It’s 2am and I just got home; I’ll just give the important notes.
* Webster is doing fine, he came home with an antibiotic and an order not to worry
* I looooved The Help. I may not have eaten or changed out of my smelly shirt this afternoon, but I read it in its entirety today
* My friends make really amazing food for book club
* I had 3-4 chocolate saltines and 5-6 chips with the most amazing crab dip
* I had two Arnold Palmers made with this!
11 days of freedom! That is, I have 11 days until I have another test or major assignment on my schedule. Woo-who; good thing I’ve got all that tv to watch 😉
Last night was, shall we say, eventful. Just before bed we killed the largest spider I’ve ever seen and it sent adrenaline coursing through my veins. <– Seriously, “woodlouse spider,” Google if you dare. Then Webster got sick at 2:30 in the morning and none of us really ever went back to sleep after that. I made a vet appointment for the dog and a giant coffee for myself.
That’s Godiva Pecan Turtle Coffee (a foodbuzz sample) with Plain Silk Almond Milk and ice. Delish, thought it did mean that my jumpiness continued.
I ate brunch around my breaks in class. A red pear.
Plus a sandwich.
2 slices of Rudi’s Honey Sweet Whole Wheat, with Trader Joe’s mango butter, 2 slices of Applegate Farms Herb Turkey, and a slice of 2% Swiss.
Not that great but at least it kept me fueled. Especially because your brain needs 130 grams of CHO a day to function!
My exam went pretty well, I think. There were a few areas of confusion (on material we were told was not going to be on the exam!) but overall I felt like I knew my stuff.
I never really mind exams; it’s fun to see how much I know, or don’t know! Plus I’m a speed tester so I always finish with time to spare. Having an exam today meant I was released an hour earlier than usual, which is great because I’m on page 21 of The Help and book club is tonight! Gotta get reading!
Click here to read Confessions part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII.
Confession # 1 –
My professor told this joke the other day:
“What do you call a person who talks when no one is listening?
A teacher.”
I laughed so hard I choked.
Confession # 2 – In spite of not being in front of a classroom for 3 years now, I still have my “teacher voice.” The other day I was explaining some material to a group of friends and a classmate sitting nearby remarked that she could tell just from my mini-lesson that I used to be a teacher.
Confession # 3 – Sometimes I’m really sad that I’m not a teacher any more. But then I remember that every nightmare (like sweaty, shaky, wake up and thank God it was just a dream nightmares) I’ve ever had has been about teaching.
Confession # 4 – When I’m in group assignments I have a pesky habit of assigning my group members tasks.
Confession # 5 – Sometimes I look at the other students on campus and think “I am not your peer.” And then I remember that considering my age and background I should be their teacher. This makes it especially hard not to shush them in the library.
Can you guess what I made for dinner today? I’ll give you some hints. It was made in the crock-pot. It was inspired by my favorite meat dish back when I ate mammals, Coca Cola grilled pork at my grandparents’ house.
Any guesses?
Cherry Coke Crock Pot Chicken!
Cherry Coke Crock Pot Chicken, serves 4
Place chicken and soda into crock-pot and cook 4 hours on high. Remove excessive liquid from crock and shred chicken with two forks.
The chicken only ended up with the slightest hint of cherry cola flavor, but it was perfectly tender and juicy. And the smell coming out of the crock-pot was ah-mazing!
We served our shredded chicken on top of a big pile of steamed, frozen spinach. With Cherry Cola Soy Reduction drizzled on top. I boiled Cherry Coke and tamari until reduced by 3/4 then whisked in 1 Tbsp of butter and 1 Tbsp of all-purpose flour at the last minute.
The sauce made this meal!
Speaking of pork,
Pig is no more.
It’s been 2 days, Webster is a beast!
Do you ever cook with cola? What is your favorite way to enjoy a soft drink?
Hello, there! I think I got a little bit too much sleep last night because I was definitely feeling a bit off today (two beers does not equal a hangover). Things got a bit dicey this afternoon but now I’m feeling good and ready to tackle some studying for tomorrow’s scary exam.
Getting up my blog post this morning meant I ran out of time to pack food, not a good thing since I drank my dinner. I grabbed this Pro Bar on my way out the door since I figured it sort of had enough calories to count for lunch and breakfast.
It did not, but more on that in a minute. I am done with Pro Bars either way though. For one, holy saturated fat! I know most of it comes from the healthy nut source but still. For two, every single flavor I’ve tried has tasted exactly the same. And they all have chocolate chips in them regardless of if that fits the flavor or not.
We spent our four-hour class working on case studies dealing with pediatric nutrition. Case studies are always fun, but a little scary too because soon we will have to be doing this stuff with real patients. My group’s dealt with obesity-related sleep apnea. The 24 hour recall portion was sooo frustrating; think 10-year-old girl eating 2 breakfast burritos, 2 bologna cheese sandwiches, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, 42 ounces of pop and sweet tea, a coffee (?!) with a 1/4 cup of half and half, and more in the span of a day.
After class I spent two hours volunteering at the campus food bank. I didn’t know about it until I signed up, but apparently my school has a food bank set up for low-income students who run out of food/money at the end of the semester. A group of us went to sort donations by food group and expiration date and then make bags with 2-days worth of food for students to come pick up. The selection was a little frustrating – we made 60 bags but only had 6 cans of fruit – but I am glad to know that BSC does offer a service like that. Plus it was a lot of fun; I love organizing!
What was not so fun was my lack of planning coming back to bite me mid-afternoon. We were at the food bank until a little after 2pm. By 1pm all I had eaten for the past 24 hours was 2 beers and a Pro Bar. I had a killer migraine and several people mentioned that I was starting to slur my words. Not fun!
No Take-out ‘Tober was painful today. On the walk home I swear I was thinking about Pad Thai so hard I could taste it. But I stuck to my guns, and I ended up eating exactly what I was craving.
I’m Starving And Cranky, Flavor and Protein Packed Pasta Toss, serves 1, all measurements approximate
So. Flipping. Good.
Rice noodles would have been an itsy bit better but I used what I had on hand which was this pasta sample from the Healthy Living Summit.
I tried a bite plain and give it two thumbs up.
Two questions –
{This post was started last night.}
One three-hour review session probably wasn’t enough, but at least I don’t think I failed today’s exam. And I handed in my paper too so now it’s two down, one to go for this week; phew! I did make one really silly (really embarrassing!) mistake that is going to cost me a lot of points. I was thinking adult DRIs for CHO but fixating on percentages for CHO in the DASH diet and ended up saying that older adults require only 55-65 grams of carbohydrates each day! <– Carbs are the primary energy source for brain function and the RDA is 130 grams/day!
I think I needed more coffee.
That’s ice, Godiva Pumpkin Spice Coffee, Plain Silk Almond Milk, and a big splash of English Toffee Syrup. I tasted before sweetening and sadly I don’t think I like the Godiva Pumpkin Spice Coffee outside of pumpkin latte oatmeal. Too much spice for me. I brought the rest of the bag in to my friend Kim and she’s going to report back.
Here was the rest of breakfast.
A 2% Fage with Strawberry.
And a Berries GoMega Superfood Bar that Odwalla sent me to try.
I didn’t care for the bar and only ended up eating two small bites. My negative review is for a positive reason though – this tasted like a berry muffin! It’s just that I don’t like muffins all that much. I shared with a friend who confirmed my muffin assessment. We did admire that it provided 25% percent daily value of your Folate and Calcium and 50% daily value for Vitamin E for only 210 calories. If you are a muffin person I recommend it.
Lunch was a bagel sandwich that I recommend to everyone.
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Thin + Applegate Farms Honey Maple Turkey + reduced fat pumpkin cream cheese (mine is from Einstein’s Bagel Bros) = Yum!
I’ll be honest and admit that this could have used a slice of cheese, but other than that it was pure perfection.
I brought in the rest of the Ghirardelli dark chocolate (a Foodbuzz sample) to share with the girls as study fuel.
One piece was enough for me.
And before I knew it – mostly because I was thinking too hard to look at the clock – my exam was done and one final class stood between me and freedom!
In this case, freedom meant beer.
Adam and I split this Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale 40/60 his favor. Tasting note – not bad, but not really pumpkin-y either.
And I drank this Dogfish Head Punkin Ale all by myself.
I really did taste pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg. And beer! This is my favorite pumpkin brew so far this season (2nd would be Shock Top’s pumpkin).
Notes – I hadn’t had much to eat, I was tired, I’m a lightweight. Those notes are important because what I did next was get drunk and go to bed at 8:30 pm! Haha, I’m sure I needed the sleep.
I’m feeling well-rested now, which is awesome because I’ve got to do some serious learning for tomorrow’s exam. Hope everyone is having a good week!
I am not much of a shopper, much to my mother’s chagrin. The woman can spend days at the mall, while I start to feel itchy after just a few hours. It’s not that I’m not materialistic, I totally am, it’s just that the thought of adding more stuff to my life makes it hard to breathe. But I like the idea of things. So I’m an avid window shopper. I browse catalogs I’ll never buy from and hold my breathe when I pass the window at J.Crew. So while I’m stuck at school all day Wednesdays, I thought we could have some fun via blog. Let’s window shop!
Here’s what I’m coveting this week –
1. The Hidden Animal Teacups from Imm-Living.
The set of three also includes a doe and an owl (<– Janetha want to find a third blogger to split the set? I call dibs on the bear!). Growing up I had an ice cream bowl with a seal at the bottom that I loved with all of my heart and these remind me a lot of that.
2. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn.
The memoir cookbook genre suits me just fine and Kathleen Flinn’s first book, The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry, was a great read.
3. Hair balm from Carol’s Daughter.
I get my frizzy hair from my mom, Carol, so this is perfect 😉
4. Pumpkin spice malted milk balls from Nuts Online.
Normally malt balls seem like a strictly Easter candy to me, but pumpkin spice sounds so interesting.
5. i love candy corn shower gel from Philosophy.
The shower products from Philosophy are out of this world (super sudsy, great smells) and upon remembering their existence I was shocked to realize that I have not bought any in several years! I can’t think of a cuter flavor to rekindle the flame.
What are you coveting this week?
I stayed up until almost 2am last night getting myself on the right page study-wise; yuck! I was so tired and distracted that I probably would have been better off just going to bed but it felt good to check “make notecards” off of my list. I’ve had a busy day so I haven’t gotten to review as much as I’d like but I’m going to make an early(ish) bedtime my priority today. Thank goodness for the 3-hour break between classes before tomorrow’s exam!
I slept in instead of showering (it’s also possible I’m still wearing the shirt I went to bed in last night, but that’s neither here nor there) but I did leave myself time to make breakfast.
They’re back! Pumpkin smoothies are one of my favorite things about October; they just don’t feel right during other months. They are squash-y and just a bit sweet and the texture is more pudding than smoothie which makes them all the more fabulous.
For 1, I blended –
I didn’t have time to pack lunch so I was excited when I found out we were doing some cookie sampling in class (I split 2 with a friend).
Nevermind! We were making sure that some prepared mixes hadn’t gone bad before we used them for a bake sale next week but these had definitely expired. The white chocolate chips were rancid and gave me the worst chemical feeling in the back of my throat, like my nose was being scorched. One small bite of each was definitely enough!
I fled to the vending machines for relief, at that point I probably would have eaten beef jerky to get the taste out of my mouth.
Thankfully I found peanut M&M’s and didn’t have to resort to jerky 😉 I shared with friends and probably ate ~2/3 of the package.
I had a 2:45 orthodontist appointment so I stayed at school after class to get a bit of work done. Then I had to go to the post office, then I had to take the dog on a long walk… I haven’t really been mentioning No Take-out ‘Tober because it’s been pretty easy but this afternoon was the first time I wanted to run screaming into an eatery. We were mid-walk, 8 hours since I’d eaten breakfast, and let’s just say Webster was glad I’m semi-vegetarian or I would have tried to stick him in a hot dog bun!
I made myself a bowl of juicy things as soon as I got home.
A yellow nectarine and a red plum.
I made something for the husband too.
He called to say he was on his way home and I thought about greeting him at the door with a martini but decided that a spinach salad on the table was basically the same as a martini at the door.
Right? Probably not, but at least I set out vitamins (seen lurking in the background).
It’s good to make a snazzy salad/fruit course when you’re serving leftovers for dinner.
Particularly if those leftovers are hot dogs and baked beans, aka Beanie Weenies.
Let’s be real though, I loved this meal! I topped ~3/4 cup of apple cider cabbage leftovers a serving of hot dogs and beans, topped with a dollop of 0% plain Greek yogurt and lots of drops of Sriracha.
Plus 2 servings of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos that Adam brought home from a golf tournament this weekend.
My favorite chips are the foldsies.
Yum.
Leftovers or not, this was a fabulous dinner.
I’ve got to scurry into the shower so I can get to bed and at least be rested if not reviewed for my test tomorrow. I’ll leave you with this, meet Pig –
Eating Chalk 