With A Cherry On Top

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Man, oh man!  I was at school for 12+ hours today.  2 of my meals came out of vending machines.  0 of my photos are attractive.  Basically if you look at the numbers this post is going to suck. 

Breakfast from three angles, none of which are pretty.

Basically I put Plain Silk Almond Milk, chia seeds, and a chopped nectarine into a jar in the fridge and let the mixture thicken overnight.  It was pretty good.  I’ve got a fun idea for a chia seed recipes that I’ve had running through my head for the past week.

When I ate in class I topped the mixture with this granola sample from HLS.

I also packed an Oldwalla Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut Fiber Bar, also from HLS.

This tasted good but breakfast did not hold me over at all.  Midway through our 4 hour class I ran to the vending machine and bought these peanut butter crackers.

If I had known what lunch and dinner were going to look like I probably would have done something different.

Class got out at noon and I had an advising appointment at 1:30 and a club event at 6:30 so I figured I’d stay on campus and study and go to the gym.  Not only did I not ever get to the gym, I’m still 10 pages of notes away from being done with my notecards!  Somehow everyone in my class is shocked by how much material is going to be on Friday’s exam!

Honey Mustard Pretzels and Peanut M&Ms, vending machine dinner of champions.

And when I got to the event this evening I made myself a small plate of snacks.

Our club advisor actually got us all together to watch a movie for funsies.  She picked “The Gods Must Be Crazy II” which I ended up loving.  It was cute, touching, and 80’s humor funny.  Plus part of the storyline centered around the San/Bushmen of the Kalahari and I’m obsessed with them.

When I dragged myself back to my car (12 hours later!) I discovered a ticket on my windshield!  It was for my expired car registration (another really frustrating story) which pisses me off because I don’t see why the campus police have authority over anything other than parking permit issues.  I’m going to argue it tomorrow but I came home in a sour mood.

And then Adam met me at the door with candy!!!!!

I mentioned this weekend that I’m one of the few people who really likes cherry cordials and he surprised me with a box of them.

So good.  He’s the best.

I may not have made it to the gym but when we took the dog on a quick walk I sprinted a few blocks with him, so I’m going to call it good.  At least I made a little use of the sports bra I’ve been rocking all day!

Have you ever seen “The Gods Must Be Crazy?”

Cherry cordials; love ’em or hate ’em?

The Best Thing Ever

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Some household things snuck up on me and I don’t have much time to blog dinner.  It was a good one though.

First course – Caesar salads.

Romaine lettuce base, Caesar dressing, and groats and “croutons.”

The dressing was Wegman’s Yogurt Caesar and it was great.

Nice nutritonal stats for a (creamy!) Caesar dressing too.

Entrée – Cheesy Tomato Eggplant Bake.

Think Eggplant Parm but quicker and much healthier.  I layered thinly sliced eggplant and marinara sauce into a casserole dish and baked at 450* for 30 minutes.  Then topped the dish with slices of 2% provolone and put back into the oven for a final 30 minutes.

It was wicked good; super cheesy and hearty.

Dinner, while good, was not the “best thing ever” though.  That title goes to my afternoon snack, which was delightfully low-brow.

A slice of Wegman’s Country White Bread, slathered in butter.  I saw Adam eating a slice of the white bread this afternoon and suddenly I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.  I spread on some butter (onto cold bread) and was in absolute Heaven.  I’m actually not sure I’ve ever been more satisfied by another food.  In fact, the husband told me I was creeping him out because I was enjoying it so much!

What was the last simple thing you blissed out over?

A Chick And Her Dog

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It’s 4pm and I’m still just as excited about my afternoon off as I was this morning!  I’ve haven’t been quite as productive as I’d like, but I’ve gotten far more done than I would have if I’d gotten home at 2pm.  It’s a bit hard to focus when the dog is doing THIS –

Studying got a little easier when he settled onto the couch and was no longer traipsing about on the table.

And my focus got an exponential boost when he settled in my lap for a nap, making it impossible for me to hop out of the chair and get distracted by something across the room.

Plus, I turned off the heat when I got home and it’s 64* in the house so a warm puppy in my lap felt heavenly.

On the food front I’ve been far more successful.  Dinner is half prepped and look at what I made myself for lunch –

Channa Masala!  Apparently we really are on an Indian kick.

I used Jenna’s (Eat, Live, Run) recipe and tried to follow it closely except for a few changes –

  • I didn’t have most of the spices so I used went with 1 tsp garam marsala, 1 tsp sweet curry, and 1/4 tsp chili powder
  • I used an extra Tbsp of butter
  • I skipped the ginger
  • I used extra tomato paste
  • I doubled the lemon juice

Oh, and I burnt the daylights out of the sauce instead of pincing.  Frick!  But I trudged forward with my blackened tomato paste and the end dish turned out pretty tasty, if not carcinogenic.

I topped my serving with fat-free plain yogurt and some mango chutney.

Delish.  I’d like to try the “real” dish at India Gate soon to see how my version compares.

I also snacked on a serving of kettle chips while I cooked.

Is there anything better than chip foldsies?

Christmas In October

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My day took a sharp left turn mid-morning, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

When you have a lazy day Sunday and a test on Wednesday that makes for a busy Monday.  I got up with the husband and was showered and sitting with notecards by 5:30am.  I took a breakfast break around 6 because if I’m going to study before dawn I’m going to eat a nice meal, dammit.

And boy was this a nice meal.

I reheated some chopped, roasted zucchini in a skillet with a bit of black truffle oil, then scrambled in some garlic dill double cream chevre and 2 large eggs.

These eggs practically blew my mind!  Adam is the one who’s obsessed with truffle oil but I am absolutely loving it in scrambled eggs.

Plus two Republic of Tea Red Velvet Chocolate tea bags were steeped in some skim milk.

I actually find this tea to be pretty tasteless and sad (outside of the pink color!) but doubling up and using milk instead of water seemed to help.  My mom bought me the tea as an expensive gift last time she visited and I’m not going to waste it.

I drove to school in the rain and was feeling pretty glum about the upcoming week, especially when I remembered that we had a quiz in class #2.  But then our first class started and suddenly the clouds parted with all sorts of good news –

  • our Wednesday test was moved to Friday
  • our professor had to call in sick so both of my afternoon classes for today were cancelled

Bam; total mood turn around!  I swear you guys, I was so giddy it felt like Christmas morning.

I couldn’t even begin to take a photograph that captures how happy I am to be at home right now.  Though I will memorialize my final thin t-shirt with sandals look; it’s supposed to be snow weather on Thursday.

With my found time I’m going to try to make two nice meals for today and get caught up with my work for this week.  I’ll see y’all in a bit for a lunch at home!

For Your Viewing Pleasure

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Today was one of those (many!) days where Adam and I curled up together on the couch and ate pizza.  It was glorious, and lazy, and perfect.  No food blogging today  – pizza, pizza, and more pizza! – though we did take the time to shoot you a quick Webster video.  Enjoy!

Pet Owners – pb or cheese cubes, how do you get your animals to take their pills?

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?