Hello, Hello, Goodbye, Goodbye

by Emily

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!

16Oct2012

Bread In Chocolate, Mystery Burgers, And Thickened Pepsi

by Emily

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?

24Sep2012

Crazy Cakes

by Emily

Crazy-cakes is one of my favorite expressions and for the post title I’m using it both figuratively and literally. It is crazy stupid that I’m blogging at 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Things have been crazy busy and the next two weeks are only going to get crazier. Finally, I fulfilled a birthday list goal and made a crazy good cake.

The past few days have been crazy on the healthy living front but I want to blog them because I don’t live a healthy living blog, I live my life. And in my life 90% of what I’ve consumed in the past week has been pizza. I’ve decided that attempting to work out over the next week would actually be unhealthy because I’m already getting so little sleep (my planner is workout-free until October 10th). I’m super stressed and not doing the best job of balancing school work with too many hours at my job. But again, this is my life.

As I prewrote these posts in my head I had a lot to say, but now that it’s been 4 days since I last blogged I think we shall go WIAW-style for the recaps. Note – there is no recap from Thursday because I took the day off from everything, took no pictures, caught up on “Awkward” and “Covert Affairs,” and ate pizza and Chinese food for dinner. It was both necessary and delightful.

The Next 2 Weeks

(9/26) 3 homework assignments are due
(9/27) the 4 major assignments from my community clinical rotation are due
(9/28) I’m presenting a journal article for my research methods class. It is a 25 minute Powerpoint presentation and it makes up a large percentage of our grade.
(9/28) we have our first Microbiology test
(10/1) we have our first MNT test <– it is going to be so difficult that our teacher recommended that we all quit our jobs if we can
(10/6) two friends and I are driving to Philly for 4 days for a professional conference <– fun, but also holy frick, when am I going to pack?!

Friday

Breakfast on the walk to school. Zico Chocolate Coconut Water.

Muller Blueberry Bliss Frut Up.

Blueberry Bliss Luna Bar.

China Breakfast Tea with skim milk and a pb-chocolate magic straw while at work.

A See’s candy that my bosses brought us back from their trip to California. (I had never tried See’s before and now I am a fast fan; soooo creamy!)

A caramel apple non-fat latte as I geared up for a late night. (Cafe Aroma, Buffalo peeps.)

Wegman’s frozen cheese pizza and a sad salad of romaine and 1000 island dressing.

Cake!

One of my goals for my 27th year was to bake a cake from scratch. I figured I’d only do this once, so I wanted a recipe that was delicious but didn’t call for cake flour. After much pondering and Googling, I settled on this Hummingbird Cake recipe from Serious Eats.

If you’ve never had Hummingbird Cake before (I hadn’t!), it is a yellow cake with chopped pecans, crushed pineapple, and mashed banana in the batter that is frosted with cream cheese icing. This combination of ingredients ends up being amazing.

I made the following changes to the recipe and they all worked out –

light brown sugar instead of dark brown
low-fat buttermilk
canola oil instead of vegetable oil
1/3-reduced fat cream cheese

I baked the three cakes when I got home from work on Friday night. This activity, of course, included a sprint to purchase more eggs at the co-op 10 minutes before it closed.

Then Saturday morning I layered and ~~frosted~~ helped Adam frost the cake.

His surgeon’s hands came in very handy.

It ended up being a big success!

I brought the cake to book club and it got two-thumbs up all around. If I ever have to make another cake in the future I will definitely think of hummingbirds.

Both of my book club offers were pineapple-based, because I also made my Tropical Fruit White Sangria.

This batch was made with –

2 cups chopped pineapple
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup Cruzan Guava Rum
1 bottle Rosebud Gold (a local sweet white wine)
10 oz lemon seltzer water

Saturday

Eaten before my 10 am shift at work because I had been up since 5:00 frosting and studying. Leftover bbq chicken pizza and sliced apple.

Popcorn with Smart Balance Light.

A Zevia Cola at work.

A pizza bagel on my break. (The Spot uses the very best tasting marinara sauce; it is super zesty.)

My friend picked me up from work and I immediately guzzled two giant glasses of sangria instead of helping her set up.

Book club food, a slice of cheese quesadilla with guacamole and mango salsa, plus two toasts with shrimp dip.

A slice of cake.

Drunkenly eaten at midnight, my 3rd serving of pizza for the day and carrots with french onion yogurt dip.

Sunday

Homemade cole slaw.

A slice of cake.

A See’s candy at work.

Dinner while grocery shopping. Sweet and sour chicken plus wok-seared veggies. (This was randomly really tasty and the best hot bar meal I’ve had in a while.)

A medium, non-fat (no whipped cream) Apple Steamer during our class study-session at The Spot.

Baby carrots and french onion yogurt dip while I wrote this post.

An Important Question

Don’t you think that the dog sort of likes like Oprah when he sits with his arms crossed like this?

16Sep2012

Crazy Week Was Crazy

by Emily

Phew, am I glad that’s over! Ha! Not really; this week was crazy but the year is bound to only get crazier. And I didn’t even have that much going on with school last week. I did, however, work every single free day. Also, the husband’s residency applications went out today. <– giant stressball

Here’s what’s been going on:

I haven’t blogged since Wednesday
I didn’t work out a single time last week (insert major sad face here)
I didn’t do ~~any~~ enough school-work
I worked my butt of at work-work
I put in a lot of hours helping the husband to finalize his application and edit his personal statement
I had to videotape myself giving the husband a nutrition education (it was hilarious)
I didn’t eat anywhere near enough the past few days and I’ve been out of control cranky
I went to the co-op and stocked up on organic ramen so I never have to skip so many meals again (I was truly that busy)

I don’t have time to do a proper recap but I have taken a photo of every food item that’s passed my lips so I am damn well going to blog them!

Thursday

My clinical group toured the food bank as part of our community rotation. I car-pooled with a friend and we used a BOGO coupon for iced coffees with skim milk along the way.

We discovered that Got Milk’s Magic Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Straws turn iced coffee into something magical.

So flipping good!

We spent the 2nd half of our food bank visit sorting tomatoes. It was nice to help out but I had to squelch some major throwing urges.

Lunch was plain yogurt with 2 Tbsp flax and chopped plum and nectarine.

Dinner was Jenna’s Baked Polenta with Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Cheese, and Tomato Sauce.

I made a bunch of changes but the basic recipe was still hers. My updates –

made 4 servings
1 cup of polenta (cooked without butter)
2 pints mushrooms (sautéed in 1 Tbsp butter 1st)
1.5 cups marinara
1 cup gorgonzola
cooked 20 minutes

It was really, really good!

Friday

I ate a strange lunch-breakfast in class. A 2 slices of Applegate Farms turkey on a Sandwich Thin with yellow mustard and 2% colby sandwich.

Roasted seaweed.

An apple.

And apple month candy.

This didn’t fill me up at all and I ate lunch an hour later. And by ate I mean shoved into my face in under two minutes. A Wegman’s Low-fat Honey Yogurt.

A Fiber One cookie.

And a Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter squeeze packet.

That Justin’s isn’t even like Nutella, it is frosting!!

Baked polenta leftovers for dinner.

Plus leftover pizza dipped in 1000 island dressing an hour later because I was still hungry.

Saturday

…was ridiculous. 0% Chocolate Oikos.

A plum.

A Honey Low-fat Yogurt with Banana Chobani Flip.

This product is so new that it’s not even on their website but I sure hope they keep making it. The mashed banana was strangely delicious.

However – I ate all three of those items at work. And then I didn’t eat anything else all day. My day went – get up. work, work, work. edit Adam’s applications. bed. He may have slept on the couch.

Sunday

Two breakfasts to make up for yesterday’s lack of calories. 1 serving of Special K Vanilla Almond in Blue Diamond’s almond/coconut milk blend.

Chopped plum and apricot on top of a strawberry 0% Oikos.

Nature’s Path Apple Pie Crunch Plus Chia Bar.

I only bought this because I was having an Apple Month frenzy, but I actually loved it. The bars were crunchy without being too crumbly and the apple spice flavor was subtle. Plus, 3 grams each protein and fiber.

I bought a Raaw Passion Fruit Wheatgrass drink at work.

I used to love Jamba’s oj and wheatgrass shots with a passion (ha!) and I adore passion fruit so this was the perfect thing for me. If the co-op keeps stocking them I will certainly buy one again.

Adam handed me three gummi mice this afternoon. (His nickname for me is Mouse.)

We had to videotape our interview when I got home from work and it ate up most of the afternoon. More time was spent giggling than recording!

We split take-out from Vasilis Express for dinner.

A Chicken Souvlaki Wrap,

plus Greek Fries, aka fries smothered in Greek dressing and feta.

When we went to pick up our food we spotted this –

And we had ice cream before dinner (Turkey Hill Double Dunker).

It was mocha ice cream with crunchy cookie and cookie dough and it was ridiculous.

I had my class review at The Spot this evening so I had another iced coffee with skim milk and a magic straw. I didn’t manage to photograph but I imagine most of you can use your imaginations.

The end?

This post was terrible. Much too long, poorly written, and exceptionally boring. I apologize for making you read my food diary. The end.

28Aug2012

Hot Dog!

by Emily

2nd day of the semester was a success! I promise I’ll stop counting them soon though.

I started my day with a smoothie for the walk to school. 1 scoop bourbon vanilla protein powder, ~1.5 cups Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, medium frozen banana, and ~2 cups frozen blueberries.

My smoothie matched my shoes! Actually, it matched my whole outfit.

I found this great loose-fitting racer-back tank in a dressy fabric at the Gap outlet this summer and bought it in all three available colors.

I got to wear jeans because we were on campus for clinical orientation today. Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the semester we’ll spend 8 hours a day in clinic, aka practicing our skills out in the field for our internship hours. Today we met with instructors, filled out paperwork, and spent several hours practicing calculations. <– I remember more than I thought, yay!

I packed this vegan tortilla soup for lunch.

Supplemented with a cheese stick I got at an info table in the quad.

Sadly it took my friends and I for-ev-er to find a table and by the time I finished waking back and forth from two buildings with my hot soup it didn’t really appeal to me any more. I ate half, plus all of the cheese stick and a Diet Pepsi from the vending machine. Note – this set the trend apparently because every meal thereafter was also unsuccessful!

After class was over 2 friends and I set out on a mini journey. We stopped at Anna’s house along the way for sunscreen, then walked a little over a mile to Delish to try out the East Park Pops.

The pops are made from scratch from local ingredients. My mango pineapple contained only mango, pineapple, and fresh lime juice, no added sugar.

It all sounded really promising but unfortunately we just weren’t fans. The pops were way too hard and icy and we all threw ours out a quarter or so through. Janessa and I had been planning this excursion since summer so we were sad it didn’t pan out, but Delish’s new Black Rock location is adorable and we do want to go back for coffees soon.

We ended up having (tall, skim) iced caramel macchiatos from Wegman’s as our treat instead.

Buffalo students – Wegman’s is giving out their awesome student coupon books this week and our coffees were a dollar off.

We spotted jalapeño poppers on the hot bar and two of us went for one of those as well. (Don’t worry, my friend is going to reuse that plastic container so we didn’t totally waste it.)

This was another idea that was better in theory, the poppers had cheese instead of cream cheese and I threw half of mine out.

Dinner was hot dogs –

Not that kind of hot dog! Though, Webster, if you don’t stop eating my stuff I might consider it. Adam and I regularly joke about taking a bite out of his meaty thighs.

This kind of hot dog –

I put two Applegate Farms turkey hot dogs on a bun, piled high with sauerkraut, relish, and ketchup. The dog was devoured with gusto but its accompaniments were pretty “meh.”

Roasted asparagus that was undercooked and tasted terrible.

I choked down half.

Smokey Maple Baked Beans that were good but not what I was craving right before I went to a yoga class.

I ate 3/4 of those.

Thankfully I had a great workout to make up for my lackluster meal: a 90 minute hot yoga class. I was worried about making it through a 90-minute class (I haven’t exactly been making the most of my unlimited yoga pass!), but it ended up being great. The 90-minute session is almost easier than the 60-minute one because you do the same poses with more repetition so you have time to practice them.

All that stands between me and bed is a shower and 15 minutes of reviewing DNA with the husband. I turned in too late last night and felt it in the morning so I’m trying to hurry.

What was the last food that you were excited for and then disappointed by?

8Aug2012

Chicken Chicken

by Emily

Please note – if you were my dog you would read that title as “chick-ON chick-ON,” since that is what we say whenever we feed him chicken.

Not a lot has gone down in the two days since I left Ohio, but there were a few highlights. I did get to eat lots of chips and several large diet sodas.

Our drive back to Buffalo and my parents’ flight home went off without a hitch.

My dad drove the whole way home for me and I finished knitting my scarf!!!

The fine people at Honest Tea noticed that I can’t help but buy a beverage whenever I walk past the co-op and sent me a few new flavors to try.

I got a new retainer, hopefully my last new retainer ever. *fingers crossed*

We had to take the dog to the vet to get a cyst on his tail lanced and it was the grossest/coolest thing ever.

Poor baby!

The vet trip actually happened today and it’s a good thing that went well because it was pretty much all I accomplished today. I didn’t get much sleep at my grandma’s house (I was on the couch and there was cable) and I stayed up too late again last night and crashed hard today.

I did manage a good, late breakfast.

Oh, Green Monster, I love you so. My original recipe is still my favorite. 1 frozen banana + 1 cup frozen spinach + 1 cup oj.

So ~~green~~ good.

I also ate half (aka 1 serving) of this Honey Noosa Yoghurt.

I got lunch from the hot bar while I was grocery shopping (hey, that’s an accomplishment!).

Two types of chicken,

plus roasted veggies.

I tried to get a skinny caramel macchiato as an afternoon snack but I ended up throwing it out after a few sips.

This drink was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted. It was super sour, but like there was something wrong with the coffee, not the milk. And I used part of a birthday gift card so it was extra sad.

Dinner was more chick-ON.

Baby carrots,

honey mustard for dipping (Ken’s Lite and it was very good, if you’re wondering),

and two servings of Wegman’s chicken nuggets.

I’ve been wanting nuggets for days and these hit the spot.

Tomorrow’s plans include not sleeping through yoga, medicating the dog, a shift at work, and a fun nighttime event with the husband.

What is your favorite sauce for nugget dipping?

4Aug2012

TJ, Totally Jazzed

by Emily

The past few days have been a ton of fun. I’ve done a lot of eating!

Yesterday morning I got started on one of my 27 things.

I knit a few things as a kid and it seemed to come back to me pretty quickly. My grandma has had to help with a couple of disasters though.

I had yogurt for breakfast and moved on to another kind of yogurt for lunch.

Self-serve for the win. I did a mix of desserty flavors topped with all of the chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel things.

‘Twas good, but whenever I go crazy decadent I always realize that I like my plain tart with fruit and boba the best.

Our Friday activity was The Greene. We went for shopping, walking, and people watching. And eating. We got Turkish for dinner at Pasha Grill.

They gave us delicious bread with sun-dried tomato oil for dipping. My piece, x2.

I should have held off on the basket because I ended up needing bread with my dinner as well.

I ordered the cold appetizer sampler as my entrée. [clockwise]

Hummus – pureed chick peas with a hint of garlic, tahini, fresh lemon juice, and olive oil.
Pilaki – pinto beans with carrots, green peppers, and diced potatoes in a light tomato and olive oil sauce.
Tabuli – cracked wheat tossed with tomatoes, sweet onions, fresh peppers, parsley, lemon juice, and olive oil.
Haydari – thickened homemade yogurt with fresh dill, mint, garlic, and walnut.
Eggplant with tomato sauce.
Babaganush – smoked eggplant puree flavored with tahini, olive oil, and garlic.
Ezme – finely chopped tomatoes, onions, walnuts, and hot peppers, mixed in olive oil and herbs.
Dolmasi – grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, raisins, and flavorful herbs.

Delicious, delicious, delicious! The babaganous and ezme were my favorites. I did a pretty good job on my meal too.

Plus 3 more pieces of bread for dipping. My only complaint about the dish is that it didn’t come with pita bread.

Iced Vanilla Rooibos Latte for dessert.

Plus a small square of chocolate,

and tastes of nougat that my parents brought from Canada.

End scene.

I started today with a 1 hour bike ride with my parents.

I had a small plate of food at home to tide me over.

Baby carrots,

and pretzel bread with beer cheese.

Then I ate my way through our day’s destinations.

A giant diet pop with strawberries at Sonic.

Fun stop #1 was the 2nd Street Market.

I got an arepa with cheese, black beans, and plantain.

I’ve always wanted to try an arepa so this was fun, but a little too “bready” for me; I left the bottom half of my corn cake behind.

Then I spotted Sweet P’s and my mom and I split a sea salt caramel popsicle.

Yuuuum!

Fun stop #2 was Trader Joe’s.

We loaded up a cart and I also got some brown rice sushi for the road.

TJ’s has some of the best packaged food ever but their sushi always has too much rice. I ate half and saved the rest for later.

Dinner was an insane summer feast.

Cantaloupe,

my grandma’s delicious chicken salad (she always makes it with toasted pecans and grapes and this time she added dried cranberries),

unfried green tomatoes,

and buttered corn on the cob.

I mmmmmmmmmn’d my way through the whole meal but the corn practically killed me!

I had a big cup of Heath Bar ice cream for dessert.

Good as well, duh.

Tomorrow is our last day of family time and then on Monday we hit the road. I’m sad to be leaving my grandma but glad to be returning to my boys.

2Aug2012

Three Days Into Your Trip

by Emily

Hello from Ohio. I know I haven’t blogged in a few days, these old folks are keeping me busy!

Adam had to stay in Buffalo (he’s going to be a doctor so we don’t feel bad for him, though we do miss him!) but Tuesday morning my mom, dad, and I logged 8 hours in the car. After some tearful goodbyes, of course.