Fibre-licious day!

Warning: Another post resulting from my love of sparkpeople and no I am not getting paid to talk about them.

I'm sure other calorie counting sites are just as good, I'm just too lazy to try more than one out and sparkpeople so far as done what I need (and more!) so I'm sticking to it.

Your daily intake versus recommended amounts of calories, carbs, fat and protein are automatically tracked.. PLUS you can edit your nutrition goals and add almost anything you want tracked.
Having originally lost weight following Weight Watchers, I opted to add track dietary fiber.

We all know why fibre is good for us, right?

Looking at the past week, I had seen that I hadn't always reached my recommended daily fibre intake, so I am making an effort to add more fibre.

Check out my weekly progress:

Side note: See the day I weighed myself? The day that I wasn't happy with the results? The only day this week I didnt track my calories. The scale is my own worst enemy!

Other than that though, I'm rather happy with the way I've been falling within the daily range (most of the time) for each of these categories.

The good news is, it's easy to incorporate more fibre into your diet! It's found mainly in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.

Enough of that, and onto last night's dinner. I used to eat stir-frys all the time. Lately I haven't been as much because Carson won't touch it with a ten foot pole. And I'm not into making two meals (right now that would be 3 because of making the baby's meal too), but if I don't start now he will never eat it, right?

Chicken stir-fry with spinach:

1 tbsp peanut oil
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped ginger
2 small chicken breasts or 1 large one (already cooked)
1/4 cup water
1 small onion
1/2 red pepper
2 cups broccoli
2 cups spinach
1/2 cup chopped basil

How I did it:

• Chop red pepper into slices and broccoli into their florets
• Boil pot of water, add broccoli and red peppers for 2 minutes (this takes the real hardness away), take off heat and strain
  
• Using a wok, heat the oil (remember: woks heat up really quickly!)
  
• Add garlic and ginger for a few seconds
• Add onion for a minute or two, until it softens
• Add broccoli and red pepper
• Stir-fry for 5 minutes
• Add chicken (I used marinated-then-BBQd chicken we had leftover)
  
• Add spinach
  
• Add the 1/4 cup water and 2 tbsp fish sauce
• Cook until spinach is wilted (is that the proper word?)
• Add basil (I grabbed a bunch of leaves and then cut with scissors)

I served it over a bed of quinoa and it was DELICIOUS! Of course, I couldn't eat it right away because I had to make it to my lean and fit class, but I enjoyed every last bite afterwards.

Saturdays are my favourite day of the week

I suppose I don't have to explain why :)

Our fridge is on the fritz. A few months ago it got to be pretty warm in the fridge so we defrosted it one night and then it's been fine. Until now. It was with the house when we bought it, and the owners had been here since 01 so it's got to be 8 years old. Anyways, we have a few options but it's the last thing I want to be spending money on right now.

thanks Mizfit for reminding me to movemove this weekend. It's a tad windy out there but I think Carson and I will head out for a long walk and tobaggon later this afternoon.

I really have to keep my weight gain at a minimum this time around. Need I remind you that with Carson I gained 75 lbs? The last couple of months have been somewhat easy (well, that is before Christmas) because I had morning sickness and some days couldn't keep anything down (blessing in disguise?). But now my appetite is back, somewhat. There are still some things I can't stomach and mostly I am craving comfort foods. So today I'm going to look up some recipes for comfort food, but healthy ones. I love the Eat Shrink and Be Merry chicken pot pie, so I think I'll have to get all the ingredients ready to make that tomorrow night. Any good ideas for healthy comfort foods?

Last night I made the barefoot Contessa's hummus and it was probably the best hummus I've ever made and most certainly better than any store bought hummus. It took all of about 5 minutes too. Yumm-o. For lunch I think I'll have a hummus sandwich with sprouts, pickles and onions.

Since I've got pregnant I've gone through two big bottles of pickles, can't get enough.

Best cookie/square/bar recipe?

Ok, I may be starting my Christmas baking late, but at least I'm going to do it. I wasn't going to, but now I realize that I have a few events to go to, and some people I'd like to pass along some baking to (ie: work colleagues) so I'm putting together a few little packages of little taste testers.

I made chocolate chip cookies (only cuase i make really really good chocolate chip cookies) and I made these rosemary shortbread cookies (well, they are firming up in the fridge before cooking!). Tomorrow during Carson's nap before our Christmas party, I think I will make these peanut butter cup cookies. I'd like one more square/cookie or something to fill up the package. What's your absolute favourite (and not utterly impossible to make) Christmas treat??

Yummy recipe

I made this Beef Broccoli Stirfry tonight and it was delicious.

Instead of corn (I don't like baby corn) I used mushrooms and sliced red onions, cooking them with the beef strips. Looking back I could have added red pepper and it would have been yummy too.

I doubled the recipe (of everything) and found there wasn't enough "juice.". Usually with stirfy I like having enough sauce to drip into the rice, but in the case there wasn't enough extra. The taste was fantastic though, so bursting with flavour... but next time I'd be happy with a bit more sauce.

Definitely two thumbs up.

I don't do that...

But this time I did.

I'm not the type of person who just makes up recipes. And, if I do, they normally don't taste good. I look up recipes, I follow recipes, I tweak recipes. But I don't make them up.

That is, until last night. I made a deeee-lish supper! I've been really trying to keep our grocery bills to a minimum, and to use up some of the stuff in our deepfreeze and cupboards.

So, I took out frozen tilapia filets. I cut up some garlic and sauteed it in olive oil. I threw in the filets. I threw in about a 1/2 cup chopped cilantro. I added about 8 cut up roma tomatoes. Then I squeezed two limes in there. I cooked it... not too long (you can tell when fish is cooked when it starts to fall apart)

Oh my god. So good.

(I do realize that I have to learn how to explain recipes better, but hopefully you get the jist)

Tastes good smells bad

I love cabbage. I really do. Even though I can't stand the smell of it cooking.

However, I digress. With the new fall weather I like eating hot food. Salad unfortunately has been taking a back seat to soups and saucey stuff. So last night I made this cabbage roll casserole.

Except I used ground turkey instead of beef and I added worchestire sauce, vinegar and hot sauce (like some of the reviewer's comments).

Besides the disaster in the kitchen that results from preparation (chopping a whole cabbage is MESSY) - the end result was quite tasty. Next time I think I will add a few more spices and hopefully I will have some of my own tomato sauce to use instead of buying it.

Regarding the gym. If you've noticed, I haven't been exercising that much at all. It's cold out! During the time I can make it outside (before 6am or after 7pm) it's freaking cold. And maybe I'm just getting older, but the cold affects me WAY more than it used to. Heck, I trained for a half marathon in the winter! But these days I just can't do it.

So, I start my new job Monday (yay) and I am signing up to their gym (monthly deductions off my paycheque, how spectacularly easy) and getting rid of my GoodLife membership (which is currently on hold anyways). My plan is to work from 7 till 3 and then go to the gym until 4 - and pick up Carson at the same time I've always been picking him up (yes, my new job is that close to home). I was thinking about going in the morning, but call me a sap - I just can't adapt to a schedule where I would never see Carson in the morning. Days that he sleeps in, I don't see him before I go to work and I don't like it. Plus, if I go after work I don't have to worry about carting all my hair dryer, straightener, make up, etc... with me. I'll just quickly shower when I get home. Brilliant. Exciting.

Cookbooks

I eyed some butternut squash at the grocery store today and picked up some cauliflower (it was on sale) so as I peruse my cookbooks for some extraordinary recipe containing the two, I thought I'd show you all my 5 top cookbooks. I often forget about the joy of simply flipping through cookbooks and seeing different recipes (rather than actively searching for specific recipes online). I'm going to leave them on the coffee table so I look through them more often.

How to Cook Everything. Simple recipes for great food.

Eat Shrink and Be Merry

The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook

The Gourmet Cookbook

The Working Parents Cookbook

Last night and today...

This was supper last night:

Steak, sauteed mushrooms, carrots (fresh from the garden!), and one of my fave top three side dishes - tomato and avocado salad.

**it should be noted that I used to eat a whole steak, now I just cut off a piece (a bit bigger than the size of my palm) and you know what? It's totally enough! I'm definitely one of those people that finishes what's on her plate, so if I don't put it on... I don't eat it. So simple yet so brilliant.

This was supper tonight:

Leftover steak, sauteed slightly with mushrooms, sliced red onions, red peppers and goat cheese. SO GOOD!

Tomato and avocado salad:

Chopped tomato (I squeeze the guts out. Slice off the tip and then squeeze gently)
Chopped avocado (it was perfectly ripe, I have the knack for knowing when they are ready)
Red onion
White balsamic vinagrette
Extra virgin olive oil
Pepper

My food day.. in pictures

I'm still rather impressed with myself in having visitors all weekend, indulging somewhat in dinners but yet not letting it turn into a whole day (or weekend) of bad eating.

Breakfast this morning (I woke up quite hungry so ate right away, with my morning green tea). A piece of whole wheat toast, a smidgen of almond butter and sliced bananas, a bowl of cut up mango and a yogurt. Turns out I wasn't hungry enough for my yogurt so I put it back in the fridge for later.

I had two avocadoes sitting on my counter ready for use and I cringed at the thought of them going bad before we ate them so I used one to make one of my favourite combinations, tomato and avocado with red onion, white balsamic vinagrette and a drizzle of EVOO.

After two short nights with us, this is the recycling bin full of wine bottles. There is still 5 full bottles on my counter and bottle of grey goose. Honestly my parents are bigger drinkers then we are. But their love of fancy expensive wines was a nice treat. I'll be glad when it's all gone, too big a tempation!

Yummy supper

Thanks, Kraft!

I quite like getting their magazines with all the recipes. Even though when I make them, I rarely use the suggested Kraft products, they always seem to turn out quite tasty (except one butternut squash something or other, that was gross)

Tonight I made the spaghetti squares, Amy was the guinea pig and tried it first and since she liked them, I had to copy her (she's super cool, why wouldn't you copy her?). Again, same as Amy, I substituted the following:

-whole wheat pasta (flax with omega 3 and 6) for regular pasta

-ground turkey for lean ground beef

-instead of just one red pepper I chopped a red pepper, a zucchini, an onion and about 9 mushrooms

-instead of two eggs, I used one whole egg and one egg white

-used 1% cottage cheese (I will not eat the fat free stuff and I've never had the 2% kind)

-as embarrasing as it is to admit, I used store-bought pasta sauce. I think in my lifetime I've bought pasta sauce 3 times! But I didn't have any frozen, and I was running short on time so I tried to make the best choice and it was delicious!

It was too much stuff to put in one 13*9 dish, so I divided it into two separate casserole dishes and voila....

It made supper for Jeff, Carson and I, lunch for Jeff tomorrow, 4 meals for Carson and one family size serving to freeze. It's a huge bonus that Carson loves it.