Tag Archives: carrots

Awkwardly Awesome

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Hello again.  We had a family crisis this weekend so I was away from the blog, but now it’s all good and I’m all back.  Also we squeezed in a party and watched the dog squeeze his face into the last of my milkshake.

Obviously there were good part to the weekend too.

I had lunch for breakfast today.

Baby carrots,

some Libby’s Tropical Fruit Salad,

and a sandwich.

Turkey, pepperjack cheese, and tons of pickles on a sandwich thin.

Lunch for lunch was a salad.

Romaine topped with peanut sauce, nutritional yeast, buckwheat groats, and sliced Crispin Pink apple.

With Honest Tea Half and Half to drink,

and Cookie Butter Fudge (x2) for dessert.

Oh yes I did!  Recipe is coming tomorrow.

I started watching the first season of “Awkward” online while I ate.  I loved it!  Might be my new favorite show.  I watched while I wrote this post too, which is why it took so damn long!

I worked until 7pm today and was stupid tired when I got home.  Dinner seemed impossible and I ended up getting hot bar at the co-op at 9:30.  Vegan “cheesy” broccoli and orzo, an Asian cabbage salad, and some maple roasted tofu and veggies.

I know the picture is gross but it was all delicious and I felt fortunate to have skipped my planned dinner.

Six Hershey’s Simple Pleasures for dessert.

I plan on going to bed as soon as this episode of Awkward is over.  I also plan on going to yoga at 7am.  The 2nd plan is totally dependant on the first; we’ll see what happens.

Have you been watching Awkward?

Curry And Lemongrass, Too

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The past 48 hours haven’t been all that exciting, but they have been busy.  Work, fun, then work.  No working out, unfortunately.  I’m not even going to attempt a workout before my early shift tomorrow either.  I do have big goals for next week though, because I’m hoping to get myself started on a healthy schedule (re: bedtime, working out, and cooking dinner) in the week before school starts.

Thursday’s breakfast was a yogurt bowl.

Note – I’ve eaten a LOT of yogurt the past two days, be prepared.

This bowl was Wegman’s Low Fat Honey Yogurt topped with sliced yellow plucot and white nectarine and 1 Tbsp ground flax.

It was so good I did a similar breakfast the next day and plan on buying more of the honey yogurt asap.

I spent Thursday morning curled up on the couch with a Patricia Cornwell novel.  I’m hoping to blog quickly to get in bed with that same novel!  Reading and eating made for my perfect morning.

I took a reading break to walk the dog and snagged this white chocolate macadamia cookie from the co-op.

I should have made time for a real lunch instead of a cookie because I was starving by the end of my shift.

I had evening plans with friends and knew I would be too cranky to function so we stopped at Code Blue for juice along the way.

My customized drink included kale, spinach, collard greens, carrot, and watermelon.  So tasty and the fun ingredients were very exciting to try.

And it didn’t matter that we stopped for juice because our plans were a total bust.  We’ve been excited about seeing Salt-n-Pepa for a month but it just didn’t pan out.  The line was three times longer than the amount of people let in.  Boo!  But we did catch a few lines of “Let’s Talk About Sex.”

I got home late and had pizza for dinner.

1.5 (big) slices total.  Buffalo and bbq chicken flavored.

I spent the night by myself because the husband had 24-hour call (more like 32 hour call!) and the dog and I slept very fitfully on the couch.

Today’s breakfast was a repeat of Friday’s.

Wegman’s Plain Fat-Free Yogurt, sliced white nectarine and yellow plucot, and 1 heaping Tbsp each ground flax and Biscoff spread.

Then more yogurt for lunch.  Coffee with a honey stick and honey-roasted peanuts.

The honey + peanut + coffee yogurt combo is a childhood favorite of mine.

At work I drank a Big Gulp of diet pop and split this bag of mini Rolos with my co-worker.

I also had a jalapeño cheddar bialey in the afternoon (with a slice of pepperjack).

Adam requested Thai food for dinner and since he came home from a 32 hour shift and did the laundry, Thai food it was.

I got veggie Pad See Eiw.  The husband ordered and we forgot to say “extra veggies” for me so I was pleasantly surprised to see my plate chockfull of the green stuff.

From Sun Restaurant, by the way.  The noodles get a 10-out-of-10 but the sauce only got a 5.

Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.

Coffee Caramel Buzz.  Better than Bonaroo Buzz but not as good as Schweddy Balls.  <– I have officially eaten too much ice cream!

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

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This is a “Do as I say, not as I do” post.  The past 48 hours have been… strange.  I feel like crap mentally and physically and I’ve been eating crap.  I’ve been weirdly, intensely thirsty all day; like I want to pour a milkshake down my throat all day long (which I basically did!).  I get sort of depressed every fall about missing teaching and I might be panicking a bit about the start of my last year of school.  So I’ve been eating only crap and lots of crap.  Lots of crap because apparently crappy food isn’t all that filling.  Do we think I said crap enough times for this post month?

as I say –

  1. Don’t drink your calories.
  2. It’s okay to have a treat, but probably not more than 3 1 a day.
  3. Skipping breakfast might set you up to make bad choices the rest of the day.
  4. Sometimes you should eat fruits and veggies just for the nutrients, even if you’re not feeling them at the moment.
  5. It’s ok to feel hungry sometimes.

as I do –

Friday’s “breakfast” was wasabi trail mix, ~5 oz worth in total.

And two pieces of the amazing sea salt caramel my parents brought from Canada.

Lunch was a quick run to the co-op hot bar during work.

Chicken salads and veggie salads.

The kale was the best (take note, Emily!)

I did another try at a caramel macchiato in the afternoon, this time at The Spot.

Does that look like an iced caramel macchiato?  No.  And it was disgusting anyway; there were at least 5 inches of straight foam.  I took three sips and dumped the rest down the sink.

I didn’t eat enough during the day and that is where the bad dinner decisions started.  Adam had to pick me up from work so we could run errands across town that took forever, I started to have a tantrum, and somehow we ended up at Arby’s for small Jamocha shakes.

Um, and also mozzarella sticks.

I hate mozzarella sticks.  But these were actually pretty good.

I’ll start Saturday’s recap by saying this – Friday was healthy in comparison.  But at least I finally had a sweet coffee win.

I gave up on caramelmacchiatos and moved on to a tall white mocha coconut frappucinno.

For lunch at work I packed a plain 0% Greek yogurt with a honey stick,

and a Fiber One chocolate chip cookie.

I also bought a Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha.

And on the way home I had this, because two milkshakes a day is totally normal and healthy.

Seriously though, this was actually a good decision because it was outstanding.  This sign has been calling to me for days –

“Emmmmmmily.  ‘Greek iced coffee milkshaaaaaake.’  You’re not even sure what that means but you need it.”

But I still didn’t eat any real food and I ended up eating half of this candy bar while we were on a never-ending trip to Target.

I did eat a real food dinner, but it is dark and stormy (honestly it is, I’m not trying to be cute) and my pictures were disgusting.  Go ahead and try to imagine a plate of chicken nuggets and baby carrots.  I’m also 90% sure that you should imagine some popcorn in the near future too.

Who’s up for fruits and veggies on *Monday?  Me!  (*Note – I would say tomorrow but tomorrow my in-laws are coming to take us out for bbq for my belated birthday lunch and lets be real.)

Chicken Chicken

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Please note – if you were my dog you would read that title as “chick-ON chick-ON,” since that is what we say whenever we feed him chicken.

Not a lot has gone down in the two days since I left Ohio, but there were a few highlights.  I did get to eat lots of chips and several large diet sodas.

Our drive back to Buffalo and my parents’ flight home went off without a hitch.

My dad drove the whole way home for me and I finished knitting my scarf!!!

The fine people at Honest Tea noticed that I can’t help but buy a beverage whenever I walk past the co-op and sent me a few new flavors to try.

I got a new retainer, hopefully my last new retainer ever.  *fingers crossed*

We had to take the dog to the vet to get a cyst on his tail lanced and it was the grossest/coolest thing ever.

Poor baby!

The vet trip actually happened today and it’s a good thing that went well because it was pretty much all I accomplished today.  I didn’t get much sleep at my grandma’s house (I was on the couch and there was cable) and I stayed up too late again last night and crashed hard today.

I did manage a good, late breakfast.

Oh, Green Monster, I love you so.  My original recipe is still my favorite.  1 frozen banana + 1 cup frozen spinach + 1 cup oj.

So green good.

I also ate half (aka 1 serving) of this Honey Noosa Yoghurt.

I got lunch from the hot bar while I was grocery shopping (hey, that’s an accomplishment!).

Two types of chicken,

plus roasted veggies.

I tried to get a skinny caramel macchiato as an afternoon snack but I ended up throwing it out after a few sips.

This drink was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted.  It was super sour, but like there was something wrong with the coffee, not the milk.  And I used part of a birthday gift card so it was extra sad.

Dinner was more chick-ON.

Baby carrots,

honey mustard for dipping (Ken’s Lite and it was very good, if you’re wondering),

and two servings of Wegman’s chicken nuggets.

I’ve been wanting nuggets for days and these hit the spot.

Tomorrow’s plans include not sleeping through yoga, medicating the dog, a shift at work, and a fun nighttime event with the husband.

What is your favorite sauce for nugget dipping?

Cootie Catcher Sunday

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Today was all about family fun time.  My uncle, aunt, and cousin (and her adorable children!!) came over for the day to visit.

I had a great time playing with the two little girls.  Not even gonna lie, I loved getting a chance to color again.

And I even remembered how to make cootie catchers.

When can I have babies?!

I stayed up late knitting and slept through breakfast but I was ready for lunch.

I made an amazing grilled cheese out of rye bread, provolone, pimento cheese, and thick-sliced turkey.

Plus fruit salad on the side.

Chocolate for dessert.

Our last dinner continued the streak of tasty meals.

Salad with green goddess dressing,

and a serve-yourself main dish.  I put brown rice, celery, onion, cherry tomato, pineapple, coconut, cheese, and chicken gravy on my plate.

With a light Arnold Palmer to drink.

We ended our last evening with a final hour bike ride.

It was the best ride yet because we spotted deer –

We saw the fawn nurse!  Too cool.  I wish you had been there to see them, Adam!

Tomorrow we drive back to Buffalo and early the next morning my parents fly home. I’m planning in advance on not blogging tomorrow.  You can assume I’ll drink a giant diet pop and eat chips if I can find some good ones.  See you in Buffalo.

TJ, Totally Jazzed

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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.

Delicious, delicious, delicious!  The babaganous and ezme were my favorites.  I did a pretty good job on my meal too.

Plus 3 more pieces of bread for dipping.  My only complaint about the dish is that it didn’t come with pita bread.

Iced Vanilla Rooibos Latte for dessert.

Plus a small square of chocolate,

and tastes of nougat that my parents brought from Canada.

End scene.

I started today with a 1 hour bike ride with my parents.

I had a small plate of food at home to tide me over.

Baby carrots,

and pretzel bread with beer cheese.

Then I ate my way through our day’s destinations.

A giant diet pop with strawberries at Sonic.

Fun stop #1 was the 2nd Street Market.

I got an arepa with cheese, black beans, and plantain.

I’ve always wanted to try an arepa so this was fun, but a little too “bready” for me; I left the bottom half of my corn cake behind.

Then I spotted Sweet P’s and my mom and I split a sea salt caramel popsicle.

Yuuuum!

Fun stop #2 was Trader Joe’s.

We loaded up a cart and I also got some brown rice sushi for the road.

TJ’s has some of the best packaged food ever but their sushi always has too much rice.  I ate half and saved the rest for later.

Dinner was an insane summer feast.

Cantaloupe,

my grandma’s delicious chicken salad (she always makes it with toasted pecans and grapes and this time she added dried cranberries),

unfried green tomatoes,

and buttered corn on the cob.

I mmmmmmmmmn’d my way through the whole meal but the corn practically killed me!

I had a big cup of Heath Bar ice cream for dessert.

Good as well, duh.

Tomorrow is our last day of family time and then on Monday we hit the road.  I’m sad to be leaving my grandma but glad to be returning to my boys.

Days One And Two

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My first two days as a 27-year old have been busy/crazy/fun/carb-filled/fantastic.  And the third day brings a workout, a shift at work, and night-time plans with friends so I’ll try keep this recap short.

I started my birthday early in the morning with yoga.

60 minutes of hot yoga.

Adam’s birthday gift to me was a run (he is a million times faster than me so going at my pace is a gift), so I refueled in between workouts at home.  A Honey Stinger Waffle at home,

and a G2 consumed during our run.

We did 8 sets of 2:00 minutes running / 3:00 minutes walking; 40 minutes and 3.3 miles.

And then I opened my birthday present from my parents.

They sent a few things, the best of which was this little covered wagon.

Read this post if you don’t get it.

And then I painted birthday nails.

And Adam took me to the mall.  I bought underwear.  Apparently I’ve reached the age where I buy myself the lame gift.  But we also stopped at DQ.

Frozen peanut butter hot chocolate, you complete me.

And then I went to work.  On my birthday.  Because I’m old.  Actually it was no big deal; I was glad to have something to fill my day while all of my friends were working.  When I got done at 7:30 a friend picked me up at work at the fun began.

First we went to Starbucks where I spent the cost of a tall iced coffee with skim milk to learn that they no longer give free birthday drinks.

Then we headed to Mixology, a favorite bar.

And then I was drunk.  Really.  Drinking after a day of no solid food was a bad idea.  I had a cake vodka with club soda.

A root beer vodka with club soda.

And two mini drinks that the bartender kindly served us when he learned it was my birthday.

My friends and I had a great time and it was the perfect way to ring in a new year.

I made it to the apartment door before calling Adam to threaten bodily harm if I wasn’t fed immediately.  We got me this small bag of chips.

And I shoveled in 75% of this “garbage” calzone – macaroni, onions, mustard, hot sauce, cheddar, and chicken – in a matter of minutes.

It’s possible that I passed out – fully dressed, without retainers or brushing my teeth, snoring – minutes after that, but who can really say?

I got my Wednesday off to a much healthier start.

Green juice from Ashkers.  I customized my order and ended up with kale, spinach, cucumber and carrot.

It was delicious.

For a more conventional hangover cure, Adam and I split a bagel.

A toasted everything with lox cream cheese.

It was delicious as well.

For lunch we shared sushi.

Half each of a philly crab roll and a shrimp tempura roll.

He got an extra piece of the tempura roll and I got all of the wasabi.  He even shared his seaweed salad with me.

For our afternoon fun we took the dog to the park for a long walk and session of ball throwing.  He was ridiculously cute but I somehow deleted all of the photos I took (which might have made me cry a bit).

Dinner was a great salad.

Romaine topped with Jazz apple, sharp cheddar, buckwheat groats, and peanut sauce.

I ate extra cheese and apple in addition to what went on the salad.

Plus buttered toast.

And two biiig spoonfuls of chocolate hazelnut butter for dessert.

This post took so long to write that the 3rd day of 27 has begun.  Off to bed I go!

Bowls, Bites, Beans, And Books By Burroughs

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Hello, Sunday Monday!  Since I worked on Saturday and was off today, this was technically my Sunday.  Today I ate lots of good things and yesterday I cooked lots of good things.  Yesterday’s kitchen-time included coffee concentrate, dog treats, popcorn, and frozen peanut butter hot chocolate (most of those are being blogged later this week which is why I didn’t blog yesterday; whew!).

The coffee concentrate actually wasn’t very good, though the drink I made with it today was tasty.

Cold coffee instead of iced because I used the ice trays for the frozen dog treats.  In with my weak concentrate was skim milk, 2 Tbsp chocolate milk, and 1 Tbsp fat-free sweetened condensed milk.  With all of those tasty milks it kind of didn’t matter that the coffee wasn’t strong enough.

Breakfast was a two bowl affair.

A big bunch of green grapes.

And 5 oz of plain low-fat yogurt with 1.5 Tbsp Jif Chocolate Hazelnut Spread and a big sprinkle of cinnamon.

The chocolate hazelnut spread is basically a problem; I’ve eaten half a jar with a spoon in the past week!

Adam talked me into pizza for lunch.

Buffalo chicken,

blue cheese,

baby carrots.

I asked Zetti’s to cut my slice because I planned on only eating half, but as you can see that dream died before I even made it home.

Since I didn’t have to work, I filled my day with super important things like grocery shopping and laying on the couch to read an entire book.  It was an important book.

Sellevision is Augusten Burroughs‘ first novel and since I’m obsessed with his memoirs it’s been on my “to read” list for years.  I loved it.  I’m so awed by Burroughs that I have a hard time describing why he’s so amazing.  So instead of trying to recap the book for you on my own, I’m going to share an excerpt from one of his memoirs, Possible Side Effects.  (Things you need to know – Burroughs was an alcoholic.  In the chapter this excerpt is from he writes about drinking, not taking care of himself, wanting to write but not knowing how to begin, and getting locked out and having the locksmith think he was robbed because his apartment was such a mess.)

Instead of folding all the debris in the room into huge plastic trash bags, instead of giving myself a clean slate, I just sat down.  And I wrote:

“You exposed your penis on national television, Max.  What am I supposed to do?”

The line came to me automatically.  I didn’t look for it.  It was simply there.  So was the line that followed: “I didn’t expose it, Howard.  It just sort of … peeked out.”

A show host on a  home shopping channel being confronted by his boss, after the host’s penis slipped out from beneath his robe on the air, in front of millions of viewers.  Sooner or later, this was bound to happen, wasn’t it?  On live television.

Silly.  It made me laugh.  I hadn’t laughed for a year.  I kept writing.

I wrote until seven that evening.  Then I drank.  But I never reached my Place.  Instead, I thought about what I’d written during the day.  I went to bed.

The next day, I wrote more.  I started drinking later in the evening and I drank less.

By the third day, I wrote until midnight and I didn’t drink anything at all except lime seltzer water.

By the seventh day I had written a book.  At least, I thought it might be a book.  It contained one hundred and fifty pages and they were in order.  That’s more than a monkey could do.

I called it Sellevision.

I did not drink.

Love, love, love!

Transitioning now from books to beans… Adam loved our dinner.

I tried to update my recipe for vegan black bean burgers and ended up with a new, better recipe.

Cilantro Lime Black Bean Burgers, serves 4

  • 29 oz can low-sodium black beans
  • juice and zest from 1 lime
  • 1 Tbsp minced cilantro
  • 1 Tbsp chia seeds
  • 3 heaping Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp evoo
  1. In a large bowl, mash beans with a fork.  You don’t want to eliminate all of the whole beans (the texture will be better if you don’t!), just get things “mushy” enough that patties can be formed.
  2. Stir lime juice and zest, cilantro, chia seeds, and flour into beans.  Form bean mixture into 8 patties.
  3. Heat evoo in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Working in batches, cook bean burgers for two minutes on each side.

I served our burgers on big, fluffy buns, with a slice of tomato and pepperjack cheese.

And tomorrow I’m going to try something really fun with the leftovers!

Have you read any of Augusten Burroughs’ work?