Santa Fe Quinoa and Beans

I've never been shy about my love for Smart Ones Santa Fe Rice and Beans.

Last night I attempted to recreate it, and if I can toot my own horn a little, it was pretty much amazing.

Please excuse the pictures, as I didn't finish making it until after dark. They really don't do it justice at all.

In true Amy fashion, I had to healthify it up a notch so I made a few substitutions and the end result was pretty delicious.

Bare with me, while I attempt to write a recipe.

I'm not so good at the measuring thing, but here was a list of my ingredients:

• Quinoa


• Chicken broth


• 1 can kidney beans


• 1 can black beans


• 1 can romano beans


• onion


• green pepper


• yellow pepper


• corn


• salsa


• sour cream


• a little milk


• cumin


• cayenne


• red pepper flakes


• chili powder


• oregano


• monteray jack cheese


• old cheddar


• salt and pepper

And here is the process.

1. Cook quinoa in broth


2. While quinoa is cooking, sautée onion and peppers until soft.


3. When quiona is cooked, add to the sautée pan with onion and peppers


4. Add beans and corn, spices, and the flatten out the mixture


5. Thin sour cream out a little with the milk, and spread it out over the quinoa


6. Top with cheese and bake in the oven for 30 mins.

God, that picture is just horrible. It tastes good, I promise.

I had a little scoop of it along side some sweet potato/black bean enchiladas.

Olé!

....and I have enough Santa Fe Quinoa and Beans to last me an eternity. Hello freezer!

Let's talk lady bits.... again

You may recall, a little while back I procured a package of 6 sessions of laser hair removal via Groupon.

You may even recall this post, when I deliberated whether or not to take it alllllll off.

Well I did.

Last night marked my 6th session of laser hair removal on my lady bits.

Source

I had a lot of inquiries regarding how well it worked, etc so I thought I'd once again write about my lady bits. *cue Black Eyed Peas Dirty Bit*

It's been quite the journey, that I can honestly say. The second I met Patty, I felt at ease with her, which let's be honest is a big deal when she's in there starting at your junk. I'm not exactly comfortable exposing my body to begin with, so being naked from the waist down was pretty much a nightmare in my mind... but honestly, she made me feel so comfortable that was the last thing on my mind.

I don't have an incredibly high pain tolerance, but honestly the pain of laser hair removal compared to a brazilian wax? NOTHING. Patty tells me that if you have darker skin the laser needs to be set higher, thus resulting in more pain, but I'm pastey white so that's not an issue. I've also heard the pain can be compared to an elastic snapping against your skin, but I didn't even feel that much at all.

After 6 sessions I can say that roughly 90% of my hair is gone. Not bad eh? I'm going to continue with my sessions to take care of the rest. I'm so very pleased with the final results!

Now, as for my chin. You may recall this post where I ranted about my previous laser clinic burning my cheek.

I've had 10 sessions of laser on my chin. 10!!! I think I'm a hormonal beast, because my hair issues really seem to come and go on my chin. I thought things were getting better, but this month my chin exploded with hair again. Chin hair is hormonal, and it my case PCOS related, which is very hard to control with a laser apparently. I'm thinking I might look into electrolysis on this area, but I'm not sure yet. What I don't like? Shaving my chin. You're not able to pluck or wax inbetween laser sessions. That is by far the worst part of laser. I love tweezing.

So there you have it. Another laser update.

Bottom line?

If you want to laser your lady bits? GO FOR IT?

If your facial hair issues are hormonal? Maybe think twice.

Restraint

I ate this cookie for brunch yesterday.

It was worth every single one of the 180 calories.

Confession: I love just about every single thing about frosted sugar cookies.

They're soft. They're flakey. They're sweet. They're perfection basically.

Source

Rather than leaving the whole box of 12 on the counter to tempt me, I separated them into baggies and threw them in the freezer.

I'm at such a good place right now with my eating. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, and I can honestly say that healthy eating has become a habit for me. I eat well during the week, and loosen my 'healthy eating' strings on the weekends. It's working perfectly. My clothes are fitting better, and I'm getting lots of "are you losing weight?" comments. I like it.

I can't wait for Saturday to have another cookie!

Lazy Sunday

Today I took the term “lazy Sunday” to an entire new level.

I slept until 10:00am. I watched Scream 4, and The Bachelor Pad in bed.

Then I went back to sleep.

Went out for groceries and a coffee at 5:00pm.

Due to all the sleeping today, hardly any food was consumed so I treated myself to a grande, non-fat, coconut/mocha, decaf americano misto. Bliss.

Also, due to all the sleeping I declared today a day of rest.

My week in exercise looked like this:

• Monday: n/a as I was in NYC
• Tuesday: Spin
• Wednesday: Spin
• Thursday: Run
• Friday: 20 min run/spin
• Saturday: Spin

Spinning and treadmill running is getting old realllly fast. I hate the elliptical, but I might add some of that this week. Shoulder injuries SUCK! Worst part? It’s not really getting any better. Boo.

Time to think about dinner. On the menu, my arugula watermelon salad. Yum!

It's a good day to be a Yankee fan

You can't go to New York City and NOT have cheese cake right?

Brownie cheesecake? Yes please! It was thick. It was delicious. And I betcha it was about a bazillion calories.

I was at the grocery store last night and stumbled upon an oldie, but a goodie.

Cravings Cheesecake. (I still can't believe they don't have a proper website)

These puppies are only 70 calories a serving, and totally satisfy my cheesecake craving. They're $1.99 each, but worth it in my opinion.

What are your favorite substitutions?

______________________________________

Can we talk about the Yankees just for a second?

3 grand slams in one game? AMAZING!

Jeter = single? AMAZING!

It's a great day to be a Yankees fan.

New Friends/Old Friends/In My Mouth

Meet Dawn and Angi. Some of you may know Angi as @Strongfocus on Twitter.

I've always known Dawn and Angi as acquaintances but it's really quite odd how friendships morph sometimes.

One day a loooooong time ago, I was on the Weight Watcher message boards when someone (Angi) wrote that she was from small town Ontario. I'm also from small town Ontario, so it caught my attention. Turns out we were from the same hometown, went to the same schools, knew the same people etc etc etc.

I won't come as a shock to you, especially if you're from a small town, that Dawn and I are related. Our Mom's are cousins. Dawn is also BFF's with my cousin Scott which is how her and I started forming our utterly sarcastic friendship. It's all very incestuous really.

We decided to get together for sushi. It was delicious. And filling.

Highlights included:

- Dawn spitting out water as a result of laughter, and said water ending up in MY mouth

- Dawn going a little hog-wild in the ordering department, resulting in 3 very full ladies, and us not being able to finish it all thus having to shell out $3 for the uneaten sushi.

- Tons of laughs, sarcasm and lady bit talk. What more could you ask for really?

Thanks for the wonderful evening ladies. Sometimes a little girl-talk is better than wine. I could do without the sushi-bloat though. :)

Customer Service

I take my iced coffee pretty seriously.

$1 iced coffees from McDonald's have been a regular occurance in my life this summer.

It all started at the McDonald's near my house. Each morning I'd go through the drive though and order a large iced coffee, no cream, no sugar, just milk.

It was the same lady that served me every morning, and after a while she got to know my voice and all I'd get out was "Hi, can I have a large iced...." and she'd just tell me "Come on up to the window".

We were actually on a first name basis. Debbie told me just to come up and say "Hi, it's Amy" put she I never did as I was too scared that it wouldn't be her on the other end!

That being said, that particular location of McDonald's never seemed to have ice in the morning. And if you're ever going to listen to anything I say, listen to this: Iced coffee NEEDS ice. It tastes horrid without it.

Then there was an off morning, where I took a sip of my coffee and it was full of coffee grounds. It made me gag. I stopped at another location on my drive into the office and they replaced it no questions asked.

The ratio of milk to coffee was perfect. I swooned as I gazed affectionately at the young man that had created this perfection. While I don't like to hold a grudge, I knew that I would never return to the McD's near my house. I had found the perfect iced-coffee-maker-supremo.

Now, this new location has a very busy drive-through so I opt just to go in. Wouldn't you know, that same young man works every morning.

Over the last few weeks, we have developped a je-ne-sais quoi. He is attentive. He knows that I will ask for 1 splenda, and that I stir it with the straw as opposed to wasting a plastic spoon. He knows that I'm there at precisely 6:30am, and comments when I'm late. He notices when I miss a day, and asks where I was. On Monday's he asks if I had a good weekend. Icing on the cake? Today when he spotted me in the line, and had my iced-coffee, straw and one package of splenda sitting beside the cash before I even got there.

The point of this long winded post? I love good customer service. Living in a big city, you don't often see it anymore.

A huge thank you to Debbie and the Young Iced-Coffee-Maker-Supremo for making the start to my day pretty excellent each and every day.

Do you have any awesome customer service stories to tell?

Home

I'm back from New York City, and a wonderful time was had by all.

While I was sad to see the trip come to an end, I'm happy to be home and get back back to a normal routine.

I hope to post about my trip sooner than later, but for now, I'll just let you know that no trip to NYC is complete without goofy pics taken in Central Park.

Also added as a 'note to self': These types of action shots are pretty much the worst thing ever for a shoulder injury. Oooops.

Minty arugula, watermelon and feta salad

This is pretty much heaven on a plate. It's simple, light, summery and flavourful.

I may have eaten it for pretty much every meal this week.

All all this to your bowl:

• Arugula


• Mint


• Watermelon


• Cherry/Grape tomatoes


• Feta

Toss with balsamic vinaigrette. You only need a little bit.

BAM!

Trucker Mouth

There are many things about me that are bizarre/quirky/gross/odd/bad

1) I'm addicted to room temperature diet pepsi.
2) I leave my dirty clothes all over the place
3) I listen to songs on repeat until I hate them (Current obsession - Home by Edward Sharpe)
4) My car looks like a graveyard for splenda packets, straw wrappers, dirty socks
5) I swear like a trucker.
Whenever I visit with my Dad, I cannot tell you how many times I hear "Amy, your language".

I wear suits and dresses. I wear heels. I have pretty nails.

But the inner sporty tom boy is always there, and rears it's ugly head in the form of selected 4 letter words.

I had a bad day at the office yesterday, and was chatting with my director informally about it. He said "eff" and I felt a little offended that he swore. He didn't swear at me, just used it in reference to the situation. But when I think back to what I said, I definitely dropped several F-bombs without even realizing it.

This is not classy. I really need to make an effort to clean up my language.

Tell me I'm not the only one who has this little problem?

Stuff

My thoughts are all over the place today. Point form/no pictures it is. Sorry!

- I'm feeling really anxious today. I don't often struggle with anxiety issues, but today I just don't feel like myself. I'm just on edge.

- My shoulder pain is not getting any better, and it actually seems to be migrating from my rotator cuff back to my shoulder blade. Good news is my range of motion has improved significantly.

- Last night, I attended a free style spin class. It kicked my ass. Big time. I'm even feeling it a little bit today!

- I can't believe it's already August the friggin' 16th. Where did summer go? I've been so busy, I don't even feel like summer has arrived.

- While I love all the bells/whistles/pretty finishes in our new house, it dosn't feel like home. Not sure how I can fix that.

- I read this post over at Healthy Ashley, and I got a little teary. I have no idea what I want in the next week, let alone a 10 year vision. Is that ok?

I'm a Debbie Downer today. Sorry 'bout that.

New York City Suggestions?

This is a very old picture, but these are my lovely second cousin's Meredith and Jannah.


They're actually 17 and 14 now.

This is their mom, my cousin/surrogate big sister Debi.

This weekend, we're going here:

Unfortunately my boyfriend(s) are out of town. This makes my heart hurt a little bit.

I've been to NYC a few times in the past, and what I've realized is that no plans are good plans.

Just wing it.

So if you were me and were winging it this weekend, what do you suggest? GO!

Life is good

I spent a much needed weekend away celebrating my friend Amie’s 30th.

No technology. Just friends, laughs, and good times.

Back on the straight and narrow tomorrow.

…oh and the best part? See those shorts? They didn’t fit at the beginning of the summer. #i’mkindofabigdeal

A ‘BBM’ Inspired Meal

Cathy and I had the following conversation over BBM last night:

 

It’s totally normal to BBM about Mmm sauce right?

While at Bulk Barn I also picked up some Israeli couscous.

And with the combination of couscous, zucchini, mushrooms, broccoli, chicken all smothered in Mmm sauce, a delicious meal was created.

Looks terrible, tastes delicious. Trust me.

….thanks for the idea Cat!

Let's talk garbage

Confession: In my former life, using my green bring consisted of throwing green-bin-destined food over the fence.

At our new house there is no fence to throw things over, thus, making the usage of the green bin somewhat necessary.

Ottawa has a 3-bin system. Blue bins for recyclables, black bins for paper, and the green bin for organic waste.

Sounds like a great idea right?

It's a great idea until you end up with fruit fly infestations.

True story: The green bin is outside, so I went to toss a banana peel in it but left the patio door open behind me. When I opened up the lid to the green bin, a swarm of fruit flies flew out....... and directly into my house. Not cool, not cool at all.

I've been having a lot of discussions with colleagues about how they manage their organic waste bins, and most people simply replied "We don't use it".

I'm torn. I love the idea of using the green bin, but the smells and flies make me puke in my mouth.

What kind of garbage system does your city have? Any tips for creating a non-gaggy green bin?

What's for lunch?

Confession: I don't often post my food anymore, because I'm kind of over the whole "here's what I ate" kind of blog.

But for the sake of Monday morning, on tap for today: Diet pepsi, a frozen dinner, CHOBANI (only one container left) cucumber slices, cherries, a banana and a mini Almond-Joy.

I'm not really proud of this lunch, as it resembles a pre-packaged factory. That being said, sometimes I don't think it's the end of the world. Blog-land tends to get a little preachy about what constitutes "healthy eating" and I hate that.

While I'm being honest, I actually LIKE the taste of the Santa Fe Rice and Beans meal and I eat it frequently.

And while I'm in the confessional: I have a diet pepsi every. single. day. Sometimes two.

You know what? I'm kinda proud that even though I have zero time, I like that I can still manage to eat relatively low-cal/healthy/whatever you wanna call it.

Word.

confidence

Confession: I am more self conscious now than I was at 267lbs.

I stuggle each and everyday with the way my body looks; my saggy arms, my pootch, my jiggly thighs, etc etc etc.

I'm not sure what has clicked in my head this week, but it's finally come to the conclusion that I'm my worst critic.

For every bad thing that I see, there is also something good.

Flabby arms < Pretty eyes
Pootch < nice smile
Jiggly thights < an adequate rack

I feel good. I feel strong. I feel happy.

And when it doubt, there's always the self pic in the bathroom mirror to remind me that I'm kind of awesome sometimes.

What's your favorite thing about yourself? Go on.. brag! We deserve a little self-lovin' sometimes!

Butchy vs Shapely

I am smitten for these shoes.

How can I not be, look at them. They are gorgeous.

However, I almost didn’t buy them…. because of my calves.

I grew up on the back of a horse.

I play a lot of sports.

I run.

I work out.

Thus, I have muscular calves.

I am very self conscious about my legs. I think there is a fine line between shapely and butchy and I feel that I lean towards the butchy side.

    

I realize it’s incredibly vain of me (and weird) to post pics of my calves on my blog.

But you know what I decided? I worked damn hard for those legs.

…and I love those damn shoes.

I’m going to wear them and be proud dammit, butchy or not.

And I was runnnnnnning!

I was an angry-girl last night after my little dog park confrontation.

Best way to get rid of anger? Sweat it out!

I had plans to angry-elliptical, but when I got there I started gazing affectionately at the revolving apartus of death.

My shoulder was feeling 'ok', so I decided what the hell.

I kinda rocked it. 45 minutes of angry-running.

Source

Songs/Artists of choice included: Paul Simon, Rage Against the Machine, Marilyn Manson and a crazy techno version of Paint it Black.

I was a sweaty mess, but I felt freaking amazing.

Fast forward to this morning: I need an ibuprofen IV. Shoulder is HATING me.

Lesson learned: There is definititely such thing as "too much, too soon".

Off-leash parks

Let’s step away from the health and fitness world just for a sec, shall we?

I want to talk about something I’m sure many of you can relate to either as a dog owner, or as someone who frequents parks.

I’ve been raving to anyone that will listen about David Barlett Park just outside of Manotick. It’s an absolutely gorgeous park, that happens to be off-leash, which makes is perfect for Jersey!

I must preface this by saying no dog (my dog included) is not perfect. When Jersey’s at the park its play time, thus resulting in not-so-perfect recall.

Jersey and I were walking back to the car, when she saw a couple sitting on a blanket and ran over to them to say hello.

I called her back, only to have the guy start screaming at me “Get your f_cking dog on a leash”.

Real nice talk eh?

I simply replied to him “It’s an off leash park”.

And that’s when the verbal war started.

I can’t recall the exact dialogue but he went on to call Jersey out of control, dangerous, etc etc etc, with a variety of F-bombs thrown in there. Angry-Amy was unleashed (this dosn’t happen ever) I believe I asked him if he “felt like a big man swearing at me in front of (his) girlfriend” and ended the conversation with “If you don’t like dogs try sitting at a f_cking picnic table, or better yet, go to an on-leash park”.

I was FUMING mad.

I’m not one of those dog owners that think I rule the roost, but holy frig man…. You can’t expect to not get approached by dogs when you’re sitting in the ground at the entrance to the park.

And can we talk about this sign just for a second?

It was hanging up on the side of the road being held up with caution tape.

I’m quite confident that this is not official City of Ottawa signage.

Why do people have to hate dog parks so much? I just don’t get it.

US Shopping Trip

It’s a long weekend in Ontario this weekend.

Yes, I just moved to Ontario…. but I still work in Quebec, thus, no long weekend for me. Booo!

Our weekend camping plans got cancelled, and with the Canadian dollar being pretty high right now we decided to head south to do a little retail therapy.

And that we did.

New curtains for the bedroom. Bluey grey/brown, and they match our bedding perfectly. I may or may not have brought a pillow case on the shopping trip to be able to match ‘stuff’.

 

Great sales. At New York and Company.

No shopping trip to the US is complete without Chobani.

 

And pretzel Goldfish.  Maybe we have these in Canada?

 

We have Nature’s Path granola here, but this baby was on sale for $2.29. That is unheard of. It’s usually at least $6.99 here.

 

I was out of my Mineral Veil so I popped into Sephora to pick that up… and somehow a Stella and DKNY rollerballs fell into my car.

And a nail polish from Target for only $8.29.

Confession, one of the main reasons I love going shopping in the US? SHOES!

A pair of Kenneth Cole flats, and some cute summery dressy sandals. Pefect for the office.

The almost 3 hour wait at the border all became worth it when I my eyes saw these beauties.

Jessica Simpson pumps in powder. I died. And had to make them mine, so I did.

It was a good little Saturday. :)