spring bugs, mini eggs and hot runs, everything that's wonderful....

Happy belated Easter everyone!!

 

 Look who was out today (and yesterday) !!!! 

Mr. Sunshine!

Mr. and Mrs. Ladybug - it must be spring!!

Everyone got up relatively early, minus my younger brother, who would sleep all day if he could.

The Pop Chips are my fave!!

My parents and I went to the nearest town with an open grocery store, and had quite the time trying to figure out what we were having. Ham? Salmon? Tilapia? Chicken? Turkey? Well the long and short of it was that there was NOT a whole lot of selection of anything - go figure, it's Easter weekend - and we ended up getting tilapia! Now, this is definitely different from any usual Easter dinner. It is always ham or turkey, but what fun is it if you don't start new traditions?

But before this delicious feast happened, we came home from shopping, and got our running garb on. It was a beautiful 18 degree day, and Mom wanted to go for a run. I wasn't feeling it so much at first, but then said 'Why not?' She ended up doing 10.44k and I did 9.18k. My socks really sucked and I got a little blister, and walked the majority of the way. And THAT my friends is why you wear technical socks! The sun was at my back the entire time I walked/ran on the highway, so I got a really dirty looking 'X' tanlines on my back from my shirt.

Post - run Green Monster!

 For the fish, my mom used this orange-wasabi-ginger seasoning blend from a local store, and grilled it on the BBQ. It was served alongside spinach salad with homemade celery seed dressing, sweet potato oven fries and roasted broccoli!! Omnomnomnom.

I definitely ate this plate plus more salad!!

The eye of Kaa the Snake - or the Basilisk :O

Hope everyone had a sunshine-y Easter! I am glad to say I am NOT in a sugar coma today!

xo
Lauren

Clean Eating.. Almost.

Let me just say that I am proud of my little town for raising money for a local young boy! I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures from the fundraiser. It was a great gathering of people, and fun was had by all! So awesome! Such a good cause!

Round 2 of ChaLean Extreme is awesome. I can feel my body changing, and I have already lost 1/2 an inch off my hips and my waist. So BOOYAH!


The other night, I picked up the new Clean Eating magazine when my friends wanted to make a random trip to the city at 10 pm.. They got My Little Pony figurines, I got Clean Eating and Water for Elephants. They got McDonald's burgers(ick) and I got tea and ice cream. Exciting!

Ever look online and in new magazines and say "Ooooh I want to make that!" ? Then realize that you have so many other recipes that you already want to make? Well this issue had a strictly meatless section where they had so many yummy recipes. I want to try them all, but for now, this is what I made. 


Classic Tacos
Adapted from the Clean Eating recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped 
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 cups mushrooms, chopped roughly into small pieces (I used button mushrooms)
• 1/2 of a medium-sized cauliflower, chopped into small pieces
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 freshly strangled ground black pepper
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels

Directions:


In a large skillet, heat oil on medium-high. Add your onion, and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and saute for another minute or so.


Add mushrooms and cauliflower and stir constantly for 2 minutes, until steam begins to be released. Continue to cook for about 15 minutes, until vegetables have become fork tender.

While your veggie mixture is cooking, whisk together tomato paste, 1/4 cup water, chili powder, cumin, and salt and pepper. Add to mushroom mixture and add corn. Mix well until sauce coats evenly, and cover. Turn heat down to med-low, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

To assemble:

• 8 small tortillas of your choice (if you were to make your servings smaller, 12 would be fine) I used Dempster's Body Wise tortillas
• Your favorite taco toppings - Avocado, fat-free sour cream, light shredded cheese, taco sauce, hot sauce, lettuce, black beans

Are you sure these are tacos?

No meat? Uhhh..

Destroying #3 and #4!

The aftermath

See silly boyfriend, a meal without meat can be gooood! :)


For 3 tacos (with my ingredients and brands of fillings) - 1 tortilla, 1/3 filling, 1/8 cup light cheese divided evenly, 3 tbsp fat-free sour cream, and a few slices of avocado:
Calories - 490, Fat - 13 g, Carbs - 13 g, Protein - 32g
 I also made a soup from The Gracious Pantry (if you haven't looked at her blog, do it now!)
I modified it a bit, to my liking...


It was simply:

• One can no salt added tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup veggie stock
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 2 tsp Clubhouse roasted garlic and red pepper spice mix
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. celery seed
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 2 tsp chicken bouillion powder or 1 bouillion cube
• 1 cup 2% milk (she suggests soy milk)
• 3/4 cup light shredded cheese

Simply add all ingredients in a pot and warm til heated through. My milk curdled because the heat was too high.. But it was still tasty!! Definitely making this again!




For 1 cup :
Calories - 95, Fat - 3.7 g, Carbs - 9.2 g, Protein - 6.7 g


xo
Lauren

Top 10 Foods!

Today I woke up at the bright ol' time of 8:00 am. 

Overcast and rather blah looking outside, I made my breakfast. I burnt my butter in the pan (apparently) and the toaster was cranked up on 6 1/2 so my toast was rather... crispy. My dad had gone for eggs, so when he came back, I made his breakfast, and left mine waiting on the counter. He wanted mushrooms with his eggs, so I had those chopped up. I decided to be sneaky and made him a scrambled egg breakfast with 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites instead of the usual 3 egg omelette!! I added a little bit of cheese on top. He seemed to enjoy it but it didn't make him "full" enough. 


Lunch was from the freezer. Leftover lentil stew which my mother and I shared! So so tasty. I need to make that again!


The weather is still as strange as ever!! Here are some pictures from the run that my mom and I went on last week :

She is standing on the road!

During that whole run, it would be sunny, then hail. Sun, hail. Sun, hail! And those clouds were scary!! 

The other day a BUS got stuck in a sinkhole over by a church here in town. A legit sinkhole! It didn't get all swallowed up end-of-the-world-like, but that's just how soft the dirt is underneath the pavement. I only got pictures after the fact.

This is a farm a few miles out of town. Might as well build the ark now!!

Crazy for here!!! The poor farmers will have no luck this year, and will probably lose a lot of money. Hopefully everything turns around soon for them.

On to a different topic. I was recently on a message board and I saw a topic called Top 10 Foods. It was just a different list of foods that you eat on a daily or weekly basis.


My Top 10 (and my favorite meal with said ingredient):
All recipes with pictures are either from I See Fit People (Mom's FB page) or my blog.

1. Lentils - Honey Baked Lentils

 

2. Sweet Potatoes - Though there are many different ways to enjoy these babies, I think that my favorite meal with this as the main star would have to be Sweet Potato Sheperd's Pie.

3. Cottage Cheese - Easy Mac & Cheese

4. Butternut Squash - Butternut Squash Lasagna with Caramelized Onions (TO. DIE. FOR)

5. Eggs - Your basic omelette. That is my breakfast every morning if I can! 2 egg whites, 1 whole egg, a dollop of cream cheese, and some light mixed cheese. 

6. Chicken - Chicken Lasagna. This recipe definitely is NOT the healthiest one in the book, but it sure is tasty. It has 5 different kinds of cheese in it and is all kinds of heavenly!


7. Popcorn - Air-popped, huge bowl, ketchup-nacho-dill pickle-sour cream seasonings, Biggest Loser, OH YEAH.


8. Chickpeas - Homemade Chana Masala. This does NOT last long in our house. So fragrant and wonderful.

9. Quinoa - Vegetarian Muscle Meal (with lentils)

10. Spaghetti Squash - oven roasted, served with a little pasta sauce and a sprinkling of cheese with salt and pepper.



Runners-Up : Mixed Greens and Broccoli


Now I'm off for some salad and some sweet potato sheperd's pie. For realz!! 


What is your top 10??


 xo
Lauren 

if april showers bring may flowers, what does april snow bring?

Hey all!


Let me just start off by saying how unpredictable the weather has been lately!  We had a beautiful day with 13 degree weather, and then later that night and the entire next day, it snowed, snowed, SNOWED! Usually it is nice fluffy snow that is pure powder. But this was the slushy, disgusting, sticky snow that is three quarters water AKA a mess!


The town has been trying to clear everything, and keep excess water off of the streets to prevent flooding basements and buildings. Our basement has two little cracks with water just pouring in right now. Hopefully the sun the next few days will dry that saturated ground up, and I pray that no one has to lose their house due to flooding. There is a Mennonite school just on the outskirts of town, and they have had sandbags stacked up around perimeter of the building for a few weeks now!  The other night, there was actually an escavator (among other kinds of equipment) digging up the train tracks because there was so much water threatening to just flow right over the tracks!


I found a few pictures on The Weather Network, and they just make me so nervous for what's to come. You don't need to go to the coast to get to the water! 

The slushy crap laying on the streets

A farmer's lake field

On your right would normally be the canal!

May I point out that this is what it looked like approximately this time last year : 

And this was after a ~microburst~ 3 summers ago (July 15th, 2008) :

"After the hurricane tornado, comes the rainbow.."

I guess we've just got the poopy end of the stick here in Southern Alberta. 


On to the recipes though! 
Today is Meatless Monday (again!) so here are 2 delicious recipes!

Veggie Sloppy Joes (L) & Sweet and Sour Cabbage (R)

Sweet & Sour Cabbage
Original recipe is here


Ingredients:

• 1 medium head of cabbage (about 2 cups), shredded
• 1/2 cup of onion, chopped finely
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup veggie broth
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
• 1 tbsp garlic salt

Directions:
Heat pan to medium. Add onion to olive oil and saute. Add cabbage and saute for 5 minutes.

Add broth, turn heat down to medium-low, cover and steam until cabbage is soft [about 40-45 minutes]
Uncover and simmer until most of liquid has cooked off.


Make your sweet and sour sauce from your last 5 ingredients. Stir into cabbage, mix until coated, and turn heat back up to medium-high to let the sauce reduce.

Makes 2 - 1/2 cup servings


Veggie Sloppy Joes


Ingredients:

• 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped into small pieces
• 1 can no-salt added tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 cup veggie broth
• 1 1/2 tbsp Splenda
• 1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup calorie-wise BBQ sauce
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard
• salt and pepper
• 2 3/4 cups cooked rice
• hamburger buns (I used Compliments Balance Multi-Thins)

Directions:


Heat saucepan to medium, and saute onion and red peppers.


Add rest of ingredients except rice and stir to mix. Bring to a boil and add rice.

Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes!


Mom enjoyed her sloppy joe filling on a pile of spaghetti squash! SO GOOD!

Makes 6 - 8 servings.
For a 3/4 cup serving {filling only} :
Calories - 184, Fat - 1.3 g, Carbs - 38 g, Fibre - 1.9 g, Protein 3.2 g


- What is your favorite no-meat dish?


xo
Lauren