Food Fun At FNCE In Philly

by Emily

I’m home! If you didn’t know, I spent the past five days in Philadelphia attending the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ (AND) Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE); alphabet soup, much?!

I went with two fabulous friends and we had a great time. Our days were packed (I need a vacation from this vacation!) and I am very glad I made the decision in advance not to blog. In fact, I’m barely going to do a recap.

I would love to talk about the sessions I attended, and all of the things that I learned, but I have homework to catch up on, a shift at work this evening, and a huge test on Friday, so I doubt it’s going to happen.

I do have a few shots of some of the fun food though.

Amazing (2nd only to my favorite place in Brooklyn) eggplant pizza that we had the first night when we stayed with one of my friends from high school.

Taro milk bubble tea.

Hot, spiked, apple cider from a street fair. We also had pumpkin beer and apple pie shots; we were drinking seasonally this trip.

The expo –

My swag –

It was amazing/ridiculous and my friends and I ended up offering a bag of food to a man I saw digging in a trash can as we were walking from the conference to our car.

Pumpkin pie frozen yogurt.

The best espresso I’ve ever had.

Sidenote – I drank my coffee holding back tears. We went to eat a vegan cheese-steak on our last day in town and found out that the place was out of seitan!

The Chobani bar at the expo was hands-down the best part.

This Strawberry FrozFruit was a very close second. My favorite thing in high school was the coconut version.

And a final treat at home – tiny chocolate hamburgers that I brought back for the husband.

Who’s hungry?!

24Sep2012

Crazy Cakes

by Emily

Crazy-cakes is one of my favorite expressions and for the post title I’m using it both figuratively and literally. It is crazy stupid that I’m blogging at 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Things have been crazy busy and the next two weeks are only going to get crazier. Finally, I fulfilled a birthday list goal and made a crazy good cake.

The past few days have been crazy on the healthy living front but I want to blog them because I don’t live a healthy living blog, I live my life. And in my life 90% of what I’ve consumed in the past week has been pizza. I’ve decided that attempting to work out over the next week would actually be unhealthy because I’m already getting so little sleep (my planner is workout-free until October 10th). I’m super stressed and not doing the best job of balancing school work with too many hours at my job. But again, this is my life.

As I prewrote these posts in my head I had a lot to say, but now that it’s been 4 days since I last blogged I think we shall go WIAW-style for the recaps. Note – there is no recap from Thursday because I took the day off from everything, took no pictures, caught up on “Awkward” and “Covert Affairs,” and ate pizza and Chinese food for dinner. It was both necessary and delightful.

The Next 2 Weeks

(9/26) 3 homework assignments are due
(9/27) the 4 major assignments from my community clinical rotation are due
(9/28) I’m presenting a journal article for my research methods class. It is a 25 minute Powerpoint presentation and it makes up a large percentage of our grade.
(9/28) we have our first Microbiology test
(10/1) we have our first MNT test <– it is going to be so difficult that our teacher recommended that we all quit our jobs if we can
(10/6) two friends and I are driving to Philly for 4 days for a professional conference <– fun, but also holy frick, when am I going to pack?!

Friday

Breakfast on the walk to school. Zico Chocolate Coconut Water.

Muller Blueberry Bliss Frut Up.

Blueberry Bliss Luna Bar.

China Breakfast Tea with skim milk and a pb-chocolate magic straw while at work.

A See’s candy that my bosses brought us back from their trip to California. (I had never tried See’s before and now I am a fast fan; soooo creamy!)

A caramel apple non-fat latte as I geared up for a late night. (Cafe Aroma, Buffalo peeps.)

Wegman’s frozen cheese pizza and a sad salad of romaine and 1000 island dressing.

Cake!

One of my goals for my 27th year was to bake a cake from scratch. I figured I’d only do this once, so I wanted a recipe that was delicious but didn’t call for cake flour. After much pondering and Googling, I settled on this Hummingbird Cake recipe from Serious Eats.

If you’ve never had Hummingbird Cake before (I hadn’t!), it is a yellow cake with chopped pecans, crushed pineapple, and mashed banana in the batter that is frosted with cream cheese icing. This combination of ingredients ends up being amazing.

I made the following changes to the recipe and they all worked out –

light brown sugar instead of dark brown
low-fat buttermilk
canola oil instead of vegetable oil
1/3-reduced fat cream cheese

I baked the three cakes when I got home from work on Friday night. This activity, of course, included a sprint to purchase more eggs at the co-op 10 minutes before it closed.

Then Saturday morning I layered and ~~frosted~~ helped Adam frost the cake.

His surgeon’s hands came in very handy.

It ended up being a big success!

I brought the cake to book club and it got two-thumbs up all around. If I ever have to make another cake in the future I will definitely think of hummingbirds.

Both of my book club offers were pineapple-based, because I also made my Tropical Fruit White Sangria.

This batch was made with –

2 cups chopped pineapple
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup Cruzan Guava Rum
1 bottle Rosebud Gold (a local sweet white wine)
10 oz lemon seltzer water

Saturday

Eaten before my 10 am shift at work because I had been up since 5:00 frosting and studying. Leftover bbq chicken pizza and sliced apple.

Popcorn with Smart Balance Light.

A Zevia Cola at work.

A pizza bagel on my break. (The Spot uses the very best tasting marinara sauce; it is super zesty.)

My friend picked me up from work and I immediately guzzled two giant glasses of sangria instead of helping her set up.

Book club food, a slice of cheese quesadilla with guacamole and mango salsa, plus two toasts with shrimp dip.

A slice of cake.

Drunkenly eaten at midnight, my 3rd serving of pizza for the day and carrots with french onion yogurt dip.

Sunday

Homemade cole slaw.

A slice of cake.

A See’s candy at work.

Dinner while grocery shopping. Sweet and sour chicken plus wok-seared veggies. (This was randomly really tasty and the best hot bar meal I’ve had in a while.)

A medium, non-fat (no whipped cream) Apple Steamer during our class study-session at The Spot.

Baby carrots and french onion yogurt dip while I wrote this post.

An Important Question

Don’t you think that the dog sort of likes like Oprah when he sits with his arms crossed like this?

12Sep2012

Let Apple Month Begin!

by Emily

When I go more than a day without blogging I do really miss it. It’s clearly going to be an adjustment a year from now when I have a baby (hopefully) and a job (even more hopefully).

It’s felt like a long week (already!) and I only had time to pack one meal this morning so I went with breakfast.

A 1.5% Pineapple Oikos,

and a granola bar.

Today’s classes went well and I had time to run a few on-campus errands before work. The mini grill from my confession post was part of a project I completed last night. One of our clinical community assignments was to create an educational bulletin board on a nutrition topic. I went with healthy grilling.

I had a friend snap a picture of me with it for my portfolio.

This assignment felt stressful because there is so much going on this month, but it was actually kind of nice to revisit my teacher days.

My options were limited and “lunch” ended up being this bag of Smart Fries.

They were fairly similar to packing peanuts but somehow that wasn’t a bad thing. The flavor was mild but savory and a 1 oz serving (110 calories) included 60-something pieces.

I came home from work to a package from my mom celebrating the arrival of Apple Month.

Too funny that this box came on the same day that I had already blogged about being ready for apple goodies. I took a few tastes as a snack.

Plus a few bites of Adam’s (not so good) mango.

I was glad that I didn’t snack too much because dinner ended up being a work of art.

Taste-wise it was art, that is, I know that the pictures are fairly dark and unappetizing.

(Ingredients that follow are listed for both Adam’s and my servings together.)

A bag of fresh baby spinach was steam-sautéed in evoo and chicken broth, then tossed with a big handful each blue cheese crumbles and dried cherries.

An amazing smokey fish salad.

A 6.7 oz can of Trader Joe’s Smoked Herring was mashed with lemon juice, Miracle Whip, smoked paprika, 1/2 cup shredded carrot, and 1 shredded green bell pepper.

We used the small holes on our cheese grater to shred the veggies and they ended up being an amazing addition.

A 1/2 serving of Special K crackers for dipping.

Delicious, delicious, delicious!

Have you ever had to make a bulletin board display?

7Sep2012

First First Friday In Allentown

by Emily

You know how I got into bed way too late last night? Well I stayed up an hour even later pinning desserts.

For reals. Stupid, but have you discovered Serious Eats yet? It could have been the 2 am browsing, but I’m officially a giant fan. Fun aesthetic, beautiful pictures, delicious recipes and reviews.

This morning was rough but I woke up by “snoozing” on Twitter in bed and that helped me ease into the day. Congratulations, Kath and Matt!

I ate breakfast on the walk to school.

My Müller Splendid Strawberry Früt Up yogurt was, in fact, splendid. It’s a strawberry mousse on top of regular yogurt (as in not Greek) and the yogurt was ridiculously, delightfully thick. It felt like a total treat – a real treat, like pudding, not like when people try to say that fruit is dessert – and was only 140 calories.

My classes went well (I didn’t fall asleep once, I swear!) and before I knew it I was walking to work. Sidenote – I work every day except for my clinic days (T/R) from now through next Sunday and I’m a little anxious to see how that’s all going to go down.

Lunch was packed for work.

An apple,

and a Raw Revolution Chocolate Coconut Bar.

It was good I didn’t bring more because I barely had time to eat that, there were lots of boxes today.

Adam meet me on foot at the end of my shift and we headed out to cross off another birthday list item.

This was our first First Friday and we both had a great time. I’m sad I couldn’t take art pictures because we saw some great stuff. I did manage to take quick snaps of my bites though.

Mostly cheese and its accompaniments, plus a small pour of wine. And we went to one open house that was giving out free popsicles.

All in all it was a fabulous time.

However – working 7+ hours and then walking 4.5+ miles was a little too much for my feet. I whimpered the last five blocks or so getting home. My 4-minute workout plans are out of the question and even though I’m starving I’d rather skip dinner than have to walk somewhere to get it. Boo.

Does your town do any type of First Friday event?

5Sep2012

Three Fruits And A Lie

by Emily

I love long weekends; I’ve had to remind myself all day that it’s actually Wednesday! I work five days next week so I’ll take any bit of easiness that I can get.

I had a fun and fancy(-free!) smoothie for breakfast. Taro milk powder, frozen blueberries, and Blue Diamond Almond/Coconut Milk Blend.

Sitting on top of ……can you see them?

Rainbow boba! I made extra on Monday and these were a fun weekday morning treat. Unfortunately the boba were too big for my straw and I ended up throwing out half my smoothie once I got to class, but it was a fun idea in theory!

Class went well. I got the good news that the assignment I completed a week early was done correctly (booyah!). My M/W nutrition class is on MNT, aka medical nutrition therapy, and right now we are learning all about oncology. Our class is covering nutrition for cancer patients as well as cancer-preventative diets, and it is all fascinating. FYI – Low fruit and vegetable intake is associated with twice the risk of cancer for all sites except the prostate. Brocoli specifically, has a dose dependant relationship with your cancer risk.

I hung around campus a bit and had lunch with Holly. It was so great to catch up! (H, we need to get a picture next time!) It’s fun to relive my first year in the program. I packed an apple,

and a leftover Reuben Stuffed Turkey Burger on a Sandwich Thin with 1000 island dressing.

I think I actually like the burgers even better cold!

I did some printing and ran an errand on Elmwood and now I’m settled at home. We are eating dinner early tonight (I’m submitting my post to something so I’m crossing my fingers for semi-decent pictures) but I did have a few snacks. A slice of 2% provolone cheese,

and a spoon of Biscoff Spread.

That was the last of the jar; so sad!

My agenda for the rest of the day includes my dinner post, a hot yoga class, a 4-minute workout, and hopefully an hour or two of studying.

FOR FUNSIES – Meghann’s lunch post ended with some super fun “Three Truths and a Lie.” I adore that game so I’m going to post my 4 “facts” here as well:

I learned how to drive on the left side of the road in an American-style car.
I’ve both skydived and flown a plane.
I got my first tattoo when I was 17.
I swam with sharks for my 20th birthday.

Can you guess which one’s my lie?? Post yours in the comments and let’s all try to guess!

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?

9Aug2012

A Midsummer Night’s Date

by Emily

So I did, in fact, sleep through yoga. I suck. I have two weeks until school and then I’ve got class at 8 am five days a week so I need to seriously work on my getting out of bed skills!

Breakfast was a big pink smoothie.

Into the blender went 1.5 cups Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, a heaping 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, a heaping Tbsp pb, and 2 scoops of Tera’s Whey Organic Bourbon Vanilla Whey Protein Powder.

My smoothie tasted like a vanilla pb & j!

I also had 2 oz of the wasabi snack mix my parents brought.

I spent what was left of my late morning cooking dinner. This quart of heirloom tomatoes played a big role.

I also finally used this Kelapo Coconut Oil sample that I got last summer at HLS.

And tri-color quinoa from last summer’s trip to Trader Joes.

The dog is afraid of the oven and this meal kept the oven and stove-top on for a solid hour and scared him deep into the back of the closet.

What a scaredy ~~cat~~ dog!

The end result was worth it.

Here are the general specs if you want to recreate it, for 4 servings –

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to package instructions
1 quart tomatoes, roasted
2 large zucchini, sliced and roasted
2 pints sliced mushrooms, sautéed in 2 Tbsp butter
14 oz extra-firm tofu, drained and pressed and sautéed in 1 Tbsp coconut oil with seasoning of choice
sauce of choice (I topped my bowl with 2 Tbsp pesto)

The photos are actually of Adam’s bowl since my dinner looked like this –

I ate to-go because the husband picked me up from work and we walked straight to Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

We only caught half of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (I got out of work late and Adam has a strict bedtime) but we enjoyed what we saw.

We shared these cola gummis for dessert while we watched.

Buffalonians, have you seen any Shakespeare in the park this summer?

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.