I saw this recipe for “Chef Meg’s Creamy Grilled Strawberry Sandwich” a while ago and because it sounded so delicious I decided to try it out, though I did make some modifications. And I’m just now getting around to posting about it, lol. But this recipe is very tasty.

I follow the basic idea of the recipe, but I only use two tablespoons of cream cheese instead of three, and I use a tortilla instead of pita bread. The tortilla is more calories than the pita bread, but it’s what I usually have on hand; when I get around to buying pita bread, I’ll try it the original way. Also, each time I’ve made it I’ve not stuck to the exact amount of fruit in the recipe, but just had as much as I liked. Sometimes a little more and sometimes less than called for in Chef Meg’s original recipe, but I always measure it for calorie counting. I think I have a little less fruit actually in the tortilla than is originally called for because I find that using less cream cheese and less fruit in the tortilla is a lot easier; the whole thing kinda falls apart reapply quickly and my George Foreman Grill gets really messy when I have too much in the tortilla itself. So once I’ve portioned out my fruit and put some in the tortilla, I just have the rest on the side with a little bit of whipped cream (only adds an additional 10-15 calories, depending on how much and what kind).

It’s also good with blueberries.

It may make me sound materialistic to say I’m excited about new stuff, but John and I have been shopping and to be honest I am kind of excited by some of our new things.

First off, I’ve slowly started to acquire some new fitness equipment. I got a stability ball, some hand weights (3 lbs.), and three resistance bands. So far I like the resistance bands and weights, though I haven’t done much with the stability ball yet. That will come though. I think these new items will really help my strength training.

I finally went to a watch and jewelry repair shop to the get the battery changed in my stopwatch & heart rate monitor. Technically, this heart rate monitor isn’t new; I’ve had it for probably 3.5 or 4 years now, but I haven’t used it in at least 2 years, since the battery died. I didn’t have a screw-driver small enough to change the battery and didn’t even know what kind to get, so I kind of forgot about the poor little guy. But now that the watch part of the heart rate monitor is all powered up again, it feels like I got a new toy and I’m excited to start using it to time my runs, help calculate calories (a bit different then the calories burned estimates that this other website is giving me thus far…), etc.

John and I haven’t gotten any new games in a while, so we made a trip to GameStop. John got a few new Xbox 360 games, I think Fallout New Vegas, Final Fantasy XIII, and Assassin’s Creed. I got two games for the PSP (Pata-Pon 2 and Pata-Pon 3) as well as some new walking game for the Nintendo DS that I haven’t figured out yet. The game comes with two little pedometers, and then those connect to the DS where it collects the data and shows feedbacks on your steps, etc. I had wanted to get a pedometer, but making it more of a game seemed like an even better idea; I love games, and I love getting “points” and scores and things like that for my fitness, so this Nintendo DS walking game seemed right up my alley.

I also got a new bento box, and finally I have a microwaveable one! So that’s really awesome. I also ordered some elastic material (like the kind they have in waistbands) to make bands to keep my bento boxes together, since not all of my boxes came with one. I’ll probably need new chopsticks soon, and maybe an extra carrying case too, since my chopsticks keep disappearing somehow.

On a somewhat different note, but still related to shopping, I’ve noticed some changes in our grocery habits over the past month, and I like them. One, we’re shopping more often, which is a good thing for various reason, but the most important have to do with produce. Before, we would shop only once every 2 or 3 weeks, which was frustrating because either our produce would go bad before we could eat it, or we only bought enough produce to last us a few days (specifically so it wouldn’t go bad before we could eat it), but then we’d have no fresh produce for another 2 or so weeks. Also, it gets us to clean out the fridge more often. Things like that. I’ve also noticed us buying a lot more fruits, vegetables and fresh foods more often — though admittedly, that could also have to do with certain fruits being in season, and thus, on sale.

Anyway, happy about our recent purchases.