore time. Everyone was home this morning so my hubby took over vacuuming duties for me, so I tackled the washrooms, stove top and counter, laundry and dusting. We were all done by 10:30am which was pretty darn cool. If it had of been just me, I would’ve been at it another hour. My DS had a birthday party at noon so once he was settled at the bowling alley (cool party!) my hubby, DD and I went to William’s Pub for a bite to eat. I chose a bowl of chicken gumbo soup and a half of a roasted veggie panini with a large skim Chai tea latte. Oh, so satisfying!

The food here is as close to Panera’s as I can get without driving for 2 hours. It’s pretty darn good stuff and I like that everything is so fresh and made to order...unlike those other places...you know who I mean!! After we ate we took a tour around the mall to help our digestion along and before we knew it, it was 2pm and time to pick the boy up. And wasn’t he just full of sugar! Yikes! Last pit stop before home was the library for a new selection of books. Later in the day my brother and his 2 kiddies came by for a visit. So fun but really busy. I forget how much work it is to have a 2 and 3 year old!

I roasted a turkey breast for dinner tonight along with some carrots and parsnips. I just love the smell of the house when something is cooking up in the oven! One turkey breast is enough to feed the 4 of us which is a lot more cost effective at this point than buying the whole bird.

I also ate the rest of the left over mixed veg from the other night. That blob there in the middle is cranberry chutney.

My sweet end was a piece of banana, cranberry & pumpkin cake with a swirl of cool Whip free and I'm drinking this mug of pumpkin tea as I type this post.


I think we're going to watch the new Indian Jones movie a little later on. I've heard mixed reviews about it, so I hope it's not a complete wash out! Tomorrow's shaping up to be a busy one so I'd better get some blog reading done now!

Bye for now!

Friday At Last

I pretty much knew by the time I fell asleep last night that I was catching a cold. I just had that weird feeling going on in my nose. Sure enough, I woke up with sniffles to add to my weird feeling nose. Hopefully this won’t turn into a full blown cold. Hate those! And we’re short staffed at work so I can’t afford to be ill. Tis the season!

Here’s my breakfast combo for the day…



-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
-1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain cereal
-1/4 cup Enjoy Life Foods Cranapple granola



I was stuffed by the last 2 bites, but ate them anyways. It was too good to throw away even 2 measly spoonfuls!

Work went rather quick this morning. When I got in it looked like a tornado had hit my desk! How so much can accumulate in 1 day is beyond me. Around 11am I realized my tummy was growling at me. I ate a piece of my cake which held me over another 3 hours.

I decided against running today. I want to save my energy to fight this cold! I took a quick run to the store to pick up another box of Quaker Dino Egg porridge for my son. This is his newest addiction. He’s been eating it every morning for a few weeks now. Actually, he’s been eating anything and everything constantly for the past few weeks. He must be growing again!

I packed the rest of last night’s soup for lunch today. This stuff kept me full enough that I didn’t even eat a snack last night (although I did have this hot chocolate....I liked the dark better!).




That is some miracle, I tell you! I had some crackers on the side, too.



Around 3pm I munched on about 1 cup of green grapes. I love grapes when they’re firm and sweet. I could probably eat the whole bag!



Tonight will be a night that I suffer what I like to call “claw hand”. That’s when you wake up in the night and your hand is in the middle of a muscle cramp! EEK! I get this when I’ve had a heavy keypunching day at work…AKA….today!

I pulled some sauteed onion turkey sausages out for dinner tonight. My hubby did them up on the BBQ along with some onions wrapped in foil. I also roasted some butternut squash for 25 mins in a 425 deg oven. I just tossed them with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and a drizzle of agave.



My sweet end tonight was a muffin (the ones I made on Sunday).



I tried these little cashew clusters today from Mrs. May's
. They were very good! Crunchy with a sweet/salty thing going on. I would've taken a picture of an actual cluster, but DS ate the rest of this little bag when he came home from school. Too bad because I wanted to use some as an oat topper for tomorrow. Oh, well! I'll just have to but more. :) Just in case you missed what the baggie looked like, here's another picture.



I think I'm going to go brew at big cup of herbal tea and read my book. I think I'll grab a warm blanket, too! This will be a good night to chill out and go to bed early!

Bye for now!

Old McDonald Had A Farm....

Today I attended my son’s class trip to a farm as a parent supervisor. I knew I’d have a long stretch between breakfast and lunch, so I prepared a hearty bowl of oats.

-1 cup water
-1/2 cup Old Wessex 5-Grain cereal
-1/2 a banana
-1 tsp almond butter
-1 tbsp Sahale walnut mix



The breakfast did the trick! I was almost too full by the time I was done, but it stuck with me a good long while!

We hit the road by 9am in a school bus. I haven’t been on one of those since high school! Nothing has changed…it was a bumpy 45 min drive. Once we arrived at the “Yee Haw Farm”, we got organized into our groups. I had 5 kids to look out for while there. First stop was a petting zoo of sorts….pigs, sheep, roosters, bunnies and ducks. After that we went to the barn where we saw these really cute baby chicks...



The kids played a guessing game and enjoyed some drinks and snacks while lounging on hay bales. Off to the pig races we went! This was pretty cute...



The second race out was ducks. That cracked the kids up because they were expecting pigs again!



At this point we stopped for lunch. I packed an apple and a flat out wrap stuffed with a laughing cow cheese wedge, cranberry chutney, lettuce and some leftover crock pot pork.



I only had enough time to eat the apple because I was busy helping the kids with their food containers and making sure that everything was put in the garbage as they finished. Truth be told, I wasn’t really even hungry yet. I ended up eating the wrap when we got back to the school at 1:30pm.

Before we left, we took a wagon ride through the corn fields. We stopped at one point to “pick” pumpkins. Here’s my little man with his prize.



It was a fun trip! All the kids were beat out by the time we left so the bus ride home was quieter than the one going there. I had a few hours to kill before school was out for the day so I made a stop at 7-11 for something warm to drink. Imagine my surprise when I went in and saw that they have pumpkin spice latte in one of the machines! I bought a large that was ¾ latte, ¼ coffee..



Mmmm...heavenly! I made my way over to WalMart to purchase a birthday present for a party my son is attending on Saturday and I also picked up a new place mat, some tea towels, 2 pairs of pants for my boy whose legs won’t stop growing, mittens, hats and these 2 new finds...



Maple flakes (ingredient list states pure maple syrup only) and these Mrs. May's cashew crunch clusters. I can’t wait to try this stuff! After all that, I went to get the kids from school and we filled 4 large paper bags with the leaves that I raked last weekend. Needless to say, it was time for a rest before I started on dinner!

For dinner I made a small pot of soup. Pretty much anything I found in the fridge that would work in soup went in the pot.

-1 1/2 cups chicken broth
-1/2 cup tomato sauce
-1 cup mixed veggie’s
-1/3 cup brown rice
-1 Chris & Tal’s Swiss & Mushroom burger
-S&P
-1 tbsp grated asiago cheese



I served it with 2 Grissol Rustic Flatbread crackers. These guys are really flavorful and go well with soup or broken up into pieces and put on a salad in place of croutons.



And what was my sweet end, you ask? Why, a piece of my Banana Cranberry Pumpkin Cake, of course!



I put a little spray butter on it tonight. I love the way this cake isn't too sweet and the cranberries pack a nice tart punch! Well, I'm off to get things ready for tomorrow so that I can settle in to watch CSI at 8pm. Enjoy the evening!

Bye for now!

Dinner Recipe & A BSI Dessert

My alarm scared the devil out of me this morning! I was awake well before it went off and then obviously drifted back to sleep. When that baby went off, I almost hit the roof! It’s been so long since I’ve actually heard the alarm that I didn’t even know what the racket was! PHEW! What a way to start the day!

The thermostat outside my kitchen window read -4 deg Celsius at 7:30am. YIKES! I bundled the kids up in winter coats, hats, mitts & scarves...and they didn’t argue about it, either! But first came breakfast.

-1 cup water
-1/2 cup McCann’s steel cut oats
-scoop of pumpkin puree
-scoop of cranberry sauce
-cinnamon




These oats are so thick and creamy! I’ve always hesitated to buy steel cut due to the lengthy cooking time, but these are quick cooking – 3 to 5 mins – and work well with my morning schedule.

I ate this Lara Bar for a snack last night...



Banana Cookie was the flavor and it was really good! It reminded me of nutty banana bread. I also mindlessly ate a handful of (dry) mini wheat’s. Here’s the deal on the nibbles. My son decided he didn’t want to settle in for the night and by 9pm, I’d had enough of him calling me up to his room for silly things so what do I do? Stick my hand in the bag of cereal, pull out some crunchy nuggets, and munch, munch, munch. Wrong reaction, I know…..should’ve grabbed the baby carrots instead. Note for next time.

I had a good run today. About a half hour before I hopped on the treadmill I ate this muffin…



I left the speed a little on the low side, but bumped up the incline to work some different muscles. Also, I did the workout DVD from the back of this Tosca Reno book the other night and have some stiff muscles from that so the slower speed didn’t aggravate the situation!

Lunch today was one of my newest faves….a Lean Cuisine Chicken, Mushroom & Spinach Panini.





These sandwiches are GREAT! Around 3:30pm I ate my last huge honey crisp apple! YUM!



Sadly, I did not have any will power today when it came to the chocolate in the office candy bowl. I grabbed a few creamy nibbles!



Chicken was on the menu for dinner tonight, but not just any chicken...I made my Cheesy Salsa Chicken!

It’s pretty straight forward as you’ll soon see.

-4 chicken breasts
-1/2 cup salsa
-2 cups grated cheese (of your choice)

*Sautee chicken in pan until golden brown, 3-5 per side
*Add a few spoonfuls of salsa to the top of each breast, cover and cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes (the timing will depend on the thickness of the chicken)
*Top each breast with grated cheese and put the lid back on the pan until the cheese is all melty.




My family will eat just about anything that has cheese on it, in it or around it! This is my son’s favorite dinner! I used grated marble cheese on the family’s and smoked Gouda on mine. The darn piece of chicken flipped over on me so all the good stuff wound up underneath! I served mine over half a spaghetti squash. This dinner was SO good!



My sweet end (not that I really needed it) was a curves bar. Just enough chocolate to satisfy my need!



I diddled and daddled over a recipe for this week's BSI...cranberries. I love cranberries so this was a real treat! I couldn't decide on sweet or savory, but finally made up my mind to do some kind of cake. The weather is turning pretty darn cold and I reasoned that a nice piece of cake would go great with a cup of tea or coffee in the cooler weather. I'm very proud of this recipe as I thought it up all by myself (while running on the treadmill, no less) and I'm completely happy with the result. So, without further ado....

Banana Cranberry Pumpkin Cake

-2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
-3/4 cup wheat germ
-1 tsp salt
-2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp nutmeg
-1 large ripe banana (very ripe)
-1 cup pumpkin puree
-3/4 cup eggbeaters (or 3 eggs)
-1/2 cup plain fat free yogurt
-1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar
-2 Tbsp agave
-2 cups cranberries (I used fresh)

*preheat oven to 350*
*combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl and make sure to blend well
*combine next 6 ingredients in a smaller bowl and blend well
*add wet to dry and mix until just combined
*fold in cranberries
*put batter into a greased fluted cake pan (a 9 x 13 would work, too)




*Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for 10 mis in pan before inverting onto a serving plate. Let cool completely before slicing.



I cut this one into 16 pieces. I ran this through the Spark People recipe builder and came out with these stats:

113 cal
0.9g fat
4.7g fiber
4.7g protein



So there you have it...my BSI recipe of the week featuring cranberries! Enjoy!

Bye for now!