Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Best Thing Ever

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Howdy!  It was bedtime hours ago is bedtime but I’m bubbling over with good cheer so I wanted to blog.  Spread the love and all that.

Note 1 relates to note 2.  Note 1 – Please ignore my crazy hair and old lady scarf and focus in on how fabulous my giant puffy sleeves are.

Love them!  I bought this top back in my teacher days and it always made me feel like a professional city lady.

Note 2 – I got to Google Video Chat with Adam tonight and it was the best thing ever.

My husband is the most handsome man on the planet!  And me…. well, I’ve got my great sleeves.

Adam has been/will be traveling a lot for interview this year and suggesting that we use the video chat today is the smartest thing he’s ever done.  I can’t even tell you how good it was to see and hear him while we said goodnight.  And this best thing ever is actually a silver lining on what seemed like a terrible situation.  You see, yesterday Adam broke his cell phone.  And if he’d had his phone with him on his trip today we wouldn’t have been on Google Chat at all.  The money and time we are going to lose fixing it and the hassle of Adam having to navigate a new city tomorrow sans phone all pale in comparison to how wonderful it was to video chat this evening.  <–silver lining

Don’t get me wrong, all of the travel has been/will be hard.  A lot of his interview dates are right on top of one another and they make our busy schedule even more hectic.  For example – he got to the apartment at 2am this morning and was heading to the airport by 6am.  This meant I got 3 hours of sleep last night.  Ugh.

It was a double pizza day.  Making a smoothie meant getting out of bed five minutes earlier so instead I breakfasted on the cheese slice Adam brought me from our favorite pizza place in Brooklyn.

Amazing and also a bit sickening.

Clinic went well today, even though I was tired.  In the morning I partnered with another student to chart on a tube feed and in the afternoon I shadowed a RD on the renal transplant floor.

Lunch was a mix of food from home and $2 spent at the salad bar with our great nutrition department discount.  A ‘Thanksgiving leftovers’ sandwich of sliced turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and cream cheese on a Sandwich Thin.

Plus Food Should Taste Good Sweet Potato Chips.

And salad bar with cherry tomato, cucumber, carrot, red onion, and honey mustard dressing.

I always have to really talk myself into salad at home but when I’m out and about it tastes so good!

Dinner was round two of pizza since I was stuck on campus working on a group project.

A buffalo chicken slice that was nowhere near as good as Zetti’s.  And I dropped a greasy piece of chicken on my nice pants.  I clearly should have gone with another salad instead!

Finally, I ate 2 oz of chocolate covered kettle corn nuts while I puttered around the house this evening.

They are good, but not as good as they were inside cookies.

How do you stay close to your loved ones when you are physically far away?

Froyo Flavors Playbook

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The husband was out of town on an interview yesterday so I ate a single lady dinner of cookies and popcorn.  Then I ate a big bowl of cereal (with melted peanut butter and vanilla almond milk!) in bed.  <– Shhhhh, Adam would be so mad.

Speaking of skipping posts, exam week is coming and I am flipping out.  I want to try to keep up blogging, since it’s not like I use every last minute of my time studying anyway, but I’m not sure how that will work out.  Exams are in 13 days!  I honestly thought that we had another week and didn’t realize how close they were until I checked my planner in the middle of class and gave myself a heart attack.

Anyway.  When I wasn’t freaking out, I also ate breakfast in class.  A Chobani Honey Banana Flip.

That yogurt is my favorite Chobani product.  The bananas add the perfect amount of texture and sweetness to lighten up the Greek yogurt.

I also had an apple.

And a Target Candy Cane Chewy Cocoa Granola Bar in between class 1 and 2.

I had to hang around campus after lab to work in the computer lab and I ended up buying these Sea Salt Smart Fries as a snack from the book store.

This was my 2nd time trying the Smart Fries and I think I can officially say that I like them.  The texture is a little like a packing peanut but I mean that in the nicest way possible!  They are really satisfying to crunch through and you get a big serving (~65 pieces) for 110 calories.

I had a run errands this afternoon (you might notice that I didn’t actually do any exam studying today) and got a small container from the salad bar around 5:00.  A lettuce mix with some dressing (I don’t remember the flavor but it was sadly really bad) topped with cucumbers, cider glazed carrots, roasted brussels sprouts, and a giant scoop of chicken salad.

The chicken salad scoop was about half as mayo-y as it looks and two times as big as it looks.

I actually just got home a little while ago because I was out with friends.  We wanted to go see “Silver Linings Playbook” and it is only showing in one random theatre here so we made an excursion of it.  An exciting stop along the way…

FroYo Culture had their holiday flavors out!

I got gingerbread, eggnog, and Heath yogurts with crumbled gingerbread, Heath bits, shredded coconut, x-mas m&m’s, and marshmallow sauce.

Too exciting!  The gingerbread flavor was actually too spicy for me but the eggnog was perfect.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be going back to Willaimsville before the season is over.

The movie was worth the drive as well.  All three of us loved it.  The plot was a nice mix of funny, wrenching, and sweet.  Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro were all amazing.  And there’s even a Julia Stiles cameo.  We laughed on the way home that it was funny to watch Julia Stiles play a support role in a dance movie.  <– “Save the Last Dance” still remains a favorite of mine.

And I ate a serving of Sun Chips while I wrote this post.

Food-food instead of snack-food would probably be a good thing tomorrow!

Did you see SLP?  Thoughts??

Jekyll And Hyde Cookies

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These cookies were inspired by my S’mores Monster Cookie recipe so originally I wanted to name them after Frankenstein’s.  But that didn’t feel right.  These cookies aren’t monstrous, but they are two-faced.  One side is sweet (Jekyll) and the other is salty (Hyde).

Salty, sweet, or all of the above; with multiple kinds of nuts packed into one cookie recipe you know it’s bound to be good!

Jekyll and Hyde Cookies, yields 16 large cookies

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.  Line ungreased baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat mats.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg.  In order – add sugars, vanilla, baking soda, butter, and peanut butter, mixing well.
  3. Use a spatula to fold in oats, sweet ‘n salty peanuts, and chocolate covered kettle corn.
  4. Roll dough into 16 balls and evenly space on prepared baking sheets.
  5. Bake 13 – 15 minutes until browned.
The linked products were provided to me free of charge from Oh! Nuts.  I was not compensated for writing this post. 

Cook Book, Cookies, Chicago Fire

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It’s felt like forever since I’ve blogged.  Thankfully (ha!) I was starving all day and ate a ton of food so I have lots to post about.

First things first – I need to announce the cook book giveaway winner.

Congrats Turn Towards the Sun, shoot me an e-mail (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) with your mailing address!

Breakfast was consumed during class but photographed in Adam’s car.  I waited until 6 am to will myself out of bed to finish writing a paper and was running behind.  Actually, I would have been fine but then I had to cuddle the dog before I took my shower and I ended up needed Adam to drop me off.  Thanks, husband!

A Wegman’s low-fat pumpkin pie yogurt that I was very impressed with.  The texture was perfect and the taste was so good I’ll consider continuing to eat this flavor in December!

An Iced Oatmeal Cookie Z-Bar (FNCE sample).

The 2nd half of this Chuao Honeycomb Bar.

Adam continued to be the nicest husband ever, and he walked the dog to pick me up after classes.  I love those boys so much!

I also love leftover pizza for lunch.

1 cheese slice,

with carrots and blue cheese dressing.

Plus batter bites for dessert.

I’m going to share the recipe tomorrow and here is my endorsement: I ate four and a half cookies today!!

Work went well.  We extended our hours for the holiday season which means my shifts are all an hour(+) longer but it wasn’t too painful.  I drank a cup of (Keurig) hot chocolate while at work but didn’t photograph it for obvious reasons.

Dinner was a serving of Seven Layer Casserole.

The recipe’s vegan but you don’t need a challenge to try it; it’s delicious!

Apparently that all wasn’t enough food because I also ate a bag of SmartPop while I caught up on “Chicago Fire.”

Are you watching Chicago Fire?  Thoughts??

Blog – Updated

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Thanksgiving – Pathetic

Our flight landed at 7:30 pm on Turkey Day and while we were thankful for our dinner it wasn’t exactly traditional.  Every single food establishment we called was closed… except for 7-11.  So Adam and I split a bag of chips for Thanksgiving dinner.

Work – Exhausting

I’ve worked in retail on and off since I was 15 years old but Black Friday at my current job was nothing like I’d ever seen.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were so exhausting that it’s possible I had a complete breakdown in Wegman’s last night and started weeping in front of the lottery machines because Adam wouldn’t buy me the scratch card with the little bear on the front.  It was not a proud moment.

Vegan Challenge – Cancelled

Friday evening, this series of texts was sent –

Yep, I called it quits on the Vegan Challenge a week early.  My heart has not been in it for most of November (my friend and I have been making jokes about how we’d have to try again in February since the first week) and by Friday night I just really didn’t want to do it.  I think going on multiple trips out-of-town this month made it too hard to go all in; since I’m not actually vegan it would be stupid to skip culinary traveling in Philly and Atlanta and since I was cheating so often it was hard to stay motivated.

Failed vs. Failure – Thoughts

Even though I failed at the challenge, I wouldn’t call the challenge a failure.  I reminded myself that I won’t actually die if I don’t eat buffalo chicken pizza every time I’m hungry.  I remembered all of the tasty meals that don’t involve cheese.  I recommitted myself to, whenever possible, only eating meat that is humanely sourced.  And I really am excited for February!

Life – Good

I feel like this post ended up sounding whiney, but that wasn’t my intention.  I’m actually quite happy.  Balancing an increased work schedule with my upcoming finals will be tricky, but I like staying busy.  The weather is getting frightful, but I’m thrilled about eggnog and cocoa.  We don’t get to see any family for Christmas this year, but I’m excited to carve out some holiday traditions of our own with Adam and Webster.  Life is good.

Have you ever “failed” at a challenge?  When was the last time you decided to quit something before it was over?

A Perfect, Peachy Visit

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If you follow me on Instagram you may have already guessed that… WE WENT TO ATLANTA!!!

We got very lucky and had access to two free tickets that had to be used before the end of 2012.  I had two days off in a row from school and work so we started clicking on cities at random until we found a set of tickets that worked with my schedule.  We ended up in Atlanta!

We flew in late Tuesday night and left Thursday morning so it was basically a one-day trip and it was absolutely perfect.  We spent every last minute walking or eating – So. Much. Food! – and got to try lots of local flavors as well as froyo, twice!  Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

The gorgeous weather was totally in our favor; perfect walking around temperatures.

We started Wednesday morning with Sublime Donuts.

Adam and I shared three kinds –

Butterfinger,

dulce de leche,

and s’more.

Butterfinger was his favorite and s’more was mine. The donuts were great but they definitely confirmed that I’m not a donut person; I could tell that they were awesome but they just weren’t that exciting for me.  Give me a cupcake or froyo instead anyway.  <– twice that day!

Next up, we visited The World of Coca-Cola.

We learned some interesting Coke facts and saw lots of neat old products,

but the best part of the visit was the tasting room.

They had Diet Cherry Coke!

Actually, they had lots of flavors – 60+! -and Adam and I tasted every single one.

The basics –

Peppermint Sprite –

Africa –

Asia –

Latin America –

North America –

Europe –

Ahhh!  Adam was pretty ill by the time we were done but I told him that I’d be training for that day my entire life!

On our way out they even gave us a bottle to go.

I’m not even going to lie, I totally bought a Cherry Coke Zero a few hours later!

We spent a few hours walking around the downtown area before we were ready for lunch.

You won’t be able to guess what type of food we set our GPS for…

Froyo!  I got a million flavors (including apple pie!) with all of the non-fruity toppings.

To save a little money, we got lunch food from Publix instead of going to a restaurant.

I ate about 1/3 of that smoked turkey and mac and cheese.  Plus a short salted caramel hot chocolate while we recharged our phones at Starbucks.

For dinner we got Thai at Mali.  We shared the Moo Sho to start.

Steamed rolls stuffed with sautéed chicken, shrimp, egg, and vegetables.  Served with a peanut sweet plum sauce.

There was a little hiccup when they were out of the dish that brought me to the restaurant (seafood Pad Thai with crab claws), but we rallied by sharing two drinks.  A pineapple capirinha, pineapple, cacha rum, limes and sugar,

and a Thai tea-ni, tea infused vodka, vanilla vodka, sweetened Thai tea, and milk.

For my meal I got grilled salmon with sautéed vegetables in basil sauce, ordered Thai-spicy.

It was good; nice and spicy!  So spicy, in fact, that I ended up ordering a regular Thai iced tea to help cool down my mouth.

Dessert was round 2 of froyo.

I got taro, almond butter, and pecan pie froyo topped with sprinkles and sweetened condensed milk.

<– best bowl of froyo ever

The yogurt place was in a cool area and we ended up doing a final round of booze and food at the incredible Rosebud.

A can of PBR for me,

and pimento cheese with spiced saltines to share.

Amazing!  I adore pimento cheese and this stuff was ridiculous.  We waddled back to our hotel completely satisfied and happy.

It was an amazing trip and I feel very fortunate to have been able to take it.  Our Turkey Day wasn’t quite as traditionally thankful but I’ll tell you about that later.

A Cook Book Giveaway

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It’s the day before Thanksgiving.

<– did that sentence make anyone start to sweat?

It’s too late for me to help you with this holiday, but I’ve got a giveaway that might make you feel better the rest of the year.

Holiday Slow Cooker; Delicious Recipes for a Year of Hassle-Free Celebrations

When I got an e-mail asking if I’d like to try a copy of this cookbook (holidays? crock pot recipes? easy? yep, that sounds like me!) I made sure to ask if I could get a copy for you guys too.  Hopefully this will make one of your Christmas dinner plans a little less sweaty!

The recipes are all clearly worded and simple to execute,

and I liked that many of them were accompanied by a picture.

Some of the things I swooned over? Liberty Brownie Squares for New Years Day, Lobster Bisque and Rocky Road Pudding Cake for Valentine’s Day, and Beer Baked Beans for Father’s Day.  Yum!

I’m giving away 1 copy of this book to a reader picked at random from the comments.  Comment entries close at noon on Friday, November 23rd.  All you have to do to enter is answer this question –

Have you ever hosted Thanksgiving Dinner?

On The Go

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Surprise! What I meant by “a computer issue” was I didn’t pack it! I’ll tell you all about it on Thanksgiving when we get home. Ciao!