Frozen treats August 31, 2009

And no, tonight I don’t mean a Dairy Queen!  I’ve been enjoying some frozen fruit this week, specifically grapes and now cherries.  Girlfriend and her addiction turned me on to the cherries 😉

 

Last week’s produce pact worked out well, and I ran out of fresh goodies on Friday.  Although I ate more fresh produce, I also had too much other food 😦  Overeating at dinner out, throwing in a DQ Blizzard, and drinking a lot probably counteracted the good feelings that eating produce created 😐  Anywho…

This month’s Gourmet Magazine had a great roasted cauliflower recipe.  I didn’t add the kalamata vinaigrette, but all was well 🙂  I don’t like the cauli raw (the man prefers it raw), and roasted is now my favorite.  Give ‘er a try! I like how this recipe called for the cauli to be sliced into big 1″ sections, rather than florets.

Lily was so cute at dinner tonight!! 

 

Since I was a bad girl and didn’t do the rest of my grocery shopping yesterday, I had no lettuce today for lunch.  So, I had a lettuce-less salad of carrot, tomato, avocado, bell pepper, mushroom, and some leftover multi-grain rice from Saturday’s dinner.

 

Yesterday was WillaKenzie‘s Day in the Vineyard, a private event for members with wine classes and a wonderful catered lunch at the top of the vineyard.  So gorgeous!  Here’s the spread from the wine & food pairing class.  I didn’t eat but the wild mushroom and chevre tart b/c of the shrimp and fish the other bites contained, and as I ate it the chef casually mentioned it had bacon in it. :shocked: *^%$%$#*&^%*&(*)????!!!!!  Why do ya gotta add bacon??

Daniel, the vineyard manager, raises longhorn cattle and keeps many of them on the vineyard property.  Here’s Chris getting up close and personal with a friendly cow (she licked his hand!).

This is the big daddy of the pack—Rodeo Maximus.  His horn span is a whopping 72 inches.  Whoa!!  Better not get too close to that bad boy!

This little darling was checking her reflection out in the truck.  So cute!  She nosed and licked the truck, and almost took out the mirror with her horn. 

Lunch was a green and lima (??) bean salad with a citrus vinaigrette, a quinoa salad with squash, tomato, red pepper, onion, a mixed green salad with caramelized hazelnuts and sundried tomatoes, and yummy olive bread.  Not pictured are my four desserts:  two oatmeal raisin cookies, one chocolate-chocolate chip cookie, and one almond biscotti. 

These two cattle have the optimal longhorns—rather straight out, and possibly a little corkscrew type curvature.  Aren’t they perty!!??

Speaking of perty…here I am!  We walked up to lunch rather than taking the shuttle van. 

 

Compare this pic with the one from last year:

Andrea and her hubby, Chris, had a party Saturday for their 30th birthdays.  I got snuggly with their baby, Basil.  He’s such a sweetie, and so darn cute!!

Dinner before the party was an inspired creation:  stuffed white acorn squash with multi grain rice, sautéed tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, bell pepper, and garlic, seasoned with s&p, Nature’s Seasons, and Italian herbs.  I roasted the squash for ~45m at 325, scooped out some flesh to make more room, then stuffed it with the cooked filling and baked another 15 minutes.  Sadly the squash itself was rather bland 😦  What can I do to amp it up a bit?

Lily had a vet appointment in Oregon City Saturday morning, and on the way back we stopped at Spicer Brothers Produce.  They had tons of great items, with about half of them being local and super fresh.  Fresh apples!  FINALLY!  Although none of the items were labeled organic, Andrea had a great point in that many local growers use organic and sustainable methods, they just aren’t certified.  Spicer’s had great prices on most items, and the guys seemed to smile at me a lot.  This sexy bitch got her bananas at the “overripe” price rather than the regular price. That’s what I’m talking about. 😉

I got three new items:  golden delicious apples, white acorn squash, and donut peaches.  After washing everything thoroughly I dug into a peach.  WHOA!  SUPER sweet taste, with only a mild peachiness.  Ideal for mixing in with less sweet fruits, or used in cereal and other applications.  The apples are great!  Might be a new fave of mine.

 

I thought Friday’s salad looked especially pretty:

After hitting up DQ for a Tagalong Blizzard Tuesday night, we treated Lily to a doggy cone again 🙂  She gets excited when we pull in to DQ now cuz she knows what’s coming.  Oops!

 

And that just about sums up the last week.  I’ve still been a less-than-stellar worker bee and am still having trouble getting back in to busy mode at work.  I’m rather like obstinant-non-worker bee 😐

So, I guess I’ll officially announce that Chris and I are buying my grandmother’s house.  This month we’ll be getting quotes for updating the house (gotta green the place up a bit, repaint some, remove wallpaper, change out carpet, add a fence, ya know).  After family is in town for my grandmother’s Celebration of Life party in late Sept. I think we can clear out the unwanted furniture/etc., and then in October the work can be done.  We anticipate taking possession and moving around Nov. 1.  Holy moley—can’t believe it’s really gonna happen!! It’s kind of surreal, frankly, and rather stressful.  But exciting nonetheless 🙂 

Tata!

So begins a crazy week! March 9, 2009

Somehow today was a happy Monday!  I thought that was an oxymoron…

‘Twas a busy few days, or so it felt, and I’m getting rather anxious and excited for the vaca.  I hope you aren’t sick of hearing about it already… I’m also excited to post some while I’m there so y’all can partake, too!

Saturday

I TOTALLY forgot to set my clock forward an hour and woke up thinking it was 8am, and that yoga was in two hours.  Not until I sat down at the laptop at 10:05 DST did I realize what had happened.  Shit, no yoga for me 😦 

Very typical breakfast, but with a splash o’ almond milk on the oats after cooking:

We finally  left for the gym at like 11:45, and I hit up an hour of legs and abs.  Mercy!  Chris was hoopin’ it up, but there was no one to play with 😦  I joined him for some shooting and a 1:1 game, and it was really fun!  He’s like 6’2 and I’m 5’5, he’s played for 20+ years and I have no real b-ball experience, and he pretty much schooled me, but we laughed our asses off the whole time 🙂

I was famished when we got home at like 2:30, and I shoved in a quick snacky lunch of ww bread with turkey, carrot sticks, grapes, and some plain yogurt with sf rasp jam.

After this I cleaned up and headed out to do some birthday shopping for the man, but I really didn’t have any luck 😦  I also did some shopping for vacation supplies, and can’t believe I blew $50 so fast!  Razor refills, toothpaste, allergy pills…shit adds up quick.

It hailed and snowed yesterday afternoon bigtime!  We had a thick layer of hail on the ground and a little flurry of flakes.  Pretty, but effin’ cold, mo’ fo’s.  I’m ready for it to warm up already.

For Chris’ first birthday dinner of the week we headed to Black Angus in Vancouver.  Chris loves the prime rib there, and I kind of struggle to find decent things on the menu, but last night was really good overall.  I had a few small pieces of their yummy molasses bread with butter, about half of my salad with a really oniony vinaigrette, and about half of my teriyaki sirloin with a baked potato and steamed veggies.  I also grabbed a few of Chris’ fries 😉

I was quite full when leaving, but eventually needed a little something to wrap up my day.  The house is really devoid of food, way more than I realized, and I broke into the box of South Beach Diet PB cereal bars I bought for the trip.  Not too bad…crispy, PB’y, and hit the spot.

I ate this while watching Breaking Bad on AMC.  Have you seen that? Or Mad Men?  Two of the best shows out there!

Monday

I couldn’t sleep much last night! It sucked to wake up and move around, not feeling quite tired or comfortable enough to just pass out like I needed to.  We got up a bit earlier to be at the office by 8, but that turned into 8:30 with us lagging and traffic sucking a bit b/c it was snowing again!  I forgot to prep my oats last night 😦 so I had a cereal mess of shredded wheat and Essential 10 with lots of almond milk.

Work was very busy I ate some around 12:30–ww bread with turkey, grapes, Fuji, carrot sticks.

My 1:00 was an energy intensive meeting, but well worth it. I was nervous about it b/c he emailed me and was like “we should meet.” Those are often foreboding words, but once we sat down it was all good.  Yay! 

So, do you remember how I said I was upgrading my computer?  It was so I could gain full access to work applications at home or on vacation, and it turns out I’m screwed.  I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a guy from the technology help desk trying to figure out a way to fix the issue that I didn’t realize I had until I called randomly about something related.  I have Vista Home Premium, which is not compatible with a few of the applications (even tho they’re okay with Vista Business), and my computer could have totally crashed, but I’m lucky and somehow the whole disk encryption application didn’t kill my computer.  Shit.  That woulda sucked!  Turns out I need to install Vista Business or XP Professional to create compatibility with the other software I need to run.  Bleh.  Maybe it isn’t worth it…moving on.

Tonight we had Chris’ second birthday dinner of the week, this time at Godfather’s Pizza with his parents.  I swear, what else could I do this week to throw off my fitness program?!  But, I must admit that the pizza tasted really and I was able to enjoy two pieces and a small beer without feeling guilty 🙂

I realize that doesn’t look so appealing now… I blotted off the extra grease and put some parm and chili flakes on it.

We have leftovers, so I think pizza may be in my near future again.  I really love pizza and admit it is one food I have missed a lot over the last four months.  I’ve had it a few times, and have really tried to savor it each time.  Nothing like a special treat now and then, right?

We got home around 9, and Chris pretty much went straight to bed!  Very odd for him.  I used the opprtunity to sneak out and birthday shop, and buy a few groceries for the week.  I had success with his birthday gift, and Lily got him something, too 😉 

I’m pooped…it’s just after midnight and I’m going to join the man in bed.  That’s twice in the last week he’s beat me to bed–so rare!  Hope you all had a good Monday 🙂

I forgot my title March 5, 2009

I need to start writing my ideas down…I thought of a great title earlier and cannot remember it for the life of me. 

Today was pretty good 🙂  Except that I forgot to prep my oats last night!  I packed a cereal mess quickly while I was making lunch, and then remembered we had lunch scheduled again today 😐  Ooops.  Whatevs, it worked out okay. 

The cereal mess was shredded wheat and Peace Cereal Essential 10.  Yes, I still have that box from like a few months ago, but it isn’t stale.  Imagine that.  I added 1/2 a banana, and took some almond milk along to pour over it just before eating.  Yummy, but not like the wholesome goodness that is oatmeal.  I’ve been eating oatmeal many times per week for the last 3-4 months, and wonder if I’ll ever get sick of it.  I look forward to it daily 🙂

Busy busy bee at work, and hunger struck a bit before our noon lunch meeting.  Since I accidentally made lunch I ate my little, plain-ass sandwich to help out the hunger:  ww bread and peppered turkey. A few carrots as well.

We went to Red Lobster again, and I had a garden salad with balsamic vinaigrette again.  No pic today, as the person we met with was someone we don’t know very well, and I didn’t want to seem like too much of a freak (yet). Chris loves salmon, and since I detest it we rarely have it in the house.  He was ecstatic to eat it two days in a row, and I was ecstatic to not have to deal with the smell cooking it at home 🙂

Around 2 I got a little hungry, so I ate my grapes and the rest of my carrots. I love when the grapes are all fresh and crunchy!!

More worky worky…today was a lot busier than I thought it would be, but that’s good 😉  I was sort of hungry again around 4:30, but knew we’d be leaving soon to go home and have dinner.

I made fried rice for the first time ever, and I think it turned out okay.  The Trader Joe’s BBQ pork I bought was really fatty, though, so I had to trim out a ton of it.  The whole shebang included ~8oz. pork, 1/2 a carrot, 1/2 an onion, 2 celery stalks, 1 small broccoli crown, 1 clove garlic, 2 eggs, about 3 cups of brown rice, a few dashes of soy sauce, some Nature’s Seasons, and I topped mine with toasted sesame seeds.  This made enough for both of us to eat dinner and have  a little leftover. 

Do you ever notice that Chinese food doesn’t leave you full for very long?  It is so weird…Chris and I used to notice this when we’d eat lunch at the Chinese place by work (Royal Panda–it moved!) we’d be hungry like an hour later.  Tonight that meant we could leave to go workout sooner, as Chris didn’t have to digest for two hours.  Yay!

I switched up the order of things and did an hour of cardio first (1/2 stair mill, 1/2 elliptical), and then hit up legs and abs upstairs.  Chris hooped it up for like 1:45!  Wowza!

When I was done I was feeling a little low, so I ate the Luna Berry Almond bar that has been in my gym bag for a few months.  Squished, but still delicious 🙂  No pic since I left the camera at home. 

Now I’m off to bed.  I’m still horrible about getting to bed early enough to get a full night of sleep these days. I’m addicted to The Graham Norton Show on BBC America–he is so funny, and his guests are usually quite entertaining, too.  You should check it out!