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My New Weapon

25 Jan

I have a new weapon of mass destruction!…or as you may call it, a new kitchen knife. 😛

Safeway has been running this promotion where every $10 you spend you get a sticker, if you save enough stickers you get a knife. Depending on how many stickers you save up will decide which of the knives you can choose from.

These are your choices…

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When the promotion started I decided if I was going to try to get enough stickers to get a knife then I was going to go for the most expensive knife on the list lol I also realized very early on there was almost no way in hell I’d be able to save enough stickers for the knife I wanted as it needed 150 stickers. That’s a lot of money!

Luckily my mom wasn’t collecting the stickers so she saved the ones she earned and gave them to me. With her contribution to my collection I actually managed to get enough stickers to earn the Chef’s Knife. 🙂

So many stickers!

So many stickers!

It’s not like I actually need a fancy new kitchen knife, my cooking doesn’t warrant impressive tools lol but if I was spending the money anyways I might as well try for a knife that is out of my price range, right? Right!

If I had wanted I could have used my 150 stickers to go towards a knife sharpener or a knife block. I would have had to pay an additional amount for either of those items but I didn’t really want either of them so no temptation there, shrug.

So since I know you are all just dying to see it, here is my new kitchen knife…

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According to the packaging it is a German Five Star Zwilling Knife. It is stainless steel, ice hardened, forged from one piece, has a hand guard and has a handle made of synthetic material. None of that really means anything to me but maybe it does to you? 🙂

I have absolutely no idea what I am going to use the knife for, I don’t do a lot of chopping or cutting but maybe now I will, if only to use this fancy-dancy knife lol 😛 Look out veggies and meat, here I come! (insert evil laugh here)

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Dinner For Breakfast

24 Jan

This is actually about a breakfast I had a couple of days ago, I just didn’t want to publish two posts on one day so I put off publishing it until today lol 😛

Normally on my days off I make a toasted sandwich as my first meal of the day. Since I usually sleep in on my days off my first meal of the day is a combination of breakfast and lunch. The toasted sandwich is one of my favourite things to make and to eat, you can customize it so easily to suit whatever mood you are in and it takes a freakishly short amount of time to make – something that is crucial to me!

One of the main ingredients of my toasted sandwich is turkey bacon, it is imperative that my toasted sandwich have turkey bacon in it cause (1) I need to squeeze in protein wherever I can get it (2) I love how it tastes (3) without it my sandwich would just be egg, cheese and condiments and (4) I like it.

Well yeah, Wednesday I got up, stumbled in to the kitchen and realized I forgot to take the turkey bacon out of the freezer and plunk it in to the fridge on Tuesday so no turkey bacon for me. I know I could have taken a knife to it and hacked some of the turkey bacon off and used that but doing that messes with my sense of order so no, that wasn’t happening lol.

I was at a loss for what to make when I decided I’d have dinner for breakfast. I figure, people treat themselves every now and then and have breakfast for dinner, why can’t I reverse that? Out came some breaded chicken and on a whim I added some yam fries to that and boom! Dinner for breakfast!

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The chicken is a breaded cutlet from M&M Meat Shops, so tasty! The yam fries were something I picked up as a treat when grocery shopping one day, lucky for me they cook in the oven for the same length of time and at the same temperature as the chicken. The yellow stuff is honey mustard sauce. I dipped both the chicken and the yam fries in that lol 😛

Not gonna lie, it was too much food for a first meal, ugh. I felt really gross after eating it, just too full and icky feeling. I guess I am used to the toasted sandwich sized meal I normally have and swapping out was not appreciated by my tummy. I didn’t think it was that big of a meal when I was putting it on the plate but hey, my stomach doesn’t lie about these things so I guess my eyeballs were wrong, oops!

Even though it was too large of a meal it still tasted really good, as I knew it would since I have had it for dinner before lol Sadly, two yam fries committed suicide and jumped off my plate, one on to the floor and one into the sink so they didn’t fulfill their destiny of being eaten and instead were thrown in the garbage, what a waste, sigh. But probably good for my waist line! lol 😉

I definitely like having breakfast for dinner more, mostly because that usually means pancakes and who doesn’t love pancakes? But this was ok…though I made sure I put the turkey bacon in the fridge so I could go back to my toasted sandwich the next day!

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This Is For Adults?

19 Jan

My work has decided I have to take the Food Safe Course. That is a course that people who work with food have to take to make sure we don’t kill people. My job wasn’t supposed to have me working with food all that much but as the job changed over time it resulted in my having to make breakfast two mornings a week. Breakfast is porridge, freshly baked pastries, muffins, then there is the bread for toast and the juice, coffee and tea. Not a big deal, but because I am now slaving away a bit more in the kitchen, in an industrial professional kitchen, I have to take a course, sigh.

I don’t really mind having to take the course since I get paid for it. It is estimated to take approximately 8 hours to complete and it is all done online from the comfort of my living room chair. I have to have someone watch me write the exam, make sure I don’t cheat (those untrusting souls! lol) and it is time sensitive, once I start the course I have a specific amount of days to learn everything and write the exam. I’m not worried about it, it’s just learning, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

What took me aback a bit though was the “text” book I received in the mail today. I knew it was coming and was expecting a text book, like what you would get in University or when you take the First Aid/CPR courses. You know what I’m talking about, lots of words, perhaps some small diagrams if they are needed but mostly a bunch of reading to get through that is boring but necessary so I can pass the test.

Instead, this is what I got…

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I should have known from the cover that my expectations were too high…

Seriously?

Seriously?

I feel like they gave me a colouring book! I mean c’mon, this is ridiculous. And before you think this is the only page like this, it isn’t. Every single page has cartoons drawn on it and the pictures take up half if not more of the page, of every. single. page.

Since when does education come in the style of a comic book?

I can’t decide if I should be insulted because they seem to feel they need to dumb down the way they teach the information they are trying to get in to my brain or if I should be amused that my education on this topic is going to be taught while I am colouring in pictures because there aren’t enough words on the pages to keep me interested…*confused face*

I’m thinking I’ll lean more towards being amused…it’s healthier than feeling insulted, or if not healthier it is less likely to give me wrinkles! lol 😉

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Breakfast Sandwich

16 Jan

My favourite meal of the day tends to be the breakfast sandwich that I make 5 out of 7 days a week. The main ingredients generally don’t change, there is almost always bread, turkey bacon, egg and a slice of cheese. The rest of the ingredients fluctuate depending on what I have on hand and what I feel like eating. I have a couple different sauces I swap between, I may add avocado, or miracle whip (light of course lol), cream cheese, salsa…the list could go on for quite a while lol

Todays breakfast sandwich was quite yum and I thought I’d share it with you. 🙂

On a whim I bought an Asiago Cheese Bread the other night, which means I now have to eat Asiago Cheese bread every day until I finish it or risk it going stale and have my money wasted lol I decided to lightly toast two slices of the cheese bread, then top it like so:

bread

chive & onion cream cheese

smooshed avocado

turkey bacon

white cheese

over easy egg

A Wonderful Way To Start the Day

A Wonderful Way To Start the Day

I suppose it doesn’t look as good as it tasted, but it was quite good. 🙂 I cut the egg in half so it would fit nicely on both pieces of bread, same with the cheese. It all worked out quite well and I’m figuring on making another version tomorrow, probably the last day I’ll be able to eat the bread before it goes too stale to bite in to lol 😛

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Don’t Skimp On Your Mac & Cheese

12 Jan

A couple of weeks before Christmas I was in a dollar store and on a whim bought macaroni and cheese. Now, normally I am brand loyal when it comes to certain foods and one of those foods is mac & cheese. Strange thing to be loyal to? Perhaps. But hey, why stray from buying Kraft Dinner when you know it tastes so good? But there I was, at the dollar store, hungry, faced with mac & cheese that was going to cost practically nothing and so I decided why not? How bad can it be?

This is what I bought…

Dollar Store Mac & Cheese

Dollar Store Mac & Cheese

I didn’t eat it that night, just stuffed it in the back of a cupboard and forgot about it. Well, tonight I came across it and decided, meh, why not?

Lemme tell ya, there is a reason this mac & cheese is so cheap, it isn’t good. *rolls eyes* lol

KD has that bright, artificial orange colour when all mixed together, this was more a pale yellow which made me suspicious about the flavour of the final product.

Not quite the bright orange I was expecting.

Not quite the bright orange I was expecting.

My suspicions proved to be on the mark when I finally took a bite and realized I was going to be eating mac & cheese that has no cheese flavour and really just tasted like pasta, which is fairly boring. If I had some cheese I suppose I could have melted it and mixed it in but sadly I do not so I was stuck eating it as-is. Blah. 😛

So heed my warning, don’t be tempted by the cheap dollar store mac & cheese, it isn’t worth the saved money lol spend that whole extra fifty cents and get the brand that has actual flavour to it. Or I suppose you could be healthy and just not buy it at all…yeeeeah, that’s probably the better idea, ya know, if you wanna get picky about these things lol 😉

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Stouffer’s Saute Sensations

9 Jan

Last week I came across a sale item at Safeway that I decided to try, it is the Stouffer’s Saute Sensations. I chose the Grilled Chicken Teriyaki and oh man was it tasty!

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It was on sale for about $6 and each package gives you two servings, even I can do the math that tells me my meal cost $3 – pretty decent!

The package contains brown rice and a medley of tender vegetables…that is a direct quote from the bag lol

Per serving (so half the bag) is 260 calories, 5g fat, 42g carbs, 3g fibre and 16g protein. So yeah, high in carbs but ok everywhere else, in my opinion anyways. 🙂

It tasted really good and one serving is plenty, I wasn’t left feeling hungry or deprived and it kept me filled up for hours, always nice when that happens. After I cooked it all I split it in half in the pan, put half on my plate and let the other half cool before putting it in a container to take to work the next day for my dinner. It heated up nicely in the microwave, the chicken didn’t dry out and the veggies weren’t overly droopy. Oh and the veggies kept their bright colour, which never happens when I make a stir-fry type dish from scratch…what’s with that?

It looked so good it impressed the people at work and one of the guys now thinks I am a good cook lol Since technically nobody asked me if I cooked it I wasn’t lying when I let it be implied I did in fact cook my meal and didn’t just pour it from a bag and heat it up lol

When I ate it at home I added half a diced avocado to the top, not because I thought the dish wouldn’t taste good on it’s own but because my avocado was at the stage of “eat me now or by tomorrow I will be brown and useless”, I don’t care to be threatened by avocados but whatcha gonna do? They always win!

a yummy and healthy dinner

a yummy and healthy dinner

I tried to push the avocado to the side so you could see the food from the bag unimpeded.

All in all I was really impressed with the meal. I don’t know what it’s regular price is so I can’t say if I would buy it all the time, but on sale it was definitely worth it! Something to keep an eye out for. 🙂

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Trying Out Green Smoothies

8 Jan

As I said in the post before this one I have decided to try the whole green smoothie craze. Though, I don’t know if it counts as a craze per say…how does one decide that?

Anyways! I started joining this bandwagon by doing a lot of googling, it netted me some useful information but also a lot of contradicting information.

The highlights that stuck in my head are:

-use fruit to hide the taste of the veggies

– use kale, because apparently it isn’t a “real” green smoothie if there isn’t kale in there

– remember it is a meal, so don’t eat all your meals aaaand drink the smoothie cause that’ll be too many calories in a day

– add the green stuff gradually so you have time to get used to it

Seems pretty easy, right?

I decided to make my regular protein shake and add green veggies to it since the recipes I was reading for green smoothies seemed vaguely similar, shrug. There are probably some green smoothie purist out there who will shudder when they read what was in my green smoothies but oh well, I’m the one who had to drink it and I wanted to make sure it tasted ok lol

This is day two of my green smoothie kick and the first consistent thing I noticed right off that bat is…my green smoothie isn’t green…

reddish. not green. there is no green colour there...

reddish. not green. there is no green colour there…

In real life the smoothie in the above picture looked more red than the brown it looks in the picture, due to the raspberries.

My smoothie today had:

1 scoop protein powder

1 tsp omega 3 oil

1 banana

1 cup of frozen fruit (today was mango and raspberry)

1/2 cup greek unsweetened yogurt

1 cup almond milk, unsweetened

broccoli, some sliced carrots and a mixture of baby greens that included kale and spinach

These are the baby greens I bought for the smoothies:

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No, I did not jump on to the organic bandwagon also, all the packages of kale I could find were organic, so I bought the cheapest, it was just coincidence it had the cutest name lol

According to the label it is a “nutritious salad mix of baby kale, baby spinach and other baby greens.”

Yesterdays smoothie was better, I had only added the mixed greens, not the broccoli and carrots so it was not as thick. If I’m going to add more solid veggies like that again I think I will have to add a bit more liquid, or some ice, to help thin it out.

It wasn’t a bad drink today, it was just, not as good lol Towards the end I could feel the broccoli, the bush type part of the broccoli, in my mouth, I guess when I poured the smoothie that part sunk a bit so I got it all towards the end of the drink. Which again, didn’t make it bad, it’s just not the consistency I am used to when drinking a shake…er…smoothie. The fruit taste wasn’t as strong today, I guess the ratio of veggie to fruit was too close for the fruit to stand out flavour wise, I don’t really want to add more fruit to the smoothie though because of the naturally high sugar content fruit tends to have buuuuut I want to make sure I am putting enough veggies in there to make it worth my while.

This is becoming a complicated balance to find, especially since I am trying to find it via trial and error lol 😛

The smoothie is definitely a meal though, it fills me right up and I don’t even miss having something to bite in to. Which is something I worried about. I’ve decided to try taking them as my work meal, at least for my evening shifts. They’ll be easier to “eat” at work on that shift since I don’t get an actual break and my ability to eat anything is limited to the desk being quiet enough I can escape for 5 minutes to warm something up and then scarf it down from an office that has the door open so I can be summoned at a moments notice either by phone or by someone coming to the desk. This way I can just sip on the smoothie as I sit at the desk and not worry about it. 🙂

I don’t know if swapping out a meal that may or may not have been healthy for a shake that may or may not be healthy (I haven’t calculated calories or fat or anything yet) will aid in my weight loss, but I know I felt better after drinking them. Not better as in I all of a sudden felt energized and could feel the kale doing wonderous things to my body but better as in there is no guilt associated with drinking a smoothie. I know all the ingredients in it, I know they are all healthy, and having it as a meal left me feeling I had made a good choice food wise for myself.

healthy choices

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Carrot Juice Review

7 Jan

Alrighty, so in an attempt to be healthier I started researching green smoothies, basically, smoothies with lots of veggies in them (mostly green veggies), they are supposed to be meal replacements and an amazing addition to your healthy lifestyle. Or so many a blog and article say…

I was reading a bunch of different articles to find out what I should be putting in my green smoothie and in what quantities and well, the research wasn’t going great. A lot of people seem to be all “this is my way, it is the best way, follow my rules!” Bunch of green smoothie freaks happenin out there! 😉 lol

So after basically learning only four things for sure (1) start adding green stuff slowly cause it’s an acquired taste (2) carrots will help add some sweetness (3) everyone seems to use a lot of kale and (4) hmm, I would have sworn there was a fourth…oh well! 😛 I went to the store to start my shopping cause yeah, not a big owner of kale over here…I didn’t know what it was actually and had to google it 😛

A friend recommended I check out the drinks and smoothies by Healthy Planet, they have a green smoothie drink, she said why not just read the bottle, see what they put in theirs and buy the same stuff. Brilliant! I am not above copying someone if they already figured out the best way to do something, cause ya know, sincerest form of flattery an all that. 😉

I was checking out their drinks and what caught my eye but a bottle of carrot juice by Bolthouse Farms. I read a book yeeeeeears ago where the main character, in one small scene, was drinking carrot juice. From that day I have always wondered about it. The character was super healthy, fit, ate well, I liked her, and I dunno, I got intrigued. Not intrigued enough to go off searching for a bottle of carrot juice, obviously, but it was something that always stayed in my head.

Knowing I love carrot soup I decided why not buy a bottle of carrot juice, it’s right here in front of me and on sale, it’s like it is meant to be! Adding something healthy to my list of healthy choices can only be a good thing, right? Right!

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Well lemme tell ya, I am oh so grateful I only bought one bottle cause omg no! No! No! No! No! That juice is nasty! Ugh! *shudder*

I tried. I swear I tried but I couldn’t get past two small sips and down the drain it went. So amazingly not good.

What kind of crazy person came up with this idea? I’m all for healthy but wow, just…No!

I’d like to be clear I am not blaming Bolthouse, it’s not that I think they personally made a horrible juice but that other companies have an ok version, I’m now of the firm opinion that carrots should not be made in to juice. Keep them as soup. Keep them as solids. Keep them as garnish. Just don’t turn them in to juice, that’s when you know you’ve gone over to the dark side…or would it be the orange side? 😉

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My Christmas Season Jaunt

4 Jan

Every year I go home for Christmas. Depending on which way you lean home is either where the majority of your stuff is or it is where your family is…this means I have two homes. 🙂

It was only a short trip because of not being able to get a lot of time off work, including my travel days I was gone five days, really though, more like 4 and a bit because I flew out after work in the evening and didn’t get to my parents until sometime after 11pm, that doesn’t count as a day, right?

While back home I celebrated my birthday on Dec 23rd, yay for birthdays! I went to the mall (one of my happy places) with my bestie NH. We did some shopping, mostly wandering, I highly enjoyed the teeny tiny 5% tax they have lol Then we got lunch where I decided to eat whatever I want cause it’s my birthday! Calories don’t count on your birthday, it’s practically a law! lol

I had a so-so burger, the fries were freakin delish tho! lol

Mmm fries!

Mmm fries!

I also decided a birthday dessert was in order 😛

Ecstasy!

Ecstasy!

It was described as a small chocolate cake with ice cream. Imagine my happy surprise when it turned out to be a lava cake! Holy crap was it good, a little bit of food heaven on a plate, Mmm! 😀

After hanging with NH I went back to my parents where I had some down time, attempted to digest my late lunch in time to make room for dinner, and then happily hung out with the family. Which, fyi, consists of my parents, my brother and sister, my sister’s kids and their dad. It was a loud (cause of the kids) jumbled (cause of the amount of people) evening and I loved it. 🙂

Now, pictures were taken of me blowing out my birthday candles but I don’t have them yet so instead I will show you what the cake looked like the next day when I was having a piece for, hmm, breakfast? Mid morning snack? Lunch? One of those three! lol

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

I requested a Queen Victoria Sponge cake for my birthday cake. The layers go: sponge cake, jam, whipped cream, sponge cake, and is topped with a sprinkle of icing sugar. It is quite lovely. 🙂 Mine had raspberry jam because that is my favourite type.

After the time out from Christmas stuff to celebrate my birthday we all get back in to Christmas mode. Christmas day was quieter than normal because my sister and nephews and their dad all spent Christmas day with his family. We have been spoiled and get them most years so it’s only fair they spent this one with his side.

With it being just my parents, my brother and I it was quite a different experience lol Everything was so calm and orderly, I kinda liked it, not that I don’t love when all the others are also with us though!

The rest of my time there was spent visiting with a friend and her family and chilling with my parents. 🙂

It’s always sad when it comes time to leave even though I really enjoy where I live. It seems especially hard to say bye when the trip is so short, but is any trip ever long enough?

While I was there I ate horribly! I ate larger portions than normal, and wasn’t as picky about what foods I ate (proven by those food pics I posted lol) 😛 I opted to not feel bad about my eating habits while there because most of what I was eating were foods that I wouldn’t have access to once back home. My mom made oatmeal squares which are by far one of my fave foods, and oh man did I eat a lot of those! lol I also ate all that food on my birthday, then Christmas day was another foodie day, plus the next day when I had prime rib and all sorts of side dishes at my friends place, plus wine, a very yummy wine that I hope to find here…basically it was 4 and a bit days of food lol

When I got home I immediately went back to my normal eating habits and actually had a couple days where I felt super full and gross and bloated, I think I was still digesting all the food from when I was away, or at least that is what it felt like, ugh. It was so unpleasant. I was really upset because I figured I’d put on a lot of weight and felt so heavy and was really mad at myself but after a couple days of eating light and exercising I woke up and felt fine. No more feeling fat (well, fatter than I normally feel lol), no more feeling bloated or gross or anything…I was so relieved!

To make things even better today was my weigh-in day and not only had I not gone up, I went down! Not by a lot, only 0.4 lbs, so barely anything at all, but I don’t care lol Over my birthday and Christmas and New Years, plus a friend’s get together that I went to last night I was certain I’d gone up so learning today that I hadn’t made this girl a happy camper! 🙂

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An Unintended Hiatus

3 Jan

I didn’t mean to go offline for so long but life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of blog posting time lol Heck, it gets in the way of updating facebook and twitter also, which is vaguely impressive considering how quick it is to update those two sites.

sooooo busy

sooooo busy

Prior to Christmas I was busy making Christmas presents…yes, you read that right, making the presents. I chose to make the majority of my Christmas presents for family and friends this year in an effort to (1) give gifts that will mean more to the recipient and (2) would cost me less.

The people I gave the presents too seemed to really like them, so I think I succeeded in giving gifts that meant more than something store bought. I’m not so sure about the saving money part of my plan though…oops?

I made a couple different things but couldn’t mention any of them here because some of the people I was giving the presents to read this blog and I didn’t want them to know in advance what they might be getting. It’s hard to be sneaky when you blab about stuff online all the time lol

Let’s see if I can remember what I made, there were…bath salts, candles, coasters, port wine jelly, Christmas popcorn, granola with nuts and seeds, marble peppermint bark, vanilla extract, rum butter (technically my mom made that one for me so I wouldn’t have to transport it on the plane, same with the vanilla extract), spice rub, a pedicure themed mason jar and a dragon boat themed mason jar…I think that is everything…

I am not a naturally crafty person so to learn how to make all of these things I did a lot of research (which means I scoured Pintrest and googled a lot, oh and watched multiple youtube tutorials) lol Thank goodness other people are crafty! 😛

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

The item that caused me the most stress was the port wine jelly, that particular item was for my brother and the fear that it will taste horrible or that I might have screwed up when sterilizing or canning and food poison him was (and is) intense. I don’t know that he’ll tell me when he eventually opens one of the jars, so I may never know if it tastes ok, which means I just have to let it go…sigh…

Like a dummy I didn’t take pictures of the items I made sooooooo yeah, I have no filler for this post in the way of images lol The bath salts were white and green, as were the candles. The food was the colour of food, duh, um, the coasters I made used pictures I nabbed from people’s facebook accounts, or pictures that had been texted to me throughout the year or in one friend’s case pictures I got her daughter to email me lol The coasters are 4×4, so normal size, but a bit thicker and heavier than most coasters you’d buy in a store, mostly cause they are made with a 4×4 wall tile and those suckers are kinda heavy.

I’m happy with how things turned out. 🙂 It took a lot more time and organization than I had thought it would, which left me in a bit of a panic when it was only a couple days until I was getting on the plane and I had yet to make the majority of the items. Then again, I work best under pressure lol 🙂

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