Sludge

I fell asleep on the couch last night.  FH went to bed early and I took the opportunity to curl up on the big couch and watch a little TV.  Next thing I knew it was 6am and I could hear FH getting ready for work.  oooops.

Decided that today I should start off with a big ol’ green smoothie.  I’ve been a little short on fruits and veggies the last couple of days, so it’s nice to cram a bunch into one meal.

As mentioned, I can’t get Amazing Meal locally so while I procrastinate ordering some online I grabbed a couple of packets of Vega Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer at Planet Organic.  I’ve heard mixed reviews about Vega, but it’s good to be your own judge.

This morning’s smoothie was definitely not my best.  I had two things working against me… the Vega… and my inability to read cartons when shopping.  I accidentally bought the unsweetened Original instead of unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze.  Trust me, this is HUGE for me.  I find the vanilla is what can make or break a green smoothie.

Anyway, into the KA went:  1/2 frozen banana, the Vega, 2 heaping handfuls organic baby spinach, 2 tsp flax meal, 1 scant tbsp White Chocolate Wonderful (I was looking for something to make up for the lack of vanilla), about 8oz unsweetened Almond Breeze.

The result?  Sludge.  Not necessarily the worst green smoothie I’ve ever made…but certainly not the best either. 

The problem?  Don’t know whether to blame the Vega or the almond milk.  I’m going with a 50/50 split.  I do have another packet of Vega in a way fun Vanilla Chai flavor so we’ll try again! 

After I choked down that salad in a glass, I couldn’t wait to tackle my coffee…oh bliss!

And when lunch rolled around (I will say that the smoothie held for about 2 hours…not too shabby) I wanted a do-over breakfast!

Repeat of the fantabulous Chocolate Coconut Banana Oats.  Deeelish!! 

Since I already used flax in my smoothie, I decided to skip it in the oats and added chia seeds instead.  Just let them steep in the milk/water right from the beginning and by the time it boiled they had started to gel. 

 

Totally made up for the sludgy mess from this morning.

Now I have my weekly conference call…during which I shall drink up a litre of water.  Too bad really…it’s snowing lightly outside and I’ve been dying to drag the Rebel out into the elements and take pictures of something other than food!

And just a little reminder: Check out the Amazing Grass giveaway!  Two more days to enter.  :)

2010 Olympic Torch Relay - Halifax

Earlier today I found out that the Olympic Torch Relay was literally travelling right past my Halifax neighborhood.  I was all excited until I realized that the timing couldn’t have been worse.  As it was gleefully running by I was sitting in my weekly conference call.

Can you say BUMMER?

I raced down to the little ceremony spot after I got off my call but it was long gone.  Sad.  FH got to see it go around the Armview Rotary on his way home.  Lucky.

So instead I’ve been watching the Torch Relay streaming live online on the CTV Olympic website.  And tweeting right along (#torchrelay) just for fun!  It’s taking a lot longer than I thought for them to hand it off to Sidney Crosby and actually get on with the Halifax celebration so I thought I’d squeeze in this blog while I wait. 

What would be really cool is if I had managed to get my hands on the coveted red Olympic mittens!  FH tried to find some for me today, but they are sold out all over town.  I might have to take Miss Amy up on her offer to send me some from Ottawa!

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Ever since Angie wrote about a bagel and cream cheese last week I’ve totally been craving a bagel, so last night I bought one.  Yes. One.  No need for a whole bag of them kicking around the house.

Everything bagel…

I’ll tell ya, it was supposed to be with cream cheese…but when I opened the cream cheese from the fridge this morning it was a big tub of furry blue mold.  Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.  Not deelish.

So instead, peanut butter and honey…

Awe.some.

With half-caf…

For lunchie I wanted to use up some stuff…so a snack plate was born.

Carrot and celery sticks, leftover sweet potato moons, leftover spinach dip (from the batch I made for Farm Girl’s party) and multigrain Tostitos from a bag we busted into this past weekend.

But I needed something with a bit more sustenance…so decided on a green smoothie to get me through the afternoon.  It also doubles as “silent food” for during the conference call.  haha.

In the blender today:  1 small banana, 2 big handfuls organic baby spinach, Chocolate Amazing Grass SuperFood, flax meal, chia, and unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze.

Ugly.

Chia seeds + water = jello!  :)

OK, back to the torch!  6 more peeps til Sidney Crosby and then Olympic Snowboarder Sarah Conrad will snowboard down a manmade slope and light the cauldron.  Neat!!

Hmmmm…and FH is probably wondering where his turkey burger is. 

In an aim to make shorter posts…

…here I am with breakfast!

Last night’s marathon post took forever to put together…and I imagine took forever to read…so that reminded me that I need to be putting in a little more effort earlier in the day.

Started off with some ch-ch-chia pudding! 

Sprinkled chia seeds into the last of the organic vanilla yogurt, stirred and let it soak while I prepped my other additions.

Chopped Honeycrisp apple, oats, pumpkin seeds, and raisins.

All stirred together and served with coffee (half caf of course!).

That blue mug is sooo shiny…not the best for photos.  haha.

Today is a crazy busy day.  I just had to call and move my chiropractor appointment to Thursday morning because I realized it overlaps my weekly staff meeting today.  Duh.  I’m the one that asked to move the meeting to today because tomorrow will be busy with blogger girl festivities!!

My desk is an array of notes…it’s getting out of control…but I made one post-it with today’s must-do’s.  I figure if it doesn’t fit on the sticky then it’s not that important.  :)

Off to prepare my monthly report, set up Skype finally, tackle a two hour conference call, find something quiet to eat during said call, and try to multitask as many work projects as possible before 5pm.  Whew.

When in doubt, make muffins!

As I mentioned last night, FH and his buddy went to the bar around 1am.  Apparently they rolled in some time after 5am.  LOL.  I don’t know how they do it!  And they are out again tonight.  Nutty I tell ya.

Because I didn’t go out with them and had my lights out by about 1:30am I was up by 9:30 this morning.  I had almost 2 whole hours of the morning to myself with a pot of coffee, Thursday’s SYTYCD Canada, and my nail polish.  :)

I made a simple breakfast of yogurt, chopped apple, and fresh blueberries.

After I finished giving myself a much needed pedicure, I got cleaned up for the day and decided to make a batch of muffins.

Everything I bake for the next while is going to be raspberry.  :) 

I decided to use Nicole’s Blueberry Chia Muffins recipe and change them up to Raspberry White Chocolate Chia Muffins.  I’m here to tell you…DEEEEELISH!  :)

 

They stick to the paper but other than that, yummmmy.  :)

FH’s friend from out of town arrived while I was baking…so after spending a bit of time chatting and what-not I got bored and wandered away from the man-chat.  hehe.  For lunch I ate my leftover Asian Slaw with half of a piece of salmon crumbled in.

By now it had gotten quite hot outside so I offered to go on the beer run for the boys (mostly so I could go to the air conditioned store…and make a run to Starbucks for myself..hehe).  It’s the weekend so my Iced Grande Vanilla Americano with skim milk was calling to me.  (OK, and maybe an espresso brownie called to me too…)

Instead of dinner I chopped up the meat and cheese FH picked up yesterday for the boys to snack on.  More Kettle Chips may have appeared as well, but because of the heat and my snacks earlier I wasn’t very hungry.  I ate a few pieces of each and a handful of the chips.  The rest has been wrapped up for tomorrow when the boys return.

I’ve just been on water for the evening and snacked my way through some Swedish Berries.  If Hurricane Bill doesn’t hurt us too bad overnight I should go to the gym tomorrow…it’s been a light workout week and heavy on the treats and my body won’t be thanking me for it!  Here’s hoping that nasty Bill cooperates!!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

The mood to bake strikes me at the weirdest times.  Like last night when I already had a zillion things on the go.  LOL.  But I’d had the ingredients on hand for this recipe since I got back from Winnipeg and I was dying to give it a go. 

Blueberry Chia Muffins.  Nicole from Another One Bites the Crust offered up this recipe as a guest post a few weeks back and I knew right away I wanted to try them.  Nothing better than a good blueberry muffin!!

Fun tidbit from this recipe:  ch-ch-ch-Chia!  hehe, do you remember those commercials?  Yes , Chia Pets are actually chia sprouts!!  I always wanted one when I was a kid.  Who knew that I’d grow up to cook with the stuff?!

 

[From Wikipedia]: Chia seeds typically contain 20% protein, 34% oil, 25% dietary fiber, and significant levels of antioxidants. The oil from chia seeds contains a very high concentration of omega-3 fatty acid. Chia seeds contain no gluten and trace levels of sodium.

This was my first time using chia seeds.  They are kinda neat.  :)  Dry they look like extra coarse pepper or incredibly tiny poppy seeds.  Wet they become gelatin-like.  I licked my finger and the wet version was slightly sweet.

   

The muffins are incredibly moist and tasty.  (Mine are slightly undercooked…but no one will care but me!).  I gobbled one up as soon as they cooled, then packed up a couple for tomorrow and froze the rest.  I’m excited to have these waiting for me when I return from my weekend away.  Yum Yum!!

(Go have a look at the photos on the recipe post…Nicole is a FABULOUS photographer!)