February Foodie Pen Pals Reveal! #foodiepenpals

Lindsay of Lean Green Bean has been organizing a foodie “pen pal” exchange and was awesome enough to organize a Canadian swap for the first time this month! A foodie swap is right up my alley so you better believe I hopped on that bandwagon.

I sent a package to Anna at Piper’s Run and received a package from Andrea, at Vegvacious, who put together an absolutely awesome box of goodies!

Opening the box…

Not only did Andrea come up with a chocolate/valentine’s theme but she baked some of the goodies! Wicked!!

OSG Truffles made by Andrea, a mint smoothie chocolate and chocolate covered oreos. The truffles were to die for and I love mint chocolate and covered oreo’s.

The oreos were such a blast from the past, I love them but haven’t had any in years! You know I ate both of these the day I opened the package. Delish.

Andrea is awesomesauce because she also made these dipped pretzels. Any of my IRL friends reading this know how much I love these, so good!

The goodies kept flowing with a really neat 3-pack of dip mix, jeweled wine stoppers and tea, so creative and fun!

I really liked the green tea kombucha and am looking forward to trying the chocolatey chai, it sounds so good! 

Everything in the package was seriously awesome. Andrea, you did a fantastic job putting this together, thank you! I loved everything so much I can’t even pick a favourite item.

If you would like to see what I sent to my foodie pen pal, please check out Piper’s Run. If you’d like to see the other foodie pen pal exchanges please check out Lindsay’s Blog.

Finally, if you think this sounds like fun here’s  are the Foodie Penpals details:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. 
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for March, please send  an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address (if applicable, readers can participate as well)
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
-WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT. – this is SUPER important so you get on the right list!

You must submit your information by March 4th as pairings will be emailed on March 5th!

***PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, you WILL GET A RESPONSE within 48 hours. If you don”t….please re-send your email or contact Lindsay via Twitter (@LeanGrnBeanBlog). Last month we had a few emails get lost as spam so we’re trying to avoid that!

Favourite Cookie

It’s almost the weekend again, I love short weeks! I also love leftovers for easy lunches! The lentil stew was tasty today and much easier to eat when I’m not already hot and sweaty from dance class.

The stew is so filling I can’t actually finish a portion, which was a great problem to have when a coworker brought me an oatmeal raisin cookie, one of my favourites! They brought me oatmeal to be “healthy”, since I try to keep treats to weekend only. I totally wanted that cookie but with all the Valentine’s candy that was hanging around last week I sooo did not need it.

Plus, I’m heading to D.C. and NYC in a month and I want to save my foodie indulgences for that. I’m foreseeing a steady diet of delicious meals out,  cupcakes, pinkberry and the whole foods salad bar… and there better be a lot of cherry blossoms but we obvs won’t be eating any of those!

I’m off to the gym… not sure what I’m doing yet, either a weights/cardio circuit or just the elliptical. Afterward I’ll be catching up with my DVR, it’s overloaded with Grey’s, Glee, Undercover Boss and Up All Night.

What’s your favourite cookie?

Make up class

Yesterday was a write off, chockablock full of meetings, so I missed zumba class and then I skipped yogilates in favour of crawling into bed. That is so not me! I think I’m fighting off the 900 year cold that’s going around. Fingers crossed I don’t actually get sick and just needed some sleep.

I’m feeling normal today so I made up the missed zumba class by going to “latin dance” class, as I overheard one of the other girls calling it. It was my first time taking a class from this instructor and all I’d heard was that she “makes you pose a lot”. Uh, okay!

Before class, around 11:30, I snacked on one of my fave protein bars.

This flavour before gets 2 thumbs up! The coconut wasn’t that noticeable but I liked the almond slivers!

Back to “latin dance” class. This instructor had a dance style, instead of an aerobics vibe, and I really liked the change. She’s actually a professional dancer and even though I pick up the steps easily anyway she does a great job of teaching/breaking down the steps. Plus, she asked the class if they prefer to have the steps broken down or to just do solid cardio the whole way, thumbs up! Overall class was a little less intense than the Tuesday class but we still got our sweat on and it was lots of fun. I hope I can take classes from both instructors next session.

It’s always hard to eat right after class (I’m never hungry) but at least this thick butternut squash lentil stew was super delish.

One of my favourite things to do is make dairy-free, creamy soups by pureeing squash or sweet potato’s. This one was especially yum because I roasted the garlic first, mmmm!

Now I’m trying to decide if I want to go lift weights. Decisions, decisions.

To get your night off to a good start here’s a rocking song by Carly Rae Jepsen. She was just signed to Bieber’s record label and the Bieb’s ‘n friends made this video, in celebration?

<3 long weekends

Last Friday’s Fat Friday theme was chips! Another coworker volunteered to bring in pop chips before I did so I went to plan B and brought in sweet chili sour cream Miss Vickies. Canadian eh!

In what’s becoming a bad habit I missed lunch again, but I enjoyed the pop chips, ketchup, party mix and regular ruffles dipped in helluva good jalapeno dip.

The highlight of the day was the Starbucks love cup and red velvet cupcake (from Sugarbud) we had at a work celebration. Holler!

As pretty as the other cupcakes were decorated I couldn’t resist the one with sprinkles. Yes, I’m a child (at heart).

Anyone else eat the bottom first?

After that my stomach was done with the grease and sugar. I stuck to my new obsession, Chobani, as “dessert” for the rest of the weekend.

Hope everyone had a great Family/Presidents day long weekend! Did you do anything special?

xo

C$

5 days in February.

Two years ago today Canada was in the midst of hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and I was touching down in Vancouver to live the dream for a week.

This was one of the most amazing weeks of my life. A string of special moments that exceeded my wildest dreams. The whole city had Olympic fever, we walked around draped in flags bursting into the national anthem with our fellow revelers, making friends with people on the street. We saw kids I grew up with win Olympic Gold from the sixth row, center. Those 5 days in February were Olympic magic!

Day 1: Dreams Do Come True //Olympics 2010
A year ago today Jen and I landed in Vancouver and my lifelong Olympic dreams began to come true in a continuous series of amazing moments.   The rest of our group wasn’t arriving until later so we had most … Continue reading →

Day 2: Spring Olympics Day 2
Day 2 at the 2010 Olympics was even warmer than the day before and it wasn’t very long before  we began saying we were at the Spring Olympics. A group photo and a Canadian flag adorning our rented jeep later … Continue reading →

Day 3: Canucks Hurry Hard
Day 3 at the Olympics was the day of our first Olympic event! We were excited but we’d also been having so much fun wandering around we almost felt like we’d be missing out by attending an event. Seriously. We’d … Continue reading →

Day 4: Olympic Ice Ice Baby
February 21, 2010 was the fourth day of our trip to the Olympic games and our first Figure Skating events. Our day started well before dawn to make it to the skating venue for 6:30am Ice Dance practice. The sun … Continue reading →

Day 5: With Glowing Hearts
Growing up I played a lot of sports, went to art camp, drama camp and played piano but I was most passionate about figure skating. I love the smell of an ice rink, the sound of a skate on fresh … Continue reading →

Be Olympic, be epic, be you.

Flax Wheat Pizza Dough

Hi, my name is Christina and I am a pizza freak!

Pizza always sounds good to me. I could eat it at any time and purposely avoid because of that. I go through phases where I’ll make pita pizza’s as a stand in for the real deal but recently started making my own dough to have pizza as a weekend treat.

 

The first few times I used the thin crust recipe from Annie’s Eats.

The recipe works well and was not intimidating or time consuming. It does take some pre-planning since the dough needs to rest for 24hrs. Also, if you’re not using a pizza stone you need to pre-cook the dough for 7-10 minutes before you add sauce/ingredients.

 

Last weekend I used an even easier recipe from my mom, who got it from a neighbor, who got it from a magazine. I don’t know who to give credit to but I had a few requests to share the recipe so here she is. It’s not an authentic Italian dough but it’s tasty and anyone who owns a bowl can make it.

My mom first made this recipe for us when I was in high school more than 10 years ago (OH EM GEE, how did that happen?!!!) and it’s been kicking around ever since. When I asked my mom for the ingredients that’s exactly what I got, a list of ingredients… I’m probably the person who lost the photocopy of the whole recipe but you don’t really need anything beyond this:

Flax Wheat Pizza Dough
1 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 TBSP flaxseed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pack fast rising yeast
2/3 cup of warm water
2 tsp honey
2 tsp olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Form into a ball and cover with a cloth or paper towel (a damp one if you want to be fancy). Let it rest for an hour then split the dough in two and use your fingertips or a rolling pin to press it out.

 

Usually I press the dough out with my fingers, to leave the crust a little higher, but I was impatient and went to town with the rolling pin.

I don’t have a pizza stone so I popped the dough into a 475* oven for 7 minutes without any toppings.

 

Add your toppings and put the pizza back into the oven for 10-15 minutes. Optional: brush the crust with oil to help it brown.

 

And voila!

Slice and enjoy.

WIAW

Howdy peeps! Who’s ready for a ‘what I ate Wednesday’ post!

Breakfast was my standard almond milk + amazing grass. Perfect way to power up for the day ahead.

Lunch was a piece of my veggie (vegan) lasagna creation from the freezer. How’s that for an ugly food photo? It tastes a million times better than it looks.

Having this for lunch felt very gourmet and yet it was so simple to make!

Ingredients
2 zucchini sliced lengthwise into thin noodles
2 layers of lasagna noodles
Red Peppers (1 jar roasted or 1 raw pepper)
1 head of Broccoli
1 jar of Tomato Sauce
Vegan spinach dip ( combine: 1 pkg toffuti herb & garlic cream cheese, ½ package of frozen spinach (defrosted and drained), garlic powder, cayenne, ¼ cup parmesan)
Daiya cheese

Begin by spreading a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan, top with a layer of lasagna noodles. Top with broccoli and peppers followed by sauce and spoonfuls of (vegan) spinach dip. Layer on the zucchini “noodles” and add sauce and the remaining peppers and broccoli and spinach dip. Finally top with the rest of the lasagna noodles, tomato sauce, daiya and parmesan (optional). Bake at 400* for 30-35 minutes.

I couldn’t resist snacking on some Valentine’s candy throughout the day.

Dinner was a simple salad of my favourites: cucumber, sweet cherry tomato’s, kalamata olives and 1/2 a cup of pumped up chickpea’s!

To make the chickpea’s I used Angela’s (Oh She Glows) recipe for “Battered” fried chickpea’s modified with cayenne and extra garlic powder.

I’ve yet to meet a chickpea I don’t like and these were a good way to add something different to my salad.

Dessert was a delicious special treat, from Andrea, more on that at the end of the month. Stay tuned!

What’s the yummiest thing you ate today?