Tag Archives: banana

Banana CheeseQuake

by

I was really hoping we’d have a bit longer before this happened –

But the snow did hold off until December 9th, so I guess we’re pretty lucky.

I parked my (snow-covered) car on the wrong side of the street last night in the hopes that having to get up to move it would get me to the gym.  And it did!  I hopped on the treadmill and did 10 minutes walking – 10 running – 5 walking – 5 running – 5 walking.  2.7 miles and 35 minutes total.  Followed by a short strength and stretch session on the mats.

After the gym I had to make an emergency trip to the store (we are out of soda and I’ve got 5 exams to study for!) and I came home to one of the biggest messes the dog’s ever created.  It’s possible I sat on the floor and cried.  But then I picked myself up (cleaned up) and ate two oatmeal cookies while I waited for my oatmeal to cook.

I should have just waited though, because this was one of the best bowls of oatmeal I’ve ever made.

Cooked:  1 cup water, 1 medium banana, 1 pinch salt, 1/3 cup oats
Stirred in:  1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
Topped:  1 oz reduced-fat cream cheese, 1 tsp light brown sugar

There was more dairy than oats in this oatmeal!  And it was perfect.  Like a slice of banana cheesecake, except not sickingly sweet and rich (just sweet and rich enough!).

I Was Told There’d Be Book Club

by

Book club was a success!  And Adam got off of his shift early and got to spend the afternoon with me, so it was a great day all-around.

I got up early to do some final cleaning (when people come over I like to pretend that we’re not slobs) and snacked on a bag of popcorn and a slice of 2% provolone while I worked.

I also did some major 2-for-me-and-1-for-the-bowl-ing while I prepped the fruit salad.

At 10 my friends arrived and we feasted.

We may not have really talked about the book (I Was Told There’d Be Cake) but at least we had some good eats!

My plate had potatoes,

fruit salad,

cheesy baked eggs,

and a crepe (so cool!) with Biscoff spread on the inside.

We also made hibiscus mimosas.

It was all great fun.  No people pictures though because we suck at remembering to take them.  I always have my camera with me (duh) so I need to do a better job at snapping candids.

We book clubbed until after 3pm and then my cultural meal pattern group and I baked some Irish soda bread to bring to our presentation tomorrow.  By the time they left I was starving again and my study motivation was seriously waning.  But I have an important cumulative exam – spanning two semesters and material from 2 courses – tomorrow.  What to do, what to do?

Somehow the husband and I decided that the solution was to go out to dinner and study at the table while other people prepared our food!

We went to an all-you-can-eat sushi spot that has a longish wait between courses and it was actually perfect.  I’m not prepared for tomorrow by any means, but I got a lot more done than I would have at home.

I also ate a lot.  I just plain don’t have time to break the pictures down, but here’s a shot of what I ate.

Wow!  Highlights included edamame, tamago (sweet egg) sushi, and tempura zucchini.

And we stopped at Wegmans for a candy cane for dessert.

Sweet dreams!

Welcome, December

by

The official month of snowmen, gingerbread men, eggnog, candy canes, and good cheer is finally here!

I rung in the season with a festive oatmeal bowl.

Stovetop:  1/2 cup each water and skim milk, 1 large banana, 1/3 cup oats

Stirred in:  1/3 cup 1% cottage cheese

Topping:  1 Tbsp Biscoff Spread, 1 Tbsp light cream, a sprinkling of sprinkles

Delicious times delicious times delicious!

Gingerbread, peppermint, or eggnog; what’s your poison?

Best Ever

by

It’s a good thing I decided not to blog after dinner yesterday because we ended up staying out for drinks!  It was a late, fun night.

We started our evening with dinner at Las Culebrinas, Adam’s favorite Cuban place on the planet.  They have rolls with the best garlic butter.

We also ordered some appetizers to share.

Fried plantain with shrimp in red sauce and mozzarella sticks.

For dinner I got Mahi Mahi crusted in corn flakes and topped with a honey mustard sauce.

It was a little too fried for me but the sauce was so good.

And it came with a side salad with great dressing.

We did lots of sharing (though no one went near Adam’s beef because he was moaning so loudly – and whispering sweet nothings to his chocolate flan – and we were all a little afraid).  I ended up eating the equivalent of 3/4 of my plate.

Afterwards we walked around Coconut Grove for some more people watching.  And somehow ended up at Uncle Moe’s for drinks.  Like the Cow Tipper.

Here’s a shot with my hand for size comparison.

My mom and I split this one, obviously.  It was tasty, but not as strong as it sounds.

Which is good, because I was feeling good this morning.  I decided to skip the hotel breakfast, which was lackluster yesterday, and get in a quick gym trip instead.  15 minutes on the treadmill for a bit over a mile.

I ate my stolen pear for breakfast.

Along with a NuGo Dark bar packed from home.

And we stopped by our old favorite Thai place for a bubble tea smoothie.

Strawberry coconut smoothie with bobba.

So freaking good!

Plus a few peppermints for freshness.

Amid the day’s exploration we also spent some time at the mall. I know shopping seems like a strange vacation activity, but my parents live on an island so it’s more exploratory for them than the beach. My dad shared a pretzel with me while we were there.

I ate about x2 what’s pictured. We were practically frozen so I also bought an earl grey with steamed skim milk.

A few stops later, and we were at my favorite place on the planet.

Where I made the biggest cup of froyo I’ve ever eaten.

Everything chocolate and caramel, smothered in marshmallow.

Heaven. Pure heaven.

And the evening only got better. The plan was to go to Joe’s Stone Crab, but a 2-hour wait scared us away. The disappointment was very serendipitous, because we ended up having a best ever dinner at Joe’s less formal take-away spot next door. You ordered your food at a counter and brought it to the booth yourself and it ended up being just perfect.

To start, Adam and I split a seafood bisque.

It was creamy and tangy with big chunks of fish.

Then the four of us split an order of stone crab.

Stone crab is like the best crab you’ve ever had, on steroids. It is meaty, yet tender and buttery.

I got most of two claws, dipped in butter and mustard.

I drank a spicy bloody Mary with my food but I was too excited about the crab to remember to photograph before a few sips in.

For the rest of the meal, my mom and I split two sandwiches.

The shrimp po boy and the lobster Reuben.

The po boy was good, though I mostly ate the shrimp out of the bun, dipped in remoulade.

The Reuben was out of this world. Everything that’s good about a Reuben but with the added amazingness of lobster.

Everyone kept laughing at me for chewing with my eyes closed but I just couldn’t help it. The big pieces of meat were absolutely perfect.

I thought I couldn’t be happier, but then Adam bought me this t-Rex juice container.

Best trip souvenir ever.

My favorite activity in any city is bike riding, and for the hour after dinner that’s just what we did.

It was so much fun, though our times in the sand basically left my thighs burning! Then we spent another hour walking down the club strip on South Beach for the ultimate people watching. It was the best vacation day ever.  The best.

Miami Bound

by

I’m not sure how this hasn’t come up on the blog yet (because it’s all I talk about in real life), but I’m going to Miami for Thanksgiving!!!  Adam and I are meeting my parents there tomorrow for four days of nostalgic, sunny, fun.  We don’t have any family in Florida (we’re spending Turkey Day at a steak/seafood place) but my parents loved visiting when Adam and I went to UM and they thought it’d be fun to recreate a trip.

I’ve been excited for weeks but I hadn’t actually thought logistics until this morning.  Today’s to-do list includes –

  • packing for myself and the husband
  • packing some sort of “brunch” for the airplane tomorrow
  • painting my toe nails
  • shaving my legs for the first time in at least two months (eww!)
  • putting away tons of laundry
  • dropping the dog off at the vets for boarding
  • lots of random schoolwork

Where are you spending Thanksgiving?

I started my morning with the most decadent oatmeal.

I know a lot of food bloggers use that word a lot, decadent, but this bowl seriously was.  I had to use up the open pumpkin but wasn’t in the mood for its slightly bitter flavor and I just kept adding ingredients to cover it up.

What I ended up with was –

  • 1 cup skim milk (cooked)
  • 1 medium banana, sliced (cooked)
  • 1 pinch salt (cooked)
  • 1/4 cup oats (cooked)
  • 1/4 cup pumpkin (cooked)
  • 1/4 cup 1% cottage cheese (stirred in at the end)
  • 2 tsp butterscotch chips (topped)
  • 1 Tbsp Biscoff spread (topped)
  • 1 Tbsp light cream (topped)

Dang.  And amazingly my least favorite additions were the chips and Biscoff; they strong-armed the other flavors in their bites.  My most favorite was the cottage cheese.  I’ve used that before but I don’t think I realized how much I like it.  I need to put that on the grocery list more often!

Don’t forget, you have until 2pm EST to enter my Duncan Hines giveaway.

Delirious Dinner

by

I’m going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the plethora of typos that will most likely pepper this post.  Between my 4+ hour sleep deficit and wracking my brain all day for answers to two major tests, I’m a bit off my game.  And the husband was on a 24-hour shift last night and he’s wrecked as well.  Our joint delirium made for an interesting afternoon.

But first, lunch.

Despite appearances, that’s not a yogurt.

It’s also not a 6oz container but a big guy, stocked with last night’s roasted dinner leftovers.

These were still good cold, but I had to shovel them in at 10am which felt a little odd.

I want to think my tests went well, but honestly I’m not sure I even remember.  Thanksgiving break is going to be all about catching up on sleep.

When I finished my make-up exam at 3, I picked up the husband so we could do a quick grocery restock.  My gnawing hunger led me to the gingerbread men.

Such a good idea.  Adam ate his buttons, and thought this was so funny he made me snap a picture.

I told you we’re tired.

Except that tired is the understatement of the century.  Between bad luck, Adam’s distraction, and my complete and utter confusion at life, we went to three different grocery stores and somehow ended up with nothing more than a bag of pears to show for it.  Frick.

Some complaining, more confusion, and lots of aimless driving later, and we managed to end up at a Chinese buffet for dinner.

We were totally drawn in by the bubble tea.

Adam and I split this Taro one.

The food wasn’t necessarily good, but it certainly wasn’t bad either.  Not healthy at all and a miserable lack of vegetables, but overall we had a nice dinner.

Green beans, baked salmon, 2 stuffed mushrooms, and a crab rangoon.

Sushi, chicken with broccoli, and some cheesy crab salad that blew my freaking mind.  It was so rich I couldn’t even eat all of what’s shown but I was seriously in heaven.

Tiramisu, pineapple, glazed banana, pudding, coconut gelatin.

I had lost steam by dessert and shared .25 – .5 of this with Adam, but I did devour the coconut jell-o.

I love buffets because getting to try little bits of lots of things makes my soul happy.  If I could find a buffet with actual healthy options I think my heart would explode with joy.

And sleep in 3, 2, 1 …

How do you feel about buffets?  What dish do you always look for on the line?

Hallowed Breakfast

by

Happy Halloween! 

We didn’t have any fun plans this year but I am all about any holiday with theme candy and colors!

I even applied those colors to my breakfast.

orange = pumpkin, black = chia seeds and mini chocolate chips

My (stove-top) base was 1/2 cup each water and skim milk, 1 medium banana, 1/4 cup oats, 1/2 cup canned pumpkin, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds.

With a handful of shredded, unsweetened coconut and 1/2 tsp mini chips for topping.

This was good but I had too much food and not enough time, I’ll probably only finish eating half of the bowl.

spooky snack preview

I don’t have time for “lunch” on Mondays, but I do have a few things packed to snack on during our short breaks.  A gorgeous looking Comice pear,

and a vanilla YoCrunch with candy bits for the holiday.

What are your Halloween plans?  Did you celebrate already this weekend?  Costumes?!

It’s About The Week

by

Since Tuesday was completely devoid of veggies I made sure to fit some into every single meal today!  My life is still so all over the place and some days I don’t even come close to eating the healthiest diet.  I try to make up for those days by getting in extra nutrients on the days where I can.  Healthy living is more how your week looks than any one day in isolation.

For breakfast I got in a massive dose of Potassium and Vitamin K, aka pumpkin.

Into the blender went:

  • 1 medium banana
  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 1 Tbsp chia seeds
  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1 cup Plain Fat-free Stonyfield yogurt
  • 1 Tbsp maple syrup

I ended up with a massive smoothie!

Lunch was all about Folate, or chick peas.

I topped a leftover half serving of channa marsala with some mango chutney.

I also snacked on this baggie of Combos during my last class.

I didn’t say every food choice was about nutrition, some things you eat just for fun!

Dinner was all about Lycopene (and some others), with baked eggplant in tomato sauce.

This dish was so darn good, even as leftovers!  A billion times better than it looks, that’s for sure.  I’m going to publish the recipe soon as part of a Foodbuzz sample post, it deserves some love.

The other half of dinner was mini rigatoni with sharp cheddar and evoo.

This bowl was delicious and I definitely went back for a full serving of seconds!  Plus a few big handfuls of unphotographed kettle chips; we had some reeeeeeally frustrating things happen at school today and I might have been stress nibbling a bit.

When you eat for health do you tend to look at things day by day or take more of a weekly approach?