What I Ate Today

It’s been months since I stopped doing the daily ‘this is what I ate today’ posts and for some reason this morning I picked up my camera after I made my toast and took a picture of it.  I decided it must be my brain’s way of saying I should document a day of eats from time to time.  :)

Breakfast (275 calories):  Since I quit doing the daily posts I eat the same thing probably 4-5 times a week.  Silver Hills toast with Trader Joe’s almond butter and half a banana sliced on top.  Plus coffeeeeee…obviously.  Now with almond milk.

Lunch (380 calories):  I got overloaded on salads a few weeks back and started eating other random things for a little while.  But I have a whole bag of spinach that isn’t going to eat itself so a bigass salad in the big silver bowl it was for today.  Baby spinach, a sprinkle of shredded cheddar, radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes dressed with olive oil and coarse salt and topped with a perfectly over-medium egg.  Always with a crunchy, carby side dish….today we have Carr’s poppyseed crackers with light herby cream cheese.

Snack time (260 calories):  Having my workouts smack in the middle of my afternoon generally leads me to two snacks these days…depending on when I scarfed down lunch.  Today enough time had passed that I decided to munch on a Kashi granola bar on the way to the gym. 

And when I got home and showered I powered myself back up with a strawberry smoothie. Simply blended four fresh strawberries, ice, vanilla protein powder and UVAB. Refreshing!

Dinner (575 calories):  Brought to you by these yummy little fresh corn tortillas I picked up at one of our local outdoor markets recently. 

I suppose you would call these tacos since after I took this photo I folded these bad boys in half and chowed down.  Sauce running down my fingers and all.  Isn’t that how you know it’s one of the best tacos?

Corn tortillas crisped up in a hot pan with no-stick spray, topped with seasoned chorizo and black beans, a wee bit of shredded cheese, fresh tomatoes and light sour cream doctored up with lime juice and cilantro.  I love it when a random meal idea becomes the tastiest thing I’ve made in weeks!

Dessert (100 calories):  I’m trying to keep sweets and baked dessert treats to the weekends so have starting eating fruit as my evening snack.  The bag of pink grapefruit I bought recently may have been the best pink grapefruits ever!  Sadly this was the last one.  So freaking good.

Now I’m sitting here wishing I had chocolate (thanks to the bag of PB M&Ms I dominated this weekend) but instead I am about to fill my water bottle, get my fuzzy blankey and hit the couch for an hour of chill time before heading to bed. 

What was the best thing you ate today?

Did you #EmbraceMonday?  Post will be up tomorrow morning!

(total calories = 1590: all calculated by MyFitnessPal)

Pretty Cute

Way before I started collecting the Starbucks city mugs I somewhat collected the Starbucks pretty mugs.  They don’t really seem to produce many of the cute seasonal ones anymore…sad.

Oh look, more toast with almond butter and banana.  Shocker.

Lunch yesterday was light as I was heading out the door to get my hair done.  Cottage cheese with big, fat blueberries, dried cranberries, and a sprinkle of “salad crunchies” (soy nuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc).

After my hair appointment I met up with Tiffaney to fill out some paperwork for booking our hotels and ferries for our upcoming vacation to Greece (!!!).  By the time I was done it was late afternoon and I was starving.

I stopped at Delicado’s for an early dinner.  Chicken Rollup with extra sauce and a small container of beet salad.  I ate it at home while catching up on work for the day and can’t remember the last time I felt that full.

American treat!  With dinner I sipped a Cherry Coke Zero.  Yet another coolio gift picked up during a friend’s trip across the border.  Sweet but yummy.

Not that I had room for dessert but dinner was early so snacking on this later in the evening seemed necessary.  Besides I don’t think I’ve ever made a trip to Delicado’s without getting a deli bar.

In an effort to drink more water and clean out the fruit bowl (damn fruit flies!) I sliced up lemon and lime.  It worked.

Of course, I had to pee about 356 times before I fell asleep but at least my water tasted good.

Burnt Nuts

What do you get when you make breakfast before coffee?

Burnt Nuts!

While toasting the walnuts for take two of the coconut yogurt, banana, date, walnut dish I totally got side-tracked and came back to find my nuts were extra toasty.  Whooooops.  They were salvageable though so into the bowl they went!

With a side of coffee and a side of Mr. Stoopy.

Just shortly after Skype messaging with my friend Michelle about packages we sent each other the postman buzzed.  His ears must have been burning because he showed up with her package!

Michelle was one of the friends I was supposed to visit Vegas with last month when I had to cancel because of my bum pain. She also collects Starbucks city mugs and had brought me this one from San Jose…so she sent it along via post instead.

The collection is growing so fast!!

Lunch was a quick fix made up mostly of items from the fruit bowl that needed to be eaten.  Tomato & cheeeesey toast with a side of Asian Pear.

Afternoon sugar buzz…

So here is a question:  Yam or Sweet Potato?

I have always referred to the pinkish orange one as the Sweet Potato, and the yellowish ones as Yams.  I’m 99% sure that is what I was taught as a grocery cashier a lifetime ago.

In Halifax I never really saw the so-called yams around and always bought sweet potatoes…but they were often labelled as yams in the store.  My friend Sarah and I haggled about this differentiation more than once.

Last week I bought these babies and they were labelled the opposite of my beliefs.  They say the pinkish orange ones are yams.  I disagree.

What do you say?

Either way I still call these Sweet Potato Chips…

Sliced thin, tossed with a smidge of olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt.  Thanks to Martha Stewart I knew to cook these at 400 degrees for about 20ish minutes, flipping half way.

Perfect scooping devices for the turkey chili I pulled from the freezer.  Nom.

Spent another night out on the town for beers with a friend.  These social weeknights are taking their toll on this gal.  I’m pooped!

Moss Street Market

One of the best parts of returning to Victoria after a couple of years is actually the feeling that I'm kind of a tourist in my own home town again.

For a couple of weeks now I've wanted to get to the awesome Moss Street Market...and yesterday I managed to do it.

It is one of the area's largest farmer's markets and it was a perfect day for a visit!  So gorgeous and sunny.  I went equipped with my reusable grocery bag, a few bucks in cash, and a snack in my pocket.

Although...next time I will plan to eat there because there are a wide variety of meal options...Indian, Mexican, sausages...not to mention the amount of fresh fruit you can indulge in.

The main reason for my trip to Moss Street was to meet up with my friend Jen...she lives in the area and I knew an invite to the market would get her out for a coffee.  :)

Can't beat a cup of organic coffee enjoyed in the sun with friends and catching up...especially when surrounded by food and festivities.  :)  Next time I'll take James Dean and get some real shots of the actual market!

I kept my loot a little restrained this week.  The essential fresh cinnamon-sugared mini donuts, multicoloured cherry tomatoes, shelling peas, and Thai basil for the curry I'm putting together tonight.

Since coffee and donuts aren't a very balanced breakfast I set my sights on a proper fresh lunch.  After not getting to Red Fish Blue Fish last week due to the insane heat, I decided to give it another go.

My friend Mikey met up with me and we wandered down to the pier to get in line.  There's always a line.  That doesn't deter us!  I will say though that it usually moves WAY faster...we were in line so long Mikey actually had to leave because he had somewhere to be.  I'm thinking I was probably in line the better part of 45 minutes.

I had nowhere to be and wasn't going to leave after 20 minutes or more, so just waited my turn.  Once I ordered my food, it was only about 7-8 minutes before I received it and was on my way.

I did have to take my meal to go though because my parking meter time was far overdue.  I pretty much ran back to my car then decided I might as well drive somewhere and sit by the water to eat.  I ate in the air conditioned joy of my car.  :)

This is the Chipotle Shrimp Tacones with Million Island dressing + pea shoots + lemon pickled onions.  There's some RBFB slaw in there too.

It was really good but actually a little boring compared to the other menu items I've had in the past.  I would definitely go back to one of the fish tacones...this was a bit too much like shrimp salad I can make at home.

Their fries are awesome though!  So crispy, and they season using salt AND pepper...which I love.  Their tartar sauce is super yum too.

I watched so many people in front of me order an Aranciata that by the time I got to order I HAD to have one.  Fizzy nom nom.

This meal totally made up for my basically non-existent breakfast.  I was full all afternoon and on into the evening.  Of course, not eating until 3:45 probably had something to do with that!

Saturday Shout Out:  to Canadian Tire.  A couple of weeks ago I bought a fancy dancy airbed to use as my spare bed for guests....I thought I got a good deal because it was on sale for about $25 off.  Well, this week the flyer came out and it was on for almost $55 off!!  I went in with my receipt and they honoured the sale price for me...and refunded me the extra $30.  Score!!