Lighter Portions

I shed invisible tears tonight for the ending of my Reading Week. Back to the grind tomorrow. Oh bother.

It’s been a pretty good one though. Not filled with thrills and stories of adventurous times sorry to say, but filled with plenty of productivity in terms of… organization. Try not to tsk at me too much for the fact that yes, I look forward to the organizing I’ll get to do during my break times. coughnerdcough? I organized kitchen cupboards, my bedroom, piles of magazine pages, computer files… it’s a hobby I guess, what can I say?
So if you ever need someone to come and tear apart, clean up and reorganize your kitchen… you know who to call ;)

There was cleaning. There was shopping. There was food.

Food-related thrills of Reading Week included:

Being featured as Larabar Blog Fan of the Day! Might be just fan of the day, but is certainly one of the highlights of the week. Mmm. Thanks Larabar!

Another highlight of the week was this tasty package that arrived in my mailbox. (I get excited easily, what can I say)– Free sample of new Kashi Toasted Berry Crisp that I signed up for a while ago on their website.

Winner! This Kashi flavour made for one darn amazing bowl of a greek yogurt, banana, cereal mess. I will be putting my $2 off coupon to good use v. soon.

I also made the thrilling discovery of some La Tortilla Factory tortilla wraps. You might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Well I have never seen these in Canada before, nor have I seen any large sized 100 calorie tortillas at all. All of the tortillas around here are puny or 200+ calories for the big kahunas. I always get the punies but they make like 2-bite wraps. I want my wraps to last longer than 10 seconds when I eat them!

So these were thrilling – stuffed with chicken, tomatoes, goat cheese, dijonnaise and spinach

And filling – stuffed with a veggie burger, ranch, spinach, and tomato

And delicious – stuffed with egg whites, laughing cow, spinach, salsa and Franks

The last two are only half wraps and they still made a good hearty wrap size. Love these. I only found them at a specialty gourmet grocery store though. Come on Canada grocers, hook me up with some La Tortilla Factory please and thank you!

And the deliciousness of the week continued with:

Reading Week Breakfasts

Cold Breakfast Sweet Potato – aka leftover roasted sweet potato (yes I left it cold), topped with yogurt mixed with cinnamon and maple syrup, plus peanut butter

Yoatgurt – aka banana oats with a big pile of greek goodness.

I actually used to make something very similar to this for breakfast all the time several years ago. I’d take a packet of instant flavoured oats, throw in tons of berries and banana, a handful of 2-3 different types of cereal and a big pile of flavoured yogurt. SO amazing. I ate it almost everyday.

Savoury Oats – aka bowl of oats with leftover pasta sauce, spinach, Franks and feta. I prefer this as a dinner-type meal but I was feeling it for breakfast the other day. Every bite was a.ma.zing.

Chocolate Whoppeeee – aka Chocolate Vitatop topped with greek yogurt, cinnamon and banana. For some reason I have had this thing against eating a vitatop in the morning. All that rich muffiny chocolatey goodness…it just seemed so wrong. I have this nice big box of them (thank you COSTCO) in my freezer but I refused to open it for the longest time, not wanting to dig in for breakfast (?) I really don’t know why. But I broke that dumb rule the other day and had a breakfast for the books. Vitatops should always start off the morning!

Except of course when yogurt does. Because big bowls of plain yogurt with frozen banana, frozen strawberries, blueberries, corn bran, oat squares and homemade granola aren’t too shabby either.

Speaking of homemade granola…

Mine was Beek’s COCONUT CHIA GRANOLA. I may have overcooked it a little… but it turned out pretty good all the same. I don’t think I have yet mastered the magic touch of granola making though, as the many (like two…) times I’ve ever attempted it, I’ve managed to slightly (or more than slightly) burn it and make it slightly less delicious than it could be. Ho hum. Someday I’ll get better…

Speaking of homemade in general…

I also made homemade protein bars. I used a random blog-found recipe. I don’t remember which one. These are okay, mainly because my protein powder is just okay. They are currently in the freezer. If I change my mind about them once I actually eat a whole one rather than teeny tastes, I’ll let ya know.

Reading Week Lunches, Dinners and Snacks

You saw half of the dinners in the form of LA TORTILLA wrapped goodness. Here’s the rest of the goods.

Sunny Sundried Tomato Basil Gardenburger atop toasted english muffin. Goat cheese, spinach, sundried tomatoes not visible but very taste-able.

The slew of ever-present sloppy salads

And grocery store sushi! This was so fresh. Freshest grocery store stuff I’ve had in a while.

And some sweetie snacks:

Fresh cut pineapple with plain yogurt and cinnamon. Man I love pineapple.

Frozen strawberries in a mix of plain and lemon meringue yogurt. Man I love strawberries.

Blend of frozen strawberries, frozen mango and lemon meringue yogurt. Man I love frozen fruit.

Baby crepe with greek yogurt and maple syrup. Man I love… crepes… but I still love fruit more.

I also love breaks but I guess some good things must come to an end. Fortunately my love for fruit (and crepes, and tortillas, and cereals…) will carry on.
Unfortunately I must now carry my lazy self down to the cold basement for a run since I’ve hardly moved all day. Thanks studying. THEN I have to finish two assignments by tomorrow… then I have to cram for a midterm on Tuesday that I’m not nearly ready for… not ready to go back, not ready.

I hope all you lovelies have had or are SOON going to have great and relaxing and/or super exciting breaks coming up in the next little bit. Enjoy the fresh week ahead :)