Weekend Wrap-Up; Marshmallow Madness

by Emily

I am not 100% yet, but I am feeling much better. 90%? Poor Adam, though, has gotten my cold x2, complete with an ear infection. It’s put a real damper on how much sympathy I’m able to get! At least we were both in the mood for a quiet, lazy weekend.

breakfast and lunch

Friday at work I had a Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar with WF’s Citrus Blend Italian Sparkling Mineral Water.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing tops Diet Coke, but I am really loving those sparkling waters. The strawberry flavor is the best.

Then for lunch, Grape Chobani with KIND Raspberry Chia Seed Clusters, an apple, and a Vita Coco Café.

Again, not as amazing as iced coffee, but the espresso coconut water mash-up is damn good.

And I did have iced coffee this weekend. With skim milk and vanilla creamer.

Plus peanut/butter toast and a mini cheese for brunch.

That is the only weekend breakfast or lunch picture I have because mostly we snacked on random things.

Also I made and ate a lot of brownies (see below…).

dinner

Friday night we turned to the freezer for dinner.

TJ’s vegan orange chicken was alright paired with broccoli.

But it was basically the least filling thing on the planet. We both ended up making sandwiches too.

Fancy pb&j for me.

Saturday night was just straight fancy.

I made baked shrimp! Shrimp, chopped bell pepper, evoo, fresh cilantro, salt, smoked paprika, cayenne, lime juice, and a sprinkle of chopped butter, baked at 425* for 12 minutes. Served on top of jasmine rice cooked in chicken stock.

This was tasty, healthy, and oh-so quick to prepare. Triple win.

Sunday I started dinner in the car home after the world’s longest trip to Trader Joe’s. Apparently people are freaking out about our potential blizzard. By the by, please, please, please cross your fingers that it doesn’t blizzard!

After my pretzel roll I made a spinach salad.

With balsamic vinaigrette, pomegranate, goat’s milk cheddar, and sweet and salty pecans.

snacks, aka marshmallow madness

My mother-in-law sent us a cute Valentine’s card and some strawberry Peeps.

They were yummy, but the marshmallow extravaganza was just beginning… we also had a big container of fluff!

So I made the very best brownies I’ve ever tasted.

Triple chocolate fudge with a layer of marshmallow fluff in the middle.

Recipe is coming tomorrow and it is absolutely fantastic, I promise.

In the meantime, I did something else with the fluff.

Oh yes, I did. Malted Marshmallow Coffee Creamer. If you put skim milk, marshmallow fluff (1:2 ratio with the milk), and malted milk powder (1:4 ratio with the milk) in the blender you can put it in your coffee and pretty much die of happiness.

We used 2 cups skim milk, 1 cup fluff, and 1/4 cup malted milk powder, but as long as you follow the ratio above you can make a smaller or larger batch, no problem. I highly recommend it!

27Dec2014

Season’s Eatings; Christmas Wrap-Up

by Emily

Merriment and good cheer all around! I hope my readers who celebrate had a merry Christmas. Adam, Webster, and I cuddled around the fireplace (Netflix had a fireplace video complete with crackles!) and had a grand time.

It’s been a busy week of eating, so instead of the typical wrap-up I’m just going to share some of the amazing seasonal goodies I enjoyed…

Lump of Coal dark holiday stout. So good, we were impressed.

Yes, you see crackers in the background. We made a cheese plate for Christmas dinner and it was just wonderful.

Stumptown Winter Cheer Cold Brew split with the husband on Christmas morning. Also so good, festive but not too spicy.

A big batch of cold brew which I mixed with low-fat eggnog for ahh-mazing breakfast coffees all week.

Paired with holiday bars.

Mint sparkling water from Whole Foods that rocked my face off. Not as good as the strawberry variety, but a close second, especially when paired with a candy cane that my coworker delivered.

Gingerbread Greek yogurt for lunch. I enjoyed this even more than I was expecting to because it was sooo thick.

Awesome pasta. Leftover snow-shape pasta tossed with turkey bacon, sautéed mushrooms, onion, and kale, and hunks of creamy blue cheese Cambozola.

Egg ‘n’ Grog pie from Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Basically creamy, sweet rum in a gingersnap crust. Heavenly.

Growing up, for as long as I can remember, my family would open stockings and then eat scrambled eggs with red and green peppers before opening Christmas presents, so you know what we ate for brunch on Thursday.

Bonus – two off-theme snacks that were too good not to share. The juice bar at Whole Foods is great, unsurprisingly, but the make-your-own option was surprisingly cheap. I recommend this combo.

This Crispy, Crunchy, Mixed Fruit – coconut, pineapple, mango, and jackfruit – is fan-freaking-tastic! I seriously could not stop eating it. Crunch City.

Does your family have a Christmas food tradition?

15Dec2014

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas! Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

It’s only 10 days ’til Christmas! And Hannukah starts tomorrow! And it was Adam’s 29th birthday on Thursday! We had a lot to celebrate this weekend. The last three days have been fabulous. Lots of great meals, several at fancy restaurants, and they were usually followed by dessert!

Friday

Friday was a regular work day for me, but I had the excitement of knowing that the husband was coming to pick me up at the end of the day. The switch to an electronic medical record system has gone fairly well, by the way; fingers are still crossed.

I ran out the door late in a flurry so breakfast came from Starbucks.

Iced latte and a fruit pouch that was not great.

Lunch was pretty much the same thing, since I didn’t pack anything and made it down to the cafeteria late in the day.

Iced coffee + chocolate milk, an apple, and a Gingerbread Larabar.

Plus some of the RDs came up to visit me – they liked my tiny office! – and brought me candy.

I don’t know where my Russian coworker gets those caramels but they are great.

Adam met me after work and we spent the evening in the city. Our dinner reservations weren’t until 8:00 so we did dessert first on a visit to the Winter Village at Bryant – Brrrryant! – Park.

We got a dulce de leche cookie,

then warmed up with a lusciously thick drinking chocolate – and a marshmallow! – from the from the Max Brenner stand.

OMG. We have been buying and hating hot chocolate since San Francisco but this liquid gold was exactly what we’ve been searching for. Super thick and rich but not sickeningly sweet.

We had a mile-ish walk to dinner and I’m terribly sad that it was too cold for my camera because I was basically dying at the gorgeous lights along the way.

Tavern on the Green, Adam’s pick for his belated birthday dinner, was seasonally stunning as well.

I got a Queens cocktail – Bootlegger vodka, Velvet Falernum, sorrel hibiscus liquor, pomegranate molasses, and lemon juice. Yummy, and perfectly balanced.

We shared the scallops with citrus butter, capers, and fried shallots to start. I’ve been having a love affair with fried shallots lately.

None of the entrees jumped out at me so I ordered two veggie sides, crimini mushrooms with blue cheese and basil and broccoli rabe with lemon, garlic, and sea salt.

It was a great night.

Saturday

We had errands to run in SoHo on Saturday, so we parked in Brooklyn and took the train in and spent the day in the city.

There might have been booze in my coffee.

I bought a snickerdoodle lattee from Dunkin and added a healthy pour of Rumchata (aka the snickerdoodle shot) and it was damn good.

While we were in Brooklyn, we split a sardine Bahn Mi from Bahnmigos.

It was great! The little me who grew up in the Caribbean shunning seafood (whyyyy??) can’t believe I eat things like sardines and scallops now.

We did linner (super late lunch) at Freemans Restaurant.

Blue Ridge Fizz = apple brandy, maple, allspice, and champagne. Freemans is our favorite brunch spot in the city and their cocktails are always magnificent.

I got poached eggs with tomato stewed kale, crispy shallots(!!), and hollandaise on sourdough toast.

My eggs ended up being overdone but I forgave them because the kale was so good.

We went next door to Morganstern’s for dessert.

We shared a cup of American egg custard and durian banana ice cream. Soo creamy! And the flavors were very true to life.

After a bit more exploring, we did round 2 at Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

I got a shot of The Nog – pumpkin cake layered with eggnog pudding and whipped cream.

SSS never disappoints.

Sunday

Sunday was all about hanging out at home. We would have stayed in our pajamas all day, had my dinner plans gone better. We cuddled, watched tv, and got up some holiday decorations.

I woke up starving from our early dinner the night before so I made a big plate of eggs for breakfast.

Scrambled with chopped jalapeno, corn, sliced turkey, sour cream, and goat’s milk cheddar.

Plus Silk soy nog on the side.

Instead of toast, I snacked on a bag of salted caramel popcorn.

The plan for dinner was pasta with sun-dried tomato pesto but something went horribly wrong and my pesto was pretty much inedible.

Instead, we salvaged our veggie side,

and ventured out for Thai, stopping for mint chocolate froyo along the way.

Much better. Enjoyed in front of Scrubs – which we are rewatching for the millionth time – it was a great end to a great weekend.

12Dec2014

This Week I Loved…

by Emily

*Silk Soy Nog*

I adore eggnog, and this (vegan, 80 calories per half cup) stuff is at least 90% as good as the real thing. Enjoyed in both overnight oats and cold brewed coffee.

*Sandwiches from the cafeteria*

I didn’t pack lunch for most of the week because I bought a sandwich on Tuesday and got hooked. Turkey and provolone on an onion roll with mustard, mayo, and spicy banana peppers.

*Chips*

I had tortilla chips – with cheese and fresh salsa – with my sandwich one day and became a woman obsessed. I ended up making Adam a separate, grown-up person dinner and then eating chips and cheese several nights.

*Cola-flavored candies*

So good! Extra fizzy cherry cola Pop Rocks and cola float hard candies with a creamy center.

*A new book obsession*

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

I finished Cutting for Stone this week and thought it was absolutely wonderful. Author Abraham Verghese is a doctor as well as a writer and he did a skillful job of portraying the medical scenes in the story in clear and approachable way (most of the main characters are doctors so this came up a lot). The characters are all flawed but beautiful, and I fell head over heals in love with Ghosh.

What books have you loved lately?

5Dec2014

A Weak Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

I don’t have much to say or show, taking pictures was beyond me this week. Having to be a grown-up again after two weeks of vacation pretty much kicked my butt. I don’t have a single dinner shot but it’s no big deal because we ate Chipotle and/or pizza every night!

This week took so much coffee.

This non-fat eggnog iced latte was the best.

LÄRABAR sent me some of their new seasonal flavor, Gingerbread! It was yummy, and I loved how smooth the texture was.

A lunch.

That’s Wildwood Royal Thai Tofu with pumpkin butter and Sriracha mayo.

Apple, olives, cola float hard candies.

Bears.

I made caramel chip cookies.

Another lunch: 2% Fage with pumpkin butter and cookies, plus an apple.

I had to share this strawberry water because it was ridiculously delicious.

I hope everyone else had a good week!

4Nov2014

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!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: bar

Weekend Wrap-Up; Marshmallow Madness

breakfast and lunch

dinner

snacks, aka marshmallow madness

Season’s Eatings; Christmas Wrap-Up

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas! Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

This Week I Loved…

A Weak Weekly Wrap-Up

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