How has your week been? Share something awesome you ate in the comments!
My week has been great. I feel like I’ve found a good work-life balance, and there’s been plenty of time for fun in between working at my ‘real’ job, developing recipes, and exercising!
We celebrated my parents’ birthdays, Father’s Day, and my brother and sister-in-law-to-be’s engagement over the weekend, so there was no shortage of yummy food and good cheer.
On the fitness front, I’ve been cycling to and from work (60 km total), running a couple times a week, doing 15-20 minute yoga videos every morning from my favourite YouTube channel, Boho Beautiful, and lifting weights, too. Not training for any races right now gives me more time to move intuitively and adjust my plans depending on how I am feeling on a particular day. The change of pace has been lovely, but I am equally excited to get back into a structured training program next month!
Here’s a snapshot of what I ate on one recent day:
The In the Buff Smoothie Bowl is a favourite of mine that I turn to again and again in the summer months. It’s a blend of banana, avocado, vegan protein powder, chia, hemp, almond butter, cinnamon, and almond milk. I topped mine with homemade granola, organic cherries, and cacao nibs, and sipped some green juice from Toronto-based Greenhouse Juice as well. Our Whole Foods is now stocking it, so I sometimes pick up one or two when I’m in the mood to spoil myself with some green goodness. I love that their cold-pressed organic juices are lower in sugar than most, and that they come in glass bottles!
After completing Max Cardio Conditioning, a HIIT workout from the Insanity program, I was SO ready for this lunch of a sprouted grain bagel with homemade hummus, organic grass-fed cheddar cheese from Quebec, mustard, tomato, and greens from the farmer’s market, plus some leftover kale Caesar salad from Cookie and Kate’s cookbook, Love Real Food. Plus some mint lemonade kombucha and an apple.
After biking 30 km to work, I downed a banana right before my shift started. Then during break, I had one of my oatmeal peanut butter bars (a recipe that I’m still tweaking!), plus some sheep yogurt with blueberries. I love using Abeego, a reusable food wrap made out of cotton, hemp, jojoba, and pine resin, to wrap my portable snacks and sandwiches.
I got home from work late and still hadn’t eaten a real dinner, so I made some avocado toast and served a few cubes of leftover lemon-pepper tofu, quinoa pilaf, and kale salad alongside. The image quality is terrible due to the artificial lighting, but rest assured that it was more delicious than it looked! Avocado toast is an excellent late-night option: it digests easily and delivers complex carbs and healthy fat- perfect for a restful sleep.
More tasty food we’ve enjoyed over the past couple of weeks:
These roasted zucchini, corn, and tofu tacos with hemp chimichurri from Power Plates by The Full Helping! I can’t get enough of this fabulous cookbook.
Another recipe by The Full Helping: Vegan Lentil Mushroom Lasagna with Cookie and Kate’s kale Caesar.
The Barbecue Tempeh Sandwiches by The First Mess with Rainbow Pepper Peanut Slaw by Blissful Basil.
My best friend Victoria and I are both quite the foodies! For our picnic last week, I made a kale salad and my chocolate chunk blondies, and she made hummus, quinoa taco meat, and plantain tortillas! We kept it zero waste by bringing our own bowls, containers, and utensils, and I wrapped the blondies in Abeego!
I was craving a change at breakfast the other morning, so I made this breakfast banana split! To make, slice a banana in half lengthwise, then fill with a few spoonfuls of yogurt and top with berries, hemp hearts, cacao nibs, and peanut butter!
I made this for breakfast on Father’s Day: Better than Bulletproof Coffee and Banana Oat Pancakes topped with organic grass-fed butter, blueberries, and maple butter.
Our celebration dinner on Friday: Greek Pizza and Anything Goes Kale Salad.
And finally, these cupcakes! I made My New Roots chocolate birthday cake into cupcakes, and they turned out beautifully. I forgot to snap a photo of the final frosted product, so this will have to suffice! The best feedback came from my brother: “I don’t usually like vegan cakes, but you can’t even tell that these are vegan!”
Well, folks, that’s a wrap for tonight! I’ll leave you with a pretty picture that I snapped during my long run the other day.
