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.

Update

Since the new year has started I am back into the gym and been slowly increasing my running. Although it's more of a walk/run, I'm still running and it feels amazing. I have however only been running on a treadmill and it's not as fun as running outside, but weather here has been pretty cold. Plus I don't want to re-injure my knee, and with ice/snow out there, I don't want to take chances, so I'm playing it safe. I started off with a 1 minute walk and a 30 second light jog, repeating for 10 minutes. I have increased my run to 45 seconds, then 1 minute, and this past Thursday, I was still doing 1 minute walk with 1 minute light jog but for 15 minutes. This coming week, I'll try running for 1 minute and a half and see how that goes. I'm also making sure to weight train, and most importantly stretch and use the foam roller to help loosen muscles.

I have yet to sign up for the Ottawa race way weekend, which is every year in May. They have 5 km, 10 km, half and full marathons. I kept debating if I should do it this year, knowing the best one for me right now is only the 5 km, but then my cousin suggested something better. There's the foam fest in July, which looks like so much fun! It's 5 km, with obstacles in between, and she's wanting to do this with me, so I agreed. This way it gives me a few more months to get into better shape and my cousin is currently pregnant, she's due in May, and if she said she will be ready by July for this, I know I can to. So she signed us up as a 2 women team and I'm really excited to do this with her. It will be a great motivator to keep going with exercise and slowly increasing my running. Therefore I'm thinking next year I'll do the Ottawa race.

Another added motivation today, I ended up watching the movie Soul Surfer a while ago. In case you haven't seen it, I won't give to much away, but it is based off a true story and it's about a girl that loves to surf and in a really horrible accident looses her arm and it becomes all about her journey in getting back up. I do love watching it from time to time to remind me that some do have it harder and if they can do it, so can I. I really do recommend watching this movie, it's amazing!

I am in the kitchen every day and I have had meat here and there, but there's been a lot of vegetarian meals. I have a few healthy snacks prepared for the week and lots of vegetables as well. This coming Wednesday, my hubby and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary! It really has gone by so fast! Our plan for the special day is to make our own steak oscar at home. It's a lot cheaper then going out, and it will be nice to have a quiet dinner at home. I'm sure we will have some red wine with our dinner, and with the steak oscar, we will also have potatoes and asparagus. I'm really looking forward to it.

January is quickly coming to an end already. Time seems to be going by faster as the years go.
I do hope everyone had a great weekend.

Cookies!

This weekend I have gone into the kitchen and had lots of fun. I created a lot of snacks and meals for the week. Saturday morning I made some double chocolate chip cookies, but instead of just using spelt, I used a mix of spelt flour and buckwheat flour to switch it up a bit, and they still turned out just as good. The sugar of choice is coconut sugar with some maple syrup, making them healthier cookies. Today I got really busy into the kitchen and started the morning with getting chili into the slow cooker.

From what you can see from the picture, I diced up some celery (4 stalks), onion, and a yellow pepper, and I also added 3 cloves of garlic (minced). Usually I put 1 lb of ground bison and 3 cans of beans, but my hubby wanted more meat and a little less bean so decided to give it a try, and it turned out really good. So I put in 2 lbs of ground bison, and put 2 cans of beans instead of 3. I also put in some diced tomatoes, tomato paste (about 3 tbsp) and some spices/herbs, including a touch of salt and lots of pepper. It was a really good supper.

I also prepared two salads for my lunch this week, and prepared a potato salad. I took a break for lunch and watched one of my shows which is Rachael Ray talk show and she had a lady on her show talking about how great quinoa is, and I do have to agree. It's a great source of protein and has a lot of great nutrients. For a snack she prepared cookies, and I made some minor changes to her recipe, but they turned out delicious! Here's the recipe:

Dry ingredients:
1 cup of quinoa flakes (she used flour and oats)
A big handful of unsweetened coconut
A big handful of almonds, and another of pecans (can use any nuts/seeds you want)
A big handful of chocolate chips (you can put in dried fruit instead if you want, or just omit)

Wet ingredients:
1 mashed up banana
Apple sauce (I didn't have any, so all I did was use a fine grater and grated a small apple over the bowl, that way you get the juices as well)
2-3 tbsp of peanut butter (I used all natural peanut butter, and you can even use other nut butters)
Vanilla extract (I used one vanilla bean)

Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Once they are well combined, add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix. I didn't really measure, other then the quinoa flakes. If there's to much liquid, add more dry and vice versa, and surprisingly I didn't need other, it was the perfect consistency to form cookies.

Then line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and form cookies (about a heaping tbsp per cookie), and bake in the oven at 350 for about 8 minutes. I tried one and they are absolutely delicious!

It was fun being in the kitchen, and now we have healthy snacks and meals on hand. Yesterday we went to a friend's place for supper, and she got two new cookbooks for Christmas, from the Pioneer Women. I checked out the cookbooks and they are really nice! Lots of wonderful pictures and so colorful, and of course great recipes. From the cookbook, my friend made the ranch chicken (not ranch sauce, just what she called it), we had twice baked potatoes and some green beans. It was really good! For desert she made a trifle with chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, cream cheese layer, and whip cream topped with a strawberry sauce that she made. It was so good! She gave us some to bring home and we enjoyed it as our desert tonight.

Although I had chicken yesterday and some bison tonight, the rest of my week was meat free and I haven't experienced any endometriosis pain which is great! Tomorrow I am back to meat free for most of the week again. I did make a potato salad with some bacon, and I know I will want some. Why I put bacon, because it's my favorite potato salad recipe, and I couldn't resist. I am looking forward to another great week, with healthy snacks on hand, and to lots more vegetarian meals.

Another new year

In 2014 I did have some struggles, but also had some really great things throughout the year. For this new year, I again will be working on making more great recipes, getting back into running, and just being as healthy as I can, and of course to have some fun. As I've shared, I have had many losses in my life the past 3 years, and I am still grieving, but I know they would want me to be happy.

Something I have started to do is drinking 2 green smoothies most days. Weekends it doesn't always work out, but I have done well during the week. I have a green smoothie for breakfast, and another for my mid morning snack. I make two different batches so I have different flavors and nutrients in them. I put a mix of greens, like spinach, kale and collard greens, sometimes I add a carrot, cucumber and/or celery, and I add some sweetness with fruit, and usually have either half or a full banana in there. As for superfoods, I go with chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, spirulina powder, wheat grass, ginger, bee pollen, maca powder, goji berries and acai. To add liquid to help blend it all up, I use coconut water and sometimes almond milk. Again, I add a mix of these, not everything together. I always have more greens then fruit, and for the superfoods, I usually add 2-4 different things.

I'm trying to eat more salads, and since it's winter, I love making soup, and I'm trying to eat as vegetarian as I can, to not aggravate my endometriosis. I had injured my knee over the summer, so I've been struggling with running, but I went to physio and it helped a lot. She showed me stretches and using a foam roller to help loosen my leg muscles which has helped decrease my knee pain a lot! I will be slowly building up my running, and so far so good. Not sure what this year will bring, but I'm hoping for a great year. I'll of course be sharing with you guys some of the things I'll be up to this year.

I do still have access to the FMTV website, and I haven't watched any documentaries lately, but I will watch more, to help motivate me, and I'm sure I'll learn so much more.

If anyone would like to know more about something, please let me know.

One year already

Its been one year already since I started this blog. I started by introducing myself and went on in sharing information and recipes. A new year has already started and I'm hoping for a better year. The last 3 years have been very challenging and I went through way to many losses. I'm still grieving the loss of my mom, grandmother and aunt but I do know they would want me to be happy and to take good care of myself.

For this year on my blog I would like to continue sharing more information especially when it comes to endometriosis. My knee injury is getting better and I will start running again but will take it slow to not re-injure my knee.

 I have been in the kitchen the past few days and I have made some heathly cookies, and made a delicious soup.

My soup was something I put together, I chopped up a sweet potato, some cauliflower, a large carrot, a leek, 2 garlic cloves, pepper, lentils (a handful) and a bit of mung beans as well with some vegetable broth. I let it boil for about 10 minutes and then let it sit till it was cooler. I then put it in a blender until smooth. Turned out really good.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and Happy New Year! Stay tuned for more information and recipes.