blueberries | Callieflower Kitchen

Coco-nuts for Napping

Posted by Callie on Aug 30, 2010 | 8 comments

Good evening blog friends! How was your day?

I had a lazy and relaxing afternoon, but I made sure I got out to do my errands. I stopped by Crate & Barrel to return a set of bakeware that I haven’t really used since I bought, and wandered around the mall for a bit after. I managed to walk away without buying anything, but there were lots of Lulu goodies tempting me

I brought my own iced tea to the mall to discourage me from making a Starbucks pit stop, and it worked great I sipped my Forever Nuts tea, and hydrated without spending any extra money.

When I got home I was pretty hungry, so I had a snack of greek yogurt topped with raw oats, granola and fresh blueberries. It was so good – I’ve been craving yogurt for a while and it was everything I had been dreaming about. I then proceeded to take a lengthy nap, because I clearly had a very tough day

By the time I woke up it was already edging into late dinnertime, and I decided to look through my cupboards and throw together a fun meal with things I’ve had lying around for a while. I think hoarding things in the pantry is something a lot of people (myself included) have a problem with. Now that I’m moving and trying to cut back a little on my spending, emptying the cupboards has been really beneficial It’s saving me money now, and will save my arms later when I have to carry everything to my new place.

I’ve had a bag of lentils sitting on my shelf for a while now, and haven’t had the confidence to use them because I’ve never cooked lentils before. But I decided – no more, today was the day!

Thrifty Coconut Lentil Stew

makes 3 servings

Ingredients

~1 cup green lentils, dried
1 large carrot
1 white potato
1 can light coconut milk

Directions

Rinse off the lentils and set aside in a pot.

Chop the carrot and potato into bite-sized chunks and add carrot to the pot of lentils, setting the potato aside.

Open the can of coconut milk and pour into lentil pot. Cover the pot and simmer on medium for 10-15 minutes, or until lentils begin to soften.

Remove lid and add potatoes.

Simmer for an additional 10 minutes, or until potatoes and lentils have both softened.

Once the sauce has thickened and everything is cooked through, remove from heat and serve.

I enjoyed mine with a spoonful of coconut butter and a sprinkle of coconut on top. The coconut butter completely made the dish – it added an extra creaminess and coconut flavour that the dish was lacking a little.

I think that next time I would try using full fat coconut milk, because the light kind wasn’t nearly as thick and creamy as I was hoping for. Without the coconut butter it wouldn’t have been as creamy as I prefer, but it ended up working out well with the coconut butter

I’m craving those Quaker blackberry & pomegranate crisps (so good!!), but I guess I’ll just have to settle for some banana soft serve with the last of the carob chip cookies from my freezer as I work on my work report. I’m totally freaking myself out thinking about how much I have to write – eek! Have a good night!

Pumped Up

Posted by Callie on Aug 3, 2010 | 4 comments

Hello blog friends!

I went to Body Pump after work as planned, but it turns out my favourite instructor is going to be gone for the next two weeks, so another girl was there in her place Boo. Class was still really fun, and even though I didn’t feel completely into it like some days, I definitely got a good workout and was really glad I went. I felt so much more energized afterward, and I think the rest of my night was a lot better because of it. Exercise is so amazing

Luckily I had time to speed through the store and grab the produce I needed for the week before class, so I could head straight home after. Some more Ontario peaches are in my future!

My mom bought me this Whole Foods bag when she was back in the country last month. I never bought it for myself because it was some ridiculous price like $8, but I’ve been wistfully looking at it every time I’m at WF, and when we were in line I told her how much I loved it, and she got it for me! It barely holds all my groceries and I’m not sure why I love it so much, but it’s my favourite grocery bag and I’m so glad I have it I love you, mom!

I set my rice cooker this morning so that I’d have some Japanese rice ready for me when I got home, but I didn’t really have any ideas on what to have with it and figured I could work it out when I got home. By the time I got home, I wasn’t really in the mood for fluffy white rice, but I really wanted to eat the rice after I put so much thought and effort into making it.

I ended up with a “Mexican bowl” of sorts, with Japanese rice + tomato paste, crumbled tempeh, chopped avocado and a dollop of plain greek yogurt served on a bed of arugula.

(Love the straight-from-above shots now!)

I had a rye cracker with my bowl, mostly because I didn’t have any tortilla chips but wanted something with crunch to it. I brought my meal outside to photograph, because it was cloudy and on the verge of dusk, so inside wasn’t very photo-friendly.

I had a side of blueberries as well, just because they looked so delicious sitting in the fridge

Now I have a book and a beluga calling my name. I’m going to have a bit of ice cream, and join them for an early night.

Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite!

Hot Mess

Posted by Callie on Jul 8, 2010 | 10 comments

This morning when I woke up there was only one thing on my mind, and that was the unopened jar of MaraNatha almond butter in my cupboard. It was time.

The breakfast I wanted didn’t even feature almond butter, I really just wanted a spoonful straight from the source, and it was soooooo good! After getting my fix, I showered and got ready for the day, which included whipping up a batch of blueberry pancakes. I used the recipe here but made a few tweaks, like making the pancakes mini and upping the amount of blueberries. “1 tablespoon and 1-3/4 teaspoons” for one serving? Pfft. I added about a cup.

I also couldn’t resist some more almond butter, so I made a dipping sauce out of AB + plain yogurt + maple syrup.

I had a nice lunch packed for work, but I ended up in a lunch meeting and the food didn’t look too bad (usually it’s pizza or chinese so I pass) so I decided that I could save my lunch for the next day and had this -

And this -

For some reason the sandwich actually made me feel more hungry, so I ended up eating all the snacks I had also packed (an apple, baby carrots and a mini Luna bar) later in the afternoon.

When I got home I still had almond butter on the brain, and knew that nothing else would do. Sometimes I just get so many cravings at once that I actually prefer having dinners that have just a little taste of everything (which my mom called “smorgasbord” when I was a child, which is a Swedish buffet-style meal, but what I think my mom used as a no-cook easy way to feed an indecisive child ).

Tonight’s dinner was smorgasbord, featuring:

toast with almond butter
egg white puff with dijon + honey
almonds
blueberries

I also may or may not have had some almond butter straight from the jar, or some with a few chocolate chips and frozen banana slices.

But I guess we’ll never know

My plan for the evening was to use the complimentary class card I had for a bikram studio, but apparently “Bloor Street West” can also mean “Bloor Street Practically-at-the-DVP” so that wasn’t gonna happen during rush hour I was pretty bummed, but I decided to not just give up! Through the power of Google, I found a studio a lot closer to my apartment that has a summer special for $8 drop-in on all 8:00 bikram classes Mon-Thurs, which is pretty amazing in an area where most drop-ins are about $20.

I know I tend to exaggerate a lot (it’s 5 billion degrees out!, I ate about a million chocolate chips, etc.) but I have to honestly say that this hour of bikram was the most I’ve ever sweat. I had rivulets of sweat running down my body everywhere, and if someone had poured a bottle of water over my head, you wouldn’t have even noticed a difference. It was also different that any other time I’ve sweat, but I’m not sure how to describe it. I loved the super-bendy feeling in my whole body, and it felt so cleansing to just pour sweat. I feel like my skin is glowing! For only $8 a class, I think I might treat myself to bikram every week or two

When I got home I was craving something cold and sweet so I decided to whip up some banana soft serve, but I ended up creating something new and pretty amazing. I’m not sure if anyone’s made it before, but I definitely came across it by accident! I had a little “mishap” with the xanthan gum where I slipped and added waaaay too much, but I carried on with the usual banana + soymilk + vanilla and blended it. The texture seemed really off as it was blending, and when I scooped it out I had…

VEGAN WHIPPED CREAM! It was exactly the texture of real whipped cream, and even tasted almost exactly the same but with a slight hint of banana. Even though I had just taken the banana from the freezer, it didn’t taste frozen at all and wasn’t even that cold to the touch. The extra xanthan gum really changed everything about it! I’m not sure exactly what the measurements were (seeing as it’s hard to measure one large “POOF” of xanthan gum ) but my best guess would be:

1 large banana, frozen
1/2 cup soymilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp xanthan gum

I ended up putting away half of the VWC in the freezer to see if it would change anything, and ate the other half with fresh mango, chocolate chips and chocolate syrup.

It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I was a little disappointed because I was really in an ice cream mood My tummy also hurts, which I think is a combination of eating right after hot yoga, and too many chocolate chips throughout the whole night.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some pressing reality tv to catch up on See ya!

Loooong Day

Posted by Callie on Jun 23, 2010 | 4 comments

And a long post to go with it! I was a busy bee all day, and haven’t had a chance to sit down and blog until now, so let’s get to it

I started off my day with some OIAJ -

OIAJ mix contained:

1/3 cup oats
1/3 cup soymilk
1/3 cup greek yogurt
1/2 sliced banana
large handful blueberries
1 tsp shredded coconut
~2/3 tbsp almond butter

MaraNatha almond butter is probably my favourite nut butter ever! I’m so sad my jar is done, but I’m going to try the natural roasted almond butter next.

Up until now I’ve never really liked overnight oats, but I wanted something filling that contained greek yogurt so I decided to give it another go, and today’s batch was actually really good. Maybe it was the fresh toppings, or maybe I just never had the right oats-milk-yogurt ratio before?

Work was busy as always, but I managed to squeeze in lunch between meetings. It had a salad with garden lettuce, tuna + mayo, celery and blueberries (which were awesome in it!) -

Celery + carrots -

Kashi crackers -

And a strawberry pudding -

Oh my gosh, the strawberry flavour was terrible! It tasted like I just ate a bottle of perfume Gross. If the next flavour is that bad, I’m just gonna throw it out.

Later in the afternoon I had some lychees as a snack -

And then it was time to head to the dentist to get some cavities filled. I brought a Luna protein bar to eat after the appointment, but I was afraid that my mouth would be too frozen to eat something so solid, so I decided to eat it on the way to the dentist.

I had left it in my hot car all day, so it was really more like eating the cookie dough inside and licking all the melted chocolate off the wrapper The dentist went surprisingly well, and the appointment was over early enough that I made it to Zumba class! I was really excited to be back at Zumba after not making any classes for a few week, and it was super fun and sweaty, as always I had to make sure I didn’t smile too much, though, because with my frozen mouth it looked pretty ridiculous!

I spent the whole class thinking about a gigantic smoothie, and whipped one up as soon as I got home. The blender was packed with all kinds of superfoods -

In the mix:

2/3 scoop chocolate protein
1/2 cup chocolate almond milk
1/3 cup greek yogurt
large handful spinach
1/2 small frozen banana
large handful frozen cherries
1/2 tbsp flaxmeal
1/2 tbsp oatmeal
1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
4 ice cubes
squirt of agave

And after a few minutes in the blender -

Smoooooth. My smoothie tonight featured a secret ingredient that made it extra thick and creamy -

Xanthan gum! It added so much thickness to my smoothie that I had trouble drinking it through the straw, and I only added 1/4 tsp. The price made my wallet cry a little bit, though

So thick you can turn it sideways! Another one of my latest obsessions is cacao nibs – they’re so delicious and I love the crunchy texture! I stirred some more into the smoothie for a little extra crunch, and they were probably the best part. Sososo good ♥

After my “dinner” I was craving a little solid food, so I had some blueberries in my new favourite snack bowl.

I’m so tired, but I still need to do dishes and make my lunch for tomorrow Anyone wanna do it for me?

On a last note – today we had an earthquake! I was at work when it happened and felt my desk vibrating, but I thought it was just some construction going on in the next room, so I didn’t realize it was an earthquake until later. Crazy, eh?

How many of you felt the earthquake today?