Tag Archives: booze

Brunch Before Buckles

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It’s been a glorious, spring Sunday!  Adam and I have been having a grand day, although pretty soon I’m going to have to face the reality that I’ve got a test to study for.  Sleeping 10hours (11pm – 9am!) definitely put me in a good frame of mind.

Getting in 10minutes of strength and stretch moves before my shower this morning didn’t hurt my mood either.  Then Adam and I took a walk of sorts (1/2mile) to the Walgreens; I love being outside!!!  It didn’t take much for the husband to convince me that brunch was in order.

Our first stop was a restaurant right down the street from our apartment.

The menu looked good but we were the only people in the restaurant and it was just too weird so we split.

We ended up at JP Bullfeathers, which ended up being a great choice.  We want to go back for dinner asap.

When the waitress asked me if I wanted my Bloody Mary “regular, mild, or hot?” I knew we’d found a good spot.

I ordered the buttermilk pecan hot cakes for brunch.

They came with tangy apple butter instead of syrup, which I thought was a nice healthy spin.

And I asked for a side of fruit in place of bacon.

I ended up eating 2/3 pancakes and all of the fruit; it’s watermelon season!

Now it’s time to buckle down and get to work on Anthropology.  I’ve got a study date at the Spot so I’ll probably get dinner there.  Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

Are you a Bloody Mary fan?  Tomato juice?  Vodka?  I don’t love vodka and I hate tomato juice but Bloody Marys are my favorite drink!

Sandwiches, Smoothies, and Schedules

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Hello again, happy Monday!  This will definitely be the longest recap post I’ve done in a while – Friday through Monday.  Physically things have been low-key but mentally there’s been lots of drama – my flight was canceled!  And since I’m in St. Thomas it could have meant getting into Buffalo on Tuesday and not having a ride and missing class.  I was freaking out a bit.  Thankfully 45minutes on the phone + my firm but calm voice got me on a different flight that leaves/gets in on pretty much the same schedule.  And now my layover is shorter and in Philly and not Charlotte.  🙂

I’m a big proponent of the firm but calm voice.  I was polite, and said multiple please and thank yous, but unwavering.  I didn’t ask whether or not I could get on another flight, I simply said “I will be leaving St. Thomas tomorrow, what can you do to help me make that happen?”  And it worked.

Anyway, back to Friday.  My mom served me a slice of cake,

which promptly got stripped of it’s icing because I don’t eat cake.

Then I moved on to greens, a small container I put together at the salad bar we stopped by.

Lettuce, beans, corn, cheese, 1 hard-boiled egg and a drizzle of light Cesar.

I also made myself some frozen coffee – coffee, ice, skim milk, and 2T sugar.

Soo much better than Starbucks could ever do.

Dinner was all about the leftovers.

Oven baked okra is kind of my favorite.

And I served up some leftover baked tofu on toasted rye with hot pepper raspberry preserves and sharp cheddar.

Friday night I did end up going out to meet some friends.  We had a good time and I had a few drinks but photo-taking was abandoned in favor of trying to keep my balance on one leg!  I don’t know how on earth I managed to stand on one leg past 2am but a fun time was had by all.

For Saturday morning breakfast my mom and I hit up one of my favorite places on earth – Barefoot Buddha.  I had fresh-made lemonade,

and a Bigfoot Bagel Sandwich.

Frittata, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, cream cheese, spicy sauce…

I love these sandwiches so much I ate them on my wedding day!  I know most brides say they are too nervous to eat but I was just nervous my friends would devour them before I got any 😀

We hung out and studied for a bit and I had a passionfruit, banana, coconut smoothie.

We laid low the rest of the day before going out to a fabulous dinner at The Cellar.  We did a lot of sharing and the lighting was low so let me apologize for the picture quality in advance.

There were way too many things I wanted off the drink menu but I finally settled on the Caribbean Champagne.

Champagne with coconut rum and key lime juice.  GREAT combination.

We split a cheese plate that was kind of out of this world.  The goat cheese was my favorite but the stewed plums were pretty fantastic as well.

My plate –

And at The Cellar the chef always sends out an amuse bouche.

Ahi wontons.

Plus homemade bread and butter.

For my meal I got the Vegetable Cutlet – panfried, potatoes, peas, carrots, eggplant and pickled papaya, and tiki masala sauce.

The cutlets were delicious but my favorite part of the entire meal was the eggplant wrapped papaya.  I ate one cutlet and took the other home, and I had a few bites of my dad’s tamarind mahi as well.

We were stuffed, but couldn’t not order a dessert plate to share.  It came with little forks,

because we got four little desserts!

NY cheesecake with fruit sauce and bananas foster,

cinnamon creme brulee and chocolate mousse.

Yum, yum, yum; I wished I could have had a BIG serving of the bananas foster.

Sunday morning I made a nice green monster for breakfast.

My mom and I got our nails done (green again, I’ll show you later!) and then I picked up nachos for lunch from the bar I used to work at.

Yum, but I think it’s time to be fully done with any sort of nachos for a while.

We saw a matinée of “Our Family Wedding,” during which I munched on a box of Nerds.

I would like to show you dinner but it was so dark at our table I never could get a picture.  I shared green bean fries with my parents and ate half of a tamarind turkey burger.

When I got home I had 2 maple pecan sticky blondies for dessert.

Dreena would be sad to know I deveganized these, but at least I made the recipe for my parents!

This morning (Monday) I’m hanging out at school for a bit before I head home to pack.  I brought a pineapple Chiobani for breakfast,

but that didn’t begin to cut it.

I ended up also having an egg and cheese biscuit from Wendy’s.

It is 100% time to stop eating like I’m on vacation!  Especially because I’m not sure what the workout situation with my leg is going to be like.

I had fabulous spring break but I am more than ready to get back with the husband and back on a schedule.  I get in late tonight so I won’t be posting today’s eats but hopefully Tuesday my sleeping, eating, and blogging will all be back on track!  I can tell you now though, that I have a Greek Gods honey yogurt in the freezer for a pre-packing treat!

When you get to the end of a vacation are you sad it’s over or ready to get back to business?

Mostly Monday

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Sorry for the lack of postage yesterday; Monday ended up being a bit crazy, in a good way!  The crazy combined with my diminished appetite means my eats for the day were just a bit off.  I never did get around to eating the rest of lunch, as soon as I hit publish I passed out into a hard-core nap.

I got woken up from my sleeping beauty session around 4 to ….. get tattoos!  I’m not showing any picture yet, because I’m getting a tiny touch-up this afternoon, but I got a small bow on my back to celebrate my first half marathon.

Camile’s tattoo was painful and ended up being a pretty long process.  I drank half a purple Rockstar to refuel.

This probably wasn’t the smartest snack choice but we spent the entire weekend hunting for purple (I really wanted my favorite flavor the morning of the half) and when I spotted it in the gas station I just couldn’t say no.

Camile needed ice-cream post-tattooing so we hit up Jeramiah’s again!

I had half of this small gelati; strawberry lemon ice with vanilla soft serve.

The combination was perfect, tangy and creamy go really well together in my opinion, but my stomach just wasn’t having it.  Honestly my leg hurts so badly it’s making my stomach hurt 😡  Which is why dinner never really happened either.

Although I did have an awesomely spicy Bloody Mary while we were out with some of Kristen’s guy friends.

I never munched on the appetizer plate the rest of the table had but I did take home the leftovers.  I’m having them for breakfast 🙂

P.S. Check out this tea package Olga’s giving away.

Oh the Places We Went!

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Hey guys!  My second day in Orlando was so much fun; we are having a great time and eating lots of tasty foods.  Sadly, I feel like I need to keep this post quick because it’s bedtime and I’m tired.  It’s funny how the better the quantity of blogging material I have the more the quality of my posts go down.

Kristen was great about getting food requests to have in the house this weekend.  Breakfast was Dannon Greek yogurt with a chopped nectarine, topped with a tsp of strawberry jelly, in a go cup.

The nectarine was so delicious, Florida is definitely the place to be for fresh fruit right now.

After breakfast we trekked to Disney to pick up our race packets and hit up the expo.  I had a good time checking out the fun shirts and stuff but didn’t really have money to spend.  I did pick up a belt pack (i.e. fanny pack) which I proceeded to wear for the rest of the day.

We did lunch backwards today, dessert first then grown-up food.  First things first, Menchies!

I’ve been jealous of Meghann for months and my envy was totally justified, this place was ridiculous!

I got original tart yogurt with fresh fruit and a small dab of marshmallow sauce.

YuuuuuuuuM!

Lunch was not new to me, but is something I’ve been missing in Buffalo – Whole Foods salad bar.

I got seitan and veggies, bbq seitan, kung pow chicken, a stuffed grape leaf, and some roasted veggies.

Then we met up with a bunch of our friend’s friends at Universal Studios.  Seriously?!  I could not have had more fun today.  This was my first time at Universal and it was amazing.

Even if I did get a little wet.

My favorite part was the Dr. Seuss area.

Fun fact – my tattoo was partially inspired by the star bellied Sneetches.

It was so great to walk around all day and stretch my legs.  When we left the park I, ahem, refueled with a white chocolate and heath covered marshmallow stick.

Our dinner plans were for Seasons 52 but sadly there was an issue with our reservations and the plans fell through at the last minute.  We had driven past an Elephant Walk on the way that my friend Camile was super excited about so we ended up going there.

I had a diet coke and amaretto to drink before dinner.

And I ate 2 pieces of tempura salmon sushi for an appetizer.

I really wasn’t sure what to order for dinner.  The food choices were more American-Chinesse than what I usually prefer (authentic as possible Thai).  They had honey shrimp, sesame chicken, and similar things that sounded good but I knew would be unpleasantly unhealthy.  I ended up ordering tofu and veggie stir fry and asking for the sauce on the side.

My meal ended up being pretty tasty, I was definitely not disappointed.  I didn’t eat any of the rice but I pretty much decimated the rest.

We had big plans of heading out after dinner but we were all so tired it seemed much more pleasing to come home and go to bed.  I know 11:30 isn’t exactly early, but it will make for a better wake up tomorrow than a night of drinking would have!

What is your favorite Dr. Seuss story?  I am a really really big Seuss fan.  The Sneetches, Yurtle the Turtle, and The Butter Battle are all favorites but Oh, The Places You’ll Go really has my heart.

A Tropical Getaway

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I may be stuck in Buffalo until spring break but tonight’s meal felt like a tropical getaway!  And what better day to celebrate the sunny Caribbean than a day that’s all about romantic getaways?!

Every single aspect of tonight’s meal was tropical and tasty.  We started with a Uniq fruit as our appetizer.

We have tried Ugli fruits before, but this was our first Unique.  It was a little too bitter/sour for me.  We each ate 2-3slices from the mound and the rest got packed away.

Dinner was much more successful.

Lime Ponzu broccoli with walnuts,

and my Coco Loco Tofu.

Everything together was delicious.

Coco Loco Tofu is my favorite tofu recipe, it is the perfect blend of savory and sweet.  For the side dish I sautéed a big bag of frozen brocoli in clementine olive oil, then added a few walnuts and some Kikoman Lime Ponzu Sauce.

The sauce came from the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program and was the perfect addition to our Caribbean night.

Even our drinks were tropical!  We made hibiscus mimosas.

I’ve carried this hibiscus juice from Brooklyn and I was almost sad to open it.

For the mimosas we used a little extra oj because the champagne (from our wedding!) wasn’t cooled, with a splash of hibiscus juice.

Wonderful!

I’ve got to work on my lab before we head to bed, but I’ll probably be pouring a 2nd mimosa!  Have a great night lovers!

How did you celebrate Valentine’s today?

Valentine’s Day

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I know it’s not actually Valentine’s yet, but the husband has a big test coming up and we can’t celebrate tomorrow.  Plus we saw the namesake movie today!  I’m not 100% yet but I am feeling better.  I skipped Friday’s post because the day pretty much consisted of clear sodas and my Chemistry test.

Adam was at his preceptor’s office all morning and I was curled up on the couch in all my unshowered glory so imagine my surprise when he walked in the door with this –

Seriously, how handsome is my husband??

I will NOT be posting a picture to explain why loving me makes him a saint but let’s just say it’s a good thing I showered finally before we left the house!

We are not big Valentine’s people but the husband did bring me home flowers and Sour Patch Kids.

After giving the husband plenty of air kisses (my germs and his upcoming test cannot mix!) I managed to do a bit of cleaning and make a grocery list AND take that shower.  I powered through my chores with a protein-packed smoothie for breakfast/lunch.

2 frozen bananas + 1.5T pb +1/2cup skim milk.

Then around 2:30 we were off to the mall for our date!  I’m pretty sick but I did the best with what I had.

The amazing necklace my mommy made me at least got me on theme. 

Sadly, the movie theatre was beyond packed and things kept getting pushed back.  We ended up going to Jack Astor’s for a bit.  I had a Blue Lemonade.

And we split a plate of buffalo chicken fingers.

Then we played some arcade games!

In the movie I ate my Sour Patch Kids and we split a large Coke Zero and some pretzel bites.

Mmmn.  Our movie was less cheesy than our snack, Valentine’s Day was actually really funny and awesome.  It’s like an American Love Actually but a whole lot funnier.

Now I’ve got an easy dinner planned (homemade for a change!) and I’m planning on heading to bed earlyish.  See you in a bit!

What you do think about Valentine’s Day?  Love it or hate it?  I’ve never minded <3’s day, even when single, because I find all the theme candy pretty exciting.  However, Adam and I never make too big of a deal of it.  We just aren’t that gushy, we often don’t even do Christmas or birthday gifts.

When In The Mall

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Happy Saturday!  My 1am bedtime led to an 11am wake-up, less than stellar.  But Adam and I have certainly made the best of our quickly dwindling day – movie/lunch date at the mall!

Lunch was at our new favorite spot, Jack Astors.

I got an original Bloody Mary to drink.

It was good, but not spicy enough for my liking, I miss the drinks in NYC!

Next up was a small cup of beer and cheddar soup.

This was delicious, it was so nice and creamy.  There was a spot in Park Slope that had the best beer and cheese fondue and we sort of got to relive that with the soup.

And for my main dish I ordered a turkey burger.

I ate a few bites as a sandwich before tossing the bun and dipping the patty in ketchup.

We had more than an hour between lunch and our movie and we ended up walking aimlessly around the mall.  We had fun though.  We bought a hedgehog stuffed animal to help support an environmental group, who thinks the husband approves of that purchase??

And we split a Turtle Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

This was crazy good, my favorite ice-cream on the planet is sugar-free white chocolate from Freshens and this tasted sort of like that.  Plus you can never go wrong with dark chocolate and caramel 😉

You could go a little bit wrong with our movie choice though, When in Rome did not blow me away.  I hate sappy chick flicks but my love for Kristen Bell had clouded my judgement.  We had fun looking at the New York scenes though and the clothing in the movie was making me drool.

I am all about layering, too bad I can never pull it off!

The rest of the day looks pretty low-key, especially because Sunday is going to have to be study, study, study.  See you for dinner.

Do you eat buns/bread at restaurants?  Why or why not? 

Meow What is So Funny?!?

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We’ve passed into Saturday at this point so I’ll keep it quick.  Unfortunately no work-out took place today; Adam treated beer buying like it was a life altering decision and he ate up all our time.  I am a major perfectionist and I’m super into dates and numbers so not running on my *1st day back of 50* in training was definitely frustrating for me.  Part of  me wants to go ahead and skip it tomorrow since I’m already “behind” but my rational side knows I need to grow away from that.

While we were scoping the beer I got a snowflake latte from the grocery store cafe.

Espresso, peppermint syrup, and skim milk; delicious.

Adam hogged the bathroom (you’ll see why in a second) and I didn’t have time to shower but wearing some new Christmas clothes helped me to feel gussied.

Gosh I ❤ J-Crew!

The party theme of the night was Super Troopers.  This is one of my top five favorite movies and I was super amped.  Somehow a movie and dinner took our crew from 6-midnight so we must have had a good time!  I got in spirit with a Natty Ice while we watched the movie.

Everyone had a great time but Patrick and Adam went all out.  The boys not only shaved off their beards to rock mustaches,

but they even redid the syrup scene!

Our manly men finished off their bottles in 45seconds!!

After the movie our dinner plan was all within the theme –

unfortunately they only had the late night menu so our goofy shit on the walls requirement lead us to TGIFridays.  You know we had to order mozzarella sticks.

I had two.

And Danielle and I both got Cosmos, poured over pink cotton candy.

My drink ended up being way too sweet for me to finish but it was certainly fun.

I ordered the Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad for dinner.

It had celery, dried cranberries, and blue cheese crumbles.

All the perfect ingredients were there but for some reason I just didn’t love it.  Look at how much I left for Adam to take home –

All in all we had a fabulous time.

P.S. I apologize to anyone who hasn’t seen the movie; everything I bolded was a movie reference.  However, if you have not seen it yet I highly recommend that you do!