Recipes!

September seems to have flown by!

September is always a challenge for me when it comes to eating because my brother, my mom, my dad and I all have our birthdays withing 16 days. Then my grandmother's birthday is 8 days after that! So it's a loooot of dinners and a looot of cake. With that in mind, I've been doing ok..although not great. I've had a few victories and new discoveries though:

Tripe Chocolate Bunt Cake: I made this for my mom's birthday as an alternative to a rich cake covered in icing. I added a bit of vanilla frozen yogurt on the side and it was soo great!
*I got this from Jamie's Kitchen - I love her recipe site because it has pictures, point values, and honest reviews of all the recipes and most of them are vegetarian!!

Booty Camp Falafel: A few people have posted this on thier blog so I wanted to try it. Soo when the recipe showed up in the "Lunchbox Revival" colum in the post, I knew it was a sign I had to make it. For some reason I envisioned this to be a quick, throw together meal and this it was not! It took more than an hour for me to get it all together and cleaned up. But I have to say it was worth it. It was really good and flavourful. I had mine with half a pita, tomatoes, cucumbers and some plain yogurt. I made the tahini sauce but I didn't love it so I left it out.

Roasted Portabello Mushrooms: Yes, I made a recipe I found on ehow.com haha but it actually worked out well. I had some leftover portabello's that I roasted (although I used way less oil in the marinade) and put over some salad with a little goat cheese.
Those are the ones I really wanted to share right now. Being home job hunting all day is rough. I have good days and bad days and it's hard not to eat on the bad days! But I'm trying to get exercise and fresh air and take advantage of the free time I have to try new recipes :)

One last thing, Allie's blog, is one of the blogs I read the most and she's having a contest! So check out her contest and check out her blog, it's worth a read :)

September begins...

I'm so bad at updating! I always think of things to say and then I always get distracted through the week!

But last post I said I was experimenting with mashed cauliflower and it worked out beautifully! I steamed some cauliflower in some veggie broth and tossed it in the blender with a bit of olive oil and couple big handfuls of spinach (inspired by the green monster). It looked like bright green baby food but it was yummy!!

In other news, I went to WI with my mom tonight and she got LIFETIME :) She hit goal 9 weeks ago but missed 3 weigh in's because she was taking a course but regardless she made it tonight! I'm so happy for her! We celebrated with a take out dinner - fresh falafel and hummus from a local Mediterranean place. It was awesome. We also picked up a tub of Bacio (hazelnut and chocolate) gelato from our corner bakery/deli. It was 100 cal/ half a cup and sooo tasty!

So now that I'm job hunting and home days I reallly need to get my eating under control and get into an exercise routine. I picked up a brochure for the rec centre fitness facilities and am hoping to take some classes there. Hopefully I'll have a job soon and I'll still have to worry about fitting in exercise but eating won't be so tough when the kitchen isn't calling my name all day!

Hope you enjoyed labour day weekend!

Week in Review

So this week has been the same as the past few weeks - no great progress yet I don't feel like I'm completely off track either.

I've been eating out a fair bit but making decent choices (mostly) I don't have pics - I have to say I admire those bloggers who are comfortable taking pictures of their food in public - I'm just not there yet! But I did make this <<< Black bean and corn salad with tomatoes and yellow pepper tossed in some lemon juice, olive oil and hot sauce. It was good, I used fresh corn right off the cob which was awesome. I didn't love the yellow peppers in it...the texture didn't quite fit so when I make it again I'll leave them out. I had it with a bit of mozzarella and the space on the plate I left for some bbq roasted potatos that wern't quite ready. Yum!!

I also have been enjoying a lot of fresh peaches, usually with a bit of vanilla frozen yogurt :) For some reason, the picture is getting inserted roated wrong, I'll try and fix it later.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge but I just learned the best way to peel a peach is to run it under hot water for a few seconds...the skin just peels right off! It works so well!

Tonight, I'm trying an experiment with mashed cauliflower, I will report back :)

One step forward, two steps back

So I've been checking out Goodlife and considering joining for the Fall. I've been attending the various classes with my friend Lauren to see if I think it's worthwhile.

Last night we tried step class. I liked the class but didn't really enjoy the instructor. She was trying to be helpful but she kept singling us out. I would have preferred she just let me struggle through the patterns on my own. I would try it again though, it was definitely a great work out!

So as we were about to leave we noticed the storm that we'd been hearing about in the Toronto area has hit us full force, lighting and heavy rains - the power was even flickering on and off. So we decided to stay for another class and wait it out and off we went to Zumba. I've mentioned before that I've tried Zumba and really enjoyed it and last night it was good still - although I was pretty pooped at the end.

By the time I got home it was after 8...and I came home to find out that the rain had cause my family's dinner plans of BBQing to fall through and they just ordered pizza instead. Well, I was starving - too starving to make a good decision. So I had a little more pizza then I normally would. But it was delicious, that's for sure!

Then today, my mom and I went for lunch at a really amazing little place called Stoney's. We got turned around and parked the car about a 10 min walk away, which was great for a little extra exercise. Then, we had the most wonderful goat cheese salads! Unfortunatly, we just happened to park the car across the street from a Gelato place, so we decided to try it out and split a small cup of 1/2 ferrero and 1/2 Baccio gelato. It was waaaay better than ice cream! So amazing.

So, the point of all this is I've had some victories in these past couple days and also a few set backs...but I'm going to stay on track this weekend and keep up tracking as best I can - I'm not giving up!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Weekend Tracking

I am ashamed to admit I didn't track this weekend. Which isn't a huge deal except I only recommitted to tracking last week lol But I was in Waterloo and things came up...I actually think I did pretty well, it's not like I totally blew it but I probably should have tracked it all.

That aside, I'm doing really well. It's nice to have some time to plan and cook good meals.

Tonight's dinner (sorry, no pic) was Worth Every Penne from Eat, Shrink and be Merry - you can get the recipe off their site.

It was whole what penne with mushrooms, onions, spinach and tomatoes in a pesto, balsamic sauce. I left out the chicken the recipe calls for (naturally) and bulked it up with extra veggies. I did, however, chop up a strip of bacon to top everyone elses plate - they said it was a nice touch. They also suggest to top with parmesean or feta and today I used parmesean. Next time, I would use feta to add a stronger flavour (I think the bacon accomplished this for everyone else) All in all, it was good and light enough. Definatly would make this again as we all enjoyed it.

Thats it for now. Going to my mom's WW meeting tomorrow night but not weighing since I already did for Aug. I need to pick a weigh in day for my records to start keeping track again. I'm not sure which one I like best....

That's it for now - take care everyone!

Whole Foods

Yesterday, I was not in the best mood after a frustrating trip to the dentist (where I wait for 45 minutes!) So I decided to treat myself to a trip to Whole Foods since it was nearby. Most often, when I visit Whole Foods, I don't even buy anything. I just like going and looking at all the wonderful food they have and all the different types of products available. But yesterday I did walk out with a few items.

First, some candied walnuts and some fig goat cheese that I put on a strawberry balsamic salad for dinner. Yummm!I had this with some stuffed zucchini and some bbq'd potatoes that my brother made.

I also bought a couple of bars I had seen on various blogs:

I'd heard of Larabar and Jocalat before. They are made of fruit and nuts and are all natural. I figured these would be a good substitute for granola bars (although a very pricey one!) I havn't tried them but I will review when I do!

Note: I just realized the Larabar I bought is chocolate chili! Now I am scared to try it!! Has anyone else tried these??

I also picked up The Simply Bar because it's made of soy crips and therfore it's very high in protein - the whole bar has 160 calories and 16g of protein! I've read vegetarians who eat balanced don't really need to worry about protein but I figure it never hurts to be sure. I tried it for breakfast and it was pretty good. The soy crips had an interesting texture and a bit of an aftertaste but all in all it wasn't bad. I would try it again for sure.

So I managed to limit my spending damage to those few items, I'm sure when I have more disposable income I'll be trying a few more interesting new products!

Since I typically started my WW week on Thursday, I've decided to start taking tracking seriously this week and see how it goes, wish me luck :)

Almost Friday!

Back Again!

Alright so I'm back, I hope for good! School got crazy but now I am all finished and into the "real" world - hopefully I can find a job.

The combination of stress and summer activities has caused me to put on about 2 lbs so I'm hovering around 115 and determined to get down to 110!

I have discovered I'm not a very good food blogger. When I do remember the pictures they are never pretty like everyone elses.

Here's what I mean:



But I guess that's not entirely the point. This is today's lunch. It's left overs from last night. It's Marinated Fall Salad- a recipe we got from Chatelaine. It's got cauliflower, beans, olives and peppers, it's super tasty! Since it's all I was having for lunch, I crumbled in some feta...it's a nice addition but I'm not sure it needs it. I think I'd rather save the calories for one of these:

Also from Chatelaine, The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie with dark chocolate! We would normally never make cookies but my mom has a guest this week. They are wonderful. Not too big, crispy on the outside and soft on the middle. I will be keeping this as my go to cookie recipe for when I need one.

In exercise news, I tried Zumba last week and will be going again tomorrow - I love it! It is so much fun, it doesn't feel like exercise!! It's a good way to work myself in to exerciseing on a regular basis again!

That's all for now! I will be back sooner than later :)

Have a great week!