Woman in Real Life

I love to sample new natural and organic products. And I love to save money on my grocery shopping! That's why I always keep an eye out for the Healthy Shopper coupon book at my local health food store. It contains loads of coupons for the natural and organic products I prefer to buy for my family.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to receive this package, pictured above, recently. The nice people at the Healthy Shopper sent me their healthy picks for the fall of 2013. The package contains products from some of my family's favourite companies, like Pamela's. I'm looking forward to using the flour blend and the chocolate cake mix. Both are wheat and gluten-free.

It's Wednesday and it feels like the start of summer around here. After a few cold days, we are back into a couple of steaming hot days. If only we could go to the beach! But the kids are in school and there is work to be done.

We are starting to get a little bit into fall cooking. I made a vegetable soup the other night. I love the ease of preparing soup. For another dinner, my husband made roasted vegetables and rice, which we enjoyed with Gardein Mandarin Orange Crispy (fake) Chick'n, pictured above.

By now, we all know how important it is to eat breakfast. I don't know about you, but sometimes I just don't feel like eating first thing in the morning. So, I picked up a box of these healthy organic food bars from Taste of Nature (at Costco). They make for a simple, portable breakfast snack with protein, fibre and all natural ingredients including nuts, raisins, sesame seeds and agave nectar. And, they taste good too!


For my birthday, my parents generously gave me the money to buy this Keurig platinum edition coffee brewer (also from Costco). I don't really drink coffee, but I will have the occasional decaf, and this machine can be used with many kinds of tea as well. So, I can now pair my quick food bar with a very quick tea! Today I enjoyed a Chinese green tea.

The kids and I enjoyed a quick lunch at my parents this weekend. I made a simple vegan pizza using spelt dough and pizza sauce I got at the health food store, topped with Daiya vegan cheese. The kids had tortilla chips baked with real cheese and dipped in salsa. I added leftover tofu that I had baked in teriyaki sauce and olive oil the night before, along with some baby carrots (which my daughter will only eat dipped in honey).

I had lunch with friends on Monday. I went for a vegetable soup with pesto, which came with potato chips (which I haven't eaten yet). My friend bought me the root beer for my birthday.

My husband made me a vegan chocolate cake using light spelt flour and topped it with some vegan buttercream icing. It's hard to tell in this photo, but the icing is pink. It clearly came out a little thin, but I never think that's much of a problem. We just put extra icing in a little jug and poured it on our individual slices.