Tag Archives: berries

The Super What?

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I may have been a cheerleader, but I just don’t follow football.  Even the Super Bowl.  There, I said it!  Adam and I are pretty much on the same page about everything.  But he cares about the Super Bowl a little bit, and that’s a whole lot more than I do.

We were on the same page with breakfast this morning though.

I whipped us up a batch of smoothies, 1 part frozen strawberries to 1 part chocolate peppermint stick soy milk.

We needed a sipable breakfast because we were busy moving around giving the house a deep clean.  I don’t want to tell you how long it’s been since I scrubbed the stove (um, never!), but it took me a good 20minutes to get the burners clean.

Once we were no longer living in squalor, we headed to Wegman’s for lunch.

Fruits,

and veggies,

plus a sandwich from home.

I split a pita and filled my half with Tribe Roasted Garlic Hummus, green pepper, and cucumber slices.

It was a nice lunch, and it fueled us through a weekly grocery trip amongst the horde of people who somehow forgot that today was the Super Bowl.  I don’t want to judge, but were those people all afraid that their carts of chips and beer would spoil if they bought them more than an hour before their parties?!?

I’m home alone tonight, Adam cared just enough about the game to head over to a house with cable.  I did send him off with party food though.

Spinach and Artichoke Hummus –

  • 15.5 oz can chick peas, drained
  • 14 oz can quartered artichoke hearts in brine, drained
  • 3/4 cup frozen spinach
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp plus 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup salted soy nuts
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat tsp oil in a skillet over medium-low.  Add garlic and saute until just beginning to brown, 1-2minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Add spinach to the pan and cook until completely thawed.  Remove pan from heat and set aside.
  3. Place chick peas in bowl of food processor and pulse until smooth.
  4. Add artichoke hearts to the processor and continue pulsing until smoothie, scraping down the sides as needed.
  5. Working in ~ 1/2 cup batches, add spinach and garlic to processor and pulse until smooth.
  6. Pulse in soy nuts and Tbsp oil, until mixture is well-combined.  Note – the soy nuts will add a chunky texture to the hummus, if you prefer a smoother end product then you will need to start but processing the nuts first.
  7. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I stayed home doing girly things, like cleaning out the food processor, baking tomorrow’s lunch, then cleaning out the food processor again.  It’s a good thing I took many cooking bites, because after the send round of blade cleaning I decided I was not going to make dinner.

Really, it doesn’t come up that often that I have dinner by my lonesome, so why not revel in the situation and make myself a batch of single serve cookie dough for dinner?

Yeah, yeah, I had this yesterday too.  But this was different, this was peanut butter single-serve cookie dough.

  1. Using a fork, mash together 1 Tbsp Smart Balance Light and 2 Tbsp chunky peanut butter.
  2. Mash in 3 Tbsp flour and 2 Tbsp sugar.
  3. Pour in a splash of Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk and mix well.
  4. Place in the freezer for 30minutes, stirring occasionally.
  5. Top with a serving of chopped up Chocolove bar.
  6. Eat with a spoon, moaning occasionally.

Do you watch the Super Bowl?  Who were you cheering for today?

Seriously, have you tried the single-serve cookie dough thing yet?

Halvah Good Morning

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Welcome back, work week!  Actually, I don’t have school for another month, but Adam’s in class today 😉

I did start my day before 8 though.  Berries for breakfast.

One serving of Kashi Strawberry Fields with blueberries and skim milk.

I was planning on adding peanut butter because this breakfast is too light (less than 200calories), but then this caught my eye –

Marble Halvah?  Don’t mind if I do.  If you’ve never tried Halvah before you so need to; it’s sesame paste and the flavor/texture is out of this world!  I eat mine with a fork because it’s a little greasy.

You can look for it at some small candy stores, or in most (Jewish) delis.

P.S. We’re going to NYC this weekend!

St. Thomas; Tuesday Morning – Thursday Morning

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We’re here. We’re here, we’re here, we’re here!  We’re also busy; this will be a quick recap post.

Tuesday morning at the airport, Adam and I did a good job putting together breakfast from our packed snacks.  We split the Orange Cranberry Cliff Bar,

and shared sharp cheddar, baby carrots, and a gingergold apple throughout the morning.

Our flights went well, and on our layover I found a Salsarita’s for lunch.

(Delicious) chips with spicy salsa,

and a chicken burrito with black beans, a little bit of rice, corn salsa, red onions, medium salsa, and shredded cheese.

So tasty and fresh, especially for a plane meal!  I ate about half of everything.

Before we knew it we were in my childhood home.  Being handed homemade toffee,

and finding gifts on our pillows.

I could get used to this!  The husband and I did some wrapping of our own too.

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner.

Spicy chicken with whole-wheat linguine,

mushrooms and broccoli with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds,

and mandarin oranges.

We ate all squished together in a clump, because someone decided to start a puzzle at the table 😉

For dessert my dad and I opened up these Klick Halva Truffles.

Adam went out (late!) with some of our guy friends from high school, but I stayed home rereading All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein and laughing at the notes I wrote in the margins while writing a 15page final paper on it.

Wednesday morning was all about dinner leftovers for breakfast.

And 10minutes of strength and stretch moves.  My goal for vacation is to (at minimum) get in a good stretch every day.

For lunch, we headed to Barefoot Buddha, my favorite restaurant.

I split a passionfruit smoothie with the husband,

and a bagel sandwich with my mother.

Yuuuuuuuum.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on errands, including finding a gloriously huge pile of Achie comics (donated to my mom’s library),

and getting all of our wedding rings polished.

Plus testing saved maple sugar cookies from Thanksgiving.

Out of the freezer, still good!

For dinner we headed to Island Time Pub with my aunt and cousins (2sets, one local, one visiting). The lighting was awful, but the dark did mean we got to enjoy these sailboat sail “trees.”

Adam and I split a Caesar salad, with green peppers and mushrooms added.

And a buffalo chicken pizza.

I had these two slices plus a third.

I also had two black and cokes with dinner.

After that I was the designated driver, so even though we were out with friend until almost 1, I stuck to diet coke.

This morning began with a workout. A good workout 🙂 St. Thomas isn’t exactly map-my-run-able and I don’t have a Garmin, so we are focusing on time instead of distance. We had my mom drive us down to the nearby beach so we could run (not that we ran I’m the sand, just near the beach). In the end we ran for 20minutes and walked for 18minutes. Then we slowly walked up the HUGE hill home; I’ll have to take a picture tomorrow. All total, 60monutes of activity, which felt great.

Breakfast was Greek Gods honey Greek yogurt, topped with some blueberries and banana.

I’ve spent the morning running errands with my mom, including a trip to school so I could write this post.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, what?!?

What’s the best airplane food you’ve ever had? The worst?

I’m Done!

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For real this time – I’m done!  I’m done!  I’m done!

And, in further cause for celebration – I found out I scored a 93% with the curve on the Anatomy final, which means my final grade for the semester was a 87%!  And I think we did a great job on our presentation today.  Booyah!

This morning started off with a chocolate mint strawberry smoothie.

For two (I love that Adam likes these!) we mixed 2 cups of frozen strawberries and 2 cups of chocolate peppermint soy milk.  I know that picture is a little grim, but that what it’s like outside in Buffalo at 7am and 12*.

Our final presentation went well; not gonna lie, I think ours was the best.

Plus, I might have bribed everyone by brining in Tamarind Candy!

After a quick meeting I was free, free, free!  I spent almost an hour walking down Elmwood, just happy to be outside.  I can’t believe I don’t have class again until late January.  Or that I’m going to St. Thomas next week!

Lunch needed to be walking distance from the apartment, celebratory, and in my budget.

Chicken fingers drenched in Buffalo sauce?  Don’t mind if I do.

I scarfed this entire thing, got a bit sick to my stomach, and was totally in heaven.  All I need now are some sweatpants.

When does your holiday break start?

Goodness

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I ended up not having a bowl of ice-cream last night – though I did have two handfuls of dark chocolate almonds – mostly because I was so excited about this bowl:

I’d been excited about breakfast for 12-straight hours and I was not disappointed!

I started by whipping up a double batch of stove top banana oats.

That’s 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup water, 1 banana, 1 pinch salt.

After I removed tomorrow’s serving (I’ve got an oat smoothie in the works), I stirred in ~1/3 cup low-fat cottage cheese.

Plated (bowled?), topped with strawberries,

and a Nutella spoon.

<– Goodness!

My ‘nana-berry-cheese-nutella oats were muy bella.

I’m loving the texture of that cottage cheese and you really can’t go wrong with nutella.

And now I’ve got a warm/full belly for my 20* walk to school!  I have a couple of meetings, my final Anatomy class, and a trip to the gym planned before my Orgo Lab shut-down at 6pm.  I made an ice-cream date with the husband, which means he’ll be picking me up; thank goodness!

When it’s snowy and icy outside do you walk or drive?  If you are normally a walker, what temperature drives you to your car?

We actually have a 2nd car now, but I didn’t purchase a parking pass for my school so instead it’s turning into a snow drift.

Nightmare Before Christmas

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There was no blog post yesterday because I was so exhausted that I bumbled around all day without really doing anything!  We set our alarms for 8am and at 10:00 the husband was shaking me awake and I had no recollection of turning off the alarms.  Finally the husband remembered – after I told him I couldnt’ study because I was too tired to lift my arms – that I had such a bad nightmare on Saturday night that my moaning and flailing woke him up.  I don’t remember that either, but he told me I looked pretty pitiful.

When I got up today, the idyllic scene outside my window was like something out of one of my nightmares –

Yes, it’s gorgeous.  But – that’s the kind of snow you make cocoa and cuddle by the fireplace in, not the kind of snow you walk 30minutes through to Organic Chemistry!

But after Sunday’s #fail I was determined to make the best of today; even though I woke up at 9:30!  I started my day with some good stretching.  Not gonna lie, then I started my day with this (after brushing my teeth of course!) –

Sorry I’m not sorry (thanks, Rachel), Cherry Coke Zero is my version of the dog with a barrel around its neck.

Then I dressed for battle.

I take the dull out of bundling! (Say that out loud for me, pretty please?)

Oh yes, those are children’s snow boots.

Even my boots couldn’t fully save my trek though, it sort of sucked 😦  When I lived in Brooklyn and everyone walked it was kind of fun, but here, where I’m the only one in the snow, it’s a bit embarrassing.  At least I never really felt cold, probably because I got so sweaty; galumphing is a good workout!

I got to school early to pick up a portfolio (100%, booyah!) and then used the space before class to try to make up yesterday’s lost study time.  While I worked I snacked on a serving of Kugel.

I also drank a medium skim gingerbread latte (half pumps) and got distracted talking with a friend.

During Anatomy (87% with the curve on Friday’s test, booyah!) I slurped down a Revolution Foods Fruit Mash-Up.

As soon as classes were over, and I confirmed with the husband that he could pick me up from school, I got my study on.  I’m disappointed in myself that I screwed around so much it took me until after 7 to finish my notecards.  I’m proud of myself that when I was done at 7 I headed to the gym anyways!

I took my notecards on the elliptical – 35minutes, random, level 6.

We got home close to 9:00 and I’m pretty proud of the dinner I pulled together – fruits, veggies, and dessert!  First was a green purple monster.

This bad boy was a blend of frozen spinach, frozen blueberries, orange juice, Silk Almond Milk, and honey.

I gave the husband the extra and he loved it as well (although his did have a little extra sugar blended into it!).

Next up was a taste of the South.

I randomly picked up this can of Hoppin’ John when it was on sale a few weeks ago.  I’ve never eaten (heard of) Hoppin John before so I pretty much stuck with the directions on the can –

I did a 1/2 batch (one can) topped with Applegate Farms turkey bacon, Sriracha, and a little brown sugar.

I portioned half of it into a bowl, and tried something new.

Pretty good, who knew I liked black-eyed peas?!

Dessert was “new” as well, but there was never any question about liking it.

Oh. My. God.

This, my friends, is a (half)-batch of Jenna’s Caramel Sauce.

Well, that’s what’s left of the batch after Adam and I got to it.  It has a deep, decadent flavor and is sweet and rich.  Make it, make it, make it, make it!

Eaten drizzled (liberally) over a small bowl of vanilla ice-cream with lots of sliced strawberries.

Really it was just an excuse to eat some strawberries 😉

Yum!  Quite a pleasing dinner indeed.

Now I’ve got to hurry to shower so I can get to bed like a girl with an important test tomorrow.

Have you ever tried (heard of) Hoppin’ John?

Just Like Jamba

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We got into bed after 1 a.m. last night so this morning was a little painful. Luckily I knew just the thing to get us through.

When we were in undergrad at UMiami, Adam and I developed a Jamba Juice obsession. I grew up on an island, we had rum huts, not smoothie shops! I poured through websites about the “underground” flavors (white gummi bear anyone?) and knew the calorie counts for my five favorite orders by heart, but my favorite were the holiday offerings.

Pumpkin was pretty good (my Pumpkin Pie Through a Straw is better though), but December was where it’s at. One year there was a mint strawberry smoothie that rocked my world and then disappeared forever. I know the combo sounds a little funky, but it’s magical. I check the website every holiday season but I’ve yet to see its return.

So when this West Soy Chocolate Peppermint Soy Beverage popped up on my grocery shelves (I actually bought this in October, but that’s another story) I had a delicious idea.

Mint chocolate strawberry smoothies.

For two (Adam loved his as well) I blended 2cups frozen strawberries, 2 cups chocolate peppermint soy milk and 1 vanilla Chobani.

A little sweet, healthy, and a lot magical.

During class I smacked on 2 servings of Sahale Snacks Valdosta Pecans,

and whilst cramming studying I also had a Cliff Spiced Pumpkin Pie bar.

A lunch with the perfect amount of fun and siety to get my through to my anatomy exam.

I also took my notecards on a trip to the gym.  I needed to be able to read the entire time, so I kept my workout low-impact but lengthy.

  • 35minutes on the elliptical, level 4
  • 25minutes on the treadmill, walking on an incline

I had a shocking amount of focus; I think the gym will have to be my new study spot for finals!

Then I took my Anatomy exam (ok, but not as good as I hoped), met with my Orgo teacher about my failing exam, and walked home in the cold. 

It’s time for a (much needed) shower and some (much needed) fun!

Do you live near a Jamba Juice?  What’s your favorite order?

Nutella Makes it Bella

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I knew my mother-in-law was a generous lady, but when she sent us home from Thanksgiving with this mostly full (huge) jar of Nutella she sealed the deal.

Yum!  When the family was taste-testing my brother-in-law came up with the perfect description for Nutella: it’s like the inside of a Ferrero Rocher!

This morning I spread ~1T of the good stuff on a toasted Sandwich Thin.

This to-go breakfast felt pretty gosh darn decadent.

In between classes I also had a Peach Chobani.

Then after class I headed the gym.  With finals coming up my goal is to become the queen of the quick workout.  Treadmill : 25minutes: 2.45miles.  Done and done.  I’m going to do some strength training throughout the afternoon as well.

Lunch was an on the spot masterpiece.  Wondering what to do with those thanksgiving leftovers?  Ponder no more.

Leftover rigotoni pasta topped with shredded turkey, cranberry dressing, a bit of parmesan cheese, and a few chopped pecans.

This dish tasted even better than the Turkey Day meal!

I’ve got a lot of work to do today and I’m still feeling hungry so I see a lot of snacking in my future….

What is your favorite thing to do with Turkey Day leftovers?