Food

Drinking Macaroons For Breakfast

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I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning; I think it’s because I got way too much sleep. Once I finally pulled myself out of bed and showered I decided to have some breakfast.  You’ll never guess what I had…..SOYGURT.  Today I had peach with oats, flaxmeal and banana.  I also made myself a cup of White Coconut Cream Tea from The Art of Tea. I just took a sip of it and this tea taste like a macaroon.  It’s like a cookie in a warm liquid form without all the sugar, fat and calories.  What can I say it’s a dream in a drink.

After this is all gone it’s time to get a bunch of house work done before I head off to work.  I look forward to the days when we don’t have to commute 45 minutes each way to work and when I don’t have to go in 3 hours before I have to be to my work…..or stay 3 hours after.  You might be wondering why we commute and well I used to work in the city that we live in right now so we decided to get a place here but I left that awful job back in December and now I work in Burlington with my hubby (he’s always worked there) and we have to commute until July 1st when our lease is up. WAHOO can’t wait to move.

Q: Do you rent or own? How long have you lived in your current home? How many places have you lived in the last 5 years? We rent and have lived in our place for going on 2 years.  However in the last 5 years I have lived in 8 different houses/apartments….crazy right!

A Picnic On The Waterfront

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It was beautiful this afternoon so I decided to expand our walk into a lovely picnic on the water front.  Hubby has been working so hard at work lately it’s time for a little romance.  I picked up a wonderful spread of food from Healthy Living and Fresh Market and grabbed a blanket from the trunk of the car and we headed out for a walk. Hubby was so delight and surprised it was a great afternoon and BEAUTIFUL! We had lots of amazing food from snap peas with tamari almonds, baguette, olives, dolmas, artichokes, veggies, babaganoush, red wine and vegan truffles.

Wonderful food and a beautiful view.

Q: What do you do for your significant other to show your love and appreciation?

Maple Sugar & Cheater Indian Food

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Hubby and I started off our morning with some cheater Indian food from Tandoor Chef.  I usually make oatmeal but I wasn’t feeling it since I didn’t have any bananas and we were in a time crunch as my ‘rents and G-Ma were on their way to pick us up to go visit a few sugar houses.  So thanks to Tandoor Chef who generously sent me a few samples to try we had pocket sandwiches which were yummy and had a really nice spice to them.

One feature I love about this product is how I can say everything that is on the package and how Tandoor Chef uses all natural ingredients so you can eat yummy food with out the gross additives.

Here is our yummy breakfast

The ‘rents and G-Ma finally showed up and we headed out to Morse Farms to see some sugaring and taste their maple syrup.  Unfortunately they hadn’t really started cooking the syrup when we arrived so we took a few fun pictures and headed into the store to taste the various syrups.  Before we left we went back to the sugar house to see the sap boiling.

Neil and his ol'buddy

Me and my G-Ma - LOVE HER!

After visiting Morse Farms we decided to stop for some lunch at Julio’s Cantina in Montpelier for summer yummy eats.  I got the veggie tacos which were filled with grilled mushrooms, onions, peppers, zucchini and summer squash and hubby got the veggie burger with his favorite fiesta fries.  After lunch we headed to Plainfield to visit another sugar house- Braggs.  This is my favorite of the two because it is smaller and I love their sugaring house. Neil and I went to get our yearly maple steam facials (haha) – it smells crazy good in the sugaring house and the steam is fun to bask in.

the 'rents- aren't they so cute? You can see the steam from the boiling sap in the back

I love mustard and I picked up a jar of this yummy Mustard today at Braggs

Once we got home Neil and I headed out to AT&T to pick up a cover for my work iPhone (per request of my boss) and I got a really fun dark pink one.  Then I cam home and had a great elliptical sesh and then a short power yoga sesh from yogadownload.com.  I had worked up a mini appetite after my workout so Neil and I shared a Jazz Apple sprinkled with a little cinnamon.  I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to try out my Biokleen Produce Wash which is great not only for washing produce but for cleaning your cutting boards.  I will be hosting a giveaway for this product soon! I really loved it  and to my surprise did not leave any residue on the apple.

Tonight we decided it was time to relax on the couch with a little bit of TLC’s Hoarding which my nice daddy recorded for us since we don’t have cable.  That show is crazy I couldn’t imagine living like that! We sipped on some new spring beer that I found at the Co-op Anchor Steam Brewing’s Bock Beer.  This beer was so tasty I think a new favorite.  We also decided to make dinner easy and had some more Tandoor Chef this time Pakora’s and Dal Rajastani.  They both were tasty however the pakoras were a bit dry for us.  Overall yummy though!

Question:  What did you do this weekened? Oh and what is your favorite cheater meal?

Finally Employed and Blogger/Twitter Meet-Up

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Yesterday morning was a busy stressful one as I had a meeting with a prospective job that I really wanted. I brought hubby to work and then decided to stop into Healthy Living for a green juice and to waste some time since I had about 45 minutes before my interview.  I decided on having a carrot, kale, parsley, celery and lemon juice which ended up with a redish tint because they had just juiced a beet for the person before me.

While I sat and sipped on my juice I flipped through Seven Days and came across an article on Aux Vivres!

Aux Vivres is one of hubby and my favorite restaurants in Montreal to eat at.  Aux Vivres is vegan, prices are pretty good and they are open late! Last visit I had the Montreal Smoked “Meat” Sandwich and it was amazing! Usually we just go on the weekends and get brunch which is delicious but we decided to try something different on our last visit (mind you we went the day before for brunch haha).

Anyways back to the interview- I went to my interview and felt extremely confident that I was employed.  Basically I was told that I had the job but they had to finish going through the motions of checking my references to make sure that they were 100%.  I spent the remainder of the day anxiously waiting for my phone call confirming (or denying) my employment.  Finally at 4:30 I got the call and I am officially employed and start this Friday!

After the call hubby and I headed to Duino Duende for a beer and snack to celebrate.  Neil had a $5 Shake (Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout with a shot of espresso and a drizzle of maple syrup) and I had the Allagash Triepl.  We then walked around a bit and I got some new shoes on sale at The North Face which I am pumped about wearing this summer for some trail hiking. After this we finally headed to dinner at A Single Pebble with my tweep @LynneLLisa who also has a great blog.  We met Lynne Lisa and her son for dinner and we all had a great time chatting and eating.  We ordered some of the standards: Mock Eel, Double Garlic Broccoli, Vegan Sesame Buddhas Beef and Vegan Mushroom LoMein.  We weren’t going to order dessert but when our waiter came back and told us about this yummy sounding coconut milk tapioca pudding we decided to get one with 4 spoons to try (Lynne’s son also got some yummy mango sorbet).  Lynne and I decided that we would have to try to make a rice version of this same pudding and I am working on a recipe to try (I will post if it is good).  Overall we had a great  night and can’t wait to meet up with Lynne and her family again!

Today is all about working on school warm-up classes, getting things done around the house and possibly doing a little online shopping.  I haven’t bought new clothes in almost a year and I think that it is time since my body has changed a lot over the past few months.  The worst part of getting pregnant is the new body and now after it’s all done I have wider hips and my clothes don’t fit the same.  Since I can’t wear leggings or yoga pants to work everyday like I do at home I guess it’s time to buy new clothes. Question: How often do you buy new clothes? Do you order online or head out to the shops?

Pantry Challenge Week 1 Update

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Here is my update on what we have been eating this week for our pantry challenge.  So far this whole pantry challenge thing has been easy and we have been enjoying ourselves.  It feels great to just get in the kitchen and try and put things together to make a healthy, filling and nutritious dish.  My husband also makes it even more of a challenge because if it were just me I’d eat rice and beans with steamed veggies or veggie chili but he just isn’t in to that all the time so I am forced to come up with new ideas. I am thinking that next week will be challenging once the supply of frozen veggies starts to deplete but we are still going to go strong!

Day 1- Sunday:

  • Breakfast: Cornmeal Pancakes with berry sauce (made from frozen berries)
  • Lunch: Leftovers from our dinner party- chickpea romanesco, saffron-garlic rice and roasted asparagus
  • Snacks: Hubby and I split a Lucy’s Cinnamon Cookies Sample and a package of Daneille Crispy Fruit Chips- Pineapple;  I also had a Texas BBQ Primal Strip Sample
  • Dinner: Homemade WW bread with sauteed cabbage, Italian Field Roast sausage, onions, mushrooms and 1 heaping tablespoon of Tofutti cream cheese and hubby and I split and orange for dessert

Day 2- Monday:

  • Breakfast: 2 slices of WW Homemade Bread with Tofutti cream cheese and a cup of decaf coffee for me and some maple brown sugar instant oatmeal for the hubby
  • Lunch: Hubby’s lunch was homemade WW bread with a huge salad of romaine, carrot, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sliced almonds and raisins with a homemade balsamic raspberry dressing
  • Snacks: Danielle Mango Crispy Fruit Chips
  • Dinner: Beans and cabbage with mexi spices in a big chili wrap with some reduced fat salt and pepper chips and a glass…or 2 of red wine

Day 3- Tuesday:

  • Breakfast: Coach’s Oats with chia seeds, stevia, banana, cinnamon, coconut PB and a few mini chocolate chips for me and instant maple brown sugar oats for the hubz
  • Lunch: neil had leftovers from dinner last night and I had a big wrap with romaine, BBQ sauce and Gardin Buffalo Chicken
  • Snacks: Baked Salt and Pepper Lentil Chips, orange
  • Dinner: BBQ Dinner- Veggie Dogs with mushrooms and onions and BBQ potatoes

Day 4- Wednesday:

  • Breakfast: refried black beans and tortillas and a coffee
  • Lunch: Leftover BBQ potatoes and hot dogs
  • Snacks: Nugo Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Bar, Trader Joes Fruit Strips
  • Dinner: Homemade refried black beans, sauteed cabbage and southwest corn in GF tortillas that weren’t great so we each only ate one and we had some beers

Day 5- Thursday:

  • Breakfast: leftover black beans with cabbage and corn for me and oatmeal for hubby
  • Lunch: low carb tortillas with black beans, romaine, hot sauce and scallions for me and leftover black beans with cabbage and corn for hubby
  • Snack: Baked BBQ chips, teriyaki primal strip, Sensible Foods Dried Corn Snack, Coconut Water
  • Dinner: Field Roast Italian Sausage, Sauteed Cabbage and Potatoes (we ended up eating a like 3 bites of potatoes and were done.)
  • Dessert: Blueberry Crisp Pie

Note today I picked up 3lbs more of cabbage at $0.25/lb  so that makes my weekly total: $19.44

Pantry Challenge Update

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5 Suggestions on How to Make a Pantry Challenge Successful:

  1. The first thing you need to do is figure out why you want to have a pantry challenge, how much money you will need to spend on produce to make it successful and how long you think you will be able to do it.  Also, don’t get so caught up in how long you do the pantry challenge because you might get a week and half in like I have and decide that you don’t have enough stocked in the pantry to go any further.
  2. Check out the weekly circulars for your local grocery stores before heading out to shop.  This is a great way to find out what is on sale and you can use this to your advantage when planning your menu/outline of meals for the week.
  3. Look at recipes before you go shopping whether it’s online, in cookbooks or asking friends for advice on what to use with the items already in your pantry. Having an outline as to what you are going to make for the week will help to keep you on track and help to calm any frustration that might occur.
  4. Visit your local farmers market! Many times these are the places where you are going to get the best deals on produce and it’s local and many times organic which are two great bonuses! If you are like me and live in a northern climate farmers markets in the late fall/winter/early spring months are limited and don’t carry a vast amount of produce but are still worth checking out.
  5. Lastly, have fun! Get in the kitchen and just enjoy cooking and using those products that you have been stocking up.  It’s spring cleaning for your cupboards!

Pantry Challenge 2010 Redux

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As many you know I attempted to do a pantry challenge back in January however after a week and half of trying I realized our pantry was just not overstocked enough to follow through with the challenge. Now that my pantry is stocked back up I have decided that it is time for a pantry challenge redux.  Basically I will only be allowed to buy $20 of fresh produce a week and non-dairy milk for the remainder of the month. I have a packed pantry, freezer and fridge right now and we are in desperate need of cleaning it out, oh and it’ll be nice to save a little dough ($).   This challenge will help me do a number of things:

1. Create new recipes

2. Saves money

3. Ensures that food does not get wasted

I’m excited to see how well I do, while still eating healthy. This week I picked up:

  • 2.07 lbs of Bananas $1.43
  • .19 lbs of Garlic $.76
  • 1 package of Scallions  $1.69
  • 10oz of Mushrooms $2.49
  • 3PK of Romaine Hearts $3.49
  • 4.61 lbs of Navel Oranges $4.57
  • 1lb Carrots $.89
  • 5lb Russet Potatoes $1.69
  • 2 Lemons $1
  • 2.71 lbs of Green Cabbage $.68
      • Total: $18.69

Have you ever tried a pantry challenge? How well did it go for you?