Ventures In Wordpress

I'm trying to get my life sorted and move this blog over to wordpress. While I slowly transfer everything over there, I'm going to maintain this site. To be honest, it's a lot more confusing to someone with very few tech skillz, I will get there one day.. until then, it's blogger baby!

This morning I went for a power walk after I ate breakfast as a break between papers that I had to get done for school this week (I don't like doing homework during the week, or on the weekends, but especially during the week).. Then I came home and ate an early lunch, due to my early brekkie.

So for Lunch I had 1/4C Egg Whites with one whole egg, wilted spinach, goat cheddar and one corn thin (ohhh and ketchup, incase you hadn't noticed)

With lunch I also noshed on a apple and some AB after my eggful delight.

Then, I decided to go for another walk over to a bookstore by my house (again, trying to sort out wordpress- I need to talk to the boys in my program, something tells me I don't need to buy a book for this). When I got home I made a quick snack of goat yogurt, blueberries, cheerios and granola... and some PB pretzels (not shown, but damn good).

For dinner, I made a salad with candied walnuts, blue cheese and apple, with a balsamic-agave-mustard dressing; roasted cauliflower and some balsamic onion/shrooms to go on the steak. It was so filling and so delicious, I just kept eating it! It's Sunday- that's what I do.. eat. everything.

Then after dinner, we had cake! Orange Angel Foodish cake. It had an orange glaze and chocolate ice cream to go with. Neither are pictured since I was too busy stuffing my face to take photos.

Hope you all had relaxing Sundays. I'll be seeing you all tomorrow!

(fake make) Spaghetti

Ok, so in my cooking I'm a serious cheater. All over the shop, I like to mix and match recipes as well as cheat my way to healthier options.

Tonight I made spaghetti squash. I cut the squash lengthwise and placed it in an oven at 350 for 30minutes face down on a sprayed (with olive oil) cookie sheet. You want to be able to stick a sharp knife into it and have it give you little resistance- feels kind of like steamed veggies.

As the squash was cooking away, I then chopped up an onion, 2 cloves of garlic and sauteed them on medium high heat until transparent. From there, I added ground turkey and cooked that amongst the onion and garlic. Once the meat was browned I added a jar of Newman's Own pasta sauce, a dash of balsamic and some extra basil and oregano, I let it simmer until the squash had finished cooking (one this large was closer to 45-50mins then 30).

There you have it, easiest dinner EVER! Well- cereal is probably easier, but not as delicious!

Lunch, as pictured wayyy up above was leftovers from last night, and the last bits of tofu from the night before. After my lunch I went for a little walk and did some homework before having a snack of some corn thins& AB/RFJ... after dinner I ate a navel orange, straight from Florida and a couple cups of tea and snuck in another power walk-- all this homework is driving my brain crazy, so I figured it's time to move.. I can only sit at my computer for so long before I go stir crazy..

Happy Hump Day! Congrats on making it through!

Cooking: More Fun than Homework

Ohh baby, snack time! I got home from school today pretty darn hungry, so whipped myself up a little salad with balsamic and olive oil on it, it wasn't hitting the spot so I also chopped a pear into the mix and it was just right.. (especially since I spread a little goat cheese and RFJ on a corn thin after)

Following that venture, I got out the old food processor. In it was 4 roasted red peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 can of chickpeas, a dollop of tahini, juice of one and a half lemons, olive oil (probs 1-2TBS) and salt/pepp... I hit the magic button and BOOM:

This lovely mixture presented itself to me, sweet and savory and nothing but goodness for you. I love it! I've never made a roasted red pepper hummus, I knew how to make hummus and just chucked in the red peppers and hoped for the best-- I got better than what I could have asked for.

Quick tip with it: if you find it's a bit dry and don't want to add too much olive oil, just throw some water into it, it works well and there's enough flavor you won't have to worry.

Here's dinner (obviously I ate more veggies and grapes than shown, but I just hadn't loaded them on my plate by that point):

3/4 of a WW pita with my hummus, 1/2 a chicken breast (marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and pepper), cucumber, and spinach-- Also, after my little avo snack, because we had such a late dinner I snacked on some rice chips and salsa.. any kind of tortilla chip and I are basically lovers, just sayin'...

Hungry Friday

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face for two reasons: it's Friday, which means I don't have class today week; and it's Friday which means I don't have class until Monday.

So what did I do next? Made a pot of coffee and got out the homework of course! I love the fact that I avoid papers and projects with more paper and projects. Next week alone I have a paper due Monday, Wednesday and a debate on Thursday (not to mention the paper that I handed in today). But fear not, Mondays paper has been completed and submitted, both of them! As was todays paper (that was handed in yesterday) which means, I'm free to relax until Sunday (then homework will have to be put back on the 'to do' list).

Something I've been obsessing over though the last couple of weeks is finding a job placement in China to go teach overseas and check out a new culture (making this blog far more entertaining I'm sure).. I'm looking for suggestions, have any?

Meals, Meals, Meals:

Breakfast was my oatmeal/banana combo that you know of

A mid morning snack was a chunk of a protein bar-- kind of gross tasting when you don't eat them on a regular basis (Think protein bars)

Then for a late lunch I had some pho (vietnamese soup- tofu and veg) and an apple

Pre dinner snack was a bit of goat yogurt with grapes and a Tb of granola

Dinner was going to be a salad with goat cheese and figs, but changed to 3egg whites and a whole egg scrambled with some goat cheese, 2 corn thins and ketchup-- yes, ketchup (it's Friday, so might as well 'go nuts')

And then my post dinner snack, you ask? ICECREAM and peanut butter with chocolate chips on top... I looooove Fridays! And then, because that wasn't enough, popcorn, hot air popped..

**I would normally leave this out, but let's be honest, we ALL do it, and I just did.. eat your hearts out! haha

Goat Yog and Eggs (yummm)

Fitness today, since I know you're probably dying to know was a 5km run (in 20mins) down to the studio and then a 50minute circuit class (where my abs just got murdered). It felt great to get out for another run kind of mid morning, but I do prefer getting out before I eat, it just feels better... unless I really plan it, but today wasn't one of those days.

There you have it, my friday, a hungry one, but a good one all the same, have fantastic evenings and I'll see you tomorrow!

Wednesday: In a Nut Shell

If this was journalism, I would need a nut grab in my story to grab your attention. Lucky for me, I can leave the nut grab behind and just let what I feel flow out onto the screen.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I should be embarrassed that I find the term "nut grab" funny in my fourth year of university, I'm going to go with not for the sake of this post.

This morning I started my day waking up at 8am with a little more energy then earlier in the week, which was a bit of a relief; I can't wait to wake up in the morning with energy again, this head cold is putting me to bed early and making me sleep in late. All I seem to do right now is sip tea, sit, sleep and wait for my energy to return. I need to be more patient, but I'm not, maybe that will be one of next month's resolutions.

So for brekkie this morning I decided against the usual bowl of oats and mixed things up. I sliced up an apple and dumped some goat yogurt on it (yes- I'm slightly lactarded- I pretend I'm not some days though- you'll see) and topped that with organic granola and a couple frozen raspberries for style. It was pretty good, less filling then the oats, but a good change up from what was starting to be a creepy routine.

I followed up my brekkie with this lunch: leftovers from last night (recipe in previous post). Instead of dumping a bunch of brown rice on it, I just had a little bit and then filled it up with romaine hearts instead. I followed this, with 2 kiwis to feed my sweet tooth.

When I got home from school (my days go 10am-3pm) I was starving, so I snacked on corn thins with almond butter and also ate a piece of a chicken breast (apparently I didn' t want to wait for myself to finish making the corn thin/almond butter combo- patience that I lack).

After having a cup of ginger tea and working on a paper, I popped in my Eoin Finn Pursuit of Happy Hips dvd and got to bending and flexing. I love his yoga dvds because they're based on the concept of flow; uniting your breath with your body movement. I usually find it quite hard to do yoga at home with a dvd, but he offers them in different lengths so that I'm never bored enough to hit the skip button. So, I completed an hour of yoga before dinner, and I was feeling quite blissful by the time dinner rolled around.

For dinner I steamed up some broccoli and tofu (I do about 2 cups of broccoli--I'm obsessed) with some more brown rice on top. It was good, but not good enough, so I tossed back a corn thin sandwich (AB and real fruit jam) and 3 pieces of dark chocolate to tie it all together; needless to say I was goooood.

So now, I'm sitting at home with a cup of tea, listening to Kenny Chesney sing me sweet nothings (I'm Alive) and I think I may just retire for the evening.

Good night!