Woman in Real Life

It seems that spring is truly (finally!) here! The kids and hubby have been joyfully planting seeds by a window in the spare bedroom. They are so thrilled to see the plants starting to pop up. It will be fun to plant them, I guess about the end of May. I am not a gardener by any means.

But I do love to eat! And I love fresh produce. I saw a package at the grocery store this week containing all of these lovely orange, yellow and red tomatoes, above. How could I resist? So pretty and I love the look of the different colours in salads and on sandwiches.


I also stocked up on avocados. The kids loved to snack on avocado slices when they were toddlers and small children, but then there was a spell there when they weren't thrilled with them. I'm happy to report that they seem to be liking them again. We usually put them on top of salads or on veggie burgers.

I bought a whole bag of lemons too because I have been trying to start my days by filling a big water bottle with water and squeezing in some fresh lemon juice. When I get bored with that, I throw in some strawberry slices or raspberries too.


I haven't been doing a whole lot of interesting cooking lately, but I did whip up a batch of the Orange You Glad I Made Crispy Tofu? from Chloe's Kitchen. The whole family really likes the recipe. We serve the tofu on rice.


I also made these breakfast bars from The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Family Cookbook: 150 Healthy Recipes for Meals, Snacks, Sides, Desserts, and More. I'll be doing a review and giveaway of that book soon. For now, suffice it to say I ate almost the whole pan of bars myself!


And now for my weekly look at one full day of vegan eats. I started off Monday with this Cherry Almond Smoothie, made from @daria_veganfood's recipe on Instagram. Only I used peanut butter instead of almond butter, so it's really a Cherry Peanut Smoothie. Delicious either way I'm sure.


No leftovers in the fridge, so I made a sandwich in the Panini press for lunch - I put on vegan cheese, yellow tomato slices, vegan ham and lettuce. Grapes on the side.


In last week's post, I issued a salad challenge. Can you make a salad that contains 12 vegetables, plus herbs and seeds? I since revised it to 12 items TOTAL because 12 veggies is not so easy. So it's 12 veggies, greens, fruits, dried fruits, nuts and seeds. It has really changed the way I look at my salads. Because they were often a bit dull before.

My Monday dinner salad included two kinds of lettuce, packaged shredded cabbage, cauliflower, sunflower seeds, celery, orange and yellow tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, red onion, parsley, strawberries and apples. It was quite tasty I have to say! If you want to join in, you can hashtag your salads #wirlsaladchallenge on Instagram or Twitter. Be sure to tag me @ziajojo.


We topped our salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt.


Later on in the evening I had Morning Crisp chocolate curls cereal for a snack. (I took this picture the next morning because it was brighter outside and I had the same food again.) I topped the cereal with strawberries, bananas, dried cherries, cranberries and blueberries. Even though the cereal has lots of lovely 70% cocoa chocolate curls, I threw in some semisweet chocolate chips too.

When I posted this picture on Instagram during my Tuesday morning breakfast, I got an email from my mom asking me if I was advocating chocolate for breakfast. The short answer is yes. Whatever gets you through the day right? The better answer is everything in moderation and lots of fruits and veggies every day. Okay Mom? (She pointed out that we weren't allowed sugary cereals growing up...which is true. I do remember eating quite a few donuts in the evening though. Ha ha.) It's nice to know that Mom is still looking out for me though.

So weigh in - would you eat chocolate for breakfast?

Health Enthusiasts - be sure to enter these two giveaways!

I have two giveaways going on right now that are sure to appeal to you health-lovin' peeps! Enter to win a package of healthy, gluten-free snack options from SimplyProtein AND enter to win a Natural Calm prize pack from Natural Vitality.



Linking up to: