Quick Trip To Canada

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I went to Canada today!

We didn’t really do any exciting abroad things, but we did snap pictures as we drove past the falls.  We were just making a quick trip up to the International Marathon Expo.  I offered to drive up so that blog friends Katy and Holly could pick up their packets.

I actually was planning on running the half marathon with them until not too long ago, but that’s another story for another time.

Prior to our drive, Adam and I hit up the farmers’ market in search of eggplants.  We had success.  We also found breakfast.

The husband and I split this locally made cheddar-rosemary scone.

It was crumbly and delicious.  I need to put “make scones” on my life to-do list.

Then after Canada we headed to the grocery store.  Adam and I both got totally sucked in by this register line purchase.

We split the box 60:40 (his favor), but both took at least a nibble of all four flavors.

When we got home I made myself a plate of grilled cheese epicness for lunch.

2 mini sandwiches (that’s a small plate) of sourdough bread with cheddar, 2% mozzarella, and pickled jalapeno slices.

I cooked the sandwiches in a skillet with another smaller skillet pressed on top and they turned out so crispy. 

Plus melty, cheesy, and spicy.

With a cookie for dessert.

We had dinner planned but Adam was absolutely desperate to get back to India Gate.  We compromised by eating some veggies at home first.  In the form of salads.

This was an amazing salad too.  A Romaine lettuce base topped with groats, roasted zucchini, goat cheese, and champagne dressing.

The cheese was more of the world’s best goat cheese from First Light Farm and Creamery.

This time a double cream chevre with garlic and dill.

And the dressing was a Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program sample from Marzetti’s Simply Dressed Line.

Nutrition –

From the accompanying literature – “Marzetti Simply Dressed is made with a minimal number of all-natural ingredients, such as extra virgin olive oil, canola oil (a source of Omega-3 ALA) and sea salt, and does not contain any preservatives, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, or artificial flavors or colors.”

After all that it’s ironic, but my only complaint was with one of the ingredients!  The dressing contained xantham gum (which I’m not opposed to in principle and do use occasionally in smoothies) and it made it way to viscous.  The thick, goopy, snotty (sorry) texture is not what I’m looking for in a dressing.  But the flavor was nice without being overpowering.  And I only needed 1.5 Tbsp (less than 80 calories) to feel like my whole salad was properly dressed.

‘Twas good all together.

But we hung out a bit too long between our salad course and the rest of our meal because we definitely had room for dessert, drink, and appetizer!

We started with Paneer Pakora, hhome-made cheese dipped in chickpea batter and deep-fried.

This was like the Indian spin on fried mozzarella sticks.  Here’s my serving –

We also ordered a fig lassi.

It was creamy with nice back hints of fig and these great little pieces of chewiness at the bottom.

We meant to share this 50:50 but I took a much larger portion because my meal was hot-hot-hot.

It’s not on the menu, but they were happy to hook me up with Tofu Vindaloo.

Vindaloo is a spicy, tomato based sauce that I’ve been dying to try because it’s notorious for melting your face off.  I ordered mine “hot” hot and while this was spicy it still wasn’t quite the heat level I was hoping for.  I’ve found outside of Thai food other types of heat just feel a little flat to me.

Adam repeated his order from last time, Chicken Makhani, boneless skinless tandori chicken breast prepared in tomato, butter, cream sauce and garnished with cashews and raisins.

My meals have all been good but I think there is really no way to beat this dish!  The cashews and raisins are little bits of chew embedded in every bite.

The bits of chew theme continued with fantastic rice.

I told Adam during this meal that chewiness is my favorite texture sensation.

Here was plate number 1 –

Rice, tofu, plus a taste of the Makhani sauce.  I ended up also topping my vindaloo liberally with raita to help cool things down.

For plate number 2 I ended up just layering all of the components into a pile.

It was a great combination of flavors.  And we came home with leftovers so we’ll have happy taste buds for lunch tomorrow too.

We didn’t want to kill the date-night vibe so we ended with dessert.

Gulab Jamun, deep-fried milk balls in a sweet syrup.

These were like little donuts with the slightest flavor of milk, like tres leches light.  The syrup had some sort of spice in it and lent another nice layer of flavor.  It was a fun end to a fun meal.

Which Indian dish should I check out next?

Good Marital Advice

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First things first.

Q – Which has more caffeine (no looking it up!) a grande coffee from Starbucks or a Red Bull energy drink?

A – The Starbucks.  330 mg versus 80 mg.  (source)

Also, I have no photos of my mid-day meal.  Lunch was consumed via food lab samples and I didn’t have time to photograph.  The lack of pictures stinks, but the meal was gooood.  Today was the fat/fat substitute group’s lab and we made regular and reduced versions of ranch dressing, buffalo chicken dip, french toast, red velvet cupcakes, and grilled cheese sandwiches.  In total I consumed about 3-4 big bites of each.  The cupcakes were beyond nasty (both varieties) but the dip was ridiculous good and we all stood around taking bites long after we were done tasting!  Plus I ate several pieces of sourdough while I was slicing bread for the sandwiches.

I had dinner all planned out but the husband arrived home from the hospital at 6pm and confidently declared that we were going out.  A good wife never contradicts her husband.

We ended up at Thai Orchid and our meal was mind-blowing.  Good call, honey!

I took a few bites of Adam’s Tom Kha soup.

And several more bites of his Pad Thai.

But mostly I was focused on shoving this into my mouth as quickly as I could.

Pad Kee Mao; spicy stir-fried flat rice noodles in chili sauce with broccoli, egg, onion, green and red peppers, and fresh hot basil.

I ordered mine tofu/vegetarian and Thai spicy so it came with extra veggies and burned my face off.

Heaven.  I was dying with happiness with every bite I took.

Now we are going to catch up on “Modern Family” and stick some spoons into this –

Did you guess the answer to the caffeine question correctly?

Health Fair Fare

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Good morning!  I’m especially chipper today because I got a whopping 10 hours of sleep last night.  I always turn into a bit of a bear at the slightest hint of cold but it appears this year my body requires a full-scale hibernation!

Yesterday morning did get off to a good start with a yogurt bowl.  Into the last ~ serving of Wegman’s 0% Greek yogurt I stirred 1 Tbsp chia seeds, 1 Tbsp maple syrup, and 2 Tbsp Silk Plain Almond Milk.

Then I plopped in a big handful of raspberries before the mix had time to resolidify.

And since I used up the last serving I could use the container as my bowl; portable, yo.

Note: I use the word “yo,” unironically, often.  If we’re going to be friends you should know.

We have our Coordinated Program stuff on Thursday which usually means a 4-hours-straight block of class, but yesterday we technically got out a bit early because we were putting on a health fair!  The program was split into two projects this semester – one group is organizing the chili sale (my group) and the other group organized an on-campus health fair – but everyone in the class ultimately participates in both.  I think the Health Fair group did a great job!

The fair was professional and I was especially impressed with all of the non-dietetics students for how interested they were in learning about nutrition.  I was at the “quiz” table (not shown) and it was a ton of fun.

We didn’t really have time for lunch but I did snag a baggie of baby carrots from one of the other tables.

Plus we all hit up the bake sale.

Our pumpkin fudge pops were a hit!  I also ate most of this carrot cake bar my friend Hillary made.

Yum.  We laughed that it wasn’t really dessert, just that I was making sure I got in my orange veggies for the day!

We recently got a recall notice for the husband’s car so I spent my afternoon out at the Toyota dealership.  I did a little bit of studying and made the best meal I could from the vending machines.

I brought Adam home a handful of those pretzels but it was too late, he had already eaten two big servings of leftover African Peanut Stew, aka both of our dinners.  I was pretty tired and I couldn’t get take-out so instead of grumping around all evening I just got into an early bed.

And since clearly getting up at 5am this morning was easier that most, I had time for breakfast at home today.

I mixed a Stonyfield Low-Fat French Vanilla Yogurt with pumpkin pie spice and 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin, then topped with 1/4 cup of All-Bran Bran Buds and 1 Tbsp unsweetened coconut.

This was like mousse with crumb topping … sort of!  I do adore that Bran Bud cereal though.

I’m done with class at 1pm today and I’m hoping to bang out a lot of work for next week’s test.  We are getting back our 2nd test from last week today and considering how bad the 1st one was I bet I’ll be motivated.

Which has more caffeine (no looking it up!) a grande coffee from Starbucks or a Red Bull energy drink?

My Chemical Romance

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Can we just not talk about the fact that my diet today consisted of sugar, caffeine, and Lean Cuisine?  Goodbye phytochemicals, hello chemicals!

And I was even more of a disaster yesterday.  (<– hence, no post)  The dog ate some very important notes and made me sooooo mad!  By the time I finished cleaning up I just went straight to bed!  Thank goodness I ate a whole bag of chips for lunch so I was covered calorically 😉

I didn’t prepack lunch so this morning I grabbed what I thought was an apple off my shelf.  Nope.

Since I had no other food in my bag I did end up eating Good & Plentys at 8am!  I totally deserved the sugar-induced buzz/headache that followed.

Speaking of sugar, how cute are these?

There is a bake sale going on tomorrow and Janessa and I are bringing in cake balls.

Pumpkin cake, homemade cream cheese frosting, a dip in dark chocolate, and fall colored sprinkles!

We baked all through our break so I couldn’t get food, but I did make time for Starbucks.

That’s a grande, non-fat, caramel macchiato with pumpkin spice subbed in for vanilla syrup.  Genius!

School got out at 4:30 and then Adam and I had to get our flu shots and spend some time switching out our summer and winter wardrobes.  The seasons have officially changed!

I was beyond ready for dinner by the time I sat down to eat at 8pm.

These Thai -style Chicken Spring Rolls from Lean Cuisine rocked my socks.

I ate 6 (aka two servings) minus 1 for the husband who has become a recent Lean Cuisine addict.  I know that the sodium content sucks but they are all so dang good and our grocery store always has great sales.  Plus, for my personal diet I’m more concerned with saturated fat content than sodium.

Dipped in homemade peanut sauce these made a nice, satisfying dinner.

P.S. My mom just called to ask why there was no “Window Shopping Wednesday” post today.  Because I spent all day thinking it was Tuesday!?!

Shoulda Known, Part II

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I should have known that the puppy would be a bad influence.

A sleeping Webster on the couch meant I read blogs until Adam came home instead of studying.

I should have known that the gym is always the best stress reliever.  I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical and all my test worries just slipped away.

I should have known to give Adam better instructions.

He didn’t have to go in until a bit later today so I left him instructions for putting dinner in the crock pot.  The recipe called for 3/4 cup of creamy peanut butter which we didn’t have.  We did have chunky peanut butter (which I thought he’d use) and honey peanut butter (which he actually used).  I gave him some serious grief this afternoon, but …

I should have known that the husband is always right.

The soup was delicious.  We made the African Peanut Stew from Make It Fast, Cook It Slow.  We skipped some of the spices, used honey pb, and only used half of the chicken the recipe called for.  It ended up being delicious.  Plus asparagus.

It was a good dinner.  And I even had dessert.

I should have known that I’d end up eating even more calories than I burned.

I’ve been eyeing these M&M blondies ever since the semester started and when I spotted one in the bookstore on the way home from the gym I just had to get it.

I should have known that “She’s Out of My League” would be funny and cute.  My ratios of watching to studying aren’t quite where I’d planned!

What I Should Have Known

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Can we talk about my cortisol levels?  Because today was stress-full!  Not in an anything-serious-happening sort of way, more of an I’m-irritated-and-I-feel-my-heart-racing-please-let-me-go-have-a-nap way.

For irritating things #1, you need some background info.  Like “my classes start at 8am every day.”  Or “it takes me 3-5 minutes to drive to campus most days.”  And “the walk from the parking lot to my first class takes 10 minutes no matter how quickly you scurry.”  Got all that?  Because I woke up at 7:47.  Yeah.  I should have known that staying up late with Adam and eating cookies and big bowls of mac n cheese was not going to leave me well rested.  I ended up only being 3 minutes late to class though.  Extrapolate that and think about just how pretty I looked today.

Irritating thing #2 is that we don’t have our tests from last week back.  I’m not irritated with the teacher because I know time-consuming grading can be.  (Though I am irritated with another teacher because we took a test in that class a month ago and still don’t have it back!)  But it is irritating to have to keep obsessing over how I did.  I think one test went really well and the other went really, really poorly so for a multitude of reasons I’d like to have them back and be able to just move on!

Since I clearly didn’t pack any food and I had group meetings during all of our breaks, my first meal of the day was consumed at 3pm.  To keep myself from going crazy I bought a half-sweet pumpkin spice latte on my drive home.

And then I tucked into this –

That’s a leftover serving of mac ‘n cheese with chopped carrots and celery stirred in and Greek yogurt and Sriracha on top.

I went a bit heavy with the Sriracha, I should have known that my mouth would be on fire.  I ended up just stirring everything together.

This killed the cheesiness (favorite flavor 1) but the end product was very spicy and creamy (favorites 2 and 3).  I should have known that it’d be perfect.

Plans for the evening include –

  • school work (hopefully)
  • dinner (for sure)
  • stress reduction (any suggestions?)
  • a workout (please, please, please, Universe, give me the motivation to do this!)

Fun Fact Fridays Monday

Here are some of the things I hope I knew during my test last Friday –

  • Sugar alcohols, which are naturally found in some foods, are produced by reducing the carbonyl group of a sugar to a hydroxyl group.  They are used in gum because they are sweet but do not cause dental carries (cavities) and have less kilocalories than sugar because they are not absorbed as readily.
  • Corn syrup is produced by the hydrolysis (break down) of corn starch.  For high fructose corn syrup, they hydrolyse corn starch then use an isomerase to convert glucose to fructose (the sweetest monosaccharide).
  • professor’s opinion, backed by multiple peer-review studies – HFCS isn’t any worse (or different) than sugar.  The problem is that we are getting too many sweeteners (sugar, HFCS, honey, agave, etc) because they are added to everything.
  • In 2010, the average consumption of sweetened products was 131.9 lb/person/year.  This was an increase from 2009.

Tervis, Tastes, TV

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Today was a perfect day with the husband and dog!  Especially the walk we took around a new block (as in new to us) this morning, pictures to come tomorrow.  I did not do any school work though I did deal with the laundry and eat some veggies.

I even got some veggies into my breakfast, via pumpkin hot chocolate!

To back up, here is the Tervis tumbler I received via the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program.

I grew up with glasses from Tervis and when Adam and I started living together they were one thing I was sure I wanted and was willing to spend money on.

Even though I’ve used them forever and know how great they are at keeping drinks cold and not sweating all over the table, until I received my letter with the package I’d never thought about putting anything hot into a Tervis.  Thankfully I had a fantastic recipe to try out.

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate, serves 1

  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 2 Tbsp milk chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Heat milk to simmering in a small pot.  Whisk in chocolate chips until smooth.  Whisk in pumpkin and spice and continue to simmer 1-2 minutes.  Serve, preferably topped with whipped cream!

It was a lazy sort of day and somehow Adam and I made it until 2:30 without eating anything outside of hot chocolate (he doesn’t like pumpkin so I made his with booze!).  We were running errands by the time that we realized we were long overdue for a meal.

So we went to India Gate and had the best meal we’ve eaten yet in Buffalo!

The service was great, the food was healthy and packed with flavor, and the location was footsteps from our apartment; we’ll be back!

We started by splitting a mango lassi.

It was pretty good, but the last (first) time I went to India Gate I had a fig lassi and there was just no beating that!

Adam and I wanted to try several flavors so we made sure to both order things the other would enjoy.

Chicken Makhani – boneless, skinless tandori chicken breast prepared in tomato, butter and cream sauce and garnished with cashews and raisins – for Adam,

and Bhartha Paneer – fresh eggplant cooked with home-made cheese and special house sauce – for me.

Plus rice.

Here was plate #1 –

Adam’s sauce was so rich and creamy!  And my eggplant had the perfect amount of spice.  The homemade cheese was pretty fantastic as well, Adam actually thought it was tofu the first few bites!

And plate number 2 –

Another scoop of Bhartha Paneer plus a bite of rice with Makhani sauce on top.  The husband and I were practically swooning by the time we finished!  Everything was so rich without being too heavy and it was tons of fun trying a few new things.

We also tried a handful of this spiced lentil mix (I think?!) on the way out.

The only meh.  All this did was make it essential for me to buy Good & Plentys at the store.

Speaking of sweet, after we dropped off the groceries and picked up the dog we headed out for this –

I had Coldstone’s pumpkin ice cream in my head all afternoon and was thrilled to see that they had caramel frozen yogurt to mix it with!  Plus graham cracker and caramel sauce.

It was wonderful.  And the price was wonderful too; Adam and I both ordered kid’s sizes and we ended up only paying $3.20 total.

We are finishing our wonderful day by cuddling on the couch and catching up on TV.  Note – major props to “Modern Family” for the funniest (and most tasteful) gay joke I’ve ever seen on tv!

Since our 3pm lunch was also basically breakfast and dinner – minus dessert! – I’m going to grab something else to eat but I’m done blogging for the day so I can cuddle.  Either an English muffin, a cookie, or both.  Happy cuddling, readers!

What’s your favorite Indian dish to order?