Jogging My Memory

Hi there friends!

About a week ago, I came into contact with the wonderful people at Earth Café. I was immediately impressed by the friendliness of the company as well as their overall mission to create delicious, organic, vegan, gourmet desserts!

Craig at Earth Café offered to send me some samples of their vegan, gluten-free cheesecakes to taste and review, and I couldn’t pass up that opportunity!

I received four different flavors of cheesecake to try:

• Rockin’ Raspberry Cheesecake
• Cali Style Lemon Cheesecake
• Cherry Dream Cheesecake
• Strawberry Fields Forever Cheesecake

Earth Café’s Cheesecakes are organic, raw, vegan, and gluten-free. They are dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, cholesterol free, and contain no refined sugars and no hydrogenated oils. And best of all, they are made with love (the label told me so!)

The Cheesecakes include ingredients such as soaked cashews, coconut, coconut butter, agave nectar, soaked pecans, soaked walnuts, vanilla bean extractive, cinnamon, lecithin, and sea salt.

My first Earth Café Cheesecake experience was with the Rockin’ Raspberry Cheesecake.

The first thing I noticed when I put the cheesecake on my plate was the layer of fresh raspberries. I was very excited to take my first bite, and it did not disappoint! The filling was light and creamy, the raspberries sweet and a little bit tart, and the crust nutty and crumbly.

I was so impressed that I immediately twittered this message to Earth Café: Craig, I just tried my first bite of the Rockin Raspberry Cheesecake – it is AMAZING!

My second experience with Earth Café’s Cheesecake involved the Cherry Dream flavor.

I again immediately noticed the layer of fresh fruit – cherries this time! The filling and crust were the same delicious combination from the Rockin’ Raspberry Cheesecake, the difference was in the cherries. They tasted fresh and sweet and gave the cheesecake a slightly different flavor.

My latest Earth Café Cheesecake experience was just this evening where I indugled in the Cali Style Lemon Cheesecake.

This flavor didn’t contain the usual layer of fresh fruit, however that didn’t make it any less amazing than the Rockin’ Raspberry or Cherry Dream. The cheesecake filling had a subtle lemony flavor and the usual creamy and light consistence and the crust tasted just the same as the other flavors.

I only have the Strawberry Fields Forever Cheesecake left to try and I will be sure to let you know my opinion of it when I try it. For now I think my favorite flavor is the Rockin’ Raspberry Cheesecake. The tart sweetness of the fresh raspberries paired amazingly with the nutty crust and creamy filling.

I still can’t believe just how amazing this Cheesecake tastes. I’ve tried many a piece of cheesecake in my day, and I would take this over another cheesecake any day! I love that it is a healthy and yet still gourmet and delicious take on something that is usually so packed with fat and calories. The freshness of the ingredients makes the eating experience all the more enjoyable. I found myself savoring every single bite because the flavors were so pronounced and I felt so satisfied after eating it.

I highly recommend this whether you are vegan, eat gluten-free, or are just looking for an amazing new dessert!

You can find Earth Café Cheesecakes and Desserts in stores using their Store Locator. Or, if you can’t find it in a store near you, you can order the Cheesecakes in the Online Store.

For those of you in the Sacramento area, Earth Café’s Cheesecakes are available at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op!

I hope you all get a chance to try these desserts, they really are fresh and delicious!

On a more personal note, my life has been a little hectic (to say the least) since I’ve started my second semester of law school. I’ve been having a hard time fitting in workouts and my eating has definitely taken a turn for the worst (think lots of candy and comfort foods). I think these changes have had a huge effect on other parts of my life. In order to balance my life out again I’ve decided to take some pro-active steps towards regaining some balance.

I feel so much better when I am active and am able to exercise during the week, but I feel so crunched for time. Today I went and bought the 30 Day Shred at Target.

My challenge for February is to do Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred every day for the next 30 days (until February 28th).

I needed a way to get a quick workout in without feeling like I was neglecting my school work and I wanted to focus some on toning and strengthening. This for me is the perfect way to do that. I plan on doing extra cardio (treadmill, running, or elliptical) a few days each week in addition to the 30 Day Shred, and I may choose to do the video twice some days when I build up more strength.

I did my first 30 Day Shred workout as soon I got home today.

I started out on Level 1 using 3 lb weights. I was surprised at how challenging the strength moves were, and I was very tired by the end of the 20 minutes. I hope that in a week or two I can move up to using my 5 lb weights and doing Level 2.

Feel free to join me in this February 30 Day Shred Challenge! I’ll be updating you every few days on my workouts and progress – a little accountability always makes it easier to stick to it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I hope you all had a great week!

Mine was only a 4 day week, but it felt very long, probably because it was so jam packed with things to do.

That Progresso Soup has really come in handy for quick and healthy meals this week.

I tried two other varieties this week:

Progresso Light Chicken Noodle Soup

1 Serving (2 Servings per Can) = 70 Calories, 1.5 grams Total Fat, 10 grams Total Carbohydrate, 2 grams Dietary Fiber, 5 grams Protein

This soup was brothy, but still chock full of carrots, celery, chunks of chicken and hearty noodles. The oyster crackers I added helped absorb a little of the broth and made the soup even more hearty. I liked that the broth wasn’t overly salty but still had good flavor.

& Progresso Traditional Chicken Noodle Soup

1 Serving (2 Servings per Can) = 100 Calories, 2.5 grams Total Fat, 12 grams Total Carbohydrate, 1 gram Dietary Fiber, 7 grams Protein

My comments from the Light Chicken Noodle Soup all apply to the Traditional Chicken Noodle Soup as well. I couldn’t find a noticeable difference between the Light and Traditional Soups in the taste of the soup or the amount of vegetables, chicken, or noodles in the soup. I think it is great that I can eat the Light version and save 30 calories per serving, and not notice a difference!

I’ve really enjoyed all four of the Progresso Soups that I’ve tried.

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And now for the winner of the Progresso Souper You Debut Gift Pack provided by Progresso through MyBlogSpark…

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

4

Timestamp: 2010-01-24 03:55:46 UTC

Comment Number 4:

julie wrote:

awww your new blog changes sound so fun! 2-3xs a week is perfect i want this soup because i want this muuug

Congratulations Julie!

Email me (julia@joggingmymemory.com) with your address and I’ll pass it on so they can send you your Gift Pack!

Thanks everyone for entering! If you’d like to try Progresso Soups for yourself check out this coupon (in the upper right hand corner of the page) for $1 off 3 cans!

And keep an eye out for more giveaways in the next few weeks, you won’t want to miss them!

*The information, products, and giveaway in this post were provided from Progresso through MyBlogSpark.*

Hey friends!

As you can tell I haven’t posted in almost a week again.

Leaving Tyler and Michigan was much more difficult/emotional than I anticipated and now I’m getting back into the law school groove, which necessitates some big changes in my current blogging habits as well as my life in general.

I’ll post this weekend and let you know the details, but basically I will not be blogging once a day as I was last semester, but will still be blogging regularly. I think it will be a good thing!

I hope you are all doing okay getting back into the school or work groove after the holidays.

Please don’t delete me from your readers and such, I promise to be back to regular blogging after this weekend, and I have some interesting posts planned, so keep an eye out for them!

Have a great rest of the week!