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Hot Cross Buns From Cobs

8 Mar

I have been trying to publish a different post but due to technical difficulties it just isn’t happenin, and hasn’t been happenin for a couple days now so let’s change topics shall we?

I don’t go to Cobs. Not that I have anything against the company it’s just, all they sell is bread, and why would I go to a store that only sells one thing when I can buy that item, along with all my other groceries in one store, like Safeway? I like to manage my time and in doing so I choose not to go to a whole bunch of little specialty shops. Also, those little shops tend to be pricier so hey, one more reason to avoid them right? Right!

Well, I got a coupon from Facebook saying if I bought a six pack of hot cross buns I would get a free loaf of bread at Cobs. For some reason this appealed to me, even though I wouldn’t normally be buying hot cross buns lol Before work today I popped in to Cobs and holy hannah, Cobs is soooooo much more than just bread. It’s like bread heaven. Mmm!

I stuck to my plan and bought the six pack of hot cross buns and received my free loaf of bread but lemme tell ya, there were many a tempting item in there. When I got to work I was informed I should have caved and bought a cinnamon bun because they are the best ever so I may go back one day when I want a treat since cinnamon buns are one of my favourite things. 😀

How are cinnamon buns not one of Maria’s favourite things?

Back to Cobs! lol

Did you know there are different types of hot cross buns? I didn’t know this. I had only ever seen the one kind, the semi-ok-not-my-fave-thing-trying-to-teach-myself-to-like-kind. You know what I’m talking about, dried fruit inside and the line of frosting on top in the shape of a plus-sign?

But the lady at Cobs asked me what kind I wanted and my hot cross bun world expanded, just like that, boom!

They have: chocolate chip, cranberry & orange and traditional…there might be more, those are the ones I remember. To be honest, my brain kinda stopped reading the different types once I saw chocolate chip lol 😛

I could mix and match so I got 4 chocolate chip and 2 cranberry & orange. The plan is to wrap them individually and freeze them so I can bring them out randomly for treats but of course I ate one this evening, it’s practically an obligation to eat one the same day as purchase for quality control. 😉 teehee

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Bun

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Bun

It doesn’t look much like a hot cross bun, there is no frosting of any type on top – they probably figured the chocolate made it sweet enough…and it wasn’t as soft as I am accustomed to. Maybe all this time I had been eating sub-standard versions and they are not normally so soft? I dunno. shrug. I popped it in the microwave for 15 seconds and Mmm! Tasteeeeee! 🙂

I would say if you like chocolate, aren’t married to the idea of what a hot cross bun has to be like and enjoy bread type foods you’ll probably like this little creation by Cobs, and hey, if you get a coupon from Facebook you can even get a free loaf of bread when you buy a 6-pack of them!

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A Healthy Muffin

26 Feb

Someone I know from work is following Weight Watchers and she was telling me about a muffin recipe she has, from Weight Watchers, that tastes good, is only two points per muffin, and the best part is the muffins are a decent size so you don’t feel like you’re wasting those two points.

She sent me the recipe and I gave it a whirl, it is dead easy! I’ll make a page for it under the recipe tab up top for easy reference but I’ll write it out here also so you don’t have to go searching for it today…

Chocolate Raspberry Weight Watchers Muffin

Prep Time 10 minutes, Cook Time 22 minutes, Serves 12, Weight Watchers Points per muffin is 2

Ingredients:

1 Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil’s Food Cake Mix

1 Cup Raspberries

8 oz Unsweetened Applesauce

2 Small Zucchinis

5 tbsp Water

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400F

Spray a 12 cup muffin tin, or use two 6 cup muffin tins. Place dry cake mix in medium bowl. Grate 2 small zucchinis and squeeze out moisture. Add 1 Cup of raspberries and the grated zucchini to the dry cake mix. Mix thoroughly. Add 8 oz of unsweetened apple sauce and 5 tbsp of water. Mix well.

Use a 1/3 Cup measure to measure batter in to muffin tray.

Bake for 22 minutes. Let muffins rest 5 minutes then take them out of the muffin tin and cool on rack completely.

Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Voila!

Chocolate Raspberry Muffins you don’t have to feel guilty about! 😛

Pretty decent size, don't ya think?

Pretty decent size, don’t ya think?

So ok, they aren’t the prettiest things but meh, it all looks the same in the stomach lol They are an extremely moist muffin, as in super moist, I’m thinking because of the zucchini. Even though I pressed the grated zucchini to within an inch of its life and took out a lot of it’s moisture I think I could have taken out more. I was worried about taking out too much, I have learned that is not a valid concern lol You don’t taste the zucchini or the applesauce, which was a pleasant surprise.

I made some slight alterations, well, just one come to think of it. I didn’t use the Betty Crocker brand of cake mix, and can I say, buying a boxed cake mix felt like cheating! I never bake using a box, I always bake from scratch, so that part didn’t sit right with me but the first time I use a recipe I try to follow it to the letter and I guess they were going for the easiest possible baking experience, instead of you know, actually baking…I tend to think of using a boxed cake mix as more science experiment than baking but ok, I’ll stop my little rant about that now lol

Anyways! I bought a different brand, called Compliments! The exclamation point is part of the brand name, not because I’m so excited about it lol It is the “healthier version” provided by Safeway. You can find Compliments! foods all throughout the store, burger patties (which I have and omg they are sooooo delish!), I’ve seen it as cookies, um, crackers and I’m sure many more things. I checked the nutritional information and it was slightly more healthy than the Betty Crocker version so I opted for that, figured any little way to make it an even healthier recipe has to be a good change, right? Oh, and it was cheaper lol

I took the majority of the muffins to work and the reactions from people were positive, everyone was really impressed with how moist the muffins are considering they are a “healthy” muffin. I’m going to make a second batch, use up the rest of the applesauce cause no way I’m going to eat that as is, ugh, and freeze them. That way I’ll have an easy to grab food item stored in the freezer when I’m in a rush. 🙂 I was originally thinking I’d use them as I was dashing out of the house in the morning if I needed a quick breakfast but they are a tad rich for a first thing in the morning food, in my opinion, so I’ll probably end up eating them as an afternoon snack or dessert which is not a bad thing at all. 🙂

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Haydn, Bartok and Beethoven

19 Feb

Monday is my Friday, weird right? Well that’s what happens when you work weekends. I work Fridays through Mondays and generally by Monday evening I am stupid tired. I usually don’t do anything more active than going home, making something to eat, watching tv and zoning out until bedtime on Mondays but every now and then my social life intervenes with my laziness and I end up out there in the world, being social.

This past Monday I met up with a friend for dinner and an outing to the Orpheum Theatre to enjoy the musical talents of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Fyi, they are awesome! 🙂

My friend KL had a gift card for The Keg so that’s where we went for dinner. I had a first experience on Monday, I ordered a steak for dinner and omg why have I not been eating steak all this time? Oh so good!

I know nothing about steak so the poor waiter had to educate me on what exactly I was choosing, lucky for me he was patient. 🙂 Basically all I took away from it was that a sirloin is full of flavour but not as tender and a fillet will have less flavour but be more tender. I wanted tender more than I wanted flavour so I ordered a Manhattan cut New York steak with shrimp, scallops, asparagus and Bearnaise sauce. Technically I combined two different steaks. The Manhattan cut New York usually comes with caramelized mushrooms, onions and peppers and is served with a demi-glace but I liked the sound of the toppings that came with the Sirloin Oscar so I swapped out the toppings that I was supposed to get with yummier sounding ones. Gotta love tailoring your meal to what you prefer! 😀

Manhattan cut New York with shrimp, scallops, asparagus and bearnaise sauce

Manhattan cut New York with shrimp, scallops, asparagus and bearnaise sauce

As you can see I chose the baked potato as my side and the restaurant automatically puts the sauce on the side, which I appreciate. It may not be proper etiquette to dip food but I’d rather dip the cut pieces of steak in to the sauce than pour the sauce on to my dinner. My friend poured the sauce she got with her dinner and used the whole thing, by dipping I used about half of what I was served and while it may be ridiculous to be trying to save some calories when eating a meal like this it’s habit by now to dip rather than pour, shrug.

I was impressed by how many shrimp and scallops were on the plate, I envisioned getting fewer and feeling slightly ripped off lol

I asked for help from the waiter with deciding how the meat should be cooked, I knew I didn’t want lots of blood, ick, but I wanted it to be tender, definitely not chewy! The waiter suggested the steak be cooked to medium, he thought medium rare might be a little too red for me and well done would be too chewy. So medium it was!

what the inside of a medium steak looks like

what the inside of a medium steak looks like

Because we were splurging we split an appetizer and a dessert, so much food! Mmm!

The appetizer was Baked Brie with basil pesto and red pepper jelly, served with crostini. That dish alone is worth going to The Keg, so so so yummy!

baked brie with basil pesto and red pepper jelly, served with crostini

baked brie with basil pesto and red pepper jelly, served with crostini

The above picture isn’t mine, I forgot to take a picture when the appetizer came and once we started eating it no way was I going to pause so I could photograph it lol

Then dessert, my favourite food group! I left it up to KL to choose what to order, we were torn between the cheesecake and the fudge brownie. She chose the cheesecake which made me a happy camper because that was what I wanted lol It was a generous size, extremely creamy and thankfully not overwhelmed in sauce, they let the flavour of the cheesecake stand out, Mmm!

cheesecake, super delish cheesecake

cheesecake, super delish cheesecake

I got more than my fair share of the cheesecake because KL wasn’t feeling very well and she only wanted a couple of bites. I felt badly about eating more than my half but no way could I stand leaving any on the plate. I know it makes me a glutton but it was so good, to leave any of it uneaten would have been a crime against taste buds everywhere!

After the most scrumptious meal we walked to the Orpheum Theatre, a beautiful place. I only got a couple of pictures from inside when waiting for the show to start, and they aren’t great pictures…

2015-02-16 19.58.10

2015-02-16 19.58.34

The performance consisted of:

Haydn Symphony No. 99 in E-flat Major

I. Adagio – Vivace assai

II. Adagio

III. Menuetto e Trio: Allegretto

IV: Finale: Vivace

Bartok Violin Concerto No. 1

I. Andante sostenuto

II. Allegro giocoso

Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36

I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio

II. Larghetto

III. Scherzo: Allegro

IV. Allegro molto

Now Beethoven I am familiar with, I listen to his work often but I was unfamiliar with Haydn and Bartok. There was a violin piece by Bartok that has quickly become a favourite piece, it is beautiful. The emotion felt when listening to the music, the story the notes tell, I don’t have the words to properly describe it, I only know it resonates within me, which I feel is what music is meant to do.

Here is the Andante sostenuto…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsDZrCr2vAY

I could listen to violin music all day, if ever there was an instrument I wish I could play it is the violin, sadly, I have no musical ability, so instead I just listen and appreciate the talent others have. 🙂

All in all, an awesome Monday evening. I wish KL had been feeling better, she enjoyed the music but got sicker as the night continued and by the end felt horrible. Hopefully we can go again and she’ll be better able to enjoy the experience.

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A Teeny Tiny Fire

14 Feb

Bright ‘n early this morning I was on the water enjoying my dragon boat practice. It was cold, but I loved it, weird I know lol 😛

Then, I came home and proceeded to get ready for work. Part of my getting ready process was making lunch – to eat before going to work, not to take with me.

I wanted something substantial, and well really, I wanted something with eggs lol but I’d had two hard boiled eggs prior to practice and that is one egg more than my daily egg allowance sooooooo no egg dishes for moi. Instead I popped a Ricotta and Spinach stuffed chicken breast from M&M Meat Shops in to the oven and boiled some whole wheat pasta. I don’t know why I made pasta as the side dish instead of veggies, shrug, I just seemed to want pasta. Probably cause I had bought a jar of alfredo & garlic sauce and really wanted to try it lol.

Anyways! It was time to drain the pasta so I did what I’ve done countless times, I took a towel wrapped it around one side of the pot and used it to protect my hands from the handles since they had gotten hot. I have used a towel every time I’ve needed to pick up a pot with hot handles for years and never had a problem. Well, this time I had a minor incident…

See, the towel slipped and touched the burner, big deal right? Wrong! The towel touched the burner and all of a sudden…fire! Actual fire! Not just singed, there were flames, flames! So there I am, holding a towel around a pot full of cooked pasta and the towel is on fire, not exactly a situation I expected to be in lol I didn’t want to lose the cooked pasta so I ever so gently put the pot down (on a different burner) then put the on fire towel in to the sink and soaked it with water. Yay for water solving the problem of my towel being on fire! Boo for ruining my towel.

I’m kinda bummed, I really like that towel, it is part of a set that my sister bought me two Christmases ago. Now it looks like this…

My scorched towel.

My scorched towel.

You’d think the damage would look worse considering there were flames involved. Even though the damage doesn’t look that bad the towel is ruined, sigh. Is it weird I am more upset about the towel being ruined than causing a fire in my kitchen? I think this just proves my point that some people aren’t meant to be in the kitchen and I obviously should be wealthy so I can have a cook, it’d be safer for everybody! 😉

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Some Recipes To Try

14 Feb

I was reading a food article the other day and found three recipes I want to try, I probably never will lol I have an unfortunate habit of collecting recipes and never using them, but in case any of you also like to collect recipes, or actually ya know, try out recipes, I thought I’d share them. 🙂

They all require a slow cooker, consider yourself warned! lol

 

(1) Eggs In Purgatory

Eggs-in-purgatory

Serves 6

1 tbsp olive oil 
1 large onion, diced (about 2 cups)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
796-ml can diced tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
6 eggs
2 tbsp chopped parsley
6 thick slices bread, toasted (optional)
Instructions:
  •  Heat a medium frying pan over medium. Add oil, then onion. Cook until onion starts to soften, about 3 min. Stir in jalapeno, garlic, paprika, cumin and salt. Cook 1 more min. Transfer to slow cooker insert along with tomatoes and tomato paste. Cover and cook for 8 hours on low.
  • Make 6 wells in tomato mixture with the back of a spoon. Crack 1 egg into each well. Cover and increase heat to high. Continue cooking until eggs are done as you like, 15 to 25 more min. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve over toasted bread.
Nutritional Information:
Calories 145
Protein 8 g
Carbohydrates 12 g
Fat 8 g
Fibre 3 g
Sodium 432 mg
Excellent source of Vitamin B12
(2) Cheese and Mushroom Strata
Cheese-and-mushroom-strata
Serves 6
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
227-g pkg sliced cremini mushrooms
5 thick slices day-old Italian or sandwich bread, cut into 1-in. pieces (about 5 cups)
2 cups grated gruyere or Jarlsberg cheese
8 eggs
2 1/2 cups milk
2 tbsp finely chopped thyme
1 tbsp Dijon
1/4 tsp salt
Instructions:
  • Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium- high. Add oil, then mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are soft and liquid has evaporated, 5 to 6 min.
  • Line bottom and sides of slow cooker insert with 1 large piece of foil. Lightly spray with oil. Cover bottom of insert with one third of bread. Evenly scatter half of mushrooms over bread. Sprinkle with one third of cheese. Repeat with half of remaining bread, remaining mushrooms and half of remaining cheese. Top with remaining bread.
  • Beat eggs with milk, thyme, Dijon and salt in a large bowl. Pour over bread. Season with fresh pepper. Gently press down bread to soak up more egg mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover and cook 8 hours on low.
  • Open lid and let stand for 15 min. Use oven mitts to lift the foil holding strata out of the slow cooker. Transfer to a serving dish. Serve with Simple Salad.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 191
Protein 14 g
Carbohydrates 20 g
Fat 5 g
Fibre 1 g
Sodium 638 mg
Good source of Zinc
(3) Gingery Chicken Congee
Gingery-chicken-congee
Serves 6
Ingredients:
4 cups water
900-ml container chicken broth
3/4 cup jasmine rice, rinsed
6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-in. pieces
2 tbsp minced ginger, plus more for garnish
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
2 green onions, thinly sliced
tamari or soy sauce, optional
crispy shallots, optional
Instructions:
  • Combine water with broth, rice, chicken and ginger in slow cooker insert. Cover and cook 8 hours on low.
  • Scoop out and discard any brown foam around edges of congee, then stir in sesame oil and green onions. Season with fresh pepper. Garnish with additional minced ginger, tamari and crispy shallots.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 191
Protein 14 g
Carbohydrates 20 g
Fat 5 g
Fibre 1 g
Sodium 638 mg
Good source of Zinc
All of these recipes are from www.chatelaine.com under the Recipe Tab, they are all considered breakfast recipes but I don’t see why you couldn’t eat them as any other meal, food is interchangeable right? 😉

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Campbell’s Thai Chicken Vegetable Soup

13 Feb

Don’t do it, just don’t. Avoid the soup, save your tastebuds! lol

I bought one of those meant-to-take-to-work-packaged Campbell’s soups that you can pop in to the microwave for a quick and healthy meal. I bought it because (1) it was on sale, (2) I like soup and (3) I’m lazy and will try anything that means I don’t have to cook. 😛

This evening at work I was supposed to get dinner from the kitchen but my lovely salmon dinner sat out for a couple hours, not heated, while I was busy working and thanks to that FoodSafe course I had to take I now know just what might be growing in the salmon when it is left on the counter…I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I’m sure I would have been fine but nope, couldn’t do it. I hate I have this knowledge in my head now lol

My unwillingness to eat the salmon and risk food poisoning meant I was super hungry by the time I got home, which sucked because the majority of the food I have in my kitchen requires at least 40 minutes cooking time, well, the protein type foods anyways. Then I saw the soup on the shelf and yay, problem solved! I love soup, this only requires 1 minute 45 seconds to heat in the microwave, can’t get better than that!

campbells thai chicken soup

In theory my plan for having the soup for dinner was great, in reality my taste buds may never forgive me. Ugh.

The herbs, despite the soup being heated, were hard, it felt like I had small sticks in my mouth. The only time I should be pulling food out of my mouth while eating is if I am ridding my mouth of cherry pits/seeds or if I am eating fish and a teeny tiny bone was missed. In a chicken and veggie soup I should not be having this problem…

Then there was the taste. I don’t even have the right words to properly describe the disturbing flavour that is this soup. There were some bites that had almost no flavour, sad. Other bites had a bit of a BBQ flavour, which I thought was odd but since I love BBQ I was kind of ok with that. Then there was the third flavour, the one I tasted most often, the one I don’t have words for…it was, well, not pleasant. Seriously, I don’t have a descriptive enough vocabulary for that flavour lol And before you say I didn’t stir the soup well enough, I did, trust me on this. 🙂

The soup wasn’t all bad though, the pieces of veggies were nice and large, and there was quite a lot in that container. I poured it in to a bowl and it filled my bowl so you’re definitely not getting jipped portion wise. But really, if the best you can say about a soup is the portion is large and so are the veggie chunks well, that’s not saying much.

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Eagle Ridge Fitness

12 Feb

Two weeks ago I saw an ad for Eagle Ridge Fitness on my facebook news feed. I don’t know what made me click on it but I did and it led me to a video showing all these normal people who had joined Eagle Ridge Fitness and had lost weight, toned muscle and just in general gotten in better shape using this gym.

eagle ridge fitness

 

I called them, asked some questions, and ended up making an appointment for a one-on-one consultation. It was supposed to be last week but I pushed it to this week because I was still too sick last week to go.

Google Map lied to me, it said it was a 35 minute drive but it was longer, plus Google Map sent me to the wrong address so not only was the drive longer than 35 minutes, it was even longer due to me going to the wrong place. Lovely. *rolls eyes*

I was super late for my appointment, luckily the lady I was meeting was understanding about my getting lost, also lucky for me she didn’t have an appointment directly after mine so there was wiggle room for me to be late.

The place is super small, and it isn’t like a traditional gym. You don’t just drop in whenever you feel like it, you choose two days a week that you go in, and you pick a specific time, so say, every Monday and Wednesday at 7pm, That is your time slot and you are expected to be there, if you don’t show they call you to ask where you were – so you are definitely held accountable! You work out with the same people each time you go so you start to feel like a team (so I was told). The workouts are partially tailored to what your goals are, the classes are kept small, 8 people max per session, and the trainers know in advance of any injuries or medical problems you have so they can take those in to account when devising your workout plan.

The second part of their program is about nutrition. They give you a welcome package when you join that has recipes, a generalized meal plan, information on what you should be eating, in what portion, things like that. They also require you to keep a food journal that they look at every month, that is partly to help keep you accountable to what you are eating and also, if you are eating properly and you don’t lose weight in a month then they know to tweak your program. Sounds like a good idea, it helps you avoid plateauing. The lady I spoke with said it takes a couple of weeks for your personalized meal plan to be made, that is why they give you the generalized plan when you join.

All in all I liked what I was told about this program. I don’t like how far of a drive it is from where I live but I’ve driven farther distances for things less important than my fitness and health so the distance isn’t, in my opinion, a good reason to not join.

A truly excellent reason to not join, and my reason for not joining, is the cost. You can either sign up for a year, for 6 months or month-to-month. If you sign up month-to-month it is approx $300/month, the 6 month contract is two hundred something per month and the year long contract is $191 a month. Talk about out of my price range! I asked why it is so much more expensive than a gym membership and the response was it is combining a nutrition plan and personal trainer in to one program, so instead of a person joining a gym and paying for a Weight Watchers membership (as an example) they just join one program and get both, for less. Um…no. Just no. lol. Least not for me. I have access to Weight Watchers material without paying for a membership, so I’m saving money there, and the cost of my local gym is nowhere near what they are estimating. Sure, I don’t have a personal trainer, and sure I don’t have someone creating a program just for me, and sure this means my results will come slower, and sure I don’t have someone calling me when I skip the gym and getting on my case so that I never skip again, but I also don’t have an extra $200-$300 a month to pay for someone to hold my hand while I try to get in shape.

If I had the money I would probably give them a try, it’s not that I think their approach is all that original or amazing, but I think there are times in your life where you need a nudge, heck, a full on push, to get you on your way. I know I need to exercise more, even if I don’t have an amazing workout plan figured out I should at least be running three times a week and doing some basic muscle work if only to keep active, but I don’t. I also know my eating sucks and trying to figure out how to get that back on track leaves me feeling confused and a little lost, which oddly enough leads me to eating bad food in a weird attempt to make myself feel better…using food for comfort, not a good plan!…and yet, I do it, sigh.

But none of that matters, because I don’t have the money. I had a moment where I thought I could maaaybe afford one month, use that as a kick in my butt to get me in a routine of working out, then take what they taught me and do it on my own, but since you don’t get your personalized meal plan until 2-3 weeks in, and from the sounds of it the first month is sort of a learning curve not only for you but for them knowing what works best for you, in order to get anything out of this place you should really go for longer than a month and that I know I can’t afford. I figure, no point in straining to find the pennies to pay for one month when it takes two or more months to really get results.

So for now I will stick with my outdoor walks, my dragon boat practices and my attempts to get my lazy self to the gym – I may not get results as quickly as I would if I was signed up with Eagle Ridge Fitness but I’m determined to get results, even if it does take me a little longer than I’d like. 🙂

Determination-1

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Sick Girl = Boring Life

11 Feb

I haven’t been writing in a while but only because I haven’t been doing anything interesting lol I highly doubt anybody wants to read about how I was sitting on my arse, reading and watching tv while feeling like crap as I waited for my immune system to kick in and kill the bug that had invaded my body. Right? Right. 🙂

Luckily my cough is aaaaalmost gone and I feel like I can honestly describe myself as being more on the health side of the scale vs the sick side, so yay for that! lol

Unfortunately, when I am sick I completely lose my appetite and eat such a small amount of food that when I start to get healthy I struggle to get back in the groove of eating more normally. I don’t want to eat more food but I’m being more active, not necessarily with exercising but just with normal life stuff like going to work, running errands, meeting up with friends etc so if I don’t start increasing my food I get exhausted from my normal everyday things. The end result of that is me napping on my living room chair lol 😛

My first week after being sick I tend to focus on making sure I eat more than once a day and that I eat balanced meals, not just little snacks. I was doing fairly well with that, because I hadn’t indulged in any sort of sweets etc I wasn’t craving any of them, always nice to not be actively wishing I could eat a doughnut lol Buuuut Sunday was a bit of a disaster that left my poor tummy feeling off all the way until Monday evening, not cool!

We had a brunch at work on Sunday and instead of taking my own lunch I opted to eat the brunch food. I took a little bit of all sorts of foods and I’m sorry to say I caved and nabbed two pancakes and 1/4 of a waffle, sigh, such a weakness for those foods! *rolls eyes* I also ate a poached egg, some tomatoes with seasoning, a shrimp salad, some diced potatoes with fried onions, ummm…for the main course that’s about it. Then I took not one but two desserts! An absolutely lovely lemon meringue tart and a creme brule with blueberries and strawberries on top, Mmm!

I felt fine while eating but about twenty minutes after finishing my lunch my tummy felt, well, not sick, just not impressed. I think it was just too much too soon, for sure with those desserts anyways! Ooops…

So I’ve been trying to backpedal since Sunday and focus on choosing healthier foods and making sure I eat proper portion sizes. I am sorry to say, I haven’t been doing very well, sigh. I was out and about yesterday and had limited food choices for dinner, I ended up eating Taco Time which while tasty, and something I haven’t eaten in a freakishly long time did nothing for my weight loss plan lol Then today I ate some maple flavoured baked beans and toast (which I have no guilt about) but that’s all I’ve eaten, and it’s almost 10pm. Can you say below my calories for the day? Eesh.

I’m hoping tomorrow, instead of going over due to fast food or being under due to not eating I can somehow hit the middle ground and eat a normal amount while getting a bit of exercise in there. Theoretically it is a do-able thing, in reality though…who knows! lol

positive

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Lunch For Breakfast

31 Jan

A friend of mine who is also trying to get in to better shape invited me over for lunch, well, technically it started as we were going to go out for lunch then for a walk but it turned in to her inviting me over for lunch and then we’d go walking. I figure eating in is always better for the wallet so I’m game…it helps that she’s a chef so she’s amazing with food lol

When I got there she had this lovely spread all ready to go…

2015-01-29 12.08.20

 

Thing is, somewhere along the way I got it in to my head we were having breakfast so I got there, saw this lovely food and immediately thought “salad for breakfast? huh?”

Lucky for me I’m willing to eat almost anything at any time of day, regardless of what I think I “should” be eating…though I was kinda sad I wouldn’t be eating a pancake, which is what I would have ordered if we’d gone out lol

This is a better view of my breakfast/lunch:

2015-01-29 12.18.47

 

That my friends is a cup of Tetley tea, a glass of water, a slice of gluten free toast (she has gone gluten free, I have not), salad with tomato, cucumber, a hard boiled egg, cheddar cheese, avocado, salsa, two salmon cakes and some ranch dressing on the side. I like my dressing on the side because then I can dip my knife in and lightly distribute dressing to every second or third forkful of salad instead of drowning the entire salad.

What a lovely way to start the day!

She even went so far as to have dessert! She amazes me. If left up to me we’d have been eating toasted sandwiches or cereal lol

For dessert I had:

2015-01-29 13.18.02

 

There was a whole bunch of cut up fruit, I selected mango and cantaloupe. She also has kiwi and, hmm, something else I’m blanking on right now, watermelon maybe? The little bread looking thing is home made cookie/loaf, it has cranberries and orange in it and holy crap was it tasty! I ate two pieces! lol

Actually that is a lie, she sent me home with some leftovers and in those leftovers were two more pieces of the cookie/loaf and I ate them later in the day sooooo I ate 4 pieces in total, over the span of hours…like that makes it any better? lol I’m not sure what to call it, it had the texture of a cookie, but the shape of a loaf cake.

We didn’t end up going for our walk, which sucks, because we got so busy gabbing we completely lost track of time and when we finally looked at a clock we both had places to be. We are going to try to make this a regular occurrence though, not always eating food at her place, but walking every Thursday. We both usually have that day off and theoretically should be able to make it work. I’m hopeful for it as it would be nice to go walking weekly with her, it’s always easier to stick with any form of exercise, easy or hard, if you are being held accountable by someone. 🙂

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Jagerhof Restaurant

29 Jan

I went out for dinner with a friend on Tuesday to a restaurant called Jagerhof – there are supposed to be two little dots on top of the “a” but if you think I know how to get them there you are delusional lol 😛 We went on the suggestion of a co-worker of mine who has a second job there and she was definitely right to suggest the restaurant!

It’s a small quaint little place, I can’t say if it is decorated in any sort of traditional German way since I have never been to Germany but it was nice. The lighting was super dim, something I hadn’t really noticed until I took a picture of my dinner and the flash went off making me feel so amazingly conspicuous that even though I didn’t care for the picture I took I refused to take another one lol Which means this is the only picture I have…

Eggplant Ravioli

Eggplant Ravioli

I ordered the Eggplant Ravioli which is eggplant stuffed with camembert, breaded with panko, served with baby arugula and spicy tomato sauce.

It was good. Not amazing, but good. I would have really liked a veal schnitzel but they only had pork schnitzel and I don’t eat pork sooooooo an alternative had to be found lol Luckily I checked out the menu the day before I went and realized I was pretty much hooped when ordering at this place. Apparently German food is all pork, ugh. This and the pasta dish (if I got the ham taken out) were pretty much the only entrees I could order. It is rare that I am so limited at a restaurant but oh well, there are a lot of vegetarian dishes out there, can’t hurt to sample a couple more of them! lol This dish was tasty, just not very filling, I think if it was served with a more substantial salad that would have been better. The actual eggplant portion of the dish was something I would definitely recommend! 🙂

I also ordered the Vienna Apfelstrudel for dessert, which again, was not amazing, but good. This one is my own fault, I didn’t ask if there were raisins in it when I ordered it. I forget that some people put raisins in apple strudels without mentioning it in the food description and I hate raisins. sigh. I was really batting two for two that night lol

Vienna Apfelstrudel

Vienna Apfelstrudel

The above picture is not one taken by me but one I found online that someone else who was commenting on the restaurant posted, this is exactly what my dessert looked like so I feel confident it really is a picture of the Jagerhof’s apfelstrudel. 🙂

Luckily the beer I ordered was great! Yay for beer! The online menu doesn’t have a list of the beers Jagerhof serves and I can’t recall the name of it, it was a light Austrian beer that was recommended to me, which I guess means I can’t take the credit for ordering it can I?

It was a fun night out with my friend, we always have a fun time though so that was a given lol and hey, it’s always good to try somewhere new. 🙂 This place is very popular, we had reservations for 6:15p and before we were done that place had filled up and there was a line up which is a far better review than I could ever give, what with my not eating pork and not liking raisins lol

Their website is:

Welcome

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