Happy Weekend!

Hi friends!
Hope everyone is well and has been enjoying the spring weather we've been seeing the past few days, I myself am off to Mexico in a week for my first family vacation. Im pretty excited about it and have already packed, and have been routing things out everyday to hopefully make for a light vacation.
This week I didnt do much in the way of exercise, but have been cooking up a storm.
We had a dinner party with our friends, where I made a lasagna, and we drank too much wine.

 Hailey is really enjoying herself

Banjo and Sammy

Saturday morning I went over to my friend Sam's house to help her prepare for her girfriends babyshower. Sam mostly had it under control. I just helped make sandwiches, and devilled eggs. I wish I brought the camera as Sam went all out and was so inventive with the games she had. Greg even got an ice cream bowl for helping Sam put the meat slicer together.

We left around noon and went for a nice rainy geocache trip. We ended up only finding 2/4 but we picked up a tracker we are gonna take to Mexico, and dropped of a Slovakia coin we had had for a while.

I made A fabulous butternut squash soup for dinner on Saturday, and my sous chef made the baking powder biscuits. It was a nice hearty meal and I am really sad that butternut squash season is over. But I am happy spring is around the corner. Thats for sure.

Most of this week was spent spring cleaning, hence not being at the gym. I have really been feeling like purging and cleaning out my closets to feel lighter mentally and physically. It was nice to open all the windows and let the nice spring air in the house, I even hung sheets on the line! They didnt last too long, as it did start to rain, but they sure smelled fabulous when I crawled into bed that night!

I also made Greg ginger beef over fried rice with a whole bunch of asparagus we had to use up in the fridge. Greg makes this amazing charcoaled balsalmic asparagus on the barbeque, I was really hoping he'd make it, but I ended up just steaming it. It was still super delish.

Tonight I made some chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing, for my girlfriends baby shower tomorrow morning. Im really looking forward to the arrival of her little one! I went shopping and got a little carried away, everything is just so cute for little girls!

You dont need to press the mini cups down, they will sink when they cook.

 You cant even see the cups once the cupcakes bake!

Usually I would make my own cake mix, but I was also making butter chicken for Greg and I for dinner, so needed something quick and easy.

As soon as I posted the photo on facebook people asked for the recipe. Heres a couple I made this week.

Reece Peanut butter cupcakes

You will need:

1 Duncan Hines cake mix (chocolate fudge is which one I used)

Individually wrapped Reece mini cups, for inside the cup cake

Unwrapped Reece mini cups for decorating

2/3 cup Whipped Cream

2 cups icing sugar

1 cup peanut butter

3 Tbsp. butter

24 Cupcake liners

Piping bag

Prepare any chocolate cake mix, or devils food, or any of your choice, really, into cupcake lined sheet. Fill 2/3rds of the way full and place a mini Reece cup in the middle of each one, you don’t need to press them down into the middle.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Pull ‘em out and let ‘em cool. Take 1 cup of peanut butter, 3 Tbsp. of butter, 2 cups of icing sugar and whip in a large bowl until well combined. Whip 2/3 cup of whipped cream until light and fluffy. Spoon into a piping bag (or put in a Ziploc and cut the tip off) and pipe with icing. Place a cute little mini cup on top! Voila!

Butternut Squash Soup

You will need: 

Large pot and food processor or stick blender

1 medium to large sized butternut squash

1 large white onion

4 TBSP. butter

2 TBSP olive oil

2 TBSP. curry powder

½ tsp. ground cardamom

1 clove minced garlic

1-inch piece of fresh ginger root, grated

8 cups chicken or veggie stock

Optional garnishes: chopped cilantro, dollop of sour cream, roasted corn, parsley

                               

Preheat oven to 350.

Take one medium to large sized butternut squash, cut in half and scoop out middle. Put a tablespoon of butter in each half, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast skin side up on foil cookie sheet for 45-50 minutes.

Melt 2 tbsp. of butter and olive oil in large pot on medium heat.  Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, ginger, curry powder and cardamom and sauté for 3-5 minutes more.  

Scoop flesh out of squash. Discard of shell. Add squash in to pot along with stock.  Simmer 15 minutes then puree in small batches using a food processor, or with a stick blender (usually until squash is smooth).

Return to pot and simmer another 15 minutes.

Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and some roasted corn.

And last but certainly not least,

My favorite lasagna

One box oven ready lasagna noodles

1lb. ground beef, or turkey

Prepared pasta sauce, or make your own using a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, any any veggies you like

1 container cottage cheese

1 cup parmesan cheese, 1.4 cup separated

2 cups mozzarella

Chopped frozen, thawed spinach, rinsed and drained

1 egg, beaten

1 cup cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper

Make pasta sauce.

Prepare ground beef, add to sauce. Simmer 15 minutes.

In a large glass oven proof dish, spoon a layer of sauce onto the bottom of the pan and top with noodles.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together 1 ½ cups mozzarella, ¾ cup parmesan, container of cottage cheese, spinach, salt and pepper and beaten egg. Use hands to combine.

Layer noodles, pasta sauce and cheeses.

Top last layer with sauce, remaining parmesan, ½ cup mozzarella, and cheddar. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Let sit for 10 or 15 minutes before serving. I like to serve this dish with a nice salad and some garlic bread.

I hope everyone has a good weekend! Are you doing any spring cleaning? Any project planned for the warmer weather? I know I cant wait to start planning my veggie garden. Hasta Luego, amigos!



Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday fellow bloggers!
Hope the week went by fast for you. Thank goodness the weekend is here!

My week was pretty good. Tuesday I went to an aquafit class by myself, since Samantha, my partner in crime had to work. I came home. made a smoothie, walked my dog, and did another meditation. This meditation focused on ego, and how to be more aware of it. The instructor told us to think of things we own. I thought of my dog, my feelings, my possessions, my body. By the end of the meditation I was feeling pretty good. I decided to make myself a ginger beef salad to take to work for dinner
.
So I was all ready to go to work and about to leave, when I called Banjo to come in. I called him for a good 15 minutes before I started to panic. I called work and told them I'd be late, because I couldn't find my dog. I started driving up and down my street, looking in the ditches and calling his name. Half an hour had gone by when I called animal services and they said they picked him up because he was on the road. I think what happened was that, because it was recycling day, he was at the end of the driveway pulling the recycling out of the box. He does this every Tuesday like it is a fun game for him. Well it wasn't funny anymore. I was hysterical. But thank goodness he was okay. I went to the SPCA which is just down the road. And even though they told me he was there, they said they had taken him to the other animal rescue place. So I had to drive there and get him. It cost me $35, but I was just relieved he was okay. After all that I ended up being only 10 minutes late for work. Go me!

I didn't work my traditional closing shift, which was a nice change to be off early. A table of mine invited me to stay for a beer, so I did. They told me they are leaving to go to New Zealand for 3 weeks in a couple of days. That was exciting since it ha been on my list of To Do's for the past year now. I know they will have a great time and can't wait for them to come back with awesome stories to tell.

Wednesday was back and bicep day at the gym. Sam and I also went to a yoga class which was nice. I had my first face to face health consultation with a potential client of mine. I think it went really well and it was much easier than I thought. I almost find it harder through skype because its harder to connect with the person. After that I went home, did some notes on positive psychology, and had another meditation before work.

Thursday wasn' t very eventful. I made a lemon meringue pie. I wish I got a before picture, because although I told Greg not to eat it before 8:30pm, when I got home from work at 9:30, this was what was left...

What a thoughtful boyfriend I have.

The Canucks chalked up a HUGE win against Detroit, and it was one of the best games I'd ever seen! We tied it up with 15 seconds left in the third period. And Burrows delivered the winning goal in the shootout. And that ladies and gentlemen, is how hockey is played.

I noticed some lower back pain when I first got to work, which only got worse as the night went on.
By the end of my shift I was miserable. I was off around 10, and came home and passed out.

My back was still not feeling 100% on Friday, and Sam wasn't feeling it either, so we skipped our workout. I got a package in the mail with some dresses I'd ordered. It was a bummer because neither of them looked good. They were both too big. I always forget that American sizes are larger than Canadian sizes and I should have ordered a small in both. Oh well. Internet shopping, you win some, you lose some.

Greg was off work early because of torrential downpour so we went grocery shopping. I rushed to work because I thought I started at 4, but I didn't start until 5. It was good to have a coffee, eat my salad and relax before work. Sometime we need to be reminded to relax and not worry so much. The world has its ways of telling us this. And I was happy the Canuck game started at 4:30 So I got to actually watch the first period. We ended up winning against New Jersey. Man, I love hockey.

I got home around 9:45pm and Greg was watching some terrible movie. I went to read in bed, but fell asleep.

This morning I was up at 8am. Which, if you know me, is unheard of. Greg and I made some kick ass french toast, and had some coffee. I am already feeling pressed for time, since I have a million things to do and it is now 10:30am. I am going to make some cookies for my friend Georg's birthday. I also need to catch up on my meditation since I missed yesterdays. I have some school work to do and a few calls to make. But this morning I got outside and noticed some spring flowers poking through the ground. Hope this means good weather is coming! Only 3 more weeks until Mexico. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Thanks for reading.
Angie

What I've been up to lately

Hello there, World!
It's been a few months since my last post. I was feeling overwhelmed with my lifestyle change so much that I was uninspired to blog about it. It's been 3 months, and I've  still been eating healthy, and exercising regularly. I have noticed small changes but nothing drastic. My home cooked foods have been improving in the sense that I cook a lot more than before.

I've also enrolled in IIN, which for those of you who don't know, is the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I'm doing a distance education program, since they're based out of New York City. I think that is the main reason I haven't been blogging. I have been trying to focus on the program a lot and cut out some of the distraction that help me to procrastinate :P

But since I cant deny the love I have for blogging, I found myself inclined to write recipes of the food I've been eating each day as well as some of the workouts I've been doing.

 I slept in this morning since I had a busy weekend and had gone to Wildplay the day before with 3 of my girlfriend. Wildplay is basically like an obstacle course in the tree tops, with zip lines and platforms with obstacles in between the trees. It was really cool. Some parts you are like 60 feet up in the trees. It's pretty awesome, but really physical. If you have been contemplating going but haven't gone, GO! You will love it.

So I got out of bed and made myself a kale and blueberry smoothie. To be honest, it was my first time experimenting with kale, and I didn't love the stuff. I found my smoothie rather chunky and hard to swallow without gaging. Yesterday I signed up for Deepak Chopras free 21 day meditation challenge. I was really excited to get my first meditation email since meditation has been something I've wanted to get in to for a while. I saw it in my inbox, but decided it would be easier to relax once I had gone to the gym.

So off I went, for chest and triceps day. It was all good, except my yoga teacher was late and wasn't the girl that usually teaches. I tried to convince myself to enjoy it, and to embrace the adversity, but her class was pretty boring and was really hard on my back. I left half way through and did some cardio on the treadmill. I left the gym and came home.

I turned on the meditation challenge and laid on the floor with a warm blanket over me. I listened to the tap and followed the incredibly easy instructions. The tape was 16 minutes long but seemed to be much shorter. Before I knew it time was up. I felt as though time had stopped. It was a nice feeling. I went an poured myself a bath. When I got out I made myself a peanut butter banana sandwich on ancient grain bread. IT was so drippy and delicious.

I listened to a school lecture and took some notes.

I did the huuuge mound of dishes Greg and I had acquired over the weekend.

Greg came home from work, and I was giddy as a school girl to catch up on the 5 episodes we had missed of my latest obsession 'The Walking Dead'. We decided to make Thai Fish Curry for dinner. I was skeptical about it since it was from a jar, and I still felt it was much too sweet and not spicy enough. We made it with halibut Greg got from the summer that needed to be used. We also had whole grain naan bread, and fresh tzaziki. I added some peppers, put it on brown rice, garnished with toasted cashews, and a sprig of cilantro. It was just right.

There is a recipe I took from those free little magazines at Thrifty Foods, that Greg and I were dying to make. It is a banana, rolled up in a flour tortilla, brushed with butter, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, then baked in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. When it comes out you drizzle melted chocolate over it and garnish it with toasted peanuts. It was UH-MAY-ZING.

(We had to use ancient grain tortillas, as we had no white flour tortillas, but they were still good!)

I also had a couple pre-made pie crusts in the fridge that needed to be used, so I whipped up a strawberry rhubarb crumble. It only took a couple of minutes and smelled so so good while it was cooking.

Tomorrow I will make a lemon meringue pie with the other crust.

Over the last month, I read 'The Omnivores Dilemna', by Michael Pollan, which I found to be a good, easy read. He does a great job of documenting his journey through the North American food system. A lot of the point he made were valid and I enjoyed reading it.  I recently checked 'In the Defence of Food' out of the library and can't wait to read it, in between 'The Fellowship of the Ring', of course.

I also went to a Canucks hockey game with my girl Sarah. We won 4-2. It was one of the best days in a long time.

A friend of mine, Daniel Cutler, recently published as article of mine, about why you shouldn't buy bottled water, on a website he is working on. Check it out here.

I also recently lopped all my hair off, Thanks to my amazing hairdresser friend, Megan. If it wasn't for her I would never ever have gone out my comfort zone, and I'm so glad I did.

Other than that, not much is new. Greg and I have been thinking about perhaps a road trip this summer. We are looking forward to Mexico in the next month. It will be my first family vacation and I couldn't be more excited. Anyways, hope everyone had a great start to the week. I definitely did and I feel good to be back blogging.

Thanks for reading,

Take care,

Angie