Baking Tasting

by Emily

My breakfast was pathetic. Someone {ahem!} only left behind a tiny bit of my Low-fat Coconut Chia Kefir.

I planned on taking it to-go and didn’t have time to grab anything else so I had to spend the morning hungry. Even worse, I think Wegman’s isn’t going to carry that flavor anymore.

I spent my morning in the formula lab at the hospital and my afternoon in an off-site clinic and I had to drive through lunch. I packed it simple with packaged things I could eat in the car. Luna Blueberry Bliss Bar.

Normally I’m all about the chocolate flavors, but this blueberry flavor is one of my favorite Lunas.

Key Lime Crumble Chobani Flip.

After all my anticipation for this flavor, I actually didn’t really like it. The yogurt was weirdly thin and every key lime Greek yogurt I’ve tried has tasted too artificial. But I have an Almond Coco Loco Flip in the fridge that I’m still excited to try.

I didn’t realize how sore I was from yoga until my drive home. Moving around during the day was fine but sitting for a long stretch on the highway was killer. Last night’s practice kicked my butt. <– I had to edit out a typo here where I wrote “butts.” It’s a Freudian fat joke!

During the drive I also realized how hungry I was. Days I don’t eat breakfast are a disaster because I end up eating so much crap in the afternoon. I started with a sliced Honeycrisp.

And two Alexia Artisan Sweet Potato Rolls with butter.

But then I had to do some baking for tomorrow’s book club.

Adam wasn’t here this evening to help me taste-test and I did an insane amount of nibbling and bowl licking.

Plus I ate one of the (mostly) finished baked goods.

Delicious but so unnecessary.

At least dinner was healthy.

My black-eyed pea salad is so easy to make – BEPs, chopped green pepper, smoked almonds, chopped Kerrygold Vintage Cheddar, green Tabasco, done!

It’s quickly becoming my favorite dish. There is even another serving in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.

I’m hoping that this weekend will include lots of baked goods and booze, but my goals for next week are bedtime, breakfast, and less sugar overload. {and the Vegan 20 Day challenge!}

31Jan2013

Two Days, Too Many?

by Emily

My mom called to tell me that not posting yesterday ruined my 30 day streak. But my focus wasn’t so much the daily posting as the posting of everything from each day. I’ve decided that as long as I blog everything I eat it will count towards thirty days straight of blogging even if I have to do some recaps. Thoughts?

The past 48 hours have included some really tasty things, but they have also included too many missed meals and way too much sugar. I need to keep getting better about my sleep schedule.

I didn’t have breakfast together Tuesday morning so I just had coffee – half sweet, half regular – from the cafeteria.

Lunch was a fun assortment. An apple.

A Cascadian Farm Crunchy Oats & Honey Granola Bar.

And an Artisana Cacao Bliss packet.

I planned on eating the coconut butter as a granola bar topping, but that got too messy and I ended up just spooning it into my mouth with a knife. That stuff is so flipping good; like a coconutty chocolate frosting!

When I got home I ate two fun sized candies, <– so unnecessary

and a Müller Strawberry FrütUp Yogurt.

A friend and I are doing a Vegan 20 Day challenge soon and I just can’t stop buying yogurt!

Adam and I haven’t seen much of each other lately so we decided to make Tuesday night Date Night and make use of our King and I Groupon.

We split the Tofu Tod to start. //fried tofu with a sweet and sour peanut dipping sauce//

This is one of our favorite Thai appetizers and King and I did not disappoint. We both kept grabbing spoonfuls of the sauce!

I went with the King and I House Noodles, vegetarian and Thai spicy. //broad rice noodles with egg, vegetables, and ground peanut//

I wish my meal had come with more vegetables, but I was very impressed with the spice level.

Adam commented that he could *hear* how spicy my meal was so I must have been doing a lot of sniffling! Sadly, his dish was too salty and he didn’t really love it.

The husband went with a coconut sticky rice and custard dish for dessert.

I took a few small bites, but decided to have these gummi candies instead.

They came from Wegman’s bulk bins and were totally to blame for the headache that caused me to lie down while taking off my boots, and end up falling asleep on top of the covers, fully dressed!

I was still pretty out of it this morning and I left for the hospital without so much as a scrap of food in my bag. I bought this serving of Kashi Heart to Heart from the cafeteria.

And I got Wegman’s hot bar after work to eat while I was journaling.

Many veggies with some chicken (salad and dumplings) and pasta.

I ate a Honeycrisp when I got home.

And then I ate a bowl of gelato for dinner.

And did so with impunity; I topped it with a protein-rich Bare Naked cereal sample.

The Talenti Caramel Cookie Crunch was good and the combination was even better.

And it was exactly what I was craving.

In healthier news, I made it to yoga this evening! 60 minutes of hot yoga was amazing, every time I go I love it. But – if I go both days this weekend I will have officially gotten 4 uses out of my unlimited pass, whoops!

I took advantage of my (messy) high yoga ponytail to show y’all my current hair.

The bottom is still good, but the top has lost a lot of color and has white streaks.

I have to go back to brown for my next internship placement so I won’t bother refreshing it, but I am still love-love-loving the purple. FYI: It is very difficult to take a picture of your own hair!

29Jan2013

The First Of The Last

by Emily

{Technically speaking} today was the first day of my last semester of undergrad! Yays! Instead of the hospital, I spent my day on campus for orientation. It was also the first day of my night class.

Orientation was definitely not as exciting as my days at the hospital. Cue medium non-fat latte.

Caffeine gave me the jitters though; I should have just waited for the adrenaline to kick in once we learned how busy this semester is going to be! On top of full-time internship hours there are many projects to be done. I’m the only person in my program who is taking a non-major class (my night class is a history to fulfill my final graduation requirement) this semester and balancing everything is going to be pretty nerve-wracking.

I spent my lunch break running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get all of my campus tasks done (applying for graduation, registering my history class as pass/fail, buying books). When I did finally get to my sandwich it was worth the wait.

Sandwich thin with 2 slices of turkey, tons of pickled jalopeño, 50% reduced-fat sharp cheddar, and mango jelly (made by my aunt’s mother-in-law from St. Thomian mangos!!).

Plus a package of sesame seaweed,

and a 100-calorie milk chocolate bar.

I was starving when I got home and I snacked on a Tbsp of peanut butter,

and a cup of tea with skim milk and sugar.

You guys are geniuses – I actually heated the water (3 minutes versus 90 seconds in the microwave) and my tea was much stronger! I still didn’t love this cup but I think the tea itself was to blame (a pumpkin chai sample).

I did an easy, early dinner before I had to head back to campus for my history class. Leftover roasted brocoli with marinara sauce.

And a Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake meal.

I also snacked on these milk coffee candies during class.

He let us out early for our first day and so far I have no complaints.

Well, just one complaint – why the heck didn’t I get in bed already?!

26Jan2013

Fashion Friday

by Emily

The hospital was great today.

I got to chart on several patients and I saw some really interesting cases; everything from cancer to Crohn’s, to burns.

If you think I actually got in bed early last night… you haven’t been reading my blog very long! Of course I stayed up another hour and of course I was exhausted this morning. I had to grab breakfast on the go, a Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Bar.

The taste was good and I loved chewing through the chia. The bar only had 100 calories, but it did provide 4 gram each fiber and protein and 1000 and 800 mg respectively omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

Nutrition fun fact – it is important to get healthy fatty acids in your diets, but did you know that the ratio of omega 6:3 matters too? It should be about 1:1 but most Americans get too much omega-6 and not enough omega-3.

I also had a big cup of coffee at the hospital.

Half vanilla cappuccino (sweetened) and half caramel nut coffee (flavored beans).

I may have packed lunch yesterday, but it wasn’t much help sitting in my fridge all day! Instead I got a salad from the salad bar.

Spring mix topped with tomatoes, banana peppers, french dressing, and scoop of cole slaw.

I wasn’t interested in my packed-but-forgotten turkey sandwich when I got home, but I did eat my Pink Lady apple.

Plus a Caramel Pineapple Chobani Bite topped with some KIND Maple Walnut Clusters with Chia & Quinoa.

<– heavenly

Dinner was a big slice of pizza.

Buffalo chicken with blue cheese for dipping.

This will be my last slice for a little while (I’ll explain soon) and I really enjoyed it.

Fashion Fridays

This post was pretty short, so I figured I’d share my “professional” look with you all. I hope at least a few readers (hi, Nana! hi, Mom!) would like to see what I wore to my first week at the hospital.

Fact 1 – Lose-fitting tops with fun neckline details are pretty much my uniform.

Fact 2 – I know my mirror is filthy. Sometimes I hold Webster up to the mirror to see “the other dog” and I don’t always have time to clean off his nose smudges because by “sometimes” I mean daily.

23Jan2013

My Pictures Went “Poof!”

by Emily

I’m over the hump! Three days in a row of full-time interning, cooking meals, and generally being an adult. And the thought of adding in workouts next week only slightly makes me want to order a pizza and eat it in bed.

[[[Updated to add – I typed my introduction as I was editing today’s photos. Only when I moved forward to write the next paragraph did I realize that I somehow deleted all of my dinner photos. {frick! frick! frick!} It is a good thing that I started this post in a chipper mood.]]]

Today was delicious! Breakfast had two tasty components.

A big glass of Lifeway Lowfat Coconut Chia Kefir.

Yumtastic, this variety is the best kefir I’ve ever had! Sometimes kefir has a bit of a sour aftertaste to it but this flavor had none of that. The coconut flavor was pretty subtle so I think this would appeal to you even if you’re not loco for coco(nut).

With a big bowl of (microwaved frozen) peaches topped with 1 tsp brown sugar, 1/3 cup KIND Maple Walnut Clusters with Chia & Quinoa, and a splash of skim milk.

Yesterday’s gross protein smoothie may not have tasted like peach cobbler, but this sure did.

It was a good day at the hospital. I’m still mostly observing but I got to discuss some pretty interesting patients. My cases today included eating disorders, ketogenic diets for seizure disorders, and failure to thrive. So far this experience has really cemented my desire to go into clinical practice when I graduate.

I did get up early to journal, and then I worked through lunch, but I’ve finally taken a chunk out of that project. There is still a lot to do tomorrow but tonight I managed to just have down time. And I did get to eat lunch while I worked. A big Pink Lady.

Some Skinny Cow peanut butter chocolates.

And I packed us both tuna salad sandwiches.

We split a can of tuna with Miracle Whip, pickle relish, and tons of red onion.

And then I had to chew gum to deal with my horrendous tuna/onion breath.

Worth it.

Afternoon snacks included 3 oz of trail mix eaten in the car.

And a strawberry milk tea with popping and tapioca boba from Gin Gin.

I’ve been raving about the double bubbles at Gin Gin for months and today I finally got to take a similarly obsessed friend to experience the wonder. I’ll have you all know that she too dug through her ice to snag all the boba!

As you know, I don’t have any pictures of dinner. {grrrrrr} Thankfully the meal didn’t photograph all that beautifully anyway. We sautéed linguine, evoo, a bag of frozen veggies (green beans, broccoli, onions, mushroom, and red pepper), 2 eggs, and peanut sauce until crispy and delicious. We each had a large bowl and loved every bite.

My new fun thing is to be starving an hour after dinner each day. I’m not going to fight it, but I am trying to stick to mostly healthy(ish) snacks to deal with my hunger. Today’s 4th meal was a yogurt bowl.

Fage 2% Plain Greek yogurt topped honey and a half serving of granola. A little more sugary than I’m hoping for every day, but the bowl was luscious and it did fill me up.

Are you a kefir fan?

21Jan2013

Winter Weight Gain

by Emily

I came through my first full-time day at the hospital with flying colors! Well, I guess I was a little in the gray when I ran out of time in the morning and had to skip breakfast, but that was the only hiccup. I had fun, learned a lot, and made it through 8 – 4 without thinking longingly of my couch once!

We were busy on rounds (walking around the floor and listening to the medical residents give an update on all of the patients) all morning and I was too busy to miss breakfast. Then I got to grab a tea latte from Tim Horton’s while we charted.

My earl grey with frothed skim milk was great. And the RD let me chart on a patient! I’ve got to do a lot of work independently to meet all of my internship curriculum goals so it was a good sign that they let me hit the ground running. In the afternoon, among other things, I observed a gestational diabetes education that I’m eager to try on my own.

I was worried about finding a table in the packed cafeteria, but thankfully the RDs invited me to sit with them for lunch. I’m with a different person each day of the week so it was great to get to meet some of them in advance.

I packed a really tasty sandwich.

A multi-grain Sandwich Thin with Crofter’s strawberry preserves, 2 slices of Applegate Farms Honey & Maple Turkey, Cabot’s 50% reduced sharp cheddar, and pickled jalopeños.

A pack of Annie Chun’s Sesame Roasted Seaweed Snacks.

And a Trader Joe’s 100-calorie milk chocolate bar.

This lunch was perfect – fun, healthy, and it helped fuel my brain through its first afternoon of actual thought!

Before I knew it, the day was over and Adam was picking me up. His lab was closed for Martin Luther King Day and I was thrilled that he could drive me because it is brutal outside. My phone’s weather forecast for Wednesday is a giant, ominous looking snowflake.

My workday may have flown by, but our errands took forever. Adam and I ended up splitting an ice cream Twix bar while we were out and about.

He {claims that he} hates Twix bars so the sharing portions were in my favor.

I also snacked on a Caramel Pineapple Chobani Bite with the last of the blackberries.

This snack was so flipping good, I can’t wait to eat the rest of the pack of Chobani and I must buy more fresh berries immediately! The caramel gave the yogurt a little extra sumthin’ sumthin’ compared to the regular pineapple variety and the entire gorgeous carton only has 100 calories. Plus it smelled delicious and made me want a big slice of cheesecake.

– – – Sidenote: Why, oh why did I keep scrolling through Chobani’s website? I need the Key Lime Crumble and Almond Coco Loco Flips, need. I’m sure they won’t hit Buffalo for another couple of months and I’m basically going to die. – – –

Dinner was a big salad with some confusion about its roots.

Inside the jumble –

baby spinach
peanut sauce
1 Tbsp ground flax
chopped green pepper
chopped red onion
buckwheat groats
chopped honeycrisp
leftover 1000 island bbq sauce pulled chicken

Somehow all of those flavors just worked together.

I’m still feeling a bit hungry but I did a lot of nibbling while I assembled dinner and tomorrow’s lunch so I’m closing my kitchen for the day. I’ve been steadily gaining weight since we moved to Buffalo but recently my unhealthy habits have been out of control and I’m officially too fat for some of my work pants. Pride and health may not have motivated me (though they really should of!) but my wallet sure does – it’s time to lose some weight! I’m not planning on going on a diet, far from it, I’m just going to stop being ridiculous. Wish me luck?

Did you gain any weight over the winter holidays?

12Jan2013

Cashews, Coffee, And Curry

by Emily

First things first, I need to announce my Taste of Treme Giveaway winner –

Jordan, let me know how the cookbook stacks up against Abita’s! And please e-mail me with your mailing address. Congrats!

I apologize for not posting the results sooner; we have had a rough couple of days around here. Webster has been having seizures.

So far (that we know of) he had one Friday morning and another at 4:30 a.m. last night. I ran him to the vet in hysterics on Friday and she said that there could be a variety of causes but that seizures are not all that uncommon in dogs his size and that she wasn’t too worried. We are waiting for some lab results and I will be sure to keep y’all updated as we learn more.

Once he recovers he seems to be in good spirits but both episodes were pretty scary for me, especially because Adam has been out-of-town. It is a bad feeling to see someone you love out of control and not be able to help. Both times I just petted him and gave him kisses until it was over.

I had my sights set on a hot yoga class this morning but it just didn’t feel right to go, instead I stayed in bed an hour longer with the little man in my arms. I’m glad to spend time with him but I do need to get myself to a class asap. I have been to a grand total of 1 class during my unlimited two months; if I don’t get my act together over the next two weeks it will mean that I paid $75 for a single yoga session, yikes!

Once we got up, the dog and I did have a successful day. Lots and lots of cleaning was done. And I made homemade cashew milk.

How Sweet Eats’ Vanilla Cashew Milk was good, but probably not worth the time committment to ever make again. I’m glad I got to experience it once though.

I did a lot of taste testing while I made the cashew milk and then I took advantage of the dirtied blender and made a big smoothie for breakfast.

Midmorning we put on our sweaters and took a walk.

Webster is ultra-super-mega cute in his gray sweater and he got several compliments today.

Lunch was spread across some afternoon snacking. An apple.

An Almond & Apricot Kind Bar.

A Nutffles Red Velevt Truffle. (just 25 cents at 7-11)

A plate of baby carrots dipped in pineapple salsa.

And finally, I did some baking with the “pulp” from the cashew milk.

After I got out all of the liquid, I spread what I could salvage on a baking sheet and dried it in the oven at 200* for 20 minutes. Then I mixed up the cashew meal and baked it macaroon-style {vanilla extract, egg white, sugar}.

They were far better than I was expecting and I ended up having 4. I am very anxious for Adam to try them because he loves coconut macaroons and I think these were even tastier.

Basically all I’ve done over break is sit on the couch and eat junk (by the way, my pants currently don’t fit: oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!) so tonight’s dinner felt extra fancy and healthy.

I reeeeeeeeeally want to cook dinners like a grown-up this semester so I need to get back into the habit before school starts on the 21st. This meal was a good place to start.

Roasted asparagus.

White rice leftovers – from Chinese take-out I ordered on Friday 70% because I didn’t want to leave the dog to get food and 30% because I wanted someone to deliver diet soda to me in the apartment.

Green Curry Fritters from Cooking Light.

I was really impressed with this recipe; such a fun combination of flavors! I did make a few changes, all of which I suggest you follow my lead on if you make the recipe –

substituted turkey for chicken (am I the only one who greatly prefers ground turkey to chicken?!)
used an entire bunch of green onions, whites and greens
substituted nayo for canola mayo
used 2 Tbsp green curry paste
skipped the sesame oil
substituted 2 Tbsp of tamari for the soy sauce
substituted 1 heaping tsp Sriracha for the sambal oelek
substituted 1 tsp galangal paste for ground ginger
substituted coconut oil for canola oil
sized my patties to yield 10 instead of 12

Adam should be home in a couple of hours and tomorrow we are actually getting a visit from my Maryland aunt and one of my cousins! I haven’t seen that set of family in far too long and I could not be more excited.

Now the dog is curled up at my feet and I’m about to pour a cup of tea and make myself finally organize my school materials from last semester.

Everyone please give your pets a big smooch for me.

8Jan2013

Keeping Time

by Emily

Here is a highlights post for Monday and Tuesday… I think… Adam and I stayed up past 3am several days in a row and I’ve been slightly confused about time ever since. Case in point: I spent Friday rushing around to accommodate the post office’s reduced Saturday hours. Then Saturday night I took a Sunday night pill.

And I really must be losing my mind because yesterday I went to the gym. And I want to go back again tomorrow!

{highlights}

We ate a lot (a lot!) of good food the last few days, here were the really great bites –

Pizza and salad. Romaine with black beans, groats, green pepper and peanut sauce. Pizza Hut’s extra cheese for the win.

Pecan turtle tart from the co-op.

A sweet snack plate; aka 2 green dragon apples, melted pb and Biscoff for dipping, and the last of the cheese straws.

A killer chocolate banana smoothie.

A few notes on the smoothie – it was made with a Smoothie Mixer that I was sent to sample.

Nativas Naturals joined forces with William Sonoma to create a new line of organic superfood smoothie blends. From WS –

The Antioxidants Smoothie Mixer is a sweet-tangy blend of organic superfruits including goji, acai, pomegranate, camu and blueberry. These superfruits contain an abundance of antioxidants. We suggest mixing this gluten-free blend with frozen berries, mango, orange juice and honey.

The Omega-3 Smoothie Mixer is a fruity blend that combines three fiber-rich sprouted seeds and grains (chia, flax and brown rice) with cranberries. The gluten-free blend provides a plentiful supply of plant-based essential fatty acids (Omega 3, 6 and 9). Julie Morris, our Executive Chef, likes to mix it with frozen berries, yogurt, almond milk, honey and vanilla.

The rich, chocolaty Protein Smoothie Mixer features three of the most nutrient-dense superfoods in the world (hemp, cacao and maca) and a delicious low-glycemic natural sweetener from Peru (lucuma). This kosher blended powder is a nourishing source of protein and omegas, as well as antioxidants found in the feel-good cacao. Blend this gluten-free Smoothie Mixer with a banana, peanut butter, non-milk of your choice and honey.

I received an e-mail offering me a chance to try one of the blends and I chose the protein one because I know that my breakfasts could use a little more protein for staying power.

I decided to the blend in a simple smoothie first – Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, frozen bananas, Protein Smoothie Mixer, and a bit of honey. Adam and I both thought that the smoothies were great. The powder blends in easily and gives the smoothie a nice hint of chocolate. I took a few sips from the blender before I added the honey (which was mostly for Adam’s benefit) and determined that I would not normally feel the need to sweeten it. Two thumbs up! Let’s be real though, the smoothie was good, but it was nowhere near as awesome as my new cup.

❤

Do you ever get confused about what day it is? I’m almost looking forward to going back to school just so I’ll have some clue of what’s happening around me!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: apple

Baking Tasting

Two Days, Too Many?

The First Of The Last

Fashion Friday

Fashion Fridays

My Pictures Went “Poof!”

Winter Weight Gain

Cashews, Coffee, And Curry

Keeping Time

{highlights}