Sunday, January 03, 2010

Ready for Structure

Made a green smoothie for my afternoon snack to make up for the lack of produce this morning.  Breakfast was very late and quite hearty so no full lunch was needed.

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(Do you see my Boxing Day purchase hiding in there?  hmmmm?)

In the KA (Kitchen Aid) today:

  • 1/2 frozen banana
  • flax meal
  • 1/4 cup whole oats
  • 2 cups organic baby spinach
  • squirt honey
  • unsweetened Almond Breeze

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Turns out the Almond Breeze I opened yesterday is Original, not Vanilla…

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I also finished off the last serving of the Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels.  I saved the last few for after Christmas and it was sad to see them all gone now.  :(

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So a trip out to Running Room ended in disappointment.  No new shoes pour moi.  :(  Sad. 

First, there was only one girl working.  What the hell?  And she wasn’t a good multi-tasker at all.  Serving one customer at a time, and not offering to get shoes for the other three of us waiting while the first customer tried on several pairs and hummed and hawed.  Then, when she did get to me they didn’t have either of the shoes I wanted in my size.  Blah.  So, she is ordering a pair in from either Newfoundland or Ontario…and they “should” be here within a week “or so”.  Hopefully they fit when they finally get here!

I would have tried looking somewhere else but I have birthday gift cards to use.  Lucky for Running Room.

Shopping just wasn’t meant to be I guess.  We tried again to run our errands at Wal-Mart and holy Hannah was it ever busy.  Like backed up down the main aisle busy.  We expected busy, but this was insane.  Immediately turned around and headed back out the door.

However…our shopping was not totally in vain.  Dinner was crazy yum!!  While out in Bedford, we decided to make a pit stop at Pete’s Frootique.  FH had never been!  I showed him their beautiful meat counter…so we just had to chose something for dinner.

We chose the Stuffed Pork Tenderloin.  Filled with a mix of fresh bread crumbs, ham, mozza, spinach and herbs…and rubbed with a flavorful marinade.

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Seared on the stove top and baked at 350 for 20 minutes…

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(could have cooked maybe 5 minutes more, but it was super moist and tasty!)

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With roasted baby red potatoes.  Halved and tossed with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, Italian seasoning, s&p, and fresh garlic which I grated on my new Microplane!

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Roasted on a foil lined sheet at 450 for 20 minutes…turning at the half way point.  Crispy and deeeeelish!  Grating the garlic like that makes it almost pasty and the juice tosses right in to the rest of the ingredients.

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Steamed green beans on the side…tossed with a tiny smidge of real butter and big squeeze of lemon.  Yum.

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I went heavy on the beans, and light on the potatoes…

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No gym trip today, but I did fight with some of the leftover snow and ice in the driveway today so still got my sweat on.  My “snow shoveling muscles” are mad at me!  I won’t need an upper body workout tomorrow that’s for sure!!

This evening will involve possibly taking down the Christmas tree and preparing for “back to work”.  I’m totally looking forward to sitting at my own desk again after working from my laptop on various couches, etc for the last couple of weeks.  A regular work day means structure and boy do I need it!!

A few Hershey’s Kisses for dessert and then time to get at it.  Night all. And welcome to the “actual” beginning of 2010!  :)

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Pun’kin Pancakes

A final hearty weekend breakfast before heading back to work (and oatmeal!) tomorrow.  Yesterday I skipped the bacon and eggs with FH in favor of a green smoothie, so today I wanted to partake in the bacon with some pancakes.

Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pancakes to be exact.

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Elizabeth included this mix with the care package from our cross-border exchange.  I had seen it a lot in blogland over the Fall and was super excited to receive it!

Since this was the first time using it, I followed the package directions exactly…adding egg, milk and butter to the dry mix.  Next time I’ll try to healthy it up a bit.

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The mix smells AWESOME!  Nutmeg-y goodness!

The pancakes themselves are a little thin…we like ours a little fluffier…but the texture and taste were good.

I made a mini taster pancake for FH to try to make sure he liked them before serving him a whole plate. 

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Verdict:  “They are good, but I like regular pancakes better.” – FH

But I added bacon to the plates so all was happy!

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With coffee.

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Now off to run errands, including finally putting my birthday Running Room gift cards to use on a new pair of shoes!

(The snow subsided last night and now it’s all clear to get stuff done!)

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Shout out!  Welcome back to blogging Jennie!  Everyone should pop by her new blog The Road to Happy, Healthy and Hot and give her a little support and blogger love!

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Saturday, January 02, 2010

Snow Blower Fairie!

Apropos that we are watching Julie & Julia while I blog, no?  :)

So after my last post, we decided to head out to get movies and a couple of new shovels.  The weather got progressively worse while we were out, so we gave up on our other errands and came straight home.  And shoveled again!

I told FH I’m going to get Hellboy arm because shoveling works my right bicep about 10 times as hard as my left.  LOL.

After a hot shower, it was time for dinner.  I’d been waiting all day for a bigass salad!

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In the big silver bowl tonight: organic baby spinach, grape tomatoes, carrots, yellow peppers and sliced baby cucumbers.

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Dressed with Greek seasoning and extra virgin olive oil (remembering to incorporate my healthy oils!).

And served with store bought spanakopita.  I bought these for our NYE party but we never ended up making them.  Oh darn, I guess I have to eat them! (only 60 calories each!!)

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With tzatziki.  (from SuperStoreonly 80 calories for 2tbsp…super deeeelish!)

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To drink, a few more veggies in the form of a virgin Caesar…with lemon and garlic stuffed olives

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During our movie marathon I broke out a few of these little chocolate coated cookie bites I got for Christmas.  Kind of bland.  I think we might need hot chocolate to make up for those…

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Before we started J&J we were going to go out and shovel out the giant mess the street plow left at the mouth of our driveway…but to our great surprise, it had already been done!  One of our neighbors down the street has a snow blower and I guess he came around and cleared a few driveways.  Nice!!

I’m already looking forward to another Kitchen Aid morning smoothie! nom nom nom.  See you in the morning!

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