Marys, Monkeys, and Magnums

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As the title implies, it’s been a fun day!  Also, in case the title leads to any confusion, mary = an upcoming half marathon and magnum is not referring to condoms!

Yep, I said it, I’ve got another half marathon in my sights!  I’ve been agitated ever since my 6-week illness killed my training for the Buffalo Half Marathon and I finally found one to take its place.  My goal is to run in the Presque Isle Half Marathon on July 17th.  I say goal instead of plan because I’m mindful of the fact that I have a history of injuries and pushing through pain isn’t worth the risk.  I’m going to wait until I’ve made it to at least 7 miles without incident before I put money down on entry fee.

I do however have a training plan (which I’ll share sometime soon) that had me slated for 3miles this morning.  The husband and I ran a nice loop around our neighborhood, 3miles and 30minutes.  Since I don’t have a Garmin I can’t really track my pacing, but I use MapMyRun as best I can.

When we got home I had to run through my shower since Katie was picking me up for a brunch date at Betty’s.

I’d never been before but I’ll definitely be going back to Betty’s soon, the place was adorable and the food was delicious!

I ordered off the specials menu, the Portobello Benedict –

Hashbrowns,

fruit,

and two English muffins topped with roasted Portobello mushroom, spinach, two poached eggs, and smoked gouda.

Mmmmmmn!  It shouldn’t be called a Benedict without Hollandaise (I would have gotten it on the side though so I probably shouldn’t quibble..) but this meal was not lacking for flavor.  The egg yolks melted perfectly into the bread and it was great to get some veggies into my morning.

Katie was kind enough to drive me back to school and I snagged a “mocha” (half coffee, half hot chocolate) along the way.

I don’t have classes on Tuesday but I was headed to an Anthropology-sponsored speaker on the topic of primates.  Ever since I attended the Body Farm lecture (love!) my name has been on an e-mail list and when I saw “live primates in attendance” I jumped on the opportunity!  I recruited a few friends to come with me and we all had a ton of fun –

Where else can you see a man diaper a monkey?

We’ve been putting grocery shopping off and are running out of food so Adam picked me up from the lecture for a trip to Wegmans.

I had to show off my primate pictures so we had to get hot bar for lunch.

Tons of grilled/steamed veggies with a little bit of sesame chicken,

with fruit for dessert.

Tastes like summer, the mango was definitely swoon-worthy!

While we were out, I cashed in a coupon from the Foodbuzz Tastemakers’ Program for some Magnum Ice Cream.

I grabbed a box of Double Caramel Bars.

I am so glad that I was given the opportunity to taste this for free because it’s not it’s not a product I would have bought on my own and now I might be obsessed!

Holy double layer of chocolate, Batman; this was good!  It’s (surprisingly good for vanilla) vanilla ice cream, wrapped in chocolate, wrapped in caramel, wrapped in a second chocolate shell.  The premise reminds me of this SNL skit, but the execution was perfection!

http://www.hulu.com/embed/umxmTijZLcnMhDPJjmYd5g

I also snacked on baby carrots with blue cheese,

and shared a few tastes of the husband’s new fancy cheese.

Dinner was a Cooking Light find, Quick White Bean, Asparagus and Mushroom Cassoulet.

Per usual, my changes included –

  • using baby Portobellos for half of my mushrooms
  • skipping the wine and oregano entirely
  • subbing in chicken broth for veggie broth
  • roasting the asparagus instead of boiling it
  • putting the cassoulet into the oven instead of the broiler (I don’t have a single broiler safe vessel!)

Even with my changes it was still pretty delicious though.

I ate my serving with some chips for scooping purposes.

Delicious.

Ok, this has been a very long post, time to wrap things up.  Hope everyone had a good day!

Cupcakes Worth Celebrating

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It’s an exciting day around here, Adam’s semester is officially over!  He took a final this morning, marking the end of this portion of his schooling.  They finish school early because they have two months off to study for an important exam.  Then they start back again mid-summer, this time on rotation in the hospital!  He’s celebrating by playing poker with the boys and I celebrated by making the boys a batch of cupcakes.  And boy am I glad to have a reason to celebrate, said cupcakes are the recipe I’ve been testing/obsessing over the past few weeks: ‘Smores cupcakes.  The recipe is at the bottom of this post and I totally won’t blame you if you skip right to the end.

For those of you who are still with me, lunch –

I packed a toasted Bagel Thin, topped with a slice of 2% Swiss and Crofter’s Strawberry Fruit Spread,

and a sliced Gala apple.

I don’t think my Biochem test went as poorly as I was expecting, but my nutrition quiz was pretty gosh-darn awful.  It’s too late to really fix my grades for this semester, but I’m excited to work hard the next few weeks just in the interest of feeling better about myself.

When I got home this afternoon I made myself a plate of baby carrots with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

I’m glad I ate a snack, one with a veggie natch, because dinner was a no-go.  I did so much “tasting” while I baked that I ate enough sugar to give myself a migraine!  Whoops; #healthylivingbloggerfail!

But what a way to get a headache…

‘Smores Cupcakes, serves 15

cake ingredients

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 and 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 and 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 6 sheets graham crackers (4 rectangles = 1 sheet)

filling ingredients

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 large egg white
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/8 tsp cream of tartar

frosting ingredients

  • 8 oz 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 and 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
  • 10 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

cake directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line muffin pans with 15 liners.
  2. Place graham crackers in a baggie and use a rolling-pin or a sturdy cup to crush them into a homogenous mixture with a rough sand texture.
  3. Stir together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
  4. In a medium bowl, cream together sugar and butter.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Then stir in vanilla.
  5. Working in batches, mix flour mixture into wet ingredients.
  6. Stir in milk, then fold in crumbled graham crackers.
  7. Spoon batter into cupcake pan, filling each liner about 3/4.
  8. Bake 20minutes, until tops of cupcakes spring back to the touch. 
  9. Set aside to cool.  Cooling can be sped up by placing baked cupcakes into the freezer for 1-2minutes.

filling directions

  1. Place sugar and water in a medium pan over medium-high heat.  Cook, stirring constantly, until sugar has completely liquified.  Remove from heat.
  2. Place egg white, vanilla, and cream of tartar in a **clean and dry** bowl.  Beat until soft peaks begin to form.  A stand mixer would be preferable, but I’ve definitely done this using a handheld mixer and lots of patience.
  3. While mixer is running, carefully stream sugar syrup into bowl.
  4. Beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until stiff peaks form and mixture is glossy; 7minutes.

frosting directions

  1. Place chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl.  Melt, microwaving for 30second intervals and stirring in between.  You want to stop heating when the chips are mostly melted, as they will continue to melt as you stir.  This step can also be done in a double boiler.
  2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar.
  3. Pour melted chocolate – it only needs to cool for a moment or two – into frosting.  Beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until the mixture is incorporated.

assembly directions

  1. Lay cooled cupcakes on a flat surface.
  2. Use a spatula to transfer filling to a pastry bag fitted with a medium piping tip.  A plastic bag with the corner will work as well, but be carefull not to cut the hole too large or the pressure will force out the piping tip.
  3. Push tip flush into the top of a cupcake and pipe until you feel increased resistance.  Repeat, piping 3 holes into each cupcake.  It’s ok if you make some craters because the thick frosting will cover them up.
  4. Apply frosting liberally.
  5. Consume!

Note – you will probably have leftover frosting and filling, even after all of the cupcakes have been assembled.  Both are fabulous stirred into plain Greek yogurt or eaten with a spoon 🙂

I Have a Biochem Exam Today

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So our Scrubs and pizza date was wonderful.  Sidenote – as we walked (in sandals) to get our pizza we were stopped for a short but fun interview by a local tv crew doing an interest piece about the weather!

Sunday – which included brunch and a movie date, to “Scream 4” of all things – was wonderful too.

What was not wonderful, was the feeling in my stomach when I woke up and realized I have a Biochem exam today.  It’s not that I forgot about the exam, more like I forgot to care.  Sometimes I get frustrated here (I didn’t choose Buffalo, the husband did; BSC isn’t the type of school I’d love to attend; I’m afraid I’m not as passionate about nutrition as I am about other things), and sometimes I let that frustration get in the way.  But frustrated or not, I choose this; I quit my job career to be here.  So I need to make the most of it.  “Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.” ~Josh Billings

Breakfast was very well-played.

Greek style, fat-free honey and almond yogurt from Target.  A chopped banana.  1Tbsp of Smuckers Natural PB with Honey.  A few butter toffee almonds.  A sprinkle of toasted coconut.

As I set off to cram I may be disappointed in myself, but at least I’m well-fed!

What is/was your study style; last-minute cram or responsible do-ahead?

Frosted

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I’m having a blogger conundrum – I’ve made immediate plans to hang out with the husband and I want to go be with him, BUT I had a fun day I’d really like to blog about.  Let’s compromise: good content, quick and boring post.

We had some errands to run this morning before the fun, so I grabbed a 2% Pineapple Chobani to eat in the car.

I’m never going to stray with Mango again, this is sooo much better!

Then we headed to our fun activity – a cake baking/decorating class at Delish!

Delish is an adorable bakery in our neighborhood that also does cooking/baking classes upstairs.  When Groupon offered a 50% of deal a few months ago I jumped on it.  It took us a while to find a class we were both excited about, but cake decorating definitely fit the bill.

We watched the owner bake two kinds of cupcakes and two kinds of buttercream, and learned a few buttercream tips that I can’t wait to use.  We took a few tastes and in total I’d say my bites added up to one small cupcake.

Next they did some cake layering and icing demos and let us loose.  The husband was shockingly talented at writing in icing, must be those future surgeon’s hands!  We each got our own cake to layer and frost.  Mine –

Adam’s –

It was a lot of fun.  If you live in the area I’d highly recommend taking a class at Delish.

The two-hour course got our hunger worked up so we walked across the street to Blue Monk for lunch.

Our friend Danielle is a bartender there and we’ve heard nothing but good things.

Good things that we’ll now echo, because our food was delicious!  I ordered an appetizer special, the veggie Napoleon.

Grilled zucchini and tomato, layered with house made lemon ricotta and sliced baguette.

This was light but filling.  The texture was great and you could taste the fact that the ingredients were high quality.

I also split the famous duck fat frites with Adam.

Swoon!

And snagged a few bites of his duck reuben.

It was good, but my veggies definitely stole the show.

I think I needed a bigger lunch after my small breakfast though (especially after the smell of baking cakes revved up my appetite), so I ended up making myself a snack when we got home.

1.5 oz of tortilla chips, 1.5 oz of 2% sharp cheddar, corn relish, and jalopenos.

Is there a Nachos Anonymous?!

Finally, the plan for the evening is Scrubs reruns and pizza!  I know that sounds dull to some, but this combo is so exciting to the husband and I that I actually talked about it in my wedding vows!  I can’t wait!

Have you ever taken a cooking class?

All Sorts of Win

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My day has been like Charlie Sheen, all sorts of winning!  Seriously though, it has been one of those days that are just randomly fantastic.  Good workout, mostly good food, good times with the husband…

Win #1 of the day was the realization that music makes my workouts fly by.  My i-pod broke months ago and my parents gave me an IOU for a replacement in my Christmas stocking but it’s taken me a while to finally cash it in.  I got a nano, in lime green, engraved with my phone # and part of my favorite quote from Robert Frost.

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

Once I got of Biochem this afternoon I headed straight to the gym, my new i-pod stocked with a new 30minute playlist –

  1. Sweet Light, The Chapin Sisters
  2. The Cave, Mumford and Sons
  3. Coming Home, Diddy
  4. Signal Fire, Snow Patrol
  5. Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster, Geto Boys
  6. Heartbeats, Jose Gonzalez
  7. My Dick, Dirt Nasty
  8. Somwhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

For 30minutes on the elliptical, random level 6.  “What a Wonderful World” is actually the song Adam and I walked down the aisle to once we were married, and when it came on I started to cry!!!  I had to elliptisize as fast as I could to make myself stop being embarrassing (double win!).

Once I was home and showered I headed out on errands with Adam.  Win #2 was the free coffee I picked up at Starbucks for Earth Day –

Seasoned with a big pour of skim milk and two sugars.

Our errands included a trip to the mall for Adam to get an eye check up, where I sat in the food court for an hour and wrote notecards like a weirdo.  I may have looked like a creeper, but I actually got a lot done.

Not a win, was the fact that we were busy straight through lunch and ended up not eating anything.  By 5:30 when we left the mall I was having a definite panic attack of hunger.  I ended up randomly grabbing this Liquid Taffy candy to split with Adam.

Such a win!  The texture of this was divine; a velvety, less chewy taffy.

We continued dessert before dinner by splitting froyo.

Fat free chocolate and vanilla twist, topped with strawberries, sprinkles, and granola.

Total win!

Dinner, not such a win.  It was poised to be good…

We headed to Taste of Thai on Hertel (an avenue with tons of good-looking restaurants and next to no parking), where we split our regular order – Pad See Eiw with tofu,

and Cashew Chicken.

The dishes had tons of veggies (our complaint with Buffalo Thai has been the lack of veggies), but that’s where the compliments end.  The renditions were painfully inauthentic, and way too salty to boot.  Fail!

But being with the husband is always a win.  Especially for the rest of the evening, for which our big plans include the latest Community and the splitting of two mini ice creams.

This day has been sweet, in every sense of the word!

What was your most recent #win?

A Breakfast of Sorts

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Last night’s meal must have gotten in my head because all I could think about for breakfast was a quesadilla.

A whole wheat tortilla, loaded with 2Tbsp of 2% sharp cheddar, and pressed on the George Foreman.

I sliced up a Gala apple too.

Apples are a breakfast food!

But I suppose dessert isn’t a breakfast thing…

Meh, I march to my own beat.

Smoothie Sucker

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At least once a week I put “smoothies!” on our meal plan for breakfast.  I would say the ratio of smoothies made to smoothies listed is something like 1:10.  Why am I such a sucker for the allure of morning smoothies?!  They sound so refreshing and tasty, but I never actually have time to make one, leaving me breakfastless and cranky.

Thankfully today I packed a pretty breakfast-y lunch, so I pulled that out a few hours early.

A berry flavored Revolution Foods squeeze packet,

and a 2% Mango Chobani.

With a small coffee (that large cup is half full) with two creamers.

I loved the new fruit packet flavor (on sale at Buffalo Tops!) but I wasn’t thrilled by the new-to-me Chobani.  I was expecting to love it because Pineapple is so good, but the texture just seemed strange to me.

Speaking of fruit, we had a fun lab today – finding the ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) content of different food items.  It was an interesting lab; always nice to practice something that actually relates to my profession.  P.S. Tang has .023mg of vitamin C per mL.

I was a busy bee after lab, with work to complete, a trip to the health center, a date with the gym, and finally an impromptu lunch date with Adam.  I was at the health center for a required physical before I begin working in the hospitals during the Coordinated Program next year.  After I get a PPD test next week there will be nothing between me and clinical work!

Next up was the gym.  I’m not going to lie to you guys, this visit was hard!  I did interval sets on the treadmill, 1minute walking/3minutes jogging.  I hit 3miles just around my 9th set.  With a quick cool down for a total of 3.25miles and 35minutes.

Since I ate my lunch for breakfast, I made an impromptu lunch date with the husband.  Adam was my savior and drove my drippingly sweaty self home for a much-needed shower.  We set a timer as I got out of the car (he had to sit out in front of the house) and getting upstairs, undressed, showered, ready to go, and back downstairs took me 11minutes and 5seconds.  And I even made an outfit change!

Go speedy!

Yes, that picture is at Wegmans.  Yes, we do have a hot bar problem!

I know we should try someplace new, but we love all the options and the price is right.  I’d much rather take a bunch of little different bites than have one choice in bulk.  Today I got a random mix of tofu, chicken, and slaw,

with pretty much every kind of roasted veggie.

The veggies were fantabulous as usual, but I ended up leaving behind most of the other side; my slaw had ham in it!

It was great to spend some mid-day time with Adam, and even better to get to head back to school with some yogurt pretzels to munch on during my night class.

Having a snack definitely made the time go faster.

In no time at all we were home eating burritos.

It helped that I pre-made the filling yesterday so the burritos came together in a cinch.

We topped whole wheat tortillas with sautéed mushrooms and onions, black beans, corn relish, sliced jalopenos, and some shredded 2% sharp cheddar.

Then we pressed them in the George Foreman like what we see them do at Moe’s.

Plus a side of scoops tortilla chips with spicy salsa for authenticity.

Perhaps I should have saved this meal for May 5th?

And since I’m a bottomless pit, I’ve got a mug waiting for dessert.

I stirred hot cocoa mix into some 0% Plain Oikos, then topped with brownie crumbles and toasted coconut.  I haven’t tasted it yet, but I can pretty well guess that it’s going to be amazing.

I hope this means I’m all set up for sweet dreams!  But first, some reruns of “Iron Chef” on Hulu.

How often do you make smoothies?  How often do you purchase them out?

Why So Serious?

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No post yesterday, I was busy at the orthodontist getting a new retainer.  Unsurprisingly, losing my ability to snack without dealing with mouthgear or to freely sip diet coke all day put me in a sour mood.  It didn’t help that my orthodontist accidentally sliced open the side of my lip, the effect of which is twofold – 1) I look like the Joker; 2) I’m not even wearing the retainers today because I can’t open my damn mouth!

Breakfast was restricted to something I could eat with a straw –

Leftover vanilla coffee, maple syrup, Silk Vanilla Almond Milk, and lots of ice.

I couldn’t figure out what to pack for lunch, so I ended up ordering a nice flat quesadilla.

The Taco Bell workers were surprisingly accommodating and agreed to add all of their veggies (lettuce, tomato, and onions) to my cheese quesadilla.

I could only manage to eat half of it though, and even that took me 45minutes!

By the time my second nutrition class was over I was hungry and cranky.  In a not-so-nutritious move, I ended up carefully shoving chicken fingers and fries into my sore mouth.

My plan was to hit the gym between my afternoon class and Music, but a research presentation crisis took me to the library instead.  Just as well, since my greasy platter of food left me wanting to throw up anyway.

But I surprised myself by making it to the gym after my night class.  Normally my motivation wanes as the day goes on, but I knew I needed the mood-boosting effects.  It helped that he let us out of class an hour early!  I did 20 (difficult) minutes of jogging on the treadmill, followed by a quick cool down, for a total of 25minutes and 2.4miles.

When I finally got home at 9pm, I needed to spend some time in the kitchen, prepping for Adam’s lunch and tomorrow’s dinner.  I also had a few school loose ends to tie up for tomorrow, pushing this post even later.  As soon as I realized my early bedtime was shot, I begged Adam to take me to 7-11 for a diet pop, where this happened –

Cherry/Coke slushies make me giddy!

Now as soon as I hit publish I can’t wait to get showered and get in bed!

What is your slushie flavor (combo) of choice?