The "Challenge"

I am an avid reader of blogs and one of my favorite reads is Sammie Kennedy's blog founder of Bootycamp Fitness. Recently, she posted an 8-week challenge that truly got me thinking.

The goal:

Make a big change in your lifestyle by getting lean, fit strong and your best health

The rules:

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No sugar

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No dairy

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45 minutes of exercise daily

A portion of salad greens once a day.

I wanted to join in badly but I also doubted myself. Although I missed the deadline in participating (which sucks because there is an awesome prize in store for the winner), it does not hurt to give the challenge a try.

So earlier this week, I made a few purchases in the local grocery store:

Unsweetened soy milk

Cheddar flavor vega slices (in replace of cheese)

and a whole bunch of fruits.

I am allowed:

honey

stevia

and occasionally pure maple syrup to sweeten my food (and possibly my life).

I started yesterday and to implement the new rules, and a healthy salad was served with dinner:

Very green! It was taking over the whole plate.

Mixed spring salad greens with grape tomatoes and balsamic vinegar and EVOO; Baked breaded Tilapia (homemade not from box) smeared with horseradish seafood sauce; 1/2 cup of brown rice.

I love this seafood sauce, it's only 20 cal per 2 tbsp and it's delish!

Every morning I have my regular cup of joe in my trusty snazzy red warming commuter mug.

 And I was worried how my coffee would taste with soy milk and honey. Regularly I have it with skim milk and a teaspoon of sugar. But it surprised me how having it the non-dairy and non-refined sugar version was pretty good as well. A tad bit different, but good.

In the workout department, my body is still aching from the other night's Cardio X (mostly my back muscles). I am still not on my regular P90x program because I'm waiting for my training partner to heal and hopefully we can restart next week. I am NOT forcing myself to do 45 minutes everyday as of the moment until we restart P90x. My main priority is my DD and she basically eats up all my time. So until next week, there's going to be a lot of mother and daughter bonding every single moment of the day (except when I'm at work).

To sum it up, the next 8-weeks is definitely going to be interesting. I want to know my capacity and will-power so you might wanna stick around to find out if I make it through.

If you want to read about Sammie's challenge check out her blog.

Stay tuned as I have a random post for you guys. It's pretty revealing and possibly embarrassing for me, but I think it will be good. Enjoy your weekend!

Salty snack craving

While my DD napped yesterday afternoon, I was in the kitchen on the hunt for some salty snacks. Potato chips were out of the question, considering they incredibly bad for you and we don't have any in our home. When I peeked into my fridge, I saw corn tortillas and the answer came to me.

Tortilla chips and Guacamole

Chips:

Corn tortillas (bought frozen or refrigirated kind)
EVOO
Chili powder

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Cut the tortillas into triangles. Lay them out on a oiled baking sheet.
Sprinkle salt and chili powder.
Flip them and sprinkle salt and chili powder on the other side.
It looks something like this:

Put in the oven. Check after 10 minutes if its golden brown. If not, leave it in for another 5 minutes. Once perfectly golden brown (and not burnt, I burnt a batch today), take it out and let it cool. I did a few batches since I only had 1 baking sheet to fill up a big bowl of tortilla chips.


Guacamole:

2 avocados (pitted and diced)
1/2 red onion (chopped)
Cilantro (chopped)
Lime (chopped)
1 Jalapeno (chopped) *I opted this out because I didn't have them on hand + it might be too spicy for my DD*
Salt, pepper & chili powder to taste

Combined all ingredients in a bowl big enough that you can squish them all around with a wooden spoon. If you have a mortal and pestel, use that instead. I should get me one of those when I visit the Kitchen outlet store. But now, come to think of it, I do have one that I bought from Mexico! Too bad it's in storage. (Most of my kitchen gadgets are in storage because of our current living situation. Hopefully, my stuff will be rescued soon when we find our perfect new home).

My DD eventually woke up from her nap during the cooking process. By the time I was mixing up my guacamole she was a little too eager to help out and ending up eating from the bowl I mixed it in.

(Don't worry, I already transfered the guacamole to another bowl before she started licking it)

I thought I would serve myself some salsa as well. This is the brand I had in the fridge.

 

It does say medium but this stuff is HOT!

Here you go, Tortilla chips, guacamole and salsa.

FYI, I didn't eat the whole bowl. I had maybe 15 chips and half of the guacamole serving shown above. It sure hit the spot! YUM! And my DD continued asking for more guacamole. She ate them in her own little bowl with a spoon sans the chips.

What's your favorite salty snack?

DDs First Haircut!

Yes, my hubby and I are both fed up with my DD's hair getting to her eyes and repeatedly tying and re-tying it into a ponytail. So it was decided to have her the first haircut on Saturday!

This is the Children's hair place we went to:

We got there and as soon as my DD saw their chairs, she wanted to ride them!

But as the stylist puts on the smock, she yelled, "No bib! No bib!"

So to spare her from being upset, I sat on a chair, put on a smock, and she did the same. Only she wanted to stay on my lap. Of course, my poor baby didn't understand what was going on so we all thought it will be better for her to have the haircut on my lap.

Here goes the first cut!

She was well-behaved, didn't make a peep or unnecessary movements even though I could tell that she so badly wanted to watch 'Calliou' who is on TV in front of us.

Cool Bangs!!!

When the cutting was done, she got a gentle blow dry. The stylist pulled out hair clips and my DD picked out the sparkly green one herself. Her haircut was finished off with the green hairclip and a spray of hair sparkles! And for being so well-behaved, she was given a lollipop treat (I'm sure every kid gets one :p).

Unveiling....... DD's new stylin cut!

She got a free pony ride, but the pony was a little to fast for her and she freaked out :(

But that's ok, shopping always makes her feel better

I can't believe I have a big baby girl now... she is officially a little lady

My hubby is a little bit emotional because he thinks it was cut too short and he misses her curly ends. But I told him that I'm sure when it grows out, her curly ends will make an appearance again.

Melonhead people gave DD a little souvenir

We headed home and just before bedtime, I recorded my DD's after thoughts about her first haircut experience in video:

The "Savvy" Pad Thai

Pad Thai is one of my favourite dishes. It has the perfect blend of savoury, sweet and tangy flavour. It also helps that it is so darn easy to cook (my version anyway). It's one of my regular dishes I cook whenever there is a potluck event. People always ask me, how did you make this? And I always reply, "It's easy! You need..." then I blabber on how to make it but I always get interrupted with this response: "Just write down or email me the recipe, ok?" But then I always forget (tsk tsk).

So now, I'm sharing my recipe! And I can tell everyone who asks me how to make this again to check out my blog :)

The "Savvy" Pad Thai

(Please be warned that I don't measure when I cook, some measurement are just "eyeballed")

Ingredients:

1 pkg. thin rice noodles

3 green onions (chopped)

3 to 4 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 zuchinni (grated)

Big bunch of bean sprouts (rinsed well)

1 lbs of peeled and deveined shrimp (You can use chicken or skip the meat altogether)

1 pkg of extra firm Tofu (sliced into strips)

Sauce:

1/4 cup Fish sauce

1/4 cup Rice vinegar

Photo from Wikipedia

1/4 cup brown or turbinado sugar

1 to 2 tablespoons of Asian hot chili sauce

Toppings (all optional):

Slice of lime

Chopped green onions

Chopped peanuts

(I used walnuts for this batch because I didn't  realize I ran out of peanuts! But it worked great and tasted the same.)

1. 
   
   Cook you noodles first by following cooking instructions in the package. But I usually let my noodles sit in hot water in a bowl for about 5 to 7 minutes. Then I transfer it to a strainer and rinse it with cold water in the sink. Set aside.
2. 
   
   Preheat your Wok or big skillet set in medium and add about a tsp. of oil or a spray of PAM just to coat the bottom of the pan.
3. 
   
   Saute garlic untiil it's fragrant (don't let it burn!)
4. 
   
   Add the shrimp and cook until it's opaque and pink (5 minutes or so)
5. 
   
   Add all the vegetables and tofu, mix and cook for another 5 minutes.
6. 
   
   Dump all the sauce ingredients in the wok, mixing it thoroughly.
7. 
   
   Then add the cooled rice noodles and mix everything.
8. 
   
   You can top it off with peanuts and more greens onions with a side of lime, of course these are all optional.

Eat and enjoy!

Tip:

 Add about 1/2 a teaspoon of the chili sauce at a time and taste to check for spiciness. That stuff is smoking and a little goes a long way. I prefer my food spicy but lately I have been making my food mild because of my DD.

Oh and the fish sauce stinks like garbage but don't be afraid to use it in this dish, if you think it makes it too salty just add more rice vinegar. 

We had this for dinner tonight and it was scrumptious! I expected for my DD to enjoy it since she loves all noodles equally but I was surpried that she wanted seconds!

I do let her get messy during dinner sometimes, she surely enjoy slurping all those noodles!

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I think this dish is perfect for a light summer meal outdoors. And speaking of summer, Fashion meets Food is doing a very cute and summery giveaway! She is giving out lovely Miss Trish Sandals perfect for any of your summer outfits. I have entered myself because those sandals are just too darn adorable.

Just to give you a quick update on my workouts, I have stopped doing P90X in the meantime. My training partner is still injured and I simply can't get motivated enough to do it myself! I have been running 3 to 5Ks a few times since last week to compesate. I usually do ab ripper or Yoga X as well after my runs also. Tonight, I did a 3k with the hubby but skipped out on the ab ripper because I'm just too pooped out.

Let me know if you have your own variation of Pad thai! And if you do try my version, I would love to hear if you liked it (or not)!

Yummy eats

So yesterday was Sunday and I wanted to indulge in some good food. I have been eating pretty healthy and I thought I deserved a cheat day!

When I think of great food for breakfast, my mind flashes back when my hubby and I were in our honeymoon in Cancun. Every single morning during out stay, we ordered from room service and got some Huevos Rancheros.

Cancun September 2007

I have been craving some of this good Mexican breakfast for a while and I made my easy peasy version of the dish.

I made some sunny-side up eggs and heated up corn tortillas over the stove. I place the tortillas on the plate, then the eggs. I topped it off with some ready made Mexican brand salsa with refried beans and chopped avocado on the side. And it turned out great!

For more Huevos Rancheros goodness check out this link

It was a great treat and it totally hit the spot. My hubby loved it as well and we started talking about going back to Mexico again someday to get our authentic Mexican food fix. My DD just had the beans and tortillas and she gobbled it all up!

After a wonderful breakfast, the whole family headed off to church. Normally afterwards, we would have our packed lunch in the church dining room/kitchen because both we have meetings, practices and classes to attend in the afternoon. But we got a bit of a break so we headed to IKEA for some lunch grub and to check out toddler beds for my DD as well.

It sounds totally weird but I really love eating at the IKEA cafeteria. The food is always fresh and delish and it's very baby/kid friendly.

My hubby had some meatballs and potatoes

My mom and sis shared a plate of roasted chicken, ribs and fries.

My DD got some mac and cheese, garlic bread and milk.

And I had some stuffed salmon with veggies and potatoes. It normally comes with vegetable medallions (which are very yummy) instead of the mashed potatoes but they ran out :(

We all had some dessert too, Daim cake with refillable coffee! I was in food heaven. I really have no idea what a daim cake is but it has some chocolate, some kind of creamy stuff and some crunchy stuff (Sorry that my description sounds so lame, maybe you might know and educate me a little bit?)

We didn't end up buying a bed that day because we didn't have enough trunk space. But we have chosen what we want to get and will go back to make the purchase.

So it was time to head home and we all crashed and took a nap. (That definitely made the day, I never napped until yesterday).

I was starving after my nap so my DD and I snacked on some of this good stuff:

For dinner, we just had some vegetable soup and crackers. It was still really filling though. It was garlic and onions sauteed with asparagus, carrots, celery and potatoes (added as a thickener). Then chicken stock was added and creamed it in a food processor. Spinach was cut into strips and added at the very end.

It looks very green but I swear it was yummy!

So Sunday was a great food day for me. I did give in to my cravings but still made some good food choices. Now, today is a new start and I plan to eat well and get tons of h2o.

How did you spend your Sunday?