Flax Hot Cereal and a Giveaway

Good morning!

Today started off on a good note with a good workout at the gym. After doing 25 minutes of cardio (10 min. stair master, 15 min. elliptical), today’s total-body workout looked like this:

15 reps, 3 sets each:

• Leg extensions
• Step ups
• Shoulder raises
• Bicep curls
• Deadlifts
• Side bends
• Tricep dips
• Hamstring exercise ball curls
• Ab work

For the first time this week my morning walk with Sadie was fog-free!

Breakfast

Today’s breakfast was delicious!

Wednesday's Breakfast

I enjoyed a bowl of Flax Z Snax vanilla almond hot cereal topped with Emerald cocoa roast almonds.

Flax Z Snax Hot Cereal

I filled my tumbler with free Barnie’s coffee from my gym. I am obsessed with the seasonal flavor Santa’s White Christmas.

According to Barnie’s:

“Our #1 seller combines Barnie’s® Blend coffee with the flavors of coconut, nuts, sweet caramel and vanilla.”

Coconut, vanilla, nuts and caramel? No wonder I like it so much!

Pop Secret Popcorn and Emerald Almonds Giveaway

Hooray for another giveaway!

Giveaway Goodies

One winner will receive:

• 3 packs of 100 calorie Pop Secret Homestyle Popcorn
• 3 packs of 100 calorie Pop Secret Kettle Corn Popcorn
• 3 packs of 100 calorie Pop Secret Butter Popcorn
• One box of Emerald 100 calorie packs of natural almonds

100 calorie snacks are fantastic for portion control and portability.

Did you know research suggests that eating a handful of almonds daily can help fight abdominal fat and protect you from heart disease? Sounds good to me!

To enter this giveaway, simply comment on this post telling me about your favorite recipe or food featuring nuts.

My favorite nutty treat would have to be oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies or a hot fudge sundae topped with candied pecans. Healthy, no? 😉

I will announce the winner tomorrow morning using Random.org’s random integer generator.

Blogger Secret Ingredient

Don’t forget to submit your recipe featuring nutmeg for this weeks Blogger Secret Ingredient competition. 🙂 You have until Sunday night to enter. Please email me at pbfingers@gmail.com with your entry!

Behind on Breakfast

This morning I opted to dedicate my a.m. post to this awesome giveaway (be sure to enter!), so I have some catchin’ up to do since my breakfast post was severely neglected.

Last night I made homemade cranberry sauce in the microwave. Didn’t know that was possible? Me neither, but it is! Oh joy.

Beautiful, Shiny Cranberries

To make my homemade sauce, I combined a bag of fresh cranberries and water in a bowl and microwaved it on high for 3 minutes, stirred and microwaved it for another 3 minutes or so until the cranberries popped open, releasing their flava!

I stirred in just enough sugar to make it taste slighty sweet and take some of the bitter punch out of the sauce. I ate a bucket-load of warm cranberry sauce as my dessert after dinner last night. It was so good!

Breakfast

Needless to say, I just had to incorporate my homemade cranberry sauce into my breakfast.

Today’s breakfast included:

• 1/2 c. cottage cheese
• 1/2 c. homemade cranberry sauce
• 1/2 sliced apple

Apple-Topped Cranberry Cottage Cheese

Even though this wasn’t that large of a breakfast, it really filled me up! I think it must have been all the fiber from the cranberries and the apple.

Wednesday's Breakfast

I’m incorporating the cranberry sauce into my lunch wrap today too (whole wheat tortilla, Laughing Cow Swiss cheese, turkey and cranberry sauce). Yum.

Google Reader Issue

Are my posts showing up in your Google Reader? They aren’t for me and it’s making me a lil’ peeved. 😦 Any thoughts on how to fix this… I am not computer savvy!

Popcorn and Almond Giveaway

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway of several 100 calorie packs of Pop Secret popcorn and Emerald almonds. YUMMY! I’ll announce the winner in the mornin’ so don’t delay!

Usin’ Up Stuff

I hate wasting food. I think that’s why I tend to be a proud member of the clean plate club.

Before I go out of town for the weekend, I rummage through the fridge and pantry for any foods that might go bad and feel the need to save them from perishing by eating all of them. No food left behind!

Today my lunch made use of canned pumpkin I had sitting in some Tupperware and cottage cheese that was skirting on expiration. Is your mouth watering yet? 😉

I blended the pumpkin and cottage cheese with some pumpkin pie spice and sweetener to create a HUGE bowl of pumpkin pie-tasting slop.

Could there be a less attractive word than the word slop? I don’t think so.

What words do you absolutely hate? I can’t stand the word panties. I think it’s creepy. I still have to call them underwear.

Anyway, back to lunch…

I topped the pumpkin slop (ew!) with half of a Honeycrisp apple and a handful of sliced almonds.

Pumpkin, Apple and Almonds

This bowl was HUGE. Don’t believe me? Just look:

Wowzaa!

Get in mah belly!

Lunch was good. That’s all I have to say about that. 🙂

Pumpkin Almond Yogurt and $5 Cooking Light Subscription

First the exciting stuff. Amazon.com is offering a $5 one-year subscription to Cooking Light magazine. I adore this magazine and use the recipes featured in it regularly. They’re a great starting point for ideas and the pictures are guaranteed to make you salivate. Click here to enjoy this offer.

Lunch

Since I didn’t have a chance to make it to the grocery store yesterday since I was hungover wanted to be sure to post last night after traveling all day, my lunch today featured yummy goodies I had on hand.

Pumpkin Almond Yogurt Ingredients

• Chobani non-fat plain Greek yogurt
• Canned pumpkin
• Almondina cinnaroma almond cookie
• Handful of sliced almonds

I combined everything in a mish-mosh of yogurty yum.

Greek Yogurt and Pumpkin

Yogurt in a Cup!

Random but quite tasty!

What are your fall-back meals when you don’t make it to the grocery store?

Oh My Achin’ Bones

When I woke up this morning, I climbed out of bed and immediately sensed soreness. Looks like my first workout with a personal trainer was a success!

The weirdest thing is that I am sore in places I’ve never been sore… like my sides. All my major muscle groups are completely fine, but oh-my-sides! I guess that’s how you know you’ve worked something that typically goes neglected.

I am a firm believer in working out even when soreness sets in, so I hit the gym for a total-body weights workout and 30 minutes of light cardio. Great way to kick off the weekend!

Breakfast

I loved my lunch yesterday so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about how delicious my peanut and apple butter sandwich was when I finished. It was exactly what I wanted for breakfast this morning.

Instead of using apple crisps in the sandwich, this time I used slivered almonds for an extra nutty dimension.

Peanut Butter and Almonds

Yummy Apple Butter

Sweet and Salty Breakfast Sammie

I filled my tumbler with a combination of my gym’s free Barnie’s French vanilla and cinnamon butter cookie coffee. So tasty! I can’t wait until the holiday flavors make an appearance.

Friday's Breakfast

Hurry Friday!

I’m really hoping today goes by quickly because Ryan and I have tickets to see Robin Williams tonight at 8 p.m. We love his stand-up comedy and I think he is such a talented comedian and actor (love Patch Adams!). I can’t wait!!!

Question: Who is your favorite comedian?