Tag Archives: berries

What’s Your Dream Kitchen?

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What items would you place in your dream kitchen?

  •  bar furniture?
  • a beer tap?
  • a grill pan?
  • something so exciting I haven’t even thought of it yet?

I’m really not one for jealousy, but the blogworld does bring out a bit of the green monster in me.  I may be very satisfied with my own fabulous life, but I want a food processor to make banana soft serve in damnit!  And I want a juicer, but mostly I just want to move back to a city that has juice bars!

It’s funny, because I actually received some amazing things as wedding gifts – can we say bright yellow KitchenMaid stand mixer?!  I actually own a food processor already, but due to the size of our apartments most of our cool wedding gifts still live in my childhood bedroom.  Which means my parents occasionally use them (fondue party!) and I find myself getting jealous of my own stuff!

No matter the generosity of my wedding attendants, I would always want more kitchen stuff.  I pour through Crate and Barrel catalogs the way most women look at shoes.  Here are some of the things I would own in my current dream kitchen –

  • a spiralizer
  • a vitamix
  • a sodastream
  • a slow cooker
  • a juicer
  • a grill
  • a scantily dressed man to help with the dishes kidding!

Well, CSN Stores sent me an e-mail and offered to make some of my dreams come true.  I got to choose my very own dream kitchen item to review in the upcoming weeks.  Adam weighed in heavily on this decision, and he we choose to go with the slow cooker.

Enough dreaming, it’s almost noon!, time to get down to the nitty gritty.  My breakfast post is late because my morning is running late; I woke up feeling queasy and light-headed so I decided I was better off going back to bed.  The three boys who ate pizza with me all feel fine and I’m a bit more sturdy  now after breakfast so maybe I was just hungry?!?

“What did this magical elixir breakfast contain,” you ask?

Stonyfield Low-Fat Strawberry yogurt, 1/2cup fresh raspberries, and a package of All-Bran Bran Buds.

The All-Bran was actually a sample I sent away for in the mail and it was ridiculously tasty.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy some once my cereal cabinet thins out a bit.

Speaking of things that are ridiculously good….. Buy. This.

The husband has a deep obsession with Biscoff cookies (he asks for so many extra when we fly Delta that the stewardesses always think he’s adorable and I die of embarrassment) and I’m deeply obsessed with the husband, so when I found out they made Biscoff cookie spread I ordered some up.  It ended up being a gift to both of us because this stuff is amazing.  I absolutely had a spoonful before making breakfast today.

What is your favorite spread that isn’t peanut butter?  I think before yesterday I would have said Nutella, but there is no competing against Biscoff now!

Fruit eaten so far today:  1/2cup

Fridge Traffic JAM

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It’s officially the first work-week of May!  Where has this year gone?!?  For that matter, where has today gone, it’s all felt a little rushed.

Adam and I both had another lackluster sleep last night 😦  Isn’t it just the worst feeling to toss and turn when you’d like to be resting up?  The morning felt like it came way too quickly and the snooze buttons were pressed several times.  I had to drive the husband to school so I could use the car to run errands, so I rushed out the door with him.  How happy am I that it’s finally throw on a sundress season?

I was a little irritated to have to go to the post office when I hadn’t even eaten breakfast but it ended up being a good thing because my parents send me an amazing package!  It was Carnival in St. Thomas last week and they sent me all sorts of goodies –

I packed the soursop jam away into cabinet before I could even look at it.  I have a problem –

Seriously, Emily?  6 open jars of fruit spreads!

However, I tore into the stewed tamarind immediately.

A few spoonfuls in I managed to stop myself and actually assemble breakfast.

Stonyfield plain fat-free yogurt with stewed tamarind and 1/2cup raspberries.

I couldn’t get over how pretty it was and the taste combination was amazing!

Eat More Fruit Tip # 1 – Instead of buying “fruit on the bottom” yogurts, make your own!  Plain fat free yogurt with berries and fruit spread stirred in has less sugar than the ones you buy at the store, and is a whole lot tastier too!

Lunch was pretty gorgeous as well.

Eat More Fruit Tip # 2 – Smoothies are a very tasty way to eat your fruits, just be sure not to add too many high-calorie/sugar additives.

I had a whole slew of annoying phone calls to make and the morning slipped away while I was on the phone.  By the time I was headed out the door I was already late so I made myself a to-go smoothie for lunch.  1 small frozen banana, 1/2cup frozen blackberries, 1cup calcium + vitamin d oj, and 1/2t xanthan gum.

The smoothie was supposed to be swim fuel but sadly that didn’t pan out.  When I got to the pool all of the lanes were full and I was too late picking up Adam to wait. 

The swim no-go is especially annoying because I don’t want to swim, I want to run, and I can do that any where.  My hopeful date to start running again is May 10th and I’m getting a little nervous because my leg still hurts.  The doctor said it would hurt up until it was healed (and then I could get moving again) but I’m so afraid that the 10th with come and go and I’ll still be stuck.  I’m so eager to run again that it physically hurts when I see other people out on a job.  I made get-well wishes on several of these today.

What would you wish on a dandelion for?

Fruit eaten so far today:  3cups

Late Night, Lady Business

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I realize it’s a bit ridiculous that I’m blogging – let alone awake – at 1am, but I’m hoping this well serve as a ‘final shut down’ activity for my brain.  We got home late and I got into a homework productivity groove that I didn’t want to abandon for sleep.  After a solid 3weeks of slacking in my classes I’m ready to dive into the books again 🙂

I abhor when bloggers discuss their lady business online, but I need to mention mine to address the hungry beast issue.  I was starving again today.  After the 8th-million time I mentioned this to the husband he expressed some concern; both for my health and my ever-expanding-ass.  When I defended my hunger (No, it’s not just that I think it’s funny to see whether or not you’ll still love me if I get fat.  Yes I’m really really hungry.  No I really ate people food today, not just popcorn.  No I don’t have kidney disorder, stop being such a medical student!) I realized we had the same conversation last month.  And roughly the same time the month before that.  So, the point of that rambling paragraph was to share my hypothesis that my hunger spike is related to my cycle.  And now I’m ending the lady business discussion.

Breakfast was 1cup Kashi H2H with fresh raspberries.

I added a couple shakes from our cinnamon-sugar duck to keep things interesting.

And yes, I did use skim milk, I just wanted to snap a dry shot first.

Within 20minutes of breakfast I ate a salt water taffy.

<begin day-long snackage here>  And the last serving of TJ’s Gummy Tummies.

And the last of the lemon curd (~2-3T) with some Biscoffs.

The lemon + gingersnap combo sort of rocks my socks, I have several awesome dessert recipes whirling ’round my head.

I picked the husband up before class and stopped at Starbucks in an attempt to go green(x2).

For Tax Day Starbucks was giving free coffee to anyone who brought in their own mug.

Great idea in theory, not so great in practice – I spat out my one and only sip more quickly than you can imagine.  I am usually not a Starbucks hater but this was nasty bitter.  Thankfully the amazing array of snacks now available at the counter more than makes up for bad free coffee.  I snagged a package of Sahale BBQ Almonds to eat during Anthro.

Mmmn.  I adore Sahale Snacks, I haven’t bought them in ages but I mentally added them to next week’s grocery list upon my first tasty bite.

In between classes I ran some errands around campus with the husband.  Our travels to the copy shop led to the discovery of an adorable Japanese spot.

Bubble tea on campus?!?!  I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing that I didn’t know about this until my 2nd to last week at UB!

Almond flavored milk tea with bobba = huge smile from Emily. 

I’m not really sure if it was lunch or dinner, but at 5pm I split a $5 Footlong with the husband.

My half, tuna with provolone.  Not the healthiest option from Subway by far, but the husband is kind of obsessed with them and they are pretty darn tasty.  Plus they are pretty much the only thing I really eat with mayo and I have one maybe once every few months.

I also snacked on a HUGE marshmallow dream (i.e. rice krispies from Starbucks) bar during Chemistry but it had to go unphotographed.  The boys near me were being rude and loud and I felt bad pulling out a camera with the professor staring at my section.

The reason for our late homecoming is that we had to head to the mall after class.  The husband has a strange obsession with dorky sports (he used to be a championship ping-pong player!) and we had to hit up Dicks so he could buy a myriad of rackets.  I don’t think the man has touched a basketball since high school but he now plays ping-pong, tennis, and squash on a weekly basis!

During my monster homework session (10pm – 1am) I snacked on a big bowl of fresh-cut pineapple.

And that’s all she wrote, sweet dreams folks!

*Note* I hate these long posts and my goal (at least for this weekend) is to go back to 3-a-days.  However, I’ll be at the hospital most of tomorrow for my bone scan so don’t expect to hear from me.  But do wish me luck!  🙂

Shaken, Not Stirred

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I didn’t get as much done this morning as I could have hoped, but it was certainly an improvement on my track-record of late.  I have my final Chemistry quiz (and lab!) tomorrow, for which I began studying making up reading for at the oh-so-responsible hour of 10:00 this morning.

My breakfast wasn’t really big enough so I did some snacking while I studied.  Half a package of chocolate covered espresso beans; I can’t believe how long I’ve had these sitting in my cabinet.  [My camera ate the photo, but if you click the link there is an original picture of them there]

As well as some homemade trail mix;

1/2 cup Kashi H2H, 1/6cup dried cranberries, 1T cinnamon chips.  I liked this combination a lot.  I always make my own trail mixes because they tend to be healthier than store-bought, but I end up putting so many healthy items in that the serving size becomes unhealthy.  Today’s mix had ~200calories and still managed to interest my taste buds.  Sometimes simplicity is better.

I worked on my lab-work all morning then threw some veggies in the oven while I took a much needed shower.  I emerged much cleaner, and quite excited about my roasted veggie salad lunch.

Romaine lettuce base topped with roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and yellow squash.

I roasted extra veggies so I could put some pre-made in the fridge for the rest of the week.

I ‘made’ extra of my salad dressing as well.  I was in the mood for blue cheese but I’m not one of those bloggers who like my lettuce dry; I knew I would need to spread my dressing further in order to get enough of it.  So for two servings (today and tomorrow) I shook together 2T blue cheese dressing with 2T vinegar.

Whenever Adam and I finish a jar, canister, or what-have-you we always wash it out and save it to be reused.  It is a convenient way to be green, and save some $.

Speaking of saving money, I can tell this is going to be a snacky day so I thought ahead this time and threw some snacks into my purse already.  I’m heading to campus to pick up the husband before Anthropology and Chemistry, I’ll let you know what I ended up snacking on when I get back for dinner.

Does your family reuse containers or do you just trash them?

Curd You Guess

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Good morning!  I am not even going to talk about the ‘work’ I did on my mini-hiatus.  Let’s just say it is actually stunning how little work I’ve managed to get done in the last month and leave it at that.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that today will be the day I break the losing streak 🙂

Either way, at least breakfast was a winner.

Plain, fat-free yogurt topped with fresh raspberries and lemon curd.

These are my first fresh berries of the season which is pretty excited.  But I’m feeling bummed that the curd is almost gone; I need to make another batch asap!  I’m thinking I’ll try tangerine, or key lime, or something extra exciting.

Have you ever made/tried any ‘fancy’ curds?  I’ve only tasted lemon but I imagine that the possibilities are endless.

Hump Day Slump

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I’m just gonna be upfront about it: this post is going to be lame.  And I realize a lot of my posts have been lame recently, but this one really takes the underachievement cake.  It’s sort of not my fault, because my camera was randomly being finicky and low-battery.  But it also sort of is, since I only ate three (count them, 3) items today.  Tomorrow?

For breakfast I made Adam and I Green Monsters.

(For 2) 2cups frozen spinach, 2cups frozen strawberries, 2cups oj w. calcium + vitamin d.  I made this mix to appeal to the husband, but it did NOT appeal to me.  I drank the whole thing in spite of preferring the flavor of my original gm and ended up with serious acid reflux.

My stomach was super painful all morning and by the time I was finally hungry again I could only think about one thing – a turkey sandwich.  So I went out and got one.

A Turkey Grill, no bacon no butter on the bread, from Coulter Bay.  And yes, I ate the fries.

When the husband came home around 6 it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get me to agree to head back to Sweet Tooth.

If I’m really being honest, it was mostly that I’d been home all day except for lab and I wanted to show off my cute top!

Adam got a gigantic sundae (he tore into it so fast I couldn’t even photograph) but I opted for a bear cookie.

I didn’t even realize it was a Black and White Cookie, my very favorite, until I started eating.  My nickname for the husband is ‘Bear,’ so it’s possible I took out some of my marital tension on the cookie –

Whoops!  😉

I guess it’s a good thing I got fruit and veggies in at breakfast?!  Hope everyone else had a happy Hump Day.

Does your significant other have a pet name?  He’s Bear and I’m Mouse.  Gag, I know!

Nightmares and Dream Recipes

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Let me get my whining out of the way so I can get on to the good stuff:  my leg hurts / I’m not getting my to-dos done and I’m going to fall behind in school / I felt exhausted and awful all day.

I actually did get into bed before 10pm last night, a first of its kind achievement for me.  However, then I had another first – a nightmare!  I used to have night-terrors when I was really young, but this was my first ever bad dream that I could remember.  Basically, I went to the fertility doctor and found out I couldn’t have babies with the husband.  I was telling my dream-mom how helpless I felt when I woke up in the middle of the night in tears!  I don’t even know where in my psyche this came from, the husband and I don’t have babies on our radar (I’m not even taking folic acid yet!).

The good stuff –

Today’s outfit sort of thrills me –

Stripes, high-waist, and pockets; oh my!

Understated but green bowl aside, breakfast was pretty thrilling as well.

I topped the last of the Fage (~1/2cup) with 1 cup (frozen, defrosted) berries and 3 heaping spoonfuls of lemon curd.

My, oh my this was good 😀

My busy sit/stare agenda filled up all my lunch making time, and I ended up grabbing a mango mix1 to go.

I ended up not loving the flavor and giving half of it to Adam.  To quell my rumbling tummy I ended up buying a Slim Fast Cookie Dough Bar.

It was tasty, but I have about a trillion bars in my cabinet at home; I need to make carrying one in my purse a habit.

Later during my second class I snacked on some yummy dried fruit.

Kiwis and hibiscus, my favorites.

When we got home the husband whipped up some deviled eggs.

He was super generous (deviled eggs are pretty much his favorite) and let me share one.

I also did some unphotographed nibbling while I cooked dinner.  Which was fricking fabulous by the way.

Green Tuna Enchiladas (click here for the recipe link), serves 4.

  • 1 T evoo
  • 1 medium green bell pepper, finely chopped
  • 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
  • 2 10 oz cans tuna
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 cup green tomatillo salsa
  • 8 small corn tortillas
  • 3T half and half
  • 3/4 cup shredded taco cheese (montery jack would work well too)
  1. Preheat the oven to 350*.  Heat evoo in a large pan over medium heat.
  2. Add onion and peppers to oil and brown, about 7 minutes.
  3. Add tuna and 1/2 cup salsa to veggies and cook 2 more minutes.  Remove from heat.
  4. Spoon 2 T filling into each tortilla and place into a 8x11inch casserole, seam-side down.* **
  5. In a separate bowl, stir together last cup of salsa with half and half.  Spoon mixture over enchiladas.
  6. Sprinkle cheese evenly over casserole and bake 20minutes.

* Too keep tortillas from cracking and breaking, it is helpful to cover them with a damp paper towel and microwave for 30seconds.

** If you have extra filling it would go deliciously stuffed into a pita sandwich

I paired my serving with a batch of kale chips,

for a tasty, tasty dinner.

Speaking of tasty things –

I wanted to let you guys know that my recipes for Italian Style Gumbo and Buffalo Chicken Baked Pasta have also been posted (click the names for recipe links).  Seriously, those two dishes were the best things I’ve ever made!  Please, please get the recipes and try them yourselves, they are dreams come true.

I’ve got lots of lab work due tomorrow so I’m going to make like a banana and split.

Do you ever make up your own recipes or do you tend to do things by the book?  A lot of my creations are ideas from magazines that I’ve seriously altered; usually made healthier and/or spicier.

Nibble While You Work, da da da da da da da

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It was another fabulous Spring day!  Sorry for another late post, but it was a busy day too.  I had 8am lab this morning so I packed up breakfast last night.

Cottage cheese and berries in a pre-fab to-go cup.  Last night I topped the last ~1.5serving of cottage cheese with some frozen berries and left it to defrost in the fridge.

This morning I just had to grab and go.

We did a qualitative analysis – a series of tests on an unknown sample to determine what its chemical components are – in lab today and it was actually a lot of fun.  The real fun came when the husband picked me up; we spent a fabulous afternoon exploring.

We dropped the car off for breaks/oil/tires and slowly wandered downtown on the walk home.  We saw several pretty things,

discovered an exciting candy store,

and we got a few fun things to go, like this candy bar I won’t be tasting –

and the husband bought a candy Tiffany’s box.  For $1.50 it was made of white and milk chocolate and stuffed with hazelnuts.

My bite –

(If you are wondering why MY Tiffany’s wedding ring isn’t on my damn finger in the picture it’s because I don’t wear jewelry to labs in which we use strong acids and strong bases)

Later we stopped in at Pearl Street for lunch.  Pearl Street makes microbrews in-house and is a ton of fun.  I love their glass options –

I went with a Split (10 oz) of the seasonal raspberry brew.

And for lunch I ordered the Fresh Apple and Pear Salad.

Apples and pears sautéed in rum and brown sugar served over mixed greens and topped with toasted pecans and fresh goat cheese.

I had brown sugar rum vinaigrette on the side.  However, the salad was so packed and tasty that I went with the fork dip method of adding dressing, rather than dumping it on.  So yummy!  I snagged a few of Adam’s fries and they were pretty tasty as well.

Not gonna lie though, the big diet coke we picked up on the walk home was my favorite part of lunch 😀

All total we walked ~2miles in beautiful weather and it was an absolutely perfect afternoon.

Once we got home, I spent a couple hours working on Anthropology.  I was having a major snack attack; sometimes nibbling on something helps me to keep my focus, but I’m not sure you can call these snacks brain food.  Pb M&Ms (these are gone now, thank God),

and a vegan blondie I brought home from ‘Snice.

We had gym plans but our “long” walk left my leg feeling like today was not the day to brave the gym stairs, and I’m in a bit of a funky mood so making dinner didn’t sound fun.  So now we have plans to shower, eat popcorn, and cuddle up in front of Buffy.  Sounds like the perfect evening to follow a perfect day.

Do you snack while you work?  Does it improve your focus or serve as a distraction?