Even My Food Was On The Move!

by Emily

Oh boy! I don’t have a lot to show for today because the whole day was crazy. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off from 7 am to midnight. Going out-of-town for five days will make your to-do list a little insane. And I haven’t even started to pack; mostly I was taking care of school errands.

Breakfast was an energy drink during class.

And I drank 4oz of Chamaeleon Cold Brew coffee over ice with skim milk and a chocolate pb magic straw on my walk to work.

Solid food didn’t happen until dinner; I was honestly too busy to eat all day!

Thankfully dinner was fun, filling, and a line through my ~~to do list~~ birthday goal list. Adam came into the store just before we closed and told me to hurry because he had a surprise for me. My bosses guessed a new puppy (if only!), I figured it would be something pumpkin flavored, and my co-worker had her money on booze.

None of the above. He hurried me over to Delaware Park because he had spotted Lloyd’s Taco Truck and knew a food truck visit was on my list.

Thanks, honey!

I ordered the Tricked Out Nachos and was not disappointed.

White corn chips served with salsa roja, homemade Lloyd queso, chimichurri sour cream, brined jalapeños and pickled red onions, topped with stewed black beans.

Even with a day’s worth of hunger I couldn’t quite finish that monster serving!

For dessert we split the Puddin’ Cup.

Rich chocolate puddin’, dulce de leche caramel, and pumpkin seed brittle.

I guess I got my pumpkin after all!

Are you a food truck fan? What’s the tastiest item you’ve gotten on the go?

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?

15Aug2012

Buffalo Blue Cheese Black Bean Burgers, From Yesterday

by Emily

The past 24 hours have been odd but gratifying. Mostly because I’ve done odd but gratifying things, like frying up a batch of bacon yesterday at 5:30 in the morning.

I ate three hot slices of turkey bacon and they were delicious. And now you know our wonderful reason for having bacon in the house.

I ate a bagelwich with my bacon.

A Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Thin with two slices of turkey and 1 oz sharp cheddar.

In addition to bacon and breakfast before 8 am, I also cleaned the kitchen, registered for a conference, made a batch of pupsicles, and worked out.

1 hour hot yoga class. I love how even if you’re not very good at yoga it’s still a nice workout. P.S. Wanna know why girls who do yoga are so skinny? For safety. My boobs practically smoother me to death in rabbit pose!

After yoga I walked the little man.

We’ve had him more than a year now and I’m still amazed by how well he stops at cross-walks.

Pre-lunch snack was a plate of pickle slices.

And dessert first, since I had to make a last-minute trip to the store for a forgotten ingredient.

Trader Joe’s cookie butter dark chocolate bar, does that even need a description?! Though I will say that I freaking adore the little bites of crunch embedded throughout the bar.

An epic journey of three stores in my sweaty yoga clothes later, we had panko. And shortly after that, lunch.

Roasted green beans,

and Buffalo Blue Bean Burgers.

(recipe included at the bottom of this post)

In the afternoon I worked. It was a good shift, I actually worked several hours by myself for the first time. It’s always fun when someone trusts you to hold down the fort.

But then on the walk home I got a migraine. I didn’t take my medicine in time and I ended up being down for the count the whole evening. I curled up in a fetal position on the couch and Adam brought me to bed at 10. Unfortunately by then my head felt better and my stomach was twisting with hunger pains. I probably should have gotten up and eaten but instead I flopped around for several hours before falling asleep.

When I got up this morning cereal was the last thing on my mind; I wanted savory and lots of it.

This salad fit the bill.

With the bites I took while I filled my bowl, this salad contained: a romaine base, 2 Tbsp light honey mustard dressing, 1 oz gorgonzola crumbles, 2 oz honey roasted peanuts, 2 slices turkey bacon, and 1 chopped Crispin Pink apple.

With a Green Dragon Tea from Honest Tea for drinking.

I also ate the last serving of Maple Pancake and Bacon Ice Cream.

That stuff was ridiculous good. Pretty please go make it and see for yourself.

I’m actually about to eat another small dessert now too. It’s a recipe I’m working on though, so no pictures for now. Hope everyone else is having a sweet day!

Buffalo Blue Bean Burgers, serves 4 – 6

(2) 15.5oz cans reduced-sodium black beans
1/2 cup, plus 2 Tbsp buffalo wing sauce
2 large eggs
1 cup panko bread crumbs
3/4 cup gorgonzola cheese crumbles

Preheat the oven to 450*. Foil and spray 2 baking sheets.
Empty bean cans into a colander and rinse thoroughly – this is a heart healthy step that helps to further reduce the sodium in this recipe.
Pour rinsed beans and 2 cups wing sauce into a blender and puree. If you have a rickety blender you may want to do this in two batches.
Empty blender into a large mixing bowl. Add rest of wing sauce and eggs and stir. Stir in panko and cheese.
Using your hands, form 12 patties out of the bean mixture.
Put patties on prepared sheets and bake for 20 minutes. It is not necessary to flip the patties during baking.

13Aug2012

Canoe-dle

by Emily

As the start of my 2nd to last week before school begins, I say “hello, Monday” very reluctantly. My day got off to an odd start because I spent an hour searching for a food truck whose Twitter stream had lied to me. I really want to cross that off of my birthday list before the summer ends.

I ended up getting lunch at the hot bar, which was probably cheaper and certainly healthier.

Chana Masala,

veggies,

more veggies with a little tofu,

and the large space was supposed to be fruit but I got flustered and forgot.

In a crowd I’m wonderfully decisive but when I’m alone I tend to get overwhelmed by too many choices.

I had a small iced coffee with skim milk while I shopped.

I’ve officially begun hoarding pumpkin things – I’ve got three cans of puree and three beers! – even though I know I won’t touch them until October.

When I got home I broke into an exciting purchase.

Luigi’s Birthday Cake Italian Ice.

Amazingly, it was a little too sweet for me and I only ate half. I’ll have to see what I do with the rest of the cups.

At 5 o’clock I did manage to cross something off of my list, a friend and I cashed in a Groupon and went canoeing!

We went out on a two-hour ride and managed to keep up our paddling the whole time. We even got to spot several deer.

It was fun to get some nature time. Over all we did really well, though there was one very shallow area that we got stuck on in both directions. On the way back I actually had to put my feet out of the canoe and give us a push!! I can’t wait to see how my arms feel tomorrow.

Right now my biceps feel good, but I am pretty darn tired. Like, dinner sounded like an impossible feat, tired. Instead of cooking, I ate this spicy salmon brown rice roll for dinner.

And I’m going to fall into bed the minute I press publish. Good night!

11Aug2012

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

by Emily

This is a “Do as I say, not as I do” post. The past 48 hours have been… strange. I feel like crap mentally and physically and I’ve been eating crap. I’ve been weirdly, intensely thirsty all day; like I want to pour a milkshake down my throat all day long (which I basically did!). I get sort of depressed every fall about missing teaching and I might be panicking a bit about the start of my last year of school. So I’ve been eating only crap and lots of crap. Lots of crap because apparently crappy food isn’t all that filling. Do we think I said crap enough times for this ~~post~~ month?

as I say –

Don’t drink your calories.
It’s okay to have a treat, but probably not more than 3 1 a day.
Skipping breakfast might set you up to make bad choices the rest of the day.
Sometimes you should eat fruits and veggies just for the nutrients, even if you’re not feeling them at the moment.
It’s ok to feel hungry sometimes.

as I do –

Friday’s “breakfast” was wasabi trail mix, ~5 oz worth in total.

And two pieces of the amazing sea salt caramel my parents brought from Canada.

Lunch was a quick run to the co-op hot bar during work.

Chicken salads and veggie salads.

The kale was the best (take note, Emily!)

I did another try at a caramel macchiato in the afternoon, this time at The Spot.

Does that look like an iced caramel macchiato? No. And it was disgusting anyway; there were at least 5 inches of straight foam. I took three sips and dumped the rest down the sink.

I didn’t eat enough during the day and that is where the bad dinner decisions started. Adam had to pick me up from work so we could run errands across town that took forever, I started to have a tantrum, and somehow we ended up at Arby’s for small Jamocha shakes.

Um, and also mozzarella sticks.

I hate mozzarella sticks. But these were actually pretty good.

I’ll start Saturday’s recap by saying this – Friday was healthy in comparison. But at least I finally had a sweet coffee win.

I gave up on caramelmacchiatos and moved on to a tall white mocha coconut frappucinno.

For lunch at work I packed a plain 0% Greek yogurt with a honey stick,

and a Fiber One chocolate chip cookie.

I also bought a Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha.

And on the way home I had this, because two milkshakes a day is totally normal and healthy.

Seriously though, this was actually a good decision because it was outstanding. This sign has been calling to me for days –

“Emmmmmmily. ‘Greek iced coffee milkshaaaaaake.’ You’re not even sure what that means but you need it.”

But I still didn’t eat any real food and I ended up eating half of this candy bar while we were on a never-ending trip to Target.

I did eat a real food dinner, but it is dark and stormy (honestly it is, I’m not trying to be cute) and my pictures were disgusting. Go ahead and try to imagine a plate of chicken nuggets and baby carrots. I’m also 90% sure that you should imagine some popcorn in the near future too.

Who’s up for fruits and veggies on *Monday? Me! (*Note – I would say tomorrow but tomorrow my in-laws are coming to take us out for bbq for my belated birthday lunch and lets be real.)

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.

3Aug2012

EWT

by Emily

Eats:

Starbucks White Chocolate Energy Double Shot.

A strawberry shake (made with fresh strawberries!) split with my dad.

A rice bowl. Brown rice, black beans, chicken, sautéed onion and pepper, lettuce, corn salsa, spicy sauce.

Pasta dinner.

Salad.

Whole-wheat spaghetti with marinara, ground chicken, peppers, and mushrooms.

Bread with butter.

2% Fage with Strawberry for breakfast this morning.

Workouts:

1 hour bike ride – lots of gliding but on a high gear – both Thursday night and Friday morning. My butt is soooo sore!

Thoughts:

I miss my boys like crazy. My grandma’s dog sits on the top of the couch just like Webster.

Finally, a message to my husband –

29Jul2012

New To Us

by Emily

Today was fun! I love having visitors because it forces you to explore your own town. We went to several new-to-us spots today and quite enjoyed them all.

Breakfast at Lake Effect Diner.