Author Archives: Emily

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!

{Part Of} Tuesday {In Advance}

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Hi there!  A computer issue is going to keep me from blogging Tuesday night and all day Wednesday so I wanted to get a quickie post up today.  This content is coming to you from the past (ooooooooohh!) so it’s possible that I’ll miss some unplanned bites.  I don’t plan on recapping, I just wanted to get up an outline of sorts.

Breakfast: A mint chocolate strawberry shake; don’t question the combo, it just works.  1 heaping cup of frozen strawberries blended with 1.5 cups So Delicious Chocolate Mint Coconut Milk.

Lunch: We have clinic in the morning and an internship meeting in the afternoon and I’m hoping for time to grab veggie sushi at Wegman’s in between.

Dinner:  A sandwich thin with cilantro mayo and tofu roasted with maple and soy.  Half of the seaweed flavored potato chips from China Town in Philly.  Half of the Little Duck Organics Apple and Banana Tiny Fruits from my #simplesurvivalkit package.

You might want to check back Wednesday morning… it’s possible I’ve prescheduled a giveaway post as well.

It’s December, Apparently

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Don’t worry, it’s not time to change your calendars; it’s only December in Emily Land.  You see, the other the day at the store I just couldn’t wait.

And today I did something really crazy.

I know that looks more mushy than crazy, but those overnight oats are made with So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog!  Nog in November? Who am I?!

My breakfast was so good it was worth breaking holiday timelines.  1/3 cup raw oats, 2/3 cup vegan nog, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds sat overnight.  This morning I topped it off with a sliced banana, nutmeg, and a little more nog.  Dee-lish-us!

Lunch was more on season with a Thanksgiving classic.

I made cranberry sauce from scratch yesterday!  I used this recipe and it came out great.  Today I ate a bowl with sweet and salty peanuts.

Plus the rest of my peanut butter rice krispie treat from the other day.  {where the heck did this picture go?!}  Maybe a little too much sugar for lunch?  I was buzzing at work.

Speaking of work, I came home from my shift with a present for Adam and myself.

I’ve been eyeing Ghost Blitz for weeks and there was only one box left today so I bought it!  We had such a good time playing this evening.

Adam and I shared a box of Thai spring rolls (with homemade spicy peanut sauce) while we played.

Round two was homemade veggie burgers.  I topped mine with honey mustard.

And the tie-breaker (Adam won!) was 2 servings of Sweet Potato Chips from Food Should Taste Good.

I should have been in bed 3 hours ago.  Boo!

Weekend Whoops

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My weekend was full of eating oopsies.  I accidentally ate something that wasn’t vegan.  I didn’t get near enough fruits and veggies.  I took pictures on the go that don’t look very pretty.  And on both Saturday and Sunday I didn’t eat all day and ended up buying food at night (and eating far too much of it).

Saturday I worked from 10 – 6 and since I woke up at 9:25 breakfast wasn’t an option.  We have officially moved into the Christmas shopping season and there was not a minute during my shift when I had time to eat.  As soon as I was off all I could think of was food.  He is what I ate, on the walk home!  An apple from home.

And vegan stuffing,

and half a peanut butter rice krispie treat from the co-op.

All on the walk home.  Sidenote – I gave the dog a bite of the rice krispie treat and he spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to get more.  He’s peanut butter fiend!

Dinner was purchased with a Groupon to Lone Star Fajita Grill.

A guaco taco (sans cheese) with veggies, guacamole, and sprouts,

and a pile of chips with more guacamole.

I made it through dinner without breaking the challenge (Tex-Mex without cheese or sour cream?!) but ran into trouble with dessert.  I ate the Justin’s Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups from my Simple Survival Kit package.

If you read “MILK CHOCOLATE peanut butter cups” and knew where I ran into trouble then you are quicker than I; it wasn’t until I finished eating that it occured to me that the cups weren’t vegan.  After choosing to cheat on the Vegan Challenge several times already this month it is frustrating to mess up due to a stupid oversight.

I also ate the last two servings of Angie’s Kettle Corn straight from the bag.

Then I got into bed and slept for 11 straight hours.  It was glorious!

But even with a good night’s sleep I still didn’t have it together to eat before work.  I ended up eating co-op food on the walk home for the 2nd night in a row.

Chicken fried seitan, bbq tempeh, corn and kidney bean salad, and a stuffed grape leave.  The picture is terrible but I was more concerned with shoving the food into my face than photographing it!

The food highlight of the weekend was this delicious bowl of cereal.

1.5 servings of Honey Nut Chex with a serving of honey roasted peanuts, fresh raspberries, and Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk.

I had to go to campus at 7:00 for a final meeting for a group project.  This is the assignment that has been ruining the past month’s evenings; I’m so glad to be done with it.

A late take-out dinner from Vasilis Express.

A dolmas wrap (more grape leaves!) and fries.  I ate 95% of that plate and I kind of still want to throw up.  Too heavy!

What was your last edible oops?

Happy Happy Joy Joy

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Thursday was more crappy than happy.  The list of low-lights includes being so freaking tired all day because I still haven’t caught up on sleep, eating pizza for dinner (so stress eating, so not vegan), having my stitches be difficult to remove because the office was asstastic about making a follow-up appointment, and having to work on a group project until bedtime.

If you weren’t paying close attention to that list of complaints, you may have missed yesterday’s highlight: I got my stitches removed!

My hand is officially free.  And gross.  But Adam bought me a bubble tea for being brave.

I got a strawberry bubble tea at Gin Gin and they gave me normal boba with multiple flavors of popping boba as well.  Best bubble tea I’ve had in years!

Friday was the happy, happy, joy, joy day.  I just woke up happy.  Several good things did happen today, but I swear that I was excited to begin with.

The fact that I was dressed in a very “Emily” outfit did put me in a good frame of mind.

And all of my meals were incredibly tasty.  Breakfast was a tasting plates of sorts in class.  A serving of Angie’s Sweet and Salty kettle corn.

An apple.

And a roasted seaweed snack.

I washed down my snacks with a can of Cherry Coke Zero that was randomly the best soda I’ve ever had.  I’m not sure exactly how it was different than usual but I swear the formula must have been “off” for this can’s batch because it was amazing.

A tall soy creme brulee coffee was consumed for warmth and caffeine on my walk home.

I only had time to switch out my bags between school and work which could have put a damper on my mood (especially because I didn’t have time to eat!) but then I came home to this –

A #simplesurvivalkit packed with goodies from some of my favorite brands: Food Should Taste Good, Justin’s, Larabar, Little Ducks Organics, SmartWool, Sprout Wellness Basics, and Teatulia.  Not only are my taste buds excited about the goodies, the package itself made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I am so incredibly grateful and touched!

Work went well; we got an insane shipment of packages and the time flew by.  Before I knew it I was home for dinner.

I wasn’t expecting much from this meal but I ended up loving it.  I sautéed sliced mushrooms, green peppers, and sweet onions in Earth Balance and salt and served them on top of basmati rice with Sriracha and Nayo stirred in.

I shoveled in my bowl in about a minute and adored every bite!

More group project work went down from 9 -11 (pm!!) and I shared a Pumpkin Shock Top with a friend while we worked.

I planned on getting into the pumpkin Blue Moon too but I’m basically the walking dead asleep at this point so I’m glad I stuck with half a beer.

I hope everyone else had a happy, happy, joy, joy day too!  Or if not, please enjoy your weekend!