Rep Your Accent

Hi Friendsssss!!!

How was everyone’s weekend? I hope lovely.  The warm weather finally took a little dip here, and it got a little chilly and rainy on Sunday.  But it’s all good.  I mean, it is still January right?!

Today, I wanted to express my love for a new find (to me).  Oat bran!  I know many of you have been eating oat bran since the Land Before Time…

Pause here for remembrance of such a great movie

Source

…and I’ve been wanting to get some (oat bran that is) for a while.  LOVE IT!  Oats are “so last year” kind of old for me since I’ve been eating them day in-day out for like 7 years now.  Oat bran is creamy and just…..delicious!

It’s taking me a while to get the oats:water ratio down (different than oatmeal?  Help a sista out!).  So today I added too much water, then had to add more oat bran to even it out.  So now I have leftovers!  (although who knows if I’ll put leftover oat bran to good use).

It should be noted it was delicious in my almond butter jar

Today’s mix (made 2 servings):

• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup almond milk + 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup egg whites
• Cinnamon, cocoa powder, instant coffee powder
• Cinnabon candied nuts(!!)

I also had oat bran on Saturday (thank you sleep-in days!).

Pumpkin oat bran!  Topped off with 1 Tbsp pumpkin butter and 1 Tbsp pumpkin cream cheese.

I want it to be known, I’m trying really hard to cut back on my oat toppings.  I’ve always been an extravagant/extra special toppings gal, so that’s one thing I’m trying to change.  But the calories can really add up, while not adding much staying power (think granola, chocolate/cinnamon chips, too much jam, cream cheese & nut butters).  Of course, some toppings are delicious and needed (oats are too boring without them!). 

Today’s lunch (after the mocha oat bran) was a ginormo salad:

• Bed of lettuce
• Rotisserie chicken
• Onions & tomatoes
• Sprinkling of feta
• Champagne dressing

+ an apple on the side

And just because I’m in weight-loss mode right now, it definitely doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy my treats

All you have to do is work it into your daily “allowance.”  Or just enjoy a treat, and not let it get you down!  Once and a while won’t do any damage

Apple pie at lunch on Sunday – I hate half a slice.  Along with a colorful salad:

When I get salads at work, I like to load them up with:

• Beets
• A little bit of cheese (parmesan, feta or blue cheese)
• Whatever veggies are out (bell peppers, onions)
• Kidney beans (if they’re on the salad bar)
• Fat free raspberry dressing
• Drizzle of Caesar or 1000 Island

The heavier stuff makes the salad too expensive!!  So it all depends on what else I’m getting.

In other news, has anyone seen this at Trader Joe’s?!?!?!?!

That would be Peanut Butter Cream Cheese.  AKA the evil of all evils.  Take it awaaaayyyyy!!!

 

And now for the accent Vlog that is making it’s away around blogworld.  I did this video on Saturday, and since then have seen multiple other bloggers do one as well.  A few things:

1. I’m so sorry for the awful awful quality.  I think my webcam just sucks.  I swear it wasn’t that dark and I swear I wasn’t actually a dark-eyed zombie while filming it.  Proof!

2. I don’t know if the video is super skippy and slow for you.  Or if it’s just  my internet/computer.  My computer has been sh*tty slow lately.  And so has my internet.  So muchos apologies if it’s skipping.

3. I was put on the spot for some of the questions.  Such as how I address a group of people.  In all reality I probably just say “Hey guys.” Yeah, I’m that creative.

4. At the end I said: “I hope you guys are all having a better night than I am.”  But it sounds like I said “Mumble mumble…djkgsdgh grrrrrhgoihdsgdsjgdsk…”

5. Born and raised near San Francisco CA.  I’ve traveled to Arkansas for 10 days one time.  And London/Paris for 2 weeks.  And that pretty much sums up my childhood travels.

 

I also don’t know why I felt like swaying back and forth so much.  I swear I didn’t have to pee.  I don’t think.  I actually don’t remember.

Okay, enough of the excuses.

Peace out(?).

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#notinSF Baking

First off, I recently won both Danica and Paige’s awesome giveaways! I must have been wearing my luck underwear socks (??) those days. Dang – should’ve been paying closer attention. Thanks ladies 🙂

In other news, since I was #notinSF on Twitter all day yesterday, I decided to take advantage and use the kitchen! Lately, I’ve felt that all my meals have consisted of easy-peasy boring schmorning throw-it-together from the freezer ingredients.

First, baking is expensive! I was trying to follow the November Challenge of $100 spent on food this month – but just yesterday alone, I spent over $50!! That is beyond a lot for me (my weekly grocery bills are usually $15-$25). I’m a huge frugal & sales shopper and usually only buy what I need or what’s on sale that week. However, it must have been luck that I ran out of tons of staples this month (flour, cocoa, cornstarch, oil…and needed to purchase molasses).

Dang baking goods!

And I couldn’t turn down these roadshow meatballs from Costco. “Limited time” really sucks me in.

So for dinner, I combined my new meatballs with my new butternut squash for a Maple Quinoa Stuffed Butternut Squash.

First, roasted both halves (one with salt/pepper & one with cinnamon – for later). Next, I stuffed the salt/pepper side with a quinoa mxture:

The stuffed segment consisted of:

• Quinoa
• Buffalo meatballs
• Onions
• Pistachios
• Pumpkin seeds
• Light rice vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Salt, pepper, garlic salt
• Maple syrup

The maple syrup was a completely last mintue addition to make it a sweet & savory concept. It worked quite nicely!

My tummy hated me after this.

I forgot how much I miss & love butternut squash! And how easy it is to make. Definitely need to take advantage of the season.

I’ve also been wanting to bake recently, so I decided to try out an adapted recipe of the vegan pumpkin scones Megan recently cooked up. I halved the recipe, and did a few substiutions (such as oil instead of margarine – I had none), then popped them in the oven this morning.

I know oil and margarine are completely different, and my scones probably turned out much more “doughy” because of it, but they were still delicious!

My roommates loved them and said they were more “cakey” than “crumby”.  I never eat scones (see T-vlog below), so I have nothing to compare, but I loved them! I helped myself to half of one straight from the oven.

Eventually I got hungry for an actual breakfast.

• Kashi Go-lean
• Nature’s Path maple pecan crunch
• 1/2 sliced banana
• Other half of my WW pumpkin scone
• Strained yogurt

Fueled my gym sesh quite nicely where I did another 4.5 mile dreadmill interval workout. I’m obsessed with the intervals lately. But man, I notice how much more intervals rev the metab – I’m way more starving doing intervals than I was just going slow and steady.

Sorry for no more pics throughout the day but unpictured highlight eats include:

• Other half of my butternut squash (Holy moly I need to go buy another A-stat. Forgot how much I love them!!)
• Chocolate Heart Thrive warmed up with chocolate almond butter (mmmm yes please. Loved the gooey chocolate chips in the bar)
• Banana whip with 1 scoop pumpkin ice cream & sunbutter.

Hey hey hey…check it out! Another V-log? Or T-Vlog? Enjoy 🙂 And sorry I seem super spacey in it – when I go back and watch it now, I seem to “umm” and stumble quite a bit…

Edited to add: I looked up types of pastries, and wowzers – I had no idea it included so much!  I definitely love cinnamon buns, baklava, and PIES.  I love pies.  Especially dutch apple (with the crumbly top), pumpkin & pecan.  Okay – so I definitely do like pastries!!

Pssst…and how was everyone’s weekend?!

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Honey, I’m Home!

**Still phone pictures** 😦

My hunger never calmed down last night, and post popcorn included the infamous Banana Whip!!

OMG amaaaaazing. Definitely something only a food processer can do. Although my little food processer is so teeny, that it starts to smoke and gets so hot that it actually heats up the banana whip when it goes too long. So I’m not sure mine’s as light and airy as it’s supposed to be.

And I also got a Halloween package from my grandma Sissie!

Obviously dug in a bit already 😉

This morning was a re-make of something I haven’t had in a while. Waffle ‘Witch! (wow what a festive title, no?)

Sandwiched between 2 Kashi honey oat waffles:

• Scrambled eggs with some cheese
• Garlic & herb cream cheese
• Ketchup
• Tomato

To fully capture it in it’s glory, I’ll remind you of it when I had an actual photo from a real camera.

Except that one had guac in it, which mine did not 😦

I definitely got a lot accomplished today:

• Costco
• Old Navy returns/costum shopping
• Post office
• Studying/HW
• Workout
• Taking camera pics of my food (or not)

So to make up for my lack of pictures, I promised you something else exciting today, so here it is! My first Vlog!

I know a bunch of bloggers got on the house tour train a while ago, and I’ve been meaning to do it. Now that I don’t have my normal spectacular pictures to wow you all with, I thought it would be the perfect time.

(Please ignore the awkard ending. I didn’t know exactly how to say “bye”. And sorry my finger kept getting in the way of the lens. Also sorry if it’s grainy at parts due to lighting and makes you dizzy. I realized I moved the camera around a bit too much.  I also like how the beginning shot is of beer.  Nice 😉 )

Enjoy 🙂

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