Winter

If your not in the Ottawa area, I hope weather is better then it has been here. This has been the coldest winter ever! From what I remember anyway. We have gotten into the -30's most of the winter season, and I don't mean just -30, I'm talking close to -40 weather. We also have gotten a lot of snow! With this really cold winter, I haven't done any running outside, but have been running on the treadmill. I'm really looking forward to the spring or at least warmer weather so I can go outside to run. Usually I'm outside running all winter long but this year I haven't been at all. With my knee injury I haven't been running as much but so far so good with no knee pain. The knee injury might have come at a good time since I wouldn't be running much outside anyway because that's a little to cold for me. Yes you do warm up really well after a while of running but it's very hard on the lungs to be breathing in so much cold air.

I didn't post last weekend because my father in law was down. My hubby got tickets to the hockey game. He's a huge Senators fan, and his dad is a huge Montreal fan, and since they were playing against each other and got lucky with tickets, he invited his dad, and he made the trip down Wednesday of last week and stayed till Monday of this week. I ended up inviting my dad over for supper on Friday of last week, and made a macaroni (brown rice pasta) with tomato sauce. They are all meat eaters, so I used ground bison for the sauce. They all really enjoyed the supper.

Yesterday we went to Lone star for supper to celebrate a friend's birthday, and I of course had to have the fajitas. They are so good there! I love how they make their own salsa, wraps and corn chips. Today, my mother in law came to visit and came with us to watch her son play hockey, then came home to a stew that has been cooking all day in my slow cooker. I used beef and a lot of vegetables, which included onion, garlic, sweet potatoes, celery, turnip, carrot and water chestnuts. I used beef broth, and brown rice flour to help thicken the sauce, with a bit of tomato paste.

It's true what they say, weather really does effect our mood. I do tend to struggle more with energy in the winter then I do in the spring, summer and fall. I do love the winter, but only around the holidays. I find Christmas and New Years just isn't the same without snow. Another bad thing with winter is that we don't get as much sun, but the days are starting to get longer, and it's been really nice seeing the sun a lot more.

Valentine's Day

I had a really good weekend, Friday I went to my brother's after work, to spend time with him, my 2 nieces, 3 nephews and my sister in law. I had supper there, and they made something very good, homemade pizza's. For the dough, they used Naan bread, which was a perfect size for an individualized pizza. Never would have thought to use that as the dough, but it works! You can put any toppings you want, they used pizza sauce, pepperoni, lots of vegetables and a little bit of cheese, it was delicious! We had that with some vegetables and dip. I'm for sure going to make some one night, I'm sure my hubby will really enjoy it as well. After supper, I got to watch mickey mouse with my nephew, and then got to play the Wii, then played two different games, one being pointing fingers, the other was mime, and then finished the evening with watching a movie. Saturday morning, my sister in law made amazing pancakes with banana, cinnamon, and some chocolate chips. We also snacked on some fresh blueberries.

For our Valentine's day supper for my hubby and I, I decided to go with my favorites, lasagna, and brownie. Lasagna is another easy recipe, just need lasagna noodles, sauce, which for us it was a tomato sauce, then you can use quite a few different cheeses, we love putting ricotta, and spinach for our lasagna, then using mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese. I also love to put lots of vegetables in my lasagna sauce, adding peppers, mushrooms, onion and garlic. Just need to do a few layers of each and then put it in the oven to bake. For the brownie recipe I made the one from Anna Olson's cookbook (Bake to baking).

 

We enjoyed our meal with a glass of red wine. We don't go all out for Valentine's day, we just enjoy a relaxing evening at home with a wonderful home cooked meal. Restaurants tend to be pretty busy, therefore being home is really nice. Especially since the weekend was very cold outside! We've been having around -30 weather out there, this morning it was -36. I'm looking forward to the spring!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day!

Health and Happiness

I am often in the kitchen and last weekend I made a banana bread since it's been a while and this weekend my hubby wanted more, so I made another. This week I will try out another new recipe from 100 days of real food, the fish cakes. It sounds delicious and it's been years since I made some fish cakes so I'm looking forward to trying them.

A while ago I saw the documentary Finding Happiness, and it was really good. It was about a community that is all about kindness, meditation, yoga, and just being happy. Nature is all around, just beautiful trees, the sound of birds, and it had me thinking of how I have let go of meditation, and I had joined yoga at work, one class a week during my lunch break, but I didn't sign up again, and I'm kind of regretting that decision. It really did help me a lot. Yoga is very relaxing and I always felt energized and amazing after class. I have been struggling the past few years, especially after the loss of so many wonderful people in my life, and I'm trying to get myself back.

I've been in a bit of a writing rut. Not really sure what else I can share with you, but I'm working on it. Here in Ottawa, we have had a very cold winter, and it's really making me miss the summer. There is a trail near work that I walked along many times, there's a bit of nature, but not to secluded which is good since I walk along there alone. I always feel so relaxed and happy when I walk along there. It's so calming to see the trees, walking along a dirt path, and hearing the birds. I am really missing the outdoors since I have been hibernating for a while now.  I hope soon I will have more fun and informational things to share with you. I also want to be more creative in the kitchen by putting together new and healthy meals/snacks.

This blog is about health in all it's form, but mostly about the things I know about like running, endometriosis, and being in the kitchen. I hope to get out of this rut soon and share more information and recipes with you. Stay tuned.