Prepared

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. I went out to enjoy the sunshine.

I also picked up some of this.

Yep I decided to go with Almond milk for the vegan for a week challenge. In fact I’m having some right now in my oatmeal. Verdict? Surprisingly sweet.

Some notes on going vegan next week:

I have a class that involves eating a variety of foods cooked in the class. This food lab is not entirely vegan friendly, and because I think it’s important I participate fully I will not be following the vegan plan that night…

But other than that I should be fully vegan.

Also my coffee and sugar free February is going awesome. I’m drinking black or green tea mostly, I’m now down to one cup a day from two. It’s been going well.

On another note I had a delicious lunch yesterday:

It was a salad of thinly slice cucumber (I used a peeler), grated carrots, raisins, with a Tofu Caesar dressing (Would be vegan except for the anchovy paste) and sprinkled with sesame seeds. I think it could be easily veganized though, by replacing the anchovy paste with something else sort of salty and umame in taste.

Well I have such a busy day ahead of me, I have to get going on it! But I promise many a post on my vegan week ahead.

Recipe and Review

hmmm, a couple treats for you guys today! A review and a recipe! Ohhhhh I know!

So first up is a product review. Back when I was beyond busy and couldn’t do anything but pretty much cry because, well, I was that busy, the lovely folks at Dempster’s sent me some of their new products to review…

   

Oven Fresh Baguettes
- Come in packs of 2 loaves. Either multigrain or white. They’re partially baked when you buy them from the super market, and then you bake them for 8min (or 12 if they’re frozen) for a feeling of a fresh baked baguette with your meal.

I do enjoy them, and they freeze well, so for those of us who want something a little fresh but don’t have the time for bread, or aren’t patient when we have that fresh-bread craving, these work really well!

Of course I wanted to do something fun with at least one loaf before I reviewed them, but couldn’t think of anything. Then my teammates suggested a get together before our race on Sunday and while I was thinking of what to bring, this popped into my head:

Apple, Spinach and Cinnamon Crouton Salad

 

I started by baking up the bread: (From raw to baked)
  
While that was happening I tossed the following into a bowl:

• 3-4c spinach
• 1/4c raisins
• 1/4c chopped up almonds (could toast these if you want, I didn’t and it was good)
• 2-3 apples
  

In a seperate microwaveable I mixed:

• 1.5tbsp margarine, melted
• 1tsp (or so) cinnamon
• 1/4tsp nutmeg, or other spices that go with cinnamon
• 1tbsp (or just under) sugar
  

When the bread was out of the oven and had cooled for a while I chopped it up into croutons:
 
I then dumped these into the bowl with the cinnamon/margarine mixture and tossed and stirred until they were coated. Popped them back in the over (in an oven friendly tray of course!) for 3-5min… And then onto the salad and voila! A delicious salad for any meal.

This served 4 people as a side dish.

It’s a very “flexible” salad, and number of toppings would do; but everyone loved the croutons. They were sort of like mini cinnamon bun bits on a salad. Yum!

Work It

I’m sad to say that I didn’t pick up anything interesting on Boxing Day. Oh well. But I actually don’t really have the money to be buying anything, so it’s probably better this way.

Yesterday I went skiing snowboarding at Sun Peaks. It was a gorgeous day. Kamloops was well hidden beneath low clouds, but the mountain was up high, above the gray. My parents and I hit the slopes until my legs were begging me to stop. It was great.

I’ve actually remained pretty active this holiday, and since I’m not exhausted from school the workouts get a lot of my energy. I like working out when I’m at home, because it’s usually time for me to get away from everyone. Sounds so evil doesn’t it? But living away from home, I’m not used to having people (who I love dearly) around me 24/7, so it’s nice to just get away from everyone for an hour or a bit.

Workouts I’ve done since being home:

• Running (outside on hills)
• Weird at home workout inspired by Fit Chick in the City
• At the gym: (just an example)
  10min bike
  arms (2 different exercises such as curls, or bench press)
  10min bike
  2 new arm exercises(not the above)
  10min on treadmill
  legs (squats)
  10min on treadmill
  abs (for about 5min or the length of a song)
  stretch
• A couple of 20 min yoga classes from yogadownload.com

A couple of my gifts this Christmas were fitness oriented:

Wintertrax, for running in the snow. Gloves, and a yoga block. yay!

Also, just because, here a couple more of my gifts. The story behind this is, I love eating BIG SALADS. Lots of green, with lots of toppings. yum. yum. But I don’t have any big enough salad bowls at home. So I asked my brother for a nice big salad bowl. He got me one:

And he got me this:

Yep. That’s a dog bowl. We definitely had a good laugh. I guess he went to Homesense, and they just throw everything all over the place in that store, but the bottom definitely says accessories for your pet. Oh well, it’s clean, so it should be good to eat out of, right?

Alright, I’m off to find stuff to do. Can you believe I’m getting bored and want to get back to school???

Preparing

Sometimes I like to get ahead of myself and be ready for later on:

A beet x 3.

Some toppings":

Tossed, stirred, onto a baking sheet, into the oven for 35ish minutes.

A little crispy maybe, but ready for a salad or for heating up and eating! Or just munching straight from the container.

My weekend has been good, haven’t done much homework, but that’s what Sundays are for! I had a volunteer session yesterday, cooking for families at a neighborhood house. We made a curry squash soup, and a delicious salad. Plus there was some super good bread.

I also went to a little social held in Res this morning staring oatmeals and smoothies! So blog appropriate, but I forgot my camera at home! Oh well, next time!

Summer Day

Today has been an average summer day. I began with breakfast, Wasa crackers and almond butter, looked at blogs, worked on learning about blogging, and overall lazyness.

I then set out for a run around 10. Unfortunately I’ve had a weird calf pain, like a tightness, that I can’t run through, so it turned into a walk instead. I walked for 1:04:53, a decent walk to make up for my run I think.

I took pictures of my lunch:

This grand salad had chickpeas, cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, red onion, red pepper, and carrots. Yummy.
Followed by dessert, an apple and a spoonful of peanut butter, . A delicious lunch.

I then went and bought some groceries for some baking I will be doing today and tomorrow. I’m goin on an overnight hike with my dad and brother and we need some nice dense energy foods to bring with us. I’ll try and remember to take some photos of those.

Well I don’t have much else to add today, I’m mostly just trying to feel my way into this blogging world, we’ll see how it goes.