Leftovers Revisited

After a weekend of rough sleeping I slept like the dead last night.  WooT!  FH and I watched True Blood (is anyone else ready for them to kill kill kill Maryann?), then I read for a while (almost Sookie overload but not quite..haha), and watched Entourage while laying in bed.  Lights out as soon as the show was over and I think I actually fell asleep within 10 minutes, which is amazing considering how shit my sleep has been lately.  *crossing fingers that this keeps up*

I even slept an extra 15 minutes this morning.  So when I got up my coffee was fully brewed and I didn’t have to wait for it.  Love that.

Enjoyed my first cup with the last raspberry white chocolate chia muffin.  These things stayed fresh in fridge for two weeks!

I ended up having a late breakfast…I guess it was brunch!  Super simple because I had leftover veggie omelette and pan fries from the brunch at Cora’s on Saturday.

Served with a kiwi that has been ripening on the kitchen counter all week.

No noon workout for me today unfortunately.  That back pain from yesterday is still lingering so rather than try to be a tough-girl I just sat it out.  Boooo.  I did get in an afternoon walk around 4:00 thought.  It wasn’t the same, but it was better than nothing.  :)

Oh, last week’s chart…look at all my stars!  haha.  Yes, I’m 5.  I’ll make this week’s chart as soon as I finish posting this.

Because of my late breakfast I didn’t need lunch so decided to treat myself to two of my Choco-Cran-Almond Bars instead of only one.

And after my walk I was craving an iced coffee, but rather than drive somewhere to spend money I decided to quench the thirst with a Coke Zero instead.  I don’t like artificial sweetener too often but I do keep these on hand for days just like today.

Dinner was another black bean turkey burger (I thawed out three the other day by accident) with tomato and mashed avocado on a ww English muffin.  Super filling!

 

I was planning a scoop of ice cream for dessert but my tummy has been bothering me today and I think it’s because I’m down a few litres of water.  So I’m drinking up and avoiding the sweets instead.

tonight there was an AMAZING sunset.  I only wish my camera could do it justice!  (and wish there weren’t houses in the way of the actual horizon!)

 

Recipe: Choco-Cranberry-Almond Granola Bars

So I had the last third of the bottle of brown rice syrup left and needed to find something to do with it.  Not really knowing anything about cooking with it, and too lazy to look anything up, I decided just to modify my Sticky Bar recipe and see what I could throw together.

Best.Combo.Yet.

Chocolate Cranberry Almond No-Bake Granola Bars

Ingredients:

- 1.5 cups whole oats

- 1/2 cup dried cranberries

- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped and toasted almonds

- 2 x 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

- 1/4 cup ground flax

- big sprinkle cinnamon

- 1/2 cup brown rice syrup

- 1 tsp butter

- 1 tsp real vanilla extract

Directions:

- coarsely chop almonds.  toast on a baking sheet in oven until fragrant and toasty.

- heat syrup and butter in small sauce pan over medium-heat until bubbling.  stir frequently and let boil for a couple of minutes.

- while waiting for syrup to bubble, mix all dry ingredients (except for second 1/4 cup of choco chips) in a big mixing bowl.

- once syrup has boiled for a few minutes, stir into dry ingredients.

- press mixture firmly into greased (sprayed) small square cake pan.  sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips, press firmly again.

- put pan in freezer until totally chilled and firm.  pop entire thing onto cutting board and cut into 12 pieces with big knife.  store in refrigerator. 

Yummy for the tummy!!

13 minutes until Big Brother!

Let’s see if I can get a post done before I get sucked into bad reality TV!

Last night, Hurricane Danny made himself known here in Halifax.  Funny because he was downgraded below a Tropical Storm by the time he got here, but he was louder, windier, rainier, and a bigger pain in the ass than Bob was.  And Bob was supposed to wreak some havoc. 

Needless to say the crazy wind and pounding rain made it impossible for me to sleep last night.  I was exhausted and couldn’t even doze off…I think I slept like 8 minutes between midnight and 4am.  I finally decided that the spare room would probably be quieter (smaller window, rear of house, only one exterior wall) and I was right.  After snuggling into the spare bed with my cat I was asleep within minutes.

I still woke up crazy tired though.  Thankfully FH had planned to cook another meal and I didn’t have to lift a finger.  WoooT…go FH!  Coffee, scrambled cheesy eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns.  Sorry no photos for you all, but I could barely lift my fork let alone my camera. 

The remainder of my morning was spent sipping more coffee, reading more Sookie, and just lounging around upstairs while FH watched F1 downstairs.

I snacked on one of my homemade chocolate cranberry almond granola bars (recipe soon I promise!).

Eventually I made my way to the gym like a good girl.  Was supposed to be one hour of cardio…which I intended to split 20/20/20 between the rowing machine, treadmill and elliptical…but my back gave me a scare so I wound up skipping the elliptical.  During the last minute or so on the rowing machine, I felt a crazy sharp pang in my lower back…so much so that I froze stiff thinking I might have really done some damage…but I was able to move OK so I just got off the rower and went to walk it out.  I did a bit of a run on the treadmill but after about 8 minutes I decided just to walk the rest of my 20 minutes...then did a lot of careful extra stretching.  Now my whole lower back is really stiff.  This is my unimpressed face.  It doesn’t matter how careful I am, what kind of workout I do, or how often I see my chiropractor there is always something wrong with my back/neck/arm/shoulder!!

Anyway, I had a couple of snacks when I got home… dates stuffed light cream cheese (thanks to the commenter who left that idea!!)

and some grapes.

Dinner was a fend-for-yourself situation, but we have a fridge FULL of leftovers, etc so it was easy.  I abandoned the meal plan in favour of not making something new to add to the leftovers collection.  :)

I made a bigass salad consisting of baby spinach, matchstick carrots, tomatoes, radishes, red onion & yellow pepper.  Dressed simply with grapeseed oil and s&p.

Along with two of FH’s awesome stuffed shells with a little extra alfredo.  Deeelish!

Dessert was a little bowl of the leftover Oreo pudding with some chocolate whip cream.  Yes, it’s as good as it sounds.  :)

Hmmm…now I have like one minute to add photos and get back to the TV.  I think I might be a tad late!  Big Brother here I come. 

Tummy.So.Full

It was a HUGE food day in my world today.  I’m sitting here feeling the after-effects from a rich, delicious dinner that I didn’t have to prepare.  Yum!

Started the day by meeting a couple of the Halibloggers (Angie, Farm Girl, Tasha) plus a couple of hubbies and our friend Sarah for breakfast at Cora’s.  We love ourselves some Cora’s.

I used to always choose the fruit loaded waffle, but once I discovered Theo’s veggie omelette I’ve had trouble passing it up.  Started with coffee of course…then the omelette and a side of bacon.  The meal comes with pan fries, a bit of fruit, and toast.  I ate more toast than usual, but did save about 1/3 of my omelette and 1/2 my potatoes to bring home. 

 

I figured this was going to be my main meal today so wasn’t overly concerned how big it was…um, until FH offered to make dinner.  His dinners are delicious, but his forte is rich and dreamy Italian food.  Look out tummy, it’s a comin!  :)

He calls these his stuffed shells.  The filling is a spinach & ricotta mixture, then he adds his own homemade tomato sauce, and finishes the dish with alfredo.  He brought me my plate before I had a chance to sneak into the kitchen and photograph the meal out of the oven…so instead my plate photos are a bit blurry.  Too bad because the presentation was really nice!

With a glass of red wine of course.  Just a small glass for me…hit the spot just perfectly.

After dinner FH mentioned he had considered buying ice cream for dessert but didn’t.  I was totally fine with that since ice cream and I need to take a little break.  But about an hour later I was still craving dessert and remembered this little treat hiding in the cupboard…

Yes, OREO Jell-O pudding!  FH loves Oreo ice cream so when I saw this at the store a while back I picked it up as a surprise for him, then totally forgot about it.  Tonight I whipped up some chocolate whip cream to go on top too.  Pretty yummy treat for something I made in under 5 minutes!  :)

Now I’m sitting here in another food coma.  This storm had better pass by tonight because there’s an hour of cardio on my workout schedule for tomorrow!

In between brunch and dinner I also had a Starbucks stop (double tall vanilla non-fat latte), a bowl of cherries (deeeeelish), and made a batch of yummy no-cook granola bars (recipe tomorrow) (I only ate two today, thank God!).

 

Now I must go lay like broccoli (that will make sense to any Pretty Woman fans) and try to stay awake for at least an hour so I can sleep like a normal person tonight.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Friday Food Porn

I have a whole lotta food porn from yesterday so I’ll get right to it.

Breakfast:  quick and easy…the last of the Lemon Liberte sprinkled with hulled hemp seeds…served with a chopped up white nectarine…juicy and deeelish.  The only decent nectarine I’ve had all Summer!

Lunch: completely random salad.  Romaine, yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes, leftover roasted veggies, leftover rice.  Ranch dressing and salsa.  Plus leftover guacamole and tortilla strip salad toppers.

Cookie Friday:  thanks to Tina and her Tweets about “cookie Friday” I couldn’t resist the two last chocolate chip/pecan/raisin cookies sitting on my counter.  nom nom.

Dinner:  surf and turf! 

A while back I put together a bunch of scallops & bacon and froze them…so I popped a few in the oven last night and let me just say…deeeeeelish!!

FH cooked us up a couple of sirloin steaks on the BBQ, and I made a basic spinach salad to go with.  Spinach, mushrooms, red onion, cherry tomatoes, shredded cheddar, and balsamic vinaigrette.

  

There was yet another trip to DQ after dinner too.  Yes, that’s two nights in a row!  I’m a machine apparently.  Thankfully I had my noon workout! 

At the gym: 20 minute treadmill run + upper body + mini abs.

I proceeded to go into an ice cream coma and fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie we were watching.  I was exhausted…but of course when we went to bed I couldn’t sleep.  After 45 minutes of staring at my pillow I got up and read for an hour…then slept but kept waking up every half hour after 6am.  Not exactly how I like to start my Saturday!!

Holy Guacamole!

Ha, you just knew I was gonna have to use that title eventually (hmmmm…maybe I already have…I’m not going back to look!).  :)

But before the guac, I have to show you the yummiest snack ever.  I picked up some fresh dates at Pete’s Frootique the other day.  Today I decided to try something I saw on a blog ages ago…stuffing them with peanut butter.  OMG!!  Soooo good.  I’d like to think that mine were extra good because I used the Cinnamon Raisin PB.  Deeeee-freaking-lish.  Do this!!

I worked a little late…til around 630ish…I tend to get caught up sometimes and not notice what time it is.  Ooops.  So I was pretty hungry by the time I headed downstairs.

Thanks to my meal plan I already knew what I was going to have!  I pulled some of my black bean turkey burgers out of the freezer last night so they were ready for cooking…I just had to whip up the guacamole and roast some veggies.

In the guac: avocado, chopped tomato, fresh jalepeno, red onion, lots of lime, fresh cracked sea salt, and cumin (I didn’t bother buying fresh cilantro for such a small batch).

For the veggies:  cauliflower, carrots, and zucchini tossed with a smidge of EVOO, cumin and chili powder.  Roasted on a foil lined sheet at 450 for 15 minutes.  Sprinkled with salt as soon as I pulled them out of the oven.

The burger patty was just cooked up in a teaspoon of veggie oil in a non stick pan.  Topped with some shredded cheddar.

All together. Yummy in my tummy!

After dinner I ran to Zellers for kitty litter and Band-Aids (how exciting!).  I trolled the candy aisle and was quite proud with I left with nothing…but then might have made my way through the DQ drive-thru AGAIN.

What’s with me and DQ the last couple of weeks?  Oh well, that’s what 6 gym days in one week are for!  Right?!

I hope that dirty little Kevin doesn’t backstab Jeff on Big Brother!!! (yes, random reality TV rant…)