Happy New Year every­one! Hope you all enjoyed a great hol­i­day season.

I know I haven’t been post­ing reg­u­larly over the last few weeks but now that we’re head­ing back to work tomor­row, I promise to get back to it as per usual. Lots of recipes and work­outs to come!

Yes­ter­day, I went to my local health food store to pick up a few things and came upon a really neat prod­uct that I thought I’d share with you.

Hi every­one!

Sea­sons Greet­ings to you and yours!

Hope these past few days have been filled with lots of won­der­ful fam­ily time, deli­cious hol­i­day meals and some well deserved rest and relaxation.

Last Thurs­day, my hubby and I flew to NYC and enjoyed a lovely week­end together. What a great city, espe­cially at this time of year. The hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions and store win­dows were truly amazing.

Happy Sun­day everyone!

My day started early, with the alarm going off at 5:45am. I know, it sounds bru­tal but I was excited to get up and get on my way to an indoor char­ity ride for a friend of mine, Eon D’Ornellas. Eon is a 4X olympian and 2X Cana­dian national road bike cham­pion. He also owns the best bike shop in the city, D’Ornellas. No one knows cycling or has as great a pas­sion for it like Eon. If you’re in the mar­ket for new wheels, he’s the man you need to see. His story though, is truly inspi­ra­tional and is the rea­son why I got my butt (and my hubby’s) out of bed so early on a Sun­day morning.

Hi every­one,

Just wanted to give a shout out to my Dun­field spin class, from this morn­ing. I put them through a tough inter­val class, at race pace, and did they ever make me proud! Great work guys!!!

For those of you who know me well, you know that I LOVE to cook. Funny enough, this is no secret to all of my kids friends who enjoy com­ing over to my house for home-​cooked meals and my unbeat­able chewy choco­late chip cook­ies. No, those aren’t diet friendly, but boy, are they ever good!

So this after­noon, I was on duty for both my daughter’s hol­i­day potluck din­ner (chicken soup & matzah balls, green beans in chili gar­lic sauce) with her camp cabin and my son’s hol­i­day party with his hockey team (yep, you guessed it — choco­late chip cook­ies!) on Sunday.

While the cook­ies are very yummy, I’m only going to share the green bean recipe with you because hon­estly, do we really need more cook­ies, this time of year???

This recipe can eas­ily be pre­pared with broc­coli, snap peas, zuc­chini or bok choy. I made extra for tonight’s din­ner of hoisin glazed salmon.

Green Beans with Chili Gar­lic Sauce

1 lb. green beans, tops and tails removed

2 Tbsp oys­ter sauce

2 Tbsp chicken broth

1 Tbsp chili gar­lic sauce

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp fresh gin­ger, grated

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

1. In a medium-​sized pot, over high heat, steam beans cov­ered (about 1 minute), in about an inch of bol­ing salted water.
2. Drain beans in a colan­der and rinse with cold water.
3. In a small bowl, com­bine sauce ingre­di­ents; set aside.
4. In a large skil­let, warm green beans over medium heat; add sauce and sesame seeds and toss well.

Hi every­one!

Hope you enjoyed that brief stretch of mild weather.…Today was down­right chilly! I guess there’ll be plenty more of it on its way so there’s no use in com­plain­ing. Winter’s com­ing whether we like it or not!

On my way home today, I stopped off at my local health food store for a few of my daily do’s and thought I might share them with all of you.