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Life adventures through weight loss/maintenance
Showing posts with label Quinoa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quinoa. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2010

Holla!

Yesterday after work I headed out to go find a bridal shower gift. Kevin's cousin is getting married at the end of next month and her bridal shower is Saturday. So being that I've been so busy I didn't think until yesterday that I needed to go shopping.

So I printed off the bridal registry (thank you Lisa for registering). It makes shopping so much easier.

As I walked into the store I walked past a clearance section. Something caught my eye. Something very similar to what I've seen before.
That's right Caitlin has a plate just like this one.
Here another!

After getting what I needed for the bridal shower, I was 'marven! It was 4:30 and I knew if I just started on dinner that I would be eating in 30 mins. I just couldn't make it that long.

I grabbed a banana and sliced it in half down the middle. I thought I would try out my sunflower seed butter I'd bought. It's not nearly as sweet and savory as cashew or almond butter, so I sprinkled on some unsweetened coconut.

Then it was time to start cooking. Stir fry. With quinoa.
Always make sure you rinse your quinoa before cooking. I use a cheese cloth. I reuse it 2-4 times for the same thing before I toss it out and get a new piece.
Simmer for 15-20 mins.

I had just over 2 servings left and thought I might as well cook it all and just store the rest in the fridge for an easy grab later.

Then on to the other ingredients. I had taken out a turkey breast to thaw the night before, but I was home alone and this is a mother of a turkey breast. So I left that in the fridge for another day and went with some tofu. Smoked tofu.
Onion, snap peas, zucchini, and orange pepper.
Sauteed until the veggies were softened to my liking. Then I tossed in 1/4 cup of my cooked quinoa, and drizzled some Peanut Satay sauce over.
All plated and ready for serving. It sure did hit the spot!

After dinner I went to Hot Yoga where Janice taught again tonight. My girlfriend MJ joined me and we both left feeling like we missed Jana (the owner). We may look into switching our Hot Yoga date nights.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Happy Friday

Well, we did it! We made it to the end of another work week. Sadly I wish mine ended today when I leave work at 3:30. It does not. However this weekend is my last workathon of shifts I picked up just incase I got laid off. This is what my weekend looks like:

Saturday--> 9am-3pm at job number 1, 3pm-11pm at job number 2.
Sunday --> 3pm-11pm at job number 2, then back to work Monday morning at 8:30am.

I wouldn't mind so so much if this wasn't Kevin's weekend off from work and next weekend when I'm off he is working. *grumbles*

So let me finish recapping yesterday before I start on this morning.

For my mid afternoon snack I had a sliced up gala apple with a 1/2 cup of non fat cottage cheese.
I got home not too long after my snack as I didn't snack until almost 3:15. When I got home I was starving. I however took my time in the kitchen cooking everything in plenty of time to have dinner ready for just after 5 (note the time on the kitchen clock).
I couldn't decide which picture and lighting I liked better, so I was vain and posted both today.

Salmon salad (yes I said I did some cooking for dinner tonight)

Cooked Salmon Salad
  • 2cups romaine lettuce
  • 3-4oz of skinless salmon
  • 1/2cup broccoli
  • 5 stalks of asparagus
  • 1/4 cup cooked quinoa
  • pinch of sesame seeds
  • pinch of drilled dill
  • 1/2tbsp soy ginger salad dressing
  • Red pasta sauce

Directions

  1. Take your salmon and place it on some tinfoil, would be skin side up. Broil on 500-550 for 3-4 minutes.
  2. Flip your salmon and sprinkle with your pinch of dill and sesame seeds.
  3. Broil for another 3-4 minutes.
  4. When finished let it sit and cool.
  5. Get your steamer ready and take your asparagus and steam for 3minutes
  6. Replace the asparagus with the broccoli in the steamer for 2 minutes.
  7. Chop up your asparagus into 1/2 inch pieces.
  8. Let your veggies cool.
  9. Cook your rinsed quinoa as per the directions on the box. I used 1/2 cup milk and 1/4 cup quinoa (to serve Kevin & myself).
  10. When finished cooking add in 1-2 wooden spoonfuls of red pasta sauce. Stir.
  11. Add all ingredients to your chopped romaine lettuce.

After dinner I went to another class of Hot Yoga. This was Janice's first class teaching Thursday nights. I know Janice from aerobics classes from my community centre gym. I don't know what to think of Janice's class as of yet. I might like it, though I can't tell. All I know is that it's not like Jana's classes, and I need to try a few more before I can decide if I like Janice's class or not.


Kevin and I were going to watch some PVR from last week as we have both been so busy, but our memory was full and stopped recording Saturday before last. Grrr. We don't even have a lot on our PVR. The frustrating part of this is that we don't have Lost, this or last week's Grey's, this weeks Office, HIMYM, House, Cougar Town, Modern Family or this weeks 90210 (my guilty pleasure). Without PVR I would never watch any of these shows. God I love PVR.


Kevin had agreed to come to Cardio Bosu with me this morning and swimming after class. I was pretty excited. Only because this involves getting out of bed at 5am, and Kevin is not an early morning person, AT ALL! lol


For breakfast I started off with something filling. I've recently been going overboard with add ins in my oatmeal, which are extra calories I don't end up burning off. So I've scaled back this morning. 2/3 banana, 2tbsp raisins, 1tbsp chia seeds, 1tbsp pumpkin seeds to 1/3 cup oatmeal. Just as good with all the extras I had been using in the previous weeks.


Cardio Bosu was a biatch this morning. It has been 2 classes that I've missed (Friday mornings). But to boot this was a new circuit routine. I've never had my hair stick to my forehead before because I was so sweaty my hair got that wet. Wow!


Kevin, well I'm not sure how he felt about class if he liked it or not. I will ask him later today when we meet up after work, when he's more rested and rejuvenated. Even at 8am when we left the gym he was groggy and indifferent when I asked him how he liked class.


I did say we went swimming. My right shoulder is sore today. Not rotator cuff shoulder, rather outer muscle shoulder, just above my bicep, sore. So I only swam for 10 minutes. Also Kevin doesn't have goggles so he wasn't swimming as best as he could. We'll have to get him some.

Here at work now, and eating my mid morning snack. Funny how early my mid morning snacks come when I eat breakfast at 5:15am.

  • 175g of a mix of plain and vanilla liberte Greek yogurt
  • 7 raspberries
  • 3 large strawberries
  • 1/3 cup All Bran Buds
    All together
    Just to show off my spoon and it's eyes. Amy from Amy's Quest to Skinny was also enjoying some vanilla flavoured Greek yogurt and strawberries yesterday.

Do you have any big plans this weekend?

Monday, April 19, 2010

Emotional weekend.

Well this was a rough weekend for me. Sadly it started off stressful Friday.

Number 1. I had no groceries and no idea what to make with the mishmash of slim pickin's that was at my house.

Well I didn't end up packing a lunch, rather went downstairs to Pizza Pizza and got this. I am terrible for multi-tasking at work while eating too. So I ended up eating a cold nasty slice of pizza. 20 Minutes later I felt like a$$ and wished I hadn't eaten the pizza chips and pop. Next time I think about eating from Pizza Pizza I will think twice and not do it. This however is not to say I am completely swearing off pizza (see below).

For my snack, I have these fig crackers. not too shabby.

So I talked about being stressed but never addressed why. Well Friday I got a total of 3 phone calls from my perm. part time job. See Monday they are announcing 1.1million dollars in layoffs. Those layoffs are coming in the form of staff cuts.

So Friday,

Call #1. There is a meeting at the office first thing Monday morning at 8:30am. Everyone should be there.

Call #2. No meeting, misunderstanding, but be at the office as HR and the ED are making calls to notify people if they are being laid off. So come in sit around with a bunch of coworkers who are all equally as anxious as you and just sit and wait.

Call #3. No meeting, and if you aren't scheduled to work you don't have to come in, HR will get a hold of you between 8:30-9:15am. So be by your home phone.

Yeah not a fun Friday.

Saturday was even worse. Why? Because I had to go into said work where I may be getting laid off from and work 6 hours. The worst part, is though I tried to avoid getting involved in chatter about the pending lay offs, I couldn't find a nook or cranny were there wasn't a coworker, who wanted to talk about lay offs and stress.

Sadly this not only exhausted me emotionally, but it made me nauseous, and upset my stomach I was so stressed out.

I did try and start the day off strong by making healthy choices. Eggs are always a good strong breakfast!

  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1/2 Kumato tomato
  • 2 tbsp chunky salsa
  • 30g mozzerella
    • I was expecting a lot of meetings to mediate at work, however sadly, there were so many visits cancelled all for various reasons. So not only myself by my coworkers were all pretty much not busy, and all sitting around all day.For snack Still hadn't gotten out to get groceries. So I went to Quiznos for lunch instead of subway or a pita. Mainly because Quiznos has guacamole on their veggie sub where as the other two places do not have guac.Going home from work, I was a zombie. I for the first of two times Saturday night became one with the couch and TV.


      Come 7pm, Kevin was getting hungry and said to me "so where are we going for dinner?" You have to understand, Kevin likes us to keep our money, not give it to others. So the fact that hes suggested that we go out for dinner and it wasn't my idea, wowzers, he knew how stressed I was.


      We went to Boston Pizza. With my anxiety I didn't think that trying the new Mexican place was a good idea.

      At BP, we ordered Cactus Cut Fries for an app. I love the heat in the dipping sauce. I think Kevin loves them a little too much!Here you can see my drink before, *ahem* I forgot to take a picture before it was gone. And as you can see I love me some Long Island Ice Tea. Those babies are sooooo good!

      I couldn't figure out what I wanted. I did know however I didn't want a pasta. So instead of having a lot of carbs, I ordered, a lot of carbs. LOL The bruschetta pizza really was so much better than Friday's pizza. And it really helped sooth my wreaked emotional state.


      After dinner we headed home. There the couch, the TV and I all became one again. We put in the movie Sherlock Homes with Robert Downey Jr. Not a bad movie.


      Sunday, well for the whole weekend, Kevin's parents were at their house in town (they are moving from Barrie Ontario to Bowmanville Ontario). Sadly they have had possession of their house in town since Feb 10th. Their house in Barrie though they get a lot of showings, hasn't had a single offer yet. :-s


      So, we hadn't seen Kevin's parents in a few weeks, so we were invited over for brunch. Because they live so close to us, Kevin suggested instead of walking over that we ride our bikes. I was game. Look how funky cool I am with my one pant leg rolled up. Haven't had any luck finding myself a chain guard yet. Everywhere I go, people just keep telling me "oh I guess you'll just have to wear shorts and get grease all over your leg" and laugh. The first couple of times I laughed too, but now I am just frustrated and want to find a chain guard.


      Kevin's dad went out and BBQ'ed the Turkey Bacon. Kevin's mom checking brunch. It's a work in progress (someone else's recipe she works off of).French toast, baked with apple pie filling in the middle. Sadly this batch the bottom piece of bread was all mushy, the top was great though. And peamale style turkey bacon.We also had tea cups filled with strawberries and pineapple. I had about 3 of these cups of fruit.After brunch was over it was back to the house so that I could make my dinner and snacks to take with me to my other part time job (group home for co-ed teens).


      While working in the kitchen I had a handful of clodhoppers. I love that eating healthy is really turning my nose up and away from old unhealthy favourites. I also had 3 dates.I wasn't feeling as stressed Sunday as I had been Friday and Saturday. Such a nice relief. Don't get me wrong I was still stressed and worried, just not to the severity of the previous days.


      At work I mixed some granola, chia seeds, dried blueberries to some yogurt.The house was so quiet for my shift. There was myself, the full time staff Paul (yeah), and one female resident. She asked if we could eat outside on the back porch since it was nice out. I was game, especially seeing as we were BBQing the chicken out there anyways.My left over quinoa stir fry with Paul's BBQed Honey Garlic Chicken. I only had 1/3 of the chicken, but took the rest home. I also packed a salad with strawberries, almonds, quinoa and avocado. You never know who is going to be doing the cookie or what will be cooked at a group home so I always pack my food. Better safe than sorry. And hey if you get pleasantly surprised with Sunday nights chicken, all the better.Some grapes to finish the night off right. Home by 11:45, and vegged on the couch watching PVRed Modern Family and Cougar Town.


      Update you soon on the layoff situation.

      Monday, April 12, 2010

      Wordless Recap

      FRIDAY

      Lunch
      Lentil Soup
      Snack
      5 minute no bake granola bar & Cheese string.
      Dinner
      1/2pkg ground turkey & 2 portabella mushrooms
      Kevin's Taco Salad
      My Taco Salad
      Break up the chips and mix!
      SATURDAY
      Breakfast
      Oatmeal /w banana, chia, almonds & blueberry.
      Snack
      Yogurt /w granola & chia.
      Lunch Giant strawberries
      Marinating in balsamic & agave nectar for 1-2 hours.
      2+ cups Spinach 4 figs, 1oz mozzarella, & walnuts.
      Snack
      Cauliflower & Broccoli /w garlic hummus.
      Dinner Kevin enjoying the carrots.
      Sad after seeing what I made for my dinner. Kevin didn`t wait to see what I was making rather made his own (it was 7pm and we were hungry).
      Ham & Cheese (slice) on white rye.
      My dinner
      Quinoa, avocado, artichoke heart, tomato, green onion & feta.
      Dessert
      Hot water & Lemon
      I took Kevin to my fav. dessert place, Demetre`s.
      My Life Sentence.
      SUNDAY
      Breakfast
      Can`t find the picture - Oatmeal
      Snack
      Yogurt, granola, chia & sunflower seed.
      Lunch
      Mexican Rice Casserole / salsa & Greek yogurt.
      Snack
      Fruit topped with Brown Rice Syrup & Mint.
      Dessert
      White and milk chocolate gonash and Oreo chocolate.
      Dinner
      PomTini
      Yam fries with curry, lobster & crab.
      Vegetarian Thai Noodle Salad.

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