Walking Dead

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Ugh, it’s a good thing I made two home-cooked meals today because that is about all I did!  I felt like a zombie all afternoon!  This post will be a quickie because frankly I don’t even want to think about it.

Afternoon snacks: Stoneyfield Pumpkin Pie yogurt.

I searched high and low for this item all fall and then it randomly showed up at the grocery store the other day before disappearing again.  I finally got to try it and all I really have to say is meh; real pumpkin stirred into Greek yogurt is much better.

A heaping t Sun Butter.

And some Cedar’s pita chips with feta spread (YUM!).

Like lunch, however, dinner was a delicious homecooked creation.

Cocoa-Coconut Chilli from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan.  In the year I’ve owned this cookbook this is the only recipe I’ve made and I still consider it a good buy!  The husband will not eat this (hence his pasta leftovers) so I only made a half batch this time.

Topped with a dollop of 0% Fage, some shredded 2% colby, and Siracha.  Delicious!

Dinner’s success didn’t distract me from the fact that my sweet tooth is annoyed with me and I am disappointed in myself, boo.  I’m going to go sulk, and hopefully get in bed before 10.

FEST Check-in, Day 3

  • Food- excellent!  Everything I ate today was homemade and healthy.
  • Exercise – zilch, although I feel like my body did need a day off.
  • Sleep – poor, per usual we stayed up, and slept in, too late.
  • Time management – terrible!  Who has a quiz in two days?  How much did I study this weekend?  Urk!

All I Need Are My Pearls

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I was quite the little wife this afternoon, making my husband a nice home-cooked lunch.  Actually, what I made was a big batch of pasta so he could eat leftovers for dinner the next three days but I’d like to think he still appreciated it!

I had a nice bowl myself for lunch while it was still hot.

My Arugula Brie Pasta is my improvement on this Real Simple recipe.  For six servings –

  • 14.5 oz box whole wheat penne
  • 1T butter
  • 6.5 oz onion, chopped
  • 1 bundle (8 or 9) green onions, chopped
  • salt and pepper
  • 3/4 cup dry sherry
  • 6 cup arugula
  • 9 oz brie, chopped
  • 1/2 cup skim milk
  1. Prepare the pasta according to box directions, drain and set aside.
  2. Melt butter over medium heat in a large skillet.  Add all of the onions and cook 3-4minutes, stirring occasionally.
  3. Season onions with salt and pepper.  Pour in half of the sherry and cook until reduced.
  4. Carefully stir arugula into skillet.  Pour in the remaining sherry and cook 4-5minutes, until reduced.
  5. When veggies are almost done, reheat the pasta pot over high heat.  Add in pasta, milk, and brie.  Stir to combine then cover for 3-4minutes.
  6. Pour veggie mixture into pasta mixture and stir to combine.

It was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. 

The only fail was our attempt at dessert.  While I was out running errands this morning I picked up a small piece of this Rosa’s Chocolate and Peanut Butter Fudge.

Yetch!  The husband and I both spit out our bites, it tasted like a piece of wax.

I promised myself I could buy another, less disgusting, dessert if I went to the gym so the likelihood of me working out today is pretty high 🙂

What was the last dessert that made you gag?

Sleepy Sunday

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We overslept (what else is new?!?) so waking up was a stressful, frustrating affair; but I tried to make breakfast as soothing as possible.

A serving of leftover carrot cake pancakes,

with 1/3cup 1% cottage cheese topped with a honey tangerine.

I’m loving all the citrus options lately!

I’ve got to get cracking, see you for lunch.

What is your favorite kind of citrus?  I enjoyed the Ugli fruit a lot just because it was so unique, but clementines top my list due to their lack of seeds.

P.S. Check out this girl’s first giveaway!

Sweet Serendipity

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After my last post I grabbed my People: Style Watch and headed out to the gym.  The magazine was a total clock-killer, if I hadn’t gone so close to closing time I would have been totally motivated to keep going.  As it was, I did 35minutes on the elliptical.  My machine said that was worth 3.3miles but I was going at a pretty easy pace so I’m not sure how accurate that is.  When I got home I did 25more minutes of strength training, stretching, and pt exercises.

After a quick shower it was time for a dinner I’ve been looking forward to all week; I finally recreated the Summer Bries sandwich from Serendipity3!  Serendipity is my favorite restaurant on the planet – the atmosphere is fun and the food is fabulous!  Plus it’s right off Lexington, one of my favorite streets on the planet!  Serendipity is the spot I always would take visitors when I lived in the city: click on the links to see the recaps for some of those fun meals link 1  link 2.

I own the cookbook and even in my hands their desserts are amazing.  However, while most people go to Serendipity for the ice-cream, I go for the sandwiches!  My very favorite – The Summer Bries – is what I recreated tonight.

*Note – dinner was delayed by a mold problem, ugh! and I snacked on a few Cedar’s pita chips and feta spread.  No pictures because I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening*

The sandwiches turned out divine!  Whole wheat raisin pecan bread with 98% ff turkey, apple, alfalfa sprouts, brie, and homemade 1000island dressing.  They got gooey in a 400* oven and turned into perfection.  I had two smallish sandwiches,

Plus some oven-roasted brussels sprouts on the side.

Such a good dinner!  I demolished the sandwiches but I did put back some of my mountain of brussels sprouts.

We are watching the season 2 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer so the bedtime goal is 11 – 11:30.  Sweet dreams.

FEST Check-in, Day 2

  • Food – pretty good, my goal was never to skip meals out, just to cut back on the take-out and “box” foods.
  • Exercise – great.
  • Sleep – poor.  11am is not when successful people wake up!
  • Time Management – see sleep.

Double Question Time!

  1. I know the calorie counts are suspect, but do you trust the miles counter on the elliptical machine?
  2. What is your favorite street in the US?  As much as I adore Lexington, my heart is forever devoted to Lincoln Ave in South Beach.  I think Lincoln is the best spot for people (and dog!) watching.

When In The Mall

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Happy Saturday!  My 1am bedtime led to an 11am wake-up, less than stellar.  But Adam and I have certainly made the best of our quickly dwindling day – movie/lunch date at the mall!

Lunch was at our new favorite spot, Jack Astors.

I got an original Bloody Mary to drink.

It was good, but not spicy enough for my liking, I miss the drinks in NYC!

Next up was a small cup of beer and cheddar soup.

This was delicious, it was so nice and creamy.  There was a spot in Park Slope that had the best beer and cheese fondue and we sort of got to relive that with the soup.

And for my main dish I ordered a turkey burger.

I ate a few bites as a sandwich before tossing the bun and dipping the patty in ketchup.

We had more than an hour between lunch and our movie and we ended up walking aimlessly around the mall.  We had fun though.  We bought a hedgehog stuffed animal to help support an environmental group, who thinks the husband approves of that purchase??

And we split a Turtle Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

This was crazy good, my favorite ice-cream on the planet is sugar-free white chocolate from Freshens and this tasted sort of like that.  Plus you can never go wrong with dark chocolate and caramel 😉

You could go a little bit wrong with our movie choice though, When in Rome did not blow me away.  I hate sappy chick flicks but my love for Kristen Bell had clouded my judgement.  We had fun looking at the New York scenes though and the clothing in the movie was making me drool.

I am all about layering, too bad I can never pull it off!

The rest of the day looks pretty low-key, especially because Sunday is going to have to be study, study, study.  See you for dinner.

Do you eat buns/bread at restaurants?  Why or why not? 

Time Keeps Slippin’ Slippin’ Into the Future

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I don’t know what happened today, time just slipped away.  Adam and I will be hanging out and all of the sudden it’s night-time and I’m sad.  I get so frustrated about not moving forward that I sit and stew and continue to not move forward!  Sometimes it just feels like I’m paralyze.

Fortunately the world’s best husband dragged me off the couch at 9:10 (the gym closed at 10!).  I started with some strength training – 100reps of abs, 80reps of legs, and 75reps of arms in various exercises.  Then I finished up with a quick jog on the treadmill.  With warm up and cool down 1.1miles in 12minutes.  I was glad I went, of course.

I actually decided it was too late for dinner, but I drove around with Adam while he got food, hence the late post.  I’ll have to have a nice big breakfast tomorrow!

FEST Check-in, Day 1

  • Food: Pretty good; I could have gotten in more veggies if I’d had dinner.
  • Exercise:  Success!  I got in cardio and strength training.
  • Sleep: Fail, it’s almost midnight and I still have to go shower.
  • Time management: terrible, as stated above.

We’re All Winners

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I’ve had such an exciting assortment of eats this afternoon!  And the husband came home earlier than usual and watched the newest Bones episode with me!  It’s been a good day all around 🙂

And I have some good news for some lucky giveaway winners –

Holly, Emily, Ashley, and Brandi; send me your info please and congrats.

This morning I finished off the rest of my coffee, chilled with skim.

I’d like to think it was the extra caffeine that gave me the energy to power through the business calls I had to make.  Or maybe it was the thought of my thrilling lunch.

Nom, nom, nom, nom 😀

If I had breakfast with Tina I did lunch with Janetha!  1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese, 1/4 cup Cedar’s Chick Pea Salad, and a few shakes Kernel Seasons Ranch.

This was a super tasty combo, thanks for the idea Janetha!

Next I had one of my favorite combos.

2/3 of a Crispin apple with sun butter.

And if that was one of the favorites this next combo is my absolute all time favorite.

Cedar’s pita chips with Garlic and Chive Feta Spread.  Words cannot describe how much I love this!

Post lunch my sweet tooth hit me hard.  I was dying to run across the street and get a cookie but somehow I resisted.  At 150 calories this Dannon Caramel yogurt was a much more sensible choice.

And topped with 1.5t each toasted walnuts and cinnamon chips it was pretty darn delicious.

The plan this evening is gym, reading (magazines for sure but hopefully some homework too), and a homemade dinner.  See you later!

What has been the most exciting part of your Friday?

FEST

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This post is a bonus of sorts (not related to any meal) and will be more introspective than most.

When I quit my life as a teacher to persue a new career I wasn’t worried about feeling aimless, even though I knew our move to Buffalo meant I couldn’t start a program this year.  My identity isn’t tied to my job, I’ve got a lot to be proud of – my motivation, my organizational skills, my ripped abs, my awesome cooking…..  Let’s check in with that shall we –

  • I’m behind on the reading for both of my classes.  I had to miss Chem on Tuesday and class last night had me in tears because I was so confused.  This is especially pathetic because I chose to take Anthropology; I’m taking it for fun not to fulfill a prerequisite.
  • I haven’t cooked a real meal in basically weeks.  It seems like everything we eat is packaged (and beige!) and I feel like a terrible wife.  Plus I basically stopped eating fruits and vegetables which is certainly not good for my health.
  • I’m feel exhausted all of the time.  I know feeling stressed and run down is a normal thing, but I am an unemployed part-time student, there is no reason I shouldn’t be well-rested!  Adam and I both just get so sucked in to doing things late at night.  The later we stay up, the later I sleep in (because, you know, I have nowhere to go) and then the cycle continues.
  • My abs are no longer ripped, in fact what is the polar opposite of ripped?  I’m surprised no one has asked me if I’m preggers yet.  Nevermind the fact that I’m dangerously close to not being able to button most of my jeans.  When I had an insane life in Brooklyn I could deal with weight gain as a trade-off for the work I was doing but I’ve gained more weight since we moved to Buffalo than I did in the two years in Brooklyn.
  • I am running a half marathon in 37 days and I have not started to train at all.  Am I even going to be able to finish my race?  And if I do it will feel a lot less anti-climatic if I don’t put in any work first.  The plan was to get a 2nd tattoo to mark the memory but I’m not sure I want to any more.

So, I’m just going to whine about it?  NO!  It feels like everything in my life is spinning out of control, but “everything” covers a lot of ground, so I made four manageable goals –

  1. Food – cook at least three meals a week.  And eat more (any?) fruits and veggies.
  2. Exercise – for the next 37days you can’t tell me I don’t have 30minutes a day to devote to exercise.  It’s training time, baby!  (Don’t forget, you can track my training here)
  3. Sleep – I’m kind of a night owl, but even if I ultimately decide I want to keep my late night ways, for the next month I need to shift into waking up earlier.  My goal is 7-8hours a night, 10 or 11 bedtime.
  4. Time management – even if I add in an earlier bedtime and daily workout I still have time to study.  I get nothing done at home so I think I might take the monetary hit and start heading to the coffee shop for study time more often.

I’m going to call this “life improvement movement” FEST – Food, Exercise, Sleep, Time management.  I love how Susan of The Great Balance Act does goal check-ins on her blog and I think I’ll do the same.  Since all/any of these changes will be tricky for me I’m planning on giving a quick update at the end of each day.  Wish me luck!

What goals would you like start working on?  I would love it if you would tell me your goals/progress.