Gift basket!

The other day, I got a call from a health food and vitamin store saying I'd won a gift basket. Initially I was confused....I wasn't sure I'd been there or entered any contest. Then I vaguely remembered needing oil of oregano (GOOD oil of oregano) when I was sick, and stumbling upon a health food store locally. I must have entered a contest when I bought the O of O. So I picked up the basket, and as it turns out it is a fantastic basket of goodness! Here are some highlights:

"Tart is Smart" cherry juice concentrate....full of antioxidants and other good stuff...

A natural cold and flu remedy/pill, natural motion sickness pills and dental products that apparently strengthen your teeth like flouride (without the flouride of course).
Fabric softener, and Redmond clay - which apparently can be used as a facial mask, as a poultice for any number of ailments or ingested for digestive health? I think I'll stick to using it as a face mask, given the stared note on the back: "This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA..."
Bath and body product galore!

Hazelnut Agave nectar, and two types of specialty salts! I didn't even know hazelnut agave existed. I use agave fairly regularly, but this hazelnut agave is out of this world!! I wish you could smell and taste it...but you can't. I will definately be purchasing this again! I decided to break in the hazelnut agave nectar drizzled on top of pumpkin oats! I made some for both D. and I this morning. Pumpkin oats recipe as on Kath's blog, but with pecans, balken yogurt, coconut (on top instead of inside) and the hazelnut agave drizzled on top. Heavenly breakfast. And, believe it or not - still healthy and full of goodness!!

Fall-tastic

I managed to hit up the market yesterday, and they have wonderful crisp yummy apples now. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with giddiness about fall. When I was growing up, I think Halloween (and "fall" in general) was my favorite time of year. We to have a bon fire and make caramel apples, and have fire works every halloween. My mom would make a big pot of chili and hot dogs and we'd have these when we returned home from trick-or-treating. I just love the cool crispness of fall, and that smell the air gets....I'm not sure what it is...rotting leaves maybe? It's just great. For an easy dinner last night I had a cut up apple, left over quinoa stew and a tortilla (amazing 12g of fibre tortillas from Ralph's) with the last of some basil-avacado dip spread on it and some parmesan cheese. I heated it in a frying pan for a bit so the cheese would melt.
MMMmmm......It was a good dinner. And easy. Which is pretty darn important these days. I'm going to pick up some pumpkin and make a pumpkin porcini soup from the moosewood book for dinner tonight I think.

I'm working from home till about 2:30 today....and have a really long to-do list to get through. We'll see how far I can get. I'd better get showered and moving if I hope to have any chance at getting through it!

Peruvian Quinoa Stew

(The picture is a little dark...it's dark out :). Today was a long work day, and I didn't get home till about 8pm. I managed to stop for the essential groceries for this recipe (pretty simple) between work and my WW meeting. When I got home cooked this, ate it, and cleaned as much as I could in about 20 minutes, all while watching the first episode of Glee (which I love by the way). This is from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home Cookbook.

Peruvian Quinoa Stew

1/2 C quinoa
1 C water

2 Cups chopped onions
2garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 T vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 carrot, cut on the diagonal into 1/4 inch thick slices
1 bell pepper (I used red), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup cubed zucchini
2 cups undrained chopped fresh or canned tomatoes (I used canned)
1 cup water or vegetable stock (I used water)
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 tsp ground coriander
pinch of cayenne
2 tsp fresh oregano (1 tsp dried)
salt to taste

Optional toppings: Cilantro, grated cheddar or monteray jack cheese (I used 1 oz part skim mozarella).

Cook the quinoa and set aside. Saute the onions and garlic in the oil for about 5-min. Add the carrots and celery and saute for another 5-min. Add everything else but the quinoa, salt and toppings and simmer till the veggies are cooked. Add the quinoa, season with salt and serve with topped with cilantro and/or cheese.

We really liked this- it is filling and nutritious and VERY tasty. An added bonus is that the ingredients are simple, easily on hand, and inexpensive. It will make great lunches too I think!

Thankful

For:

A new car that has LOW gas consumption, a sunroof and On Star. You really can just press a button and they are right there asking you how they can help? And they don't get mad if you call to introduce your parents to them. I'm thinking we should only do that once though. It's free for the first year, and we'll see at the end of that if we want to continue.

Discovering yummy oatmeal. Today it is bananna-flax-cottage cheese oats with a fig, peach and almond-hazelnut butter on top. Hopefully this will keep me full for a while - I have about 1.5 hours of travel to my first appointment and that doesn't end till about 2pm.

My husband. He's sick now, poor guy. I hope he gets better fast. He usually does bounce back pretty quickly.

Lots of work. I am trying to be thankful for this. Things are really busy and overwhelming right now...but I have a job I love (most of the time - though it's hard to remember this at this time of year!), and plenty of work.

That it is Friday. Though, this will be a busy weekend. I feel like I could sleep for days right now!

It's like pumpkin pie for breakfast

This is a slightly modified version of Kath's pumkin oatmeal. It is seriously, astonishingly good!! Mine included the following:

• 1/3 Cup oats
• 1/3 Cup water
• 1/3 Cup 1% milk

I heated this up till the oats were about 1/2-3/4 of the way cooked. Then I stirred in:

• 1/3 C pumpkin
• some nutmeg and ginger
• pinch of salt
• some splenda (not sure how much)
• 1 T coconut

Continued cooking, then at the end stirred in vanilla and 1/2 T ground flax. I topped it with 1/3 cup balken yogurt and 3 chopped pecan halves. Seriously - it's like eating pumpkin pie in a bowl!!! And 5 WW points in total.

Today so far...

Breakfast 1: 1/3 C balken yogurt, 1/2 C Kashi honey-almond-flax cereal, 1 banana
Then: Gym + picked up a few groceries.
Breakfast 2: 1/2 Cobs cape seed roll (high fat but sooo good and high in fibre and protein as well), turkey, tomato, spinach, grainy mustard + mayo.

Now: To face the thesis work and work-work I have to complete today. Today is my only (mostly) full work at home day this week, so I have to get everything done!

Later: I found Money's mushroom burgers at Superstore! I LOVE these, but haven't been able to find them anywhere lately, but SS had them in 4 and 16 packs! And when I did the calculations when I got home I realized they are only 1 WW point each. Score! I'll have one for lunch I think.

I found fresh figs at the market yesterday, so I'll be making a goat cheese and fig pizza I found here (or one loosely based on this one). The figs were pricy (3 for $4.00!) so I only bought 3, and will just make 1 pizza for D. and I to share. Well I should say D. and I will make...as we'll both be relatively late today. If I can put the dough on in the bread maker before work that will help.

K. Off I go.

Saturday Morning

• Sleeping in
  
• Good coffee
• Bananna oatmeal with raspberries, pear and almond butter
• Bacon
  

Soon the morning will be done and we have to get to work. We were going to go car shopping today, but both have work to do so I'm not sure if that will happen. We'll see.

Breakfast

Pioneer Woman's post about Quesedillas made me crave one. So today's breakfast was:

Quesedilla: 1 scrambled egg, 4 T grated cheddar, 2 T grated parmesan, 1 tomato sliced, salt and pepper, hot sauce in a tortilla, fried.

Mmmmm good. And I found these tortillas at Ralph's produce (in Langley) that have 12 g of fibre and only 90 calories....so there's room for the cheese :)

Sorry, no picture :( Too early.

Today:
Work
Supervision meeting
Uploading and scoring video/Thesis work
Make dinner
Work at home.

My First Ikea Hack!

I have two big Expedit bookshelves in my office (that our landlord nicely left for us). I love this system as it can be used as a room divider or bookshelf. Additionally there are a number of baskets and boxes made to fit the cubes that you can hide things away in. You can also purchase drawers and cupboard doors to add to it.

The one thing I have not been able to do with it yet is figure out a good way to use it for hanging files. I can fit filing boxes into the cubes, but they don't look very nice, and it's a hassle to have to pull them all the way out and open the lids to access files.

Then, when I was at Ikea on Saturday (before my nasty cold fortified itself and made a second attack) I found they have a new box designed to fit into the Expedit. This is it. Bonus: It's only 6.99 (compared to 16-24 dollars for all the other boxes/baskets that fit the cubes). Bonus #2: It comes in pretty colors. So, I bought 3 of the turquoise colored ones.

I discussed the need for a better hanging file set up (and my unwillingness to pay $300-600 for ugly filing cabinets), and D. suggested just putting a file frame into the box! Brilliant husband I have.

So, off to staples and I bough three of these:
Actually, as it turns out I bought 6 of them, because I didn't realize there were 2 per box. Each box of 2 was about $12.00 - not bad :). Then, I set up the file frames - using the smallest length (14 inches) and put them into the boxes: Perfect! They slide easily in and out of the bookshelf and hold about as much as a large filing box. My only concern is longevity - the boxes are cloth on a cardboard frame (the type that pop up and zip together), so they may give out after a period of use. I'll let you know though. But hey, the whole thing cost me about 40.00 for the boxes and file systems, so I won't complain! I kept them all on the bottom of the bookshelf, as I think they would be a bit awkward on a higher shelf. This would be perfect if you were using the Expedit as a room divider, as the boxes look nice from both sides and have handles on both sides. And I think this looks MUCH better than a stinky metal filing cabinet!

Cherry & Bulgur Salad

I made this the other night...I had cherries and goat cheese and wanted an excuse to put them together :). Here's the recipe:

I started with 2 cups of cooked bulger. I think in the future I would use less bulger and/or more cherries. The salad was a little heavy on the grains.

I added 2 cups of pitted cherries.

I added 1/2 an avacado.

Finally, I added goat cheese.

I added a dressing made from the juice of 1 lime, some (I think it was 1-2 tsp) olive oil, salt and pepper and mixed it all up. We had this in our lunches all week, it was a super easy and yummy, and filling lunch.

Breakfast

I opened the fridge this morning to try to come up with a breakfast that would use up the many left-overs in the fridge and came up with this. It's a hash of some sort. Left over cooked yam (1C), left over grilled veggies (eggplant, red pepper, mushrooms), left over home made vegan sausage, grainy mustard and a sprinkling of balsamic all fried up. I topped it off with some ricotta cheese. It was SUPER filling..I should be good till dinner ;) Tasty too.

Happy Anniversary

Monday was our sixth wedding anniversary. Time has flown by! We decided to have a special dinner at home rather than go out. Since the cooking is half the fun for me, this was sort of part of my present. D. returned home with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, and we had a lovely dinner. This is, by the way the first time we've eaten in the formal dining room, and the first time I've used my grandmother's china. I made this Zucchini ricotta cheesecake. If you have zucchini to use up, I implore you, make this. It is so very good. Breakfast, lunch or dinner :)


I also made this Orzo supper salad. It was very tasty with orzo (of course), asparagus, broccoli, cucumber, almonds, feta, and a yummy lemon olive oil and garlic dressing.


I also made these yummy sweet potato falafals. I couldn't find chick pea flour, so I substituted 1/2 chick peas and 1/2 whole wheat flour and it seemed to work - these were super yummy, and are really healthy! I had them cold the next day for lunch and they were just as good. Here's the table all set up - look at the beautiful flowers! It was a yummy dinner, and we still have left-overs! I think next time I'm going to make a double or tripple recipe of the falafels and freeze them!

Processing ways of eating.

Found this site/article today. Like it :). Great nutritional suggestions for fasting.

Made this recipe the other day. So lovely. If you have lots of Basil, as I do, this is a very nutritious, creamy recipe, that has a bit more substance than pesto or a traditional "dip." Why do I buy salt and preservative laden dips at the grocery store, when tasty ones like this are so easy to make and yummy? I've converted myself completely to making salsa at home always, and most often make hummus at home. I think that will be my mini-goal in trying to eliminate some processed foods; I will try, from now on never to buy "dips" or "spreads" at the store. Salsa, hummus and this yummy basil recipe are all easy to make at home, so there is no excuse!

New Favorites

Blog: Sprouted Kitchen

Web Browser: Firefox

Email program: Thunderbird.

I'm playing around with Sunbird, Mozilla's scheduling tool. I'm not sure I can make the switch to a digital planner. But, loosing my planner for a few days a couple of weeks ago has made me feel like I at least need to try :).

I also just downloaded Google Desktop. My favorite thing about it (besides the searches) is the nifty pop up to do list and other handy add-ons you can download.

Mom and Dad's

We went to Kamloops last weekend. My parents have a wonderful back yard, gardens and outdoor living area...I love sitting on the patio all evening talking, over dinner, over wine. Here are some of my favorite sights. Beginning with my mom's amazing basil patch (this is one of two). Doesn't it make you just want to dive in and roll around in it?

One of the veggie patches. I liked that these were nicely arranged in groups of three (though I'm sure that was accidental).

Three pots on the patio. More herbs.

I took this from the livingroom, looking out the patio doors. Those are hops on the latticework. They blanket it.


Appletree.

Hanging basket.

Dinner on the first night. This was a late night dinner after we arrived on Friday. For the record, those quesadillas are peach, goat cheese and basil. SO good.
Dinner on the second night. Grilled chicken, corn, and grilled vegetable salad. Homemade peach-mango salsa (mom's!) with tortillas.

So, you can see why I like going to Kamloops.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

Eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers marinated in garlic oil, balsamic and kosher salt, grilled and mixed with fresh basil. We made these in Kamloops with my parents :)

The Bag Saga

I'd like you to meet a long time friend of mine:

This green bag has been with me fore at least 3 years. I has been my work bag, travel bag, everything bag. I can fit my laptop, plus 10 folders of works stuff and all other implements I need in it, along with a water bottle or coffee mug. I . love. this. bag. So much. It is the perfect bag. I didn't realize how much I loved it until I realized it had to be replaced...the strap has broken...I could see it fraying for a while, and so have been searching for a new bag for about 2 months now, to no avail!

I've realized (well, actually, my husband pointed out to me) that bags are my jewelry (I'm not a fan of jewelry). The problem in finding a bag, is that I go into a store (usually winners), and throughout the time I'm there usually, at least 4 times think "Gah! I MUST have that bag, it is beautiful! I LOOVVE it." Then I turn over the price tag. It is always $100 or more. Always. Apparently I have expensive taste in bags. That, combined with the fact that my budget to buy a new bag hovers in the "under $40" rage...makes it hard for me to find a bag. And I can't stomach buying one I don't like. Can't. It's akin to wearing some type of scent I don't like. I just can't do it.

So, when this happened:

I nearly cried. And when I couldn't find a good replacement bag, I just wanted to hug my green bag and never let it go. I had to move on though.

Then I found this bag:

It's not my VERY favorite, but it is pretty good. I like the size and the style. Generally I like more colorful bags though, so I was sad about the basic black.

Then I opened it:

Ta-dah! Hooray! I CAN love this bag. It has pretty color inside. That can be seen from the outside most of the time. And, it was within budget. So, I went for it.

Now I have to say a sad sad goodbye to the green bag, and become unhealthily attached to the new bag.

Food Blog Search!

I just found a link to this food blog search tool on a (surprise!) food blog. This is fabulous!

Weekend happenings...

Yesterday:

• Up a couple of hours before my husband...I love it when I wake up early-ish on a Saturday morning, feeling rested. I made coffee, curled up on the couch and read a book, then had some blog-reading, online free time with my coffee before D. woke up.
• I spent some more time researching local farms and locations to get local goods...also read a bunch of information about once a month cooking...very intersting!
• Some of the places I visited: Get Local, Farm Fresh BC, Once a Month Cooking World, and many other places.
• Alloette lake with D. in the afternoon. I swam "laps" in the lake, and layed in the sun while D. sat in the shade creating something on paper. It was a lovely afternoon.
• Grilled local burgers and made corn on the cob on the grill for the first time. I will never, EVER make corn another way. So tasty! The burgers were amazing too (and I'm not much of a "large pieces of red meat" kind of gal either).

Today:

• Church
• Running various errands
• Vaccumed the whole house, finally sorted through and put away mounds of clean laundry in our bedroom, and rearranged the furniture there.

It's been a good weekend. I'm thankful for it, as I have a busy work week coming up and am working all day Saturday next weekend.

Summer favorites.

Cups with crushed ice in preparation for Mojitos.

Smashed mint leaves, lime juice and simple syrup, ready to be added to the soda water and white rum for yuuuummmmy Mojitos.

A 10lb flat of raspberries from Kraus Berry Farms. On Saturday we visited a bunch of places including Kraus, and Neufeld farms. I highly recommend both!

I froze all but 2 small containers of the raspberries, so we'll have them for the fall and winter! I think Raspberries are my favorite berry. Unfortunately, they were out of strawberries, but we'll go back once blueberry season starts and get a flat of those to freeze as well. We also found this beautiful, delicious spectacle at Kraus:

I just had to bring it home. It is possibly one of the best-tasting things I've ever had. I may just have to go back and buy another one. Or two. Or...well, maybe I shouldn't go back.