Nutty Snacks June 1, 2009

It was a dark and cloudy start to the week. At least until after I took pictures of my lunch. The sun was starting to come out by the time I had thrown together some breakfast. In the bowl is Allbran, Dorset Fruits, Nuts and Seeds Cereal, and soy milk. And on the side are some wonderfully sweet cherries (love!).

For lunch I chopped up a giant salad. There was spring mix topped with carrot, cucumber, zucchini, red pepper, black beans, asparagus, and BBBV.

Plus there were snacks, yogurt with blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and walnuts.

And later a Ruth’s Lemon Hazelnut bar. I think this is one of my all time favourite bars, love the crunchy nuts.  Although, I’m perfectly willing to give new bars a try, especially Fullbars, if I win them in Krista’s Contest!

For dinner I went a simple and protein filled route. I found some ground turkey in the freezer and turned it into a burger wrapped in a tortilla with spring mix, lots of pickles, ketchup, and mustard. And there were a couple of medjool dates stuffed with sunflower seed butter for dessert which escaped the camera.

I did see something that made me a little happy today though. Today a city-wide mandatory 5 cent fee for plastic bags came into effect. I walk by a grocery store just outside the exit from the subway on my way home from work, and today there were quite a few people stuffing items into their purses or carrying boxes and bottles in their hands. I mean, do you really need a second bag to carry a sleeve of bagels?  It made me happy that the fee was actually working to make them save the plastic instead of taking the convenient route and taking the bag. It doesn’t effect me because I already grocery shop with my reusable bag anyways (or stick things in my shoulder bag). Now I just hope everybody doesn’t start amassing huge collections of the heavier bags that don’t really end up saving much plastic. I only need two, and already rarely use the second one, because that’s the number of hands I have anyways.

Fruit Infusion May 28, 2009

I went a little bit crazy last night when I got up in the midle of the night and opened my window for some fresh air. Because when I woke up this morning my room was cold and dark and there was rain pouring outside (but not inside, because my window only opens a crack). Let’s just say, all plans for a green monster were quickly abandoned. But my breakfast was still nice and colourful, and the vita-mix still came in handy :-). I drew inspiration from Heather and cooked some oat bran, then blended it with kale, pumpkin pie spice, and a banana. Then topped the oats with a spoonful of coconut. And it was delicious, of course.

Then I went a bit fruit crazy while preparing my lunch and snack. For lunch I fixed up a giant salad of spring mix topped with carrot, cucumber,red pepper, and a whole pile of mango. I was really enjoying the forkfuls of pepper and mango left at the end.

For a snack I had an Ambrosia apple with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Then I also had a few Kashi crackers offered to me by the cubicle-mate. They were supposed to be Honey Sesame, but they must have missed the powdering step at the manufacturing plants, because they were just plain, though still tasty.

When I got home I was really hungry so I quickly grabbed small bowlful of Dorset Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds Cereal.

For dinner I drew inspiration for this morning’s Hungry Girl email. I steamed a pile of asparagus and a salmon filet with lemon, and topped it with yogurt, lemon, and sage, then rolled it up in a tortilla. Absolutely wonderful wrap. Plus I had a Zucchini Spelt Muffin (the last one :() for dessert.

And I can’t believe I didn’t know So You Think You Can Dance was on last night and missed it! At least I’ll make up for it by enjoying it even more tonight.

Orange and Green May 7, 2009

Those two colours seem to have been the unintentional theme today.

It was dark and cold and rainy when I got up this morning, which made me want a warm breakfast.  So I threw some of the awesome Hewitt’s oats my mom gave me, some Dorset Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds cereal, cinnamon, and a banana in a pot with water.  That oatmeal is seriously good…

While my breakfast was cooking I was busy chopping up some fruit and veggies for work.  I filled the classy broken-cornered Rubbermaid container with carrot, red pepper, snow peas, cucumber, and steamed broccoli sprinkled with lime juice.  And I channeled my inner Picasso while packing everything up.

The fruit side was covered by an orange, a granny smith apple, and blackberries.

For dinner I rediscovered the can of pumpkin that’s been hiding on the top shelf of the fridge.  Well, it was actually in plain view, but I tend to keep my food on the middle shelf, so if I stick something on the top shelf my eyes like to skip over it.  I sauteed more of the giant vidalia onion with mushrooms and soft tofu in olive oil, then mixed in pumpkin, water, pumpkin pie spice, maple syrup and a handful of chives, blended, then topped with a spoonful of yogurt for a delicious (and rather large!) bowl of soup.

Free fruit (and chocolate)! April 27, 2009

This morning started off with a relaxing breakfast enjoyed almost-outside, a hard boiled egg and a plateful of my BSI Morning Glory Bread. While rearranging my room yesterday I put a rocking sofa chair (is there a word for that?) beside the window, right where the breeze hits when I open my window the whole two inches wide. And I’ve discovered it makes a lovely little spot to look out (mostly at the sky) and enjoy a meal with some fresh air.

For lunch I packed up the leftover balsamic asparagus and some orange dill Lake Erie striped bass from last night along with green pepper strips.

As well as Liberty plain non-fat yogurt with Dorset fruits, nuts, and seeds cereal.

And for snacks I had packed some strawberries and pineapple. But I didn’t eat them. But I’m including the picture to replace the fact I have no picture of what I did eat. Namely a little plate of mixed melon, kiwi, and blueberries, and a piece of a brownie. The fruit was leftover from a lunch meeting. And the brownies (as well as lemon squares) were brought in by my cubicle-mate for her birthday. And I knew they were from My Market Bakery in Kensington Market, so I has to try a piece, and as I suspected, it was amazingly delicious (with cherries on top!).

For dinner I made use of some items I found lurking in the cupboard.  I made some sushi-esque wraps, both filled with orange pepper and asparagus edamummus, one wrap with only nori, and the other with both nori and rice paper.   They were some pretty tasty bites, I was pleased.

Then I blended up the strawberries and pineapple I brought to work with ice and Celestial Seasonings Peach White tea to make a sweet smoothie.  Of which I only drank about half because it was too sweet for me…maybe I should have added greens…

Then for dessert I had a different kind of sweet, a couple of parnoosh dates mixed with 2 T of dried coconut.  I’ve never had a coconut cream pie larabar (and don’t those have almonds too?) but this sure was good.

Now I think I’m going to mix up a breakfast cookie for tomorrow. Though I sure do wish I could make it using the peanut butter and protein powder I could win in Nicole’s 100th post giveaway over at Just Sweet Enough!

And another note, Marianne commented that she had never heard of poor man’s pie, which got me to googleing, and I couldn’t find ANYTHING about my version.  I found a bunch of recipes for what looks suspiciously like a pie-sized butter tart, and some bread pudding in a pie crust, but no mention of a simple slice of bread spread with butter and molasses.  Which just seems odd to me because that’s what my dad would always call it (and he often used corn syrup too, especially for us kids who didn’t like molasses so much by itself).  And I assume he got it from my grandma, who grew up in Alabama.  So maybe it’s a southern thing?  A southern thing that hasn’t managed to make its way to the internet yet?  Will I become famous for bringing it to light? 😉

Happy Earth Day! April 22, 2009

For breakfast this morning I started out with a sweet and crunchy bowl of Dorset Fruits, Nuts and Seeds cereal tossed with a chopped russet apple, and almond milk.  A perfect bowl to start the day.

For lunch I dug into an awesome stirfry containing snow peas, tofu, shitake mushrooms, sesame oil, and teriyaki sauce (the soy-like kind).  The mushrooms were so flavourful, and at $4/lb, I can’t complain.

The stirfry was followed by soup made by blending pepper squash, lentils, thyme, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.  I made the cubicle-mate jealous with the scent of the soup when I heated it in the microwave at work (I’m usually lazy and eat my food at room temperature).

Then in the afternoon I sipped my way through this monster.  I kept the spinach, apple, strawberries, banana, and chia seeds cold until afternoon by using less water, and filling the bottle with ice cubes before leaving in the morning, it worked perfectly.

And when I finally made my way home tonight, I chopped up a pile of veg, tossed it with sage, thyme, dill, whole grain dijon, and olive oil.  Half an hour later I sat down to a giant steaming hot bowl of delicious roasted cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, and celeriac (the last of it) covered in a ketchupy drizzle.  Perfect warm me up food for the cold dreary weather outside.  And calorie-count.com tells me there are 20 g of protein (not complete, but a single meal doesn’t have to be) and 25 g of fiber in that bowl, and that’s not counting the seasonings!

No point crying over… April 14, 2009

A cracked shell?

This cute little guy was given to me this morning by my cubicle-mate who brought back a bag full of these key chains from her quick holiday in New York City this weekend. The contents of each box are random and we all had fun seeing who got which key chain.

This morning’s breakfast was a large slice of fresh Cob’s Bakery Flaxseed bread spread with lovely roasted almond butter, and a banana.

For lunch I packed up some veggies, snow peas, red pepper, and carrot.

As well as a bowlful of Dorset Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds cereal.

And in the afternoon I snacked on strawberries and super sweet and delicious mango.

For dinner I started with a crunchy plate of more carrot, Finncrisp rye crackers, and hummus.

Then I made a perfectly tangy wrap with a La Tortilla Factory Multigrain wrap, spinach, tuna, a little microwaved egg white, dill pickles, and hefty spread of whole grain dijon mustard (under the spinach)

And now I must go investigate this Dr. Who Easter special I’m told is available for the watching…

Sun and warmth! April 5, 2009

This morning I tried out my Dorset Fruit, Nuts, and Seeds cereal as oatmeal. It was so good! I used a bit too much liquid, so I added a handful of plain oatmeal after taking the bowl out of the microwave the first time, but the results were amazing! The fruit plumped up beautifully and added so much flavour to the oats. This stuff is so much better than those packets of instant oatmeal, yet just as fast and easy to make. I made the oatmeal with a mix of water and unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, and added a sliced banana.

Close to lunch time I was feeling like a green monster, so I made a huge one. There was kale, frozen broccoli (I bought it and discovered I hate the texture when it’s cooked, so this is a good way to use it up), frozen mango, frozen blueberries, and unsweetened vanilla almond breeze.

After taking the picture of the blender I added a lot of water to get it to blend properly, and also a banana because it was starting to taste watered down. I really need a better blender…

The Monster was huge! It made 3 glasses worth that I sipped over the course of a couple of hours. I swear the last glass was greener than the first, it wasn’t just the lighting.

Mid-afternoon I snacked on a bowl of Cinnamon Puffins, and tested out some Shasha Co. Spelt Ginger Snaps. The ginger snaps were so good (the puffins too of course)! I picked up a package for the BSI prize pack, but I had only tried the non-spelt variety before, so of course I had to get two packages to try them myself as well. I stopped after only a couple cookies though (they’re small), but I wanted more. I love ginger snaps/cookies/bread.

Dinner featured find number two from the “World’s Most Ridiculous Bulk Food Store”. La Tortilla Factory Multigrain Wraps. 100 calories for a huge wrap with not-too-weird ingredients (but a whole lot of them)? Yes, please. I’ve had the regular whole wheat ones before when I found them on my trip to the Low Carb Grocery last fall, and wasn’t a fan of the funny soy-ish aftertaste. So when I saw soy was lower on the ingredients list of the multigrain variety I figured I would give them a try. I’m glad I did, they are quite good, no funny aftertaste. They have the same chewy/gluteny texture as the whole wheat wraps, but I was expecting it this time around, and I kind of liked it. Though the texture did surprise me the first time I tried the La Tortilla Factory wraps.

I filled my wrap with yellow pepper, jo tsai/garlic chives, and sole pan fried in a little sesame oil. And I paired it was a bowl of grated broccoli stems and carrot that mixed into a slaw with freshly strained plain yogurt and Big Bull Steak Sauce. Good salad combination.

And for dessert during the Mentalist later this evening (Amazing Race isn’t on?) I have find number three from the “World’s Most Ridiculous Bulk Food Store”. A Nutty Banana Boom Probar. I nibbled on the corner after taking the picture and I think I’m in love. Way tastier than just about any other bar I’ve ever tried. Cutting the bar in half makes the price ($3.50) and calories totally worth it. Unfortunately, I have the feeling these are not usually available at the the bulk food store because there were only two flavours there, and they are about to expire. So I have a Kettlecorn Probar to try within the next couple of weeks too, lucky me 🙂

Hopefully by tomorrow morning I’ll have some fun sorting through BSI entries and announcing a winner!

Dillicious April 1, 2009

I felt like switching things up a bit today and had snack type food for breakfast, and breakfast type food for snack.  Which means I started off the morning with a banana spread with sunflower seed butter and an apple.

Late in the morning I had a seitan burger, green pepper, and a carrot.  The steak sauce in the picture I used for dipping my lunch

For lunch I did a complete repeat of last night’s dinner.  More butternut squash fries, sliced zucchini, and roasted chicken breast.  That is one good meal.  Am I weird in that I usually hate cooked zucchini but love it raw?  It just gets so mushy when it’s cooked.

My afternoon snack was some Dorset Cereals Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds cereal.

Dorset cereals have been gazing at me from the grocery store shelves, longing for me to pick them up for years now.  But for some reason I never did.  I don’t know why, this one is pretty awesome and I don’t see how any of the other flavours could go wrong.  I think that might be one of the problems, too many awesome sounding flavours and I could never decide which one to try first.

All the cereals are packed with dried fruits, nuts and seeds (30-60% depending on the flavour) along with rolled grains and flakey bits.  The thing that provoked me to finally buy a box is that the Fruits, Nuts and Seeds variety now contains pumpkin seeds.  I love pumpkin seeds.  And I’m so glad I did because this cereal is seriously good, you can tell all the add-ins are seriously high quality (and chilean flame raisins are incredible!). I also like that there is no extra sugar added (besides the sweetened banana chips) and I’d like to try cooking this up like oatmeal. I think next time I should try a berry heavy variety….

When I got home all I wanted was pickles.  I figure that wouldn’t make much of a dinner, so I filled the meal out with a romaine heart with some caesar dressing, and plate of Mary’s Herb crackers and cheddar cheese.

My roomie introduced me to the pickles and cheese combination years ago, and I must admit, it is oddly addicting.

And dinner ended with a sweet dessert of Algerian dates dipped in peanut butter.