Costco Loot!

Well the Lu-ster had me up early this morning needing to go outside and it was just in that early part of the morning where the light was beginning to come out and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep even though I was tired :-( I was looking forward to that extra two hours to sleep in which make a world of difference, but nope…I suppose she’s just trying to break me in for being a mommy someday ;-)

So I got up, made some coffee and watched an episode or two of Everyday Italian on the DVR and then I got to business and worked up a good sweat on the elliptical :-) (yay me!)

After that I was anxious to whip up a hearty bowl of oats and was excited to show you guys my new set of bowls that go along with my new plates I got a week or so ago. Eventually I’ll build up the full set because I just love them! These really are the serving dishes for the set, but I think they are fun to use as regular bowls and plates too. I think they’re so adorable:

Breakfast Oats today included real almond butter because I hadn’t had that since last weekend and I worked up a good sweat to accommodate the extra calories. Mmmmmm! Today’s combo:

• 1/3c oats
• 1/2c Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
• 1/2c water
• 1/2 banana chunked and cooked in the pot
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp flax meal (heaping)
• splash of vanilla
• splash of Amaretto Agave Nectar
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 tbsp Chocolate PB2
• 8g toasted sliced natural almonds
• 6g chocolate chips
• 10g almond butter on the spoon

Even though I was up early still, it ended up being a late breakfast after I sipped coffee and did my workout, so instead of having a Lunch I ended up with a few Snacks spread out since I was running around town doing errands with hubby.

Before we left I supremely enjoyed a Deep Chocolate Vitamuffin warmed in the microwave frosted with a generous serving of PB2 = heaven:

Hubby wasn’t as keen as I was to make sure that he had a proper breakfast before leaving the house, so he wanted to run through the Tim Horton’s Drive-thru for his breakfast on our way out and about. I ended up with a tea with milk:

We went and picked out some carpet since we’re doing a few minor home reno’s this winter and then we found ourselves at Costco. I love going to Costco, but Saturday, afternoon’s notsomuch! Before braving the madding crowds, I had a Snack of the best Larabar I have ever tried! Meet my new favourite Larabar BFF, the Coconut Cream Pie – ta da:

I got a few goodies while at Costco too! One of them being this tub of pimento jalapenos stuffed with feta. They are packed in oil, but are only 25 cals each. I thought these would make a great addition to a salad or a sammie or chopped up in pasta, so I thought I’d give them a try:

They ended up having these humongous tiger shrimp there too, so I decided to give these a try in a shrimp pasta combo for Supper. I wanted to use up the rest of the stir-fry mix and the greens I had in the fridge to make room for my new Costco loot!

The pasta ended up including:

• giant tiger shrimp sauteed in EVOO, garlic and splash of lemon juice & wine
• low sodium chicken broth
• stir-fry mix: red pepper, red onion, mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower
• greens: bok choy, red swiss chard, arugula
• part skim ricotta cheese
• 2 feta stuffed jalapenos, sliced
• fresh basil leaves
• tomato

Hubby had a buffalo chicken pizza he got at Costco and I tried some with my pasta and it was really good! There wasn’t much on it by way of toppings, but you could definitely spruce that up if you wanted to. The crust was pretty thin. I ended up going back for another piece later, which in retrospect wish I hadn’t because I only did it for the taste of it and not because I was still hungry :-S It could have been worse I suppose.

Hubby also got these 100 cals packs of these little guys and few other kinds. *sigh* I did only have ONE!

I cut and cleaned up my new bunch of red swiss chard and put it in the produce rubbermaid container to use up this week:

I also stocked up on some nice fresh and plump blackberries too :-):

OH AND GUESS WHAT ELSE THEY HAD:

I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THEY HAD POMEGRANATE SEEDS ALL PREPARED AND PACKAGED!!! I bought two packs which was 4 containers. And I have to eat them fairly quickly because the best before date is Jan 29th! I knew that when I bought them, but I bought them anyway because I love them so much! Be prepared to be seeing lots of pom & blackberries in my yogurt this week!

And since I was feeling “snacky” this evening, I didn’t want to be snacking on those refined sugary 100 cal packs that hubby wanted, so I made myself a little dish of berries and pom seeds to nibble on:

OH and I have always tried to find real vanilla beans to use for baking or to try in my oatmeal and have never ever saw them anywhere, but Costco had them! They came in these little cigar-type tubes to keep them fresh. I can’t wait to use them to see what the real vanilla flavour will be like :-D

And that is it for today, my lovelies! It’s time for me to get caught up on my BLBE WI’s!

Go A-TEAM!!!