Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

Did everyone have a spooky weekend? Or at least eat lots of candy? I didn’t dress up this year and I didn’t manage to eat a single piece of candy, boo! The whole weekend was pretty lame, frankly. Saturday I spent hours holed up with a friend working on some continuing education credits. And Sunday Adam and I were both a bit under the weather so we took advantage of the time change to catch some extra z’s.

Here were a few fun things…

Hallow’s Eats

Breakfast was on theme. Coffee with chocolate soy milk, an apple, and a Clif Monster Chocolate Mint Z Bar.

The bar was so good, I need to find more of this flavor.

Dinner too. A tasty bowl of leftovers.

Pasta with roasted broccoli, browned mushrooms, rock cheddar, fancy evoo, and turkey bacon (my new favorite kind, from Wellshire).

And I may not have eaten candy, but I did go to Snow Days for shaved ice.

Roasted black sesame ice with mochi and sweetened condensed milk. It was amazing. The ice is sliced into sheets rather than crushed and the texture is totally unique.

Say Cheese

When I was done with my work on Saturday, Adam and I drove up to Port Jeff for a dinner date at C’est Cheese. We shared a beer sampler.

And a cheese plate.

Plus the Spanish Salad.

Field greens / Manchego / orange slices / red onion / black olives / honey tarragon vinaigrette.

Burgers With Bear

We did Sunday brunch at Bare Burger. I got the Western – turkey burger, no bun, with turkey bacon instead of pork and maple horseradish mustard subbed for smokehouse sauce.

With giant bowls of froyo for dessert.

Dinner was Chipotle but I’ve promised to stop blogging about that!

Raw Review

Finally, a product review. I was sent a free sample of Maui Brand Raws Turbinado and Whites Crystallized Natural Cane Sugar.

I received these products free of charge but I was not provided with any additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Available on Amazon and in some stores, their sugar cane is grown and processed on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The sugars are non-GMO and vegan (<– not all granulated sugar is vegan).

I tried the sugars (which come in convenient 10 calorie to-go packages) in iced coffee,

and chocolate chip cookies,

and was quite pleased with their functional properties compared with regular sugar. I’m a fan.

31Oct2014

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Happy Halloween!

Things were busy, busy, busy, busy this week at work. <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you didn’t have a childhood and you need to go rent the movie immediately!

As I’ve mentioned, my clinic is transferring over to an electronic medical record system at the end of this year. The nutrition department needs a new charting form (built from scratch) to accommodate our specific patient population, but since I am the entire department things have been pretty hectic. Plus we are in the middle of planning a big event and I randomly had a bunch of newly diabetic patients this week.

Additionally, I do some consulting work on the side reviewing nutrition educations and I had a big batch of articles to get through this week. I really enjoy the work – did you know that I did some editing/reviewing for a famous Caribbean author as a child? – but it can be hard to get motivated to get myself back into work mode once I’m home and changed into Adam’s sweatpants at the end of the day. Snacks help.

My meals were all totes amaze this week and/but you will see quite a bit of repetition…

breakfast

Vega Peanut Butter Cup Bar and an orchard apple.

Iced coffee with chocolate soy milk and an apple.

Orchard apples and espresso with milk and sugar.

The energy shot in the middle was a sample from my Urth Box and it was a giant nope.

lunch

Yogurt bowl. It’s funny, at least once a week someone will comment about how good my yogurt lunch looks.

Dannon Pumpkin Pie Greek with fresh blackberries and TJ’s Pumpkin O’s. Plus a candy corn salt water taffy.

Take-2.

With TJ’s pumpkin Greek and Pop Rocks.

Dark Chocolate Mint bar from Zing.

This was all I had time to eat on Thursday but it kept me full all afternoon. Thanks, 10 grams of protein.

snack time

Lindt’s “Hello My Name Is” bars are pretty much my favorite. Cookies and Cream!

An “Apple Pie A la Mode” = honeycrisp apple cider + RumChata + Goldschläger.

Locally-made yogurt.

Trying to bribe myself into doing my freelance work, I … stole some of Adam’s Cheetos (we both are a little bit insane about themed foods),

Ate licorice bears,

And dipped a big, sliced apple into butterscotch peanut butter.

The apple dippers beat out my other snacks in nutrition and flavor.

dinner

We made Rachael Ray’s Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage using this fun pasta as our base.

We tend to rarely repeat recipes but this is one we’ve made several years in a row now (back in the day!).

So good. I subbed TJ’s soy chorizo for sausage and fat-free half and half for cream but otherwise followed the recipe.

Round 2.

I made a big bowl of leftover pumpkin pasta and leftover white cheddar macaroni with spinach, topped with chunky cranberry apple sauce that one of my nutrition co-workers made for me.

Adam was not willing to put fruit on his pasta, but my bowl was delicious.

Pizza Night!

Ugh. These came out so flipping yummy and neither Adam or I could shut up about it. We loaded them with ridiculous toppings and they probably ended up being far more caloric than delivery but they were also the best pizzas we’ve ever eaten. We used a ball of dough from Trader Joe’s and it split perfectly into two nicely sized pizzas.

Traditional – marinara sauce / low-fat shredded mozzarella / sautéed green pepper rings / tons and tons of mushrooms browned in butter.

Plus, slightly less traditional.

Oh yes, you know I went there! The best pizza I’ve ever eaten ever including the amazing, giant slices of Buffalo chicken from Zetti’s – pumpkin puree / low-fat shredded mozzarella / TJ’s Pacific Rock cheddar / onions sautéed with liquid smoke and smoked brown sugar / tons of crumbled turkey bacon.

Plus we had sautéed kale on the side, with liquid smoke, maple syrup, and more bacon.

For nutrition.

We also shared a Warlock.

Best of the season! There wasn’t actually much pumpkin flavor, this was just a really delicious stout.

Round 2.

Leftover pizza.

Kale chips with truffle salt and roasted broccoli with bbq.

The pizza was just as swoon-worthy eaten cold. How do I get more, immediately? And we ate this while watching “Nightmare Before Christmas” so I was pretty much exploding with excitement. <– picture strange, giddy laughter and me singing along with my mouth stuffed full of pizza.

What was on the best pizza you’ve ever eaten?

20Oct2014

Apple Picking; Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

This weekend I got to cross something major off of my fall bucket list – apple picking!

I drove upstate to Lawrence Farms with some girlfriends and we came home with pounds and pounds of tasty apples.

I also snagged Adam and I two pumpkins for carving next weekend.

Check out my gorgeous haul (this is only a portion of it, the rest went into the fridge) –

So far, my favorite variety is the Candy Crisp.

Yum! We had a ton of fun and I definitely want to repeat this activity next fall.

I don’t have much to share for this post, just three things. I’m a bit under the weather and I spent almost all of Sunday tucked in bed.

Breakfast on the go.

A smoothie – water and meat from a Thai young coconut with canned pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, frozen banana, and maple syrup – and a Clif Maple Nut bar that I shared with the husband. The bar was much better than the smoothie, which did not emulsify at all.

Getting in my green before a dinner of orange hues.

Spinach salad with sweet and spicy pecans, dried blueberries, and buttermilk blue cheese, dressed with honey, evoo, and lavender salt.

The oil came home from Italy with a friend and it was fantastic.

Our main course was tuna casserole that I made and froze awhile back, so I don’t totally remember what was in it. Definitely tuna, barley, spinach, green onions, peas, water chestnuts, roasted garlic and mushroom condensed soup, cheese, and crushed Cheez-Its on top.

Plus carnival squash that we roasted with salt, smoked brown sugar, liquid smoke, and maple syrup.

Dinner was delicious. Sweet and smoky squash with cheesy casserole? You can’t really go wrong!

Best bite of the week goes to dessert from Ample Hills.

I got a kids’ cup of pistachio and honey and the flavors went together perfectly.

Hopefully I am over the hump with my sickness now. The temperatures are finally dropping here and I really don’t want a cold to go with the cold!

29Sep2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; We Had Visitors

by Emily

On the excitement front this weekend – Adam’s parents came to visit! We are going to see all of my in-laws soon for Thanksgiving, but it was good to catch up with the parents now before the craziness of eleven of us under one roof. We had them Friday night through Sunday afternoon and we got to show off LI.

lunches

Packed for Friday – an AriZona Oak Tea and 2% Fage with a big baggie of pomegranate arils and chopped fruit punch plucot.

I also bought mac and cheese and some greens from the cafeteria.

Heartbreakingly, I think this was my last yogurt bowl with plucots for this season, the produce sections have all seemed to have moved on.

We had so much fun last weekend that we did a repeat this Saturday and drove the husband’s parents up to…

Montauk!

We went to the beach, the lighthouse, and of course, Lunch.

Adam and I shared a buttery hot lobster roll,

and a bowl of lobster chowder.

My favorite part is the whiffs of sherry.

And that’s not a foamy beer head,

we drank a chocolate egg cream for dessert.

You could tell that it was made with Hershey’s (a true EC has U-Bet), but Adam was still a fan.

We kept things low-key before goodbyes on Sunday and hung out around the house. Take-out from Luigi’s fit the bill.

I had a side salad, a buffalo chicken slice, and a Magic Hat Wilhelm Scream that I split with my m-i-l.

snacks

Breakfast at my desk on Friday. An iced Americano (with skim milk and cream) with a sticky-sweet Dark Chocolate Peanut Larabar. –Ummm, and I just noticed on the site that Lara has new Pumpkin Pie and Gingerbread flavors!! How do I find those immediately?–

Sweet = Haribo Licorice Wheels plus some of the Mini Gold Bears that my s-i-l sweetly sent us.

Salty = TJ’s pea crisps.

Coffee from 7-11 is kind of amazing.

Adam and I are embarrassingly into the Almond Joy Creamer they have there. And our location has pumpkin coffee, pumpkin pie creamer, and (free!) pumpkin spice syrup. What, what?!

dinners

Dinners were the least exciting meals of the weekend. Friday night we kept thing simple while we finished our last-minute cleaning.

A toasted sandwich of caramel apple swirl bread, herbed sliced turkey, light Havarti, and TJ’s sweet and spicy jalopeño jelly.

With baby carrots on the side.

Simple but good.

Saturday we went out to Tavern 18.

I had a beer that was pretty good.

And a Thai Noodle Salad that was pretty terrible.

No veggies, no flavor, and I keep forgetting that I kind of hate Soba noodles. I’m into pasta that is chewy, while Soba tends to fall apart in your mouth.

No complaints about dessert though! The best thing about Tavern 18 is that it is spitting distance from Ralph’s Ices.

Dulce de leche and pumpkin pie for me. I practically licked the cup clean.

I didn’t want my awful leftovers to go to waste, so I gussied them up into something moderately edible for dinner last night.

+ roasted broccoli and cauliflower and loads of creamy Sriracha sauce (tons of Sriracha whisked together with smoked brown sugar, mayo, and a little canola oil).

Hot sauce can hide a multitude of sins.

P.S. It is October first on Wednesday! <– in other words, it is three days until I drink pumpkin beers and pumpkin spice lattes like crazy

19Sep2014

Things From The Week

by Emily

Hello, hello! I have a mere five things to talk about today, I was too busy with lots of little things last week to take many pictures. I mostly wanted to check in and reassure y’all (MOM) that I’m out of my funk. We spent the weekend eating tons of pizza and finishing up “The Office” and it totally cured my bad mood.

thing #1 – TV

Loooooooved the ending of The Office! Pam was kind of starting to drive me crazy in the last seasons, but I thought the finale was perfect. Both the wedding and the cameo made me cry!

thing #2 – Bars

Lots of on the go bites this week, and these were two of the best. Zing Dark Chocolate Hazelnut.

I liked the chewiness. And I was quite pleased by this –

I also loved the KIND Honey Smoked BBQ Bar, though I accidentally deleted the picture of it. This savory line is perfection for the times you want the convenience of a bar but not the typically sweet flavor.

thing #3 – Yogurt

I found the pumpkin spice Chobani!!! But you know I won’t eat that until October, so more importantly, I found the Apple Cinnamon Chobani.

It was very delicious paired with pomegranate arils.

thing #4 – Baking

Part of what was keeping me busy this week were the three September birthdays in the Nutrition office. I made a big batch of my Pumpkin Double Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins and they got good reviews.

thing #5 – Coffeeeeee

I found Chameleon Cold Brew in NYC, finally. Yippee!

I also scored more Stumptown boxes and the Blue Bottle boxes, so I’m going to have some extra-fancy caffeination next week.

13Sep2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Five Things, Crankily

by Emily

I had a perpetual case of cranky-face this whole past week. Nothing concrete set it off – Adam and I haven’t had a fight in ages, the dog hasn’t been being a little monster, and my work week was pretty varied so it was more interesting and less stressful than usual – but I was constantly in a bad mood. I was also super hungry all week, which I guess probably was a trigger for some of my ire. It was a real bummer.

Rather than trying futilely to fight it, I plan on giving in and wallowing. I’m going to spend the next two days eating pizza and catching up on tv in the hopes that the grump works its way out of my system by Monday.

In the meantime, here are a few things that did make me smile last week…

{1} The best breakfast. How flipping cute are these Stumptown Cold Brew boxes???

Adam and I geeked out when we spotted them at WF.

And it was totally delicious; sweet and creamy. My Bananas Foster Larabar Uber wasn’t bad either.

To quote Lara – “It’s basically bananamazing!”

{2} The most on-theme lunch. Blueberries and caramel apple pie Greek yogurt, plus licorice and caramel apple Twizzlers for later.

I loved the licorice; apparently I am a fan even when it’s not enrobed in candy coating (though that’s not to say that I didn’t also eat Good & Plenty several times this week!). I was not a fan of the yogurt, though I can’t say that was really a surprise. In my endless quest to try every apple(pie) flavored item on the market there are bound to be a few losers.

Worst of all, it didn’t even fill me up, I got fries from the cafeteria as well.

{3} The best lunch. This day’s break was much more satisfying, the honey-chia combination was killer. I will be pairing those two up again soon.

With blueberries and a Hemp & Chia O’Coconut snack on the side.

{4} The best dinner. Eaten in two courses. First, a snack plate of baby carrots, buffalo blue cheese pretzel nuggets, TJ’s turkey jerky, and Tribe roasted vegetable hummus.

Then later, pizza pizza – buffalo chicken – and a side salad.

From Luigi’s if any locals are looking for a recommendation. The crust was so good; chewy almost like Naan!

{5} The best dessert {of the season}. I know, I know, I’m eating pumpkin in September, but the Ralph’s location near our apartment closed early last fall and it’s essential that I get my fill of this goodness before it goes away.

Salted caramel pretzel and pumpkin pie cream ices. <– best flavor ever.

What do you do to help yourself get over it when you’re feeling cranky?

8Sep2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Attack Of The Killer Sandwiches

by Emily

Did everyone have a great weekend? Mine was low-key but good; I got my hands on not one, but two of my top favorite sandwiches, so that was nice. The weekend following a three-day weekend always feels a bit too short! Assume many, many coffees went unphotographed.

breakfast

Iced coffee and I ate the top off of this cappuccino muffin.

I’m not really a muffin fan but I had been craving one like crazy all week and Friday seemed like a fun time to give in.

Peanut butter chocolate chip bar from GoMacro.

This came in my Urthbox but I would buy it again on my own. Eaten on the go because I spent most of Saturday helping a friend move.

lunch

I packed a nice yogurt bowl for work on Friday, with sliced plucot and a Jax banana coconut water on the side. The bananas foster yogurt was good, but a bit too sweet (note – if it’s too sweet for my tastes it is way too sweet for 90% of the adult population).

Plus brown sugar sea salt seaweed snacks and caramel apple Twizzlers for the afternoon.

Both snacks got two thumbs up.

Green juice from Foragers. Kale, spinach, cucumber, pineapple, and mint.

I’ve been wanting to go to Foragers for ages so it was good to try out the juice bar. They have so much fancy stuff, including this super-soft apple caramel I bought the husband.

I also scored myself a licorice.

snack

Chocolate-covered bears are always good.

I finally got to make the chia tea lemonade.

Quite nice! I will definitely do this again.

Orbit gum loses its flavor and get’s hard too chew very quickly, but it’s neat that my gum is on theme for the month.

I handed my girlfriend a piece of gum, right after I let her use my apple scented hand sanitizer, and she cracked up. I might be a bit obsessed.

dinner

We got take-out from Bareburger to go with our “The Office” marathoning. I ate baby carrots in the car so I could get some veggies in.

We sat at the bar while we waited. I got a peach julep slush. swoon

My sandwich was grilled chicken topped with smokehouse sauce, blue cheese, sautéed mushrooms, turkey bacon, and fried onions. {my favorite “burger”}

Ridiculous. It is the Big Blue Bacon with modifications to make it pork-free, if you want to try one for yourself.

Adam worked overnight on Saturday and I got home late so I went with my old-standby dinner.

Plus turkey jerky… for protein.

I’m not even embarrassed, popcorn’s a whole grain.

Sunday we went to Fletchers. {my favorite bbq}

I got the chopped chicken sandwich, which I smothered in pickled jalopeños and their amazing bbq sauce.

Plus banana puddin(g) for dessert.

I just wanted to taste the pudding – we were planning on stopping for pie afterwards – but it was so flipping good that I couldn’t stop eating until I basically licked the bowl clean!

5Sep2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Appletastic

by Emily

I don’t have a ton to share today – it’s only been two days since my last wrap-up and I didn’t photograph snacks at all – but what I do have is appletastic. More than 50% of these eats involved apple in some form! Let’s do this post old-school style…

Wednesday morning I made myself a go-cup of iced cold brew with vanilla almond milk.

A few minutes after I snapped that picture I spilled the entire thing in my lap. Whoops.

It was a good day to lose my coffee because I had a nice breakfast already packed for work.

2% Coconut Chobani topped with two types of sliced plucot and some fresh raspberries. I’m honestly not sure what I’m going to do when plucot season ends, they are my very favorite. I’ve even gotten the husband hooked on them, finally.

I had an extra-busy morning at work playing catch up. On Tuesdays I do coverage care on inpatient floors in the hospital so I’m not in the clinic. Usually I only miss 1 or 2 new patients because that’s our slow day, but this week we got slammed, and I came in on Wednesday to several charts on my desk. I spent the morning trying to call people to set up appointments but of course none of the numbers on file worked. <– major flashbacks to my teacher days!

Lunch was apple walnut oatmeal with TJ’s freeze-dried apples.

Appletastic! {I promise to stop saying that now. At least for this post.}

I thought I was fine without my morning coffee, but I practically missed my train home because I was so desperate to get a cup.

Adam was working a 24-hour shift so I was on my own for the evening. Fueled by caffeine, I had grand plans of hitting the gym and then cooking a respectable meal to leave in the fridge for the husband. Really though, I ate two bags of microwave popcorn for dinner after reading this Buzzfeed sad Buffy Tumblr round up and crying so hard that I upset the dog.

Yesterday morning I had much more success with my java. Coconut iced coffee – cold brew with Almond Joy creamer, skim milk, and coconut water – for the win.

Plus a KIND apple cinnamon & pecan bar.

Lunch stayed on theme.

An apple cinnamon raisin Fage with an acutal apple. Plus I ate Good & Plenty and Diet Dr. Pepper at my desk while I charted at the end of the day. I’m not sure what my deal is but I have been crazy obsessed with licorice lately. I knew my lunch wasn’t big enough so I had also packed a seaweed snack for the afternoon but then I couldn’t bear to have anything but G&P.

Dinner came from the grill. Our unseasonably warm weather has the upside that it encourages outdoor cooking.

Jennie-O recently sent me some coupons, so the timing was perfect. P.S. The timing is good for your too, Jennie-O is running a sweepstakes through September 14th.

Please note, I purchased the turkey with a free product coupon. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

My burger making skills? Not so perfect. There’s a reason that Adam is usually in charge of the grill. I thought I had a genius idea, to make the patties out of just lean ground turkey, Worcestershire sauce, bbq sauce, and crumbled blue cheese.

Without bread crumbs or some other binder, the patties were wet and strange and they never did quite become burgers. Next time I’ll use one of their recipes.

Our Moa kiwi hard cider definitely took some of the sting out of my failure.

And overall dinner was pretty delicious.

These were the two best looking patties, if that tells you anything. I ended up smothering them in more bbq sauce.

Plus corn on the cob – grilled in tin foil packets with evoo and truffle salt.

And asparagus – marinated in evoo and Bone Suckin’ mustard before it went on the grill.

Not bad, not bad at all. And while I wrote this post I snacked on a small bowl of melted peanut butter (TJ’s chunky pb with chia and flax) with chocolate chips.

Can you even believe that ~~tomorrow~~ today is Friday? Thank heavens for the short weeks that follow three-day weekends!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: bar

Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up

Hallow’s Eats

Say Cheese

Burgers With Bear

Raw Review

I received these products free of charge but I was not provided with any additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

breakfast

lunch

snack time

dinner

Apple Picking; Weekend Wrap-Up

Weekend Wrap-Up; We Had Visitors

lunches

snacks

dinners

Things From The Week

Weekly Wrap-Up; Five Things, Crankily

Weekend Wrap-Up; Attack Of The Killer Sandwiches

breakfast

lunch

snack

dinner

Weekly Wrap-Up; Appletastic

Please note, I purchased the turkey with a free product coupon. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.