Challenge J&J recipe #2 & “productive” afternoon

The new challenge got more fun! I’m glad that it brings me excitement as well to some of you 🙂

I made morning berry strata yesterday. It should look like this

ingredients

1. one slice of Rudis honey WW bread

2. Make a mix of: soy milk (1/2 c), 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 2 egg whites, vanilla, cinnamon, sea salt and chopped almonds (1 oz.). Pour over the bread and add 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries

3. Fridge overnight

4. Bake for 30 min and top with Coconut bliss ice cream

it got really spongy 😉

Although the end product doesn’t look like the original one, but it was good, spongy bread, crunchy almond and the addition of ice cream to the just baked goodie hit the spot! 🙂

Toutou and I had a very “productive” afternoon in term of relaxing us from the stressful work. We went to Bethesda downtown, first thing we did was to have some frozen yogurt! 🙂

and then visited some cute stores

We even jogged for 4 miles! 😆 We felt like super woman afterwards.

And we ended going to WF and Tjs for groceries. This week’s food load

I picked  few new ingredients to make recipes next week: beets, artichoke (are they in season now?)

I got some buckwheat! 🙂 Haven’t had this for years!

Do you guys think that’s a lot of food for one person? Toutou asked me again how I put them into my system. I thought I was normal, but apparently not. What do you think? $50-$60 bill in groceries every week for just one person is a lot?

Q: How was your Saturday? Productive?

I was planning to have another “productive” afternoon today, but I just got an email from my authors, apparently we have <12 h. to submit our paper. 😯 so no play for Coco today.

Q: What’s your favorite way to eat Artichoke?

The authentic happiness & some bakings

This book is fascinating! I can’t put it down, already finished 1/3 of it in <24 hs just at lunch and bed time. Whoever wants to learn about Psychology, Happiness and Positive thinking should read this. But caution: this books is written by a Ph.D in psychology, therefore almost everything he says, he backed up with research evidence. I’m a researcher so I’m fascinated but I’m aware that not everyone wants to read research papers in their leisure time to learn how to be happy. But don’t worry, I’ll share with you the best of it. 😉

So what are the questions he wants to answer: (the most important part of any research project! Trust me, it’s the hardest part as well)

Why has evolution endowed us with positive feeling? What are the functions and consquences of these emotions, beyond mking us feel good?

Who has ositive emotion in abundance, and who does not? What enables these emotions, and what disbls them?

How can you build more and lasting positive emotion into your life?

What’s is the difference between positive psychology and hedonics? A hedonist wants as many good moments and as few bad moments as possible in his life, and simple hedonic theory says that the quality of his life is just the quantity of good moments minus the quantity of bad moments. But it is a delusion because the sum total of our momentary feelings turns out to be a very flawed measure of how good or bad we judge an episode to be.

The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, comfort and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who in the middle of great wealth are starving spiritually. And this book is about  how to exercise our strengths and virtues read the authentic happiness.

to be continued…

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Another day of work with 2 computers running and me waiting. I’m cultivating my patience 😉

As you might have expected… more wraps! 😆

guacamole made with onions, tomatoes, black bean and avocado

I learned to first divide the filling into the wraps so I don’t have a over flow on the second one

I even learned to wrap it a real wrap 😉

after a long day of work I felt urge to do some baking. So I made a quiche using spinach, tofu, brown rice and eggs.

roasted some almonds for snack

and baked some black sesame cookies

Ingredients for 20 mini cookies

• 1/2 cup WW flour
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup grounded black sesame seed with sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup silk

Combined everything, sit at the fridge for 20 min and bake for 30 min at 350F

It doesn’t look very pretty… but I really like it because I love black sesame seeds! 😆

It’s Monday but I’m taking half day off today and tomorrow because I friend of mine from Argentina is visiting for 24 hs… so I’ll be giving him a tour 😉

DC, here I come!!!

It’s funny that when I was searching for itinerary, I was more interested on which restaurant to take him 😉

Q: Are you a pessimist or optimist? Do you think it’s an inherited or acquired character?

Don’t miss my General Mills Price Pack Giveaway

Chronic of a “crime”

Suspect: Coco 😕

Crime: Kill day 1 of the second week work plan 👿

Chronic:

Woke up at 5.30AM, exhausted! 😦 Definitely not enough sleep but I had the intention to start working early so as soon as I woke up I got up.

Lovely breakfast: kabocha spiced waffle topped with FitNutz chunky, the best of all three flavors 🙂

8 AM: start to work try to work.

11 AM: stop pretending being productive. I just COULDN’T focus! Okay. maybe a snack session would help! Bad idea 👿

I got to try two products from that Gigantic batch from Newman’s Own Organic.

Product: Fig Newmans

Coco’s take: These are fat free, filled with fruits and used all organic ingredients. It was less sweet than I thought which is a plus, but the flavor and taste overall lack personality. No plus no minus. 2/5

Unsatisfied, I had to try something else. 😦

Product: Newman’s Os

Coco’s take: It is SUPER tasty! The filling is like a chocolate mousse, strong in chocolate flavor and less sweet than usual Oreo’s fillings. I was hooked! 5/5 The downside was that the tasting session ended up with 5 cookies in the belly 😦

After the “tasting” session I couldn’t go back to work anymore! What I did instead? An hour nap at 12PM! When I woke up, I had lunch. Leftovers!

Afternoon study snacking session began

My first Honey crisp apple!

Woooo!!!!! That’s the best apple I’ve ever had! Now I know why you guys love it so much!!! Worth every penny of the $2.49/lb

1/2 box of Dr. Kracker‘s seeded spelt! Don’t ask how the mindless act happened 😦

roasted almonds

And then, I felled into sleep AGAIN :evil:, this time was even longer. 2 or 3 hours? I didn’t wake up until Star called me and it was all dark outside. What heck happened to my body?  too much work/tension last week? too intense was the yoga class? I dunno. 😕

“Dinner“: kale chips

isn’t my baby spoon cute? I need to do a spoon theme post to show you how many spoons I have 😉

and KABOCHA! Love love love how ripped is this one! 😆

‘

Many of you asked me what’s a ripped kabocha? Well… a ripped one has dense texture like sweet potato but less sweet, a not ripped one is similar to pumpkin.

Okay. Finally….the PUNISHMENT: Work harder from tomorrow until completion of this week’s plan.

Q1: Have you committed any “crime” lately?

Q2: Do you take naps? how long?