Lisaopolis.comA Nurse's Journey to a Healthy and Balanced Life

Lately I just can’t seem to get eat enough oatmeal. I have been eating it every weekday for several weeks now. Sometimes I even contemplate having it twice a day. I don’t ever let myself though.  I love the texture, and taste of this yummy breakfast. Adding almonds to it gives it the perfect crunch.

The oatmeal I have gone gaga for is Western Family Organics Oatmeal, the maple and brown sugar variety. Each packet has 190 calories (which I increase dramatically with the almonds I eat it with).

This oatmeal is made with pretty pure ingredients which makes it a big winner in my eyes. This oatmeal contains (organic whole grain rolled oats, organic evaporated cane juice, natural flavor, sea salt, organic maple sugar, organic light brown sugar).

I have never been some one who is really big on eating organic, but I do try to eat foods with the purest ingredients possible. I don’t like eating foods that have ingredients listed that are difficult to pronounce. If I have to ask “what is that” for something listed in the ingredients the food looses much of whatever appeal it had.

What are your favorite varieties of oatmeal?

I recently tried some Ryvita Muesli Crunch crisp bread for the first time, and I was pleasantly surprised. I expected a dry, hard, crunchy bread like cracker. However that was nothing like what I experienced. When I took my first bite of a Ryvita Muesli Crunch  I was delighted by the lightly sweet, crunchy, but still moist enough, crisp bread. It reminds me a lot of a granola bar, but ten times better, much less sweet, and so healthy. These crisp breads are loaded with seeds, which I thought might make them too seedy, but they use the perfect amount of seeds in their Muesli Crunch.

I am so addicted to these crisp breads that I have on average 2-4 per day!! I know I should probably cut back a bit, but it’s difficult to, when I know they are quite healthy!

Ryvita Muesli Crunch gets top marks for nutrition in my books. Here are the ingredients:
whole grain rye flour, currants (14%), whole wheat flour, brown sugar, pumpkin seeds (5%), sunflower seeds (5%), whole grain oat flakes, kibbled rye, and honey.

The nutrition facts of the Muesli Crunch bring a smile to my face. They are based on two slices of crisp bread. There are 130 calories in 2 pieces. I think that is a very nice number. There is only 2g of fat! Most impressively there are 0 mg of cholesterol. The sodium content is low at 10 mg or 1% of your daily intake. There are 24g of carbohydrates or 8% of your daily intake. There are 3g fiber or 12% of your daily intake.

The Ryvita Muesli Crunch crisp bread is one snack I will be buying again! I also plan on trying many of the other Ryvita crisp breads shown on the package.

Have you tried Ryvita crisp breads? What do you think of them? Do you have a favorite variety of Ryvita crisp breads?

As mentioned in a previous post I recently discovered that there is a good possibility I have an allergy to soy and soy products. Since then I have been trying hard to avoid all products that contain soy. Since then I have found out that soy in some form is in almost everything!

This evening I wanted to have a warm drink after dinner so I decided to have some hot chocolate. I was going to have my Nestle Carnation hot chocolate but after reading the ingredients I was put off it. One of the 17 ingredients listed was hydrogenated vegetable oil (which may contain coconut, palm kernel, and or soybean oil). Why does a hot chocolate powder need to have oil in it?

I was pretty annoyed to learn  that my stand by hot chocolate even has soy products in it. I decided to check out the ingredients on my gourmet hot chocolate that was a Christmas gift from my boyfriend a year ago. I was very happy to learn that there are no soy products in my most treasured hot chocolate flakes. These chocolate flakes came from the Chocolate Trading Company over in the UK. There are only 4 ingredients in this hot chocolate! It contains: fine dark chocolate flakes 72% cocoa, cane sugar, cocoa butter, and bourbon vinilla pod. I made myself a mug of hot milk immediately and had a lovely cup of my favorite hot chocolate. In the past I often had the Nestle hot chocolate instead of my chocolate flakes because I only have a limited amount of my gourmet hot chocolate so I like to save it for special occasions.

Here is my gourmet hot chocolate from the Chocolate Trading Company

Each mug of hot chocolate requires 1-2 heaped dessert spoons of chocolate flakes. I find that this is the perfect amount of chocolate. I love this hot chocolate because it’s not too sweet, it’s a little taste of chocolate heaven. Best of all it doesn’t have any soy products in it!

I don’t have much left in my package of chocolate flakes, but I am pretty sure I’ll be buying some myself from the Chocolate Trading Company when they are all gone!

A couple days ago I decided to have a frozen meal for lunch. I chose my Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Italian Cheese Ravioli. This was my first time having this entrée, so it was an interesting experience.

The box describes this meal as “Ricotta and Romano cheeses in a hearty tomato sauce”.

The nutritional information is what sold me on this ravioli. There is 20% of your daily intake of calcium in this one meal! That is tons. Since I know I never get enough calcium, this one piece of information was enough to sell me on this pasta in its self. Calorie wise this entrée scored well in my books having only 260 calories.

The box states to microwave the meal for 4-5 minutes. I microwaved it for 4 minutes and it was perfectly cooked.

I was very pleased with the portion size of this frozen meal. There were 7 pieces of stuffed ravioli in the dish, and plenty of sauce. Seven pieces doesn’t look like much or sound like much, but it was quite filling! This meal filled me, and kept me full as long as it should have (unlike the shrimp scampi from a little while back that didn’t keep me full for more then 2 hours).

Taste wise I would give the Italian Cheese Ravioli a 9/10 (ten being the best possible score). The pasta was just delightful, and the sauce was as hearty as the box describes it.

The only downsides of this entrée are: the amount of sodium in this meal 580 mg or 24% of your daily intake, and the amount of  cholesterol 40 mg.

Despite the down sides of this pasta, I will be buying Stouffer’s Lean  Cuisine Italian Cheese Ravioli again! It’s the perfect meal for work or just a lazy day at home when you don’t feel like cooking!

This afternoon, I wasn’t in the mood for leftovers for lunch. I decided to have one of my frozen meals. I chose my Michelina’s Harmony Shrimp Scampi.

The package describes this entrée as “pasta in a light wine sauce with shrimp, tomatoes and carrots”.

I bought this frozen meal because I liked that it had shrimp in it. I have a new found love for shrimp and prawns. Price wise it seemed reasonable at $2.99, so I was sold on that.

Here are my thoughts on this pasta.

The directions on the package state to microwave the shrimp scampi for 3 minutes. That was exactly what I did, and it was way too long! I ended up dropping the package (and catching it luckily) because it was too hot. I think 2 minutes would have been a much more appropriate cooking time.

I was amazed at how little food was in the box. I don’t expect frozen meals to be that big, but this was the smallest amount of food for the size of the box that I have ever seen! What I found interesting was that there was a seemly huge amount of sauce for the very small amount of noodles. That is one thing Michelina’s could improve on. Add more pasta please! There was about 6 or 7 pieces of shrimp in the box which wasn’t much but I didn’t expect much as far was that goes. There was quite a bit of carrot (compared to everything else) and almost no tomato in this meal.

Taste wise it tasted very good. I would give it top marks for frozen meal taste.

Health wise the shrimp scampi didn’t fare well in my books. There are 280 calories in the whole package (which would be okay if the package actually filled you reasonably). There is 6 g of fat in this meal. That sounds great, but the 40 mg of cholesterol and 590 mg of sodium (eik, scary) don’t. The health pluses include 11 g of protein, and 15% of your daily intake of iron, and vitamin A.

I enjoyed the taste and texture of the shrimp scampi greatly, but everything else about it didn’t impress me. I won’t be buying this frozen meal again.

The afternoon I was not in the mood for cooking. I decided to make a frozen meal for lunch. I made a package of Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine Cheese Cannelloni.

The package describes the entrée as cheese cannelloni with 6 cheeses (the cheeses are ricotta, cottage, part skim mozzarella, parmesan, asiago, and boliviano) and a delicate tomato sauce. It also says that there are no preservatives in the food.

Here are my thoughts on this pasta.

The directions on the package state to microwave the cannelloni for 3-5 minutes. I cooked my cannelloni for 4 minutes in the microwave and that seemed to be the perfect amount of time for it. I was impressed with the relatively quick cooking time.

Taste wise the cannelloni is very yummy. The cheeses blended together create a delightful flavor. The tomato sauce is also very good. It contains real pieces tomatoes and onion.

My only criticism of this cannelloni is that there is way too much sauce for the amount of pasta. My suggestion to Stouffer’s would be to just use less sauce (it would be just as good with less) or add one more cannelloni in the package (there seems to be room) and increase the price if you have to. I know I would still buy this frozen meal even if it was more expensive.

Heath wise this entrée scores well in my books. In the tray (pasta and sauce) there are 240 calories (that is a pretty nice number). There are also 5g fat (8% of your daily intake), 15 mg cholesterol (not so good, but you can’t win everything), 650 mg sodium (27% of your daily intake), and 25% of your daily intake of calcium! The amount of calcium in the meal alone has me sold on it.

Stouffer’s Cheese Cannelloni is a tasty quick meal idea. It is filling enough for a meal, and fairly low in calories. It is also high in calcium.

I would recommend this frozen entrée to all pasta lovers who need a quick meal.

Today I was in the mood for chocolate. Since I still have a lot of the chocolate my boyfriend gave me for Christmas I decided to have some of that. I chose to have a Mister Booja Booja Organic, Dairy Free Champagne Truffle from the Chocolate Trading Company.

Before tasting my truffle I cleared my mouth with some cool filtered water.

These chocolate truffles are made with dark chocolate (cocoa solids 56%, cane sugar, soy lecithin, vanilla), coconut oil, corn syrup, and organic French champagne (9%).

Here are my impressions on these truffles.

Upon opening the box I smelled rich dark chocolate. Visually each truffle is lightly dusted in coco powder. Upon tasting a truffle I tasted pure luxurious dark chocolate. The texture is silky smooth. As the chocolate gradually melted in my mouth I tasted the pure champagne. The champagne was a distinct yet not overpowering flavor. It was the perfect amount of champagne to tantalize the taste buds.

The experience of sampling a Booja Booja Champagne Truffle was that of pure ecstasy.

Its was like taking a trip to a world of sensuality. It’s melt in your mouth joy.

I would recommend these truffles to all truffle lovers! If you are a lover of chocolate with a hint of alcohol of any kind you will likely love these amazing truffles.

To learn more about these truffles check out this website www.BoojaBooja.com

Indulge your senses in a little taste of heaven.

A few months ago I was at Costco browsing in the frozen food section. I found some potato skins by TGI Fridays that seemed appealing so I bought them. They have been sitting in the freezer ever since.

Today I decided to give them a try.The box directions said to bake them in the oven for 11-12 minutes. I was impressed with the quick baking time.

The potato skins are stuffed with cheddar and bacon. I had a few hot out of the oven. They were slightly crispy on the outside and nice and soft in the middle.

I had them with some mild salsa. However even with salsa they seemed like they were missing a “zing” to them. Maybe I just thought they would be more flavorful then they were. Maybe if I had eaten them with a medium salsa that would have given me the “zing” that I was hoping for.

Nutrition wise the potato skins have 70 calories in each potato skin or 210 calories in three skins. They also have the following (in three skins): 12 g fat, 25 mg cholesterol (ouch), 15% sodium 360 mg, and 10% calcium ( I thought this was a very good thing for me).

Overall I did enjoy the potato skins, however since they were missing a “zing” in flavor that I was hoping for I’m not sure if I would buy them again.

For years I have never liked drinking milk much. I drink about one glass per day on a good day. I have known for a long time that I don’t get nearly enough calcium. I tried taking supplements years ago, but never took more then one or two because I could not stand the taste.

The other day I was at Walmart shopping. I was in the pharmacy section actually looking for a certain type of chap stick that is found there. That is when I stumbled upon what is now my ultimate favorite calcium supplement.

I was checking out the vitamins to see if they had a new kind of calcium supplement that didn’t taste as horrible as the kind I had tried before. Calcium was not on my shopping list nor were any vitamins. This is when I found the perfect calcium supplement for me. It is; Jamieson Swiss milk chocolate soft calcium chews. Each chew has 650 mg of calcium! That is comparable to most other calcium supplements.

I was a little skeptical on how they would taste, but when pleasantly surprised that they taste pretty good.

There are 20 calories in each chew. Granted that is many more calories then in most other calcium supplements but the 20 extra calories are a small price to pay for a supplement that tastes (not just bearable but good!).

I will still have to try to drink my milk as I always do (for the vitamin D) and get as much sun shine for the vitamin D as well (since vitamin D aids in calcium absorption), but I think the added 650 mg of calcium will do my body a lot of good.

Tonight I was in the baking mood. However I didn’t have much energy or ambition, so I decided to defrost some cookie dough. I made my favorite cookie dough; English Bay Double Chocolate Chip Cookie dough into wonderful cookies.

I baked these cookies for 14 minutes. They turned out soft, but slightly crunchy on the bottom. I prefer my cookies very soft. The container says to bake them for 10-15 minutes. Consequently I think next time I will bake them for 12 minutes.

Despite the cookies not being ultra soft, they were still an exquisite treat for the taste buds.

I had my cookie with a small glass of skim milk.

I would recommend this cookie dough to all chocolate lovers! It is a must try.