March 25, 2010

ANGER + EATING = CARBS + CHOCOLATE

CONTEST ALERT: My very first favourite blogger, Diana, from Soap & Chocolate*, is giving away some Celestial Seasonings tea. I don't even care if this is not available to us Canadians...I thought I'd give her a shout-out anyway. Check it out here. Despite CS's penchant for ugly packaging, I'm a fan of their teas, in theory only as I've never had the chance to taste their teas. For some reason the ugly packaging has always steered me away from tasting it but I could probably really go for the Echinacea Complete Care and Tummy Mint that are included in the giveaway prizes. Anyway, check out the contest...who doesn't want the chance to win free stuff?! You'd be crazy not to.

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I'm currently angry and releasing that anger by carb-loading. I'm a little frustrated at work right now and someone touched a nerve with me last night and I pretty much hit my boiling point. As a result I lifted some weights (going outside to scream wasn't an option) and then spent the rest of the evening in a grumpy mood. I woke up this morning even more grumpy but then this kind of cheered me up:Whole wheat English muffin with PB and then topped with some coconut butter. This was actually a bit of an accident because I ended up spreading the whole thing with PB when I was like "OMG, the coconut butter!" So then I had to get another knife to scrape some coconut butter onto my English muffin, but it melted into a yummy mess. Swirly goodness is not so good for eating in the car though. I thought I was going to spill it all over my work clothes and hadn't been smart enough to bring along a napkin.

Second breakfast was standard fare with no photo. Instant oatmeal with grapes and strawberries and this time one whole square of Lindt's Sea Salt dark chocolate. Plus the usual chia and flax so it filled me up pretty well until lunch time.

Lunch was also pretty awesome:A simple salad with blueberry St. John's Worth dressing but the star of the lunch was...A three-egg scramble with mushrooms and grape tomatoes. Okay I lied...the real star of today's lunch were these:Organic brownies with chopped walnuts and dried cherries. Freakin' delicious! Oh and I finished off the remaining grapes and strawberries from my morning oatmeal too:
So yeah, I consumed way too much food at lunch time. Thirty minutes just really isn't enough time for someone like me to eat lunch but I don't have any other choice. I also didn't eat both those round brownies but I did eat one of them. I couldn't help myself. Between the chocolate-enhanced oatmeal, dark chocolated covered almonds and brownies, I've been craving chocolate like something fierce--even though I'm not normally a fan. Hormones. I'm going to blame it on the anger hormones.

I came home from work and the carb-loading began! Behold what happens when you are a fan of water crackers and you start grabbing them from the box...Extreme sadness! That's right...no more water crackers! I couldn't believe I ran out. I thought I had at least one left that I could take a photo of, but alas, it wasn't meant to be so all you get are crumbs. Actually, that's all I get :(

Then I had a hankering for spaghetti but we didn't have any ground beef. What's a woman to do? Make her own! Actually, I kind of wanted someone else to do it for me but no such luck. My dad helped me find some beef in the freezer so after defrosted it, grinding it in the food processor, cooking it and then adding it to a sauce and cooking it down, I had my spaghetti:Catelli Smart spaghetti with meat sauce. The sauce is Roasted Garlic and something pasta sauce, from 365 Organic--the Whole Foods brand. It's the equivalent to the No Name brand from No Frills or President's Choice from Loblaw's or Great Value from Walmart. Whew, enough commercialism for ya?

So for dinner I had two bowls of spaghetti plus half a raisin bun. No photo of the bun because seriously, how many times do we need to see the raisin bun? Actually, to be honest, I ate the bun before I had a chance to photograph it. Stomach said eat so I obliged.

Now I'm munching on some more dark chocolate covered almonds and enjoying a mug of tea. But let's step back a day shall we...

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First breakfast was a whole wheat English muffin with coconut butter and PB and sprinkled with cocoa powder:Winning combination. Second breakfast was instant oatmeal with half a square of Lindt's Sea Salt dark chocolate. I had it lying around my lunch bag and just wanted to use it up. I broke it up and stirred it into my warm oatmeal until it melted. Chocolatey goodness:
Then I topped it with grapes and strawberries:

Lunch was more of the same from the previous day:Organic drumstick baked with seasoned breadcrumbs (parmesan, garlic powder and dill), leftover orzo salad, roasted broccoli with same breadcrumbs, sweet potato fries (seasoned with olive oil, ground flax seed and cinnamon) and some Smiles. That Smile looks like a snowman. I have no clue what his "carrot nose" actually is though.

Grapes and strawberries were also consumed:
After work snacks (pre-dinner snacks) included two macarons (blackberry chocolate and mojito) along with my leftover grapes.
And while I was trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, I decided to have a little bit of some Greek salad:It was like...four days old so it wasn't all that awesome. I finished it anyway. Then I ate dinner and forgot to take a pic. It was just some rice with bittermelon and beef in a red rice sauce along with some mushrooms and broccoli. Nothing spectacular so I kept my portion small.

That's because I had to save room for these:
Organic brownies baking in the new convection oven, huzzah!! You might be wondering who the heck bakes brownies in a muffin tin...well, I do...because sometimes when you get a new oven, you can't find things like your old brownie pan and so your options are either a baking pan that is too large that would result in really thin brownies or using a muffin tin for appropriately-sized brownie portions. Obviously the latter won out but I don't know anything when it comes to portions because look at what happened:Even before taking a photo I had to snag a brownie to taste. To be honest, I've been waiting to make these brownies for weeks. I had a box of organic brownie mix in my house for weeks and FINALLY, last night I gave in. I added some walnuts and dried cherries (that I chopped up) to the batter and then baked these for 25 minutes at 325F.

So good!So good in fact that I had eaten four in less than 24 hours!! The only other time I've done something like that is when I first made those chocolate cupcakes with rosewater buttercream. I ate four of those in less than 24 hours as well.

Carbs and chocolate...what can I say...they're a great combo!

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* I say that Diana is my very first favourite blogger because back when I first started reading blogs, Diana was my inspiration for cooking and getting into a healthier lifestyle--not that my lifestyle wasn't healthy to begin with but I really enjoyed reading her posts and her adventures in eating. Plus, I always felt like Diana and I had a few things in common, which is what made me like her even more...our age, our hair (both short), our love of puns (okay so Sean loves puns too but he's not a girl and he doesn't have a blog), we both have glasses...right...so this list is getting kind of lame. Anyhoo, I guess in the way that Caitlin has inspired me to run (which I will do in the summer/fall, Diana inspired me to start a blog.

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