A Sunday Hike

The day started out pretty early, I was up with the birds again. For breakfast, I had a bowl of live active cereal topped with a plum and hazelnut milk. Oh, wow. I really like the hazelnut milk. My next test will be how it fairs with cooking. I read online that it is good for cooking, so we will see.

quick breakfast

After breakfast, some laundry and some time in blog land, we headed out for a day of hiking with our friends, Sarah and Francis. We met at Starbucks and ordered a pick me up for the ride. Since I was a little hungry and knew that lunch was a few hours away, I decided to have a smoothie instead of a latte. I got the mango banana vivanno made with soy milk. It was really filling and was a nice change of pace from the norm.

smoothie

After picking up the treats, we headed to Twin Lakes State Park which is about an hour and a half from home. Once we arrived, we dug out the map and started walking. After about a mile or so we made it to the trail we wanted to hike. Here is the view:

let the trail begin

The trail was poorly marked and we could tell that it wasn’t traveled often. At once point we even lost the trail all together. Here is out lost view:

lost

After some hiking, we found the trail again and really headed into some rough terrain.  Many hills, creeks, bridges, natural stair cases and a bunch of butterfly sitings later, we made it to the end.  Our GPS lost it’s signal a number of times but I had my pedometer, according to it’s count, we had logged about 9,000 steps.  So, my rough gestimate is that we went about 4.5 miles. It was a great workout. After the hike, we settled into a picnic table by the water and had some lunch.

a nice spot for lunch

We had white chocolate dreams peanut butter and strawberry jam on 100% whole wheat bread. On the side, we had edamame boiled with star anise and cantaloupe (Thanks, SED and FJ!).

pb & j

edamame with star anise

cantaloupe

For dessert, we had the trail mix I had made earlier in the day. The trail mix has kashi go lean crunch, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, cashews, dairy free chocolate chips and a load of different dried fruits. This trail mix was so tasty, much better than anything I’ve ever had store bought.

homemade trail mix

After lunch, we headed back home. The dear husband and I had to stop by our favorite store, Target, to pick up some things we had forgotten on Saturday’s trip. Then, we headed home. Once home, we started up the charcoal grill and made dinner. We made fillet mignon, baked sweet potatoes and a salad with spring mix, tomatoes and cukes topped with oil and vinegar. The dinner was really satisfying after a long day in the woods.

steak and potato

After dinner, we did some things around the house and then settled into some Olympic watching. And in my tru from, I was out like a light in no time.

QOTD: What is your favorite form of exercise? Mine is hiking, without a doubt.

I just love Sundays

Sundays are by far my favorite day of the week. Especially when they are slow and easy with nothing but relaxing to do. I started the day with a big glass of chocolate milk to tide me over while making breakfast. My camera batteries died so I don’t have a picture of the milk but it really just looked the same as the milk from Saturday 🙂 For breakfast, I made some blueberry oat muffins. I used whole wheat flour, oat flour and rolled oats. I was a little nervous about mixing up the flours but they turned out great. I had two of them with a little light smart balance. It was my first time using smart balance and I have to say that I liked it. It was smooth and buttery tasting without all the saturated fat of regular butter and without the trans fats of margarine. A nice compromise, I think.

blueberry oat muffins

After the muffins, we packed up a backpack and headed for a short hike. We went to Point of Rocks park which is about 10 miles from home. It has a nice marsh walk and a few miles of trails. The morning was cool so it made for great hiking weather. I’m not exactly sure how far we went because the gps kept losing it’s signal but we were out there for about an hour. If I had to guess, I would say it must have been about 2.5 miles. Here are some nice pictures we took along the way.

the marsh walk

pretty

what a view

After hiking, we headed home for some lunch. I made buffalo sliders; they were tasty! I made two little mini burgers on 100% whole wheat Hawaiian rolls. I topped each with a little lettuce, local tomatoes, pickles, ketchup and mustard. On the side we had some green grapes. It was a satisfying lunch after being in the wilderness 🙂

buffalo soldier...i mean slider

grapes

The afternoon was lovely, we read, watched tv, did some laundry and of course took a nap. When I woke up from my nap, I felt ravenous. I made a small bowl of fage with raspberries and honey. For some reason, the yogurt was very tart so I ended up only eating the berries and the honey. The same thing happened last week and I thought it was the blueberries but now I am thinking something was wrong with that batch of yogurt. Oh well, I have new containers waiting for me in the week ahead.

greek yogurt with raspberries

For dinner, I made tofu parmesan. I drained some of the local tofu I bought on Saturday, sliced it into four slices and then coated it in panko mixed with parmesan, then egg wash and then panko again. I baked the tofu for about 45 minutes so that it was nice and crispy on the outside. I served the tofu over whole wheat angel hair pasta and then topped it with mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce. Alond side the pasta, we had a green salad with oil and vinegar. I think it was the best dinner I had eaten in a long time. It was also the best “oven fried” results I had ever achieved.

tofu parmesan

A couple of hours after dinner, I had a raging sweet tooth. I finally decided to have a small bowl of cocoa bumpers to wipe it out. After my dessert, I was off to dreamland. It had been a perfect Sunday.

cocoa bumpers

QOTD: Do you have a sweet tooth? What do you do when you aren’t hungry but are really craving something sweet?