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Plums and Cream

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last night

No post last night because no dinner.  Adam got home way later than we expected and I didn’t have the will or the ambition to chop kale at 8pm.  I love to prepare nice meals for him when he’s home to eat them hot (and to help with the prep!) but I’m not sure how that will go as his schedule becomes more like a doctor’s.  I always though I was the type to prepare a nice meal no matter what, but now I think my single girl dinners would probably have been cereal!

Do you cook differently for your significant other than you would when on your lonesome?

breakfast

Since I went to bed without an evening meal I needed a nice breakfast to pick up the slack.

Done and done.  This oatmeal bowl rocked my world.

Usually I’m not as oattastic as other healthy living bloggers (especially in the summer months) but I picked up some gorgeous red plums at Wegmans the other day and I knew this meal needed to be made.

A base of Oat Revolution cinnamon roll instant oatmeal with skim milk, topped with sugar plums.

Can I be honest?  I don’t actually know what a sugar plum is.  But what I did was saute two chopped red plums in a smidge of butter, tossing in 2 tsp of brown sugar towards the end.  I don’t know if this is the traditional method, but it was a successful one.  My plums had a sweet yet toasty flavor and they were melty.

My lack of dinner was totally forgotten.

Can I be honest about something else?  Sometimes I hate the dog.

I know he’s just being a puppy right now, but he’s driving me crazy.  Sometimes I pick him up in a hug and then I say in my sweetest voice “you were on sale and no one else will ever love you.”

I’m afraid that may be telling of my future parenting style.

Healthy Living Summit 2011 Mega Recap

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This post is going to be huge, so there are a few facts I want to establish before I begin –

* The Healthy Living Summit (HLS) was fabulous and I had a wonderfully fun time.  However, since I didn’t have internet all weekend this is going to be a monster post and I’m not going to include as many details as I’d like.

* I met and hung out with some amazing people.  So many, in fact, that I think it makes the most sense for me not to link back to anyone.

* I snapped a photo of every piece of food that went into my mouth but I wasn’t so good on people or places; I was too busy enjoying those things to photograph them.

Okey doke, let’s start from the beginning…

So, this happened exactly halfway between Buffalo and Philly –

Usually a picture of a flat tire would be followed by many four letter words but the only one I could think of was l-u-c-k.  My trip to Philly was greasy, two hours longer than planned and completely exhausting, but I actually started crying because I felt so grateful.  The things I am thankful for –

  • It rained 70% of my trip but not a drop fell during the two hours I was standing on the side of the road changing my tire.
  • My tire blew on a small side road and not when I was going 70 mph on the highway.
  • I was able to take off the nuts and jack up the car all by myself, and if the tire hadn’t been completely rusted to the axle I probably could have done the entire thing myself like a total badass.
  • The nicest man on earth not only stopped to help me out, but drove back to his house for the sledgehammer it took to get my tire off.
  • The nice man gave me directions to his nice friends’ body shop, where they replaced my tire and fixed me up for only $20.

Isn’t the world amazing?  Before the whole debacle I drank a guava Rockstar for breakfast,

and afterwards I shakily ate the half turkey sandwich with cheese and cranberry mayo that I packed from the Co-op. 

And I made it (with aching forearms) to Philly with time to shower and change before the HLS cocktail party.

The drinks, provided by Drink Chia, were super tasty.

This cocktail was a mix (I believe) of Drink Chia, strawberries, and vodka.  It tasted sort of like a bubble tea with mini bobba!

The food was pretty good as well.

I had a corn and crab fritter, a piece of pretzel crusted chicken, a few small bites, plus another piece of the chicken.

Everything was tasty but there wasn’t quite enough sustenance for dinner so a few of us ended up in the hotel restaurant for a late night snack.

I went with the s’mores mousse shooter.

Plus I scarfed up one of the Lindt truffles they brought with the bill.

It was a sweet end to the first day.

The next morning (Saturday) we were up bright and early for breakfast.  Cereal with skim milk,

an Oikos drinkable yogurt with a juicy plum – sidenote, I feel like I had food dripping down my face this whole weekend! –

and a much-needed coffee.

Around this point I realized I probably should be snapping more pictures like a good blogger.

Though I did snag a shot of me with two of my roomies.

I didn’t love the Quaker Smashbar provided on the snack break so I only ate half of it.

But I did love the RD Quaker provided as the key-note speaker.  She wrote a book on being a flexatarian and I loved her points about embracing plants more than avoiding meats.  In fact, all of the sessions were pretty darn informative and inspirational.

Before I knew it, it was time for lunch.

Side salad for greens,

quinoa salad, which had some sort of acid component that took it over the top,

and half a tofu sandwich on Great Harvest bread, squeal!

For dessert I grabbed a milk chocolate crunch Attune probiotic bar.

I had no idea these would be so delicious!  I was very excited to see some coupons in my swag bag.

After the sessions we went to do some city exploring.

Here are all my roomates,

and here is the Liberty Bell.

I’m glad we sight-saw in the way that we did, because our travels took us to Farmacia for dinner.

Yum, seriously just yum x 1000.  The wait staff was so sweet and accommodating of our 12-person party, the space was adorable, and the food was delicious.

I was ravenous and I think my heart actually skipped a beat when this bread and herbed butter were brought to the table.

I ate this slice times two.

Since it was a vacation I went with a John Daly to drink.

Sweet tea vodka and fresh squeezed lemonade, yes please!  A few people sipped my drink and we all agreed it was the best Arnold Palmer ever.

And then came the food.  Which was basically ridiculous.

I ordered the sweet corn and risotto croquettes.  Which came with garden veggie ratatouille,

and sautéed spinach that blew my mind.  It must have been the butter sauce that was floating on my plate.

The spinach was the best thing I ate all weekend, but the croquettes were perfect too; crunchy and creamy all at the same time.  I ate 1.5 croquettes and all of my veggies and was basically in heaven.

You know I have to get self-serve froyo if I’m in a new city.

I got peanut butter, cream cheese (!!), and tart, topped with all the berries, caramel sauce, and sprinkles.

Fueled by sugar, a group of us stayed up until practically 3am!  Normally a 3 am bedtime and 8 am Sunday workout would feel brutal, but I think I was too excited to be tired.  I don’t have any pictures, but I did participate in the HLS 5k.  A huge group walked/ran around the city including the Rocky steps.

When we got back it was time for oatmeal.

Topped with flax, cinnamon, and walnuts.

I also had about a billion mugs of Tazo Earl Grey tea with skim milk.

I am completely obsessed (I stole a few packets from breakfast!) and need to buy this asap.

After the festivities wrapped, a group of us did some more exploring around Philly.

This is what happens when you give bloggers a group photo-op –

For lunch we sought out Philly cheese steaks.  I found success at the Basic 4 Vegetarian Snack Bar.

This monster was vegan, but there is basically no way that the traditional meat sandwich could be better.

I left a lot of the bread, but gobbled up the “meat” which was crunchy in the most pleasing way.  Such a great way to end the weekend!

Around 2 I made my final goodbyes and headed out.  Though I did stop at Whole Foods for an Argo Tea Mojitea for the road.

It was very tasty, but my next two drinks were much more telling.  A grande white mocha coconut frappuccino with 2 extra shots of espresso.

And a huge diet pop with a splash of cherry coke.

Can you say exhausted?!  But I made it home in one piece and had a wonderful weekend to boot!

Did you attend HLS?  What’d you think?

I Lied

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I lied.

I know I said I wasn’t going to blog until Friday, but the minute I told myself I didn’t have to, then I wanted to.  It’s like I just needed the freedom not to.  Does that make sense to anyone else?

Anyway, I’m glad I decided to blog because I’m having a good day.  This morning was full of excitement; I went with some friends to buy our lab coats for clinical.

Like a boss RD.  Though I imagine I’ll look less silly when I’m not rocking jeans underneath.  I’m just glad to have that trip out of the way before the school year starts.

My friend Hillary drove, so I walked to campus in the morning to meet up.  Afterward I got dropped off at home to grab Webster for a walk and we ended up accompanying my friend Janessa back to campus.  All total I made the trip three times, which is good practice since I plan on walking to class again this semester.

The non-canine walkers got Starbucks during the walk.  I drank a tall white mocha frappuccino but I don’t have a photo because I still thought I wasn’t blogging.  Here’s what you want to see a picture of anyway –

Have I mentioned I’m in love?  We call him Webs, Dog, or Little Dude.

I’m glad that coffee fills me up because I had lots of little things to do on my computer, and I took Webster on another walk, and before I knew it 3 o’clock came without me eating any solid food.  I was heading to the grocery anyway and luckily I found a magazine in our mailbox on the way so I grabbed hot bar for lunch.

Panang tofu, channa masala, and veggies from the cashew chicken.

plus fruit for dessert.

I had to replenish our stores so I could cook Adam casserole for while I’m gone.  Speaking of which, I probably should start thinking about packing for HLS, huh?

Bloggers – how often would you say you just don’t feel like blogging?  What helps you push through your rut?

Meet Webster

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Webster is 4 months old.  He is a red dappled dachshund.  He stole our hearts.

It won’t be easy, or cheap, adding a puppy to our lives but I’m sure it will be worth it.

Side note – we want to get a French Bulldog named Merriam next.

I’m going to keep my eats recap short, who would sit on the computer when there’s a puppy to pet?!  This afternoon I ate a bowl of H2Omelon chunks.

And for dinner we threw together an Asian-inspired bowl.

Cabbage, which I saute-steamed with some rice vinegar,

topped with roasted tofu and zucchini that I tossed in a skillet with peanut sauce.

Such a delicious mix, you can’t go wrong with peanut sauce.

This meal was out of this world delicious.  The tofu gets spongy and amazing if you bake long enough and the peanut sauce forms an amazing crust.

Our friends Patrick and Michelle came over to meet the new addition and it was a great evening all around.

other exciting things –

  • we are going to Ohio tomorrow for our niece’s birthday party
  • I’m going to Philly next weekend for the Healthy Living Summit!

My Poor, Unfortunate Soles

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This morning was a total clusterf**k, but things started looking up as soon as I got home (you’ll see…).

I needed to meet my landlord, a seemingly simple task that devolved into me waiting at the wrong location for 30 minutes – driving to and having to locate the correct location – having to locate parking – backtracking from the car to the office – and then finally having the meeting.

I spent every last cent in the car paying for parking downtown which meant that parking at my campus and driving to Wegmans was out of the question.  What I ended up having to do was park at my house – walk to campus – gym it – walk back to my house – and then drive to Wegmans.  Whew!

While I was at campus I completed a workout for the study I’m participating in.  Treadmill at 5% incline for 60 minutes and 2.9 miles.

While I was at Wegmans I replaced the peanut butter Adam finished even though he knew we need it for dinner and bought myself an iced coffee with skim milk.

I’m done with errands for the weekend minus one this afternoon that will lead to an exciting announcement, whee!

For lunch I ate an Angel Hair Marinara Smart One.

I don’t generally eat a lot of frozen meals and I pretty much hate angel hair in anything else, but I’m totally obsessed with this frozen meal.  The pasta isn’t mushy at all and the veggies taste very fresh.  Plus it’s a super filling serving for less than 300 calories.

I was keeping lunch on the lighter side because I knew what was waiting for me in the oven.

S’mores Brownies!  Am I evil or a genius?  An evil genius?

A buttery graham cracker layer topped with gooey brownie and a toasty marshmallow on top?  Hells yes!

I ate one for dessert and was pretty much dying.  Click here for the recipe.

I’m going to end this post on a low note by talking about feet.  Foot blisters to be exact.  Since I was a teen, something about the way I walk has caused me to get fin-like blisters on the bottom of my ring-finger toes.  My right foot has always been worse than my left, but recently it’s gotten out of control; probably not helped by my 7 miles yesterday.

Notice the super hot blood blisters.  I’m okay when I’m barefoot but every step in tennis shoes feels like knives.  I guess I can finally relate to Hans Christian Anderson’s Ariel.  Does anyone else get toe fins?!?

Embarrassing side note – do you remember the scene in “The Little Mermaid” where Ariel gives Ursula her voice?

When I was in 2nd grade I would corner my teachers – daily – and make them listen to me sing that song!

I Made Coq Au Vin!

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What a day; I’ve been a busy bee since literally the minute I got out of bed!  I realize I didn’t do anything major – and most of you have jobs – but lots of little things added up and I feel accomplished and exhausted.  I don’t loving doing one long post a day but that will probably have to be the schedule once school starts anyway.

I had a scary doctor’s appointment across town this morning which meant I got to drive along the water.

I also got to eat breakfast in the car, in the form of an 18 Rabbits Cheeky Cherry Chocolate Granola Bar.

This was awesome; the perfect amount of chew with a little bit of tang from the cherries and a little bit of sweet from the chocolate.  Plus for 240 calories this was very filling.  I know I live for Cookie Dough Balance Bars and Chocolate Coconut Covered Lara Bars, but when it comes to straight up granola bars 18 Rabbits takes the cake oat.

My doctor’s appointment wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as scary as it could have been.  I had a bump on my hand that needed a biopsy so 2 needles, 1 scalpel, and a band-aid later I was done.

It hurts a bit, but felt a little better once I could get home and pretty it up.

Did you know we only have children’s band-aids in our apartment?  I’m going to hit up a drug store tomorrow but Adam’s going to have to wash my hair tonight because those cuties are not water-tight.

On the way home I stopped at the gym to complete a workout session for the study I’m participating in.  We fuel with three different drinks and then walk on the treadmill for and hour at our heart rate range and take some notes on exertion levels.  Today I fueled with this 24 oz mystery beverage that I believe was water and apple juice.

I walked on the treadmill at a 5% incline for an hour and 2.9 miles.

I had to hurry to shower when I got home because I was meeting friends, but I was heading back to the gym after lunch.  It was the perfect time to try out the Champion tank every blogger’s been raving about.

I picked this up at Target the other day and I’m in love.  You know I’m all about the blouse-tank.

This may be my new favorite top for play and workouts; it was so comfy.  Plus, two different homeless guys stopped me to tell me I looked hot, so I’m giving this two thumbs up.

For lunch I met up with a few school friends at Coles.  It was so great getting a chance to catch up with a few people I haven’t seen all summer.  I ordered off of the specials menu.

A sandwich of grilled salmon in a sweet glaze with pickled veggies, and french fries.

This was okay, but the sauce was oddly sweet.  The best part was actually the spicy mayo which wasn’t even mentioned on the menu.  I ate about 2/3 of everything.

After lunch I headed back to the gym for my real workout: a running session on the treadmill.  It was pretty hard (being fat isn’t fun!) but I made myself stick to the same goal as Sunday of minimum 5 minutes running, maximum 2 minutes walking.  I did 4 miles in 42 minutes, 22 seconds.  Seven miles in one day probably wasn’t my best idea though, my back is killing me.

I was starving when I got home and dinner took for-ev-a so I ate a few snacks while I cooked.  Watermelon chunks stolen straight from the big container.

And two servings of Trolli Soda Poppers.

P.S. These aren’t bad, but they’re no gummi cola bottles.

1.5 hours later – seriously – it was time for dinner.  I made Coq au Vin!

Casey (who I had an obsessive girl crush on) made this during Top Chef and I’ve wanted to try it ever since.  I used Cooking Light’s Easy Coq au Vin recipe and my only changes were subbing in turkey bacon and using chicken breast instead of thighs and drums.

This was very good, but I’m not sure it was quite good enough to excuse the long cooking time; we’ll have to see how it does as leftovers.  At least the multiple sessions of simmering gave me time to handle my to-do’s around the house.

For my greens I made a tasty side salad.

A romaine base with Newman’s Own Light Cesar, roasted edamame, and roasted buckwheat groats.

The groats might be too savory for yogurt but I think they’re my new favorite salad topper.

I’d like to say I’m going to bed now but Adam’s still not home and I can’t wash my own hair.  But since my husband’s been at the hospital for upwards of 12 hours I guess it’s hard to complain about my day!

You’re Getting Sleepy…

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Being a medical student’s wife is going to be tricky!  I was awake with Adam past 2am and he got me up before 8 this morning, and this is actually his easy schedule.  When we were in undergrad I’d go to bed in the middle of the night and then bound out of bed hours before Adam had his first class and feel fine.  Now he’s the one who’s unphased and I feel like I’m dying.  I’m not sure when I started needing so much more sleep but I have to assume to that it’s linked to how much better of shape I was in back then compared to now.  If that’s not motivation to step up my healthy habits then I’m not sure what is!

That said, today was definitely a “summer day” of eating.  I didn’t want to go back to sleep this morning (I’m working on getting a school-appropriate schedule going) but I didn’t want to get up either.  Reading Nancy Drew in bed was the perfect compromise!  I stayed in bed until literally the last second before I needed to leave for a meeting on campus so I ended up eating a Chocolate Covered Coconut Lara Bar on the walk for breakfast.

After my meeting I spent the rest of they running (most fruitless) errands.  I’ll be honest, I haven’t really left the house much this summer and I don’t think I realized how fricking hot it’s been outside?!!  I actually took a mid-afternoon break and saw “Friends with Benefits – alone, for the 2nd time – because I wanted to curl up in the dark with ac and a big diet coke!

Once I was back on mission I ended up at Target with the Ben and Jerry’s flavor I’ve been lusting after staring me in the face.  And they had it in a single-serve mini.  But I had more errands to run and the car was, of course, too hot.  What to do, what to do?  I bought it and ate it right in the car.

Best decision ever.

I’d like to think it was the ice cream that powered me through a much-needed apartment cleaning session this afternoon.  But it was probably the bowl of H2O-melon I had waiting to cool me off.

This wasn’t the best melon but even only ok ones are still pretty great.

I also made myself a 200 calorie bowl of popcorn; because I’m realizing that I don’t need to always eat popcorn by the bucket but I find that the 100 calorie bags just piss me off.

I topped my ‘corn with some melted butter and a few tsps of sugar for a lazy girl’s kettle corn.

I had grander plans for dinner, but when I realized I’d misread the cooking time by more than an hour we decided to go with Thursday’s planned meal instead.  Easy peasy mac and cheesy.

Adam and I split a box of Annie’s Organic Classic Macaroni and Cheese with frozen broccoli tossed in during the last few minutes of cooking.  I topped my portion liberally with Sriracha.

Spicy!  I was super hungry when we sat down to eat and I knew that kicking up the heat would help this meal to be more satisfying.  Now all I’ve got to do is get Adam in bed!

How many hours of sleep do you need to feel your best?  How many hours do you actually get?

MALTiple Choice

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I don’t know where my day went this morning but I didn’t manage to eat until way into the afternoon.  Actually that’s sort of a lie, a lot of my morning went to this –

Did anyone else read Phyllis Renolds Naylor’s Alice series growing up?  I was obsessed, and since the series still isn’t finished (the final book will be published in 2013) I’ve continued to read.  My mom knows that there are few presents more exciting to me than a fresh Alice book.

Also exciting is a free coffee from the Dunkin’ Donuts birthday rewards program.

Since it was a “gift” I went all out; a medium iced coffee with skim milk, sugar-free toasted almond, and sugar-free coconut.

Totally worth the headache it left me with all afternoon.  I don’t know when I’ll figure out that drinking coffee without eating makes me sick.

However, eating was the next stop on our string of errands (post office, DD, Goodwill, Wegmans).

I snagged several types of chicken – picked through for extra veggies – and some of the chilli garlic eggplant I’m obsessed with.

Is there a more perfect fuel than hot bar?

Adam and I took a walk to the Co-op to finish our grocery shopping later in the afternoon and I grabbed a ‘smores bar from The Spot.

I swear we had plans to make dinner like grown-ups, but Incredibly Alice was screaming my name and I just had to finish it.  By the time I returned to the real world it was too late for a real dinner.  Good thing I had multiple kinds of malt at my fingertips.

First, beer.

8% alcohol beer in the form of Wild Blue.

I want to love blueberry beers, but I just never do.  This wasn’t bad but it was a little too sweet for my tastes.  I drank about half of it.  What I do love is pouring beer into to-go cups and drinking on neighborhood walks. 

I know it sounds rebellious but really I just grew up on an island with no open-container laws and fell in love with walk-boozing before it was illegal.

Malt number two was poured on my french fries.

Waffle fries from ETS plus roasted green bean fries for veg.

Mmmmn, malty!

Malt vinegar on french fries: love it or leave it?