Shrimps and Scapes

Oh look, there’s one of my collector mugs.  You were worried you hadn’t seen one in a while weren’t you?

And here’s some toast.  Very exciting.  What’s not exciting is there’s only like three toasts worth of the best almond butter EVER left. 

Somehow I didn’t have lunch yesterday.  I was supposed to grab something from the deli while grocery shopping but I forgot.  Who forgets to eat?  Blasphemy I tell you!

I did haz snackz though…

The pride of dinner was to be these totally amazing garlic scapes given to me by my friends Jamie and Chris.  Aren’t they cool looking?

I followed the advice of my Twitter friends and cooked these up as I would asparagus.  Cooking method of choice:  steaming then grilling.

Also on the grill:  Yukon Gold potatoes with Montreal Steak Spice and fresh parsley butter.

and Grilled Pacific Jumbo Shrimp seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice, fresh garlic slivers, coarse salt, and red pepper flakes.

Shrimp = WIN.  Potatoes = WIN.  Garlic Scapes = FAIL.  I think I oversteamed them because the texture was not good.  Boooooooo. 

I spent the rest of the evening chilling with the naked dog, the furry cat, chocolate covered PB pretzels and about 5 episodes of Friday Night Lights. 

Sometimes a girl just needs a Tuesday night on the couch.  Yes.

Special Find

Day One back in da kitchen.  Yaaaieeeeeee!!!

I broke one of my rules by sleeping in today but I’m letting myself off the hook since I’m trying to kick jetlag and I was legitimately exhausted.  Besides, tomorrow I have to work anyway so getting up with the alarm will be mandatory.

Because of that, I didn’t need breakfast…it was lunch time…but I’ve been thinking of a green smoothie for a week, so I made one anyway.

I just wish I had a ripe or overripe frozen banana.  Instead I had to use fresh pineapple as my sweet fruit.

In the Kitchen Aid today:  ice, pineapple, wicked good fresh farmer’s market spinach, 1/2 scoop original Amazing Meal, 2 tsp flax meal, coconut, 1 cup vanilla soy milk.

Followed with a toasted piece of that fresh oatmeal molasses bread I bought yesterday, with peanut butter and Supahcrack.  Considering I don’t even love jam, I missed that Crofters.

For dinner, I really put some thought into making something healthy and a little different than the norm.  Yesterday I bought some beautiful scallops and decided I want to grill them up…kabob style!!

Marinated the scallops simply with olive oil, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper…

Fresh veggies marinated separately with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and Greek seasoning…

Zucchini, cremini mushrooms, yellow pepper, onion.

I had intended to grill these up on the BBQ but it was soooooo windy tonight that I couldn’t get it to heat up hot enough.  And this is exactly why I love my Cuisinart Griddler.  Kabobs rescued!

Served with basmati rice spiked with a squeeze of fresh orange and tossed with the last drizzle of veggie marinade.

And something super special I found at the Farmer’s Market…kale buds!!  This amazing tender veggie required no fancy cooking or topping.  Simply steaming it brought out a deeeeeelish natural sweetness. 

So good!!  I love special finds at the market!!

Side story:  oddly enough I had never heard of kale buds, but just last weekend when Ingmarie and Alex gave me a ride to my Mom’s we stopped at a farm stand and found one last bundle of buds there.  Ingmarie bought them to see what they were all about…so when I found these here yesterday I just had to get them!

And now it’s time to see who takes home the win on Survivor.  During which I will sip yummy dessert tea…

And hug Mr. Stoopy…who really hasn’t left my side since I got home yesterday.  :)

meow.

A Quiet Friday

I just cut and filed all of my nails and I feel so good now!  I have really nice natural nails (although I torture my cuticles something fierce) and I can often grow them quite long without breaking them if I’m not spending a lot of time in the yard or anything.  This was one of those times.  I had a manicure two weeks ago before heading to the cottage, and although the polish barely lasted a week I just now had to cut them.  I like them an “active” length with a square edge.  It just feels good!

Anyway…random!

When I left you this afternoon I grabbed a Whoopie Pie and came back up to my office to finish work for the day.  I accomplished all but one project so I feel caught up for the weekend.  I love that there is nothing niggling away at me about being done before Monday.  :)

After work, around 6:00, I headed off to the gym.  Just some quick cardio and a round of Amy’s Workout Wednesday challenge for the week.  I’m not part of her challenge but she comes up with some great workouts so I’m happy to steal borrow them.  Thanks Amy!!

On the treadmill I just decided to set the ramp at 3 and my speed at 4.8 and then just run til I needed a break.  Made it 12 minutes, took 1 minute walking break, then ran the rest of the 20 minutes.  Not great, but not too shabby either.  One day I’ll break through that stupid wall I always hit!

Just as I got home it started to thunderstorm.  There was a rainbow over the homes across the street!

I was STARVING when I got home, so immediately after my shower I fired up the Griddler and got to work making dinner.  I have had steaks thawed out for two days so I had to cook em up tonight or risk losing them.

Seasoned simply with garlic powder and Montreal steak spice.  Grilled 4 minutes each side for medium-rare.  I let them rest a bit too long and got more of a medium, but still juicy so still fine for me.  :)

The star of the meal was my roasted brussel sprouts.  Deeeeeelish!!  I just trimmed and halved them, mixed with EVOO and salt & pepper.  At the last minute I added a chopped carrot and some fresh garlic.

Baked in the oven at 400 for about 20 minutes, stirring half way through.  So good.

Topped my steak with a chunk of herby goat cheese.  Brilliant! 

For dessert I mixed up a bowl of Liberte Svelt strawberry yogurt (new flavor for me and it’s yummy!) with some chopped fresh strawberries (not local but they were on sale) and a few blueberries.  Creamy goodness.

FH is out with a buddy (actually been out since noon!  must be having a gay ol time!) so I just puttered around, watched some What Not To Wear, and did my nails.  Now I think my Sookie Stackhouse book and I shall go lay in bed and try for lights out before midnight.  I have be up bright and early to meet Farm Girl to go raspberry picking at her family farm tomorrow.  Weeeeeee!

Night!

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Ugh, so overloaded with work today.  I didn’t finish until like 8:30!  I had intended on quitting at 6:00, heading to the gym, then coming home for a late supper…instead I took a supper break at about 7:30 then didn’t even leave for the gym until almost 8:45.  Geeeesh. 

I had eaten my pre-gym snack around 4:30 thinking I’d be heading out within an hour or so…half a Granny Smith apple leftover from my lunchtime salad with a big dollop of crunchy organic PB.

For dinner I asked FH to grill up some smokies so they’d be ready to eat when I got back from the gym…of course, instead they were ready when I finally tore myself out of my office chair for 15 minutes.  I asked him to cook two for me, but I ended up only eating one (my eyes are always bigger than my stomach on things like this). 

 

I filled the other half of my plate with raw veggie sticks.  Carrots, cucumbers and celery.  I rarely buy celery but I recently realized that poor celery is often under-rated.  :)  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Even though I had to do a quick workout it was sweaty and just what I needed.  My runs are getting easier and easier, which provides me with incredible amounts of motivation to keep going.

Tonight’s run: 25 minutes, approx 2.5 miles, almost 300 cals burned. Intervals of 5:1. 4.8mph seems to be my best speed.

Strength training:  upper body – 2 sets of 15 reps

- tricep pulldowns

- bicep curls

- military presses

- other barbell exercise I don’t know the name of ;)

Core: 15 reps each

- crunches, reverse crunches, bicycle crunches

+ 1 minute plank with leg lifts

+ 30 second (each side) side planks

Post workout snack #1 was a quick Kashi granola bar (I wish we would get more fabulous new flavors in Canada!) with a second litre of water.

While catching up on Nurse Jackie after my post-gym shower and enjoying a much needed relax on the loveseat I mixed up a protein filled dessert of organic vanilla yogurt, 1/2 sliced banana, hulled hemp seeds, a few raisins, and a sprinkle of oatmeal.  Deeeeelish.

We finished the evening off with a bit of popcorn but I didn’t take a pic…I’m pretty sure you all know what popcorn looks like. :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So here are the big fishies from Bradley Bay this past weekend.  I don’t know anything about fish, but the boys tell me these were all photo worthy.  (I need to get proper copies…I picked these up off Facebook and they are the wrong size.)

 

Sean’s 40 pound Muskie (2nd row far right & 3rd row first pic) was the one to beat…he was on cloud nine the rest of the weekend.  It was pretty effing cool watching how excited they were when he hooked this big bugger.  I LOVE watching other people’s excitement at things that make them this happy…it honestly helped make my weekend almost as much as it did his!

Dinner and a Movie

Q: How can you tell FH is home?

A: Every dinner includes MEAT! :)

As per usual, I totally winged it for the burger recipe. Often I like to use a Rachel Ray recipe for something different and fun…or at least for inspiration (that’s where my awesome turkey burgers came from!), but last night I just wanted some good old regular bbq’d burgers so I kept it simple.

In the mix:

1 lb lean ground beef

handful bread crumbs (mine were a bit stale, so I toasted them on a baking sheet in the oven…did the trick!)

1 egg

1 tiny onion, diced

1 large garlic clove, minced

Worchestershire sauce, Tobasco sauce, garlic powder, seasoning salt, Montreal steak spice (all to taste)

Remove your rings and get your hands in there! Mix until just combined, then form into patties. I made four…two for dinner, two for the freezer.

While FH cooked those up on the grill, I boiled up a couple of corn on the cob and set the table. I ended up deciding not to have a bun for my burger so I could enjoy some PC Organic potato chips instead. FH had a cheese slice, but I like bbq sauce on my burger patty.

On the plate I topped it with mustard and ketchup, and put my veggies on the side. For the corn I pulled out the real butter because margarine just isn’t the same!!

After dinner, FH had a nap and I actually took the time to do my hair…haha…for the first time this week. (I mean I actually blew it out straight instead of just going with the “natural” curly look…which actually requires a lot of product.) Then we headed to the theatre for Angels & Demons.

Three years ago, the first movie we saw as a “date” was Da Vinci Code so we wanted to see the sequel for old time’s sake. When we got there, the theatre was packed…but we knew there was another showing in another theatre about 15 minutes later so we went and found that one instead. Much more seating!

As if I hadn’t already had enough treats for the day, I wanted popcorn too! I went to the concession thinking about a big bucket, but in the end opted for the Kid’s Pack. What a great idea! I got the tiny Diet Coke that I like, and just enough popcorn for me. FH would rather have chocolate than popcorn, so he got the Kit Kat. Good deal all around!

The movie was pretty good. It isn’t getting great reviews but we enjoyed it. :) What’s the best movie you’ve seen at the theatre lately? Mine is Wolverine…but I haven’t seen Star Trek yet.