Tasty, Semi Healthy Fast Food? July 9, 2009

I apologize for the lack-luster photos, but today has just been one of those days.

It all started when I got up super early in the morning to get to work to leave on a field trip (FUN!).  I was out of greens so I blended up some unusal ingredients and ended up with a surprisingly good smoothie.  In the mix is banana, avocado, lime, mint, cacao nibs, wheatgrass icecubes, and chocolate brown rice protein.

Later in the morning I snacked on a super sweet and juicy apple.

We had planned on getting back to the office around 1ish, so I had left my food there (except for the apple), but we ended up hanging around longer than planned to watch a girder being erected (on barges in the middle of a river, twas pretty cool), so on the way back, with options being limited in somewhat northern Ontario, we stopped at A&W for lunch.  I considered getting a side salad (or 2) to hold me over until we got back, but I was HUNGRY, so I ordered a Swiss Veggie Delight.  And I was quite pleased to discover it was good, like REALLY good!  My veggie patty experience is quite limited, but this one was very tasty, and very mushroomy, which went well with the cheese on the burger.  It was even served on a whole wheat bun.  I looked it up on the site afterwards, and the nutritional stats aren’t even that horrible, and the first (but definitely not the only) ingredient  in the patty is even portobello mushrooms.  If you’re ever end up at A&W, and want something more than a sad looking side salad, I definitely recommend their veggie burger.

When we finally did get back to work, I happily dug into this bowl of blueberries.

And when I finally got home, I at what I had made of lunch (and did not rephotograph despite better lighting conditions, due to the fact that everything was tossed around and messy in the container).  Julienned orange pepper and zucchini with raw mole.

And for dessert, to match the burger, my last Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich.

Sprout Quinoa-Sabe, Sprout June 21, 2009

So last night before work I dug into a fabulous discovery that I had prepared over the course of Saturday.  I didnt really take much time at all, it’s just that the time it did take was spread out.  Quinoa Tabouli from Raw Food, Real World.  Not only was the tabouli itself really good, I discovered that I rather love sprouted quinoa, so chewy yet crunchy, wonderful texture. And it’s so easy to make, all you have to do is soak the quinoa in water overnight, then transfer them to a colander to drain, and let them sit at room temp for at least 6 hours, covered with a towel, rinsing them a couple of times.

I also had some Clif Carrot Cake action going on.

Plus I brought these cranberries with me for snacking.

After work, my cubicle mate and I were starving so we decided to got out to brunch.  Of course at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, few places are open, so we found ourselves at Fran’s. I ordered the Cheese and Herb Omlette, which was delicious with toast, jam, and a pile of fruit plus a couple bites of the cubicle-mate’s home fries. As well as a glass of fabulous freshly squeezed orange juice. That breakfast kept me full all morning and afternoon (which included a lengthy nap). SO for dinner I set to work on a BSI creation! Although, I now see that the recipe was due at noon (bad reader I am!), but it’s still a good recipe, and I did indeed eat it, so I’m still posting it 🙂

The nicest greens I found while shopping this weekend was a beautiful, and giant bunch of organic dino kale. So I mixed the rest of my sprouted quinoa (~3/4 cup, started from 1/4 cup, feel free to used cooked quinoa), with ~ 3/4 cup finely chopped kale, ~1/2 cup finely chopped pineapple, and 1.5-2 T barbeque sauce (I used Big Bull Steak Sauce, which has a base of dates and orange puree, ie. fruity).

My Tropical Kale Salad was crunchy with bursts of tangy sweetness, and not a hint of bitterness from the kale.

Then one of these sounded like an excellent idea.

Raw Experiments June 20, 2009

So if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been having fun with raw foods. I’d probably drive myself crazy if I ever focused on being high raw, but I love the creativity of the recipes, and food always tastes so good and is good for me. And it helps that I’ve been perusing raw cookbooks borrowed from the library, both by me and the roomie. The most recent of which (after two months on the waiting list!) is Raw Food, Real World, from which I found inspiration for my smoothie this morning. In the mix was cucumber, watermelon, lime juice and fresh chocolate mint.

And I was attempting to make the smoothie a pretty pink shade, so I peeled the cucumber, but I still crunched on the peel plain.

For lunch I tossed together a bowl of steamed kabocha sprinkled with cinnamon, snap peas, asparagus, green and red pepper, and broccoli.

Then an oddball snack/meal of cherries, peas, and Chocolate Mint Vitasoy (the Christmas stuff, on sale for a dollar because it’s expiring)

And today’s a weird day again due to my having to work in the middle of the night, but there’s some raw stuff in the works for tomorrow, and I expect there’ll be a little BSI action too…

Mango Mint Madness June 8, 2009

Note to self: Catch up on sleep tonight.

After thoroughly enjoying the movie One Week last night, which made me want to take a road trip across the country, or at least to Northern Ontario, where I’ve never been, it took forever to fall asleep. Which meant I was very reluctant to get up this morning. But my green monster started to wake me up by the time I left for work. In the mix was banana, mango, chia seeds, chocolate mint, and a couple handfuls of spinach. Om nom nom…

Later in the morning I snacked on these biscotti thins that were found in the work kitchen. Well, technically I ate a different package, and brought these home for a picture…and because they were really good.

For lunch I brought the left over steamed broccoli and kabocha, sprinkled with soy sauce, along with a carrot and celery. And a Devil Dawg, which the cubicle-mate tried and loved and requested the recipe for 🙂

And for and afternoon snack there was handful of snow peas with bean dip, and the rest of the Saturn peaches.

Then finally, for dinner I had a giant spin-zuke-shroom salad doused in BBBV.

Plus a delicious homemade (not by me) peanut butter granola bar. Only half of it made it onto the plate though, the crumbly bits went directly from bag to mouth.

Chinese Bakery Day May 24, 2009

Breakfast this morning started out with an Activia Peach and Cereals Yogurt.

And it finished with raspberries, blueberries, and a handful of trail mix.  Which included awesome macadamia nuts.

I’ve been craving chinese bakery buns for a while now, and while it is rather unhealthy, it’s a rare occurance, so I figure it’s okay to indulge once in a while.  I paid a visit to chinatown and came out with a few goodies.  For lunch I had some steamed sticky rice with chicken in it, and a hot dog roll.  Plus grape tomatoes and half a small romaine heart drizzled in Back to Basics Balsamic Vinagrette for a little green.  Why is chinese bakery bread so good? (I know, lots of fat, no fiber).

All afternoon I was drinking lots of this.  And it was delicious and refreshing.  Chocolate mint, lemon slices, ice and water.

Late afternoon I made a batch of Zucchini Spelt Muffins from ED&BV.  I made half the recipe but still made 9 muffins because my silicone muffin liners are small.  They turned out really well, and they taste so good!  I’m looking forward to having them for breakfasts and snacks for the rest of the week.

For dinner I made zucchini fries tossed in teriyaki sauce and a tuna sausage.  I was really impressed by the sausage, from what I can tell it’s just chopped up chunks of tuna (ie. no filler) that have been seasoned and stuffed into the casing.  I don’t know what brand it was though, I just found them individually packaged on styrofoam trays like the other fresh fish fillets in the seafood case at Metro.  And double dinner dessert was a Zucchini Spelt muffin and a red bean mochi from the bakery.  I love me some glutinous rice.

And now that laundry’s done I need to make my bed and go to sleep.  I accidentally stayed up until almost four last night (this morning?) reading, but was still up by eight, so I am TIRED tonight.

Jiggle in a Wigglin’ Spree May 22, 2009

As promised, last night there was spice cake, with maple icing even. Don’t mind the flat appearance of the cake, my roomie bought an old cookbook from the 1930s and made a few radical substitutions. He used whole wheat pastry flour instead of white (though we were wondering if they even had white flour back then), and he used 1T butter plus 1 1/4 cups 1% milk instead of 1 cup cream and 1/4 cup milk. So while the wasn’t very light and fluffy, it did taste absolutely delicious. And the icing recipe called for Log Cabin Syrup, but we upgraded it to maple, which was fantastic with the spice cake 🙂

This morning I started out with a SUPER strong green monster. I wanted to actually drink it at home, instead of bringing it with me to work, and I want to have enough room left over to enjoy part two of breakfast, so I used the usual amount of kale (3-4 leaves), a foot long sprig of mint, only half a banana (instead of 1 plus a few chunks of other fruit), 1 T of chia seeds (instead of 2), and enough water to make a bit over a cup of green monster (instead of 3-4 cups). Let’s just say it was a bit stronger than I anticipated, but I drank it.

And I was still hungry enough to fully enjoy this big plateful of watermelon chunks (that didn’t fit into the big container destined for the fridge nor the bag for the freezer, so obviously it had to ALL be eaten this morning).

For lunch I had delicious (and out of focus) spinach salad topped with beets, carrot, and Back to Basics Balsamic Vinaigrette.

When I got home from work in the middle of the afternoon I had an extra sliver of spice cake…or two.

And for dinner I had another salad that did an excellent job of cleaning out the fridge at the end of the week. This one was a base of romaine, spinach, and hidden broccoli sprouts which I piled high with grape tomatoes, two fried eggs, “grilled” portobello mushroom, and lots citrusy bean dip (in order to finish the container). I grilled the mushrooms in a sandwich maker, and it worked surprisingly well (though no grill marks), I’m glad I had that idea. It helped that the mushrooms happened to be bread slice sized to start with.

And another idea I’m glad I had produced a lovely dessert I’m enjoy right now. Stash Goji Berry Green Tea + gelatin + agave nectar = wiggly jiggly goodness. This might become my go-to summer dessert, it’s pretty awesome. I started out by mixing the agave with the tea + gelatin, but the jello didn’t taste very sweet after it had set. So I mashed up the jello a little with my spoon and stirred in a drizzle more of agave, which gives the perfect amount of sweetness surrounding each bit. Next time, I’ll skip the agave in the jello and just add it at the end. I’d love to get my hands on some coconut chai to make jello out of, that sounds really good to me.

And I’m planning on a bit of chocolate later, Green and Black’s Milk Chocolate to be exact.

Unfortunately, it looks like I’m going to have to sit out of this week’s BSI over at Say Yes to Salad, I can’t find kabocha ANYWHERE! I’ll have to try one more time tomorrow and go up to Whole Foods.  I did puchase (what I hope will be) a pretty awesome new food though.  But you have to wait til tomorrow to see it 🙂

What do you mean I need to go to work today? May 20, 2009

So it’s been a whole week since I went to the office, but this morning I had to go all the way up to work and spend the sitting in my cubicle. Don’t get me wrong, I like the work I get to do at the office (when I actually get work to do), but it was fun to do something more active and involved last week will doing the site inspection. At least we’re going to start inspecting another subway station soon, and it’ll take longer because we’re doing the WHOLE station instead of a couple of pedestrian passageways. Plus the station is even closer to home for me, I’ll probably just walk there 🙂
Before heading our for the commute this morning I crunched on a carrot with sunflower seed butter (which was amazing, I need to remember to eat this more often) as well as a Ginger Snap Larabar. I loved this bar, it has to be my favourite so far. I’ve been meaning to by ground ginger forever, and this bar will likely remind me to do it this weekend so I can replicate it.

For lunch I reverted back to the salad mess (can you tell I’m likeing these?). This incarnation contained caulifower, orange pepper, canned salmon, broccoli sprouts, and citrusy bean dip. Broccoli sprouts + bean dip = brilliant.

I also brought along the (somewhat) daily green monster. This mix included spinach, kale, chocolate mint, chia seeds, banana, mango, and a few frozen grapes.   But I never got aroung to drinking it a work, so I’m having it for dinner instead.  Minty, fruity love.

I did also have a 100 calorie pack of shortbread cookies from a very large pile in the kitchen at work for lunch dessert.  I doubt I’ll get hungry again before I go to bed, but if I do I’ll tack it onto tomorrow’s post.  My computer keeps telling me it want’s to turn itself off to update, so I’m taking it as a sign to read a novel for the rest of the evening.

Minty Green May 15, 2009

I had a couple surprises today, both of them fun things.

This first surprise was when I got up this morning and the roomie was gone!  Apparently he worked this morning, which means I was free to make as much noise as I wanted.  Enter the blender.  A foot long sprig of chocolate mint, chocolate rice protein powder, red kale, chia seeds, a banana and grapes.  Amazing.

This protein powder was pretty good, a first time try for me.  I bought a berry flavoured one too.

For lunch I repeated my salad mess.   They’re really tasty.  Today I included zucchini, tofu, orange pepper, yogurt, stone ground mustard, and a handful of chives.

And lunch dessert was a granny smith apple with almonds.

My second surprise of the day was when we finished all the work we could do on site, so we went home early!  Extra long weekend for the win, even though I didn’t actually work summer hours this week!

So I went for a long walk this afternoon, and at some point the idea of a sandwich for dinner popped into my head and sounded like the best idea in the world.  So I actually stopped into grocery store on the way home to pick up the necessary ingredients (I never do that).  I ended up with a whole wheat kaiser roll, sliced turkey breast, and herbed goat cheese.  At home I also added mustard, freshly picked parsley, tomato, and dill pickle.  It was a pretty awesome sandwich, and it made my stomach very happy 🙂

BSI Cabbage: Sweet Cabbage Dessert Soup March 22, 2009

This morning started out a bit late after I slept in.  I was in the mood for something quick for breakfast, and there’s not much else faster than cereal, so I filled a bowl with Kashi Seven Whole Grain Puffs, and finished a box of Nature’s Path Blueberry Almond Muesli.  No more freeze dried blueberry blue milk for me.  There was also a bit of unsweetened vanilla Almond breeze involved.

Later I had a blood orange and many cups of tea, mostly herbal.  I was working on clearing out the overflowing tea cupboard.  I discovered that Celestial Seasonings Strawberry Kiwi tea is really sweet, I actually went to check the package to see if there was somehow sugar hiding in the tea bag (there wasn’t).

When I started to get hungry for lunch I got to work on this week’s BSI entry.  Christina chose cabbage as the ingredient of the week, and I had half a head of red cabbage already in the fridge.  I did some thinking and came up with a flavour combination that sounded good, if a bit odd.  So here you have a recipe for Sweet Cabbage Dessert Soup.  I just can’t decide weather it should be a regular soup or a dessert soup, since it turned out sweeter than I expected, and for some reason tastes really rich (but in a good way).  I had it for lunch and it filled me up nicely.

The soup ingredients to make about 4 cups are:

1 onion, chopped
2 tsp almond oil (any not-strongly flavoured oil should be fine, my other choices were olive and sesame)
2 carrots, chopped (mine happened to be purple and yellow, but orange should be fine)
1/2 head red cabbage, roughly chopped
1 grapefruit, chopped
1 cup brewed mint tea
2 tsp dried mint
2 oz creme de cassis (black currant liquor)

I started out by caramellizing the onion very well in the oil.

Then I added all the other ingredients, carrots on the bottom, in the tea to boil, cabbage on top to steam, brought the pot to a boil, and let them simmer for about ten minutes, until the carrots are tender  (remember, more liquids appear out of the veggies).  After a stir it looked like this.

At which point I pureed the lot with my handy stick blender.  I like my pureed soup thick, so you might want to add some more mint tea or water at this point for a thinner consistency.

And I topped the bowl with an optional spoonful of yogurt and more dried mint (although fresh would have been a prettier garnish).  Part way through enjoying my bowl I realized it reminds me of the rhubarb sauce my mom make every summer.  It would actually probably go really well chilled on ice cream.  I think I’m leaning towards calling it a dessert soup.

And since these giveways tie in so nicely,

This soup would be even better pureed super smooth in a vitamix such as the one is being given away over at Jumbo Empanadas

And instead of the creme de cassis, I’m betting a shot of POM would work well, and can be had for free with coupons from Oh She Glows.

Anyway, speaking of ice cream, later in the afternoon I treated myself to some half-fat Vanilla Haagen Dasz.  Yummy.  But multiple that bowl by 2, it was a half serving anyway.  I also nibbled on a few FoodShouldTasteGood Chocolate tortilla chips.

Dinner time rolled around and I retrieved the half of the seitan burger I brought home last night from the fridge and made a new one.  Sitting on a whole wheat english muffin (organic from Whole Foods, really good) is romaine lettuce, the seitan patty, Big Bull Steak sauce, whole grain dijon mustard, broiled emmental cheese, and grape tomatoes.  A tasty burger indeed.  I should try making seitan some time….

Now I have some Nature’s Path Optimum Rebound cereal waiting for me to snack on while watching the Sunday night CTV trifecta of The Mentalist, Amazing Race, and Desperate Houswives.  Before heading to bed so I can get up for work tomorrow….