Weekly Wrap-Up; Eggs And Easter Candy

I’m bouncing back from a bad migraine this afternoon so this post might be lacking my usual witty prose (<– just go with it).  I don’t want to think that too much sugar may have been a potential trigger for the migraine, but it will probably be hard to convince you otherwise once you finish the post 🙂  Also, upon completion I am forced to note that 90% of these pictures are pretty god-awful.  The food was yummy though, I swear!

lunch

Oatmeal Monday.

DSC09364

Apple on the side.

DSC09373

Quaker Summer Berry Oatmeal,

DSC09372

topped with Reese’s eggs.

DSC09368

I read the egg carton further that night and discovered that they contain trans fat, dun dun dun! – so I had to throw the rest out.  My only hard and fast nutrition rule is never eat trans fats.

Spicy Sandwich Tuesday.  A whole wheat Sandwich Thin with Applegate Farms Herbed Turkey, Fontina cheese, strawberry jam, and pickled jalopeños that seemed to have retained a lot of their heat.

DSC09380

I cooled down with cinnamon applesauce.

DSC09384

And crunched through kale chips.

DSC09387

Worst.  Photo.  Ever.

Egg Salad Wednesday.

DSC09408

This batch of egg salad was made with tons of caramelized onions, miracle whip, smoked paprika, and raisins.  It was fabulous stuffed inside a Pocket Thin.

DSC09412

With the rest of the kale chips and an apple.

DSC09419

Leftovers Thursday.

DSC09451

See more of this casserole down in dinners.

DSC09458

With a wonderfully crisp Lady Alice apple and Haribo colas.

DSC09452

Last of the Egg Salad Friday, aka today.

DSC09465

This time with a slice of Fontina.

dinner

Stir fry night.

DSC09395

Served on top of packaged Kung Pao noodles.

DSC09378

My ‘fry contained edamame, bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, and pineapples, cooked in pineapple juice and green curry paste.

DSC09390

I usually try to put too much into my stir fries and I end up hating them; this simple version was fantastic.

Stir fry leftovers.

DSC09406

My veggies, plus steamed sweet potato chunks, and fish sauce and soy sauce, cooked in evoo, with an egg at the end.

A winning new recipe.

DSC09430

Turkey Reuben Casserole.

DSC09423

Click here for the recipe.

DSC09441

Plus spinach and baby kale sautéed with evoo and dried blueberries.

DSC09437

Let’s be real, I pretty much choked down those greens.

Chipotle post-migraine.

DSC09469

Brown rice with peppers, chicken, lettuce, cheese, and lots of mild salsa.

snacks, aka Easter candy

I made a Cadbury Cream Egg Cream.  What?!

DSC09377

It actually didn’t work all that well, I felt like my eggs got burnt in the microwave, but I salvaged it with a bit of chocolate milk.  Adam and I were both pretty pleased with the final result.

Speaking of candy eggs, these Ferrero ones from my basket were sure gone in a hurry.

DSC09402

Just like a Rocher but without the nut in the center.

Grape Crush licorice.

DSC09459

When I veered away from the Easter goodies my snacks went horribly awry.  I got an email from Dunkin that a Coolatta would earn me 25 bonus points and, sucker for loyalty rewards that I am, I had to get one.

DSC09421

Disgusting.  It wasn’t homogenous at all; the coffee, milk, and sweetener separated into terrible layers.

That was a bad note to end on, but overall it was a tasty week.

Insta-Wrap-Up; VI

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!  Whether you celebrate or not, the start of spring is always a nice time for family fun and lots of chocolate.  Our nieces were so adorable hunting for eggs.  Most of the family decorated some of the hard-boiled variety – versus the candy filled plastic kind – as well.  Check out this great egg Adam made –

easter egg

Other Virginia fun included a quick trip to the farm just down the road from Adam’s parent’s house.  We got to pet the goats!

virginia horsesvirgina goats

Here is some of what you missed on the food front during my skipped weekend post…

This egg really did taste like a slice of mushed-up cake.

birthday cake egg

The strawberry diet coke at Sonic still rocks my face off.  After I finished my drink, I poured a new can of soda over the leftover berries and ice and was thrilled all over again.

sonic

The husband and I tried the vanilla date shake frozen yogurt at Yogurtland and we very impressed with it.  There was just enough creaminess to back up the date flavor.

yogurtland

Heading back further in time…

How awesome is this Buffalo street art?  All of the traffic light boxes along Elmwood were painted.

elmwood ave buffalo

This good advice comes courtesy of Ashker’s Juice Bar.

ashkers buffalo

Here are Webster and I on one of our first warm day walks.

webster

And here is the evidence I’m compiling for my potential divorce proceedings.  You’ve got to take grammar/spelling/syntax issues seriously!

divorce

Finally, back up to present… Spring has sprung!

spring

Is the weather getting nice where you live?

Weekly Wrap-Up; Have A Hoppy Easter

Who else has been hitting the chocolate eggs this week?  Easter candy abounds!  We are spending the holiday with my in-laws – all three of our nieces! – so I’m going radio-silent on the blog front this weekend to focus on family time.  I’m planning on skipping my weekend post, I’m not even packing a camera, and I’ll be back with a weekly wrap-up next Friday.

breakfast

Iced Americano with chocolate milk.

DSC09314I tried the cafeteria breakfast.

DSC09341Scrambled eggs with turkey and veggie sausage.  The coffee cup held wonderful Cisse milk chocolate vanilla bean hot chocolate.

DSC09337lunch

Oatmeal.

DSC09251Quaker Honey and Almonds with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

DSC09255And an apple.

DSC09258Plus I snagged this delicious, thick!, strawberry lemonade from the cafeteria.

DSC09312Egg salad.

DSC09291We made awesome egg salad for lunches this week; medium-boiled eggs, finely chopped celery and green and red pepper, miracle whip, pickle relish, mustard, and dill.  Packed in a whole wheat pocket thin.

DSC09294Plus wasabi seaweed and grapes.

DSC09297The next day was chicken salad.  A whole wheat bagel thin with chicken salad, fontina cheese, and pickled jalopeños.

DSC09332Plus an apple to take away some of the heat.  Peppers were the perfect addition to that sandwich.

DSC09327I packed cookies, but I put them aside for a treat my coworker brought it, an Easter bun with cheese.

DSC09344snack

Easter candy, duh.

DSC09363Juicy bears.

DSC09309Cafe Dada iced coffee that the husband sweetly delivered when he picked me up from work one day.

DSC09315Cookies.

DSC09347Cereal bowl.

DSC09282This was a sample of Graham Crunch from Cascadian Farm with vanilla almond milk.

DSC09278DSC09280Very tasty.  This stuff is just begging to be made into cereal s’mores bars.

I made my new favorite milkshake for Adam and myself.

DSC09334Coffee frozen Greek yogurt with chocolate milk and toasted coconut.

Bubble teas from Kung Fu Tea.  Coffee milk tea for me.

DSC09351dinner

Dinner at a diner.

DSC09265I got an eggplant parm panini.

DSC09266It was yummy but ridiculously filling.

DSC09270And then we had pie!

DSC09272Cream pie!  My slice was banana cream.

DSC09274It was flipping fantastic.

Chicken salad.

DSC09300Big piles of Nana’s chicken salad.

DSC09306With roasted green beans.

DSC09304On Wednesday we went to Williamsburg for dinner with a girlfriend.  She took us to Snacky.

DSC09321DSC09318It was fantabulous.  The space was adorable and the menu was all my favorite things.  Adam and I split a salad with seaweed and sesame dressing.

DSC09322And I got a rice bowl with spicy bbq miso chicken, plus kimchi and a fried egg.

DSC09326I swooned my way through that bowl.  It was perfect, exactly my favorite meal.

And we made similar(ish) bowls for dinner at home the next day.

DSC09358A hash of chopped sweet potato, browned mushrooms, sliced spinach, green onions, and smoked trout with rosemary and smoked paprika.  Topped with a fried egg.

DSC09361Put an egg on it!

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Wrap-Up; All By Myself

Adam is on spring break right now so I gave him my free ticket voucher and he spent a week in St. Thomas with my parents.  They are all disgustingly in love with each other and had a fabulous time.  Meanwhile I was home alone but at least I had the dog.

webster

Furry cuddles totally got me through.  And I definitely took advantage of meals as a single lady.

breakfast

Fruit and yogurt bowl.

DSC09095

A strawberry Fage topped with fresh pineapple and cara cara orange.

A lackluster morning.

DSC09124

A bottle of iced coffee that I thought tasted artificial and threw out halfway through.

DSC09127

And a NuGo bar that was nowhere near as tasty as their salted pretzel variety.

DSC09128

Smoothie.

DSC09157

Coffee greek yogurt with frozen blackberries, toasted coconut, and chocolate milk.  <– Fantabulous

Smoothie 2 was frozen mango, blackberries, and spinach with coconut water.

DSC09191

Have you tried the ice cream coffees from Dunkin?  This was butter pecan.

DSC09180

I tried the cookie dough last weekend too and it was legit amazing.

lunch

Salad day.

DSC09111

Arugula with carrots, pea shoots, honey roasted almonds, buckwheat groats, blue cheese, dried blueberries, and vinaigrette.

DSC09101

Plus a cara cara orange and tamarind balls from home.

DSC09108

My coworkers are mostly all from the Caribbean as well and they were thrilled that I shared my tamarind shipment.

Oatmeal and apples.

DSC09148

Cherry Pistachio from Quaker.

DSC09149

And Cherry Vanilla from Big Slice.

DSC09153

This was the first flavor of these kettle cooked apples that I didn’t like.

Sandwich spread.

DSC09165

An everything bagel thin with strawberry jam, sharp cheddar, smoked turkey, and banana peppers.

DSC09167

Plus spicy peanut cucumber salad.

DSC09172

And raspberry candies and the last orange.

DSC09168

snack

Paper bag popcorn.

DSC09121

Prune chocolates my Russian coworker shared.

DSC09194

I ate this entire bag of Inner Peas in one sitting.

DSC09201

It was pathetic but also delicious.

I topped with cool tub of fig yogurt with white chocolate chips and toasted coconut.

DSC09196DSC09197

Cookie mugs rocked my face of this week.

DSC09087

I use this recipe, but swap the ratio of white to brown sugar.

DSC09188

Do ittttttt.

dinner

Salad night.

DSC09113

I had a TJ’s pretzel bread in the car as an appetizer.

DSC09097

Then topped a giant bowl of arugula and pea shoots with medium-boiled eggs, blue cheese, turkey bacon, shredded carrot, yogurt blue cheese dressing, and truffle salt.

DSC09117

And now medium-boiled eggs are my new favorite thing.

A combination of nibbles.  Pretzels straight from the bag.

DSC09131

A granny smith dipped in peanut butter and lavender caramel.

DSC09137

And baby carrots with red pepper hummus.

DSC09138

Green eggs and ham.

DSC09174

Eggs scrambled with okra, arugula, and swiss cheese.

DSC09177

Soup’s up.

DSC09185

This poblano and corn chowder was delicious.

DSC09183

And now we’re off to do fun spring break stuff!

Weekly Wrap-Up; Busy Busy

Whew, has it been a busy week! I can’t even tell y’all, work has been wiping me out. <– Hence the 1.5 day late blog post.

Wednesday night I got home around 6:00, then sat at my desk with my boots and coat on until 8:00 when Adam got home and I finally had to get up! Then Thursday I managed to undress, and even get halfway into my gym clothes, before crawling under the covers and calling it a night.

Breakfasts

For the most part, I’ve stopped blogging coffee that isn’t extra exciting in some way, but you can assume I’m still obsessed and drink a cup whenever I can get my hands on it.

A NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bar.

DSC08863

Starbucks spectacular.

DSC08898

A tall nonfat iced vanilla macchiato.

DSC08903

And the almond blend.

DSC08899

Coffee and cereal.

DSC08918

Chocolate Krave, plus there was a packet of hot chocolate stirred into my coffee. And today I stirred hazelnut hot chocolate into hazelnut coffee and it rocked my face off.

 Lunches

Leftovers.

DSC08841

A Cara Cara. DSC08846

And the rest of the turkey reuben mac and cheese.

DSC08844

An awesome cafeteria lunch.  I mixed together cream chowder and cheese soup, with popcorn on the side.

cafeteria

Cereal on the go. DSC08875

Blackberries and a very unripe nectarine.

DSC08881 Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

DSC08877

And Quaker Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares and chia seeds.

DSC08882

I was starving by the time lunch rolled around so I also bought a biscuit from the cafeteria.

20140326_133141

On Thursday I saw patients straight from 9 – 4. Then I had chocolate and diet soda at my desk while I charted and it was heavenly.

DSC08920

Snacks

Kiss Me Organics offered me a sample of their Organic Matcha powder. Adam is obsessed so I readily accepted.

DSC08848

I haven’t tried baking with it yet, but it blends perfectly into smoothies and lattes – both almond milk for me and skim cow’s for Adam. The flavor is delicious, not at all acrid like green tea can sometimes be. My only complaint is that the bag doesn’t list serving instructions or nutritional information.

DSC08869

Matcha in a smoothie. I did pineapple, tea, ice, vanilla almond milk, ice and Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

DSC08868

Good in theory but the lime flavor was a little too much.

Dannon coffee Greek frozen yogurt with lavender caramel and roasted peanuts.

DSC08852

I also ate about a million handfuls of peanuts this week because holy frick, salty peanuts are so good!

Inner Peas from Trader Joe’s = my new favorite snack. They are exactly the texture I like to crunch on.

DSC08904

Jelly Beans.

DSC08864

Strawberry jam with toasted marshmallow is the best.

 Dinners

Adam worked Monday night so I made myself a giant bowl of cereal for dinner.

DSC08861

Heritage Flakes and Reese’s Puffs with vanilla almond milk, a giant nectarine, and half a pint of blackberries.

“Pad Thai” with shrimp and broccoli.

DSC08887

The quotation marks are because I used whole wheat linguine instead of the traditional rice noodles.

DSC08890

Sandwich night.

DSC08916

Sourdough toasted in the oven with strawberry jam, Bone Suckin’ mustard, and two slices of sharp cheddar, with a fried egg in the middle.

DSC08910

Is there a better combination than cheese, egg, and jam?  I know ideally there would be a vegetable on that plate but when you consider that I slept through dinner the next night it doesn’t seem so bad.

And as soon as I hit publish I’m off to dinner with the husband. We are trying a Mexican place I’m quite excited about.

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Wrap-Up; A Giveaway Winner And Another Giveaway!

Hey there!  First things first, the winner of my Sandwich, Bagel, and Pocket Thins giveaway is – #30, laurajacobson.  {if you’re only here for the next giveaway keep scrolling to the bottom of this post!}

I haven’t talked much about work beyond posting some pictures of my office, so I thought I’d share a few updates:

a) Most of my coworkers love my purple hair.  Everyone has said that they wouldn’t have expected me to be the type of person to get a crazy color, which is funny because over the past decade I’ve gone purple or pink (or one really unfortunate shade of maroon) several times.

b) As of this week I’m going to be covering inpatient floors on Tuesdays.  I’ve been enjoying my job but it is very exciting to get back into acute care!  My heart belongs to tube feeds.  And since I’m just going where I’m needed, I’ll be able to get exposure to a little bit of everything.

c) It finally happened… one of my former students came into the clinic!!!  I saw her name on my list but didn’t put two and two together until she was standing in front of my door for nutrition counseling.  We both spent the first 10 minutes of our time reminiscing and freaking out. It was really fun to see how grown-up she was.

Now onto the food, in reverse. I had many really amazing new things this week and you’re in for a lot of gushing; you’ve been warned…

dinner

Fancy pasta.

DSC08575

Whole wheat noodles, sautéed shrimp, and torn kale tossed with lemon, parmesan, and fat-free half & half.

A total fail.

DSC08637

This was my attempt at okra masala, sans recipe.

DSC08642

Things were going well until I added a 2nd round of dried herbs and spices, rendering the dish inedible.  I ate a bag of gummi bears for dinner instead.

DSC08639

Plus my kale chips.

In celebration of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, Fairway contacted me to see if I would like to try* their house-baked beer bread.  Yes, please!

DSC08651

The bread is made with NY local Blue Point Brewing Co. Hoptical Illusion IPA.

DSC08654

The bread was delicious – between sandwiches and toasted slices with cheese melted on top we finished the entire thing in two days! – but even more magical was what happened when I went to go pick it up.  Apparently I had never been inside a Fairway before, because, holy foodie heaven, you guys, I have found my new favorite grocery store.  Fairway was better than TJ’s, Whole Foods, and even {gasp!} Wegman’s.  The store was impeccably clean, the produce was the best I’ve seen all winter, and I spotted at least five of the products I’ve been trolling other stores for over the past six months.  There was even a hot bar!  I don’t think I saw any store brands so my wallet won’t let me shop their exclusively but I am very jazzed to add it to my grocery rotation!

As for the bread, I decided to stay on theme and make turkey reubens.

DSC08663

Beer bread, fresh sauerkraut, 1000 island dressing, and Applegate Farms Herb Turkey Breast and Emmentaler Sliced Swiss.

DSC08669

For our green on the side we did baby kale sautéed with dried blueberries and honey roasted almonds.

DSC08666

Such a good combo, the berries took it over the top.

And Thursday I was too lazy to make dinner soIatepopcornwhilewatchingtv,theend.

snacks

Recently Cow Wow reached out to me about trying* their cereal milk.

DSC08533

Cow Wow is low-fat, kosher, gluten-free, all-natural and organic.  They sent me three flavors in an adorable little lunch box.

DSC08527

DSC08532Adam and I split a Fruity Trudy Organic Low-fat Milk one night as a snack.

DSC08583

The flavor was spot-on for milk from the bottom of a bowl of fruity cereal.  I hate fruity cereal, so it was a little too spot-on for me, but Adam liked it.  I’ll talk about the other flavors lower in this post, but to enter to win a lunchbox of your own just scroll to the end of this post!

A super sundae.

DSC08592

Dannon Café Latte Frozen Greek Yogurt – the flavor was wonderful but the texture had the hollowness that low-fat ice creams tend to have –

DSC08588

topped with candied pecans and Spoonable Flowery Lavender Caramel Sauce.

DSC08585

Beer bread with cheese.

DSC08656

I didn’t even use the oven that time.  I microwaved it.  Like an animal.

And Blackberry Oikos with the last of the pecans.

DSC08610

lunch

Lunches vacillated between freaking awesome and very weak.  Monday was a strong showing.

DSC08566

An Everything Bagel Thin with Applegate Farms Roasted Turkey, a fantastic crunchy cheddar from TJ’s, and banana peppers.

DSC08558

DSC08560Plus a granny smith with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

DSC08562

Tuesday I bought a salad from the cafeteria and didn’t take a picture.

Wednesday was insane and I ended up not having time for my packed lunch.  Instead I just drank this Arriba Horchata Energy Drink.

DSC08624

I poured it over ice and it was ridiculous good.

Thursday I ate Wednesday’s lunch.

DSC08614

A Cara Cara.

DSC08617

And a Fage Coffee Fruyo.

DSC08621

This yogurt is my new favorite.  It blows every other coffee variety out of the water!  This was not enough food though (I forgot my other bag of snacks at home) and I ended up eating candy at my desk all afternoon.  Boo.

breakfast

Last Friday I finally got to try the new vanilla macchiato from Starbucks.

DSC08497

It was flipping fabulous and I’ve had one almost every day since.

Random sidenote – Now what I really need to try is this:

DSC08500

I want it so bad I can practically taste it but none of the locations I’ve been to have had it frozen.  I’m a woman obsessed.

A set of cinnamon.

DSC08569

Cinnamon Crunch Somersaults.

DSC08571

And a Cinny Minny Cow Wow.

DSC08573

Again, the flavor was a perfect match to the bottom of the cereal bowl.  And I do like cinnamon cereal so I was a fan.

A ridiculously fantastic breakfast sandwich.

DSC08597

An Everything Bagel Thin with sautéed kale, fancy cheddar, roasted turkey, and a fried egg.

DSC08602

It was tasty, filling, and it didn’t even take me all that long to make.

Cereal and milk cereal milk and fruit.

DSC08625

A great pear – TJ’s has been killing it with the bosc and d’anjou pears lately.

DSC08630

And my last flavor of Cow Wow.

DSC08634

The fun of chocolate but not too sweet for breakfast.  Chocolate Chip Cathy was my favorite flavor by far.  Though they also have a marshmallow flavor and if I can ever get my hands on it I’m pretty sure it will win my affection.

*both the bread and the cereal milk were sent to me free of charge.  I was not provided further compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

the giveaway

To enter to win your own lunchbox packed with three flavors of Cow Wow, simply leave a comment on this post by 8 pm EST on Monday, March 17th.

***Update – #10, latanya, was the winner.

Weekly Wrap-Up; Under / The Weather / Is Still Too Cold

If you couldn’t guess from the title, my complaints this week are: a) it’s too cold outside and b) I’ve caught a cold.  A.1 would be holy plastic, Batman, I’ve eaten a lot of packaged foods this week!

I’ve been eating {tons of junk} but not photographing so this will be a quick recap.  Thankfully speed helps keep my complaining in check!

breakfast

And I started my Monday off so well.

DSC08441

Smoothie  = Coco Café Vanilla Coconut Water Latte, frozen banana, frozen blueberries, and a scoop of peanut butter.

Tuesday went downhill.

DSC08463

Bagel with {tons of} cream cheese from a truck on my way to work.

And this morning I admitted defeat and got a giant latte with an extra shot of espresso.  Sidenote – I want to try the vanilla macchiato at Starbucks ASAP.

lunch

Monday.

DSC08446

GoPicnic Box.

DSC08448

And a Cara Cara.

DSC08452

Readers who live within a feasible distance of Trader Joe’s – go get thee a bag of Cara Cara Oranges this very minute!  They are sweet, seedless, and rocking my face off.

Tuesday.

DSC08457

An herb and garlic tuna packet scooped with TJ’s popped chips.

DSC08462

With more Cara Cara love.

Wednesday I felt so bad I actually called into work.  I slept for most of the day and then hit the bed hard again by 10 pm that night.  Boo.

Thursday.

DSC08474

A ranch tuna packet stirred into a mac and cheese cup.

DSC08478

DSC08475Tuna was good, the macaroni was disgusting.  The Cara Cara was fantastic, obviously.

junk

Please note – this post only shows a small sampling of the truly massive amount of junk I’ve been eating lately.  Speaking of which… I have these {ridiculously delicious, like seriously out of control good} pretzel bites on the train at least twice a week.

DSC08470

That habit needs to die, immediately.

I’ve also developed a pretty hardcore Good & Plenty obsession this week.

DSC08468

As far as candy goes, this is hardly the worst because you get a very satisfying serving for 180 calories and no fat.  But as far as being a healthy adult goes, I need to stop eating so much freaking candy.

Chocolate covered pretzels are also candy.

DSC08454

I actually ate these for dinner one night, but that was too depressing so I put them under this category instead.  I am clearly struggling with being a grown-up during the weeks when Adam’s working nights and I’m left to my own devices.

dinner

I ate cereal (and/or candy) for dinner most nights this week but did get in two nights of people food.  Like leftover pizza.

DSC08456

Topped with chicken, caramelized onions, and bbq sauce.

And last night Adam had business in the city so he swung by Brooklyn to pick me up from work for Date Night!  Swoon!!  We got in a freezing but enjoyable 2 mile walk, stopping along the way to split a green juice.

DSC08482

Kale/collards/romaine/cucumber/celery/parsley/green apple/lime.

Then we had a wonderful dinner at Calexico.

DSC08491

DSC08484We wandered into it by chance after our first choice for dinner didn’t work out and I am so glad that we found it.  We can’t wait to go back for margaritas and nachos.

For dinner last night, I did the black bean taco – guacamole, pico de gallo, cotija cheese, and “crack sauce.”

DSC08492

Plus the veggie special – fried brussels sprouts in chili and peanut salsa.

DSC08495

The food was fresh, inventive, and perfectly seasoned.  I know my pictures were dark and blurry, but I was afraid if I didn’t blog this meal I would forget about it and I definitely want to remember this place.  Calexico will be a repeat spot!

What bad habit do you need to start being more of a grown-up about?

Weekend Wrap-Up; Purple Hair Don’t Care

It’s been a fun weekend.  On Saturday I did this again –

DSC08412

DSC08411

Welcome back, purple hair, I’d missed you.

Things have been pretty low-key since I last posted.  Adam has an insane schedule for the next month and I was trying to soak up as much time with him as I could.

Plus we were pretty productive – we spent Saturday buying him 2 of the 3 pairs of shoes he desperately needs (new running shoes, comfortable shoes for the hospital, and days off shoes).  We even made a trip to the gym.  I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill, doing some half-hearted running intervals and incline walking.  I can’t go back for a few days – I can’t wash my hair until the color sets so I don’t want to sweat – but it was a good start.

Here is some of what I did on the food front…

breakfast

Iced Americano with fat-free chocolate milk.

DSC08358

Still obsessed.

Baked oatmeal with maple and pecans for Sunday brunch.

DSC08431

I loosely followed this recipe.  I cut back on the sugar and used candied pecans.

lunch

Thursday I had packed a lunch, but then when I went into the cafeteria to buy a drink the special called to me.

DSC08370

My baked potato with cheese sauce, broccoli, onions, and pickled jalopeños was delicious.  Not as filling as I’d hoped though, I ended up buying a snack later that afternoon.

DSC08373

Friday my abandoned lunch from the day before was already in my office.

DSC08363

Quaker Summer Berry Oatmeal,

DSC08366

topped with Big Slice Cinnamon French Toast Kettle Cooked Apples.

DSC08367

The apples were delicious, their texture was perfect.  I went to Target that very day to buy more.  Coincidentally, the oat bowls were on sale and I got more of those too.

snacks

Iced coffee from Café Dada.

DSC08408

Yum x infinity.  I salivate when I think about this coffee.

Adam and I split a rocky nut Snickers.

DSC08376

The marshmallow layer is crazy.

More sugar.

DSC08428

We are both completely obsessed with these Juicy Bears.  They are so juicy!

dinner

A fancy Friday dinner.

DSC08405

Salad – arugula with yogurt blue cheese dressing, shredded carrot, and Emmy’s Blueberry Cashew Super Cereal.

DSC08403

With groats, raisins, cashews, and dried blueberries the cereal really seems like more of a salad topper anyway.  Plus a reject piece of too small chicken from our new favorite recipe.

DSC08397

Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken, serves 2 – 4

4 oz light feta cheese

  • 2 Tbsp capers
  • 10 queen sized pimento-stuffed green olives
  • medium lemon, juiced and zest (reserve both juice and zest)
  • 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 2 Tbsp smoked brown sugar
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.  Prepare a baking dish with cooking spray.
  2. Place feta, capers, olives, and lemon zest into the bowl of your food processor.  Pulse until well-combined and no large chunks remain.
  3. Using a serrated knife, slice into the side of each chicken breast until you are a quarter-inch from the other side.  Basically you want to be able to open the breasts like little books.
  4. Open the chicken breasts and place into the baking dish.  Spread filling mixture onto one side of each breast, then close the “books.”  Sprinkle brown sugar on top of the chicken, then drizzle with lemon.
  5. Place baking dish into the oven and bake 40 – 45 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.

DSC08379

Saturday’s dinner was less exciting.  More salad.

DSC08419

Arugula with carrots, blue cheese, sliced green olives, crumbled feta, and flax.

Plus eggs cooked with pizza sauce, more arugula and olives, and shredded Parmesan.

DSC08422

The olives seemed like a really good idea but in the end their juiciness was not appreciated in the eggs.

Last night I ate pizza for dinner.

DSC08436

Thank you, cheese, for being you!

Have you ever dyed your hair a crazy color?