Tag Archives: chicken

What a long weekend.

Not what a long weekend, but rather WHAT a long weekend. One solid track of celebrations, complete with copious amounts of cupcakes, decent amounts of dancing, and devilish amounts of drinks (Slight exaggeration. It was all good times but all decently tame. I’m too old and crotchety for that party animal lifestyle! Har Har). Something about long weekends that just makes everyone want to nonstop celebrate.

Thursday there was a night out reunion with a group of old high school gals. We’ve lived in different cities for school but they’ve all finally trickled back in for the summer and it was time to reconvene. Drinks and singing along to cheesy Glee tunes beforehand; drinks, dresses and dancing at a bar to finish it off.

(weheartit)

I rarely actually drink fruity drinks but they sure do look suave.

Friday was a buddy’s birthday, complete with breast-studded cupcakes delivered in a shoebox to his delighted hands. There were several big hungry men at this birthday and they were all more than excited about the brownie-bottomed treats, topped with chocolate womanly bits. The way to a man’s heart…

Said birthday began at the house, then continued on to two different bars. It was a Bud Light and antojitos (Stuffed with MANGO. Absolutely delicious) kind of night.

(google)

Saturday was the craziest one yet! Okay…no it wasn’t. Highlights included going to work, running, eating a salad and a lot of bean salad, updating my Ipod and going to bed early. Hey, I needed a break! I told you, old and crotchety.

Sunday was good for some tame tanning time during the day (I got some nice colour and a good dose of the natural Vit D) and some retro moves and grooves at a bar at night. The best thing about going out on a long weekend Sunday is running into faces you rarely see. I love my long-lost acquaintances.

A whole weekend of late nights left me run right down though. I actually half napped today and I NEVER nap. It was lovely.

Aside from cupcakes, non-fruity beverages and low levels of sleep, how else did I fuel this long weekend?

A LOT of greens. Green smoothies are my breakfast of choice these days, now that the weather has really warmed up.

ONE of these was stuffed not with spinach but with collard greens. It needed a bit more sweetener but I kind of liked the slightly earthier taste the collards added.

Considering how darn cool it is to blend your spinach into your smoothie… how about topping your spinach with your smoothie?

Yup, I did it.

Yup, I ate it.

Yup, I ate it all.

Creepy? Weird? Unnecessary? All of the above. But it wasn’t half bad. And I’d do it again.

I also ate a lot of salads. What else is new?

Salad topped buffalo-chicken style (cooked chicken;dressing of light source cream, dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar; Frank’s buffalo sauce)

Salad topped plain style – veg and honey mustard dressing with rye and cottage cheese on the side.

Salad topped taco style – seasoned ground beef, bean salad, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, cheddar

Salad topped tuna style – tuna mixed with sour cream, dijon mustard, worcheshire sauce and pepper

And some odd balls

Italian "Pizza Cheese” made with cashews

Chicken-stuffed Enchiladas. Hideous but delicious.

Red fiesta with red peppers, red salsa on crackers, red ketchup on egg whites

Collard greens, broccoli, zucchini and mushrooms stir-fried in a curry mayo sauce (light mayo + curry powder + splash of milk) with a side of mashed cauliflower

Strawberries topped with coconut/cocoa powder yogurt and sesame brittle

More berries

And more berries

And even more berries – accompanying leftover carrot cake of course.

And to wash it all down? A nice big glass of Crystal Light blended with water, carbonated lemon water, ice, frozen raspberries and frozen mango chunks.

SO. Refreshing.

And now I just got asked to go out AGAIN. This long weekend is over, how do people do it? And more importantly, why am I actually considering it? Oy vey!

Keep Calm and Hug Your Mom

May 18, 2011

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It may have just been Mother’s Day but the lady that I like to call “Mom” (most prefer Bev but I have special naming privileges) is so darn special that she gets to celebrate being awesome twice this month…

Happy Birthday Mom!

The birthday prep started last night with some serious squares baking.

My mom needed to bring some birthday treats into work for the staff. It’s protocol. Naturally I stepped up to the plate.

Giant pan of squares #1 = Toffee Squares. Think cake mix, toffee bits and chocolate chips. Think deadly. The only thing that would make these better would be one big, thick drizzle of caramel.

Giant pan of squares #2 = Top Secret (ahem…meaning I forgot to take a picture. But they were strawberry cheesecake squares)

I figured, with two giant pans of ooey gooey desserts being brought in, there would be tons of leftovers trailing back home at the end of the day.

Nope…just these. And only because my mom nabbed a few to sneak back home for us. Otherwise, demolished.

And there look, evidence of the cheesecake squares.

I also baked up some Momnola (aka Mom’s Granola) since she likes to sprinkle it on her oatmeal every morning.

The label says, “No experiments. Just good old fashioned oats, butter and brown sugar. Enjoy!”

Explanation: Every time she requests granola, I try out a new recipe. Sometimes they use pumpkin, applesauce, different oils, nut butters and other random ingredients. Often times they just don’t turn out that well . The basic butter/brown sugar combo is spot on. I wouldn’t dare mess around with her birthday batch. (Hint: It was Averie’s recipe I’ve already tried and loved)

Let me just tell you, baking giant pans of pure sugary goodness mere hours before bed is not the best idea. Obviously I had to sample (to make sure they were edible of course!) while cutting them up. I was wired. ‘Sleepy’ took a long time to kick in, and even when it did my mind was still running at top speed.

And then I woke up to do it all over again in order to make a Carrot Birthday Cake!

But first I took a break from the sugar-laden treats and opted for some greens.

Hello Green Liquid Breakfast. Green tea, almond milk, chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, spinach, frozen strawberries, cinnamon, barley grass powder, vanilla stevia, ice and gums. Topped with Fibre One for good measure.

Run Run Run. Abs Abs Abs. Lunch Lunch Lunch.

THEN the baking re-ensued.

It was carrot cake. It was a beautiful process.
But the taste test had to wait until after dinner.

Swiss Chalet anyone? “Life should taste as good as Swiss Chalet.” Is this just a Canadian thing? They have the best dipping sauce.

How about some free appetizer perogies? (Gotta love coupons!)

For the actual meal, we all ordered the Quarter Chicken Dinner – mine was white meat chicken with a roll and side garden salad. I also stole a few of my mom’s fries, hence the lovely ketchup blob on the bottom of the plate.
(Spot the delish dipping sauce in the upper right corner)

Okay okay THEN it was Cake Time.

Drum roll please…

CARROT CAKE.

I’ve made THIS carrot cake a couple times before and it has always been a ‘this is so good I can’t help but ‘mmm’ after every bite’ hit, so it was once again a no-brainer.

We tried to get some nice, normal pre-cake portraiture (*Note the fact that my brother’s hand is almost as big as my mom’s face. Freak).

Yeah we don’t do normal. Or at least he doesn’t. Clearly he was just a little too excited for cake time.

“GIMME DE CAKEEEEEE”

Wishes.

Dig in.

Delicious.

Happy Birthday dearest Mom. You da Bomb!

A Murky Monday and a Weekend Recap

March 15, 2010

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And it’s a Monday… I was tempted to go with Marvelous Monday but I think Murky Monday would be more appropriate. Yet another gloomy grey day today, which we’ve been having all weekend. I actually don’t mind it too much though, sometimes I like the grey days. They make me just want to cuddle up on the couch in sweats and watch a movie… or cuddle up on the couch in sweats and do some school work… So maybe not want to do the latter so much but sometimes you just gotta be productive right? And these grey days are great for that. It’s way too darn difficult to get stuff done when then sun is up and beaming.

But enough of the weather report?

After a late night of retro dancing last night, I was still up fairly (not so) bright and early this morning. Bed by 3:30. Up before 9. Which is technically sort of still like 8ish because of the time change. Anyone else thrown off by that? My entire day yesterday felt so out of whack!

And speaking of last night, I kept it calm. No pizza thief tackling (or The Pizza Napper as my friend likes to call him) or any other attempts of heroism on my part. It was a one hit wonder gig.

Anywho, feast your eyes on the feast I just finished:

Packet reduced sugar maple flavour instant oats, spoonful pumpkin, handful frozen blueberries, couple spoonfuls plain and vanilla yogurt, fresh strawberries

+ coffee (always a given).

Reeeeeeeeewind…and recap.

Thursday

was a long time ago. It involved an early breakfast before an early class. This early breakfast involved a breakfast cookie and an orange. The breakfast cookie involved simply oats, applesauce and peanut butter. It was dry. The yogurt and mango pieces coated in yogurt and cinnamon that lay atop it made it much better.

After getting home from class there was a present on my doorstep!

A box of Larabars from being Larabar Fan of the Day! PB&J, Tropical Fruit, Apple Pie, Cashew Cookie… mmmm. That’s enough to brighten my day. Thanks a lot Larabar!

Rest of Thursday involved salads with leftover baked tofu and noodles….

Bowls of puffed wheat cereal with almond milk, cinnamon and vanilla protein powder

And large amounts of SQUASH.

What. A. Beauty. There’s some kind of fettucine out of a bag on there as well. Twas my mom’s dinner and clearly I had to sample. It was good. But my squash was BEST.

Friday

Involved one of my favourite breakfasts: WEETABIX! With pumpkin, plain and vanilla yogurt, frozen banana and lots of cinnamon. Mushy delight.

- Gloomy grey day…not fun.
- Morning 3 hour long class… not fun.
- Assignment handback…that I did horribly on…doubly not fun.
I don’t know if it was the pretty dismal mood I was in on Friday but the poor assignment grade literally had me in tears… how sad is that. I was supposed to hang out with a friend after class and I almost bailed because I was that bummed about it and I wanted to go home and cry instead. Yeah, I was in that bad of a mood. But I did not bail. I hung out with my friend. We went food (Bulk Barn!!) shopping. I snapped out of my funk. Friends (and extremely sweet easter candies) make everything better.

As do bowls of spinach, zucchini and tomato topped with turkey slices, roasted squash and deli mustard.

I also had more of the greenery at dinner alongside my chicken breast stuffed with rice, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes.

And a container of yogurt with cocoa powder, vector cereal and peanut butter for good measure.

Saturday

Friday night I told myself I was going to get up early and EXERCISE. I never do this, the whole getting out of bed, jumping straight into workout clothes and getting it done thing. I’ve done it maybe twice ever. But on Friday I told myself, “Saturday, you are GOING to run. In the AM. First thing. No questions. It can be done. It will be done. You can do it.”

On Saturday morning the alarm clock went off at 7:15. I know that’s not early for some of you die hard AM exercisers but a morning workout for me is like 9-11. On Saturday morning when the alarm clock went off I almost said to myself, “Stay in bed. It’s warm. I’m tired. I can exercise another day.” Almost. But instead I looked at the clock, closed my eyes, opened them, looked at the clock again and said, “I set my alarm. It went off. I’m up. I have time right now. I told myself I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this.” And with that, I jumped out of bed, put on my workout clothes, warmed up a mug of coffee, downed half, and headed down to the basement for a good 45 or so minutes of sprint intervals followed by a good paced run, followed by planks, followed by weights.

My legs were definitely more sluggish first thing in the morning. But I got it done and I sure felt accomplished after it!

It also helped that I knew I had this to look forward to after it…

Oats in a Jar! Not the most photogenic breakfast but mighty delicious. Stovetop oats cooked with water, banana, pumpkin and cinnamon, splash of SF french vanilla creamer, a bit more than 1 Tbsp of peanut butter left in the jar. Breakfast of champions.

Then I went to work.

Ate a Peanut Butter Larabar.

Ate a salad with some leftover stuffed chicken on top.

Ate an unpictured apple.

Took advantage of this lovely photo op on the drive home. Of course it was my brother who spotted this gem…

The words: “Size matters”

Once I got home it was sushi time! My friend and I had a sushi dinner planned since we were feeling severely deprived. I got no pictures but I ordered a caterphila roll which had a whole lot of salmon inside and a whole lot of avocado on top. It was delicious. Well except for the crunchy fried stuff in the middle. I don’t really love the crunch in my rolls so I kind of poked a lot of it out with my chopstick. My friend thought I was nuts, but most of the rolls there have some kind of tempura something or other in them so it’s kind of unavoidable. Next time I’ll have to remember to try asking if they could leave that stuff out. I just don’t want my sushi to be crunchy!

Then we had a wild night of eating Cheetos and watching 2 hours of The Penguins of Madagascar on DVD.

It was pretty epic. We eventually headed to the bar for a bit but it was not very fun and we were both tired and didn’t stay long at all. I was home nice and early. My Saturday nights sure have tamed down. And I really don’t mind it. I think I’m going grandma!

Sunday

I opened some mail.

It included POM coupons! Thanks POM! What should I do with it once I pick some up? Besides the obvious drinking of it… any good POM recipes you’d recommend? I think I saw a POM granola recipe I wanted to try…

I also ate breakfast. Obviously.

Easy Vegan Breakfast Banana Bread! This breakfast was awesome. Except my crusts were kind of burnt and kind of inedible, and I made quite the mess cutting them off. But otherwise this was delicious.

2 slices Cinnamon Raisin Ezekiel bread. Topped with half a banana mashed with 2 tsp peanut butter. Topped with cinnamon. One slice topped with coconut butter. Baked at 350 for ten minutes. Sided by fresh cut pineapple and strawberries with a dollop of cottage cheese.

I also went to the Dollar store with my mom. And browsed it for nearly an hour? I love dollar store shopping! I hadn’t been to one in a long while so I forget how much cool junky little stuff they have. Plenty of St Patty’s gear. I may have picked up some shamrock earrings… and mini green hats.

By the time I got home I was staaaarving. Big messy salad it is! Finished off the last of my roasted squash :( The brown bits in the left corner are chestnuts that I picked up at the dollar store. I had never tried a chestnut before… they kind of taste like sweet kidney beans? I like them though!

I was feeling pretty off yesterday. Not quite alive. Like zero energy. And zero appetite by the evening.

All I wanted for dinner was something sweet. SO I had the most random bowl of stuff ever…
Pumpkin, vanilla and plain yogurt, vanilla protein powder, frozen banana, cinnamon, defrosted and crumbled low carb sweet bread, mini piece of defrosted raw cheesecake.
As I said, really random. It was good though and did the trick.

Then I went out. Danced. Had a good time. Came home. Went to bed. Woke up. Ate breakfast. Wrote this. And now I have to get on with my day since I’m now like an hour behind schedule? Eep!

Happy Monday!

I’ve got a lovely spread of coconut

March 5, 2010

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I broke down and made a foodie splurge purchase today:

Artisana Raw Organic Coconut Butter!
(The tempeh was not a splurge, just a plain old (albeit delicious) food purchase)

$13.99 for a big jar of something I don’t have a clue if I’m going to like or not is kind of steep, but I have yet to hear anything but raves about this stuff and I stare at it in awe every time I make the trip to the one wee health store around here that carries it. I knew sooner or later I would break down so I figured today was as good as ever.

I haven’t done the taste test yet. Verdict to come!

I’ve actually never tried any of the Artisana nut butters before. Have you? What are your favs? I may try some more in the future but I need recommendations before making that kind of investment…Hah.

Backtracking to the early AM…
We’re finally having sunny days! Which I can’t get enough of. So long winter, Hey hey SPRING. It’s still pretty chilly out (wind is doing its thang to chill me to the bone) but that spring-inspired morning sun coming in through the window makes the whole breakfast experience at least 5x more enjoyable.

Sun paired with orange slices, cottage cheese, and the last special spoonfuls of coconut chia granola = breakfast perfection.

Lunch was kind of switch since I had fast food for the first time in… I don’t even no how long. I honestly can’t remember the last time I ordered at a chain fast food restaurant. But today was the day. My friend and I were going to get sushi but… sometimes when you do exciting things the night prior, sushi just isn’t so appealing the next day. And my friend had a fun night the night before so a nice balanced Harvey’s meal was the more appropriate choice of the moment.

Really though, can you argue with a delicious (even PETA says so) veggie burger on a whole wheat bun loaded with mustard and veggies and paired with a side garden salad with light italian dressing and (the junkiest part of the entire meal) a diet Pepsi? I sure can’t. I’d make that kind of meal at home. Harvey’s makes your hamveggie burger a beautiful thing.

GOOGLE Image image. I didn’t even think to take a picture. Mine looked pretty much just like this bad boy though.

You must also see this banana bread I made the other day. Veganomicon’s Lower-Fat Banana Bread. I do not own the book. However I do have access to a lovely thing called Google, which led me here, which led me to bake up this beauty.

My only changes:
Instead of sucanat (don’t have it), I used 1/4 C white sugar, 1/4 C brown sugar
I used about 1T less oil, replaced by ~2T low fat plain yogurt.
I threw in a handful of frozen cranberries (this addition was a hit!)

This BREAD was a hit. I was super impressed by how moist and delicious it came out. Will definitely be keeping this recipe for future reference.

I’ve snacked on it plenty. The last 1/3 finally made its way into the freezer before things got out of hand.

Other Eats from

Tuesday:

The infamous cottage cheese. Aka a daily staple. I’m shocked this actually made it into a bowl. A rarity. Usually it’s container->spoon->mouth. No room for a bowl in there.

Veggilicious.

Chicken-and-veggilicious. Aka chicken breast cooked in BBQ and hoisin marinade and broccoli and cabbage slaw in balsamic vinegar and sweet chili sauce.

Soft tofu + frozen mango + vanilla protein powder + stevia + vanilla extract = Blended perfection.

And

Wednesday:

The Not-so-pancakey pancake.
When you mix 1/4 C oats + 1/4 C egg whites + baking powder + stevia you get a very eggy creation. Good in its own right but when you’re in the mood for a pancake, this was just a teeeeny bit of a letdown.

Looks kinda cool though. And the -mashed banana + leftover mango tofu blend with peanut butter stirred into it topping- upped the yum factor.

Look at all that sunlight. Love it.

Here we have some Bruschetta Chicken Spinach Salad. Leftover BBQ hoisin chicken cut into strips, served over spinach and mushrooms with a few dollops of jarred bruschetta.

And a good old egg white wrap with spinach, red pepper hummus, laughing cow and Frank’s rounded out the meals of the day.

Thursday’s meals were extra boring and snackish so they get no air time.
And today, good old Friday, has yet to be complete. Dinner still hasn’t happened. My tummy is telling me it should happen soon though so I’m off.

If you’ve tried the Coconut butter, opinions? Anyone actually not like it? What should I do with it?!

Happy WEEKEND!!!

Awesome load of loot up for grabs for Jocelyn’s Cheer Up My Blog Giveaway!