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Roots For Soup

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

I’m sad to report that I only have one oatmeal picture to post. Eating breakfast at the office isn’t conducive to nice photographs. Or maybe even permitted photographs… hmmm…

I did step up my game though! I used to make a few servings of steel cut oats in the evening, put them in separate containers in the fridge, and then add a bit of water to them at work, heat and eat. A few of you reminded me of this possibility (my brain is not functioning post-Christmas) so that’s what I’ve done this week. Steel cut oats are a nice change for gooey, rubbery office oatmeal.

I Eat

Breakfast was enjoyed at my kitchen table yesterday, Scottish oatmeal style.

Topped with unsweetened snow + slivered almonds + cranberry mix + pumpkin seeds + almond butter.

I’ve had a few tasty dinners lately.

This was champagne chicken pasta leftovers that I added kale + weird looking mushrooms to before it went to my tummy.

This poor quality pic is of a random dinner I threw together while rummaging through my fridge, feeling totally uninspired and about three seconds away from calling Swiss Chalet.

The picture does it no justice. This supper was awesome!

I sauteed onion + celery until it got soft, added in some tomato + corn and a can of salmon. I seasoned it with some mixed salmon seasoning, threw it on basmati rice and declared victory over uninspired moments in the kitchen.

Yep, balancing on a couch arm. No formality here.

Tonight supper was another winner winner (no chicken dinner!).

I needed to use up some of the root veggies I have lying around from the farm delivery. The best way to do that is by making soup, of course.

So here’s what you do if you find yourself with an abundance of vegetables that are soup-worthy:

Sautee 2 small chopped yellow onions and 2 chopped celery stalks in some EVOO and let them soften, about 8 minutes
Add one box (or two small cans) of chicken broth, a couple cups of water, and six or 7 cups of chopped vegetables

I used parsnips + carrots + sweet potato + new potatoes + odd white things that remain a mystery

Bring it to a bowl, then reduce the heat and let it all get mushy – that takes about 25 minutes
Mash it with a potato masher, or use a hand blender to make it smooth, if you prefer
If you love fall flavours, add cinnamon + ground nutmeg + ground cloves to taste. I just eyeballed it and gave it a few tastes.
Add salt + pepper to taste

This was easy, yummy and makes tons of leftovers.

Enjoyed with a side of GF brown bread + Laughing Cow cheese, all placed improperly on a placement, because that’s how I keep it real…

I see soup in my future’s crystal ball for many days ahead.

I Move

Monday – hello Monday, hello early gym time. I was at the gym before work to do some cardio split between the bike and the elliptical. It was pretty dull. I finished up with a couple minuts of abs and called it a work out.

Tuesday – hot yoga night. The NYE resolution folks are out in full force, which meant there were probably 15 extra bodies in the room, which left everyone doing an awkward mat shuffle before class started. That cut into my pre-class nap. It was a great workout though, with a couple new poses thrown in.

Wednesday – back to see Jim this morning for about 40 minutes on the treadmill. At yoga last night during dancer’s pose, the teacher said “have fun with this, don’t take yourself so seriously, and that can help”. I remembered that on the treadmill this morning and it made running feel (somewhat) easier. Nothing too strenuous today.

Tomorrow is surely a rest day. I think I’ve finally got my workout routine sorted out.

I think it’s tea time!

Goodnight!
Adi

Posted in Breakfast, Dinner, Gym, Recipe, Yoga | 5 Comments »

Popped Corn

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

You know it’s been cold out when –12 C feels warm. Eeek. It’s been around –30 C with the wind chill (that’s -22 F) the last couple of days.

I will not complain. I will not complain. I will not complain…

I Eat

I have no pretty oat pictures, again. More breakfasts at my desk! I’ve been microwaving 1/2 c. oats + water + toppings after my workout. My pre-gym snack is always 1/2 nan + nut butter.

Today was a Saturday breakfast. Saturday breakfasts are among my favourite things in life – just behind my bed. As a working gal, I love them way more than I ever did in school.

Some Bob’s Red Mill GF pancakes. I topped them with flax seeds + coconut + sliced almonds and dipped them in hidden plain yogurt + pure maple syrup.

Backing up to Tuesday, I had a decent breakfast before work. On Tuesdays, yoga is in the evening so I can eat at home in the morning.

An egg white omelette with shoots + red onion + mushroom + Italian seasoning and on the side, GF toasts + grapefruit.

I. Love. Breakfast.

Suppers have been pretty ordinary.

Roasted acorn squash + tofu + kale + brown rice + raisins.

This was all seasoned with olive oil + cinnamon + pumpkin pie spice. The kitchen smelled like Thanksgiving after this.

And leftovers for lunch the next day. Yippee!

I had some delicious Vietnamese with a friend on Wednesday. Yummy.

An open-faced tuna sandwich made its way to my tummy for supper this week, too.

Nothing says weekend like tuna + baby carrots.

I snacked on 100 pounds of popcorn while I made Christmas treats for my friends!

Check out my kitchen table – and multiply this by two:

I used this recipe to make caramel corn but decreased the butter to 1/2 cup and used manuka honey instead of corn syrup. I added cranberries + sliced almonds to make this Christmas-ey.

After a couple hours, a very sticky kitchen and popcorn in my hair, I had it all packaged.

So much popcorn.

I did manage a real dinner tonight, but it was kind of blah. Just a mix of roasted veggies + tofu + basmati rice. I seasoned it with olive oil + red wine vinegar + thyme + s n’ p.

Dessert more than made up for a lacklustre dinner! I microwaved a chopped apple for about a minute and topped it with plain yogurt + granola + raisins.

And cue the bloated tummy!

Tummy, Untamed

Lately, I’ve been eating a lot. I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been so snacky – and I mean, really, really snacky – and then I realized it must be from working out more often. And the weather. When it gets cold, I want to curl up on the couch with a big bowl of _____ and mange, mange, mange. Time to pull in the reigns again! And eat more protein during the day. That always helps too, especially if I’ve worked out earlier that morning.

I Move

Tuesday – sweated out the day in hot yoga. Lovely.

Wednesday – early morning with Jim. Just a treadie day.

Thursday – back to the gym first thing to do twenty minutes of cardio split between the bike and the stair master. Okay, I confess: I can’t figure out the stair master. It never feels natural. Can anyone else relate to that?! Anyway, I did about 10 minutes of weights before I realized I needed to get ready for work.

Friday – ugggh, and one last morning at the gym. Forty minutes of cardio split between the bike and the treadie.

Saturday – after the snacky day, I was craving a good sweat session. I went to the gym I haven’t been to in awhile and did the hour of power split between the treadie and the elliptical.

Posted in Breakfast, Dinner, Gym, Recipe, Yoga | 4 Comments »

Spitty

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Have you ever tried to do something, hoping you can pull it off and make it look natural, but it doesn’t end up going as planned?

I was heading out on a run and I could feel a fuzzy thing in my mouth. I will spit it out on the grass beside me and look all business, shooting spit as I gear up to go.

The plan backfired.

I spit all over my leg.

That never looks cool, and sure doesn’t look natural.

Note to self: don’t try to be a spitter when you’re not.

I Eat

One thing I can do is make oats that fill up a tummy.

Check out my new Christmas bowl! My mom sent this to me for my birthday. Who knew La Senza has moved into the dish market?

Toppings on this oat bran were all over the place: t-mix + bluebs + raspberries + peanut butter.

Not to be out done, the next day’s oat bran took toppings to a whole new level.

Pom seeds + pumpkin seeds + bluebs + cacao nibs + peanut butter.

It would appear that the butter trumped all other oat toppers.

That’s a big blob.

And Saturday’s oats, double the fun. A friend came over for brekkie so I doubled the usual ingredients for oats: 1 c. oats + 1 c. almond milk + 1 c. water + 1 whole nan.

Friend’s bowl:

My lame bowl:

Today’s bowl of oats was in the American Thanksgiving spirit. Lots of the American food blogs have been loaded with pictures of delicious food lately, so I decided to make an impromptu sugar-free cranberry sauce yesterday with leftover berries from an apple/cranberry/pecan crisp I brought to a friend’s last night for dinner. Well, the crisp wasn’t dinner.

But imagine if that was an appropriate main course! Half the world’s problems would be solved if we all ate apple crisp as an entree on a regular basis.

Simple toppings, just cranberry sauce + slivered almonds + peanut butter.

How to make a small amount of the sauce?

Boil 1/2 c. water + 1/3 c. Splenda until it’s bubbling.
Add about 1/2 a small package fresh cranberries and let the mixture come back to a boil.
Reduce heat, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
Take it off the heat, let it cool, and store it in the fridge.

Only one lunch to post – other lunches have been at work and today I was at East Side Mario’s for an impromptu lunch with some church peeps, and found myself cameraless. How exciting is a chunk of chicken to look at, anyway?

Yesterday’s lunch needed some rah-rah. I found that excitement in an ancient butternut squash in our potato drawer. Really, I can’t even remember when I bought the thing, and I like to think my memory is decent.

So that’s scary.

I roasted it with some extra virgin olive oil + cinnamon and thought it tasted A-okay. I still have all ten fingers.

On top of some spinach + green onions and sprinkled with pom seeds + balsamic vinegar and a bit of S n’ P.

And a side of GF toast + laughing cow fromage.

Suppers? Mostly MIA.

Salmon salad + GF bread + baby spinach + tom slices.

And green beans because they were seeing their final days.

One another dinner was a pathetic Sandwich Supper with yellow-tinged photographs.

Yellow-tinged photographs look like they should smell weird. Do you know what I mean? They’ve been vetoed.

Last night’s dinner was a great meal at a friend’s place. In addition to delicious gluten-free food, the company was entertaining and I might have had too much fun. Getting up early this morning was painful. Good thing I could hear the oats calling from the kitchen.

Now, here’s a sample of the highlight from the last few days:

A friend baked me sugar-free, GF brownies and they. are. divine.

Umm, they were divine. I ploughed through half a large pan in two days. Am I embarrassed? No, because if you tasted them and hadn’t eaten a brownie in over a year, I’m sure you would have done that too! Unless you have self control, which I clearly don’t have, but that’s for another post. So, so delish.

It makes me sad to look at those pictures and know they are gone. The good news? My friend had brownie mix left over so I not only got plenty of brownies, I have the mix to make more!

Dangerous.

I Move

Thursday – off to see Jim after work. I did 10 minutes on the bike to warm up and then headed to the free weights for an unenergetic twenty minutes. What a lazy workout! I was annoyed with myself for not putting in any effort. So, I walked home from the gym. It was a mild night, so nice for November, and I had my home church that evening. Solution to a sad workout? Make up for it later! After walking back from the gym and eating a quick supper, I pumped up my tires and biked the few kilometres to and from home church. It felt awesome and even though it started raining on my way back, I think I was smiling the whole way … I’ve been missing my bike! Exercise intention fulfilled.

Friday – a good run on the treadie. Heading to the gym right after work on Fridays can be tough, but it’s always a choice I’m glad I made. It gets the weekend started right!

Saturday – I jogged a short 2 km to the office gym (I think I need to go back to see my other Jim for a change…) and did some core + chest weight training. It was focused and logical movement – and left me hurting the next morning, in a good way. I jogged back home.

Sunday – I hadn’t planned on doing anything today because I am tired. All of a sudden, I just felt like going outside and doing a short run. Why? I don’t know, I don’t question these things, I just go with it. I had a snacky, munchy afternoon and it’s easy for me to reign that in if I go work out. Also cool? It was my first evening run in a really long time and I got to see Christmas lights in the neighbourhood. It was nice.

I was also chased by a dog the size of my foot named Champagne. He (she?) tried to bite my ankles and I almost clomped on its little paws. Its owners were chasing her down the road. Oh Champagne, bad little puppy.

Time to find something to eat for supper… maybe I’ll just have something snacky…

Have a great week!
Adi

Posted in Bike, Breakfast, Dinner, Gym, Lunch, Oatmeal, Recipe, Running, Walk | 4 Comments »

Banished From The Kitchen

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

The only things certain in life are death and taxes… – Ben Franklin

… and that I can’t control my greedy appetite around delicious food. - Adi

Sunday’s sushi gorging is a perfect example – put me in a situation where I can eat a lot of something delicious, and I will. I don’t have the off switch… or it’s permanently jammed in the “on” position.

This is the same as having treats in the house. If I have a bag of dates in the cupboard, I will eat them. Right away. At once. So, I stopped buying them.

My general rule of thumb now is if I can’t stop eating it, I can’t buy it. It’s a pretty harsh commandment, but one day, I’m sure I’ll be able to control my date-ing and won’t consider AYCE sushi a physical personal challenge.

I think Heather posted about this ages ago, specifically about having sugar around the house. If it wasn’t your blog, my bad! Some witty blogger posted about it and I remembering agreeing whole heartedly. Some of us lack control, that’s all.

I Eat

As a direct result of the sushi chaos on Sunday, breakfast on Monday was packed up and brought to the office so I could eat it when I actually felt like there was room in my stomach again.

I had (1/3 c.) overnight oats soaked in some pomegranate applesauce and topped with half a nan + + peanut butter + trail mix.

The oats are buried under the topping bonanza.

Bananza?

Tuesday’s oat bran was topped with alien brains + snow (read: pecans + unsweetened coconut).

I also had some pumpkin seed butter for the first time. It’s alright. Didn’t rock my world but I’ve had worse butters.

Today’s oats did make my day off (happy Remembrance Day!) even better. Yep, another old peanut butter jar saved for this one.

Smelly gym shoes make for great scene setting.

New oats addition today – the great cacao nib. Why I thought they would melt, I’m not sure. They stayed kind of crunchy, and with the almonds, there was a lot of chew going on. And yet, I was loving this 1/2 c. oats + almond milk + cinnamon + 1/2 nan + peanut butter galore.

If anyone wants to send me their used nut butter jars that have just a bit of the good stuff in them, I will gladly take them off your hands.

Work lunches have been boring salads + chicken + chickpeas and various snacky stuff. One of these days, my work lunches will be brilliant, it just won’t be any day soon.

Today’s lunch was good though, because I got to eat at home and not at my cubicle! Wooo!

Shaking things up with an open-faced avocado + bacon (!) + toms sammy and a side of carrots.

So scrumptious. Then I made a big apple crisp for my church peeps for tomorrow, but decided that every apple needed to be sampled. I taste-tested each apple core for quality control.

Quality was controlled. I got a tummy ache. Too much apple.

Monday’s supper was awesome. Yes! Curried cauliflower + chickpeas.

Here’s what I did:

sautee a diced onion in extra virgin olive oil
add half a cauliflower head, broken into small pieces
add 1 tbsp. curry powder (my curry powder is old, so it’s not very strong – this may be too much for some!)
after about five minutes, add 1/2 c. chickpeas and a handful of raisins
squirt in a couple squirts of lemon juice and add a sprinkle of sea salt
let everything warm through, then serve on brown rice

Mmmm. And I have leftovers! This was tasty.

Last night`s supper was thrown together fast because I was starving after yoga. It was a basic baked chicken + stir fried veggie + basmati rice meal.

Yes, I was really hungry.

Tonight’s supper starts with an S. It ends with an I. It’s an addiction that’s costing me my life savings.

Yes, you guessed it, so let’s move right along! (Ohh but it was fabulous. I love Sushi 88, really.)

I Move

Monday – Jim did not call me, so I did a home workout instead. Sometimes the thought of being in the gym just won’t cut it. I did an upper body workout with some free weights. It was a good half hour of hurting my muscles.

Tuesday – sweat fest. I missed hot yoga. Last week, the fevers were all the heat I could handle, so I was excited to get back to the studio. It was a new teacher and her style was a bit different, but in a good way. Good stretching all around.

Wednesday – with the day off work, I started the morning with the gym – okay, oats, then gym. I just did the elliptical and about five minutes of weights before I had to chase down the bus.

Back to work tomorrow for two days and then the weekend! A mid-week holiday is really, really weird. I keep think it’s Saturday but it’s only the worst day of the week. But now it’s over! And tomorrow I donèt have time to squeeze in any exercise, so it’s a rest day, too.

Be back soon…

Adi

PS – thanks for all the congratulations on the Zesty makeover! I’m pumped to see how it will turn out…

Posted in Breakfast, Dinner, Gym, Home Workout, Lunch, Oatmeal, Recipe, Restaurant, Yoga | 4 Comments »

Pumpoat Cakes And Other Unusual Eats

Monday, October 19th, 2009

For a weekend that started out with a fever, nausea and a wonky head, it ended up a good one!

I Eat Sushi

One of the highlights was AYCE sushi at a restaurant I had yet to visit, Totoya. They only offer AYCE on Friday and Saturday, and it’s no throw-the-paper-at-the-server-as-fast-as-you-can-so-you-can-get-sushi-quickly kind of place. Instead, the server comes to your table with a big box, and in each box there are two kinds of rolls. You tell her how many pieces you would like, and she puts them on your plate.

This is awesome because it feels fancy.

This is not awesome because another person very much witnesses how much sushi I can pack away. This is not a good thing, as only close friends should have to see such a show.

Anyway, if you’re in the market (literally, it’s in the Byward Market downtown, Ottawa) for a new sushi experience, check this place out. For standard maki rolls, they were really tasty.

I Eat Other Things

Scanning through my pictures of breakfasts, I realized they weren’t the norm. How’s this for a Friday?

An egg + spinach sammy and some orange hunks. I really wasn’t feeling the oats. You know those days when you just feel… like you need a change? Luckily for me, this never goes beyond changes in breakfast. Gigantic life changes don’t normally hit me in the shower like a change in the breakfast menu does.

On Saturday, another strange breakfast made an appearance – but by strange, I mean best-ever.

What is this? Pumpoat Pancakes!

Here’s the how-to, somewhat based on Kath’s oatmeal pancake recipe: mix generous 1/3 c. oats + 1/3 c. pumpkin + 1 egg + pinch salt + pumpkin pie spice + sprinkle pumpkin seeds + 1/2 tsp-ish baking powder. Drop chunks of batter onto a greased pan – I did about 3 weird shaped blobs. Flatten them with a spoon so they’re, well, flatter.

Flip them before they start burning.

When they’re done, you’ll know. Trust me, you just will. It’s around the time when you’re considering eating them straight off the pan because your kitchen smells delicious and your stomach is rumbling.

I topped mine with heated blackberry jam and then later added maple syrup.

These tasted good, despite feeling rotten. Now, desperate times call for desperate measures – I bailed on a group hike and went back to bed for a couple more hours. You know the drill… “listen to your body.” Seemed to work… I feel pretty normal now.

Today, back to the yoush. (That’s phonetically typed – say it out loud and that’s the short form for “usual”. If I typed “us” that just wouldn’t make sense. Oui?)

This was 1/2 c. oat bran + 1 c. water + 1/2 c. almond milk + 1/2 nan + cinnamon + raisins + granola + peanut butter.

Some other eats of the weekend…

Reason #26151 why I’m not a vegetarian – Mom’s spaghetti sauce.

And here’s tonight’s supper that fits with the unusual eats theme today:

It’s unusual because it contains this:

Generally, perfect blocks are reserved for game winning Tetris pieces or Jello jigglers. I don’t associate them with supper. But, I busted out the pack of tofu after talking to a friend about the mysterious protein source last night… which reminds me…

Interruption! A photo of last night’s dinner is missing, as I was out on the town for some girly fun at Shanghai, a restaurant in Ottawa that serves up Chinese food, karaoke and one faaaaab-ulous character affectionately named Chinadoll. I had the bean curd soup which wasn’t very good and surely wasn’t worth the 12 bucks, but, I had an awesome time anyway!

Interruption over!

I took little potatoes + brussels sprouts + onion + carrots + tofu and tossed it in extra virgin olive oil + sea salt + maple syrup and roasted it at 400F for about an hour. The syrup is key and I like to eat blocks now. Talk about cheap protein! I ate this with a gluten-free biscuit.

I Move

Friday – because it was so nice out, I decided to run after work. I did a nice 5k and worked up an appetite for the gluttony I know as sushi.

Saturday – illness + exercise = more illness. No sweating for me, except from fever breakage.

Sunday – feeling better, I was craving fresh air. Do you ever feel that way, after you’ve been cooped up inside, that the only thing that will make you feel great is getting outside? And then when you’re out there, you never want to go back inside? That was today. I did a slow, relaxed but awesome 8k run along the canal. I didn’t push myself, took walking breaks – and even a washroom break at my old school campus (yucky to be back on campus). Note to self: do not drink a pot of tea before running. I carried water with me for the first time, and although holding a sloshing water bottle was annoying at first, switching it between hands was starting to feel, I don’t know, methodical, by the end. It was a super run (I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve said that – and I’m referring to the hand of a person who only has three fingers).

Time to kiss the weekend goodbye and get ready for another week. Luckily, the weekend always shows up at the same time every week, so it won’t be long until it’s back again… right?

Adi

Posted in Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, Oatmeal, Recipe, Running | 8 Comments »

Archive for the ‘Recipe’ Category

Roots For Soup

I Eat

I Move

Popped Corn

I Eat

Tummy, Untamed

I Move

Spitty

I Eat

I Move

Banished From The Kitchen

I Eat

I Move

Pumpoat Cakes And Other Unusual Eats

I Eat Sushi

I Eat Other Things

I Move

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Archive for the ‘Recipe’ Category

Roots For Soup

I Eat

I Move

Popped Corn

I Eat

Tummy, Untamed

I Move

Spitty

I Eat

I Move

Banished From The Kitchen

I Eat

I Move

Pumpoat Cakes And Other Unusual Eats

I Eat Sushi

I Eat Other Things

I Move

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