The Food That Doesn’t Make The Blog

Happy Waffle Wednesday!!

 

I did not cheat this week and actually ate my waffles on Wednesday. Was up 15 minutes earlier than usual to toast these Nature’s Path Maple Cinnamon waffles and make some hot coffee.

 
Topped with homemade applesauce, pure maple syrup and accompanied by boiled egg. Nom to the nom. Was nice to enjoy a sit down breakfast today!

 

Q&A

Today’s question comes from a fellow personal training blogger, Tamzin:

Is there some things you eat that don’t get put on the blog? I definitely do : )

Yup! I mean, I never purposely hide foods from the blog. But there are a lot of things here and there that just don’t make regular appearances. Usually because I think they’re boring to photograph, or that they’re usually consumed when I don’t have my camera on me.

Some examples:

I’ve developed an expensive Starbucks habit. Once a day I get an unsweetened iced tea or iced coffee. This is because I need to use their internet and I feel really bad doing it without buying something. On the bright side, it gives me a midday perk up!

Around once a week, I’ll splurge on one of these:

*gasp!* Yeah, I know it’s poison. I never used to drink soda until I discovered it helps with my digestion (makes me burp!). I try to go for club soda when I can, but sometimes a girl just wants an artificially sweetened beverage.

Remember this post when I bought fresh dates from the market?

The girl who sold them to me told me to wait several weeks until eating. So I kept them in the bag in the back of my cupboard and forgot about them. Six weeks later, I had this:

Dried dates! That I dried on my own and took no extra work besides patience on my part ;)

I often snack on dates once a day. Usually before a workout for some quick sugar. Or, I’ll slather them in PB for a sweet afternoon snack.

These once-fresh dates were amazing. Best I’ve ever had. Almost juicy still? If you ever see fresh dates for sale, I highly suggest trying this out!

Besides packing my streetcar breakfast every night, I also prepare a lunch and sometimes dinner for the following day. I don’t photograph this because it’s a hassle and repetitive. Usually consists of a salad or sandwich.

Lately I’ve been into making a big batch of quinoa salad at the start of the week, then packing it on top of some leafy greens. It’s super quick to prepare!

This is very similar to my Tofu, Parsley & Quinoa Salad, except I replaced the chickpeas with a sweet potato.

Of course, if you really want the dirt, I can’t ignore my insatiable sweet tooth.

I’m not even the biggest fan of ice cream, but if it’s in my freezer I’ll eat it! My protein desserts have been replaced with real desserts of leftover vanilla bean ice cream from my beer filled dinner party.

There’s also whatever sweets my roommie is whipping up…

And, I’d be amiss if I didn’t include the occasional finger full of marshmallow fluff.

Hey… it happens!

 

Many of you also requested the recipe for the above pumpkin swirl brownie from my last post. Recipe can be found here with the following notes from my roomie:

And what I did was ignored her whole putting more batter in the chocolate half so my pumpkin layer would be gooey.

And I used more pumpkin and semi sweet chocolate instead of bittersweet

I sense we may need to bug her for a guest post soon ;)

 

That’s all she wrote my friends! Now tell me – what guilty pleasure foods do you have? I know you have some! I still love processed Kraft cheese slices :)

Weekend Delight

Hellohello!! Hope everyone had wonderful weekends :) I went MIA yesterday, but hopefully my new Fitness Friday series was enough to hold you over! I’m trying not to get all bent out of shape about posting every single day anymore. When it comes to writing, I’m a true believer in quality over quantity. But I’m happy to finally be sitting down to share my weekend with you!

Let’s get to the highlights, in a topical and orderly manner.

 

Breakfast

I like to think of Friday’s breakfast as the black & white cookie of oatmeal.

Dark chocolate dreams + marshmallow fluff atop protein oats.

Post picture, I swirled together the two melted toppings. My father said marshmallow fluff is not appropriate breakfast fare. I beg to differ.

I can’t get my new protein waffle recipe off my mind. On Saturday, I made another fluffy batch with date pieces cooked in. Dipped in a sauce of syrup and almond butter. It was nothing short of amazing.

This morning, I wanted more waffles, but was missing an ingredient.

Next best thing – coconut walnut french toast. Bread dredged through a mix of two eggs, almond milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon, flaked coconut and walnuts. Ohyes.

 

Snacks

A dark chocolate vitatop smothered in my Easy Peasy Cream Cheese Icing and flaked coconut.

Just how easy is it? One wedge of laughing cow cheese + one tablespoon marshmallow fluff = instant deliciousness.

New tasty snack thanks to Lynn – dates stuffed with cream cheese. Sugar and cream cheese were meant to be!

 

Music

My friends rocked it out on Friday night. I’m trying to learn how to take decent band pictures. The low light and movement makes it pretty damn hard! The pictures don’t do them justice either, you can listen to The Station Agents here ;)

 

Exercise

During my fitness assessment last week, I realized that I’ve been ignoring my core a little too much. Okay, I hate working my abs. But I know having a strong midsection is so important to not just sports and exercise, but everyday mobility. So here’s the ab-focused full-body strength workout I came up with:

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Load	Target
Assisted pull-up	3	12	70 lbs	Back, biceps
Push-up	3	12	–	Chest, triceps
Swiss ball crunch with dumbbell pullover	3	12	10 lbs	Abs, upper back, chest
Curtsy lunge	3	24	30 lbs	Quads, glutes
Swiss ball leg curl	3	12	–	Hamstrings
Prone jackknife	3	12	–	Abs
Front raise with lateral open	3	12	5 lbs ea	Shoulders
Back extension on roman chair	3	12	10 lbs	Lower back, glutes
Captain’s chair	3	12	–	Abs, hips
Cable pushdown	3	12	40 lbs	Triceps
One arm cable bicep curl	3	12	12 lbs	Biceps
Cable horizontal woodchop	3	12	25 lbs	Obliques

I did these in mini-circuits of three exercises, indicated by the different colours. With a 15 minute cardio warm-up, whole thing took me 65 minutes :)

 

Beer

I did pretty well in terms of beer this weekend. I went out both Friday and Saturday nights, which provided ample opportunity to consume mass quantities of alcohol. I waited till Saturday night to splurge on any, and they were worthy splurges indeed.

 
Mill St. Lemon Tea Beer: “Sunset-coloured (orangey-amber) slightly sweet, malty palate with dry lemon-tea finish. Beer made with addition of Black tea leaves and lemon in aging tank. Very smooth and quenching; unfiltered.”

Smelled like tea, tasted like beer! A good tasting beer, thumbs up.

On an impulse, I treated myself to my new favourite beer, Fruli.

I know how some people feel about fruity beers, but this strawberry white is downright delightful.

The view at Sin & Redemption pub isn’t too bad either. Nice bike, no? ;)

 

Sausage

Because you can’t attend a barbecue without grilling up some of the delicious sausage prepared by your neighbourhood butcher. Featured here is a handmade garlic mushroom sausage. Probably one of the best sausages I’ve ever had. No joke. Not pictured is the sauerkraut that was eaten on top. Not audible are the “MmmMMmMmmms” made while eating this.

 

Salad

Because there’s no better way to wrap up a weekend than with a giant bowl of greens. This one here included some kale, tuna, olives, mozzarella cheese, and a dressing made up of pesto and lemon juice whisked together.

 

Last but not least, I bought a watermelon for two dollars today. A pretty stellar end to a pretty stellar weekend, I’d say :)

 

Question of the Day: What are your weekend highlights?

Someone is the Owner of a Brand New Waffle Maker!

Whooaaa, thanks for all the compliments on my photoshoot!! Haha. They made me feel nice as I read them this morning, in my giant flannel pants, smudged mascara and gnarly hair :P

Okay, I won’t beat around the bush here. I know you’re eager to find out who won the free Belgian waffle maker!! Drumroll pleeeease…

 

Woo! Congrats Sarah!!! I’ll be sending you an e-mail to get all the necessary info :)

I apologize to those of you who didn’t win, as I’m about to tease you with another Belgian waffle photo.

Seeing as I’m almost fully off the dairy now, I have to come up with a new protein waffle recipe. My old one consisted of cottage cheese, oatmeal, and egg whites. So today I mixed up a few things as I went along.

2 tbsp soy protein powder, 2 tbsp whey powder, 2 tbsp whole wheat flour, 1 tbsp ground flax, 1/4 cup egg whites, 1/4 cup almond milk, 1 tsp baking powder, cinnamon.

It got super crisp and crusty! I bet this would be okay as pancakes, but definitely needs tweaking for waffles. Anyone got a decent high protein, low dairy waffle recipe?

 
Topped with strawberries, homemade maple pecan peanut butter, sugar-free syrup and sweetened flaked coconut.

I usually buy unsweetened coconut, but we needed the sweet stuff for a cake recipe. Um, it’s rad.

Supah filling!!! 

Archie watched me from afar, he so wanted some.

I spent the morning applying for personal training jobs in Toronto! Not getting my hopes up though, applying for jobs online is a suck hole. People still like the old-fashioned resume drop-off.

The rain cleared briefly before lunch, so I had a sugary snack before heading out for a planned 5-miler.

Two of the medjool dates I bought at the natural food store yesterday, stuffed with almond butter. I usually buy teeny tiny honey dates because they’re cheap. Whoa. These medjools are ginormous and mega sweet. Two was definitely one too many for me, which is saying a lot.

I actually mapped out the run today beforehand, planned for two loops around the lake.

 Source 

Not to be a complainer or anything, but I really miss my trail in Fredericton!! Wain! I miss my gym too, learning to exercise in different environments may be the hardest part of moving for me.

On the bright side, there are a few hills around here and I was able to challenge myself in a new way :) Oh, and I totally ran past an old high school boyfriend on the sidewalk. Thank gaaawd I was disguised in my ballcap and sunglasses.

Came home and iced my feet, ankles and knees while eating a big ole salad.

 
My mother’s usual salad bowls no longer cut it, I had to revert to one of her mixing bowls.

Apparently running up hills makes me hungry for whole romaine hearts??

With leftover spicy buffalo buffalo meatballs in mustard/mayo/olive oil dressing.

On the icing, I remember getting a question a while back on why/when to do it. I ice after long runs to prevent pain after. I never get pain in my muscles or joints during a run. If I do, I stop. But often when I do longer runs, I’ll get pain in my feet, ankles and knees a few hours later, and it can last a couple days. Bringing the inflammation down with ice, and sometimes ibuprofen, gets rid of it 99%.

Despite the super sweet dates earlier, my inner chocolate monster still needed to be put to bed.

Please disregard the flour on this bar – it’s from making the homemade doggie treats ;)

Pretty stellar ingredients for a chocolate bar, no?

And it was on sale! Oh yeah, it was delicious. It was chocolate ;)

 

This afternoon I whipped up another batch of homemade protein bars.

Much like this recipe, except I used two cups oat flour (ie oatmeal ground in the food processor). I also left out the raisins and used 2 tbsp pure maple syrup instead of the fake stuff. I seriously missed not having these at my mom’s!!

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping with my Nana! Yes, my 87-year-old grandmother was looking at yoga pants with me, because she does yoga too!

I ended up getting a pair of Merrell hiking shoes for my trip to Banff, Alberta in June. I’m hoping they can double as walking shoes, as my feet DO NOT like walking in my running sneakers AT ALL.

As a side note, while I was at the shoe store, three different women came in looking for Reebok Easy Tone shoes. Sigh. The salesperson was thankfully knowledgeable, and warned the women they could lead to further pain down the road. When I asked him about it, he said he’s never seen a shoe sell as much as that one! Double sigh.

Back to the food.

Baby food to be exact.

And no, I’m not on the baby food diet.

I mixed it with some of this stuff…

Soy protein powder, baking powder, cinnamon and egg whites.

Popped in he microwave for a couple minutes, and a protein cake is born.

Topped with more homemade maple pecan peanut butter.

 

Now. Did anyone make it this far, or did you check out at the giveaway winner? :P Don’t worry, I’ve got some free food coming up in the weeks to come!

And with that, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow shall be a fun day – spin class with the pops, lunch at my fave vegan restaurant, and a play at my old middle school! See ya then!!

 

Question of the Day: Runners- what sort of routes do you prefer? Out-and-back? Loops? Pavement? Trail? Treadmill? Flat? Hills? I realized today that I much prefer out-and-back routes to loops. Loops just feel longer! And I love a soft squishy trail, no pavement or sidewalks please.