Tuesday Check In

Ok. Missed a week somewhere. Oops!

I've had an okay last couple of weeks. I still need to work on my snacking- and get back to tracking my food.

I HAVE done pretty well with the exercising- boot camp, the gym and yoga starting back on Wednesdays. I'd like to get back to more consistent running, but I was feeling under the weather this weekend and yesterday and seem to have pulled my back again. It felt ok during boot camp tonight, so hopefully it recovers quickly. Our trainer has been pulling out the stops at Boot Camp- increasing the intensity to get results. He wants us to follow an eating plan also

I tried a few recipes over the last couple of weekends (as pictured above). From the new Cooking Light (Jan/Feb 2010) I made the Leek and Potato Soup (in the Jamie Oliver article) and Coconut Shrimp with Fiery Mango Sauce.

My husband and I enjoyed the shrimp though some of them were a little crispy! The suggested cooking time (2 1/2 mins on each side at medium high) was just too long on my stove top anyway. I cut the time down, turned down the temp, but they still cooked super fast. The sauce was tasty, too, though I couldn't find mango nectar and substituted with peach which they had. Also, I forgot to add the hot pepper, so it wasn't fiery! This recipe deserves a redo at some point though, so I'll try it a little spicier.

The chicken pictured was a Kung Pao Chicken recipe from the new issue of Shape magazine. It was enjoyable also. I really enjoy anything with sesame oil.

Hope everyone had a healthy last couple of weeks! with no back strain! :)

A New Year to be healthier!

Long time no post, again. Hope everyone had a nice Christmas! I did. It was a family affair- pretty action packed and not very low fat, to say the least. During the 2 weeks of holidays, I did manage two gym workouts (one at which I fell off the treadmill- ouch! but that's another story), one book camp session with our trainer (at the gym we worked out this summer) and one skating session.

I didn't get everything I hope to do done over the holidays- like making our gingerbread cookie winter scene that I plan to do every year, but I did manage to use my Nigella Christmas cookbook for a number of recipes. I won't link them here- they aren't light recipes- but I will list the ones I did make- for my own amusement. lol. They are as follows: Party Parma Ham Bundles, Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cups, Ginger-Glazed Ham, Macaroni Cheese De Luxe, Spiced and Superjuicy Roast Turkey with Allspice Gravy, Redder than Red Cranberry Sauce, Gingerbread Stuffing, Christmas Sprouts, Sticky Gingerbread, Pumpkin Pancakes with Sticky Maple Pecans and lots of cocktails and mocktails. :)

I liked everything from her cookbook- probably my least favourite was the Pumpkin pancakes, though it might have just been the 'unusual' flavour, because I started to enjoy them more after the first taste. We'd also never brined a turkey before, and I really enjoyed the juicy result of the brining. My husband didn't love dragging a huge tub of turkey in brine to the basement fridge, but I think I'd get him to do it again next turkey. ;)

I also made the Pumpkin Ice cream Torte from Cooking Light again. We had it New Year's Day and it held it's own, even surrounded by more decadent options. I really like that recipe. Now the holidays are over, I also tried a couple of CL recipes for dinners. Last night I made Pan- Fried Chicken (6pts) from the Best of 2009 online article (originally from June's issue- a recipe that I'd meant to get to, but never did.) It was pretty time consuming in terms of time waiting for the chicken in coating to chill and then, later, to come to room temperature, but otherwise, it was really easy to put together. I really liked the flavour of the coating. It was even good cold for lunch the next day at work. The cinnamon flavour is especially tasty.

Being good and kinda bad at the same time. ;)

Just a quick post for an HYC check in. I've been both good and bad this week! My weight isn't going down much (to say the least) what with all the holiday snacking I've been doing. We threw a Christmas party last Saturday. I made a number of items from the Nigella Christmas book I found at Winners (and love!) including 3 martini recipes and a chocolate peanut butter cup recipe. I also tried a couple of her non-alcoholic ones for our designated drivers.

I did make one healthy recipe at the party- a Cooking Light Pumpkin Ice cream Torte from the November issue, that I'd been wanting to try, but never got to- partially due to the fact that, though pretty easy, it's pretty lengthy in waiting (to freeze) parts. Anyway, I really liked the torte, as did the rest of my family and party guests.

I didn't have any allspice left, so that was omitted in my rendition and I used butterscotch sauce instead of caramel. I didn't take ANY pictures of food at my party being too busy making martinis and stuff. ;)

In terms of being "good," I have still been enjoying my boot camp at school and my new gym membership. Pictured above is my group post workout and stretching. Today we did a pretty cardio heavy workout: 7 laps of the fifth floor and then relay running under the clock around the circuit muscle work.

Hope everyone is enjoying these busy weeks prepping for the holidays (if you do that kind of thing!) I feel somewhat under pressure with a lengthy To-Do list. It's good to have a few good exercise sessions to distress, right? That's the "good" Janet talking, the bad one is thinking of Nigella's "Santa's Little Helper" cocktail that she didn't get to make at the party, that would probably make a very nice nightcap. ;)

Monday, Monday! with a side of banana apple crisp.

Hey all! had a pretty good weekend, except for my knee bugging me: so no running! I feel like I over stretched it or something. My one-time running partner cancelled on me at the gym today and only one person showed up for step at lunch, so more rest for my over worked body again today. yeah! Hopefully, this week it feels better- especially, if I'm going to get some mileage down this coming month in preparation for our races to come.

I did try a new recipe tonight- using up more of my organic fruit backlog in the fridge: Banana-Coconut Apple Crisp from the Cooking Light site. (4pts per serving) I really liked it and had it with some leftover banana gelato- mmmmm..banana-y! I had to force myself to stop eating it. eep! It was an interesting, tangy and sweet mixture. I liked the chewy little bits of coconut in it and the surprising warm bites of banana flavour. Different from your usual apple crisp.

I incredibly had all the ingredients on hand without a separate trip to the grocery store and though I didn't have any OJ left, I did have a couple of huge organic oranges that I could juice. Woo hoo! love not sending stuff to the green bin untried.

Final side note: love my bday gift- the lovely red casserole dish pictured above- from one of my girlfriends. Love kitchen gifts that make me want to empty my crisper and make stuff. :)

white carrots in the HOWssssse!

dd9 made me laugh tonight when I served the family some raw white carrots from our most recent organic delivery box. She leaned over to dd12 and said, "I can't wait to tell my friends about this one. They always love to hear about the weird stuff mom serves." lol. High praise indeed.

Anyway, a pretty rushed meal tonight, though I did zip up some pesto with some fresh organic basil, lemon, pecans, tomato, garlic and parmesan (in my new summer blender from the Shopping Network). I love pesto so. *sigh

So I missed reporting in for HYC yesterday. In brief, I'm trying to get my eating back on track. I've gained back a lot of my 20 pounds that I had lost. *sigh again* The summer was a tad rough on the waistline. Why do I let myself get so far off good portion sizes and healthy choices? I know I feel better when I'm eating in a healthier way. Anyway, all I can do now is get back on track!

My exercising has been going better than my eating. I've been doing boot camp twice a week through the summer and now the fall. I've started back to running with big plans for upcoming races, maybe even surpassing my longest race of 30K? We'll see how my body holds up. I've also been doing a bit of yoga- enjoying the lower key nature of it again. I think in the desire to lose weight and burn calories fast, sometimes we forget to work on things like stretching and thoughtful breathing.

Hope everyone else has been having a healthy fall. Try a white carrot! They're delicious!

Monday with the Muffin Top

Ok. So I'm going to work on posting more regularly. I'm going to try to catch up on my favourite blogs. I'm going to step back from cyber-farming (curses to you Farmville)! I'm going to get back to HYC.

I have tried a number of recipes over the last few weeks. A few recent ones were motivated by my organic delivery. To use some of my backlog of apples, tonight I made Amaretto Apple Crisp from the Cooking Light site. (4pts) It was very good. dd9 and I were the only ones who had it though. (dd12 is a little under the weather today with a touch of the flu.) I happened to have an old bottle of Amaretto in my cupboard (xmas gift to dh from his sister- classic regift, perhaps?!? ;) and so I picked this crisp to do.

I also made Roasted Butternut Soup with Goat Cheese Toasts (well, without the toasts so far, though I DO enjoy goat cheese- subject of many prior posts.) The soup was pretty good and really used up a lot of items from my organic delivery (especially since I went to the trouble of making the vegetable stock), but I didn't love it to death and it was a lot of work. (Lots of dicing and peeling involved, let me tell you!) I found the flavour kind of sharp and really could taste the carrot over the butternut. I might not have put enough squash in it, perhaps. Anyway, still feeling proud and gloat-y from using up such a variety of organic delivery goods. Yeah non-wasteful-like-usual me!

Will check in tomorrow with a fitness update. Lots of running plans for the new year, if my bones and joints hold together. ;)

Bananas for Saturday

I started the day off with a run/walk through the autumn colours of a local trail with a couple of friends. It was pretty brisk out this morning- officially my first run with layers, but I'm always glad that I went (even when my bed seems particularly inviting and cozy.) As one of my running partners said, it's best to get out there (running) now BEFORE it snows and we just won't want to start. I can make some serious excuses not to run when it's cold out (even though I live in Canada and should be snow-hardy. ;)) We've promised ourselves that we will do an 8K race in January to ensure winter running. We'll *see how that goes. (*refer to previous comment about excuses)

After running today, I tried a new muffin recipe: Banana Spice Muffins from the Cooking Light site, taking a brief break from pumpkin- until tomorrow anyway. I had all the ingredients for these, except for a marginal shortage of ground allspice (which I topped up with cinnamon) and no ricotta cheese. I replaced the ricotta with light cream cheese after reading the recipe's review section. I used a bit less cream cheese than the called for 1/3 cup of ricotta (one of the recipe reviewers used 2 tbsp to replace it). I'd like to try them again with the ricotta to see how they compare.

sidenote: I usually like to stay really close to a recipe's ingredients, especially the first few times making it. (Never was "a pinch of this" and a "pinch of that" kind of baker- though I really admire people who can do that with success.)

Anyway, the muffins were good and they made the house smell good, too, which hopefully masked the general untidiness. ;)

This afternoon- when I wasn't tidying- I finally found a store that had Sigg bottles in stock so we could trade our old ones in. (The store where I bought our old (toxic ;)) ones has been out of stock for weeks.) Our new replacements have such cute designs, but it did make me sad to replace my lovely bottle from Laurie that I shared on here awhile back. *sniffle*

Here's hoping that our new bottles help me to remember to actually take my water with me to work.