Archive

Tag Archives: pita

A chilly, rainy weekend we’ve had at my neck of the woods. Upset, however, I am not as I’m soaking it up with stretchy pants, a muffin and a mug of hot tea.

Would someone care to join me?

How about Amanda and Heather, since they’re the winners of the Lipton Tuesday Tea Giveaway! Congrats Gals! I’ll be emailing to get your info.

Thanks to everyone who entered! A spot of virtual hot tea to all of you.

tumblr_lkprocqBJZ1qd5l3xo1_500_large
(weheartit)

The few days preceding the weekend were hot and sunny. Perfect conditions for smoothies, salads and shopping.

007

Care for a little behind-the-scenes peak at smoothie making in action?

Lately I’ve been putting Barley Grass powder and cinnamon in almost all of my smoothies. An extra nutrient kick? Why not.

003

We haven’t reached the part where it looks appetizing (or even drinkable) yet.

006

How about now? Is it strange that I’ve considered topping a bowl of spinach with a spinach smoothie? I honestly don’t think it would be that bad…I’m now probably going to have to prove myself right. Stay tuned…

010

Voila. Alright so it’s still not exactly beautiful but at least it looks drinkable.

017

I also savoured a bowl of overnight oats one day in amongst the smoothie drinking – 1/3 cup oats, 1/2 cup almond, 1/4 cup Greek yogurt, 1 Tbsp chia seeds, frozen banana and frozen peanut flour chunks.

005

C’est l’amour du jour.

028

Sometimes I eat cabbage slaw salads in the backyard while still rocking my flannel pant pyjamas, no big deal.

016

And sometimes I spare the neighbours and keep my consumption indoors.

082

Salsa has also been making frequent appearances as my all-star condiment this week. What can’t it go on? (Maybe bananas. Or ice cream)

031

There’s that salsa again, alongside some tofu shirataki noodles I found hiding in the back of the fridge. If you rinse them well you can eliminate almost all of the fish smell. If you coat them with a mixture of hummus and pasta sauce, fish smell be gone.

030

You could also try coating them with avocado, though the sliminess of the tofu noodles paired with the creaminess of the avocado was almost too much even for me, and I’m all about the creamy.

054

Just make sure to have extra fresh and crunchy vegetables on the side to balance out the creaminess.

053

I eat my veggies, but I also never forget my fruits.

Especially when they’re berries, the most beautiful, juicy, sweet, flavourful fruits out there. Delicious on their own but decadent when paired with raspberry yogurt mixed with coconut flour and cocoa powder.

052

Dessert is served – strawberries, blueberries and blackberries topped with Greek yogurt and muffin slices.

067

I also mentioned having done some pre-weekend shopping. I saw a flyer for a big six-day sale event at a local arena and, being the sale junkie that I am, I obviously had to check it out.

Loaded with reduced price perfumes, makeup and beauty products, jewellery, household goods, candy and shoes, I was in my element.

I came home with a few goodies:

Genisoy treats

088

It didn’t take me long to dig into the Chocolate Mint Sweet Crisps. Minty, chocolate-y and crunchy, they get my compliments.

092

Revlon Nail Polish – I have a slight nail polish addiction and when you put large bins of nail polish bottles at 3 for $5 in my face, I am guaranteed to leave with a handful. Side note – I own a ridiculous number of pink shades.

102

Guess shoes – There was a rack of them for $40 each. The catch? Size 6 only. My feet are small but not that small. Luckily they fit quite nicely into this open-toed, open-backed pair.

123

A quick stop on the way home at my favourite home goods store, HomeSense, found me walking out with a bottle of Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste, “a convenient, versatile alternative to whole vanilla beans.” I’ve seen it make a few appearances around the blog world (I know Janetha’s raved about it before) and I’m looking forward to giving it a try, especially since it’s apparently comparable to real vanilla beans, which I have yet to try out. Ever tried it? Any must-try ideas?

131

After all of the above was said and done, the sun faded, the weekend hit, and the clouds rolled in.

What else is one to do on a rainy Saturday than head to work to staple, stamp, and eat Pita Pit?

026 - Copy026 - Copy (2)

006

Whole wheat (6 inch) ‘Petita’ with babaghanoush, honey mustard and a garden-load of vegetables = Lunch of Champions.

The rest of Saturday continued without a hitch, leading into sleep, wake, eat, run, eat, blog –> You Are Here. Now I’m still sitting, soaking up the rainy day in my stretchy pants, with an empty tea mug at my side and nary a muffin crumb in site. This scenario shall eventually conclude with either another round of sleep or a night out of dancing. I’m on the fence with this one, as I feel I’ve pretty much outgrown tonight’s site of choice. Decisions, decisions. Only the next few hours shall tell.

But first?

Dinner time.

Happy Sunday to all, and to all a good night.

Can someone build a gasless car and deliver it to me by the end of the week? Otherwise I’m never leaving the house again. That or I’m going to invest in one of those motorized bicycles. Or maybe a really sweet scooter. Considering I work at a motorcycle shop (Didn’t know that? Now you do :)), this idea just might be plausible. Thoughts?

I think I could rock a scooter (please excuse the hairy legs…and arms).

ridin in style copy

Seriously though, gas prices make me want to cry… along with the rest of the population since that’s all the news and anyone who drives seems to talk about lately. I just heard the prices are supposed to skyrocket even more? And I’m down to a quarter tank…sob.

 

While a scooter might not be on the agenda for this week at least, green smoothies have been. Smoothie weather has arrived!

For Breakfast…

007

011

…AND lunch.

010

Yes, those are three entirely different smoothies. How exciting am I, they all look the exact same and I can’t even be bothered to switch it out of a Bullet cup. That’s just another dish to wash though and the Bullet cup fits oh so nicely into the hand.

The contents of the three above smoothies vary slightly but include:
Chilled green tea, unsweetened almond milk, ice, large handful spinach, ~1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder, frozen strawberries, cinnamon, barley grass powder, xanthan gum (and maybe some guar), a bit of sweetener if needed.

 

Aside from smoothie binges, last night I chomped on a veggie burger on a slice of rye with dijon mustard, Laughing Cow cheese, sundried tomatoes and spinach.

016

Can we just focus on the faux grill lines for a second? Are they supposed to give some sense of real burger authenticity? It kind of makes me laugh…but I totally felt like I was eating a big juicy burger hot off the grill…or not quite.

036

It was even better that the real thing. Thumbs UP to veggie burgers.

DOUBLE thumbs up to Pita Pit. I hadn’t had a Pita Pit pita in ages but I finally had one again the other day. Isn’t it beautiful?

004

A babaganoush and vegetable-loaded bundle of joy: baba, romaine, red onions, pickles, hot peppers, tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, honey mustard.

010

 

Last night I was also in a baking mood so I baked granola!
Making granola is a little more like concocting than baking but it satisfied the urge and mom’s request for granola. Two birds, one stone.

I based mine off of this recipe, making a much smaller batch with the ingredients I had on hand.

057

My batch included:

Dry: 50 g rolled oats, 50 g quick oats, 10 g puffed rice cereal, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp sea salt
Wet: 1/4 cup applesauce , 2 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp packed brown sugar, 1/2 tbsp safflower oil, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Add-ins:1/4 cup chopped almonds and cashews, 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots, cranberries and raisins

Baked at 300 for 20 minutes without the fruit and nuts.
Then stirred and baked for another 30 minutes with the fruit and nuts.

This granola came out beautifully. Lightly sweetened, super crunchy, with some of those oh-so-coveted granola clumps in the mix.

Be sure to check out the original recipe, which breaks down all of the steps to a perfect batch of granola.

 

Still on the topic of baking, I was recently sent a bag of Emerald Forest Xyla brand Xylitol, an all-natural sugarless sweetener extracted from natural fibrous sources such as birch trees. It has the same sweetness as sugar with 40% less calories and 75% less carbs.

029

Considering it can be swapped 1 to 1 with sugar, I decided to try it out on a miniature batch of flourless peanut butter cookies: 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup Xyla, 1/4 egg (this was a little tricky).

024

Though they’re no substitute for the real thing, the Xylitol puts an interesting flavour spin on the cookie and they’re plenty sweet. I think I’d cut down on the Xylitol a bit when using it again as a swap for sugar in baking.

That being said, I finished off the last cookie last night atop a bed of plain yogurt, banana and peanut butter. Mmm. I’ll have to see what other good uses I can come up with for the Xyla. Ever used it? Any suggestions?

042

 

Wow, where did the morning go? I think it’s about time I get a move on…preferably not via driving, though I now also have a nice big chip in the windshield after a rock came shooting at me off the highway the other day. Swell. So I need to go get that repaired stat.

 

Do you drive? Are you crying right now because of it? Are these rising gas prices making you change or consider changing your driving habits?

I sure am less motivated to want to go out anywhere. And I’m definitely trying to figure out how I can use bicycle transportation more often. Sadly I live in the burbs so everyone and everything is a bit of a hike out of the way. Otherwise I’d be doing a lot more walking to where I need to go! Motorized shoes perhaps?

 

*Don’t forget to enter my Tuesday Tea Giveaway!

THANK YOU all many many times over for the lovely birthday wishes. Each and every one brightened my day :)

As earlier mentioned, I baked my own cake. None of that store-bought business. Baking my own cake was a treat in itself.

I had some healthy fare before immersing myself in sugar.

199

Typically my birthday cake of choice involves some kind of chocolate. This year I decided to do something different. So I opted for Carrot Cake. Yeah right? A carrot cake for my birthday cake? I never even used to like carrot cake when I was younger. But I was feeling carrot cake so I went with it.

Best decision ever.

This Cooking Light Carrot Cake with Toasted Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting was the star recipe. The 2007 Dessert Category Winner with an ‘outstanding’ rating, I figured this would be a great one to go with. And truly outstanding it was. It was unanimously voted by my fam as one of the best carrot cakes we’ve ever tried.

Pre-decoration

202

Post-decoration – This is about as good as my cake-decorating skills get ;)

227 214

But this wasn’t eaten until after dinner.

I’m a big fan of Greek cuisine so for dinner we went to my favourite little local Greek restaurant, Mediterraneo.

 I opted for the Roasted Vegetable Pita but was admittedly disappointed when it arrived with no tzaziki. The menu said it would have tzaziki and I love tzaziki, which is partially why I opted for the pita in the first place. Instead the vegetables were in some kind of sweet teriyaki-like sauce. I wasn’t digging it. My super brother saved my dinner though by going to the front and asking for some for me. I then tzazikied up my veggies and all was fixed. Sort of. I still wasn’t digging the sweet sauce that coated the veggies, but it tasted a bit better blended with the tzaziki. The greek side salad was great right off the bat though.

290 297

I also had a couple bites of my brother’s seafood fettuccine in alfredo sauce. It was good but the sauce was really rich. A bit too rich. I scoffed at him after for not opting for the marinara instead.

292

After dinner was when the real eat treat took place… Cake time!

283

You know there’s no way I finished the night off with only one small piece of the best carrot cake EVER. So I had another small sliver. And another.
We polished this cake off in a day. Luckily it was small. I wish there was another birthday coming up soon because I really want an excuse to make this cake again.

And for now, I will leave the birthday there.

 

Yesterday (Thursday) was a day full of me “working” on a project that I had to hand in today. I didn’t go to any of my classes so that I could spend the whole day doing a good job on it. And yet… somehow I ended up wasting half the day avoiding doing it. I’d sit down, write a bit… then obviously think of something better to do and wander away from my work “just for a bit”. Yeah RIGHT. I think I need to start leaving the house when I need to get work done. Where do you do your school work? Home? School? A library? A coffee shop? A friend’s house? I get way too easily distracted at home.

I did a lot of procrastination munching yesterday:

Superpower proteined pumpkin

006

Even greater superpower leftover cake. This happened a couple times throughout the day.

013127

Finishing off the Puuuuffins.

027

Tuna mixed with FF sour cream and dijonnaise + the obligatory veggies.

022

Fresh incredible Greek Feta and Bruschetta. Heck yes. I ate these on ~1/2 an amazingly fresh Montreal style bagel, the best kind.

091 094

A random whatever’s in the fridge salad

112

Frozen fruit plate

137

Cereal bowl

141

I think I may have had a couple other snacks last night too. My hunger would not go away!

I’ll have to post today’s eat tomorrow since I don’t have the pics uploaded and I don’t have the camera near me. How’s that for feeling lazy.

Speaking of lazy though, I was not being lazy while testing out my new Polar Heart Rate Monitor! I wrote the stats from the past few days out somewhere… I’ll try to remember to get stats down here from future runs but the three I’ve done so far with the Polar have been great! I love it. And I was actually pleasantly surprised to discover that my treadmill calorie counter is pretty darn accurate since it was nearly right on par with my heart rate monitor readings. So my fear of always burning way less than I thought I was based on the treadmill readings from past runs was squashed. Neato.

 

I’m super behind on keeping up on all of your lovely blogs and on commenting. School strikes yet again. I have a bit of a reprieve for the next couple weeks before exams start though. Still lots of reading and a few small assignments to get done but I should have more time to catch up on all of your lives. I’m so blog reading deprived so I can’t wait to get down to some serious blog reading.

And on a final note, check out Tina’s Pure Bar Giveaway!

What should I be doing right now? Reading up on Mood Disorders for my Abnormal Psych midterm on Tuesday. What am I doing instead? Cropping pictures. My concentration level is zilch, I get distracted so easily!

Saturday

Saturday I worked all day. I hadn’t been to work in two weeks because I work for my dad and he was in Barbados so… no work for me. No Barbados for me either but such is life right? I went a few years ago though. It was awesome. I think it would be even more awesome for me now though. I experienced a bit of culture shock my first round there and, well, I spent a good chunk of my time there slightly on the nervous side to say the least. This time around though I would know what to expect. Barbados here I come?! One of these days…

ANYWAY, yeah, I worked all day Saturday.

First I ate breakfast though. Blended oats made with water, almond milk and banana. Never fails to disappoint. I also ended up having half an orange after this but I was too lazy to take a picture and who really doesn’t know what an orange looks like right?

073

For a snack at work I brought a Luna Bar flavour I had never tried: Caramel Nut Brownie.

015

The flavours I have tried thus far have been fair but I wasn’t in love with any of them. This one, however, blew them all right outta the water.

022

The smell alone is incredible. The aroma of chocolate and caramel hits you immediately upon cracking open the wrapper. Who needs brownies? This is all you need. I can’t wait to try this flavour heated up next time.

Lunch was hardly thrilling. A salad, Mediterranean flavoured cottage cheese and an apple. Plus a couple pieces of my brother’s grocery store sushi.

042 045

There were some Quality Street Chocolates at work so I took one for the road at the end of the day.

052 063

I didn’t know what flavour this was but Wikipedia tells me the pink wrapper is Vanilla Fudge. I believe it. This was one lovely little chocolate.

When I got home this little creation made it’s way into my stomach for dinner.

079

What’s in the mysterious caterpillar-like lump on my plate? (It actually looks more like a maggot to me but caterpillars invoke a slightly less disgusting image…)

086

Chicken, iceberg lettuce and honey mustard!! Okay I know, that’s actually not exciting at all but it sure TASTED great.

Then I ate this apple strawberry for kicks. Strawberries as big as my hand? Yes please!

096

Saturday night was dancing. I’m getting my groove back! I’ve been so dancing deprived all winter. Gotta catch up!

Sunday

Today was supposed to be a study-filled day but my friend wanted to go shopping and I hadn’t seen her in a while and, well, I really wanted to shop because I haven’t done that in a while either. There’s always all night to study… ehem.

Anyway, shopping clearly won out. It was a little disappointing as I hardly found anything I really wanted but at least my wallet wasn’t aching too badly after.

I got some workout gear at Old Navy. On sale of course. If it’s not on sale it’s not for me. At least when it comes to Old Navy because you can guarantee that clothing item you love will be on sale a couple weeks down the road. I can wait.

 

016

And some FOOD purchases of course.

012

Peanut Butter PUFFINS! Maranatha Crunchy Almond Butter (on sale!), three Larabar flavours I’ve never tried (Cherry Pie, Lemon and Apple Pie) and my new favourite Luna flavour.

I tried the almond butter. I’ll admit though, I had higher expectations for it. I’ve never tried similar to this one in taste before and I found it a little weird… I don’t know what it is exactly. I think it needs to grow on me a bit.

Backtracking to before my shopping trip, for breakfast I had an egg white mess (egg whites, salsa, spinach, FF swiss) on half an english muffin and a gigantor strawberry with vanilla yogurt.

002 003

Post-shop I threw together a quick late lunch of iceberg lettuce, dill pickles, carrots, guacamole, hummus, leftover baked tofu and leftover chickpea salad.

021

I also had an apple.

Dinner was a new experiment: Stuffed Peppers.
There was this tasty looking recipe in a pamphlet thing we picked up at the grocery store so we decided to give it a try. We followed it pretty much exactly except we used minute rice and didn’t really precook it rather than using already prepared rice. This was probably a bad idea. The whole thing turned out quite dry. I don’t think the recipe in general is all that great either since this dish wasn’t all that flavourful and it only called for 15 minutes in the oven, which doesn’t result in the most tender of peppers.

029

My mother was sorely disappointed with this meal. Me? I kind of loved it. Hey, I’m no picky eater. I thought the crunch of the undercooked rice was fun to eat and topped with some salsa and sour cream, this pepper was a winner in my books. I guess the leftovers are all mine! We did put the rest of the peppers back in the oven though and cooked them for an hour to cook up the rice and make the peppers nice and mushy.

While I was shopping earlier I also bought some easter egg malted milk balls at Bulk Barn. 35 cents worth. I know, big spender. You can get a good solid handful for 35 cents though! And I ate them ALL. I didn’t quite intend to but those little crunchy chocolatey goodies are kind of irresistable.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 79 other followers