One Healthy Munchkin

Is intuitive eating good enough?

2012-01-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

Note: this post discusses calorie intake. If that makes you uncomfortable, please feel free to skip this post.

Lately my metabolism has been confusing me! Sometimes I feel like all I do is eat, and yet I can still get hungry only 2 hours after a big meal. I thought maybe I had just kicked my metabolism into super high gear from working out and frequently fueling up, but I never stopped to consider the other possibility: Maybe I'm always hungry because I'm not actually eating enough!

I know my calorie needs are somewhere in the 1900 - 2100 calories/day range and I always assumed I was getting that amount because I try my best to practice intuitive eating - I eat when I'm hungry, I never go more than 4 hours without eating, and I always feel quite full after my meals and snacks. So logically, if I'm eating according to my hunger cues, I should be eating enough calories, right? But I've never actually checked to see if I am, in fact, eating what I need.

So out of curiosity I decided to track my calories for one day this week using the website Fit Day. Here's what I ate that day:

Oatmeal with milk, chia seeds, banana, cinnamon, egg white, blueberries, soy nut butter and homemade granola.

Sandwich on multigrain bread stuffed with hummus, avocado, cucumber, tomato, spinach and carrots + carrots and half an apple on the side.

Cottage cheese, cinnamon, half a chopped apple, and Kashi Toasted Cinnamon Crisp cereal.

Sunflower seed butter crusted tofu, sweet potato, roasted broccoli.

Cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and some homemade granola.

At the end of the day I was shocked to discover this day only came to a total of about 1600 calories! But on the plus side I had a really good balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat - they are right in the recommended ranges!

I was curious to see if this is how much I eat on a regular basis, so I tracked my eating for another day and found that I consumed upwards of 2000 calories, which is right where I should be. So it seems like I just have an inconsistent intake of calories, which is strange because I eat pretty much the same pattern of meals/snacks every day. Also, my hunger was equally as satisfied on my 1600 calorie day v. my 2000+ calorie day - how could that be when there was a 400 calorie difference?

So I guess this little "experiment" just goes to show that maybe our hunger mechanisms aren't as smart as we think they are, especially when you add frequent exercise into the equation. My hunger cues are apparently wayyyy off, so I think I need to start occasionally tracking my calories just to check in and make sure I'm meeting my needs. If I want to do that triathlon this summer, I need to be serious about fueling properly and I can't afford to be unintentionally skimping on calories!

What do you guys think?

Have you ever tracked your calories and discovered you were eating too much/too little?

Do you think our bodies are smart enough to tell us how much food they need or not?

The curry conundrum

2012-01-28T10:44:00.001-05:00

Hey guys! Who else is super relieved that it's the weekend? I needed the break badly. I kicked it off last night by going out to dinner with my favourite foodie friend: A Dash of Meg!

It's restaurant week here, so that means that a bunch of London, Ontario's top restaurants offer dinners for only $25 each. It's a total steal! We've both been to a lot of the participating restaurants already, so we decided to try one that neither of us had been to. After perusing all the menus, we settled on The Braywick Bistro.

To start they brought us out some bread and olive oil with balsamic vinegar and herbs for dipping. I know good balsamic vinegar from the cheap kind - and this was definitely the good stuff!

For the appetizer I went with the baby spinach salad. It was simple, but the balsamic vinaigrette was really good!

For my entree I chose the chicken curry with chickpeas, pineapple, sweet peppers, carrots, and yellow zucchini in a coconut milk curry sauce served over saffron basmati rice and topped with green onion and black sesame seeds. It was absolutely amazing!

Except while I was eating it, my mouth started to feel tingly. And by the time I was done, my lips became seriously swollen! I started freaking out a bit, but the waitress assured me my meal didn't come into contact with any nuts, scallops, mussels, clams or oysters. So I was stumped. What the heck did I react to?

And then I remembered back to the fall when I made a curry and got an itchy rash after eating it... so I guess I'm allergic to curry?! Once I got home and did some googling, I found out that people who are allergic to nuts are often also allergic to fenugreek, which is a spice used in curry powder. I'm a little confused since I've eaten curry many times before, but I know some allergies can develop and get worse with repeated exposure, so that's probably what happened. At least my mystery has been solved, but on the downside that means no more curry for this girl. :(

Today I hit up the gym early for a chest + triceps workout and the rest of my day is devoted to readings, assignments, errands and laundry. Here's hoping for a productive day!

Have you ever discovered you have an allergy or intolerance to something you used to eat all the time?

What's your favourite kind of curry?

Sprout it

2012-01-26T19:39:00.001-05:00

A few months ago I came across Ani's Raw Food Essentials at Chapters on sale for $10. Even though I'm not a raw foodist at all, I couldn't pass up that deal! Raw food has always intrigued me and I've always wanted to learn to make a few things myself, since most raw food restaurants aren't safe for my allergies.

I never got around to trying out any of her recipes or techniques until last week, when I decided to try sprouting for the first time. I chose quinoa because it's fairly easy to sprout and takes less time than other options. Ani provides a very helpful chart in her book that tells you the soaking time, sprouting time, and sprouted yield for different types of grains, seeds and nuts.

First I placed the raw quinoa in a fine mesh sieve (this is important because the first time I tried this in December, the sieve holes were too big and the quinoa fell through!) and placed it in a bowl full of water to soak it. Make sure the quinoa is fully submerged in the water!

I left it out to soak for about 3-4 hours, then I pulled the sieve out of the water, dumped the water out of the bowl, and placed the sieve back over the bowl to let it drain.

I left it like this for about two days and I occasionally rinsed the quinoa throughout that time (probably about 6 or 7 times total).

After only 1 day I started to see the little tails sprout, but I left it for 2 days to let them sprout even more.

Then I used them to whip up this sprouted quinoa salad. It's not fully raw because I used chickpeas and cooked bulgur to add some more substance to it!

Sprouted quinoa salad
Serves 2

- 1-1/2 cups sprouted quinoa (made from 1/2 cup raw quinoa)
- 1/4 cup raw bulgur cooked in 1/2 cup of water
- 1-1/2 cups chickpeas
- 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup diced cucumber
- 1/2 a red pepper, diced
- 2 green onions, sliced
- 1/3 cup of chopped parsley
- 2-3 tbsp sunflower seeds
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp olive oil

So what's the point in sprouting? Sprouting begins the germination process where the seed starts to become a plant. According to Ani, this makes it easier to digest and converts the carbohydrates to protein.

Of course being a nutrition student, I had to go and do some research for myself! Credible research was really hard to come by, but overall the impression I got was that sprouted grains may have benefits over unsprouted grains, but they aren't very significant. The Center for Health and Nutrition Research at the University of California Davis says that sprouted grains may have more vitamin C, carotenoids, and better quality protein, but these differences are small. Also, they do in fact have higher enzyme activity, which can possibly result in better absorption of some minerals and better digestibility, but again the effects are most likely small.

Even if sprouting doesn't have additional health benefits, it's still a fun way to prepare foods differently. I would definitely like to try it again, maybe with some legumes next time!

Have you ever sprouted your own beans, grains, nuts or seeds? Or have you ever tried them before?

Have you tried any new ways of preparing a food recently?

WIAW #22: Fitting it all in

2012-01-25T07:05:00.001-05:00

Good morning friends! :)

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I always let out a big sigh of relief after I put up my What I Ate Wednesday post. Taking pictures all day, resizing them, and writing up a post before Wednesday morning can be pretty stressful! Especially when I had an online learning module to complete yesterday as well as some textbook readings and a meeting on campus. But somehow I managed to get it all done - and just in time for WIAW! Head over to Jenn's blog to check out all the other great posts!

I started the day off with a new Kashi cereal: Toasted Cinnamon Crisp! I had it with vanilla Greek yogurt, a banana, blueberries, and raspberries.

I was so excited when I was at the grocery store with Meg on Monday night and saw it on display. Even though Cheryl didn't really like it, I needed to try it out anyway! And it's a good thing I did, because I actually loved it! It's crunchy, but mixing it with the yogurt gives it a nice softness. And I LOVE the cinnamon flavour.

When I compared the nutrition facts to the Kashi Honey Almond Flax that I usually buy, after adjusting for serving size I found that it contained less sugar, more protein, more iron, and more zinc. Awesome!

Since I had the morning off from class (because of the online learning module), I decided to use the time to go to the gym. I did an easy 3.25 mile run followed by lots of stretching and some ab exercises. I've decided not to push it with my mileage right now because my knee has been acting up.

For lunch I made my favourite PWO meal: a big carby sandwich filled with healthy tuna salad, spinach, and tomatoes. Plus an apple on the side.

Healthy tuna salad
Serves 2

1 can of solid white tuna in water
1 green onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, finely diced
3 tbsp plain Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

I spent the first part of the afternoon doing that online learning module, then had to take a break to go to a meeting on campus. But after 2.5 hours of sitting, I was grateful for the chance to get outside and stretch my legs! I packed some fruit (pineapple, mango, strawberries) and cereal (Quaker Oatmeal Squares, Kellogg's Fibre Plus) to snack on during the meeting.

When I got home after I went straight back to doing that learning module. It took me forever - I didn't finish it until after dinner! Dinner was pretty spectacular though: shrimp and brown rice with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, avocado, parlsey, feta cheese, lemon juice, and olive oil over a bed of spinach.

After doing even more homework, I finally stopped for the night and made myself a snack of cottage cheese, 2% Oikos vanilla, homemade granola, goji berries, and chia seeds. I enjoyed this while catching up on twitter and blogs. I could have done more homework... but I've got priorities people. ;)

Today's a leg day at the gym, then I have a few chapters to read before my six hour day on campus. Wednesdays are always a long day! I hope it's a good one for you guys. :)

Have you tried the new Kashi cereal yet? What other new products have you tried lately?

What's your favourite meal to eat after a workout?

What's the best thing you ate yesterday?

In the raw

2012-01-23T16:30:00.001-05:00

Saturday was one of those afternoons that left my kitchen looking like this:

It was a disaster! There was sticky date residue on the food processor buttons, coconut oil smeared on the microwave, and almond powder up my nose (I wish I was kidding here). But if there's one good thing about a messy kitchen, it's that you usually at least have a delicious recipe as the result!

That was definitely true in my case. I made two kinds of raw chocolate chip cookies to bring to my friend's birthday that night. She's a blog reader and health foodie too, so I knew these would be right up her alley.

Raw chocolate chip cookies
Adapted from this recipe from Oh She Glows

1.5 cups ground raw almonds
0.5 cup ground oats
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp agave nectar
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/16 tsp salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Grind the oats in a food processor until they are not quite a flour-like consistency. Remove from the food processor and add the almonds. Process until they are a coarse flour texture with a few small pieces. Add the ground almonds, ground oats, agave, vanilla, coconut oil, salt and chocolate chips in a bowl and mix until combined. Then roll them into small 1 inch balls and flatten into a cookie shape, placing them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Then put them in the fridge for 1-2 hours to harden. Note: They are quite crumbly and it will be very hard to form cookie shapes, but once they harden they stick together very nicely!

As I was making these I got nervous that they weren't sticking together, so I decided to remedy the situation by adding dates to half the batch to help them stick together.

Raw chocolate chip cookies (with dates)
Adapted from my raw chocolate chip cookie recipe (above)

1.5 cups ground raw almonds
0.5 cup ground oats
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp agave nectar
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/16 tsp salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
8-9 medjool dates

Process the dates in food processor until they are smooth and sticky. Then add in the dough made from the recipe above and continue to process until the mixture is uniform. Form small 1 inch balls with this mixture and flatten into a cookie shape. Place on a cookie sheet and let harden in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Both cookies turned out amazing - I can't decide which one I like better! Unfortunately I'm an airhead and I totally forgot to bring them to my friend's party, which is both a bad and a good thing. On the plus side I have a whole batch in my fridge, but on the down side I can't stop eating them!!!

Do your friends like the healthy desserts and snacks that you make?

What's your favourite raw/no-bake dessert or snack?

Stuffed peppers recipe + back/shoulders workout

2012-01-22T08:38:00.000-05:00

You know those meal ideas that you have floating around in your head that you want to make, but keep on forgetting about? I started writing them down on a sticky note on my computer every time I thought of one. It helps me keep track of them, but does it make me any better at remembering to make them? No!

I've had stuffed peppers on that list since September, but Friday was the first time I actually got around to making them! I loosely based them on my mom's meat stuffed peppers, but I decided to make them vegetarian with a few flavour swaps.

Black bean and rice stuffed peppers
Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a meal

2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup finely chopped red pepper
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp paprika (optional)
1 cup cooked black beans
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 cup + 3/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup feta cheese
Salt and pepper
2 large sweet peppers

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Heat up the olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped onion. Reduce the heat to low and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the red pepper and continue to cook until it softens. Next add in a minced clove of garlic. Cook for 30 seconds then remove from heat.

Put the mixture to a medium sized mixing bowl. Add the parsley, paprika, black beans, rice, 1/4 cup tomato sauce, feta cheese, and salt and pepper.

Cut open the two peppers lengthwise to create two halves and remove all the seeds. Place the halves in a glass baking dish and divide the stuffing equally into them. Pour the rest of the tomato sauce into the dish, including on top of the peppers. Then cover the dish with tinfoil and bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until the peppers are soft.

I ate mine with some kale chips for a delicious balanced meal.

Saturday morning I had a gym date with my friend. We used to go to the gym together all the time in sophomore year, but we've had really different schedules for the past few years so we haven't been able to go together lately. It was so fun to have a gym buddy for once! I did this awesome back and shoulders workout I had planned out.

Back and shoulders workout

Note: you can sub in any other cardio machine for the ones I used

15 minute warm up on the elliptical

3x10 dumbbell row
3x10 shoulder press

3 minutes running at 6.5 mph

3x10 rear lateral raise
3x10 front raise

3 minutes running at 6.5 mph

3x10 lat pulldown
3x10 lateral raise

3 minutes running at 6.5 mph

3x10 cable row
3x10 lying external rotation

5 minute cooldown on the stationary bike

My upper body is definitely feeling it today. Especially since I moved up to 60 lb on the lat pulldown - a new PR!!!

The rest of the day was filled with baking (recipe coming soon!), homework, cleaning, and my friend's birthday at night. I made Angela's Crispy Breaded Tofu Strips for dinner before I left - they were delicious!

Today I'm going for a run, making homemade granola, doing some homework, and popping out to the mall with my friend for a bit. Hope you all have a great day!

How do you keep track of all the recipes you want to make? Or do you always forget about them like me?

What's your favourite kind of stuffed vegetable?

What's the last blog recipe you made?

The athlete's food pyramid

2012-01-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! My second week of classes is over and by now I can definitely say that my favourite class is Nutrition of Physical Activity. We're already learning about some really neat things!

Like did you know that there is a food pyramid made especially for athletes? It was created by the Swiss Forum for Sport Nutrition to cover the extra needs of athletes. It's based on the basic Swiss food pyramid, but includes more energy and nutrients to cover the demands of heavy exercise.

This pyramid applies to any athlete who exercises for 5 or more hours per week at moderate intensity. "Moderate intensity" in this case means running at 5 mph, swimming at 1.6 mph or biking at 2 watts/kg of body weight. I bet that applies to a lot of you, right? I know I definitely fit into that category, so I was really interested in learning about this in class!

Click here to see a larger version on the Swiss Forum of Sport Nutrition's site.

So what's different about the food pyramid for athletes?

1. It includes extra fluid requirements. It recommends that for each 1 hour of exercise, 400 - 800 ml of sport drink be consumed. Water should also be consumed, or it can replace the sport drink.

2. It includes extra grain and legume recommendations. For each additional hour of exercise, 1 extra serving is recommended. When exercise reaches more than 2 hours per day, sport drinks can be used instead of food to meet these recommendations.

3. It includes more fat. For each hour of exercise, add 1/2 a serving of fat.

When this food pyramid was tested on athletes of varying activity level, it was found to cover 97% of the energy requirements and 100% of the vitamin and mineral requirements of these individuals, along with adequate carbohydrates and protein. So overall it seems pretty effective!

Anyways, I'll stop nerding out on you guys right now and fill you in on the rest of my life. I have some good news: my Greek yogurt crisis has been solved!

I ventured out to the grocery store bright and early yesterday morning and restocked my stash along with some other groceries. Of course my grocery store was out of my brand of Greek yogurt, so I had to drive all the way to another store just to buy it. Did I mention it was in the middle of a blizzard and I could barely see 5 feet in front of my car? Oh, the things I will do for food...

Later on I went out for fro yo with Meg, Cheryl and Andrea. It was the coldest and snowiest day of the winter so far, but we didn't let that stop us from indulging our fro yo cravings!

I got vanilla (which was just okay) and black cherry (which was awesome!) topped with berries and crushed oreos. Mmm!

I had the best time chatting with those girls. I always have so much fun with Meg and Andrea, but this was my first time actually hanging out for an evening with Cheryl. And she's just as awesome as she comes across on her blog.

Girls, if you're reading, thanks for the great evening!

What do you think of the athlete's food pyramid?

What do you like to put into your fro yo cup?

Do you have any real life friends who are bloggers? Have you ever met any other healthy living bloggers?

Pancakes to the rescue

2012-01-19T19:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I ran into a bit of a crisis... I was out of Greek yogurt. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but for someone who always has at least 3 tubs of it in my fridge at any given time, it was a big deal.

I had been planning on having Greek yogurt for breakfast, but when I discovered the night before that my last tub of Greek yogurt had gone bad (well before the expiry date!), I had to toss it, leaving me Greek yogurt-less.

Oatmeal was out of the question too because my bananas weren't quite ripe enough. Call me crazy, but for me, bananas have different uses at each of their stages of ripeness. For example, ripe bananas are used for oatmeal whereas less ripe bananas are eaten with cereal + milk or yogurt + granola. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks that?!

So with oatmeal and yogurt + granola out of the question, pancakes stepped up and came to the rescue. And I came up with an awesome recipe!

Fluffy cottage cheese pancakes
Serves 1

2 tbsp oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
Shake of cinnamon
1/4 cup egg whites
1/4 cup cottage cheese
1/4 tsp vanilla

Combine the oats, flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a medium bowl and stir. Then add in the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.

Spray a pan with cooking oil and let it heat up. Scoop the batter into the pan to form 3 pancakes. Cook until the tops start to bubble, then flip and cook until done.

I layered mine with banana and topped them with drippy soy nut butter, blueberries, and coconut. Perfection!

Do you have certain uses for bananas at their different stages of ripeness?

Do you have any other weird food "rules" like that?

What is one food that you absolutely must have in your kitchen at all times?

WIAW #21: Falling back on familiarity

2012-01-18T06:40:00.000-05:00

Hi guys! Happy What I Ate Wednesday! Today I've got six hours of class from 2:30 until 8:30 pm that I'm dreading - I'm always falling asleep by the time 8 pm rolls around! I can't wait until I can come home after that, curl up on the couch with some tea, and read everyone's WIAW posts. It's something I look forward to every week. :)

As I mentioned in my last post, this week I've been trying out one of my New Year's resolutions to plan my meals for the week. I've been doing pretty well with it, but yesterday I just needed a break. I've been trying out tons of new recipes lately and yesterday all I wanted was to cook some easy, familiar, boring foods. And so I did.

I started off my morning with a big bowl of pumpkin banana oatmeal (cooked with milk, chia seeds, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice) topped with granola, soy nut butter and pumpkin butter.

It may be boring and predictable, but it never gets any less tasty!

I had class from 8:30 until 11:30 and then lunch, which was another favourite of mine: a sandwich with hummus, avocado, cucumber, carrot, sprouts and tomato, with an apple on the side. Sometimes I find myself eating this same lunch 3-4 times per week!

I let it digest for an hour then went to spin class. I was hesitant about going at first because my legs were a little stiff, but spinning always loosens them out for me. Once my legs were feeling good, it was a great class!

When I got home I refueled with a smoothie using Meg's recipe. The only changes I made were using frozen instead of fresh blueberries, milk instead of almond milk, and kale instead of spinach. It turned out so nice and thick!

Smoothies never keep me full for long though, so I was starving by 5 pm. I had stuffed peppers on my menu plan for the night, but I wanted something faster, so instead I just made a good old tofu and veggie stir fry with my sunflower seed butter sauce.

After doing some readings, watching Glee, and reading some blogs, I made myself my go-to night time snack of vanilla Greek yogurt, pumpkin, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and granola. Unfortunately the usual pleasure of eating this snack was ruined by some seriously funky tasting yogurt. Eww! I had to eat some pineapple after to get the taste out of my mouth!

I guess that means I won't be eating yogurt as planned for breakfast this morning... so I'm off to whip myself up a batch of pancakes! I hope you all have a great Wednesday!

What's the best thing you've eaten lately?

What are some of your favourite familiar foods that you like to fall back on when you don't have any other meal ideas?

Nutrition classes + a mahi mahi recipe

2012-01-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! Is it just me or does anyone else get excited by the start of a new week? I love that it always seems like a new beginning and a new chance to be productive and motivated. This week marks the second week of my new semester, so by now I have a good feel for all my classes and I'm ready to dive in and work hard! The fact that I'm taking some really interesting classes is also a good motivator.

So what kind of courses does a third year Nutrition student take?

Nutrition and Metabolic Processes - this is a pretty biochemistry-heavy course with a focus on the chemical reactions of nutrients in our bodies. We go into all the nitty gritty details involving the reactions, enzymes, and regulation to learn how our bodies really work and why things go wrong in nutritional disease states.

Food Production Management - this course is a requirement because some students in my program choose to go into food service. That's not the route I want to take, but I guess it will kind of be neat to learn about food service establishments, menu planning, and food safety.

Nutrition of Physical Activity - I'm so excited for this course because this is the field I'd like to get into eventually - sports nutrition! I'm sure I'll also take away a lot of great information that I can apply to my own workouts too.

Principles of Management - another required course that basically teaches us how to be a manager. I'm not 100% sure how this applies to being a dietitian, but I'm sure it will be useful.

Community Nutrition - this course is all about health promotion in the community and taking collaborative action with other sectors in order to make health living the easy choice for people in a community.

So that's my semester. If you have any questions about my Nutrition program, feel free to ask! :)

Not only am I excited for my classes this week, but I'm also excited about my meals. Remember my New Year's goal to stick to a meal plan? Well this week I finally made one and so far it's working out great! I'll tell you all about it at the end of the week, but for now here's a peak at some of the things I've made:

Onion, kale and potato hash cooked with fried eggs and buttered toast.

Roasted veggies and tofu

Mahi mahi with tropical salsa

Mahi mahi with pineapple-mint salsa
Serves 4

4 mahi mahi fillets
1 cup diced pineapple
3 tbsp diced red onion
1/3 cup diced cucumber
1/4 cup diced red pepper
1/3 cup chopped mint leaves
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 tsp agave nectar

Spray a glass or clay baking dish with oil and place the fish fillets in it. Brush them with olive oil, sprinkle with a dash of salt, and bake at 350°F for about 15 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork.

Meanwhile combine the diced pineapple, onion, cucumber, red pepper and mint leaves in a dish. Whisk together the lime juice and agave nectar and add to the salsa. When the fillets are done, remove them to a plate and spoon the salsa over them to serve.

If you were a nutrition student, what area would you be most interested in - clinical, community, food service, or sports nutrition?

Do you like fruity salsas? What is your favourite?

Jambalaya

2012-01-15T17:38:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was a pretty low-key first weekend back at school. I had a movie night with my roomie on Friday, ran errands and did some readings on Saturday, and met up with Meg, Cheryl, and Andrea for dinner at Jambalaya on Saturday evening. Unfortunately Cheryl had to leave before ordering because she got a migraine. :(

The restaurant was a fusion of Thai, Caribbean, and Cajun cuisines. Sounds pretty intriguing, right? As soon as we stepped in, I instantly loved the atmosphere. It had lots of earthy toned decor, dim lighting, and ambient music. It was so cozy!

I had a lot of trouble deciding on what to order, but I eventually decided on the vegetarian Jambalaya. I figured I should probably try the dish the restaurant is named after! It took a long time for our meals to come out (~ 40 min), but we didn't mind too much because we were busy chatting.

The dish itself was okay. It wasn't bad by any means, but I feel like it was a meal I easily could have made at home. I loved the rice and beans mixture it was served over though! I definitely want to start eating rice with beans more often at home.

After dinner I went home and watched Sex and the City: The Movie on tv while snacking on my latest creation... chocolate hummus! I'm so excited about this recipe. I know it looks like poo (literally), but I assure you it tastes fantastic!

Chocolate hummus
Serves 4-6 as a dip

1 cup canned chickpeas
1 tbsp maple syrup
1.5 tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp cacao powder

Combine ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Optional: top with shredded coconut, shaved chocolate, and/or chopped nuts before serving.

Which is your favourite - Thai, Caribbean, or Cajun cuisine?

What's the last random thing you've made/cooked/baked?

My kitchen staples

2012-01-14T11:00:00.003-05:00

Last week my friend (and fellow blogger - go check out her blog!) Cheryl did a post on all of her kitchen staples. Maybe I'm just nosy, but I love seeing what other people put in their grocery carts! So I decided to do a similar post.

These are all the things I consider necessary to have in my kitchen:

Produce

- LOTS of bananas - at least one for every day!
- Blueberries and/or raspberries
- Apples
- Lemon and lime (for making dressings and marinades)
- Avocado (yay for healthy fats!)

- Tomatoes
- Yellow and red onions
- Sweet peppers
- Carrots
- Cucumber
- Broccoli
- Sweet potatoes or squash
- One or two types of leafy greens: spinach, kale, mixed salad greens, or romaine lettuce

Grains
- Large flake rolled oats
- Multigrain bread (this Rudolph's Bakery multigrain bread is amazing - it's seedy and so chewy!)

- Bulgur, quinoa, millet

- Whole wheat flour
- Kashi Honey Almond Flax cereal - this trumps any other cereal I've ever tried!

- Brown and wild rice
- Mary's Crackers

Dairy
- Skim milk (read about my decision to switch to cow's milk here)
- Vanilla Greek yogurt... yes there are three different kinds of vanilla Greek yogurt in my fridge right now

- Cottage cheese
- Old cheddar cheese

Meat and soy
- Ground turkey and chicken breasts
- Salmon
- Canned tuna
- Eggs and egg whites
- Tofu

- Frozen edamame

Miscellaneous stuff in my pantry/fridge
- Canned pumpkin
- Cacao powder

- All types of canned beans: chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, lentils
- Coconut milk
- Diced tomatoes
- Low sodium vegetable stock cubes
- Almonds (I love these 1 kg bags from Costco!), pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds

- Chia seeds and ground flax
- Dried fruits: dates, raisins, dried cranberries, goji berries
- Soy nut butter, almond butter, sunflower seed butter, coconut butter

- Hummus (I love Sabra or Garden Fresh)

- Olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil
- Honey, maple syrup, agave nectar
- Tea: orange pekoe, mulled apple cider, blueberry ginseng

- Vinegars: balsamic, red wine, apple cider, rice wine
- Sauces: soy sauce, mirin, sweet thai chili sauce
- Spices and herbs of every kind

What are your kitchen staples?

Run, bike, swim

2012-01-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm back at school, I'm back to working out at Campus Rec.

As is usual in January, it has been packed this week! I know it can be a bit annoying, but it's also nice to see so many people committing to new healthy lifestyles. I think maybe the New Year has given me some extra motivation too because so far this week has been full of awesome workouts!

Monday: 3.5 mile run + 30 minutes of back and shoulders

Tuesday: 50 minute spin class

Wednesday: 1.7 km swim

Thursday: 3.5 mile run

These workouts may be foreshadowing what I'm thinking of doing this summer... I haven't admitted this out loud to many people yet because saying it out loud makes it more of a reality, which scares me - but I'm considering doing a triathlon!

[Source]

I wouldn't be competing for time because let's face it, I know I wouldn't be the fastest. I just want to do it to prove to myself that I can. Racing and competing has always been a fear of mine because I'm so scared of failure. But I'm sick of letting that hold me back! I'm ready to try (tri?)!

The only thing that makes me unsure of doing a triathlon is that I'm wondering if I should just focus on running this summer. I've never even done a race before, let alone a triathlon, so I feel like it might be best to start small. If I do decide to just stick to running this summer, I'll probably at least end up doing the try-a-tri, which is a condensed version of a triathlon. It has a 375 m swim, a 10 km bike, and a 2.5 km run, so it's nothing too intense. That way I wouldn't really have to train for it and I could put most of my effort into improving my running distances.

I'm still mulling things over, but I'll keep you all posted on what I decide!

Have you ever done a triathlon?

What do you guys think - would it be best to just work on my running this summer before jumping into a triathalon?

WIAW #20: Back to school edition

2012-01-11T07:15:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! I haven't been posting much about my personal life on here lately - so just to catch you up: I'm now back at school after my three week break at home. I can't say it was easy leaving my family - I've become so much closer to them in the past few years and I really enjoy being home with them now, so it was hard to leave.

But meeting up with Meg for a tea date, seeing some school friends, and making exciting plans for the semester has helped to cheer me up. And also What I Ate Wednesday always puts a smile on my face. I love seeing everyone's creative meals over at Jenn's blog. Go check it out if you haven't already!

Yesterday for breakfast I tried out a new product: Go Go Quinoa 4 grain hot cereal. For Canadian readers, I picked it up in the food section of Home Sense. It has amazing deals on organic and natural foods!

The cereal contains amaranth flakes, quinoa flakes, buckwheat porridge, and chia seeds. Thanks to these healthy ingredients, it has stellar nutritional stats: 50 g has 170 calories and contains 6 g of fibre, 7 g of protein, 20% of your daily value for iron and 10% for magnesium. Pretty awesome, no?

I cooked it in milk and water and added some extra chia seeds, cinnamon and banana while cooking. Then I topped it with more banana, blueberries, soy nut butter and homemade granola.

I made this batch of homemade granola on Monday using my recipe for honey almond coconut granola - it's my favourite!

After breakfast I headed out to my 8:30 class for Food Production Management - it's a requirement for my degree, even though I want to be an R.D. not a food service manager! Oh well, hopefully it'll be somewhat interesting.

Class ended early so I went to the bookstore to buy some more textbook (my wallet is crying!) then went to the cafe at the gym to do some readings and eat my lunch:

Leftovers from this recipe from Fitness Magazine for quinoa salad with chicken. I loved the crunch of the apples and the hint of mint in this salad!

Then I went to a 1:05 spin class taught by Gail. She was awesome and she was really fun to chat with after class. I've decided to start making more of an effort to talk with fitness instructors - they can provide such helpful advice!

When I got home I was ravenous so I made myself a snack that was big enough to be more like a mini meal - pumpkin, vanilla 2% Oikos yogurt, cottage cheese, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and homemade granola.

It tided me over until dinner, which was homemade turkey pasta sauce with spaghetti squash. Homemade sauce takes a while to make, but it is so worth it! I like to freeze it in small amounts so that I can have it for a few weeks for fast dinners - that way I never have to rely on the jarred kind!

After dinner my friend came over for a bit, and then I spent the rest of the night relaxing with some blog reading, tea and one of my spiced sweet potato muffins that I found lurking at the back of my freezer. I forgot those were there, so that was a nice surprise!

What's the best thing you've eaten recently?

Where do you find good deals on food?

What's one thing that you always make yourself and refuse to buy from the store? For me it's definitely pasta sauce!

Chobani in Canada at last!

2012-01-09T17:06:00.001-05:00

You know that phrase "You always want what you can't have"? I can relate to it way too much! I wish I could eat Larabars and peanut butter without dying from anaphylactic shock. I wish there were Trader Joe's stores in Canada. I wish I was tall enough to rock maxi dresses. And for the longest time, I wished Chobani Greek yogurt was sold in Canada.

But guess what? That last wish of mine has come true! This fall Chobani launched in the General Toronto Area! This nearly had me jumping with excitement, but I was even more excited when Haley offered to send me some to review.

When the packaged showed up on my doorstep I tore it open and found four different flavours: peach, black cherry, pomegranate and strawberry!

First I tried the peach flavour and I topped it with some homemade granola. It was good, but I probably wouldn't buy it for myself because I'm not a big fan of peach flavoured yogurts.

The next one I tried was strawberry with cereal, banana and fresh strawberries. It was delicious! It was less sweet than other strawberry yogurts I've tried, which I really liked.

My favourite was the one I had next: black cherry. It was my first time trying a cherry flavoured yogurt and I absolutely loved it! I used it to make a parfait with cereal, cherries and banana. Yum!

I also really liked the pomegranate flavour too. I wasn't sure if I'd like it because I thought it would be too tart, but it was sweeter than I expected. It tasted great with some blueberries and cereal for a night time snack.

Not only does this yogurt taste great, but it also has good nutritional stats. At 19 g, the sugar content is a bit high, but considering you also get 14 g of protein and 15-20% of your daily calcium for only 140 calories, I think it's worth it! Also keep in mind that some of that sugar is actually just lactose - the natural sugar found in milk.

Overall I will definitely be buying this yogurt again. Unfortunately it isn't sold (yet?) in the city where I go to school, but I saw it at my grocery store at home, so I'll be sure to stock up whenever I go home to visit my family!

Chobani sent me the yogurt free of charge, however I was not paid to write this review. All opinions are my own.

Have you tried Chobani Greek yogurt before? What's your favourite flavour? If you haven't tried it, what's your favourite flavour of yogurt?

What's your favourite way to eat yogurt?

Craving comfort

2012-01-08T08:25:00.000-05:00

I have been craving comfort food like crazy lately! Meatloaf, stew, lasagna, hearty soups... Typically comfort food means lots of cheese, fatty cuts of meat, and lots of starchy carbs. So it can be easy to believe that comfort food doesn't have a place in a healthy diet. But that's not the case at all! It's all about making simple healthy swaps.

Last night I made a split pea soup using this recipe (without the garlic toasts). It was already a fairly healthy recipe, but I swapped the butter for olive oil and used a lean low-salt cut of ham instead of the ham hock.

And the night before that I made the best meatballs in the world! My dad and I came up with the recipe on the fly and we were very pleased with it. We almost ate the whole batch between the two of us!

Feta and spinach turkey meatballs
Serves 4

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs soaked in milk (just enough to moisten them)
1/4 cup chopped frozen spinach, defrosted
1/4 cup feta cheese
3 tbsp red onion, finely diced
2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
Salt and pepper

In a small dish combine the bread crumbs with the milk and let sit for 15 minutes. Then mix together all the ingredients in a large dish with your hands. Keep your hands wet to prevent the mixture from sticking to them. Once mixed, use your hands to form 1 to 1-1/2 inch balls. Fry them in a pan in oil until the insides are no longer pink. Alternatively, you could bake them in a 400°F oven for about 20 minutes or until they are cooked through.

My dad and I enjoyed these stuffed into a pita with veggies, more feta, and tzatziki sauce. It was comfort food at its finest!

What are your favourite comfort foods?

How to set up your spin bike

2012-01-06T16:56:00.001-05:00

I've been going to spin classes every few weeks for the past two years. I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, but I at least figured I knew what I was doing. But apparently not! This week when I went to a spin class at my home gym, the instructor noticed me on my bike before class and came over to help me readjust. I had no idea I'd been setting up my bike improperly this whole time!

I figured some of you guys might be in the same boat, so I decided to pass along to you guys what the instructor told me. I hope you find it helpful!

Seat height

Place one foot on top of the overturned pedal (so that the foot cage is on the bottom of the pedal) and rotate the pedal until it is at the bottom. Your leg should be almost straight with just the slightest bend.

Seat position

Flip over the pedals and put your feet into the foot cages. Then rotate the pedals so that your feet are at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock (both feet are at the same height off of the floor). The front of your knee should be directly above the middle of the pedal. If you are unsure, have a friend check if they line up.

Handlebar height

The handlebars should be at just about the same height as your seat or a little higher if that is more comfortable.

If you are still not sure if your position is correct, ask your spin instructor to give you a hand. They are always more than happy to help!

(Pictures taken from spinning.com)

Later on that day I went out to run some errands. I ended up scoring some great deals at Old Navy and later at the thrift store! I found an old Moosewood cookbook from the 80's and another one written by Mollie Katzen, who founded the Moosewood Restaurant and wrote their original cookbook. Moosewood always has the most amazing vegetarian recipes, so I can't wait to browse through these!

I also found books on triathalons and running (to help me come up with some training plans for racing this year) and Jillian Michael's Making the Cut. They were only $4 each, so I figured why not?

I'm excited to start signing up for some races for this spring/summer! I definitely want to do a 5K and 10K, and hopefully a triathalon too.

Do you like spin class? Did someone teach you how to set up your bike?

Do you ever go thrifting? Have you ever had a lucky find at a thrift store?

Do you have any upcoming races? Any that you're planning on signing up for?

Bananas for banana bread

2012-01-05T22:20:00.001-05:00

There's something about baked goods with fruit that just make them sound healthy. I mean, come on, doesn't banana bread sound a lot less indulgent than, say, chocolate cake? Before I knew anything about nutrition I used to love banana bread as a snack and I would eat it while feeling proud of myself for making a healthy choice. Little did I know that my mom's recipe called for half a cup of sour cream and one whole cup of sugar!

Well these days I'm a little more conscious about what goes in my mouth. But that doesn't mean I don't still like to enjoy my banana bread. Luckily I've found a way to make it a lot healthier without compromising the flavour.

A few years ago I adapted my mom's recipe to come up with this healthier version. But because I'm always looking to make things better, I adapted it again this week to make an even moister loaf!

Low fat whole wheat banana bread
Serves 10-12

3 large very ripe bananas
1/2 cup brown sugar*
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tbsp canola oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups WW flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp ground flax
1/4 tsp salt

*This makes a lightly sweetened bread. If you would prefer more sweetness, I would add 3/4 cup of sugar instead.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. In a medium sized bowl, mash the bananas until they are smooth. Then add in the sugar, vanilla, applesauce, eggs, and oil. Stir to thoroughly mix. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, flax, and salt, and stir. Then pour the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and stir until just combined (do not overstir). Pour into a 9x4 loaf pan that has been greased and floured. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

What's your favourite baked good made with fruit?

How do you adapt recipes to make them healthier?

WIAW #19: Food without thought

2012-01-04T19:25:00.001-05:00

Good evening guys! It's been so hard to keep track of What I Ate Wednesday over the holidays - I almost forgot about it 2 weeks ago, I forgot about it last week, and I almost forgot about it again this week. I'm glad I remembered though because I love taking part in the WIAW fun!

As a foodie, I usually put a lot of thought into all my meals. Today that wasn't the case. Instead I just threw together whatever sounded good to me at the last minute. It was kind of nice to not have to think so much about my food today!

This morning I found out that my mom and sister were planning on going to the gym at 8 am... and I found this out at 7:40. So I whipped up this breakfast of vanilla Greek yogurt, Kashi Honey Almond Flax, banana, and berries and scarfed it down in 15 minutes. I hate exercising without eating breakfast first because I get so hungry during my workout when I do it on an empty stomach.

After a 4 mile run + 15 minutes of incline walking at the gym, I came home and stretched while watching Mairlyn Smith (author of Healthy Starts Here!) on CityLine. She made these breakfast cookies that look delicious!

For lunch I threw together a bunch of leftovers: grilled chicken, baked acorn squash, quinoa, and my sun dried tomato and parmesan kale salad. I love it when I have the perfect combination of leftovers in the fridge! I topped it all off with a honey balsamic dressing to tie it all together.

After lunch we had to drop my sister off at the airport to go back to Halifax. I miss her already. :( I can't wait until we're both home again in February for reading week.

When we got back I had a new-to-me snack: half a thin bagel topped with soy nut butter and banana. I love having a whole real (ie. not the thin kind) bagel with banana and soy nut butter for a meal, but I never thought of it as a snack. Half a thin bagel makes the perfect sized snack!

For dinner my mom and I made this soy glazed arctic char from the December issue of Canadian Living along with wild rice and roasted vegetables. We decided on the side dishes at the last minute at the grocery store - when we saw the heirloom carrots on display we knew we wanted to give them a try, so we roasted them with Brussels sprouts and beets.

Tonight I'm probably going to snack on this banana bread that I'm bringing to my friend's house for a night of hot tubbing and board games.

It's the moistest healthy banana bread that I've ever made. Recipe to come soon!

What's the best thing you ate today?

Do spend a lot of time thinking out your meals or do you just figure them out at the last minute?

What's your favourite veggie to roast?

Cooking with collards

2012-01-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

We've all heard how important greens are for us, right? They're full of fibre and vitamin K and folate and yada yada yada. So, like me, you probably make sure to throw a leafy green in your grocery cart each week so you can feel like you're making a healthy choice. But how many different types of greens do you actually consume?

[Source]

I mostly only buy romaine lettuce, spinach or kale on a regular basis. I tend to shy away from all the other types of greens like Swiss chard, collards, dandelion greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, etc, because I have no idea how to cook with them and I don't know if I'll even like them. But it's important to consume a variety of leafy greens in order to get a wider variety of nutrients and therefore more health benefits!

Keeping this in mind, when I was at the grocery store this week I picked up a leafy green that I often neglect: collard greens.

[Source]

Collard greens are a great source of fibre, providing almost 15% of your daily requirements in 100 g. This amount also gives you more than 5x the adequate intake of vitamin K and more than 40% of your daily folate!* Collard greens also protect against cancer because they contain various nutrients and compounds that play roles in your body's detoxification, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory systems.

*These numbers are based on the dietary reference intakes for a 19-50 year old female

If you're looking to try adding collards to your diet, here are two ideas that I tried:

1. Use them as a wrap and stuff them! There's a great tutorial at Choosing Raw if you're unsure how to wrap them properly. I filled mine with cucumber, avocado, carrot, and tofu then dipped them in hummus. But the possibilities are endless - hummus, quinoa, tempeh, ground meat, veggie burgers... you can definitely get creative with the combinations!

2. Sauté them in a frying pan and serve as a side dish.

I came up with this fast recipe to serve alongside BBQ baked tofu and a sweet potato:

Sautéed Collard Greens
Serves 1

6-7 large collard leaves
1.5 tsp olive oil
1 small clove of garlic
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp maple syrup
Pinch of cayenne

Mix together the vinegar and maple syrup and set aside.

Then wash the collard greens and trim the hard stems off the bottom. Roll the leaves lengthwise (parallel to the stem) and cut into 3/4" ribbons.

In a frying pan, heat up 1 tsp olive oil over medium heat and add the collard ribbons to the pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until the collards turn a darker green. Add a splash of water to the pan if needed. Then add another 0.5 tsp olive oil to the middle of the pan and add the minced garlic. Cook over low heat for about 30 seconds, making sure not to let it burn. Add in the vinegar and syrup mixture plus a pinch of cayenne, then cook for another 30 seconds. Remove from pan and serve hot.

This is a great easy side dish that I'll definitely be making more often!

What leafy greens do you eat regularly?

Do you cook with collard greens? What's your favourite way to use them?

Hello 2012

2012-01-01T04:30:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2012 got off to a good start for you all!

Today is a bit of a lazy day around my house - I'm just hanging around in my PJs and watching an X-Men marathon with my family (who else loves those movies?!). I've also spent some time thinking about the past year (click here if you missed my recap).

2011 wasn't full of big, exciting events, but it was a great year for me in terms of personal growth. I feel like for the first time in my life I was able to base my self confidence off of who I am as a person, not what I look like. In high school I had basically no self-confidence because I was overweight and then after I lost weight, I gained a false sense of confidence based on my new body. But now I love myself for being a good cook, for being a loyal friend, for making my fitness a priority in my life, for being a good student, and for writing this blog - my appearance has nothing to do with it! To be able to find this inner confidence was huge for me!

This year I also crawled outside of my comfort zone and made some amazing new friends. And I learned how to devote myself to things other than school - like my summer job, my volunteering, my family/friends and this blog. I feel like I've found a much better balance.

As much as I've grown this year though, there are still things I want to work on in 2012:

Goals for 2012

1. Learn to be more decisive. This is something I've always struggled with - I just can't ever make up my mind. Take yesterday for example, when I spent 2.5 hours trying to find a perfect banana bread recipe to make. I always try to choose the most "perfect" option - I'm incapable of just making a decision and sticking with it!

2. Run a race! I've been running for 3 years now and I still haven't done my first race yet. I've actually got a post planned to talk about why I seem to have this fear of racing. But regardless of this fear, in 2012 I will run in a race!

3. Waste less time. This is a biggie because I tend to waste a lot of time! And I've realized this is due largely because I don't plan my days effectively. This year I want to schedule my time to allow for more uninterrupted chunks of time to do school work. But if I am left with smaller chunks of time in my day, I want to learn to use them more productively too.

4. Live in the moment. I'm constantly making plans and schedules in my head instead of enjoying the present. I want to work on just living spontaneously without worrying about always being in control.

5. Learn to meal plan. I'm always that person who goes to the grocery store without a plan, so I inevitably end up eating the same dinners over and over again. This year I want to try to plan out a few meals in advance so that when I do my weekend grocery shopping, I have a list of all the ingredients I need to buy to make new recipes!

Maybe I won't improve in any of these areas. Maybe I'll achieve them all. But either way, I have a feeling 2012 is going to be an awesome year!!! Who's with me? :)

How have you changed this year?

What are your goals for 2012?

Goodbye 2011

2011-12-31T18:35:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! Happy last day of 2011! What are your plans for tonight? I'm going to a small party to ring in the new year with all my friends - hopefully I can stay awake for it!

I can't believe the year is already over - it seems like it just started! Looking back, 2011 wasn't particularly exciting for me, but it was still a great year. In 2011 I...

Created tons of new recipes! Some of my favourites are:
- Bulgur, lentil, and feta salad
- White bean and chicken chili
- Seitan and apple saute
- Chocolate sunflower seed butter cookies
- Zucchini bread
- Honey almond coconut granola
- Soupe au pistou
- Spiced sweet potato muffins
- Turkey, black bean, and sweet potato chili
- Salmon cakes

Wrote some food- and nutrition-related posts on calcium, kefir, potassium, the science behind pancakes, the science behind bread, EPA and DHA, carbohydrates and exercise and protein powders.

Went to Buffalo for a girls shopping weekend.

Connected with some real life foodie friends.

Organized a local food conference at my school.

Visited Halifax: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Turned 22!

Worked on a farm for the summer.

Wrote a "Food from the Farm" series: rhubarb, strawberries, zucchini, raspberries, beets, eggplant, and tomatoes

Made my own jam, bread, and pasta.

Went on a weekend camping trip with my friends.

Started my 5th year at university (I switched programs, so I need to stay in school for an extra 1.5 years to finish my new degree) and moved in with a new roommate who quickly became a good friend!

Tried swimming as a workout for the first time

Ran my only "race" of the year - a 5K Terry Fox Run.

Wrote about my 10 favourite packaged foods.

Got serious about strength training.

What are some highlights from your year?

What's your favourite recipe that you made this year?

Fressen

2011-12-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

Ever since I became interested in healthy eating, I've always been intrigued by vegan foods. I've dabbled quite a bit in vegan cooking, but I've never had the chance to try out a vegan restaurant before. I've tried to go to a few, but every time I call one up and inquire about eating there, they warn me that they use way too many nuts in their kitchen for it to possibly be safe for me.

But a few days ago I came across this list of the best vegetarian restaurants in Toronto and started browsing the websites of all the places listed. And I was super excited when I saw that the menu at Fressen had nut-free options indicated!

[Source]

So I met up with my old roommates there last night for my first vegan restaurant experience ever!

I really liked the decor of the restaurant - it looked very natural with all of its wooden pieces. But at the same time all of the white accents gave it an elegant touch.

Three of us arrived around 6, but were still waiting for one more person to come. We told the waitress this and she seated us at a table, but told us there was another reservation coming at 8. I didn't like having a time limit on my meal - especially since the website said walk-ins were welcome!

While we were waiting for Steph to arrive, we ordered an appetizer to share:

Plantain Cakes Seared plantain and rice flour dumplings served with greens and a mango, jalapeno and coriander salsa.

These were really delicious and I loved the salsa that came with them!

When Steph arrived we had to quickly order our meals, which didn't come until closer to 7:30, giving us only half an hour to eat. I wished we'd had longer to linger! But the food was excellent. I had a hard time deciding what to order because everything sounded so amazing! But I ended up deciding on:

Grilled Tofu Kabobs Skewered tofu, peppers, and mushrooms marinated in a tangy smoked BBQ sauce and served with roasted potatoes and mixed vegetables.

The presentation and flavours were awesome and I loved how it came with so many vegetables! Clearly I enjoyed it because I didn't even notice Jill taking this picture of me!

Overall I would definitely return here again. I loved that the restaurant was able to accommodate my nut allergy and that the waitresses made me feel very safe with eating there. The only thing I would do differently is that next time I would make a reservation so that I could enjoy my meal without being rushed!

Do you enjoy vegan food?

What's the best thing you've ever ordered at a vegan restaurant?

Mom and dad's 25th anniversary

2011-12-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

Today I'd like to dedicate this post to my parents who celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary on Tuesday! Congratulations mom and dad! I really admire the relationship that you have and I feel truly blessed to have grown up with such loving and committed parents. Now that my sister and I are grown up though, it's been amazing to watch you two grow even more together. I'm so happy for you that you still have as much fun together today as you did 25 years ago. I love you guys!

To celebrate their special day, the chef at our favourite restaurant Blacktree opened up for the evening on a night when he would ordinarily be closed so that my parents could celebrate their anniversary with their friends and family.

We started off the night with drinks and mingling. It was nice to catch up with all our family friends! There were also some cheese plates to snack on with goat cheese, dried fruit, and thin bread crisps.

An hour later we were seated and started off with bread and a chanterelle mushroom butter.

Dad got up to give a speech to mom and the guests - it was both sweet and funny. I always love hearing about their engagement story. My parents actually got engaged at a baseball game after dating for only one month! And then they were married 4 months later. Pretty crazy, huh?

Our first course was a Jerusalem artichoke soup with pomegranate syrup. It was an unexpected but really great flavour pairing!

The next course was housemade ricotta cheese rolled in pulverized oats with dehydrated onion, roasted grapes, zucchini ribbons, onion jam, and red pepper puree.

Then we had hot and smoked arctic char with clementine, orange butter, yam puree, squash foam, chayote, and yucca crisps. I loved this plate!

Before our main course we were brought out a jack fruit "egg" - this was so tasty! I almost wished I could just have an entire glass of it to drink as a juice.

For our main course we had a choice between beef tenderloin and Cornish hen - I went for the hen. It came with a leg confit ravioli, mushroom, beet, and a cranberry/blackberry sauce.

Every course was amazing, but the dessert course was by far my favourite. We had a hot pear tart with gingerbread ice cream, gingerbread, and meringue. I was pretty full at this point, but I licked this plate clean!

The evening continued on until close to midnight, when we finally went home and crashed. It was a great night and we all really enjoyed ourselves!

Congratulations on 25 years mom and dad, and heres to 25 more! :)

Which course from our dinner would be your favourite?

Have you been to any fun parties this holiday season?

You know you're a foodie when...

2011-12-28T14:55:00.001-05:00

80 percent of your Christmas gifts are related to food!

Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health, The Best of Chef at Home and Frugavore
A breadmaker!!! So excited to make lots of fresh loaves of bread and pizza dough with this!
An Oster immersion blender, a Paderno knife set, avocado oil, and a fine mesh sieve.
A book on food photography and a 5-in-1 reflector from my sister.
Strawberry green tea and a tea infuser from my sister's boyfriend
A bunch of fair trade items from my aunt and uncle including quinoa, za'atar, dried pineapple, green tea, Himalayan sea salt, ginger, and lemon camomile tea.
A KitchenAid 11" pancake griddle

Do you own any of these items?

What's the best gift you got this Christmas?

A very merry Christmas

2011-12-26T13:28:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Who else is suffering from those post-Christmas blues? I know I am! But at least I have a ton of leftover Christmas cookies to console me. ;) Just kidding! I don't think I could stand to so much as look at another cookie right now. I feel like the past 48 hours were full of non-stop eating!

On Christmas Eve we went to my aunt and uncle's house for a pre-Christmas dinner and board games, as per our tradition. She made us two delicious lasagnas (beef and vegetarian) along with bread and a salad with greens, beets, pomegranate seeds, and candied almonds - I'll have to get the recipe from her because it was incredible!

My first plate (I had a second plate of more lasagna and salad!):

Afterwards we snacked on fruit and an assortment of cookies while playing Apples to Apples and Taboo. Do you like our festive hats? My family are a bunch of kooks! ;)

I had some chocolate plus one each of my grandma's (my mom's mom) and my nana's (my dad's mom) shortbreads. I had to compare them to see which I liked better - I still can't decide!

Christmas morning started just like it does every year - with my sister and I crawling in bed with our parents to wake them up before 7 am. I may be 22 years old, but I still love acting like a kid again on Christmas morning.

We started with our stockings then opened the rest of our presents. I got spoiled this year! Thank you so much to my family for all my wonderful gifts. I hope you all enjoyed my gifts to you just as much!

We started cooking brunch for my mom's side of the family around 10:30. Luckily I'd eaten a banana with soy nut butter around 7:00, otherwise I would have been knawing off my arm in hunger! Mom and dad cooked up bacon, eggs, and toast; Hayley made a giant fruit salad; and I made this baked oatmeal from Oh She Glows.

It was a hit! Even my mom who doesn't like sweet breakfasts liked it. I think I liked it the most though - I couldn't stop eating it! I had another 1.5 servings of it after my first helping:

We spent our afternoon playing board games and doing puzzles.

Then my dad's side of the family came over to join us all for Christmas dinner - it was a full house! Dad cooked up an amazing dinner, as always, with turkey, green beans with toasted almonds, cauliflower topped with a cheddar and Dijon sauce, riced potatoes, and stuffing with sausage.

I was absolutely stuffed afterwards, but I made sure to save room for the best part: pumpkin pie! Mom and I tried out a healthier twist on our usual cream-filled pie and it was a total success! We'll definitely be making this recipe from now on.

Lightened up pumpkin pie
Adapted from the Canadian Living Cookbook

1 pie crust
2 eggs
1 796-ml can of pumpkin
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup evaporated skim milk
1/2 cup skim milk
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Beat the eggs, then add in the pumpkin, sugar, spices, salt, evaporated milk and milk. Pour into the raw crust. Bake the pie at 425°F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350°F and bake for another 45 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!

I started off today with a 4.5 mile run - it felt good to move after spending all of yesterday eating and sitting! Now Hayley and I are playing around with one of my presents. I'll be doing a post on it soon. ;) Hope you all have a great day!

If you celebrate it, how was your Christmas?

What board games do you play with your family?

What did you eat on Christmas?

Baking extravaganza

2011-12-23T08:35:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or do the days leading up to Christmas always feel so jumbled? I feel like the past 2 days have just been a whirlwind of baking and preparing for Christmas. We've been baking up a storm at my house:

Chocolate snowcaps (without the espresso added in)

Mayan chocolate sparklers - these have a bit of cayenne in them for an unexpected kick!

Molasses cookies - these are whole grain and made with olive oil, but you can't even tell! They are delicious!

Caramel oat crumble bars - similar to this recipe.

All this baking has left little time for cooking, so thank goodness for sushi take out! I got a salmon roll with assorted nigiri sushi plus a wakame salad. This was enjoyed while vegging out and watching an episode of Bones - my sister and I are trying to catch up on the entire last season over this break!

Despite the craziness of the past few days, I've managed to get in a workout every day. I've been doing well with sticking with my resolution to not schedule my life around my workouts. Instead, I've been fitting in my workouts where I can so that they don't interfere with my family time and Christmas fun! Here's my workout plan this week:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 4 mile run
Wednesday: shoulders and triceps
Thursday: 4 mile run
Friday: spin class
Saturday: short run + legs
Sunday: rest

Ever since I bought the Women's Health Big Book of Exercises, I've been having so much fun designing my own workouts. Lately I've also been really digging Naomi's posts on strength training at One Fit Foodie. I used her idea to add ab exercises throughout the workout instead of at the end when I designed this workout:

Warm up: 20 minute warm up on the elliptical

Shoulders and triceps workout

3x10 shoulder press
3x10 lying triceps extension
1 minute plank

3x10 front raise
3x10 triceps pressdown
3x10 bicycle crunches (on each side)

3x10 cable shoulder external rotation
3x10 tricep kickbacks
3x10 hanging leg lifts

Cool down: 10 minutes on the stationary bike

My arms are still sore today! Cutting down our Christmas tree and lugging it half a mile through the field didn't help either. Today we're going to decorate it! I know we're a little late, but my parents like to wait for my sister and I to get home from school before they buy the tree.

I probably won't be around much for the next few days, so I hope you all enjoy your holidays! :)

What have you been baking?

Do you cut down your own tree?

What sources do you use to find or design workouts?

WIAW #18: The one I almost forgot about

2011-12-21T07:12:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! Happy last-WIAW-before-Christmas! I'm getting so excited - how about you?

I've been enjoying being home so much that I almost forgot about WIAW this week! Almost. Luckily I remembered right after I scarfed down my breakfast. So this is a recycled picture but it's exactly what I ate this morning: vanilla Greek yogurt, Kashi Honey Almond Flax, banana, blueberries, and raspberries.

After breakfast I went to the gym with my sister where I did a 4 mile run. I'm happy that after a few weeks, I've made 4 miles my new standard distance! Maybe soon it'll be 5 miles? And then 6? And then perhaps a 10k race?!?

For lunch I threw together this sandwich with leftover chicken I found in our fridge. I had to call my mom to check how long it had been in there. You never know with my parents... I found a bag of bean sprouts that were so rotten they were liquified in the bottom of the fridge. So I figured I'd better be safe and call about the chicken. ;) Luckily mom gave me the go ahead! I plopped it on a sandwich with mustard, tomato, lettuce, and avocado. This sandwich is what dreams are made of, guys. So good!

After lunch I went out with mom and sister to run errands. We went to Bulk Barn first to get all the candy we need for our gingerbread house. This is what $80 worth of candy looks like:

Yikes! All of that could induce a major sugar coma! I have to try my hardest not to eat it all in the process of assembling our gingerbread house. ;)

While we were out and about I snacked on an apple and these Somersault snacks.

We also hit up Whole Foods to get dinner ingredients. We had a kale salad that I adopted from this recipe from LCBO's Food and Drink magazine.

Sun dried tomato and Parmesan kale salad

1 bunch of kale
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp chopped sun dried tomato
Pinch of garlic powder
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup toasted almonds
2-3 tbsp Parmesan cheese

Trim stems off of kale and cut into 1 inch strips, then wash and dry in a salad spinner. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sun dried tomatoes, salt and garlic powder. Pour over the kale and massage into the leaves for 2-3 minutes. Then top with the almonds and Parmesan cheese.

We also made this amazing pasta with whole wheat linguine, chicken sausage, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and homemade marinara sauce. I haven't had a non-vegan sausage in years, but I really enjoyed this!

I love being home with my sister because she's a giant foodie too, so we always have fun cooking meals together. I'm excited for all of the dinners we're going to make this break!

What's the best thing you ate for WIAW?

What is your favourite kind of pasta?

My Christmas break bucket list

2011-12-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

Home sweet home! :) It feels so amazing to be back and chilling at home with the family. But first let's rewind to yesterday morning. I made one of my favourite bowls of oatmeal yet! I needed it to keep me super full from 8 am until noon, so I amped up my bowl with egg whites and cottage cheese. This oatmeal was so creamy and fluffy!

- 1/3 cup of oats
- 2/3 cup of water
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1 banana (1/2 stirred in while cooking, 1/2 mixed in at the end)
- 1 tsp chia seeds
- Pinch of cinnamon
- 2 tbsp egg whites
- 2-3 tbsp cottage cheese
- Toppings: blueberries, soy nut butter, homemade granola

After my exam I scarfed down some lunch, packed up my car, and grabbed a Starbucks for the road home. I decided to try out something new: a decaf coffee with 2 pumps of sugar-free peppermint syrup. Yuck! I was not a fan. The peppermint flavour was so strong and there was a definite artificial sugar aftertaste. :( I also brought a homemade protein bar to snack on.

I was sooo excited to get home and cook dinner with my family again! My mom and I made this amazing dinner of seared sesame-crusted ahi tuna, wild rice, and stir fried snow peas, carrots, bok choy and water chestnuts.

The tuna was so perfectly rare!

After dinner I hung out with my parents and watched "The Santa Clause" - it's one of my favourite Christmas movies! I feel like I'm so worn out after exams, so it was nice just to relax. I hope to do a lot of that this break. ;) But there are also lots of things I want to do. So I've come up with my Christmas break bucket list:

Finally try out a Body Pump class at my gym.

[Source]

Make these no bake snowball cookies from Mama Pea's blog.

Go to Whole Foods with Molly.

Try to sprout my own grains.

[Source]

Contribute something to our Christmas morning breakfast. I'm thinking this baked oatmeal from Oh She Glows?

Go rock climbing with my friends who are members at a local climbing gym.

[Source]

What's your favourite healthy Starbucks order? What's your favourite Starbucks order when you feel like indulging?

What's on your holiday bucket list?

You know you're a Nutrition student when...

2011-12-19T08:00:00.001-05:00

Your meals during exam period look like this:

Bulgur and chickpea salad with tomatoes, cucumber, parsley, feta cheese, lemon juice and olive oil.

Chicken on a spinach salad with roasted beets, pears, aged white cheddar, dried figs, and toasted almonds with a honey balsamic vinaigrette.

Tofu and veggie stir fry on brown rice with a Sunbutter sauce.

Maple-Dijon glazed salmon. Roasted sweet potatoes. Stir fried sesame broccoli and shiitake mushrooms.

Instead of this:

[Source]

I'm off to write my last exam! And three hours from now, I'll be free! After my exam I'm going to rush home, grab a quick lunch, throw my stuff in the car and then hit the road. Catch you guys later!

Fill in the blank: "You know you ______ when _______."

The not-so-scary morning snack

2011-12-17T21:08:00.003-05:00

So today I realized something. I am scared of morning snacks. I love afternoon and evening snacks. In fact, they're absolutely necessary to keep my hunger satisfied. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to eat morning snacks.

So to avoid the need for one, I usually try to eat a big breakfast around 7:30 or 8 that will keep me stuffed until my early lunchtime at 11:30. This "schedule" of mine can be so restrictive though. Because I don't like working out before breakfast, it means I can't ever workout earlier than 8:30, when I'm done eating. And I don't like working out later than 10:30 because at that point, I know I'll start getting hungry for lunch during my workout.

Today I realized how utterly ridiculous this all is. So I rebelled. At first I tried to stick to my normal "schedule" and had my breakfast (Vanilla Greek yogurt, Kashi cereal, banana and berries) at my normal time of 7:30ish.

Then I studied for a bit while letting it digest before heading to the gym at 9. I did an awesome chest/back workout!

20 minute warm up on the elliptical

3x10 lat pulldown (50 lb, but for my last set I did 60 lb!)
3x10 barbell bench press (30 lb)
3x10 cable row (45 lb)
3x10 dumbbell flys (two 10 lb dumbbells)
3x10 assisted dips (25 lb of assistance)
3x10 barbell rows (20 lb)
3x10 rear lateral raise (two 8 lb dumbbells)

20 minute cooldown on the stationary bike

But after doing the weights portion, I started to get hungry. Rather than ignoring it until 11:30, I said "screw it" and decided to buy something. All of a sudden I was hit with the biggest craving for chocolate milk. Now, I haven't had packaged chocolate milk since my pre-ED days. But I wanted it. And I wanted it bad. So that's just what I did.

And it was absolutely glorious.

So now that I've learned that consuming something between lunch and dinner won't in fact kill me, I'm going to warm up to the idea of having morning snacks. From now on I'm going to try harder to schedule my food around my life, not the other way around. And if that means eating an early breakfast with a mid-morning snack to tide me over until lunch, then so be it!

Anyways, this is entirely unrelated, but I just wanted to share with you guys the amazing lunch I made today:

Quinoa, raw tofu, chickpeas, broccoli slaw, alfalfa sprouts, avocado, tomatoes, cucumber, and a lemony hummus dressing. To die for!

Can you relate to this post at all?

Do you usually have a morning snack?

Are you a chocolate milk fan?

Seven Things

2011-12-16T19:15:00.001-05:00

It's Friday! Normally that would make me very happy, but this week it's not really a relief because I have my last exam on Monday, so my whole weekend is going to be spent studying. But at least I had my second last exam today, so that's over with!

Thanks to all this studying though, I haven't had as much time to get into the kitchen and make exciting meals. I was struggling to find something to post about, but then Meg tagged me with the Versatile Blogger award. Thanks girl! :)

So how does this work? I tell you 7 random things about myself and then I'll tag some of you to do the same! So here we go...

1. I've seen John Mayer in concert 3 times. And I will see him again in a heartbeat the next time he's touring in Ontario. Even if you don't like his personality, you've got to appreciate his amazing guitar skills!

2. I was in 4-5 episodes of the children's show Zoboomafoo when I was in elementary school. Chris and Martin Kratt were my heroes so I nearly fainted when I got to meet them and even do a pizza lunch with them as a part of the "cast"! It was a show all about animals, so I was in heaven - my biggest dream in life when I was 7 was to be a zoologist.

[Source]

3. I ate weird foods as a kid:

- Potato chips dipped in mustard
- Tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches
- Grilled cheese dipped in corn syrup
- Saltine crackers topped with butter and sprinkles
- Sliced bananas in a bowl with milk and chocolate chips

Well, I guess I still eat weird foods! Some things never change...

4. A tree fell on my head in a thunderstorm at summer camp when I was 14 and I now have a 1.5 inch scar under my hair that thankfully is easily covered! It was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. Except for the time that I encountered a bear...

5. I was a total Lord of the Rings dork in high school. My room was plastered with posters, I went to all the premieres on opening night, and my friends and I loved to spend our Friday nights watching the special features interviews. I loved the actual storyline, but I'm not gonna lie, part of my obsession was definitely due to these pretty faces:

6. I almost got the award for the highest average in my senior year. My friend beat me by 0.1%. I'll never forgive him hah!

7. I don't really like asparagus that much. I will eat it if it's served to me, but I would never choose to buy it for myself.

So those are my 7 random things! And now I tag:

Tessa @ Amazing Asset
Chloe @ Light On My Feet
Haley @ Health Freak College Girl
Khushboo @ Khushboo's Blog
Lauren @ What Lauren Likes
Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean
Tiff @ Love, Sweat, and Beers

What's the best concert you've ever gone to?

Do you have any traumatic injury stories?

Is there a vegetable you don't like?

Rainy and painy

2011-12-15T08:43:00.000-05:00

So that killer leg workout I did yesterday? Well today I felt like I had an army of boxers punching my quads while I straddled a bundle of exploding dynamite. The only good thing about this pain was the fact that it prevented me from even leaving my apartment, so I got a good chunk of studying done in the morning! It also gave me an excuse to stay indoors to avoid the rainy weather. Yuck!

It wasn't until the afternoon when I started getting cabin fever, so I decided to walk to the library for a change of scenery. A part of me also needed to get in some physical activity for the day. I've come a long way with being comfortable with taking rest days at least once or twice a week, but I still don't like just sitting on my butt all day. It makes me feel like such a lazy lump on a log!

So I went to the library and brought some tea, an apple, and a mix of cereal, almonds, and dried cranberries to snack on while studying.

When I came home after a productive afternoon at the library, I came home to make dinner using this broccoli slaw I bought last time I was at the grocery store. This was my first time trying it and I loved the crunchy texture it added to my meal!

I added the broccoli slaw to some quinoa, broccoli, red pepper, green onion, edamame, sliced steak, and sesame seeds. And I made a dressing with soy sauce, sesame oil, mirin, lime juice, rice vinegar, and ginger.

This dinner was packed with protein from the quinoa, edamame and beef! And I also realized that these three foods are also great sources of iron. 1/4 cup of dry quinoa has 15% DV of iron, 1/2 cup of edamame has 15% and 100 g of beef has about 15-20%. I'm always trying to be conscious of consuming iron because I know I don't get enough, so these are some great foods to boost your intake!

I chugged away at some more studying in the evening while icing my legs. I can't say it made much of a difference though - I'm still sore today!

When I finally called it quits on studying for the night, I relaxed with some blog reading and a snack of Oikos 2% vanilla, cottage cheese, Kashi cereal, and some frozen banana.

Today I'm back at it again with the studying. I'm also taking a break to meet some friends at Subway for lunch, then possibly going to the gym for some light cardio to loosen up my legs.

Have a great Thursday everyone - only one more day until Friday! :)

What do you do on rest days? Do you like to do light activity or just take a complete rest?

Have you tried broccoli slaw? How do you like to eat it?

What are your favourite food sources of iron?

WIAW #17: Grub and goals

2011-12-14T06:55:00.003-05:00

Woah guys, we're almost halfway through December! Can you believe it? When I realized this, I decided it was time for a mid-month check in for my December goals. Yesterday was actually a really good day in terms of my goals - I guess maybe I stepped it up a notch for WIAW? ;)

For breakfast I needed something that would tide me over through a strength training workout, so I amped up my usual bowl of oatmeal with a bigger portion of oats and 2 tbsp of egg whites. I always forget about adding egg, but it really does make a difference!

I also added a banana, blueberries, cinnamon sugar soy nut butter (!!! so good) and homemade granola. It was the perfect pre-workout meal! My plan was to do a leg strength training workout because I needed to do one this week, as per my goal.

I started with a 6 minute warm up on the elliptical - just enough to get me sweaty - and then did the following leg workout:

3x10 barbell side lunges on each side (20 lb)
3x10 Bulgarian split squats on each side (20 lb)
3x10 Goblet squats (20 lb) <-- increased from 15 lb!
3x10 hip adductors (60 lb) <-- increased from 40 lb!
3x10 weighted hip raises (10 lb) <-- increased from 0 lb!
3x10 kickbacks for each leg
3x10 stability ball hamstring curls

10 minute cool down on the stationary bike

Guys... I was literally trembling after this workout. I thought my legs were going to collapse on me as I walked down the stairs to the change room! But it felt good to know I pushed myself more than usual.

When I got home I put the finishing touches on the gift for the friend I was seeing for lunch. One of my goals was to bake for my friends this holiday season, so I made her this white chocolate and peppermint cookie brittle. I snuck a bite of one and it was delicious!!!

My friend enjoyed it too. She just informed me that the batch is almost gone haha! Anyways, we went out for lunch at a new sushi restaurant we'd never tried before: Nov 8 Sushi Galore. Overall we were really impressed - the fish was so fresh and delicious!

I got this rainbow roll (California roll topped with salmon and tuna):

A plain salmon roll (on the left)

And salmon sushi (the other pieces were Sydney's)

I didn't want the sushi feast to end! Usually I WAY overeat at all-you-can-eat sushi but yesterday I was really proud of myself for stopping when I was satisfied. I just had to remind myself that there will be plenty more opportunities to eat sushi in the future so there's no need to stuff myself like that's the least meal I'll ever eat.

After a few hours of studying at home I made myself a green smoothie with milk, Greek yogurt, spinach, and banana with some Kashi cereal. Usually I'm not a big smoothie person (I like to eat my food, not drink it), but one of my goals for this month is to eat at least 2 dairy products per day, so this seemed like an easy way to get 1.5 servings in all at once!

Another goal of mine was to try out at least one new recipe per week, so for dinner I tried out this recipe from the latest issue of Cooking Light for Tofu Steaks with Shiitakes and Veggies. I loved it! This recipe is definitely a keeper.

After a few more hours of trying to memorize three charts of lab values for iron, folate and vitamin B12 status, I called it quits and had this snack of chopped apple mixed with cottage cheese, vanilla Greek yogurt, cinnamon, granola, and raisins.

So how did I do with my goals? Leg workout - check. Baking for friends - check. 2 servings of dairy - check. New recipe - check! Other goals I still have to work on:

- Trying one new fitness class: maybe Sculpt 'n Sweat this week?
- Mindfully enjoy holiday treats: haven't really had the chance to eat any yet!
- Stay sane during exam period: uhh, that's questionable... ;)

Did you guys set any goals for this month? How are you doing with them?

How do you make your bowl of oatmeal more filling? Do you like adding egg white?

Have you tried any new recipes this week?

Healthy salmon cakes + workout with Meg

2011-12-12T15:18:00.001-05:00

Guess what?! Exam #1 is done! And I think it went really well. I guess all that stogging helped me after all. ;) Now my next exam isn't until Friday, so I have a bit of time to take a break and catch you up on my weekend, which other than studying, involved a new recipe and a great workout!

I'll start with the recipe for these killer salmon cakes that I made on Saturday night. Unlike most fish cakes, these are totally mayo-free, but still full of flavour!

Salmon cakes
Serves 2

1 can of boneless skinless salmon
1 green onion, sliced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
2 tsp lemon juice
1.5 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 cup egg whites
Salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir, then mix with hands to help it stick together. Form 4 equal sized patties and bake on a tray for about 8-10 minutes on each side in a 375°F oven.

I made this super simple sauce to go with them:

Lemon and dill Greek yogurt dip

1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1.5 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp dried dill
Pinch of salt

It was actually really funny because when I read Meg's blog the next day, I found out that she had made almost the exact same dip as me! Great minds think alike, I guess!

Speaking of Meg, I joined her on Saturday morning for a workout. For those of you who don't read her blog (you should start - she's awesome!), Meg is following Jamie Eason's LiveFit program which involves a schedule of workouts and a clean-eating diet. Saturday was a shoulder and abs day, so here's the workout we did:

5 minute warm up on the treadmill at 6.0 mph.

Shoulders - 1 minute of rest between each set
3x12 dumbbell press
3x12 dumbbell front raise
3x12 dumbbell side lateral raise
3x12 bent over rear deltoid raise

Abs - 1 minute of rest between each set
3x12 stability ball crunch
3x12 bicycle crunches (on each side)

I finished it up with a 30 minute run on the treadmill.

I loved my workout with Meg, but it made me realize something. I've been lifting weights for a year and I've been regularly lifting for 3 months... yet I'm still lifting the same weight that I did a year ago. If I want to lift heavier, I need to actually get out of my comfort zone and give those heavier weights a try, no matter how intimidating they seem. I'll keep you guys posted on how things go for me!

How do you like to use canned fish?

Have you ever followed a workout program? Which one?

Stogging

2011-12-11T08:28:00.001-05:00

Good morning guys! Today I woke up, ate my advent chocolate, looked at my calendar and nearly fell over in disbelief because it's exactly 2 weeks until Christmas day! How did that happen?!

But even closer in the future than Christmas is my Clinical Nutrition exam tomorrow. Eek! I've been stuffing my brain with material on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high/low fibre diets, renal disease, and hypertension all weekend, so I think I'm almost ready for it!

I know I should probably be studying instead of posting right now, so to make myself feel less guilty, I'm stogging: studying AND blogging! I hope you guys don't mind listening to me review some of my study material while I show you all what I've been eating lately. :)

Maple Dijon salmon with broccoli, kale, and sweet potatoes

Diets for cardiovascular disease: Fish such as salmon is a great source of omega 3 fatty acids, which decrease blood triglycerides and very-low-density lipoproteins (a form of bad cholesterol), while increasing HDL (good cholesterol).

Brown rice bowl with tofu, shredded beets, shaved carrots, cucumber, sprouts, and this life changing sauce.

Diets for cardiovascular disease: In significant amounts (> 25 g/day), soy protein like tofu decreases your blood triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol).

Oatmeal made with milk, chia seeds and banana with applesauce and dried fruit stirred in, topped with granola and soy nut butter

High fibre diets: Oats are a source of soluble fibre, which helps with your bowel movements and also decreases elevated blood cholesterol levels.

Savoury oatmeal with spinach, avocado, egg, and nutritional yeast.

Diets for diabetes: Oats are a low-glycemic index food because they have a GI of less than 55. This means they don't cause as large of a spike in blood sugar.

Fajita rice plate: brown rice with fajita-seasoned chicken, sweet onions, and sweet peppers, topped with homemade pico de gallo and guacamole

Diets for renal disease: Too much of this yummy chicken may not be a good thing for patients with renal disease, as too much protein can put stress on the failing kidneys. If glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is 25-55 ml/min, protein intake should be 0.8 g/kg/d, but if it is less than 25 ml/min, intake should decrease to 0.6 g/kg/d.

Toasted whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and jam plus carrots, clementine and broccoli on the side

Diets for diabetes: When carbohydrate counting, one large bagel counts as FOUR 15-g servings of carbohydrates, 1 tbsp of jam would count as one 15-g serving, and the clementine would count as a half a 15-g serving. Vegetables and cream cheese don't contain significant amounts of carbohydrates, so they don't have to be counted.

The fact that I was able to write all that without my notes makes me feel a lot more confident about tomorrow. Bring it on!

What are some notable eats from your weekend?

Have you ever tried savoury oatmeal? What do you like to put in yours?

What are your favourite bagel toppings?

Butternut squash and kale minestrone

2011-12-09T08:10:00.001-05:00

It's that dreaded time in a student's life right now: exam period! Actually, to be honest, I don't find it too bad. I used to get really stressed out over exams, but then I realized all that stress was just doing my mind & body more harm than good.

So now I have a much more laid back approach to studying. I study enough, but not too much. I stick to my normal workouts. I take breaks to see friends or watch a tv show. I go to bed at my normal bedtime. It's been really helping me to stay stress-free!

One thing I like to do to make my days more efficient and stress-free is to make some freezable meals ahead of time so that on days when I need it, I can just pop them in the microwave and have dinner in 5 minutes. Two weeks ago I made this turkey, black bean, and sweet potato chili that's currently sitting in my freezer. And just to add some variety, I also made this soup over the weekend too!

Butternut squash and kale minestrone
Serves 6-8

- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 2 stalks of celery, sliced
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- 1 28-oz can of diced tomatoes
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 large butternut squash, cubed
- 1 19-oz can white kidney beans
- 1 19-oz can red kidney beans
- 4 cups of chopped and washed kale
- Salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Then add the diced onion and reduce heat to medium-low. Saute until translucent, then add the celery and carrots. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add the thyme, diced tomatoes, vegetable broth, water, and squash. Cover with a lid and cook over low heat for 20-30 minutes. When the squash has softened, add the beans and kale and cook until the kale has wilted.

Alongside some baguette and a chunk of aged cheddar cheese, it makes the perfect balanced meal to get me through my studying!

How do you tackle stressful times in your life?

What are your favourite meals to make ahead of time and freeze?

WIAW #16: Last day of classes!

2011-12-07T07:01:00.001-05:00

Good morning guys! Unlike most Wednesdays when I'm rushing to put up this post before my 8:30 am class, today I'm sitting here still in my PJs, relaxing with a mug of coffee in my hands, because classes are done for the semester! Now I just have to get through those pesky exams... but it's going to be hard to get some quality studying done today without getting distracted by everyone's WIAW posts - go check them out at Jenn's blog!

Yesterday may have been my last day of classes, but it was my first day of actually making it to 7 am spin class! I've been meaning to go all semester, but when morning rolled around, even though I'm always wide awake before the sun rises, I just couldn't work up the motivation to go. Not yesterday though. I was up and out the door before 6:30 with my pre-workout snack of a chunk of banana with Quaker Oatmeal Squares.

I was surprised at how busy the gym was at such an early hour. The spin class was packed! And it was a toughie - it definitely gave me a good slap in the face and woke me up for the day!

I started getting hungry towards the end of the class, but luckily I had prepared some overnight oats in a jar the night before so breakfast was ready when I got home. All I did was mix 1/3 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of water, 1 tbsp chia seeds, part of a banana, and some cinnamon in the jar then left it in the fridge for the night.

In the morning I added the rest of the banana, blueberries, raisins, and a bit more milk to thin it out.

It was weird to get home at 8:15 am and already be done my workout for the day! I spent the rest of the morning studying, then I packed up lunch (sandwich with mustard, turkey, tomato, broccoli sprouts, and avocado + an apple on the side) to take with me to my last class of the semester!!!

Afternoon snack was a few clementines plus more of these Somersaults. I'm obsessed, I tell you!

After a trip to the grocery store and a wallet $100 lighter, I got started on dinner. I had a random idea for a meal that I wasn't sure would work, but it came together quite nicely!

Beets, butternut squash and quinoa with balsamic tofu
Serves 1

- 1 beet, diced
- 1/4 of a small butternut squash, diced
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 3/4 cup of cooked quinoa
- 1 cup of baby spinach
- 2 tbsp feta cheese
- 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 tsp maple syrup
- Pinch of dried oregano
- 1 serving of balsamic baked tofu

Toss the diced beet in 1/2 tsp of olive oil and bake in 375°F oven. After about 15 minutes, toss the butternut squash in 1/2 tsp of olive oil and add to the baking sheet. Bake for another 30 or so minutes, flipping the squash and beets halfway through.

Meanwhile, make the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and maple syrup.

In a large bowl, combine the beets, squash, cooked quinoa, spinach, balsamic baked tofu, feta cheese, pumpkin seeds, and oregano. Add the dressing and stir to mix.

This dinner was mostly just an attempt to use up some ingredients in my fridge (that spinach was getting that I'm-going-to-turn-into-gross-green-mush-soon look about it), but I loved the way it turned out!

Studying was going to happen after... but then I remembered Glee was on! Anyone else watch it? I loved their rendition of "ABC"! My night time snack later on was Greek yogurt, pumpkin, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, pumpkin butter, and granola.

Today my goal is to really crack down on studying. Wish me luck!

What's the best thing you ate today?

Are you an early morning exerciser?

What tv shows are you following this year?

Notes from the weekend

2011-12-05T16:48:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was filled with too much procrastinating and not enough school work. But I did do some important things like volunteer, bake for others, and spend time with friends. So I'm not going to get to hung up on all that studying that didn't get done... there's always time for that this week! :) So here's what I actually did do this weekend:

- I made a batch of my honey almond coconut granola. Except the oven at my apartment is wonky, so it started to burn at the edges after only 12 minutes!!! I swear that oven drives me crazy!

- On Sunday I had an amazing 4 mile run... pain-free! For the past few months I've been bothered by this runner's callus that developed on my foot last March or so. I ignored it up until recently, when it started becoming painful to run and even walk on! I finally went to the doctor, not knowing what to expect, and he literally just carved it out of my foot! The plus side: I can run and use the elliptical pain-free again! The downside: He gave me my own scalpel and told me it's going to keep on reforming for the rest of my life, and I'm going to have to occasionally cut it out of my own foot. I wish I were kidding!

- Sorry to talk about food right after I finished talking about my feet, but I just have to share this new egg muffin recipe I came up with!

Greek egg muffins
Serves 1

- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 2-3 tbsp diced yellow onion
- 1/4 small green pepper, diced
- 1/2 cup baby spinach
- 1/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
- 2 tbsp feta cheese
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup egg whites
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and saute the onion and green pepper over low heat. When they are soft, add in the spinach and let it wilt.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg, egg whites and milk. Mix in the ingredients from the frying pan along with the cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, oregano, salt and pepper.

Spray 4 wells of a muffin tin with cooking spray and divide the mixture evenly between them. Bake in oven for about 25 minutes.

- I got a start on my strength training goal by doing an upper body workout focusing on my biceps, triceps and shoulders:

3x10 bicep curls (7.5 lbs in each hand)
3x10 tricep extensions (15 lb)
3x10 shoulder presses (7.5 lbs in each hand)
3x10 alternate hammer curls (7.5 lbs in each hand)
3x10 tricep kickbacks (5 lb in each hand)
3x10 shrugs (12.5 lbs in each hand)

- On Saturday I did some more holiday baking and made Martha Stewart's outrageous chocolate cookies for a friend.

- This is the latest addition to my workout playlist and I'm obsessed!

Have you ever had a callus from running?

What song are you obsessed with right now?

Have you started holiday baking yet? What have you made?

How Remarkable

2011-12-04T12:13:00.001-05:00

Hey guys! How are your weekends going? Mine has been pretty low key. Now that exams are just around the corner, everyone is starting to hole themselves up and study! I started a bit on studying yesterday, but I took a break to go out with my friend Andrea. We were dying to check out this local grocery store called Remark Fresh Markets, since both Meg and Cheryl have raved about it.

Inside it had a great produce section with lots of hard to find items like celeriac and kohlrabi. And believe it or not, I sometimes even have trouble getting squash at my regular grocery store! So I was excited to see this place fully stocked.

I think my favourite section was the grocery aisles though. There were so many local local and gourmet foods! I think I stood at drooled at these shelves balsamic vinegars for 5 minutes. I'm a huge balsamic vinegar snob - and this place had the good stuff right from Italy!

So what did I buy?

St. Albert's aged cheddar cheese - this is going to be fantastic on paninis with turkey and apple
Broccoli sprouts - I love sprouts, but I've never tried these before!

Somersaults - "crunchy nuggets baked with sunflower seeds and toasted grains". I got them in the dutch cocoa flavour, but there was also a sea salt and a salsa flavour. These have a great simple ingredient list and they're full of protein, fiber, and healthy fats. Also, they're kind of addicting. I'm pretty sure I polished off half the bag while watching tv last night!

Local maple syrup - I'm running dangerously low on my current bottle because of all the baking I've been using it in!
Mirin - I've been looking for this stuff everywhere but couldn't find it until now! Now I can finally try all the recipes in my cookbooks Clean Start and Fresh Food Fast that call for it as an ingredient.

Do you enjoy visiting new grocery stores and markets?

Have you tried any new products lately?

Let's talk about protein powders

2011-12-03T08:38:00.000-05:00

For someone who just set a goal to try more new recipes, I'm really not doing a good job at it so far! I've been majorly slack-a-lackin' in the kitchen lately. Luckily that doesn't leave me postless though - I've got some other ideas up my sleeve!

One thing I've been wanting to talk about lately is protein powders. Until I started reading blogs, I never even considered using them. I figured they were just for bodybuilders and athletes. So once I started reading blogs, I was surprised to see so many fellow bloggers using them!

[Source]

I didn't hop on the protein powder bandwagon because I eat a diet with plenty of protein, so I figured I didn't need them. Then once I started studying nutrition at school, I started to question the need for protein powders at all, except for in the critically ill.

See, last year we learned about protein requirements, and they're a lot less than I thought! According to the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges (AMDRs), protein only needs to make up 10-35% of our diet. There's also a more specific Recommended Daily Amount:

RDA (Adults > 19 y.o.) = 0.8 g protein/kg/day

That's really not that much! For a 120 lb woman, that's only about 44 g of protein. Considering the average person already gets more than this amount in their daily diet without even trying, I didn't see the need for protein powders in the average diet.

But when might protein needs be increased?

1. In children, teens, and pregnant or lactating women.

2. In cases of clinical stress, such as after operations, sepsis, major burns, and multiple traumas. In these cases, needs may be increased to anywhere between 1.0 to as high as 2.5 g/kg/d.

3. In highly competitive strength and endurance athletes who exercise for multiple hours at at a time on a regular basis, needs are increased to 1.2 to 1.8 g/kg/d.

So what do I believe now? I still don't believe protein powders are necessary in the average diet. When I did a diet analysis for my class last year, I found out I was getting 1.3 g protein/kg/d without even trying! However, do think they are important for hospital patients under clinical stress and they may be beneficial in vegetarian athletes.

But just because I don't think they're necessary, does that mean I they're completely pointless? Nope. Because look what I have sitting on my counter right now:

Mind you, this was a gift from a friend's mom who works for a health company, but even if I hadn't received it free, I might have still been interested in buying some for myself. Because even though I know I get enough protein in my diet, I think protein powders can be a good way to amp up the filling factor of snacks that otherwise wouldn't be that filling.

The other day I made these protein bars that were able to keep me full for 3 full hours!

Crunchy Soy Nut Butter Protein bars
Adapted from this recipe from Oh She Glows

Makes 10

1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1 cup Kellogg's All Bran Flakes
1/3 cup vanilla protein powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup of honey
1/2 cup of soy nut butter
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup of raisins

Mix together the dry ingredients. Then microwave the honey, soy nut butter, and vanilla and stir until smooth. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix until they are evenly coated. Press the mixture into an 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper and press down firmly with wet fingers. Refrigerate for 30-60 minutes, then cut into bars.

What do you think about using protein powders? Do you use them?

What's your favourite protein bar or granola bar recipe?

Hello, December!

2011-12-01T15:35:00.004-05:00

I can't believe it's already December. On the one hand, that means final exams are less than 2 weeks away for me. But on the other, I get to go home for Christmas break in 18 days! I'm already giddy with excitement thinking about holiday baking, decorating our tree, and getting to see my sister for the first time since August.

Another plus about December: it also means I get to start on my first day of my advent calendar. My grandma makes me a homemade advent calendar every year because most store-bought kinds say "May contain traces of nuts" on their label.

This year, it was full of Hershey's chocolates! I have the best grandma ever!

You bet I ate one of those bad boys alongside my breakfast this morning. ;)

The beginning of this month also means it's a good time to set some of the goals for myself that I've been thinking about. I'm not usually a big goal-setter, but I feel like I need some to get me through this stressful month! So here's what I'm hoping to do in the next 31 days:

1. Eat at least 2 dairy products per day OR eat enough calcium-rich foods to meet my daily needs of 1000 mg per day. If needed, supplement with my multivitamin containing 400 mg of calcium. Getting enough calcium is one of those things that, as a nutrition student, I know is important, but I find it really hard to achieve. So this month I'm going to try to get more yogurt, milk, and cheese in my diet. Tofu (made with calcium sulfate), canned salmon with bones, and white beans are also good sources.

My favourite source of calcium ever: Liberte vanilla Greek yogurt

2. Mindfully enjoy holiday treats. In past years, I totally avoided holiday treats because of the fear of even just one cookie making me "fat". Now that I realize that it isn't the case, I want to allow myself to occasionally indulge in some treats. Because really, what are the holidays without some gingerbread cookies and chocolate? At the same time, however, I don't want to go overboard with the sugar. Allowing myself to indulge doesn't mean going crazy and loading up a plate with piles of desserts. So I'm going to select my treats carefully and mindfully enjoy them.

Ginger cookies I made last year

3. Make time in my study schedule to actually enjoy the holiday season. It's no fun when most of December is spent in the library rather than taking part in some holiday cheer! So I'm going to make sure to take study breaks to bake Christmas cookies for my friends, watch some Christmas movies with my roommate, take some walks through the snow, and do some Christmas shopping.

Quite possibly my favourite Christmas movie ever!
[Source]

4. Try out at least one new fitness class. I'm not generally a big fan of group exercise, but maybe that's just because I haven't found the right class for me yet. My campus gym offers a ton of classes! I've tried out a few new ones this year like Triple Threat and Skip 'n Sculpt but there are still others I want to try.

5. Stick to a strength training plan. I'm still experimenting with plans that work for me, but for right now I'm going to keep it simple and make a goal to do 1 day of arms, 1 day of legs, and 1 day of abs per week.

[Source]

6. Help out with my parents' anniversary party. This December 27th is my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Congrats mom and dad!!! :) To celebrate they are renting out our favourite restaurant for the night and inviting a bunch of their friends and family for a customized 4 course menu. To add to the night, my sister and I are making a slideshow. I want to work really hard to make sure it is amazing because my parents deserve no less!

My parents at their wedding in 1986

7. Try out at least one new recipe per week. I'm going to need some way to procrastinate during exams, and what better way to put off studying than by cooking? ;)

These lentil burgers from Bon Appetit are on my must-try list!

8. And last but not least, stay sane during exams!!!

What are your goals for December?

Do you stick to a strength training plan? What does it look like?

What recipes have caught your eye lately?

WIAW #15

2011-11-30T07:30:00.001-05:00

Good morning guys! Thanks for all the feedback on my last post - I'm glad you all seemed to agree with me. I really enjoy writing posts on what I learn in my nutrition classes and my opinions on different nutrition topics, so I hope to do more posts like it in the future!

But today it's that time of the week again: What I Ate Wednesday! Go check out Jenn's blog for more foodie inspiration. :)

My day yesterday started at 7 am which is pretty much unheard of for me! It must have been the sound of the rain that helped me sleep in - it was so soothing. I woke up starving though!

I wanted to try gingerbread oatmeal, but I was craving pumpkin too so I made some pumpkin gingerbread oatmeal. It was sooo good, but didn't have as much gingerbread flavour as I wanted. I'll have to tweak the recipe a bit to get it right.

Pumpkin gingerbread oatmeal: 1/3 cup of rolled oats cooked in 2/3 cup of water and 1/3 cup of skim milk with 1 tsp of chia seeds, 1/3 of a banana whipped in, 1/4 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tbsp molasses and the rest of the banana sliced in at the end. Toppings: soy nut butter and granola.

I may have loved the rain for helping me to sleep, but my love instantly disappeared the second I walked out of my apartment. It was gross out there! I almost didn't make it to the gym for my workout, but I sucked it up and went anyway.

+ 30 minutes on the elliptical: 5 min @ level 1, 5 min @ level 2, 5 min @ level 3... continued until I hit 30 minutes.
+ Glutes and hamstrings workout
+ 10 minutes @ level 7 on the bike

Post-workout lunch: spinach, carrot, cherry tomato, cucumber, orange pepper, broccoli, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, feta cheese, olives, edamame, and a hard-boiled egg, with balsamic dressing and a big hunk of baguette on the side.

Then I had 3 hours of Advanced Food Science class where we talked about the structure and chemistry of proteins. I was a bit rusty on the material, so I hit up the library after class to review my notes. I don't know about you guys, but for me, studying = snacking. I need food to motivate me to actually sit down and focus! I had a clementine and a homemade protein bar (recipe to come soon!).

Finally after a few hours of studying and a Nutrition Month meeting until 6:30, I came home and slaved away over a hot stove making this delicious curry. Just kidding! I made it Monday night, so all I had to do was pop it in the microwave. It was exactly what I needed after my long day.

Later on I relaxed while watching Glee and reading blogs. Anyone else watch Glee last night? This season has been a bit slow for me, but I really liked last night's episode! I had some Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and cereal all mixed together as a snack while catching up on blogs.

And that was my Tuesday! Now I want to hear from you guys!

What's the best thing you ate yesterday?

Are you a fan of gingerbread?

Favourite study snacks?

Fruits and veggies: too much of a good thing?

2011-11-28T21:53:00.000-05:00

The other day while sitting in Clinical Nutrition and learning about high versus low fiber diets, I was struck with a thought: fruits and vegetables are not the holy grail of healthy eating.

Of course I believe they are healthy and an important part of our diet - I don't think I could be a real nutrition student if I didn't believe this! But I think there's more to consider.

In the past, I used to think of fruits and vegetables as the most perfect foods, with every other food falling below them in terms of their healthiness. I would stuff myself with salads and stir fries every day, thinking that as long as I ate lots of fruits and vegetables, that would mean I was healthy.

Tons of veggies with some tofu. But what's missing?

But is there such thing as too many fruits and vegetables? To be honest, I think that yes, there is. When you start to eat too many fruits and vegetables to the point where you sacrifice other food groups, then I think there's a problem.

First of all, produce is generally full of fiber and fairly low calorie, so you'll feel full from all the bulk causing you to eat less calories overall. So if most of your meals and snacks for the day revolve around fruits and veggies, then you may not be meeting all your daily energy needs.

And if you constantly shun other foods in favour of produce, then sure you may be getting plenty of vitamins and minerals, but you're probably missing out on lots of nutrients too, like calcium, iron, B vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin E, protein, and fat. Also, fiber can actually bind minerals such as calcium, iron, copper, magnesium, selenium and zinc, in our intestine and decrease their absorption.

I'm not trying to bash fruits and vegetables here - of course I think they're important! But now that I'm studying nutrition in school, I've learned a lot more about what a healthy diet really means. And to me, it means balance.

[Source]

What do you think - is there such thing as too many fruits and vegetables?

Recipe for the perfect weekend at home

2011-11-27T14:22:00.000-05:00

Serves 1

A dash of my dad's beef stir fry made with the most amazing marinated beef tenderloin.

A pinch of reading holiday issues of magazines.

A bit of Christmas shopping with my mom... well, we had the best of intentions to buy Christmas presents, but we ended up finding more stuff for ourselves!

1.2 lbs of Whole Foods salad bar (spinach, steamed kale, sesame kale salad, Greek quinoa salad, raw detox salad, tofu, roasted sweet potato and beets, roasted peppers and eggplant, and pita)

A morning at the St. Lawrence Market with my dad

[Source]

A delicious jug of apple cider from this farmer's stand

A perfect home-cooked dinner of roast chicken, salad, fresh bakery bread, and roasted delicata squash, brussels sprouts, potatoes, and shallots.

An afternoon of baking Nanaimo bars for my friend's birthday with a side of Michael Bublé singing Christmas songs in the background

A taste of my first Nanaimo bar ever. It was amazing!

Combine ingredients into one weekend, mix together, and enjoy. :)

This weekend was exactly what I needed before the craziness of exams start. But it's made me so excited to be home for three whole weeks with my family over Christmas. I'm counting down the days until my last exam already!

If you live away from home, what do you like to do with your family when you visit?

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?

What are your favourite magazines to read around Christmas time?

Turkey, black bean, and sweet potato chili

2011-11-25T07:30:00.001-05:00

Good morning guys! How are you all doing? For those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope you had an amazing day of family, friends, and food. I have to admit I was a bit jealous that you were celebrating Thanksgiving when we had already celebrated ours weeks ago! I may not have enjoyed a big Thanksgiving dinner this week, but I did have my own turkey feast of sorts: a turkey, sweet potato and black bean chili.

Usually I don't like to repeat similar meals too often because there are just so many recipes out there that I want to try. Seriously, you should see my Favourites menu on my computer - it's out of control! But chili is one meal that I could just make over and over again. My basic vegetarian two bean chili is my go-to recipe that I make all the time. But I also love trying out variations of chili, like my white bean and chicken chili that I adapted from my mom's recipe.

This variation with sweet potatoes, black bean, and turkey is another winner!

Turkey, black bean, and sweet potato chili
Serves 4-6

- 1 lb lean ground turkey
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, in 1/2" cubes
- 1 clove garlic
- 28-oz can no salt diced tomatoes
- 2 cups no salt vegetable stock
(1 bouillon cube + 2 cups water)
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 19-oz can no salt black beans
- 1 cup corn kernels

In a large pot, brown the turkey over medium heat. When almost cooked through, add the onions and continue to cook until translucent. Then add the red pepper, sweet potatoes, and garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the tomatoes, vegetable stock, cumin, chili powder and salt. Cover and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Then add in the beans and corn and cook uncovered for about 10-15 minutes to let thicken.

The combination of sweet potato, turkey and beans makes this a super hearty dinner. I'm usually a go-back-for-seconds kind of girl, but even my monstrous appetite was satisfied after only one bowl. It's definitely a meal that sticks to your ribs!

I had to pack it away in the freezer though because I decided to drive home for the weekend on Thursday afternoon. It had been weeks since I was last home and I really missed it! I was looking forward to a home-cooked meal, but my mom couldn't eat because of a procedure she has today (don't worry, it's no big deal!) and we didn't want to tempt her with the delicious smells of food cooking, so instead my dad and I just got takeout. I can't say no to sushi!

My order: salmon roll, assorted nigiri sushi, garden salad, and wakame salad

Then we crashed on the couch and spent the rest of the night watching The Change Up. It's so nice to be home and just chill out with my parents! Today I'm going to the gym, starting on some Christmas shopping with my mom, and then cooking an amazing dinner with my parents. Hope you all have a great start to your weekend!

What's your favourite kind of chili?

Do you like hanging out with your parents?

For those of you who celebrated, how was your Thanksgiving?

(Almost) Wordless WIAW

2011-11-23T06:59:00.001-05:00

Hey guys! Happy WIAW! Or, at least it will be a happy day once I'm done with my presentation this morning. This thing has been stressing me out for weeks, so I'm excited to finally be done with it. I'm all talked out from practicing my speaking points, so I'm going to let the pictures from yesterday do most of the talking. Go check out Jenn's blog for all the other great posts! :)

Oatmeal cooked with milk, water, banana, and chia seeds topped with banana, blackberries, goji berries, coconut, granola, and coconut butter

Bulgur and tuna Greek salad with cherry tomatoes, green pepper, cucumber, red onion, black olives, and feta cheese

Chopped apple mixed with cottage cheese, vanilla Greek yogurt, cinnamon, raisins, and granola

Sushi bowl: brown rice, kale, raw tofu, carrots, cucumber, avocado, nori seaweed, sesame seeds, and soy sauce

Oatmeal squares, Kashi Honey Almond Flax and bran flakes with milk (old photo)

What's the best thing you've eaten recently?

Have you tried coconut butter? What's your favourite way to eat it?

What has been stressing you out lately?

My milk debate

2011-11-22T07:23:00.001-05:00

Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always like to try out at least one new food. Otherwise, I would get bored buying the same thing week after week. Sometimes it's a new product I saw on a blog. Sometimes it's something that just catches my eye. And sometimes it's because of a decision to change something about my diet.

My groceries this week were pretty normal in the produce department. Just the usual tomatoes, avocados, peppers, kale, carrots, cucumber, broccoli and onions.

And for fruit I got apples, banana, orange, and berries. Nothing unusual there.

But there were some new items in the rest of my haul. I got my usual Kashi cereal, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, bread, nori seaweed, and tea. But this week I also picked up some ground turkey. I always forget how easy it is to cook with ground meat! I'm thinking I'm going to use it in chili or meatballs.

In that picture, you'll also notice skim milk. Skim cow's milk. This is a change for me because I've been drinking almond milk for almost the past 2 years. I'm not a vegan or lactose-intolerant, so why?

Well, at first it was because I noticed other bloggers were drinking it. I mean, all the cool kids were doing it, so I felt that I had to as well. And at that point I was still in the midst of my ED, so I also really liked that it was low-calorie. But even as I got healthy again, I continued to drink it because it was just so convenient that I could stock up on the shelf-stable cartons and never have to worry about running out.

But now I've made the decision to (mostly) switch back to cow's milk because I've realized how many awesome nutrients I'm missing out on!

*Note: Almond Breeze products in Canada do not contain added vitamins, so there is 0% of the DV for vitamin D in our products!

As you can see, milk is a much better source of protein and vitamin D. Not to mention, it also contains many other essential vitamins and minerals, including riboflavin and vitamin B12. As far as I know, Almond Breeze is not fortified with these nutrients.

I know there are other options out there - for example, there are some brands of almond milk fortified with more nutrients, as well as soy milk, which is fortified and high in protein. But I like cow's milk, so why bother with alternative milks?

I think it's way too easy to get sucked into believing that alternative milks are "healthier" because they're generally marketed as such. But it's important to read the food labels and make your own decisions about the healthiness of a product!

Have you made any changes to your diet or food choices lately?

What kind of milk do you drink? Why?

One weekend, two restaurants

2011-11-21T07:05:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite things about the weekend: going out to restaurants! Some people like to go out on Saturday nights and get drunk. But me? I like to go out for delicious food with friends.

Saturday night I met up with Meg and Andrea for sushi at Gozen.

It had been weeks since we all hung out last, so I was so excited. And just like last time, we spent the whole evening talking about, what else, food!

I started off with my favourite wakame salad. The portion looks huge, but there was some shredded white radish underneath. I wish it had all been seaweed though!

For my entree I got a salmon and a tuna roll. My favourites!

I had such a great time hanging out with these girls! I'm already excited for our plans to visit Jambalaya - a restaurant with a fusion of Thai, Cajun, and Carribean cuisine. It sounds amazing!

On Sunday my parents came to visit. I was so happy to see them because the last time I saw them was Thanksgiving - over a month ago! I know that doesn't sound like long, but I'm a big mommy's/daddy's girl, so I like to see them as often as possible.

They helped me out with some stuff around the apartment and with a minor car repair, then we all went out to lunch at Jack Astor's. We're not usually big fans of chain restaurants, but this place surprised me.

I ordered a delicious stir fry with chicken, carrots, zucchini, onions, green pepper, sprouts, and water chestnuts served over basmati rice with the teriyaki sauce on the side. It was so fresh and healthy tasting!

And it was the perfect way to satisfy my hungry belly after that morning's 3.5 mile run, 0.5 mile walk at a 6% incline, and 10 minutes on the bike. I was really excited after that run because it brought my weekly mileage up to 16.5 miles - I haven't reached that distance in a while. It gives me hope that maybe someday soon I'll be able to train for a half marathon!

But as for right now, my life is enough of a marathon for me. Today I have class all morning, then the gym, then homework, and then I have to meet for a group project all evening. Life is definitely keeping me busy!

Hope you all have great Mondays. :)

Do you often eat out on weekends?

What are your favourite chain restaurants?

Getting crafty with coconut and chicken

2011-11-20T08:25:00.000-05:00

Do you guys ever go back and read old blog posts? I sometimes do it when I'm bored. It's fun to remind myself of recipes I've tried and rediscover some meal ideas. But as I was reading over some old posts yesterday, I realized how far I've come with my meals and cooking.

The first meal I ever posted on March 29, 2010

Back when I started this blog in March 2010, I mostly stuck to a diet of yogurt and cereal, oatmeal, salads, sandwiches, and stir fries. It was boring!

I'm pretty sure I ate this stir fry 3x a week last summer!

As I started reading more blogs, I began to experiment a bit more, but I still mostly stuck to the basics. I think a part of me was still stuck in my ED mindset, where familiar foods were "safe" and anything that I wasn't used to eating was "scary". I was still holding onto my need to know the number of calories in my meals. I also had this compulsive need for all of my meals to be "perfect" and "special". I didn't want to waste a meal on an unknown recipe that possibly wouldn't taste good.

But now my diet is full of variety and I get so excited about trying out new foods. I can truly say that my interest in food is a full-fledged passion for all kinds of foods, ingredients, and cuisines - it's NOT just an obsession with eating healthy foods. Now I love trying out as many new recipes as possible!

Like on Friday morning I tried making pancakes with coconut flour for the first time! They were good, but they could still use some improvement. I'll definitely post the recipe for you guys as soon as I get it perfect!

I topped them with frozen blueberries simmered into a sauce, banana, fresh blueberries, maple syrup, and coconut.

Pancakes aren't the only experimenting I've been doing though. I also tried making my own chicken fingers for the first time! But of course I made them with a healthier twist. Kellogg's All Bran Flakes make an amazing coating for chicken!

Crispy Bran Flake Chicken Fingers
Serves 1

1 chicken breast
1/3 cup Bran Flakes, crushed
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1.5 tsp dried sage
Salt and pepper
2 egg whites

Mix together the crushed Bran Flakes, cheese, sage, salt and pepper. Cut the chicken into long strips and dip each strip in the egg whites, then roll in the Bran Flake mixture until totally coated. Spray a baking sheet with cooking oil and bake at 375°F for 10 minutes, then flip and bake for another 10 or so minutes until cooked through.

This was my first time having chicken fingers in probably 4 years. I forgot how good they are! Especially dipped in copious amounts of ketchup.

Today my parents are coming to visit me for the day and I'm so excited because I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving! I'm going to squeeze in a quick workout first, so I'm off to the gym. Enjoy your Sundays! :)

Do you tend to play it safe in the kitchen or do you like trying out lots of new recipes?

Have you ever baked with coconut flour? What did you make? Links please! :)

Ketchup - yay or nay?

Dear Pizza

2011-11-19T08:25:00.001-05:00

Dear Pizza,

I'm so glad to have you back in my life now. I feel like we have a healthy relationship and we're in it for the long haul now.

I know things seemed good back in high school when we would spend Friday nights together with friends. But I had a love-hate relationship with you. I hated the way you made me feel after a binge. And I hated myself for letting myself get out of control. But it wasn't you, it was me.

I'm sorry I cut you out of my life for two years. I really regret that. But again, it wasn't you, it was me. I was scared of you. I was scared you would ruin my "perfect" diet.

But now I'm in a better place. And I'm so happy you agreed to take me back. This past year together has been wonderful.

We've enjoyed birthdays together...

... shopping weekends in Buffalo...

... and movie nights with friends.

This Wednesday was one of my favourite moments with you! Our homemade pizza night with my roommate was so much fun!

My roommate, Marie:

Our beautiful pizza before baking:

My plate (I went back for another piece):

Me and my pizza:

Don't we look happy together? Let's never break up again, ok?

Have you ever stopped eating one of your favourite foods because you saw it as unhealthy?

What's on your ideal pizza?

Apple pie granola

2011-11-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

Ever since my first year of university, I've always started getting homesick around this time of year. After a walk home from campus through the crisp air, all I want is some comfort food cooked by my dad. And seeing the malls decorated for Christmas makes me excited to go home for the holidays. And walking by coffee shops with dessert-flavoured lattes makes me crave my mom's baking.

Have I mentioned that my mom is an amazing baker? She makes the best carrot cake, pumpkin pie and apple pie! I was craving her apple pie this week, so I made the next best thing: an apple pie granola. I'd be lying if I told you this was as good as her apple pie - because nothing beats her perfectly flaky crust filled with warm, sweet apples.

But if you forget the comparison to apple pie, then this is one darned good granola.

Apple pie granola

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tbsp applesauce
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped dried apple
1/3 cup raisins

Preheat your oven to 325°F. Then in a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the oats, almonds cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir to mix.

In a separate bowl (or I just used a glass measuring cup), combine the maple syrup, applesauce, oil, and vanilla. Mix well. Then pour the liquid ingredients into the oat mixture and stir until everything is coated.

Pour the mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper atop a baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, removing it every 5-10 minutes to stir.

Remove the granola from the oven and stir in the dried apple and raisins. Let it sit and cool, then store it in an airtight jar.

Are any of your family members good bakers? What's your favourite thing that they make?

Favourite kind of granola?

WIAW #13: What I've been eating lately Wednesday

2011-11-16T06:40:00.002-05:00

Good morning everyone! I was up early (well, earlier than usual, since I'm always up early!) this morning. I haven't been able to sleep lately and I think it's because I'm mega stressed. I've got two group projects due next week and we're really not getting them done as quickly as I'd hoped. My Type A personality is not handling it well!!!

But since today is WIAW, I plan on letting myself de-stress a bit by making a pot of tea and taking a break to read all of your WIAW posts! Head on over to Jenn's blog to check them all out!

I'm excited to actually be able to spend some time at home today because thanks to these projects, I've practically been living on campus for the past few days! Which means my meals have looked something like this:

That would be yesterday's lunch, snack and dinner all packed up for my 12 hour day on campus. It was a pretty boring day of eating, so instead of posting it all, I decided to make today a What I've been Eating Lately Wednesday!

Let's start with this dinner from the weekend: kale, broccoli, roasted potatoes and baked mahi mahi with an orange soy reduction. It was my first time trying mahi mahi, and I loved it!

Then on Sunday I made the omelet of my dreams stuffed with cremini mushrooms, portabello, and taleggio cheese.

A quick noodle stir fry with edamame, eggplant, carrots, red pepper, and broccoli with a soy and sesame sauce.

Banana soft serve!!! Topped with chocolate and granola.

Greek couscous salad

Apple oatmeal with granola and soy nut butter

I'm off to class for the day. Hope you all have a great WIAW!

How do you deal with stress?

What are your favourite omelet fillings?

What's the best thing you've eaten lately?

From market to table

2011-11-13T13:19:00.000-05:00

If there's one thing I love about Saturdays, it's going to the farmer's market. Something about just walking around the stands, seeing all the gorgeous local produce, and knowing how passionate the farmer's are about their produce - it brings a smile to my face every time!

Yesterday after a trip to the gym (40 minutes of cardio + a full body weights circuit) I went to the market with my friend Andrea. There was lots to see as always!

Squash... looks like we got there a little late.

Funny shaped heirloom carrots

Local apples... my favourite!

Date coffee cake and granola muffins. Sound amazing, no?

Later on in the day I celebrated local food once again by going to dinner at Garlic's with my friend Chris. It changes its menu monthly and uses as many local and organic ingredients as possible in its dishes. I went there earlier this fall and was blown away by my meal, so I was excited to go back.

The bread was a molasses bread with a garlic butter. The bread tasted like beer (yuck), but despite that I still enjoyed it.

Afterwards we were brought out a special treat from the kitchen: fried Jerusalem artichoke with Cajun-spiced breading and a garlic aioli. This was so good!

For my appetizer I had the mixed organic greens with toasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and a maple-balsamic dressing. This was fantastic and a huge potion size! I was impressed.

My entree was by far my favourite part of the meal though. I opted for the Arctic char with celeriac puree, roasted fennel, and heirloom carrots and beets. The fish was incredible, but the veggies were equally as good. That was my first time trying celeriac, and I loved it! It was like a combination of potato and celery.

Then Chris ordered a crazy dessert: garlic ice cream!!! I tried a bite, but I was not a fan. It was just a little too weird for my tastebuds.

Afterwards I just came home, put on some sweats, and caught up on blogs while Twilight was on tv in the background. It was the perfect relaxing end to my day!

Have you ever tried celeriac? What are your favourite root veggies?

Have you ever tried any crazy flavoured ice creams?

Change of attitude

2011-11-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! Let me just start off this post by saying T.G.I-freaking-F! Can I get an amen?

This has been one long and stressful week. I've got a lot of group projects on the go right now and I had group meetings for each of them throughout the week. Unfortunately, they weren't as productive as I'd hoped which has left me really stressed out because the due dates are coming up soon! By Thursday night I felt my stress-levels building up into a freak out. Which is when I knew I needed to change something for the sake of my sanity!

Since I couldn't change the source of the stress, the only thing I could change was my attitude.

[Source]

I decided that instead of focusing on what I wasn't accomplishing, I would focus on what I was accomplishing. And it's made such a difference for me today! When I look at things that way, today was actually a super productive day!

Accomplishments by 9 am: 2 loads of laundry, part of my Clinical Nutrition homework, and breakfast. I made these awesome pumpkin pancakes using a Greek yogurt. It made them so moist!

Pumpkin and Greek yogurt pancakes
Serves 1

- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup of egg whites
- 2 tbsp canned pumpkin
- 2 tbsp Greek yogurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla

Syrup: pumpkin butter thinned out with water.

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add in the wet ingredients. Cook over medium-low heat and flip when the edges look dry.

Accomplishments by 12:15 pm: grocery shopping and making lunch with that taleggio cheese I bought from the market last weekend and have been meaning to try!

It was amazing in a panini with turkey, apple, and honey mustard.

Accomplishments by 3 pm: 15 minute walk to/from gym, 1 hour spin class, shower, and refueling smoothie with almond milk, Greek yogurt, banana, kale, blueberries, and flaxseed.

Accomplishments by 7 pm: Almost finished my Clinical Nutrition homework, put away all my clean laundry, and made dinner: millet, roasted broccoli, parsnips and buttercup squash, baked sweet sesame tofu.

Accomplishments by 8 pm: wrote blog post! Which is a big accomplishment for me because writing posts takes me forever!

Things to accomplish for the rest of the day: me + my friend + sweatpants + tv.

Hope you all have a great Friday night too!

When was the last time you fixed your crummy mood by changing your attitude?

What did you accomplish today?

Roasted vegetable and grains salad with balsamic tofu

2011-11-10T08:35:00.002-05:00

Good morning! I was up bright and early this morning, like usual. I'm the type of person who likes to get an early start to everything! Especially school assignments, studying, and personal goals. So when I decided on Tuesday that I wanted to start a food log to help me become a more intuitive eater, I recorded my first day the next morning. Here's what Wednesday looked like:

I know, it's only been one day, but I already feel like it has helped! Instead of waiting for a more convenient time, I started eating lunch when I felt my hunger pangs start. And rather than eating my afternoon snack at my usual time of 3:00, I waited until I was actually hungry at 3:30. I felt a lot more in tune with my body yesterday compared to usual!

Also in my last post I believe I promised you guys a recipe! But I've got not one, but two fabulous recipes that I've made lately. And they pair really well together for a great dinner!

Quinoa and bulgur salad with roasted vegetables
Serves 2

- 1/3 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1/3 cup uncooked bulgur
- 1/2 large eggplant
- 1 zucchini
- 1 red pepper
- 1/4 red onion
- 1 cup canned chickpeas
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place sliced vegetables on a baking sheet, brush both sides with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 15 minutes, flip, then bake for another 10-15 minutes. When done, remove from oven and chop into 1 cm pieces.

While vegetables are roasting, bring 2/3 cup of water to a boil, stir in quinoa and bulgur, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes.

In a large bowl combine grains, vegetables, chickpeas, olive oil, vinegar and goat cheese. Stir to mix and serve hot.

I had it alongside this tofu for dinner:

Balsamic baked tofu
Serves 1

- 1/2 block (250 g) extra firm tofu
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/2 clove of garlic, crushed
- Large pinch of oregano, rosemary, and thyme

Combine the last 5 ingredients in a shallow dish and mix well. Place thin slabs of tofu in the dish and let marinate for 10-15 minutes on each side.

Then spray a baking sheet with cooking oil and bake the tofu at 375°F for 15 minutes. Flip the slabs over and cook for another 15 minutes.

Do you like to get an early start on things or do you leave them until the last minute?

Do you like tofu? What's your favourite way to prepare it?

WIAW #12: Unintuitive eating

2011-11-09T06:50:00.001-05:00

Hey guys! Thanks for all your comments on my last post. I'm glad I'm not the only one who struggles with putting too much pressure on myself. It's something I'm going to try to work on because life is already full of too much pressure - why make it worse by putting pressure on myself?

This week I've also realized that there's another part of my life that I need to work on. And that's intuitive eating. Yesterday was a perfect example of how I often ignore my body's cues and eat according to a schedule, rather than by my hunger.

I woke up at 6:30 am and although I felt a bit peckish, I wanted to get some research done before I made breakfast. So I ignored my hunger for more than an hour until I finally got around to making my oatmeal.

Oatmeal, almond milk, chia seeds, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, banana, crumbled pumpkin spice bar, soy nut butter, pumpkin butter

The same thing happened at lunch when I started getting hungry at 11:30, but waited until 12 so that I could finish writing part of an assignment first.

Quinoa and bulgur salad with chickpeas, roasted eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and red onion, goat cheese, and balsamic - recipe to come soon!

When 3 pm rolled around, I had a snack as usual but not because I was hungry - just out of habit. I eat an afternoon snack everyday, regardless of my hunger. To be honest, it's often just because of boredom more than anything else.

Oikos 0% honey Greek yogurt - not my favourite flavour. I'm glad this was my last one!

I wasn't very hungry when I started making dinner either, but I figured it would kick in by the time my veggies were roasted and my chicken was baked. It didn't. But rather than let my food get cold while waiting, I decided to eat it anyways.

Maple-mustard baked chicken, buttercup squash brushed with maple syrup, kale chips, and a wild rice blend

I also wasn't hungry for my usual evening snack, so I just had some fruit. I'm pretty anal about always eating a night-time snack because I'm scared of being awoken by hunger during the night. It makes for a terrible sleep!

Pineapple, grapes, small chunk of pumpkin spice bar

So there you have it - my day of non-intuitive eating. And in fact, I'd say that more often than not, I don't eat intuitively. I eat because I'm bored, because food is in front of me, because I feel that it's time to eat, because I want to satisfy a craving... but I forget the real reason for eating: to satisfy hunger.

I think I may experiment with keeping an eating log for a week to help me pay more attention to why I'm eating and become more in tune with my hunger cues.

Are you a good intuitive eater?

Have you ever kept a food log before? What for? Did it help you achieve your purpose?

My self-pressure problem + back exercises

2011-11-07T22:24:00.002-05:00

Hey guys! How were your Mondays? Mine was good until I was suddenly hit with the stress of having 3 group projects due within the next month. All day long I wished it was Sunday again back when the times were simpler and all I had to worry about was what to eat for lunch (I had toast, roasted fingerling potatoes from the market, and an omelet with red pepper, tomato, broccoli, green onion and goat cheese).

I also wished to have Sunday's beautiful weather back. It was warm and sunny - the perfect day for a run!

I was still a bit sore from Saturday's Triple Threat class and I know I should have taken a rest day, but I couldn't let such a nice day go to waste! I knew as soon as I started running that it was a bad idea, but I did 3 miles, which was about as far as I could push my sore legs.

Looking back, I don't know why I ran against my better judgement. I think it's because I didn't have many plans for the day and there wasn't a lot of school work to do, so if I couldn't be productive in that way, at least I could feel accomplished about going for a run. I have a really hard time taking a day of doing nothing - I put too much pressure on myself to always be productive!

My muscles are still sore today, so I took a nice and lazy rest day. I don't feel so bad about taking today off because I had class and some assigned readings, which kept me productive. I also got a chance to churn out this post about some of the back exercises I tried after reading the "Back" chapter in the Women's Health Big Book of Exercises. It divides the exercises into two categories:

1. Upper back
Two of the main muscles in your upper back are the trapezius and the rhomboids. The traps allow you to lift your shoulders, pull your shoulder blades back, and pull your shoulder blades down. The rhomboids help the traps pull your shoulder blades back.

[Source]
Some moves to target your upper back:
Dumbbell row
Rear lateral raise
Cable row
Floor "I" raise
Inverted row

2. Lats
Your latissimus dorsi is on your lower back and these muscles are engaged when you're pulling your arms down from a raised position.

[Source]
The following moves work your lats:
Assisted pull up (or chin up)
Lat pulldown
EZ bar pullover

Have you ever exercised even though you knew you should have taken a rest day?

Can you relate to feeling like you constantly have to be productive?

What are your favourite back exercises?

Pesto tuna pasta bake + weekend recap

2011-11-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty quiet. There were some changes of plans on my part (I was going to go home, but then decided not to) and some that were out of my hands, but I still tried to enjoy myself anyway!

Since my Friday night ended up being free after my friend bailed on me, I decided to experiment with a recipe idea that popped into my head a few weeks ago for a tuna pasta with pesto. It turned out to be even better than I expected! I love it when my random recipe concoctions end up working out.

Tuna pesto pasta bake
Serves 1

- 1 serving of pasta
- 1/4 cup cottage cheese
- 2 tsp pesto
- 1/2 can of tuna
- 1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup of broccoli
- Salt and pepper

Toss the broccoli and tomatoes in olive oil and roast at 350°F for about 20 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes start to burst. Mix your cooked pasta noodles with the tuna, cottage cheese, pesto, salt and pepper. Then stir in your roasted vegetables. Place into an oven-safe dish and top with parmesan cheese (optional). Bake for 5-10 minutes.

I also went to the farmer's market on Saturday and got some great stuff! Kale, fingerling potatoes, Empire apples, sweet potatoes, eggs, and cheese from the outdoor market and zucchini and eggplant from the indoor market (since they're not in season).

I'm so excited to try out this cheese - it's an aged sheep's milk taleggio cheese from Monforte Dairy. I've never tried this kind before, but it's got a crust like brie and apparently it's quite soft and mild.

I also visited The Tea Haus in the indoor market and bought this Canadian Blueberry tea. I haven't tried it yet, but it smells amazing!

I was considering going for a run on Saturday, but for some reason the idea of running just didn't appeal to me at all. Do you ever get that? So instead I decided to check out a fitness class called "Triple Threat" with my roommate. The name sounded kind of scary... and for a good reason! The 80 minute class incorporated strength training that targeted every single muscle group with squats, lunges, shoulder presses, pushups, bicep curls, tricep dips, crunches, and more! There was also some cardio mixed in with running on the spot, jumping, punching, burpees, and shuffling. Needless to say, I was a sweaty mess by the end of the class!

I was so tuckered out after that, but luckily my plans for the rest of the evening just involved cooking dinner, watching an Everwood marathon with my friend, and digging into these pumpkin spice granola bars from Clean Eating Chelsey.

I love the pumpkin spice flavour in these!

Do you ever have random recipe ideas pop into your head? Do you ever make them?

What kind of dish would you use the taleggio cheese in? I'm thinking maybe on pizza or in a salad, but I'd love to hear your ideas!

Chili to warm the soul

2011-11-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

It's getting to be that time of year again.

That time when trees start to lose their leaves.

That time when the weather starts to get dull and grey.

That time when scarves are no longer worn for the purpose of looking cute, but because they're necessary to stay warm.

That time when all I crave are comforting foods to warm me up after a cold day on campus.

To me, the ultimate comfort food is chili. It reminds me of winter family dinners back when my sister and I both still lived at home. Dad would simmer our chili over the stove for hours letting the flavours blend and my mom would make the most out-of-this-world tea biscuits, half of them with grated cheese cooked into them. And then as we sat down to eat, dad would ask mom to pass him a tea biscuit and she would pick one up at chuck it at his head. True story.

I may not get to have those family dinners now that I'm away at school, but cooking myself a big pot of chili always helps to evoke the feeling of comfort from being at home.

Vegetarian two bean chili
Serves 6-8

1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion
1 green pepper
~12 white button mushrooms
1 tbsp cumin
1.5 tsp chili powder
1 28-oz can of diced tomatoes
1 750-mL jar of tomato sauce
1 19-oz can of kidney beans
1 19-oz can of white kidney beans
Salt and pepper

Chop your veggies then heat 1-2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and add your onions. Let them saute until translucent, but watch to make sure they don't brown. Then add in your green peppers and saute until soft. Add the mushrooms last.

Once the mushrooms are soft, add your cumin and chili powder and stir well. Cook for another 1-2 minutes then add the canned diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.

I'm going to have to disappoint you here: the reason this chili is so good is because I used my family's home canned tomato sauce that my parents make every year. It's amazing! But I'm sure you'll be able to make your chili almost as good by using a commercial brand. ;)

Our tomato sauce is pretty watery, so I let this chili simmer down for about an hour over medium-low heat. Then I added the two cans of beans and let it cook for another 15 minutes or so.

Serve with toppings of your choice. Some ideas: cheddar cheese, cilantro, Greek yogurt, avocado, tortilla chips, and baked tortilla strips.

I've been enjoying a bowl (or two!) of this chili every day for the past few days. And luckily I still have some pumpkin cornbread from the freezer to have alongside it. It's the perfect comfort food meal!

What's your favourite comfort food?

What meals remind you of home?

Pec-tacular workout

2011-11-03T14:43:00.000-04:00

Hey guys! How are you all doing today? I'm pretty tired because I was up late reading! Do you read before bed? I do almost every night. It's a habit I started as a kid when my dad would read me National Geographic magazines as a bed time story... yeah, I was a weird kid! I guess my current book isn't too normal either - last night I was reading the Women's Health Big Book of Exercises.

I've decided that whenever I finish reading a section on exercises to target a particular muscle (group), I'm going to make up a workout using some of those moves. Yesterday morning I tried some exercises from the first section of the book: the chest.

[Source]

Your chest muscles: The pectoralis major is the main chest muscle and its function is to pull your arms toward the middle of your body like when you're doing a bench press. Your pectoralis minor is another chest muscle underneath the pectoralis major, and it works to pull your shoulders forward.

Now that we're done that little anatomy lesson, I'll show you the chest workout I did (PS. Sorry for the lame pun in the title... I had to!). Click the links for helpful videos and pictures!

30 minute warm up on the elliptical

3 x 10 dumbbell chest press
3 x 10 dumbbell fly
3 x 10 incline dumbbell bench press
3 x 10 push ups - this page also shows some great variations to try, like the incline push up, decline push up, stacked feet push up, and stability ball push up.

10 minute cool down on the bike.

It was an effective but short workout because I didn't want to overwork my chest muscles. Since I was done pretty quickly, I had time before my lunch plans with friends to review some lecture notes from Monday's Dietary and Nutritional Assessment class. It was a lecture I really enjoyed because we learned about different ethnic and religious diets. As a future RD, it's super important to understand different cultures and their beliefs, values and practices so that we can do a better job at giving them nutritional counselling.

One group that we talked about were Hispanics, including Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Columbians, and others.

[Source]

Just talking about their diet full of tropical fruits, guacamole, salsa, tortillas, avocados, beans, tomatoes, and chili peppers made me crave it! So on Monday after lecture I made myself this fantastic quesadilla with pico de gallo on the side.

I stuffed it with black beans cooked with onion, cumin, and corn plus avocado and cheddar cheese. You can never go wrong with gooey cheese!

I continued with the Hispanic theme with my dinner last night: chili-lime baked salmon over greens with mango, tomato, sweet pepper, and cucumber with fried plantains and a cilanto-lime dressing.

I never used to think I was a big fan of Mexican food, but I think I'm definitely changing my mind!

What's your favourite chest exercise?

Are you a fan of Mexican food? What's your favourite dish?

WIAW #11: 6 miles in my shoes

2011-11-02T06:56:00.001-04:00

Good morning everyone! And happy Wednesday! It is definitely a happy day for me. Not only am I done midterms, but my morning lab was cancelled so I have absolutely no classes today! I'm planning on dragging my butt to campus later on though to go to the gym and then meet up with some friends for lunch.

It's nice to have a relatively empty schedule today, especially after yesterday which was pretty busy. And on top of that, I had to remember to snap pics of all my food because today is WIAW! For any new readers, What I Ate Wednesday is an idea crafted by Jenn at Peas and Crayons where food bloggers post pictures of meals every Wednesday.

It's such a fun way to discover new blogs and be inspired by new meal ideas, so head on over and check it out!

Yesterday for breakfast I didn't really have time to get fancy, so I just went with a classic cereal and yogurt combo: vanilla Greek yogurt, Kashi Honey Almond Flax, banana, strawberries, raspberries, and some goji berries.

I meant to spend the next few hours studying, but I somehow kept on getting distracted by Twitter, by blogs, by my eyebrows that suddenly needed plucking, by the drilling going on outside my window... yeah basically anything that wasn't the notes in front of me!

I ended up packing a quick lunch and walking 1.5 miles to campus to do the rest of my studying since I figured it would be more free of distractions. Not so much. As I was studying near a group of girls, I found myself a LOT more interested in eavesdropping on their conversation about their sloppy Halloween at the bar. :P

I chowed down on my lunch as I studied: bulgur, black beans, cherry tomato, red pepper, cucumber, corn, green onion, lemon juice, olive oil, and some salt.

And then it was exam time. I was freaking out because I heard it was super hard, and although parts of it were really unfair, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I'm just glad to have it done! I had the biggest smile on my face as I left. And I had such a gorgeous walk home. I love my school in the fall!

I walked the 1.5 miles back home and then made a new snack: Angela's repair and recover vegan chia pudding. It was so liquidy when I put it in the fridge, so I was really surprised at how much it thickened up in just an hour. It actually was like pudding... only with a much weirder texture. Do wet chia seeds remind anyone else of frogs eggs??

Shortly after, I had to make the 1.5 mile trek back to campus for a meeting for Nutrition Month. Remember how last year I was part of the council that organized a conference for Nutrition Month? Well I'm on the committee again this year and I'm so excited! I love organizing events!

For those of you who don't know what Nutrition Month is, it's a yearly campaign put on by the Dietitians of Canada.

"Every year in March, DC’s Nutrition Month campaign reminds us of the importance of healthy eating and the positive impact nutrition has on our health and well-being. Thanks to the efforts of dietitians, this dedicated month is one of the most recognized nutrition-awareness-raising campaigns in Canada" [Source].

Afterwards I walked 1.5 miles back home, bringing me up to 6 miles for the day! Not bad for a rest day!

I was starving when I walked in the door, so I assembled myself a random dinner of exactly what I was craving at that moment: 2 scrambled eggs, a sweet potato nuked in the microwave and sprinkled with cinnamon, roasted broccoli, and toast with raspberry jam.

Afterwards I just kicked back and watched Glee with my roommate. As ridiculous as that show is, I still love it. Especially when Puck ~~serenades me~~ sings with his guitar. ;) I snacked on cottage cheese, Oikos vanilla yogurt, and granola while watching it.

What are your biggest distractions when you're trying to be productive?

What's the last totally random meal that you ate?

The Tasting Room and the tasteless pork

2011-11-01T08:35:00.001-04:00

Good morning everyone! How are you all doing after Halloween celebrations yesterday? Anyone suffering from a sugar hangover? I'm suffering from a studying hangover. I have my midterm this afternoon and I've heard it's a toughie, but I think I've studied as much as I can. I practically spent my whole weekend studying! I took a few breaks to volunteer, go out for lunch with a friend, go to the gym, and of course cook!

On Saturday my friend from high school was in town, so we met up for lunch. We ended up at The Tasting Room, a favourite of mine that I hadn't been to in ages - I think the last time I went was before I even started blogging.

I was debating between a portabello mushroom stack and a turkey melt sandwich, but I ended up opting for the sandwich because I was in the mood for a filling, carby meal.

The sandwich came piled high with turkey, melted white cheddar cheese, tomato and lettuce. I asked for no bacon on mine. It was delicious, but I was a bit disappointed by the blah bun. The side salad was wonderful though - it was a good portion size and had a really flavourful dressing!

Overall it was a good meal, especially since it was less than $11 with tax!

I think eating out at an actual restaurant (read: not a sushi restaurant) for the first time in weeks inspired me to get my inner chef on in the kitchen. At one point I got the idea of pork with apples in my head and I couldn't get rid of it. Despite the fact that I've never cooked pork before in my life, I decided to try to tackle it.

I had no idea how to tell when it's done though, so I used my meat thermometer to cook it to 160°F, like Health Canada recommends.

Well that temperature may make food SAFE to consume, but it sure doesn't make it pleasurable to consume. My pork was as hard as a rock! My topping of apples simmered in cinnamon and nutmeg was at least good though.

As a food and nutrition student, I know how important it is to cook meats properly so as to avoid food borne illness. Health Canada sums up safe cooking temperatures in this chart:

When you're checking the temperature of meat, colour isn't always a reliable indicator. Studies have shown that sometimes beef may brown before it is at a temperature that kills all the bacteria. To be safe, you should use a digital thermometer and stick it into the thickest part of the meat. Make sure to avoid fat and bone, as this can cause error in the reading. For thin pieces of meat such as hamburgers, you should insert the thermometer in sideways.

But why the differences in temperatures for different meats?

Steaks - steaks are okay to eat rare because the bacteria associated with beef are mostly located on the outside of the cut of meat, so they will be killed just by searing the surfaces.

Ground meats - Ground meats must be cooked to a higher temperature since more of the meat can be exposed to the bacteria in the grinding process.

Poultry - poultry may be infected by salmonella, Camplobacter jejuni and other bacteria, so it's important to thoroughly cook the meat to at least 165°F so that all the bacteria is killed.

Pork - pork may be infected with a parasite known as Trichinosis, which is killed at a temperature of 137°F. Health Canada gives an extra margin of safety in its temperature recommendations, just to be on the safe side. It turns out I probably could have just cooked my pork to 140°F and been fine!

So obviously it's important to practice food safety in the kitchen. But there has been some controversy about the temperature recommendations, such as in this article. It makes me wonder if adhering to these temperatures is necessary, especially when flavour ends up being sacrificed in favour of safety.

What do you like to order for lunch at restaurants?

Do you pay a lot of attention to food safety when cooking? Do you follow meat temperature recommendations?

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T18:50:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all have a fun evening!

I'll be spending the night studying for my midterm that's tomorrow. But at least I have a stash of caramel Hershey's kisses to keep me company. ;)

Are you celebrating Halloween tonight? What are you doing?

Favourite Halloween candy?

Coconut rice and black beans with plantain

2011-10-31T07:55:00.000-04:00

So the other day I was at the grocery store and as I was in the fruit aisle, I stopped at the plantains. These banana look-a-likes have always intrigued me, but I've never actually tried one before. So I grabbed one and decided to give it a whirl!

So what are they?

They're a tropical fruit most commonly exported from Central and South America and they're very popular in Caribbean cuisine. They look like bananas, but plantains are cooked rather than eaten raw. And depending on their stage of ripeness, it has a different flavour. Green plantains are starchy (like a potato) and not very sweet. As they ripen to yellow and eventually to black they get sweeter, so they're better for dessert recipes at this stage. [Source]

A half cup serving of sliced plantain has about 95 calories, 2 g of dietary fibre, 8% DRA for potassium, 13% RDA for zinc, 15% RDA for vitamin B6, and 12% RDA for vitamin C.

** Note: The RDAs I used were for females between the ages of 19-50.

So after I bought the plantain, I browsed around at some recipes online for inspiration and came up with my own dish. And it was amazing! I think this is my favourite dinner that I've made in ages!

Coconut rice and black beans with plantain
Serves 1

- 1/3 cup of brown rice
- 2/3 cup of water
- 1/2 tsp coconut butter
- 1/4 small yellow onion, diced
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 3/4 cup canned black beans
- Splash of water
- 1/2 plantain, sliced
- 1/4 cup of diced mango
- 2 tbsp diced red onion
- 1/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
- 2 tbsp minced cilantro
- 1 tsp lime juice
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- Avocado slices

Rice
Bring water to a boil then stir in brown rice, reduce heat to a simmer, and cover. Let cook for ~ 30 minutes or until water has all been absorbed. Then remove from heat and stir in coconut butter.

Beans
Saute diced onion in olive oil until onion is translucent. Then add black beans, cumin, and water. Let cook down over low heat.

Plantains
Peel and slice a ripe (yellow/black) plantain. Fry in olive oil or coconut oil over medium heat. Flip slices when they are browned on one side.

Mango salsa
Combine mango, red onion, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, and red wine vinegar.

Add the rice, beans, salsa, and plantain to a bowl and top with avocado slices before serving.

I'm thinking I should just move down to the Caribbean for the winter so that I can eat plantains all day long and escape the frigid weather here! Anyone with me? ;)

Have you ever had plantains before?

What's the last new food that you tried?