Cooking and running

This morning I went out for a run. Felt great to be out there. When I first started, I was running against the wind, so after a while it became harder, but once I turned around it was a little easier. I ended up doing 6 km today, and took me 41 minutes. I did have to stop a few times to walk but it was a beautiful morning to be out there.

Last weekend I decided to make some granola bars, and they turned out really good. As well I made a chai chia pudding, which also turned out really good.

The bars I put in a mix of nuts: almonds, macadamia, and cashews, I also put in some cranberries, goji berries, bee pollen, quinoa crisps, some maple syrup and a bit of orange juice. They were a bit crumbly but still really good. The chai chia pudding, was a mix of spices, some chia seeds and almond milk. I had to add more almond milk because they were pretty thick, but still turned out delicious!

During the week, we went with a friend to do some shopping at Costco. We haven't been in a long time, so it was nice going and buying some things we needed, including filling up our tank for our BBQ. On the way back home, I ended up pointing out a beautiful rainbow. Haven't seen one in a long time!  At one spot it was a double rainbow with some space in between them, then when we got closer to home, we saw this one, and since we were stopped at a light, it gave me a chance to snap a picture.

It was so nice to see, and it had some beautiful colors!

This weekend, other then my run, we played baseball Friday night, and yesterday I did some house cleaning, and prepared a coleslaw. For supper I tried a new marinade for a pork tenderloin, and it turned out delicious!  We both really enjoyed it.

Today after my run, and a shower, I had a bit of lunch and relaxed, then got busy in the kitchen. I chopped up my broccoli, prepared two salads for my lunch this week, as well as prepare the berry chia pudding, which I again went with raspberries. I also made some Chocolate Banana bread muffins

 My hubby and I shared one and they turned out really good. You can find the recipe at the Tone it up website. I really do enjoy the workouts, I have been doing them every morning during the week, and once last weekend, and they are tough but fun workouts. Towards the end of my first week with the workouts, I was muscle sore in so many places, but I do feel like I'm getting stronger. Been enjoying a lot of their recipes as well, the marinade for the pork tenderloin was from them. Going to keep going with the workouts until Thursday, then we will be headed towards Sudbury for a week. Will be nice to see family. I plan to bring some workout gear, so I can go running, and hopefully get to go swimming and see what else we can do, since we will be camping.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Chia seeds

Still keeping nice and busy over the summer. Last weekend we drove up to Sudbury to go to my cousin's wedding. It was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. Saturday we went to my aunt and uncle's to celebrate my aunt's 70th birthday. We got to go swimming, jump into the hot tub, talk with family, and enjoy a lot of amazing food. It was a beautiful day and it was so much fun. We also got to spend a bit of time at my father in law's camp. We chatted, sat by the fire, and got to look at this amazing view.

We didn't get to spend that much time, but we will be going back in September and I'm really looking forward to it.

This weekend I had the chance to be at home to get things done. Yesterday I cleaned out the basement in order to start exercising down there again. Just need to set up the TV and DVD player. For supper we did a beer can chicken. I of course got my chicken from Aubrey's, and used the marinade that I got from St-Albert, Jamaican Jerk. My hubby got the BBQ going, prepared the chicken to go into our pan for beer can chicken, and got it cooking on the BBQ, which he basted it every once in a while with more of the marinade.

That was the final result, and it was delicious!!  Of course we still have some left for another time. I prepared some sweet potatoes with onions, as well as balsamic glazed asparagus to go along with it, and enjoyed a glass of Baco Noir.

 Today I got busy in the kitchen making turkey chili for 2 lunches each this week.

I also made some blueberry walnut muffins

And lastly a Berry Bright Chia Pudding, here's the recipe:

Serving size: 4 (4oz) servings

1 cup strawberries or raspberries - fresh of frozen (I used fresh raspberries)
1/2 cup coconut meat
1 1/2 cup coconut water
1/3 cup agave or honey (I used maple syrup)
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup white chia seeds
*water if you like it to be a little thinner

Place the berries, coconut meat, water, agave, and salt in a high speed blender and mix until smooth. Transfer mixture to a large serving bowl.

Slowly pour the chia seeds into the berry mixture, stirring constantly until thoroughly mixed together.

Place in fridge to chill and set up for at least 30 minutes. Pudding will thicken. If too thick for your liking, just add more water. Too thin? Add more chia seeds 1 tbsp at a time.

This recipe I got from Tone it up. I found out about them through a friend.  She was at Chapters and found their book of Tone it up, so I decided to check out the book and it's really good. I went through their website and I love how they built a community of women to help motivate each other to live healthy lives. I got the chili and blueberry muffins recipes from them as well. I got a few of their workout video's and look forward to trying them out.

Here's a bit more information about Chia seeds. A 1 ounce (28 grams) serving of chia seeds contains:

• Fiber: 11 grams.
• Protein: 4 grams.
• Fat: 9 grams (5 of which are Omega-3s).
• Calcium: 18% of the RDA.
• Manganese: 30% of the RDA.
• Magnesium: 30% of the RDA.
• Phosphorus: 27% of the RDA.
• They also contain a decent amount of Zinc, Vitamin B3 (Niacin), Potassium, Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) and Vitamin B2.

So as you can see Chia seeds are a super food!  They act as a gelatin, by absorbing a lot of water. You can make all sorts of different flavored "puddings" like the one above, you can add it to smoothies, or you can even use it as an egg substitute by putting 1 tbsp of chia seeds to 3 tbsp water for each egg your replacing. You can also sprinkle some chia seeds in all sorts of things like salads, yogurt, or oatmeal. If you haven't given them a try, I recommend you do because they are delicious!

St-Albert and Montreal adventure

It's always so great having a long weekend, that extra day helps to be able to do more things. Friday we didn't have any baseball so I got the house cleaning done and relaxed. Saturday I had the chance to do laundry, chopped up vegetables, and prepare a dip for snacks during the week. I also made some cookies and got to relax and read. We had a friend come over for supper and we enjoyed a steak oscar with roasted potatoes and asparagus, all cooked on the BBQ. We opened up a huge and more expensive bottle of wine, which we were suppose to do all this for my hubby and our friend's birthday's back in June but then my hubby got sick. We finally got the chance to get together and enjoy a delicious meal.

You can find the wine we had at this LCBO link. I do recommend this wine, it went perfectly with our supper and it was really good! On Sunday I drove over to my friend's place and we drove out to St-Albert which they also had a market just outside

I picked up some green onions, green pepper, some maple jelly as well as some homemade Jamaican jerk marinade, which I got to try some chicken and it was delicious! Inside we bought some cheese curds, marble cheese and I got some herb goat cheese.

It was time for lunch so we also enjoyed a small poutine. Then we were off again and drove to Montreal. Our first stop was the SAQ to get Ricardo's wine. For those who don't know Ricardo, he is a chef on the food network. I picked up 3 bottles of red and 2 of the white. Just across the street was Ricardo's store

The store was beautiful, so many amazing kitchen supplies. Anne and I were in heaven!  We both love to cook and bake and love an opportunity to get things for our kitchen. I picked up a pan to make donuts, which I have been dying to try the recipe in the Chocolate covered Katie cookbook. I got a melon baller, but a bigger size, perfect to scoop the right amount of dough for cookies, or for muffins. I also got a container for herbs, it's got the line at the bottom showing how much water you should have, and you put fresh herbs in it and there's a lid, creating a "green house" to have herbs to last for a longer amount of time, and also got an oil spritzer. Just have to pump it and then it sprays whatever oil you decide to put into it. Although I didn't get to meet Ricardo in person, I did get to take a picture with his life size poster

We did get to meet his daughter, she was very nice, and even told us how her dad dropped her off that morning. To bad he didn't stay so I can meet him =)  Their store also has Mama Choka which I bought two of their chocolate bars. Pretty expensive but I hear it's amazing! I got one for my hubby but we haven't tried them yet. I got one with peanut butter and the other with Quinoa. We also tried out their ice cream sundae, which I got chocolate ice cream with maple and toasted almonds, it was delicious!!

Once we left there, we decided to go get some bagels, but with all the construction in Montreal we had a hard time getting there. The GPS kept having to find a new route to get us there, which it took us about double the time to get to our destination.

It was warm in there, but smelled so good! I got some blueberry bagels as well as some pumpernickel.

 I had the blueberry bagel this morning and it was really good!  We still had some time before supper so we decided to go to the Casino.

We didn't get any luck there, but we were excited to head to Le Garde Manger, which is Chuck Hughes restaurant, another chef from the food network. He had an amazing wall right when you walk in.

We were very disappointed once we found out that they were fully booked for the whole evening. We couldn't even sit at the bar or anything. We will have to reserve next time and we plan to bring our hubby's with us. We walked around in hopes to find a new place to try out but we didn't find anything that interested us. It was getting late and we were really hungry so we decided to get out of downtown and stop at the Keg along the way home. We started off with an appetizer, which is a iceberg salad with some tomatoes and bacon.

Then we shared an entree of chicken oscar with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Anne doesn't like seafood so I had all the shrimp and scallops, along with some of the chicken.

It was all so good!  A good way to end the evening and then we drove home. Other then the bad drivers, road blocks, and not getting into Chuck's restaurant, we had a really good time. It was a really fun day. Got home rather late but thanks to today being a civic holiday I got to sleep in this morning. I also got busy in the kitchen and got to try out my melon baller and oil spritzer. I made some Pina colada muffins. I found out about toneitup.com from a friend. She was at Chapters and found the Tone it up book and was telling me how amazing it was. I looked online for it and saw they had a few books at the Chapters near my place so I picked up a copy. I saw they had a website so decided to check it out and when I saw the recipe I knew I had to try them, which you can find the recipe here.

They turned out great! The topping isn't quite the same as theirs because I didn't have any coconut butter, but I tried out some crushed pineapple with some coconut oil, a splash of maple syrup and some arrowroot powder to thicken it up a bit.

It's been an amazing long weekend!  Glad I had time to get into the kitchen but also go out and have some fun. Now time for me to go get dinner ready. I'm making some pasta tonight with some vodka sauce, ground sausage and lots of veggies. We may just open up Ricardo's wine to go with it.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!