Friday Favorites

by Emily

Here are the things that rocked my face off this week…

1: Easy, giant, veggie-laden pasta bowls.

Hearty and healthy is always a good combination – pasta / zucchini roasted with truffle salt / 2 pints of browned mushrooms / ground turkey sautéed with spices and chopped green peppers / red sauce

I could not even believe how buttery the roasted squash ended up tasting. Zucchini may just be my new favorite pasta addition, after soft-boiled eggs, of course.

2: Roasted Red Pepper Falafel and Moroccan Red Lentil Cakes from Veggie Patch.

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

I had not tried VP products prior to their media team reaching out to me, but now I am looking forward to buying more on my own. Both products had about 7 grams of protein per ~200 calorie serving and were nice and filling as the “meat” to a meal. We thought that red pepper was a zippy take on falafel and we very impressed with the texture of the red lentil cakes – the carrots studded throughout were neither soggy nor crunchy and they provided a nice note of sweetness.

Fittingly, we ate the goodies on top of Greek salads two days in a row.

All Veggie Patch products are free of GMOs and trans fats.

3: Pumpkin Yoghurt from Noosa.

OMG!! I know, I know, Pumpkin Month is still 7 weeks away, but this flavor is a Target-exclusive and I could not run the risk of it disappearing. p.s. if any New Yorkers spot the new coconut flavor, please tell me immediately so I can go buy it.

The ingredients list includes cream cheese and cinnamon, which is probably why this tastes like flipping cheesecake.

4: 4-Ingredient Strawberry Biscoff Sour Cream Gelato.

Gah! I made Lady and Pups’ Self-Made Sour Cream Gelato and swirled in cooked strawberries and Crunchy Biscoff before putting it in the freezer.

There’s no going back. This stuff is too easy; the base is literally just sour cream and sweetened condensed milk that you stir together. FYI – I used low-fat sour cream and fat-free SCM and encountered zero textural issues.

5: Blue Moon Cinnamon Horchata Ale.

Just, are you kidding me?! Add this to the list of short beers that I can happily finish a full bottle of myself. It was the perfect balance of cinnamon sweet to, you know, beer. And when I went to the website to link I discovered that they have a Caramel Apple variety and my heart actually skipped a beat. How do I get my hands on that???

Food for My Brain Bonus: Streaming the old seasons of the American version of “The Office” on Netflix. I realize that I am several years late, but now I’m obsessed. I started watching last weekend and I’m up to season 5, if that tells you anything! It is horrifically awkward – I suffer from severe secondhand embarrassment and had to watch the entire first season with squinched eyes, through my fingertips – but also incredibly funny and sweet.

How much do I envy you – have you gotten your hands on a caramel apple beer yet?

8Aug2014

Five Favorites For Friday

by Emily

A new “favorites” series might be the answer for weeks where I don’t have it together to photograph most things. Weeks like this week, where terrible bedtime choices rendered me unable to do anything productive outside of 9-5.

I had a ton of fun and I ate a lot of things (all of the things!), and now I’ll share my five favorites with you guys…

1: Pineapple Noosa with multi-colored grapes.

This new flavor was lovely. P.S. I also snagged a Target-exclusive, pumpkin Noosa that I am quite excited about.

2: Salads from Chipotle.

Actually, I made Adam get Chipotle with me two nights in a row, so this actually may be more of an addiction than a favorite.

Lettuce / pinto beans / grilled veggies / chicken / cheese / sour cream / corn salsa / mild salsa. Plus the ridiculously delicious, lime-y, salty chips.

3: Shredded chicken Bahn Mi and Thai tea with boba from Bahnmigos.

I went to a stand-up show with a friend on Wednesday so I *had* to get dinner in Brooklyn. These guys make the best Bahn Mi; they have the perfect balance of flavors and ingredients (spicy Sriracha and tangy pickled veggies, crunchy baguette and silky mayo). That’s Mindy Kaling’s memoir in the background. It was also fabulous.

4: Brown sugar seaweed snack with TJ’s turkey jerky.

Another good balance of salty to sweet. This was a nice mid-afternoon snack.

5: Amazing flavors from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

Adam and I split Thai tea and black sesame. This was the husband’s first visit but now he is as obsessed as I am. The flavors are so true to life!

Bonus: These hard candies are still rocking my world.

If I had known how good they were going to be I would have bought multiple bags. I still can’t decide what flavor they are though, because there is a lot of coffee roast for creme brulee.

Note: my favorite meal of the week was technically a romantic (poorly lit) dinner at Freeman’s. We shared Coho salmon with mustard sauce and five cheese mac and cheese. Plus chamomile infused scotch with grapefruit and honey. swoon

5Aug2014

Around The Web

by Emily

What I’m nodding along with –

Nutrition Unplugged’s post on energy density

The Bloggess’ take down of “Women Against Feminism”

What I’m watching –

All about the cop dramas for summer! Longmire is my Western. The sheriff is “the strong, silent type” personified and Katee Sackhoff (from “Battlestar Galactica”) plays a badass deputy.

longmire Rookie Blue is my Canadian cop show. One of my all-time favorites. High drama but very funny. I am rooting so hard for Chloe and Dove to make it.

And from the law breaker perspective, if you’re not streaming Orange is the New Black on Netflix yet then you really need to be.

What I’m laughing at –

types of commas source

dinner source

magic source

pizza is a vegetable source

remember source

What are your favorite summer shows?

4Aug2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Two Thumbs Up

by Emily

It was a lazy, low-key weekend so I don’t have a ton to share. I just wanted to pop in with a few of the things that rocked my face off. We had a few loser meals and moments, but overall times were good.

In the lows list… This alcoholic beverage. A girlfriend and I found a little bar in Park Slope with watermelon daiquiris and margaritas. Sounds good, right?

No. The bartender used some nasty, fake syrup and the end result was like frozen children’s cough syrup.

Related to the alcoholic beverages, Adam and I got Wendy’s for dinner on Friday. And now I remember why we haven’t been eating fast food for past six months. I did have a very tasty Frosty float, but the food was not good.

Saturday’s dinner was lame as well, because Adam worked a 24-hour shift so I ate popcorn in my underwear while watching the last of “Orange is the New Black.” <– how good is OTNB??! It took me forever to get into it but now I totally get the obsession

But then Sunday I had a fairly good rice bowl.

Always good to end the weekend with some vegetables.

Other tasty things… I have one serving left of my Chameleon Cold Brew.

It has been so yummy with chocolate milk.

I had cereal for breakfast at work on Friday and I enjoyed it a surprising amount.

I am not usually a big cereal person because I don’t find it to be all that filling, but after Total Raisin Bran and raspberries and I didn’t get hungry again until it was time for a late lunch.

And what a lunch it was! I found the Watermelon Chobani!

{with cherries and Jax chocolate coconut milk} It was good, but after all my anticipation, it wasn’t quite as amazing as the pink grapefruit is.

Other amazing things… We saw “Guardians of the Galaxy” last night and it was so funny. One of the more hilarious movies I’ve seen in the past year. Oh God, Chris Pratt. And I saw “Sex Tape” last weekend and that also made me laugh out loud. If you are on the fence I recommend heading to the theatre for both.

TLDR? Wendy’s is bad. Watermelon Chobani is good, but not as good as pink grapefruit. “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Sex Tape” were both amazing.

1Aug2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Greek Week

by Emily

“Greek Week” because half of the eats in this post are Greek yogurt and the other half are dinners infused with Greek flavors. It was a repetitious, but quite tasty, week.

No weekend post because I did all of my birthday excitement a week ahead of schedule. Adam had a giant, two-day test this week so we’ve been keeping things low-key. Unfortunately, I’ve also been feeling a bit under the weather. I actually stayed home from work on Monday with a migraine.

This week I kept my meals a bit smaller and planned in more snacks. This schedule worked well for me and is one I will probably continue next week too. The random snacks mostly came from my UrthBox {UB}, another new thing that I’m a fan of.

Minus many, many unpictured troughs of coffee or popcorn, here are most of my bites for the past week…

breakfasts/lunches

Coffee and cherries.

Coffee, Strawberry/Blueberry/Banana SMOOCH {UB}, and a Don’t Go Nuts Gorilla Power Bar.

The bar was insane, it tasted like freaking coffee cake!

Chobani 4% plain with maple syrup and chopped red plum and dapple plucot.

I tried the yogurt because it was a limited edition but I think I’m definitely a 0 – 2% girl; fuller fat dairy always tastes a little sour to me.

Fairway soursop yogurt with blueberries and roasted coconut and a Jax soursop coconut water.

Another new item, Chobani Banana Maple with Steel Cut Oats plus blueberries.

Not a fan. I was expecting everything to be blended into a homogenous product but this was (strangely thin) yogurt with random clumps of soggy oats.

At least pink grapefruit – with more plum and plucot – is always delicious.

On the only non-yogurt day, I made myself a “taco salad” from the cafeteria. Romaine with black olives, red peppers, cheddar and pepperjack cheese cubes, avocado, and tons of salsa.

Yeah, no. The avocado was frozen (why on earth would you ever freeze avocado??!) and what I assumed to be salsa was actually roasted red pepper. Yuck city.

snacks

Chameleon Cold Brew is (briefly) back in our life! We carted a bottle home from Whole Foods in Philadelphia.

Served iced with chocolate and skim milk.

CCB is my favorite cold brew ever. <– I looked up the website to link toin this post and saw that they now make mocha and vanilla varieties and I’m basically dying

Thai coconut curry popcorn {UB}.

Crème Brulee hard candies from Chinatown.

So good. They have a roasty, coffee-like flavor that is wonderful.

TJ’s turkey jerky with Mary’s Gone Crackers Everything Pretzels.

Those pretzels are downright addictive, perfectly salty with great crunch.

dinners

Easy, vegan pasta bowls.

Whole-wheat rotini with broccoli, roasted zucchini, and tons of marinara sauce.

Greek nachos! I baked pita chips topped with three-cheese blend, crumbled fat-free feta, tomato, red, onion, and chickpeas that I tossed with lemon juice, evoo, and oregano.

This meal was easy but super fun.

And we took the leftovers on a picnic to Corona Park the next day.

We tossed together the leftover red onion, tomato, chickpeas, and cheese with TJ’s Greek dressing, capers, cucumber, and spinach to make a tasty Greek salad.

Everything was yummy and we had a wonderful time on our picnic, but we did totally end up going to Panera for food later that evening!

Spicy shrimp pasta bowls.

This recipe was one of my favorites growing up, but I don’t think mine tasted as good as my mom’s does.

***Whoops! If anyone decides to try this recipe – I meant to write 4 SERVINGS not cups of pasta.

You just toss everything together in a baking dish, cook, and serve on top of noodles with a little parmesan. I also tossed a bunch of chopped spinach in with our bowls.

Adam loved it, thanks, Mom!

When was the last time you went on a picnic?

25Jul2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Birthday Weather

by Emily

It was a big week here, we had a birthday and a serendipitous, surprise visit! I turned 29 yesterday; that sounds old, old, old. I may not have a house or a baby, but I have a husband and a dog who I love beyond words so that feels pretty good for almost-30.

We didn’t have time for a real grocery trip after our Philadelphia weekend and we relied a ton on packaged and purchased food. Here are some highlights…

breakfast

Coffee (I’m still doing the 1/2&1/2!) and a Blackberry Bliss Mama Chia.

I probably wouldn’t have bought the chia on my own – it came in my UrthBox – but I ended up really liking it.

KIND Bar.

Madagascar Vanilla Almond.

Birthday freebie coffee! I love that Starbucks does that. You’ll notice that I stuck with my birthday tradition of doing tacky, glittery nails.

Venti iced skim latte with an extra shot of espresso, 2 shots of white mocha, and caramel drizzle. I was buzzing.

And this doesn’t go here but speaking of sugar, I’m not sure I ate enough candy this week…

lunch

Oatmeal (with Cacao Bliss) and freeze-dried apples.

That fruit is so flipping good.

Cereal and yogurt.

Total on Chobani 2% Pink Grapefruit. I was equally impressed with the yogurt the 2nd time around.

Lots of packed snacks during a 4 hour afternoon meeting. I ate a salad beforehand, and also required lots of coffee.

Chocolate-covered gummy bears, applesauce, and Everything Pretzels from Mary’s Gone Crackers. The pretzels were from a bag that the company sent me to try.

Delicious! I thought these were much better than the sea salt flavor I tried before, which wasn’t bad either. These were just like eating a very crunchy everything bagel. And still made with whole grains including brown rice, quinoa, amaranth and millet, and seeds including flax, sesame and chia, just like the original flavor.

My dietetics co-workers brought in lunch for my birthday! They are pretty much the sweetest.

Salad with a great, thick balsamic glaze, homemade spinach and feta pastries, and chocolate zucchini cake for dessert. Everything was delicious; I tried to bring leftovers home for Adam and I ended up eating them all on the train!

dinner

Half salad and sandwich deal from Panera.

I did the Thai chicken salad and the Thai chicken flatbread and was impressed with neither.

The sauce was too sour and the apple on the side was sadly the best part of the meal.

Thankfully, things get much more festive from here.

On Wednesday, my parents were traveling to Ohio to visit my grandmother. They were flying on miles so they had a long day with lots of connections, including a 3-hour layover at LaGuardia. When the got off the plane in NY, they learned that inclement weather had grounded their final flight, and then would be stuck until the next morning. Silver lining – they stayed at my house for the night and we got to visit and go out to birthday dinner!!!!

It ended up being the best “bad news” ever. We teased them that they jinxed themselves by complaining about not making it out for Indian food during their June visit, so of course we had to take them for Indian food.

It was too dark for pictures, but we shared several appetizers and a bunch of dishes and all left full and happy. Everything was amazing and our waiter was the sweetest man. Namaste is great. We even found froyo nearby with birthday cake flavor.

I topped my “cake” with marshmallow, strawberry pie filling, and a million sprinkles.

And I actually ended up having froyo last night on my real birthday was well.

Frozen yogurt > cake!

For my birthday dinner we did takeout from Bare Burger.

Turkey with ketchup mustard, spinach, tomato, a fried egg, and tons of pickles.

We ate burgers and giant diet cokes while we watched Longmire and it was a great way to celebrate 🙂

23Jul2014

Weekend Wrap-Up, Fun In Philly

by Emily

My 29th birthday is tomorrow and the husband and I celebrated a weekend early with a trip to Philadelphia.

It was a quick visit, we drove in on Saturday and out on Sunday, but it ended up being one of the best weekends we’ve had in years! It was great to have two full days to moon at each other. We spent pretty much every second walking and/or eating <– our two favorite things!

I didn’t take many site-seeing photos, but I had to snap some pictures of the beautiful mosaics at the Magic Gardens.

We loved our last visit to Philly, so we repeated a lot of the same stops. We even stayed at the same (perfectly located) hotel.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best luck with orders at our restaurant meals. I actually had to make a second stop to eat after both dinner and lunch. Thankfully, our fabulous bites in between meals more than made up for the less good dishes. I’ll write this post from worst to best.

Supper was near the Magic Gardens and the menu looked good, so we went there for {Sunday brunch}. I had a glass of sangria and was a little bit tipsy for the drive home!

Sangria Blanca – seasonal sangria made with sauvignon blanc, cantaloupe, honey dew, cucumber, lemon, limoncello, and honey mint simple syrup over ice topped with club soda.

We shared a deviled egg flight that was only so-so.

And my chicken salad sandwich sounded good in theory, but was totally flavorless. “Pastrami” Chicken Salad Sandwich – toasted grain bread, 1000 island dressing, caraway slaw, pickles / served with duck fat fries.

Those were so not duck fat fries! I ate a few bites, then got Whole Foods hot bar for the road. Adam loved his red velvet pancakes though.

I was so excited to get the vegetarian cheese steak from Carmen’s in Reading Terminal for {lunch on Saturday}.

I’ve been dreaming about this sandwich ever since I had it back in 2011.

It was ok, but sadly not as good as I remembered. The last time they charred the seitan more.

{Dinner} at FARMiCia has become a Philadelphia tradition for me.

I get the croquettes every time, but I just wasn’t a fan of this version.

Why would you serve corn and rice balls on top of more corn?! Carb City. The best thing about the fall version of dish is the buttery spinach bed.

The rest of the meal was wonderful though. Adam and I split a cheese plate to start.

The salty sheep’s milk cheese went perfectly with the sweet apple chutney.

I had a very refreshing watermelon mojito.

And we finished with cream cheese ice cream that was mind-blowing.

Gah! I could not stop swooning over that ice cream. This restaurant would have been worth the stop for dessert alone.

We stopped in at an adorable bar near our hotel on the way to dinner to split a flight of beer.

And then stopped back afterwards for nightcaps.

Then I iced my knees and ate bar food in bed and all was right with the world.

Our yummiest tastes were the things we ate while we walked around. Like the watermelon, spinach, and kale juice from Sip N Glo.

This was 80% fruit and normally I would be mad that it wasn’t more greens-based but you can’t complain about fresh watermelon juice.

A great iced cup from Old City Coffee.

And a Vietnamese coffee from The Last Drop.

Ending on a sweet note, a S’mores Bar from Flying Monkey Bakery.

S’mores with sprinkles! This tasted like honey and was ridiculous good. Adam and I both thought it was the best thing we ate all weekend.

22Jul2014

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

by Emily

I’ve been pretty busy and I’m running a bit behind, but I ate some really yummy things last week so I didn’t want to skip the post. Here are some faves from last Monday through Friday…

break the fast

A purple smoothie.

Frozen blueberries and strawberries with maple syrup and vanilla almond milk.

Bar/fruit/coffee day 1.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Balance Bar, a Pink Lady apple, and iced coffee from Starbucks. I poured a splash of half and half into my coffee by accident last week and it ended up tasting so yummy that now it’s turned into a bad habit!

Day 2.

Caramel Almond & Sea Salt KIND Bar {former freebie}, a very juicy nectarine, and cafeteria coffee with skim milk and a splash of half and half.

ladies who lunch

Cafeteria meal.

Salad with broccoli, black-eyed peas, cheddar, balsamic, and a scoop of egg salad. Plus fries dipped in honey mustard on the side.

Sandwich.

Leftover bbq chicken on a Bagel Thin. With bread and butter pickles, chips, and cherries.

Yogurt.

Chobani 2% Pink Grapefruit Greek Yogurt with KIND Raspberry Clusters with Chia Seeds {former freebie} and cherries on the side. The yogurt was a limited edition that needs to become part of the permanent line-up. It was freaking incredible, sweet and tangy with little pieces of citrus spread throughout. I must find the watermelon variety.

snack attack

Chocolate-covered pretzels from Wegman’s.

I brought Adam some back from my Buffalo trip and made the mistake of tasting “just one.” Those things are addictive! It’s a good thing I didn’t do a taste-test in the store or I would have brought home pounds of them.

Trader Joe’s makes the best turkey jerky I’ve ever tasted.

I don’t know how the keep the texture sooooo soft.

Chocolate covered strawberry floats! Chocolate frozen yogurt in strawberry Crush.

We thought we were so clever with these.

Campfire milkshake from Ralph’s Ice.

It was insane how much this tasted like a toasted marshmallow. It was pretty intense though, there is no way I could have finished more than half of this.

Baby spinach salad.

With sweet and spicy pecans, dried blueberries, shredded carrot, evoo, honey, and lavender salt. My best salad combo to date.

dining on dinner

Salad atop salad.

The base was baby spinach with dried blueberries, sweet and spicy pecans, evoo, honey, and truffle salt.

Topped with pulled bbq chicken (and a pile of salt and vinegar chips in the back). Just boneless, skinless breasts cooked in the crockpot, shredded, and tossed with TJ’s Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce.

The sauce was wonderful, very sweet and a little spicy.

Pasta that was simple but good.

Whole-wheat rotini with browned mushrooms, ground turkey (sautéed with tons of garlic and dried oregano), frozen spinach, low-fat sour cream, and a can of tomato sauce.

This was one of those meals that seemed like it would need more flavor but then you kept eating until you were furiously scraping the bottom of the bowl.

National Thai with a girlfriend. I got spicy noodles with veggies. They were super chewy, had a good variety of vegetables, and were actually spicy; I’m pretty sure National has become my favorite Thai spot in the city.

Afterwards we went out in search of mojitos.

We ended up finding passable mango mojitos at a tiny Mexican spot in Park Slope. Their menu also mentioned watermelon daiquiris, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back again this Friday.

what’s happening

I was getting into such a great groove with my workouts, but then I got excited and upped the length of my runs too quickly. My right knee was horrifically swollen and the husband told me to stay out of the gym until the inflammation went down. Boo!!! I took a week completely off from exercise (minus a few long walks this weekend) and popped anti-inflammatories and iced like crazy. I’m going to start back in with short, easy workouts this week and continue to ice regularly. I’m going a little stir-crazy so please cross your fingers for me!

On a more positive note, I just finished reading Fault Lines by Nancy Huston and I’m recommending it to pretty much everyone.

It’s a story about a family and each section of the book is told from the perspective of a different generation. Huston did a great job of building the story in layers. The parts of the story that were told through the lens of childhood were wonderfully done.

It is my 29th birthday this Thursday. We can’t fit in any celebrating this week so Adam and I took a quick trip to Philadelphia this past weekend. I gave that its own post because this one was getting too long, but we had a wonderful time.

Have you spotted the new Chobani varieties in your area yet? Has anyone tasted watermelon??

Eating Chalk

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Friday Favorites

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Five Favorites For Friday

Around The Web

What I’m nodding along with –

What I’m watching –

What I’m laughing at –

Weekend Wrap-Up; Two Thumbs Up

Weekly Wrap-Up; Greek Week

breakfasts/lunches

snacks

dinners

Weekly Wrap-Up; Birthday Weather

breakfast

lunch

dinner

Weekend Wrap-Up, Fun In Philly

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

break the fast

ladies who lunch

snack attack

dining on dinner

what’s happening