Nutritional Yeast Experiment

Don't you love when you try a new cooking experiment, and it actually works?

Well I just finished enjoying my very first nutritional yeast experiment, and I would definitely re-do this lunch another day!

They use my favorite Suzie's grain products. I used the corn thins, but you can pretty much use any cracker or flatbread you have in the pantry.

'Pizza' Thins

Pre-heat oven to 400 F

So I put four suzie's thincakes crackers down in a baking dish

Topped with Medium Salsa

Sprinkled with 1 tbsp Nutritional Yeast flakes, garlic, cilantro

Drizzled a little Italian dressing on top

Put in Oven for about 8-10 minutes

Before Going in oven

After going in Oven

Enjoyed with my half eaten Salad

I got a little impatient waiting for them in the oven, so my salad is half eaten in the picture. Either way, they were WORTH THE WAIT!

Is it too early to have these again tomorrow? I must be having a good day, because I also managed to finally get a good picture of the protein pumpkin eggwhites I introduced in my first post.

Here's the recipe again - incase you missed it!

PROTEIN PUMPKIN PUDDING

-1/2 cup canned pumpkin

-1/4 cup egg white

-2 tbsp Almond Breeze

-1 tbsp of your favorite protein powder 

-Stevia and cinnamon to taste (I use ALOT of cinnamon)

Mix it all up, and microwave for about 4-5 minutes (depending on your microwave strength

In the above picture, I have smothered my protein powdered WF peanut spread. I can not get enough of these. Literally I still haven't gotten tired of them!

Have you ever tried nutritional yeast? What are your favorite things to make with it?

How a Final Exam Day is like a Race Day

So, I've been reading a lot about people's pre-race day and race-day schedules. Today, being my first final exam of the semester I noticed that there are quite a few parrallels between exam days and race days:

• You have to make sure you don't forget anything important

There is a lot to remember to pack! Especially if it's open book or aid sheet. When you cram on as much as possible on an aid sheet you got to take extra care of it. Especially to make sure nothing spills!

 Just to give you an idea of how tiny I actually write on these aid sheets, look at the comparison of it beside my original notes:

You also can't forget the essentials: pens, pencils, student identification, and public transit money!!

• You can't drink a litre of water right before the event

I learned this one the hard way. There is nothing worse then sitting through a 3 hour exam with a bladder thats about to burst. 

You can however have a nice caffeine boost. Here is my favorite pre-exam caffeine boost: Coffee-CokeZero. Just don't have too much - because the bladder thing still holds 

For some reason this combination has some amazing froth action going on, and it's not the type of bubbles that disappear like plain soda - they're the kind that stick around right till the end :)

• You have to eat properly beforehand

Just like on race day this means no strange new foods. Perhaps there is something worse then having a full bladder: that would be having a bowel thats about to explode. 

Sitting a three hour exam also means that you must eat enough to tie you over! Especially when you have to tack on an hour to the beginning and end for transportation. 

Today this meant a filling early lunch with lots of veggies and sheritaki noodles, and pistachios mixed in.

And a big bowl of puffed kamut, puffed millet, hemp hearts, protein powder, almond breeze, and strawberries.

As well as all the other things such as almonds, and an apple I grabbed going out the door!

• You got to get in the mindset

Especially if it's the type of exam, where they are testing whether or not you have your thinking cap on. I always go for a run in the morning if my exam is in the afternoon. Here is how todays turned out:

I think I have to calibrate my Nike+ sportband, because according to mapmyrun it sensed it wrong. Also the sensor seemed to do something really strange on the big downhill part of my run, but I'm going to do another post on this run later so stay tuned!

Do you have any 'day of exam' advice?

Eggwhite Dill Puffs

So I've been a bit obsessed with Dill recently. I bought some fresh - and I've been putting it on a lot of things. Hense the dill topped on cottage cheese as a cracker topping a few days ago.

Eggwhite Dill Puff

Welcome eggwhite Dill puffs, I think I will be enjoying their company a lot more often! They were yummy

Literally all I had to do was mix up: eggwhites, dill, garlic then microwave for about 1:30 min

Afterwords back to the books. But I had an unwanted visitor: A MILLIPEDE

I wish it was on the floor cause then Holly (my dog) would have hunted it down and ate it.
Yes- It is gross that my dog eats insects...but it's also convenient

Weather Woes and Wildwood noodles

So I recently came across these packages of WildWood PastaSlim noodles at Noah's Natural Foods

The first time I tried them...well lets just say they didn't turn out so great...but once you've experimented with them a bit they are actually pretty good!

It pretty much turns out a bit different each time I make it, just depending on what veggies/protein I decide to throw in. It ranges anywhere from corn to peas and from shrimp to black beans. It's really quite versatile! This is how it turned out today:

It's even got scrambled eggwhites mixed in, seasweed steamed on top, and fresh ginger and garlic in the mix. It was absolutely DELISH.

Too bad it didn't sit to great for my afternoon run. It wasn't horribly uncomfortable, just felt like it was taking a long time to digest, perhaps I put in too much ginger.

The run only went alright, but I'm getting tired of running inside. I want real pavement beneath my feet, and trees to look at. Come on Canada, why are you behaving so stereotypically? It really is like the north pole up here. When I woke up this morning, the news (Breakfast Television) told me it was -15C with the windchill. Needless to say, I will not be running outside until the weather changes into something much more acceptable.