Avocado goodness

This week definitely went by slower than usual. But hurray! Long weekend is officially here!

This week's breakfast at work was pretty much cereal with almond milk and blueberries on the side...

I took the morning off yesterday though because I had a doctor's appointment and got the chance to whip up this instead...

1 cup Vanilla Almond Milk, 2 Cups Spinach, 1/2 Frozen Banana, 1 tbsp of Peanut Butter

Lunch was slightly less boring this week as I tried out something new inspired by my roommate.

Sauteed together some red onions with mushrooms...

Cracked open an egg...then mixed in the onions and mushrooms...

Placed the egg in mild rye bread with a slice of low fat mozarella and sliced avocados...

Absolutely loved this combination. The richness of the avocado fills me right up. :) I loved it so much that I had it more than once this week...on different breads.

On the days that I didn't have this combination,  I settled with my usual go-to...Freshii. Whole wheat tortilla wrap with grilled salmon, freshii veggie mix, chickpeas, peppers, corn, cucumbers, and low fat ranch dressing.

 

I didn't get a chance to run outside during the week...my exercises have mainly been altering between the stationary bike and the elliptical (approx. 45 mins to an hour). Then dumbell weights, pushups, and situps afterwards.

Dinner this week has been pretty random, i.e. scramble together whatever I had in the fridge...

(I took a bite out of the toast...too hungry!) Mild rye toast with light smoked salmon cream cheese, scrambled eggs with tomato, and stir-fried miniature bok choy. 

Dessert! Makes me miss Taiwan a little...

Hope everyone will soak up the sun this weekend! Happy Canada Day! :)

Beating the heat

Gotta wake up early these days if I want to run to beat the heats these days!

Saturday 

My run was followed by a lovely brunch at Oliver & Bonacini Cafe and Grill on Yonge and Front. The weather was fantastic on Saturday and so we got to enjoy brunch on the patio. :)

Jail Island Salmon & Prairie Grain Salad 

This was refreshingly light...perfect for the summer seasons! The grain salad comes with tahini dressing, which I asked to have on the side. Other veggies includes ripened tomatoes, butter lettuce, lemon, seedling greens, peppers, corns, and cucumbers. Overall, yummy!

After brunch, Andrei and I walked along the Lake ... there were so many activities going on this weekend...one being the Saltscapes Toronto Expo on bringing East Coast culture to Toronto!

Had to run home for the Spain vs. France game (but not necessarily because I wanted to...ahem). While the boyfriend watched the game inside, I decide to even out my tan on the balcony with a glass of Coors Light Ice Tea instead :)

Dinner was an impromptu barbeque session that was originally going to be just Andrei and I. But...I invited some friends last minute and everyone showed up! I forgot my iPhone upstairs (the barbeque was on my condo's patio downstairs) and so I didn't get to take any pictures of the meal :(. We bought both beef burgers and veggie burgers (for me and my friend Wayne) and everyone else brought over some salads for sides. Overall, the last minute barbeque session turned out to be a success. Definitely hoping to throw another one again this summer...and I will definitely have my camera ready then!!

Sunday

I went for a quick 7K run on Sunday. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my trusty Nike+ watch the night before and it died at the 6.5K mark... :(

Lunch was a quick one...pretty much tried to clean out what was in my fridge...

Originally intended on making it over easy but the yolk broke :(

Beets, Carrots, and Apple juice. Garden salad leftover from the barbeque with balsamic vinegar. Grilled mild rye toast with the "over easy" egg with some low fat mozzarella/cheddar cheese. 

I went to watch the Italy vs. England game at South of Temperance (pretty exciting game by the way...even if I wasn't really cheering for either of the teams...right?). I had some time to spare before making dinner so I went downstairs to the gym and hopped on the bike for about 40 minutes. I had intended for it to be a chill exercise while I caught up on my reading but man, my thighs are kind of sore today! 

Dinner was super quick and easy: store bought frozen Cheemo Perogies (Potatoes, sour cream, and chives), and steamed broccoli & carrots. Apparently I was suppose to boil the perogies THEN pan-fry them (says the boyfriend) but the box CLEARLY said pan-fry frozen. Either way, it still tasted pretty darn good. 

Perogies and steamed veggies. You can't see but there are some sauteed onions in there with the perogies :P Fat free sour cream on the side. 

And as per the last couple of weeks, mangoes for dessert :)

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Lobster Fest!

Okay so I didn't actually end up going to Radiohead like I said I would in the last post. Unfortunately, the stage at Downsview Park (where the concert was suppose to be) collapsed while they were setting up for the concert. Sadly, someone died and a couple more got injured during the incident :( Hope the injured ones have recovered!

On Sunday, I went for a quick run outside before it got too hot.

After the run, I quickly showered and met up with the boyfriend at Marche at Yonge and King for brunch. I am always so amazed by the huge selection of food there...

I settled on this Vegetarian Blue Cheese Focaccia. It was quite filling as it was pretty heavy on the cheddar cheese (too much for my liking...had to scrape some off). The blue cheese added an extra kick of flavor to it so overall, I was pretty satisfied with my choice...

After the meal, we walked around the city for quite a bit and did some shopping. We were getting tired of eating out for the last couple of weeks so we decided to head over to Longos. They had pre-steamed lobsters on sale for $5 a piece. I was like "SOLD!".

We also bought some frozen shrimps and decided to make pasta as the main. Scrambled together some onions, green peppers, red peppers, and mushrooms with the shrimps. Added in some Classico Spicy Red Pepper pasta sauce.

Poured over some whole wheat spaghetti and steamed broccoli...with the lobster filling the rest of the plate of course!

My mother is right...I do need to get some bigger plates!!

Southwestern Style

Happy weekend everyone!

Friday's breakfast: All Bran cereal mixed in with Oikos Mango Peach Greek Yogurt. Fresh blueberries on the side. 

I decided to try to make a quick and easy recipe that I found on Runner's World magazine (June edition) for lunch this week: Salmon Chili Aioli salad.

Ingredients:

- 1 can of salmon

- 3 tbsp low-fat mayonnaise

- 2 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce (the recipe only called for 1 tsp but...I like it a bit spicier :)

- 1/2 lemon juice

- 2 tbsp dill 

- 1 clove of garlic 

All you have to do is...mix everything together! You can eat it with any type of bread you'd like...I only had whole wheat bagels lying around so that's what I had. Added in a couple slices of tomato and spinach...

I would definitely make this again for lunch in the future. So quick and easy and yummy at the same time. I'm guessing it would probably work well with tuna too....?

Summer hours officially started this week at work...which means I get to leave at around 4 on Fridays! Makes it easier to sneak in a run on Fridays :) 

I took off at about 4:30pm...it was still hottttttttttt. Pretty sure I went another shade darker. 

Nike+ updated their online platform! Pretty nifty I must say :) It even tracks the elevation! 

For dinner, I whipped up a new dish that I saw on Eatingwell.ca...Southwestern Tofu Scramble! Basically just scrambled together firm tofu, corn, and zucchini together with some chili pepper, cumin, and pre-made salsa. (Click on link for ingredients and instructions). 

I substituted Monterey Jack cheese with Kraft's Mozarella and Cheddar mix. Kind of regretted it right away because it got extremely stringy...oops. 

I would definitely make this dish again too. It's surprisingly quick to make and filling at the same time...and I get my fix of protein! :)

And because I always need to eat something sweet after a meal...more mangoes! 

Hope everyone's enjoying their weekend so far! I'm off to the Radiohead concert tonight...woohoo! 

Eurocup Fever!

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend! Mine was filled with ... lots of sports. NBA Eastern Finals (boo Heat!), Stanley Cup, French Open, and of course, the first round of Eurocup! I'm not the biggest fan of soccer but the boyfriend is and so I'm semi-obligated to watch...
SATURDAY 
Saturday morning started off with a new concoction of mine...smoked salmon with low fat herbs & garlic cream cheese whole wheat bagelwich (with some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers). On the side, fresh cantaloupes and blueberries.

My workout on Saturday consisted of an hour on the elliptical at a resistance of about 6 while watching the last season of Lost on my iPhone. Yes I KNOW. Lost was like 5 years ago but I never got around to watching the last season...now is my chance!

After my workout, I got a bit hungryat around 4 but knew I was going to be going out or dinner shortly thereafter so I just fixed up something small and quick...

Scrambled egg whites with pepper and tabasco sauce, followed by freshly juiced beet, carrot, and apple juice!

Met up with a friend for dinner at Casey's on Front. Haven't been there in ages, but it was close to both our places and they just re-opened their patio!

Veggie burger with lettuce, red onions, and grilled peppers & zucchini. Sweet potato fries as side. 

SUNDAY

I woke up earlier on Sunday for a run to escape the heat. It was suppose to get up to 30 degrees that day (feeling like 38 with the humidity!!) and I definitely didn't want to run in that kind of heat! I left the house around 9:30 but it was already kind of hot...

Before my run, had a super quick "breakfast"...

 

I was noticeably a shade darker after my run .......

After the run, Andrei and I rushed to Little Italy on College St. to catch the Italy vs. Spain Eruocup game. The whole street was packed (imagine what it would be like the finals...if they make it that is...) and we couldn't find a spot in any of the bars/restaurants. We ended up watching the game on the street next to the bars' patios because they all had huge tvs. The atmosphere was just crazy when Italy scored. Unfortunately, Spain replied shortly thereafter with a goal of their own...The game ended at 1-1. We still had fun though :)

  

We walked around the city for a bit to soak in the heat but after a couple of hours, we definitely needed to cool off in doors. 

For dinner, we went to Spring Rolls by Yonge and Dundas. 

We order this every time: Sexy Summer Rolls. How can you NOT with a name like that? :P It's really just smoked salmon wrapped up with a bunch of lettuce in a thin roll. The sauce is amazing though - not quite sure what it is. 

Unagi Dragon Roll

Chef Hai's Special Roll - soft shell crab, tempura shrimp, crab meat, tobiko, avocado, cucumber, asparagus and mayonnaise, topped with shrimp and unagi. YEAH - there were lots going on in that roll....

If you ever go to Spring Rolls for their sushi, just know that each roll is HUGE. We made the mistake of ordering Cantonese chow mein on the side...way too much. 

Well that was my weekend in a nut shell! Hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Still here!

It's been a while since my last post. I apologize to all the dedicated readers out there (hah). I had friends and family visiting and so it was difficult to stay dedicated to my usual routine. My workouts were, well, non-existent for about 2 weeks. But it's ok! I'm back on track now ... kind of. It's been so hard to get my *ss off the couch these past couple of days.

That said...the plus side of getting thrown off my routine was that I got to try a lot of new restaurants and foods during the last 2 weeks. I will be posting random posts here and there on the restaurants that I tried...so look out for them :)

Breakfast yesterday was an English muffin with scrambled egg whites with a slice of low fat mozarella cheese. And organic blueberries on the side.

Lunch was leftover Pad Thai from the weekend from Thai One On. My roommate and I were having a super lazy Saturday and didn't feel like venturing out of the condo for food and we had no food in the house. We found the delivery menu on our fridge (it's probably been sitting there for about a year....) and decided to give it a shot. It wasn't half bad but the portions were humongous. I swear, each "serving" was actually 3 servings!!

Couldn't help but snack on some of these in the afternoon...I am a sucker for cookies. :(

I finally got back into my routine yesterday by running outside after work. 2 weeks ago, I had finally purchased a gps watch! I decided on the one that I had posted about initially:

Sleek looking, I know :)

I've only used it about 3 times so far. It takes a while for the GPS to load up initially but from what I could tell so far, it's pretty accurate. The watch is also super easy to navigate, which is helpful during a run.

The run was definitely more painful than the usual runs. I had to stop and walk a couple of times because I was getting cramps but managed to push through the full 10K in an hour.

Dinner was left over vegetarian tofu Red Curry (from the same place as the Pad Thai above). I stirfried together some mini Shanghai Bok Choy as a side.

Dinner was followed by some Alphonso mangoes...super sweet!

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. Happy hump day!