SMILES ALL AROUND!

The new stove and fridge have been installed but everything is still kind of a mess. The fridge is in disarray. My dad put everything back rather haphazardly so I'll be spending tomorrow night re-arranging everything...like putting the milk and other such items where they should be (in the kitchen door "shelf"). There aren't as many drawers in the new fridge which is kind of sucky since I kind of had my own drawer in the old fridge. The old fridge had four drawers and each drawers was very loosely categorized into the following:

1. Pre-peeled garlic/dried Chinese items
   
2. Root Veggies (usually carrots/sweet potatoes)
   
3. Fruits
   
4. Dom's Misc. Crap

New fridge only has two big drawers and one (what I'd consider) half drawer. The rest are shelf units. There are lots of door shelves though so maybe I can claim one of those as mine. My misc. drawer usually contained a tub of cheese (typically feta/ricotta), lemons/limes, miso paste, etc. Basically stuff that I would use on a regular basis and/or stuff that wouldn't fit into the mini fridge.

The stove is pretty nifty. We haven't had a chance to use it yet--tonight's dinner was take-out roast duck but I opted for multigrain chicken nuggets and Smiles instead. We've been having roast duck on an almost weekly basis and to be frank, I'm getting sick of it. It used to be considered a treat in this house but it's sort of become regular fare. Plus knowing that I kind of "go to town" on it, if you will, when it's not really that healthy, makes me not want to eat it. Now I know what you're thinking...Smiles aren't any healthier...well yeah, they aren't, but they sure are fun to eat!

But let's back up to Monday night...The last dinner with the old stove was a beef stew with soybeans, carrots and potatoes, along with some sauteed watercress. I should have passed on the soybeans (soy is not allowed in my IBS diet) but I didn't want to go without them for some reason. I ate some, paid for it later, lesson learned.

Post-dinner snacks included half of the following watermelon:and a small bowl of Barbara's Bakery PB Puffins with almond milk:DO NOT WANT! I totally forgot that these are the same flavour Puffins I got in the States! I thought I had previously gotten the cinnamon flavour but I was wrong! I do not like these PB ones and now I have a whole box of them. Ugh!! Hopefully I can come up with some kind of baked snack mix to use these up faster. Or pawn them off to someone. Sean, I'm looking at you.

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23rd...Tuesday (back to work!)
I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to top my whole wheat English muffin so I used both organic coconut butter and natural PB. I also brought along this banana to eat in the car but it got eaten during second breakfast with my oatmeal:This is my oatmeal for second breakfast and the little container I use to pack my ground flax and chia seeds: I basically fill the little container with equal parts ground flax and chia seeds, shake it all up and then add about 1-1.5 teaspoons to my instant oatmeal at work. The oatmeal I'm using does have flax in it but it's literally like 10 flax seeds for the entire packet.

Lunch was excellent, however, it was 30 minutes late and I was seriously dying during those 30 minutes. Maybe it's because I was thinking about my lunch all morning long or maybe because my mixture of oatmeal, ground flax, chia seeds, kiwi and strawberries just weren't cutting it that morning. Whatever it is, it was not cool. Baked sweet potato fries, orzo pasta "salad" with roast broccoli on top, baked chicken drumstick, potato Smiles. That Smile looks a little creepy though.

Snacks included kiwi and strawberries:
and a Kashi Dark Mocha Almond bar and a very wrinkly peach:I packed the above two snacks thinking I would eat them on the way home from work but the huge flakes of snow made me angry/confused instead of hungry. I still can't believe that it's snowing when just four days ago it was 18C. I went out in the evening with only a sweatshirt as my "jacket!"

After work I came home and tried to eat intuitively. My brain/stomach told me they wanted some fruit so I obliged with some strawberries, a pear, watermelon and grapes:It also wanted something more sweet and indulgent, which is why you see the salted caramel and mojito macarons from Nadege.

Proper dinner didn't follow until almost three hours later though this dinner is probably more suited towards a five year-old:
Six Smiles and six organic, multigrain chicken nuggets. I ate them with an offending packet of ketchup from McD's. I'm really hoping that the tiny amount of high fructose corn syrup consumed from the ketchup will not lead to a migraine tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Oh wait, I forgot...I also had that with a side salad. There, healthy!
And dessert was half a square of a very grown-up piece of Lindt Sea Salt chocolate:followed by some vanilla Earl Grey in this not so grown-up mug:

Sean picked up this mug for me from Urban Outfitters. I think it's hilarious, if not ridiculously expensive (which it was!!). The mug has different cat poses around it. Sean's fave is on the left while my fave is on the right. These cats are hilarious! Between my cat mosaic, cat cookie jar, cat brooch and this mug, I really am a crazy, old cat lady! It's not really my fault though as these were all presents from other people.

I had some of this crack, err, dark chocolate covered almonds while watching 90210:

I'm probably going to regret having bought this bag of almonds. I had the above portion times two already. Brookside is addicting and now I hear they've got some wackadoo options like dark chocolate goji, pomegranate and acai and blueberry. Wackadoo, indeed! Unfortunately I couldn't find them in the store today, which is one of the two reasons I walked into certain store. Boo. Instead I ended up buying those dark morsels of addiction. And I don't even like chocolate that much. Oi. At least I got the dark chocolate ones...anti-oxidants, right? I should probably stop trying to rationalize this segment.

Adios!

HELLO WHOLE FOODS, GOODBYE $75.17

I can't believe I've spent almost $150 on groceries this week. That is insane--to the MAX! Fo' shizzle. I don't think I've ever spent that much money on groceries. Damn!

The Staples:Artisana Coconut Butter. Now I've never had this stuff before and at $15 a jar, I was really reluctant to purchase it. But as I looked at it longingly in the aisles and held it up to gaze at its coconut wonderfulness, Sean told me that if I was going to use it sparingly (like, not eat it as quickly as I do with popcorn), it probably would be a good food investment. So I took that as a sign to buy it. (Heck, I would have bought it without Sean's prompting since I almost ordered it online from Hamilton.) And then we have Madhava agave nectar (a great alternative to white sugar or other sweeteners--aspartame I'm looking at you!) and Nativas cacao nibs, which I typically add into my oatmeal. Oi, there goes $35.

The Boxes O' Goodness:Barbara's Bakery Puffins cereal (PB flavour). I first came across Barbara's Bakery cereal in the US. Yeah, that's right...I brought a box of cereal across the border. It was the cinnamon flavour and totally worth it. I poured that cereal into milk, ate it on top of yogurt, stirred it into oatmeal. That cereal and I had some really good times. Then I read all about other bloggers' experiences with PB Puffins. I had to get some.

It has been AGES since I've eaten cookies...ones that I haven't baked myself anyway. I typically peruse the cookie aisle in whatever grocery store I'm in, looking at what new sugary delights there are and if my mom is with me she'll say "are you getting anything?" but then I remind her that no, I'm not getting anything because all these cookies contain at least 2-3 ingredients I can no longer consume for whatever reason (usually a migraine is the trigger reason). But not at Whole Foods! At WF there are a whole bunch of cookies I can eat and so Sean and I settled on a box of Late July organic Vanilla Bean with green tea cookies, which are very similar to Oreos. The thing is that I'm not a fan of cookies in the first place (I prefer mine soft and chewy), so I had to ask Sean if he'd eat most of these before their October 2010 due date and he agreed. We had one each on the ride to the concert venue (Wrongbar, anyone?) and they were great! Not too sweet and just the right amount of vanilla bean and cocoa. There really is a huge difference between regular and organic eating. I'm all for the latter. You can consider that my Late July cookie review. Oh and of course, 365 Organic water crackers, which I'm obsessed with so I got two boxes just because.

The Indulgences:Vita Coco coconut water (the left with pineapple and the right, original). Two Kind bars and some dried mango from the bulk bin without all kinds of nasty stuff like sulphites--yay!

So that plus a carton of organic chocolate milk (which Sean consumed) and a bottle of organic blueberry St. John's Wort salad dressing is what you get for $75.17. Now, to defend the green space of goodness--despite my claims, I do love WF--I did buy a lot of stuff so that I could stock up. The coconut butter, agave nectar and cacao nibs were really pricey (each $15, $10 and $10) but each of those will last me a really long time and any subsequent trip to Whole Foods will not require the purchase the coconut butter, agave nectar or cacao nibs and so, $35 will be saved--or used for other things, hahaha.