Weeklong Wrap-Up; The Top Five

by Emily

It took a week longer than I’d hoped, but I’m back to feeling 100%! The alternative title for this post was “Cough Drop Chronicles.”

In the interim between this post and the last, I ate a ton of food but didn’t have it in me to capture most of it. Adam and I made amazing, ridiculous nachos – maple bacon kettle chips baked with a blend of eight cheeses – but I shoveled them into my mouth before there was time to let them cool, let alone be photographed. On Saturday I went to a wedding shower that served lunch – awesome lobster ravioli with big shrimp on top – but the only person I knew beforehand was the bride-to-be so I was too embarrassed to get out my camera.

Instead of a full post, here are my “top five” from the past week.

1. Liquid breakfast. I was feeling my sickest on Monday and these three beverages were all consumed over the course of the same morning.

Green smoothie. Frozen spinach, mango, and coconut water.

Lavender GT Kombucha. I shared this with Adam and he actually liked it even more than I did.

“Mocha.” Hospital coffee with a chocolate soy milk.

2. Sweet stuff. These three desserts were the very best of the week but only the tip of the iceberg in terms of consumption. I made it through by having a cough drop or hard candy in my mouth pretty much all waking 12 hours a day.

Nunu caramel dark chocolate bar. <– made in Brooklyn

Whole Foods peanut butter sandwich cookie. This was basically a giant, soft peanut butter cup.

Haagen-Dazs Caramelized Banana Chip Gelato.

3. Another beverage/sweet.

Arizona Fudge Float Sparkling Soda. This was practically a can of egg cream!

4. Salmon and salad.

Coho salmon that I (over)baked with smoked brown sugar, soy sauce, and green onions.

Plus a cucumber salad of thinly sliced cucs, sesame seeds, rice vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and sugar.

5. Dinner at Pizza Loves Emily.

This Brooklyn spot was seriously adorable inside.

We got a lavender lemonade.

Crispy Sprouts.

apples, chilis, black sesame, fish sauce

And the Emily white pizza.

mozzarella, pistachios, truffle sottocenere, honey

31Mar2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; I’ve Got Recipes To Share

by Emily

Like the title says – “I’ve got recipes to share!” I managed to whip up some really great meals this weekend. That accomplishment is even more impressive when you consider the cold I’m working through. <– let’s consider my horn fully tooted, huh? I was talking to my dad on Saturday morning about how glad I was to have missed Adam’s recent bout of illness and by that night I felt terrible. Unfortunately I’ve felt progressively worse since. Hopefully tomorrow will put me on the upswing.

breakfasts and snacks

Recipe #1 – Almond Joy Baked Oatmeal.

This stuff was yummy. Click the link above for the recipe.

Green apple slices dipped in melty peanut butter.

We tried a new type of citrus from Whole Foods, pixie tangerines. They were great; nice and sweet with no seeds.

Healthy or sick, I’m all about the coffee. Iced brown sugar cinnamon latte from Dunkin.

Tall iced vanilla macchiato from Starbucks just a few hours later. I asked for regular drizzle but sugar-free syrup and it was a definite improvement.

And a clover-brewed Kona blend during my last set of errands the next day.

A handful of chocolates.

Adam and I split this Southern Hibiscus and Peach Milk Chocolate Bar. There were little bits of chewy peach embedded throughout.

I made the best milkshake. Dannon Oikos Café Latte Greek Frozen Yogurt blended with chocolate milk and toasted coconut. It rocked my socks off.

I had several sips of the husband’s Polar Vortex.

Usually we don’t have the same taste in beers but we both thought this Dunkel Lager was delicious.

dinners

Our Mexican dinner fell through on Friday. Several false starts later, we ended up at Mint.

I had Jack Daniels Honey with mint, lime, and simple syrup to drink.

On my plate was rice with sauce from Adam’s chicken and a big pile of bhindi-do-pyaza – okra sautéed with onion and tomato.

Our food was good but it was so flipping loud in there that I’m not sure we’ll ever go back.

Dinners at home were much better. Like Sweet Onion, Bacon, Blue Cheese Burgers.

On a slice of buttered, toasted sourdough with a pile of pea shoots on top.

And last night we had shrimp and veggie (white)rice bowls.

I used this recipe as a guide but went with pepper jelly and grapefruit juice.

Plus we bulked our bowls up with roasted broccoli and cauliflower.

Adam said I hit it out of the park! That was the last of our big bag of frozen shrimp and I definitely want to buy more.

Did you make anything great this weekend?

28Mar2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Busy Busy

by Emily

Whew, has it been a busy week! I can’t even tell y’all, work has been wiping me out. <– Hence the 1.5 day late blog post.

Wednesday night I got home around 6:00, then sat at my desk with my boots and coat on until 8:00 when Adam got home and I finally had to get up! Then Thursday I managed to undress, and even get halfway into my gym clothes, before crawling under the covers and calling it a night.

Breakfasts

For the most part, I’ve stopped blogging coffee that isn’t extra exciting in some way, but you can assume I’m still obsessed and drink a cup whenever I can get my hands on it.

A NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bar.

Starbucks spectacular.

A tall nonfat iced vanilla macchiato.

And the almond blend.

Coffee and cereal.

Chocolate Krave, plus there was a packet of hot chocolate stirred into my coffee. And today I stirred hazelnut hot chocolate into hazelnut coffee and it rocked my face off.

Lunches

Leftovers.

A Cara Cara.

And the rest of the turkey reuben mac and cheese.

An awesome cafeteria lunch. I mixed together cream chowder and cheese soup, with popcorn on the side.

Cereal on the go.

Blackberries and a very unripe nectarine.

Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

And Quaker Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares and chia seeds.

I was starving by the time lunch rolled around so I also bought a biscuit from the cafeteria.

On Thursday I saw patients straight from 9 – 4. Then I had chocolate and diet soda at my desk while I charted and it was heavenly.

Snacks

Kiss Me Organics offered me a sample of their Organic Matcha powder. Adam is obsessed so I readily accepted.

I haven’t tried baking with it yet, but it blends perfectly into smoothies and lattes – both almond milk for me and skim cow’s for Adam. The flavor is delicious, not at all acrid like green tea can sometimes be. My only complaint is that the bag doesn’t list serving instructions or nutritional information.

Matcha in a smoothie. I did pineapple, tea, ice, vanilla almond milk, ice and Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

Good in theory but the lime flavor was a little too much.

Dannon coffee Greek frozen yogurt with lavender caramel and roasted peanuts.

I also ate about a million handfuls of peanuts this week because holy frick, salty peanuts are so good!

Inner Peas from Trader Joe’s = my new favorite snack. They are exactly the texture I like to crunch on.

Jelly Beans.

Strawberry jam with toasted marshmallow is the best.

Dinners

Adam worked Monday night so I made myself a giant bowl of cereal for dinner.

Heritage Flakes and Reese’s Puffs with vanilla almond milk, a giant nectarine, and half a pint of blackberries.

“Pad Thai” with shrimp and broccoli.

The quotation marks are because I used whole wheat linguine instead of the traditional rice noodles.

Sandwich night.

Sourdough toasted in the oven with strawberry jam, Bone Suckin’ mustard, and two slices of sharp cheddar, with a fried egg in the middle.

Is there a better combination than cheese, egg, and jam? I know ideally there would be a vegetable on that plate but when you consider that I slept through dinner the next night it doesn’t seem so bad.

And as soon as I hit publish I’m off to dinner with the husband. We are trying a Mexican place I’m quite excited about.

Have a great weekend!

26Mar2014

Confessions XV

by Emily

Click here to read Confessions part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, and XIV.

Confession #1 – I can never remember whether or not the song is “Pompeii” and the band is Bastille or vice versa, but I am obsessed with it all the same.

Confession #2 – Reading Jane Borden’s debutante-in-NYC memoir, “I Totally Meant to Do That,” made me wish I had more southerner in me than my love for pulled chicken and fried okra. That’s not all that scandalous. Here is the real confession: when I am (1) tired, (2) drunk, or (3) fake polite I speak with a disturbingly authentic southern drawl. I used to work 10+ hours shifts at a bar that encouraged imbibing and catered exclusively to obnoxious tourists; hitting the trifecta meant that I would introduce myself to my tables and the folks from Alabama would always exclaim “you sound just like us!!”

Confession #3 – When you wash your hands you are supposed to sing “Happy Birthday” twice to make sure that you do it long enough. I felt silly singing to no one and hand-washing is about killing not birthing so now when I wash my hands I sing “Happy Deathday, dear germs…” x2.

Confession #4 – The Buzzfeed article linking to old Disney shorts pretty much made my life. When I was a kid I had a VHS recording of some Scooby Doo episodes and the short I embedded below, “Applecore,” was also on the video. I got so nostalgic rewatching it 20 odd years later.

Confession #5 – Even though Webster is of German stock, he shivers like a little girl whenever he goes outside in the winter. Some times I tease him that he is a chilly dog. Then I tell him he wishes he was a chili dog because then he’d be nice and warm. Then I laugh hysterically at my own punny joke and the dog gives me this face:

Bonus Confession – I have to Google “Roman Numerals” every time I write one of these posts.

25Mar2014

Insta-Wrap-Up; V

by Emily

I love these posts – because I’m pretty sure most of my blog readers do not also follow me on instagram so the content is totally fresh for most of you – but I am not the best at getting them up regularly. Probably because I tend to forget about instagram for weeks at a time. I do love it though.

{so long} purple hair

At the salon.

Day one.

Giant gray streaks where the color bleed out a mere 10 days in .

Nails that look swirly purple but were actually painted a pale nude – the color you’re seeing is dye from my hair!

And now I’m back to boring brown. 😦

working hard for the $

~~Coffee~~ tea break.

Info on lactose intolerance awareness month.

The bag of make-up I keep in my desk for the days when the frigid wind makes me cry off my mascara.

Honestly though, the day I took that picture I had just completely forgotten to put any on before I left the house!

#ootd, aka selfie gallery

Wearing red for women’s heart health awareness. Yes, that was more than a month ago.

And you know I bought a t-shirt repping National Nutrition Month/RD Day.

Is it weird that I think this outfit is the most grown-up thing I’ve ever worn?

The sweet ruffles on the adorable hoodie my mom sent me.

The hood is lined with lace. <– squee!

dog love – I always have to end with photos of my man

24Mar2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Snoozy Saturday

by Emily

My predicted “hours in the kitchen” did not end up coming to fruition this weekend. Instead, I got the tail end of Adam’s cold and spent almost all of Saturday and Sunday in bed. Saturday I got up twice to pee and once to eat a huge bowl of cereal and other than that I was under the covers until the husband got home for dinner! I don’t have a ton to share in this post, but at least I got to snuggle with Webster!

Dinner from the Trader Joe’s frozen aisle.

Pad See Ew with veggies and tofu.

And frozen asparagus cooked with lime juice and honey roasted almonds.

The asparagus was pretty mushy, but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the noodles. Sidenote – I impulse bought TJ’s “Inner Peas” at the store this weekend and was impressed with them as well.

My very last peppermint divinity candy.

I’m sure my parents won’t mind sending me more next December, right guys??

Sushi take-out from Kisso on Saturday.

I got the vegetarian special,

and an order of vegetable goyza.

The dumplings were great. I shared with Adam because they reminded me of the dumplings we were obsessed with from Wegman’s hot bar. Then we shared a bag of Juicy Bears 🙂

Sunday I made it out of bed and off to the store – with very necessary pit stops to shower and caffeinate – so I could make dinner at home. My Turkey Reuben Mac and Cheese.

I subbed in Orecchiette for macaroni and added broccoli and truffle salt.

We had a round of creamy pink grapefruit spritzers for drinks/dessert.

Yum!

Outside of your college years, when is the latest you’ve ever slept in?

21Mar2014

Weekly Highlights

by Emily

I don’t have enough pictures to constitute a wrap-up post this week, but I am going to share some of the highlights. What you’re not seeing is all of the meals that I purchased out – which was pretty much all of them. Also three million pieces of gummy candy, give or take.

This week was very busy; I literally just was not home most nights to cook my own food. And the few I was home, Adam was working at night so my motivation to cook my own food was quite low. One day I had last-minute shopping errands. One day I had a professional development on nutrition for cardiovascular disease (<– it was great!) that kept me in Manhattan until after 10 pm, meaning I didn’t get back home again until almost midnight. And one day I had to go back to the salon to fix my janky hair.

I couldn’t get a good picture, but all of the color bled out of the front leaving me with gray/green pieces that looked highly unprofessional. Now I’m back to boring brown and the purple will be sorely missed!

Here were some of the very best bites from this week…

Rice bowls three days straight? Why not?

A strawberry aloe yogurt drink that I split with Adam.

A fantasmic cup of Quatro Leches (Tres Leches plus dulce de leche) that I found at the grocery store.

A delicious packed work lunch of oatmeal with kettle-cooked apples.

And last, but certainly not least, a Creamy Pink Grapefruit Spritzer. Which, ps, Adam liked so much he actually asked for the recipe and made one on his own.

That’s all, folks! I have looks of kitchen time planned for my weekend so I promise the next wrap-up will have a little more ~~tofu~~ meat.

19Mar2014

Creamy Pink Grapefruit Spritzer {With Cascade Ice}

by Emily

Recently my friends at Cascade Ice reached out to me to see if I would like to participate in a drink contest. Four bloggers were to channel their inner mixologists to create a unique drink recipe that CI could share with their fans.

The recipes will be shared on the Cascade Ice Facebook Page soon and fans can vote for a favorite recipe. The winner off the contest will receive box of their favorite flavor and a $100 gift card. If y’all think my recipe looks good, I would love it if you went over to Facebook and voted for me.

Creamy Pink Grapefruit Spritzer, serves 1

5 oz ruby-red grapefruit juice
2 Tbsp fat-free sweetened condensed milk
5 oz Cascade Ice Pink Grapefruit

Pour grapefruit juice and sweetened condensed milk into glass and whisk to combine.
Top with Cascade Ice.
Serve with a straw and, preferably, a sunny day.

I went with a mocktail, but let’s be real, a little vanilla vodka would go perfectly in here.

I was not provided with compensation for writing this post. I received a box of free Cascade Ice to use in my recipe in exchange for my participation in the contest.