Author Archives: Emily

pasTa

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I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love!  If I could run off with a smoothie without hurting Adam’s feelings I would, but more on that later…

Our errands went ok, we have to go back to the post office tomorrow but we dropped off our donations at Goodwill and got the things we needed at Target.  I also got majorly suckered into some candy –

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York Patties used to be my favorite candies and an ad in a magazine at Adam’s doctor’s office totally got me craving one – way to go former communication majors!  I also ate some of the husband’s mini truffles (x3).

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For dinner we made AnTEAoxidant Pasta (my name, recipe courtesy of an old Self magazine).  So good!

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I had my portion with a big glass of iced h2o.

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AnTEAoxident Pasta, serves 4  (I made some changes to the recipe, mostly to make it lower fat and to accommodate our lame pantry, so I’m posting the changed recipe below)

  • 6 green tea bags
  • 2.5C dry ww penne
  • 2C chopped broccoli
  • 2C chopped kale leaves
  • 1 14.5oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 3/4C fat free ricotta
  • 4t evoo
  • 1T balsamic vinegar
  • 1T chopped garlic
  • salt and pepper to taste

>Bring 6C of water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Add tea bags; turn off heat and let steep for 5minutes.  Discard tea bags and bring back to a boil.  Add pasta and cook according to package directions.  Add in broccoli and kale in the last three minutes of cooking.

>Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine tomatoes, ricotta, oil, vinegar and garlic; mix well.  Drain pasta and cooked vegetables; add to bowl and toss well.

It was good, but nothing on this Earth is as good as this smoothie –

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  • 1small banana
  • 1C Goya frozen soursop pulp
  • 3/4C So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk

Holy frick it is good! 

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Soursop is so good, it is my favorite childhood taste memory.  Legend has it that soursop makes you sleepy which is the idea tonight.  We are watching more “My So-Called Life” and then I am trying to get to bed by 10.

What is your favorite childhood taste memory?  Mine is soursop juice and baked macaroni and cheese from the old grocery store back home.  When I went out shopping with my parents around lunch time my dad would buy it for me and I would eat it with my fingers in the car!

Mi Casa Es Su Casa

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There was no post this morning because I still wasn’t hungry at breakfast time.  Instead I put away the laundry from last night, whoops!  Then we used the metro to head up to Adam’s campus.  I have to use the car to get to my classes so he will be taking the train most days.  He got some immunizations done and we got our parking passes.

At noon I was finally hungry so we tried out the Tim Horton’s across the street from campus.

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I know that this place is famous for coffee, but I was really wanting fountain diet coke!  I ordered a 6in whole wheat turkey sub.

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It was pretty so-so but the mustard was fabulous, it was really runny and sweet; does anyone know what kind this might have been?  I doubt we will be going back to Tim Horton’s much – we try not to eat a ton of fast food so if I’m going for it I’m going for Wendy’s! – but I did really like that they didn’t waste plastic.  Places with ‘for here plates’ always get points in my book.

Our meals came with doughnuts so I ate half of a maple glazed.

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I love maple (my mommy’s favorite flavor) so it was ok, but I still don’t see what all the fuss is about doughnuts.  Growing up on an island I don’t remember tasting one until college and I was thoroughly unimpressed. 

After lunch we took the metro back home and then walked to the hospital so I could get my TB test cleared.  I also spoke to the office about shortening my hours, looking at the husband’s schedule 4 was a little late for us.  Now I will be going from 8-2, Monday – Thursday, for the next three weeks.

We have more errands to run (post office, Goodwill, Target), so I will leave you with pictures of the new apartment, enjoy!

Bathroom –

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Bedroom –

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Office –

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Livingroom (/wierd extra space turned work out area) –

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Dining Room –

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Kitchen –

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What is your favorite room in your spot?  In this apartment mine is the dining room!

Flat to Flat-Line?

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Hello again.  I ate a HUGE unphotographed handful of peanuts before we set out on our run which made me rather thirsty.  Also, I think I’m wearing my heart rate monitor strap too tight – think corset tight – as it makes it hard for me to breathe.  Enough excuses: I am out of shape.  We did the same route as yesterday, 2miles in 20minutes.  Did I mention the route is flat as a third grader and I still wanted to die? 

I kept my monitor on through a cool-down walk and some floor work (stretching and 100sets of abs) and all total I did 335calories in 36minutes.

Afterwards we showered and did some laundry…which I still have to put away…and suddenly it was 8:30!  I am not feeling hungry at all so we decided to push making dinner back until tomorrow.  I made the husband soup leftovers, only heated and cheesed and he liked it a little better this time.  I ate a disgusting lack of veggies today so I tried to think low volume but calories plus greens, which lead to –

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This used two of my new favorite “damn I’m glad I bought that” products –

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1.5C of So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk and 1.5T of Chocolate Amazing Grass.  Yums.  I used a coupon from Jenna’s blog to buy the Grass a few weeks ago, which I why I got the fancy free shaker.

Now I’m playing online while I finish my grass and I’m planning on reading my book in bed once my teeth are brushed, night!

What is an easy way you include green in your diet?

New Things

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In a major change from our apartment in Brooklyn where it was stiflingly hot, I overslept this morning because I couldn’t sleep last night because I was too cold!  I will never complain about lower temperatures though, I can always add layers, in Brooklyn I would have had to peel off my skin!

In spite of my late start I’ve managed to get most of my to-do’s for the day completed.  We did a little bit more apartment organizing (almost done!) this morning and then I ate a juicy black plum before we headed out.

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We drove up to the North Campus of UB, my campus, today to get our id cards and it accounts.  The campus is a 20minute drive away which means I will have to be careful to schedule my commute around rush hours.  My class is all at night anyway though.  We needed money for the meter so we stopped at the campus Starbucks and I got an unsweetened iced coffee with skim milk.

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On the way home we stopped by the public library.  I can get a card yet because I have no mail addressed to me (you have to show proof of residency) but I am super excited to go back, it was HUGE!  They even had a Mark Twain room 🙂

Now that we are home I’ve been doing all my school/business things on the computer and eating a late snacky lunch.  First we cut into this bad boy (my hand is there to show the size) –

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This was a Crenshaw Melon.  I couldn’t really tell the difference taste/texturewise between this an a cantaloupe but it was fun to try something new.

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Ours was a little too ripe so I ended up throwing out part of my last slice, I think we will have to use the other half for smoothies.

Next I ate a low-fat cheese stick.

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And finally this –

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This beauty was

  • Stoneyfield YoKids Banilla low fat yogurt
  • 2t fat free ricotta
  • 1small banana
  • sprinkle of cinnamon

It was so tasty it even looked enticing when stirred to mush.

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In a bit we are going for a run (the same route as yesterday to see if maybe it doesn’t conquer me this time!) and then the plan for tonight is a low key dinner.  Lates!

What new fruits or veggies have YOU tried this summer?

Cold and Not So Hot

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My volunteering meeting went well – I completed orientation and once my TB test gets cleared on Friday I will be ready to start.  I am trying to get in as many hours as possible before school starts so I will be going pretty much full-time for the next three weeks – Monday through Thursday from 8am to 4pm.

After volunteering I came home and met up with the husband for more local exploration.  We drove out to Erie and walked around the waterfront a little bit.

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We spotted a cute ice-cream stand and I bought a lemon ice.

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I ate about half before handing it off to Adam.

We did more house-fixing when we got home and then headed out for our first Buffalo run!  I ate a Stoneyfield YoKids Banilla yogurt to refuel first.

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We did 2miles around the neighborhood in 20minutes.  I am painfully out of shape, I can’t wait until 2miles don’t kick my butt any more!  I kept my heart rate monitor on through 10minutes of floor work (stretching, 100 abs reps, and 50 arms reps with my 5lb weights) and all total I burnt 344 calories.

When we were done we cooked our first Buffalo dinner!  We made cold avocado soup and sandwiches.

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We used our George Foreman to make the grilled cheese sandwiches, I used 2 slices of reduced fat colby-jack on mine.

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And the soup was a Rachael Ray magazine recipe which I will include for those of you who enjoy cold soup, but it didn’t really float our boats.

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No-Cook Avocado Bisque, serves 4

  • 2 large avocados (we ended up accidentally buying “Slimcados” which have 35% less fat and calories but tasted the same)
  • 2C buttermilk
  • 4 scallions, green and white parts sliced separately
  • grated peel and juice of one lime
  • 16 ice cubes
  • salt
  • 1lb tomatoes, coursely chopped (we used three plum tomatoes)
  1. Put 1 avocado, buttermilk, scallion whites, lime peel and 3/4 of lime juice in the blender.  Blend on low speed and then blend in ice cubes one by one until smooth.
  2. Meanwhile coarsely chop the remaining avocado and then combine with tomatoes, scallion greens, and the rest of the lime juice.
  3. Divide soup among 4 bowls and top with with guac.

We were excited to have leftovers for lunch but after tasting it we are less excited!  I ate about half of my bowl (but my grilled cheese was great!).

Now I’ve got to go because we are watching old episodes of “My So Called Life” that we Netflixed, night!

Do you like cold soup?  I had some kind of cold fruit soup a few years ago that I loved but now I’m not sure if I enjoy it.

The Migration

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I’m back!  It’s been very strange to go almost a week without blogging, I’m glad to get back to it 🙂

Physically, the move went very well.  We stayed on schedule, nobody got lost or in an accident, and we had a nice stay in a hotel room between our old and new homes.

Emotionally, not so much.  Y’all, when I saw our new apartment I sobbed.  We had to move in blind (we only saw pictures of another apartment in the building) and our apartment was not at all the floor plan we were promised.  Plus it was filthy.  Moving in/setting up took 4x longer than planned because we had to spend so much time cleaning.  Several things are broken and we heard from another tenant that the landlord doesn’t ever fix things.  We had to buy heavy duty cleaner and clean the oven twice but now it should finally be ready to use.

Bad first impressions or not, however, this is where we are going to be living for the next year so we are making the best of it.  Our last apartment was so small that it was pretty easy to find a way to make storage work.  Once things were cleaned up and we started to decorate things looked a whole lot nicer.  Dare I say I practically love the apartment now!  I’ll be posting pictures later this week.  Plus we love our neighborhood – right on our street there are several restaurants and bars, plus a fun hippie-ish coffee shop.  And the closest grocery store is Wegmans, which beyond rocked my socks when we went there last night.

During the move I did manage to register for school.  I only was able to get one class (Gen Chem I) but that is better than nothing.  And today I have a meeting to get set up for volunteering.

I don’t know whether it has been the stress, the busyness, or what but my appetite is gone.  I did the photo montage in my last post but realistically I ate about half of each of the dishes shown.  We’ve been doing hard work moving (my thighs hurt so bad from the stairs I hobbled for two days straight!) but hopefully once I get back to traditional exercise my hunger will return.

I’ll be back this evening with a normal post, later!

What was your worst moving/living experience?  How did you make the best of it?

See You in a Week

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I will not be posting until next Wednesday.  Over the next week we will be moving out of our apartment in nyc, driving to Buffalo, NY and setting up our new apartment.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us and don’t forget to check back in a week.