Tag Archives: banana

Hello, 2013

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Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great first day.  I started my year the best way possible – a long morning in bed with my husband and dog and an afternoon spent cleaning every trace of 2012 away from the apartment.  He vacuumed and put away Christmas decorations and I organized and put away the Christmas presents.  I also did some electronics cleaning; my cell phone, bookmarks, and google reader are sparkling.  I even cleaned up my desktop.

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Tomorrow I just have to organize my school stuff from last semester.  I’ve got to start getting ready for the next (last!) semester; I go back to school in 20 days!

We started our day with smoothies for a late breakfast.

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For two: 1.5 cups Silk Soy, 1.5 frozen bananas, 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut, and 1 Tbsp coconut oil went into the blender.

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It was yummy!  I got the coconut oil idea from Jenna Marbles and I think it was a good addition.

Lunch came in snack plate form.  Roasted green beans.

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And a sweet plate.

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Sliced honeycrisp,

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smoked almonds,

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and the last cherry cheesecake brownie.

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The mouthfuls with almond and brownie were great.  I am not going to post the brownie recipe because it is cobbled together from a few sources but I am working on something similar that should be amazing.

I also had a small coffee – with lots of skim milk and vanilla sugar – when we went to Wegmans in the afternoon.

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We may have made a grocery trip, but dinner was still pieced together from random things left in the fridge.  Thankfully, it ended up being delicious.

Cornmeal crusted tofu.

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I marinated pieces of 3/4 of a block of extra-firm tofu in Stubbs BBQ sauce all afternoon and then tossed the pieces in cornmeal (aka raw polenta) and corn starch and sautéed them in a bit of canola oil.  We loved them, the crust was perfection!  I dipped mine in honey.

Roasted asparagus.

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With cooking spray, salt, and a bit of lemon.

Lucky quinoa salad.

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I cooked 1/2 cup of quinoa, tossed it with 1 cup of canned black-eyed peas {for New Year’s luck!}, the leftover bbq sauce from the tofu, and some chopped green pepper.  It was like a quick and dirty hoppin’ john.

For dessert we opened up the chocolate cream biscuit cookies we bought at Vineeta.

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One serving each and I’m excited to eat the last three tomorrow.  They were quite good.

How’d you spend the first day of 2013?

Use Your Noggin

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Hello, hello!  The days I’m excited to blog are always the same days I’m utterly exhausted.  Go figure.  Saturday was a symphony of holiday flavors but also a 9+ hour day at work.  Instead of posting last night I had a total tantrum and passed out fully dressed… so here is a 2-day recap.

Remember when I said “Saturday was a symphony of holiday flavors”?  You know, like five seconds ago.  Well, my day went eggnog –> candy cane –> gingerbread; bam!

Nog based overnight oats for breakfast.

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I put 1/4 cup oats, 1/2 cup Silk Soy Nog, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds in the fridge overnight, then Saturday morning I added 1 sliced banana and a big dash of Christmas sprinkles.

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So festive and delicious.  Also, holy frick, I love chia seeds so much.

My candy cane came in the form of a Peppermint Stick Clif Bar during work.

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This is Clif’s best seasonal flavor by far.  The bar has the perfect amount of peppermint.

Gingerbread was a cupcake surprise from the husband.

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He had an appointment near Fairy Cakes in the afternoon and he brought me home a gingerbread stout cupcake with cream cheese icing.

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It was ridiculous good, maybe the best cupcake I’ve ever had!  The cake had a great ratio of spice to sweet and was so fluffy and moist.  I shared one big bite with Adam but downed the rest with gusto.

The rest of the day’s eats were out of season, but still good.  From fall I borrowed an apple and a Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale.

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I split the beer with Adam and ate the apple on my own.

I guess nachos are actually appropriate for any season, right?

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Adam and I shared a tray, straight from the oven.  We topped scoop-style tortilla chips with roasted brocoli and green pepper, Newman’s Own Pineapple Salsa, and Cabot Reserve Aged Cheddar.

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We loved them.  He was a little iffy on roasted brocoli as a nacho topping but it was delicious.  And I was worried about that type of cheese versus a regular cheddar, but that ended up being perfect too.  And the pineapple salsa is hands-down the best jarred salsa I’ve ever had.

Blah, blah, blah, and then I started having a fit and had to go to bed.  I didn’t get anywhere near enough sleep during the weeks Adam was gone and I’m still really freaking tired.

Sunday was a super hungry day and I ate a ton of crap.  A brunch of sorts, was low-fat coffee yogurt with honey roasted peanuts and honey,

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a few pieces of toffee candy from home,

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and several handfuls (about 3 servings or 250 calories worth) of dried turkey.

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During work I drank a Starbucks Vanilla Doubleshot.

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Working with crowds of Christmas shoppers is exhausting but also really rewarding.  Five different people today thanked me effusively for my help and that was a really good feeling.  Actually, one super hot guy told another customer that I was fantastic and I about died!

Adam picked me up after work for a fun treat.

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Bubble tea from Gin Gin!  Best bubble tea I’ve ever had, and I’ve tried a lot.  I got a medium red bean milk tea with regular and popping boba (the purple one is Adam’s taro).

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We both swooned over how good they were and finished our drinks in the car long before we made it home.  And we called my mom on speaker on the drive and drove her crazy scraping through our ice for errant tapiocas!

Dinner was pizza.

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And we shared a beer.

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We were gearing up for a long night of baking.

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I’m giving my co-workers all pies for Christmas and we are not even close to finished still.  Sorry, husband!

We made smoothies mid-baking for strength.  Frozen strawberries and blackberries blended with So Delicious Mint Chocolate Coconut Milk.

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And I’ve done a little nibbling while we baked.

I have a holiday breakfast with work tomorrow and then I’m spending Christmas Eve on the couch with Adam.  I have two days off in a row for the holiday and I am so excited to spend them with my boys!

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Did you give any handmade gifts this season?

Froyo Flavors Playbook

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The husband was out of town on an interview yesterday so I ate a single lady dinner of cookies and popcorn.  Then I ate a big bowl of cereal (with melted peanut butter and vanilla almond milk!) in bed.  <– Shhhhh, Adam would be so mad.

Speaking of skipping posts, exam week is coming and I am flipping out.  I want to try to keep up blogging, since it’s not like I use every last minute of my time studying anyway, but I’m not sure how that will work out.  Exams are in 13 days!  I honestly thought that we had another week and didn’t realize how close they were until I checked my planner in the middle of class and gave myself a heart attack.

Anyway.  When I wasn’t freaking out, I also ate breakfast in class.  A Chobani Honey Banana Flip.

That yogurt is my favorite Chobani product.  The bananas add the perfect amount of texture and sweetness to lighten up the Greek yogurt.

I also had an apple.

And a Target Candy Cane Chewy Cocoa Granola Bar in between class 1 and 2.

I had to hang around campus after lab to work in the computer lab and I ended up buying these Sea Salt Smart Fries as a snack from the book store.

This was my 2nd time trying the Smart Fries and I think I can officially say that I like them.  The texture is a little like a packing peanut but I mean that in the nicest way possible!  They are really satisfying to crunch through and you get a big serving (~65 pieces) for 110 calories.

I had a run errands this afternoon (you might notice that I didn’t actually do any exam studying today) and got a small container from the salad bar around 5:00.  A lettuce mix with some dressing (I don’t remember the flavor but it was sadly really bad) topped with cucumbers, cider glazed carrots, roasted brussels sprouts, and a giant scoop of chicken salad.

The chicken salad scoop was about half as mayo-y as it looks and two times as big as it looks.

I actually just got home a little while ago because I was out with friends.  We wanted to go see “Silver Linings Playbook” and it is only showing in one random theatre here so we made an excursion of it.  An exciting stop along the way…

FroYo Culture had their holiday flavors out!

I got gingerbread, eggnog, and Heath yogurts with crumbled gingerbread, Heath bits, shredded coconut, x-mas m&m’s, and marshmallow sauce.

Too exciting!  The gingerbread flavor was actually too spicy for me but the eggnog was perfect.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be going back to Willaimsville before the season is over.

The movie was worth the drive as well.  All three of us loved it.  The plot was a nice mix of funny, wrenching, and sweet.  Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro were all amazing.  And there’s even a Julia Stiles cameo.  We laughed on the way home that it was funny to watch Julia Stiles play a support role in a dance movie.  <– “Save the Last Dance” still remains a favorite of mine.

And I ate a serving of Sun Chips while I wrote this post.

Food-food instead of snack-food would probably be a good thing tomorrow!

Did you see SLP?  Thoughts??

{Part Of} Tuesday {In Advance}

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Hi there!  A computer issue is going to keep me from blogging Tuesday night and all day Wednesday so I wanted to get a quickie post up today.  This content is coming to you from the past (ooooooooohh!) so it’s possible that I’ll miss some unplanned bites.  I don’t plan on recapping, I just wanted to get up an outline of sorts.

Breakfast: A mint chocolate strawberry shake; don’t question the combo, it just works.  1 heaping cup of frozen strawberries blended with 1.5 cups So Delicious Chocolate Mint Coconut Milk.

Lunch: We have clinic in the morning and an internship meeting in the afternoon and I’m hoping for time to grab veggie sushi at Wegman’s in between.

Dinner:  A sandwich thin with cilantro mayo and tofu roasted with maple and soy.  Half of the seaweed flavored potato chips from China Town in Philly.  Half of the Little Duck Organics Apple and Banana Tiny Fruits from my #simplesurvivalkit package.

You might want to check back Wednesday morning… it’s possible I’ve prescheduled a giveaway post as well.

It’s December, Apparently

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Don’t worry, it’s not time to change your calendars; it’s only December in Emily Land.  You see, the other the day at the store I just couldn’t wait.

And today I did something really crazy.

I know that looks more mushy than crazy, but those overnight oats are made with So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog!  Nog in November? Who am I?!

My breakfast was so good it was worth breaking holiday timelines.  1/3 cup raw oats, 2/3 cup vegan nog, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds sat overnight.  This morning I topped it off with a sliced banana, nutmeg, and a little more nog.  Dee-lish-us!

Lunch was more on season with a Thanksgiving classic.

I made cranberry sauce from scratch yesterday!  I used this recipe and it came out great.  Today I ate a bowl with sweet and salty peanuts.

Plus the rest of my peanut butter rice krispie treat from the other day.  {where the heck did this picture go?!}  Maybe a little too much sugar for lunch?  I was buzzing at work.

Speaking of work, I came home from my shift with a present for Adam and myself.

I’ve been eyeing Ghost Blitz for weeks and there was only one box left today so I bought it!  We had such a good time playing this evening.

Adam and I shared a box of Thai spring rolls (with homemade spicy peanut sauce) while we played.

Round two was homemade veggie burgers.  I topped mine with honey mustard.

And the tie-breaker (Adam won!) was 2 servings of Sweet Potato Chips from Food Should Taste Good.

I should have been in bed 3 hours ago.  Boo!

Final Day In Philly

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My final day in Philly was delicious.  I was on my own while Adam took an 8 hour practical exam so I walked, ate, and read.  It was perfection.  I had to park the car in an all-day spot to save money but since I love to walk I was able to explore a large area on foot.

The Reading Terminal Market didn’t have as many vegan options as I’d hoped.  In fact, we learned on Sunday that the vegan cheese steak place was temporarily closed which was a good thing because it gave me a day to deal with my massive disappointment.  There were plenty of fun things to look at though.

Since I had trouble finding breakfast I went straight to dessert (and stayed there pretty much all day!).

Bubble tea for breakfast?  Why not.

This was a red mango tea with strawberry popping bubbles.  It was the best tea of the trip, popping boba is just so flipping good.

I spent some time at Au Bon Pain with the latest Kathy Reichs book and sipped a coffee with soy milk.

By the by, Reichs’ latest book was great.

Then froyo happened.

I have no regrets.  Vegan Challenge or not, Emily Wax does not walk past self-serve eggnog frozen yogurt.  I wanted to feel guilty, but this ended up being the best bowl I’ve ever had.  Eggnog yogurt and cream cheese yogurt (even better than the eggnog!!) topped with salty peanuts, shredded coconut, caramel, and butterscotch chips.

Ridiculous.  And now I have to spend the rest of my days searching for more cream cheese froyo.

The rest of lunch needed to be a little healthier – enter a green smoothie.  Almond milk, banana, kale, and cacao.

I did a “design your own elixir” and was very pleased with my combination.

We needed to get on the road quickly after Adam’s exam so we headed to Whole Foods again for dinner.

Bbq seitan, collard greens, curry “chicken” salad, sesame seaweed, garlic pasta, and wheat berry salad.

Plus a vegan cookies and cream cupcake was split for dessert.

We did 50/50 but I got 100% of the frosting and Adam got 100% of the cake.

I also grabbed a coco libre coconut water + chia raspberry lemonade for the car.

It was awesome.  I love chia drinks and this was the best I’ve ever had.

The rest of my car snacks (for the 8+ hour trip!) were decidedly less healthy.

I wasn’t even hungry by the end but I had to keep eating to stay awake and I woke up the next morning with a stomach ache.  No matter, nothing was going to take away from how wonderful our Philly visit was.

All in all, we had a fantastic trip!

Hello, Hello, Goodbye, Goodbye

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Hello, reader.  I was AWOL yesterday because I had the beginnings of a migraine and put myself to bed at 4 in the afternoon!  Not fun.

Also, Hello to Vegan Month!  I desperately needed to go to store, so yesterday I had to make do with the vegan things around the house.  And of course I was insanely hungry all afternoon.  <– bad timing

Breakfast was a super tasty pumpkin smoothie.

1 cup Blue Diamond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond/Coconut Milk Blend, ~1 cup canned pumpkin, 1 frozen banana, 2 Tbsp maple syrup, and a big shake of pumpkin pie spice.

I did lots of snacking when I got home from clinic.  2 oz of roasted pumpkin seeds,

a giant Honeycrisp with tons of melted Biscoff,

a (FNCE sample) bag of Food Should Taste Good Olive Chips,

and a big bowl of cereal.

Then I put myself to bed with a migraine.  I had a paper due this morning so unfortunately Adam had to wake me up at 10pm so I could write it.

I ate a veggie sub from Subway – lettuce, tomato, green pepper, cucumber, pickles, red onion, and bbq sauce – while I worked.

Breakfast was the last of the pumpkin seeds,

and a green pear.

I got lunch at Wegman’s during my massive shopping trip.

Veggie goyza,

and inari.

I ate half of both then brought the rest home to Adam.  We both loved the inari!

And I ate this candy bar – like a vegan Snickers – while I blogged.

Goodbye to my belly button ring.

I’ve had it in since I was 15 (12 years!!!!!!!!!) and am so sad that it is gone now.  But I’m having a minor surgery this afternoon and they told me I had to take it out.

Also, Goodbye to you guys for a bit.  The minor surgery is on my hand and I sure I will not be up for typing this evening.  I’ll “see” you later this weekend.  Wish me luck!

Bread In Chocolate, Mystery Burgers, And Thickened Pepsi

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I have got to stop falling asleep without blogging!  Some days (many days) are crazy and boring and I skip posting.  Other days are crazy and delicious and make me want to blog.  But two crazy and delicious days in a row makes for one loooooong recap!

Monday

Breakfast was all about the FNCE samples.  Gross was the Strawberry Del Monte Squeezable fruit.

There was a flavor there that I just didn’t care for.  Almost savory?!

Great was the Jamba Juice Fruit-i-licious Probiotic Trail Mix (I ate the whole bag, or 2 servings).

It had tons of fruit and nuts and just enough chocolate to be fun.

I planned on making dinner before I went to work so I made a quick trip to the store on my way home from school.  Coffee with skim milk to warm me up when I got home.

Archer Farms’ Cinnamon Vanilla Nut is the best flavor I’ve ever gotten from Target.

My lunch snack was a sweet tasting plate.

A sliced banana with crunchy honey pb,

and half of a Theo Bread and Chocolate Bar.

I love this bar!  Normally 70% would be a little dark for me but the saltiness of the bread really brings out the sweet in the chocolate.

I also ate a 100-calorie bag of kettle corn.

I managed to get dinner made, but not with much time to spare; I ate on the walk to work!

Roasted green beans,

and a turkey burger on a bun with sharp cheddar and Miracle Whip.

I’m going to stay cryptic and just say “burger” because this recipe was so tasty that it warrants its own separate post tomorrow.  I know most people scan these long recaps and I do NOT want this burger recipe to get lost!

After work, I ate a slice of turkey while I packed Adam’s lunch.

And that was it.  It was quite lucky that I ate dinner for lunch because otherwise I would have gone to bed hungry.

I got my flu shot Sunday morning.  PSA – Flu shots save lives.  Even if you aren’t worried about the flu, you should get the shot because it helps protect the people around you.  That said, I am having a major adverse reaction to my flu shot!

I couldn’t get a picture that really shows anything (it is surprisingly tricky to photograph your upper arm), but imagine a giant, raised, red area around my injection site.  It itches like crazy and is making me insane.  Adam didn’t see my reaction until Monday night but as soon as he did he fed me an allergy med and put me in bed.

Tuesday

When I say that Adam “put me in bed” on Monday night, it is worth mentioning that he let me pass out teeth unbrushed, jeans still on, and alarm clock unset!  I managed to make it to school on time but I was very confused this morning!

There wasn’t much time for breakfast so I grabbed a Chocolate Zico Coconut Water,

and an Odwalla Chocolate Almond Coconut Chewy Nut Bar (a FNCE sample).

Dee-lish-us!  The bar immediately moved to my “top five bars” list (now that Balance Bars aren’t good there is a major hole to fill!).  It tasted like real food, really tasty real food.

We were on campus today so I also got to cash in a free coffee card at the book store.

3 shots of espresso with tons of vanilla sugar and skim milk.  And then I twitched wildly for the rest of the day…

Instead of clinical practice at the hospital, today we had an intensive lecture on enteral and parenteral nutrition – i.e. feeding through a tube into the GI tract or through a vein.  It is insanely complicated but at least I think the calculations are a ton of fun.  I’m certainly not the smartest person in our program (not by a long shot!) but when we do any sort of math I’m usually the first person in the room to finish.  Who knew as I struggled through 9th grade pre-calculus that I’d grow up to get all tingly over formulas?!

Another fun part of the day? A rep from Nestle came in and showed us some different products.  We got to taste thickened water and thickened diet pepsi (honey consistency) –

Their commercial thickener is just xantham gum – like I used to use in my smoothies! – plus a few preservatives.

Also fun was the longer lunch period that let my friends and me go to Wegman’s.

I hadn’t packed food so this was very serendipitous.

Buffalo chicken chowder,

and a green veggie brown rice sushi roll with spicy mayo on the side for dipping.

Between buffalo sauce soup, spicy mayo dipping, and the wasabi that I slathered on top of my sushi, this lunch left me sweating!

I stole a fun sized candy bar from my friend for dessert.

Ignore my sandals, and note that I bundled up today for Fall.

Fall is here exhibit b – tea with skim milk and cinnamon sugar.

Fall is here exhibit c – the apple crumble candle I burned while I studied.

Fall is here exhibit isn’t she done with this gag yet?! – an apple crumble yogurt bowl.

This is another dish I plan on making often.  A 0% Plain Greek yogurt topped with cooked apple (a chopped Sweet Tango microwaved for 2 minutes with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tsp agave) and crumble (KIND Oats and Honey Clusters granola, a FNCE sample).

The rest of dinner was a random assortment of snacks while I studied.  A chocolate chip cookie dough mini Larabar (FNCE sample).

A mini tortilla with 2 slices of Applegate Farms Honey Maple Turkey and melted sharp cheddar.

Cold, leftover green beans for veggie needs.

And a 100-calorie bag of kettle corn.

As I said, looooong!  Like hot-dog-dog long.

Have you ever had an adverse reaction to the flu shot?