Breaking Up With the Food Rut

Summer tends to throw these food rut things at me. Maybe it’s the more frequent access to the fridge and thus the more incessant snacking that does it. Or it could be the darn hot hot heat making its contribution to wacky appetites. Whatever it is, the past little while has been quite food rutted and I haven’t been enjoying nearly anything I’ve been eating. How unfun is that?

Well, this past week I’ve started to chip away at this silly rut and the fun of food has started to make a comeback.

One tried and true method to kicking the food rut to the curb is digging into the million mile deep pile of blogland recipes and giving them life. I save recipes at a rate 10x(+add about three zeros to that) that at which I actually make them. I put a dust speck-sized dent in the pile though during my still ongoing food rut breakup this week.

 

It all started with a waffle.

Okay so this isn’t even remotely a recipe (most especially since the waffle was of the boxed variety – Red Berry!) but it was blog-inspired. My waffles are typically topped with banana, yogurt, maple syrup… that kinda jazz. THIS one was topped with laughing cow paired with raspberry jam, a combo that has seen many people’s stomachs, but never my own. Until now. Take that food rut.

Feeling oh-so-inspired already, that same fated day of waffle wonder had me also whipping up a smaller version of raw chocolate cake. (I may have squeezed a ridic amount of walnutty oil out of the ball of chocolate wonder before containering it. It was messy business.)

 

And this snack plate, although seemingly innocent and a weakling in the battle against the food rut, hides its strength in those sushi rolls, which came from COSTCO. My first try of Costco sushi? Definitely strong enough to dent up the food rut.

And speaking of Costco, it continued its role in detrutifying my palate with its Kirkland brand marinated chicken skewers. From grill to stomach, summer meals are looking up.

Come to think of it, new food products are always good to break up the everyday food monotony (thanks Captain Obvious?).

Like the moment when I finally broke into my first bag of Kay’s Naturals White Cheddar Cheese Kruncheeze which I received a little while ago but was saving for the right circumstances (such as the current food rut). OH MY. I am so glad I still have four various bags of this stuff left and yet so sad that I have yet to see it around here. SO addicting.

Or the moment when I discovered my first 100 calorie sandwich thins here in Canada (technically they’re 110 but who’s counting).

Or the moment when I arrived home late evening after a day trip out of town (which was yesterday) and hadn’t had much feeding, so the belly required some instant gratification. The old and nearly expired stash of frozen Lean Cuisines came to the rescue, and I was highly satisfied with a box of chicken and vegetable pasta doused in plenty of Frank’s Hot Sauce.

 

But I digress. Because the blogland recipes are where it’s really at.

Like Janetha’s all star protein smoothie, the one that almost killed my Bullet. Definitely had to whip this one up in two rounds.

A slight trouble to the Bullet but a super treat to the belly, this was very worth the blending issues. And yeah, it’s sitting on my floor.

Having taken an accidental break from kale for the past long while, I reintroduced it back into my life in the form of a massaged kale salad.

Masseuse partner in crime and massaging oil of choice was Mr. Newman and his light balsamic vinaigrette, followed by plenty of avocado and a good squeeze of lemon.

Carrots, tomatoes and nooch rounded out the bowl. I’ve been slacking on my veggie consumption lately so this packed a mighty punch. Repeats will happen!

 

Or there’s always the oldies but goodies (And simultaneously uglies, huge apologies for how completely nasty this looks). But that would be one mad delicious enchilada inspired by an old Jenna recipe.

Mine was stuffed with a mixture of fat free sour cream and salsa, chopped cooked chicken, spinach and diced tomatoes, and topped with green enchilada sauce (The rest of the fam’s also had shredded cheese in and on theirs), then baked at 375 for ~30 minutes. These are always instantly devoured despite their horrific appearance and messy nature.

 

And then we arrive at today, where the food rut breakup is still going strong.

At breakfast, we have cookie dough.

Julie knows what she’s doing. I do not. I overflowed my bowl of cooking wheat bran and instant oats (all out of OAT BRAN!) many many many times. Next cookie dough round I stovetop it.

But after cleaning up the mess, transferring to a new bowl, freezing for about 20 minutes and mixing all up with plain yogurt, mighty maple and SF jam, breakfast got owned in an epic way.  

At lunch, we have butternut squash lasagna …not so lasagna.

I followed the recipe very basically (but reduced to like 1/5th)

My way:

1. Pour jarred pasta sauce into the bottom of a small dish.
2. Cook chopped onions in pan with balsamic vinaigrette, then wilt some spinach in there.
3. Mix shredded mozzarella cheese, ricotta, cottage cheese, salt+pepper and dried oregano in a bowl.
4. Cook diced butternut squash in the microwave for 5 minutes.
5. Layer cheese mix, then spinach and onion, then squash, then more sauce, and top with feta.
6. Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes.
7. Oh, and measure nothing. Apparently. I just threw bits of what I had together.

Good thing I made a mini version because I may have devoured most of this today.

And then, on a similar but slightly different note, if you want to break out of an exercise rut… try a SPIN CLASS. Which is what I did for the first time ever today. I’m not a member of a gym but my friend is and there was some online thing to sign up for a free 3 day pass. I did, but apparently they phone you the next day to set it up. I didn’t know this and hadn’t set mine up yet but I got to do the class free anyway. Sweeeet deal.

It was toughish, but ain’t no thang for my thunder thighs.

But if you’re going to be super smart like me and drink a giant Iced Coffee Smoothie prespin (1 cup cold coffee, 1/2 cup skim and almond milk, stevia, xanthan and guar, 10g chocolate protein powder, 4 frozen strawberries, and mucho ICE) then make sure to empty your bladder at least 3x before hopping on the bike.

 

And to put an end to it all – watermelon. Because it’s summer and thus a necessity.

 

Here’s to a Food Rut Free week!

Time Flies

It’s July 8th already?
Time sure flies when you’re having fun… and when you’re not having fun.

It flies when you’re having a crappy week and feeling like a bum and your car has lame issues and the heat is constantly sweltering and the tears are frequently flowing. – Not fun.

It flies when a new month hits and you celebrate by watching fireworks and try to take pictures of said fireworks with your mediocre camera ‘fireworks’ setting and even more mediocre steady hands and you end up with mediocre fireworks pictures. I tried. – Fun.

 

It flies when you go for walks and try to distract yourself with pretty sights to take your mind off of less pretty thoughts. – Would typically be fun unless you’re in a really rotten mood, which in that case isn’t nearly as fun as it could/would/should typically be.

Time flies when it’s so hot that your appetite and taste buds are out of whack you never know what you want to eat anymore but you just want to eat so you grab things and through things together and inhale things and never quite feel satisfied. – Not fun.

But sometimes you DO know what you want and in those cases it flies when you make delicious coconut flax pancakes inspired by these (umm YUM?!) with 2T coconut flour, 1T flax, 2 egg whites, ~1/4 cup apple cinnamon yogurt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon all dipped in sugar free syrup. – Fun except that these were gone way too fast. Want. MORE.

 

Um actually, time just flies through breakfast in general. Much faster than it should, because ideally breakfast should just last all day. Because we all love a good breakfast don’t we? – Fun fun fun.

Like overnight oats soaked in almond milk, plain yogurt, cottage cheese and jam’; topped with peanut butter and strawberries.

And those breakfasts are especially good when eaten outdoors.

And then they involve secrets hidden underneath piles of yogurt and strawberries…

 

Time flies even when you try to slow it down by using chopsticks to prolong the length spent at the table consuming your butter chicken, stir fry veggies and quinoa but are just so mad skilled at using chopsticks that you breeze through the task. Or just throw in the towel and dig in with a fork. – Fun/not fun. It’s a toss up. Fun for the taste, not for my lack of eating slow skills.

It definitely flies when you try to casually sip away at your iced coffee smoothies and instead end up inhaling them in 5 minutes flat. They’re just so good… – Fun.

Times flies when you go shopping and buy things like a pimpin’ new lunch bag, water bottle and a campfire scented diffuser. – Fun.

 

And time DRAGS when you discover a never before seen chocolate soynut butter at HomeSense and are desperate to get home so you can get sampling. – Fun once I actually did get home because of all the deliciousness that this jar offers.

It flies when you order books on amazon.ca and they arrive on your doorstep days before you thought they would. – Fun.

It flies a little less quickly when you’re chomping down on large amounts of vegetables…

whether raw…

roasted…

or paired with pasta and sauce. – Veggies are always fun.

 

 

And time flies when your friend comes over for a girl’s night where you become culinary experts while making Rachel Ray’s Chicken Parm Sliders…

…watch ridiculous yet genius movies like Hot Tub Time Machine

…and become rock stars. – Funx10.

(Playing around in Photoshop to make really cheesy rockstar compilation pictures with your minimal graphics skills also makes time fly quite rapidly)

 

And that would be my first week of July in a very large nutshell. I’ll bet time didn’t quite fly getting through this doozy of a post. Or it did if you skimmed(Don’t worry, I don’t blame!). It’s been up, it’s been down, it’s been a bit fun and it’s been not so fun. But overall it really has flown right out from under my feet, hence my delayed update. I need to get with the program!

And with that, I’m off to a local concert tonight. It should be another ‘-Fun’ to add to the list. I’ll be back before the month is half over, I swear!

Sad Sweet Taters, Soccer Snazz and Some Swag and Swagger

Do you see how super this looks? Sweet potato always gets “super” status.

Especially when paired alongside gallons of Chinese takeout. The gallons were eaten straight from the container. The plating was just for show. And it had been so long since I’d had a sweet potato. So long. So it should have been extra super.

But no. Oh no. Looks can be deceiving. Staring with anticipation at my long awaited discs of sweet dinner beauty, I finally picked one up and bit down only to be greeted by the smoky flavours of… mold. That’s right. I promptly spit that super sweet potato out and dumped the rest in the trash. My tastebuds were scarred. Not quite enough to end my Chinese feast but I may have sighed loudly with disappointment throughout my rice chow down.

But my moldy potato incident is nearly as old as the potato itself so lets move on to more current affairs, such as:

How I became an honorary temporary England fan and designated face painter for Saturday’s England vs. US World Cup game.

I don’t think I had ever watched a full soccer (ehem…football?) game in my life before Saturday. But I just followed along with the pub crowd, cheering when the majority cheered and fist pounding the table while yelling obscenities when goalies failed at life and goal keeping. Or it went something like that anyway.

And I got to kiss someone’s knockoff cup… thrice. I think it’s fair to say I’m totally a dedicated and true fan now.

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Or we could talk about my recently expanding waistline.

(I shouldn’t be allowed within 10 feet of chocolate right now. For a variety of reasons…)

(Don’t ask what it is. I couldn’t tell you. It’s soft, sickeningly sweet, and I can feel my teeth rotting as soon as I bite into it)

(Already demolished these completely. My hide-em-in-the-depths-of-the-freezer trick didn’t work this time around)

(Yeah, you think that giant bag of Yogi Crisps is a smart snacking choice, with its “whole grains, heart-healthy flax and a touch of huckleberry for a crunch”. But when you eat practically the entire 10,000 serving bag (thanks Costco) in like one or two (okay so maybe like ten) sittings (or cupboard standings by the handful. Wimper.), it just becomes evil. Go home you darn crisps, go home.)

(Um yeah.) Source

On second thought, maybe let’s not talk about that anymore.

I’d much rather talk about how much I love fresh mango (albeit a little destroyed) in the morning, especially alongside glass-mugged coffee and overnight kamut flakes sogged up in yogurt and blueberry syrup.

Or how much I love iced coffee smoothies made with almond milk, chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, stevia, a splash of blueberry POM, the gums, and plenty of ice.

That and clothes drying racks. Dry your clothes on racks, kids. It’s summer! Dryers are for noobs (or under special circumstances only, those people in a rush and in desperate need of dry clothing asap).

Or I could go on about how I used up the last itty bits of my oat bran this morning to make an oat bran/wheat bran breakfast worthy of my not-so-refined taste buds.
Oat bran, wheat bran, flax, water, almond milk, cinnamon, blueberry syrup, egg white splash. Cooked. Chilled briefly. Topped with plain yogurt and jam. Mixed into a mess of yogurty goop not two seconds post photo.

Or I could tell you how I ate a whole lotta salad today.

I may have came upon a giant bag of BBQ Popchips at Costco today. May have polished off half of the 10,000 servings in that bag today alone too. Costco for the lose win again. I love you Costco. They were eaten alongside greens and tomatoes so it’s totally legit. This salad needed more crunch anyway.

Salad feast #2 was a homemade Greek salad with chicken strips and feta. Not an olive in side. Perfection. Greek salad is by far one of my favourite salad variations.

Just as Costco helped me contribute to my waistline and my salads, it also helped me contribute to my wardrobe (It did not contribute to my greasy face or haggard swagger, those were all my own doing).
Cheap white sweatshirt + even cheaper tight exercise pants = happy wardrobe (and happy wallet)

But the happiest camper of all was my mailbox.

Don’t check the mail for several days and you just might end up with a stash that includes:

– An HST rebate CHEQUE. Aka free money for moi. Thanks Gov.
– An envelope full of Websaver coupons. Does anyone else order coupons online to be sent to their mailbox? Anyone else love coupons? I sure do. And I order them online all the time. Actually using them is a different story… I do my best though!
– Free All-Bran Bar sample. Ordered that one online too.
– A special package from Clare: A whole sampling of Kay’s Naturals products from her recent giveaway! I have never seen these around here and am so excited to try them. Thank you thank you Clare!

Since I currently feel like a puffball, I’m thinking a detox and deflate is in order. Maple syrup anyone?
You’ve got to be kidding. Though I might try to lay off the chocolate and BLTs. At least for tomorrow :) Monday Monday Monday

I have a Blog?

A… Blog?

…What is that?

I seem to have forgotten in amongst all of my…

• Skanking to ska tunes and drinking brews at music shows.

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• Riding insane roller coasters at Canada’s Wonderland. Behold BEHEMOTH:

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DO try going to amusement parks on an early June Monday when summer has not yet technically begun and kids are still all in school. My longest line wait was 15 minutes tops and I got on all of the best rides in the park, the above beast TWICE.

DO NOT, however, go on a day that is deceivingly sunny, only to be blasted by out-of-nowhere Arctic winds. I ended up having to go back to my car to change into jeans and a sweatshirt and still spent the next two hours freezing my buns off. Icy air + fast, sky high rides = Ice CUBE <–That was me.

Now if I could only figure out a way to translate my roller coaster riding bravery into real life bravery. A future mission perhaps.

• Working out.

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Or not. I took more rest days than I have in months this week. I think they were needed. Plus, walking around an amusement park all day, for example, is plenty of exercise, am I right?!

• BAKING.

But of course. Wake up and bake up. That’s what I did today. Rainy days are made for baking. Today was rainy. Case in point:

Coconut Carob/Chocolate Pecan Walnut Oatmeal Bars? Why not?

Sub honey instead of agave, walnuts instead of pecans, and use 1/4 cup of a mix of carob and semisweet chocolate chips and you’ll see exactly what came out of my oven at about 10:00 this morning.

• EATING. If that one wasn’t obvious…

Cereal is not going out of style. Why I am eating it like it is, well for that I have no answer.

My cow mug likes to be filled with things other than hot bevs.

Things like cooked oats topped with cottage cheese and jam.

Toasted Vitatops served over plain yogurt with juicy fresh pineapple and strawberries? Yes please!

Smooooooth as silk smoothie iced coffees alongside dinner? A-okay.

Leafy greens and rainbow veggies? Once in a while…

What would you like for dinner tonight? A Mini tofu burgers topped with guac + dijonnaise?

Or how about some nose-on-fire buffalo chicken meatballs?

Oh, you say you need a quick chocolatey fudge fix?
I say you mix 2T sunflower seed butter (or any nut butter for that matter) with 1T honey and 1T cocoa powder. Potentially double, triple, or quadruple the batch.
Freeze it. Wait for it. Eat it. Be in smart fudgy heaven.

I also say that I need to stop neglecting blogging for days at a time. I have no good excuses. Yet I always seem to have excuses a plenty up my sleeves (or maybe behind my ears since these summery days are leaving most of my shirts on the sleeveless side).

So, in conclusion, I have a few new missions now on my hands:

– Blog more often.
– Implement my roller coaster style bravery into everyday life.
– Tone down the useless excuses. They get you (me) nowhere.

There’s a few more I could shove in there but I’ll leave it at that for now.

And on that note… Cheerio!