Tag Archives: carrots

“Leftovers”

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Did everyone have a fantastmic Turkey Day weekend?  (I did!)  We had a great last 1/2 day in Miami, including brunch with one of my best college friends, but got back into town late enough and with enough to do that I knew I was better off not blogging.

I didn’t have it together to pack food this morning but, though I got a little cranky around 1:00, I managed to make it through the school day without food.  Fueled or not, I am so proud of myself for making it to the gym during the break before my last class.  35 minutes, level 6 random, on the elliptical.

I had an after-school errand that made me have to wait longer to eat, but I was ok with it.  I was off to see a boy.

Love him.  And I was so proud, when I went to the vet to pick him up they told me that he was perfectly behaved and everyone was going to miss him.  I took him on a quick walk when we got home and he hadn’t forgotten any of his training during our five-day absence.

He’s a genius.

He’s also shedding like a mad man.  When Adam got home we went out for a lint brush to remedy the winter coat/dog fur situation and also dealt with the food issue.

It’s worth not eating all day to get Wegman’s hot bar for late lunch.  I got a heathy mix of fruits,

and veggies.

Delicious.  I haven’t made brussels sprouts at home in ages but they are always my favorite thing on the buffet line.

Dinner was a winner as well.

Who says you need Thanksgiving leftovers to have a day-after-Thanksgiving inspired dinner?  Into our bowls went a serving of pasta, some shredded rotisserie chicken, peas, a bit of parmesan, and a big dollop of cranberry relish.

I made an extra serving too and I’m excited about having this again as leftovers.

I tried to do some drinking with dinner.

But this Angry Orchard Hard Cider was too sour (it tasted almost rotten!) for me and I only managed a few swigs.

What did you make with your Thanksgiving leftovers?

Yay, Buffet!

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It was a good weekend end.  It’s been great having my brother-in-law in town for a quick visit.  I managed to have a good balance of work/schoolwork/and fun today too.

We started our morning with smoothies.

1.5 cups of mango puree, 1.5 Tbsp honey, 1.5 cups frozen peaches, and 1 container of Stonyfield Mango and Honey Low-fat Yogurt; split three ways.

This was the last of the mango puree but I definitely plan on purchasing more soon.

My smoothie made me shiver, so I made a cup of tea to warm up with.

2 bags of red velvet tea steeped in skim milk.  It was tasty, but the dog snuck his snout in halfway through so I had to abandon it.  I moved on to pizza leftovers instead.

Atop notecard making.  Holy crap do I ever still have a lot to do before Wednesday’s exam!

I did take a mid-day study break to go to Brawler’s Deli with the boys for lunch.  Their portion sizes are ridiculous; check out this half of Adam’s sandwich!?!

My meal was healthier, but equally big.

A side salad with a bit of balsamic and spicy mustard on top,

a cup of gouda beer soup,

and Adam’s side of cole slaw.

I ate all of the cole slaw, 3/4 of the salad, and 2/3 of the soup, when the game reached halftime and the Pearl Street Staff set out a huge (free!) buffet.  Score!

I took some fruit, carrots, and spinach and buffalo chicken dips with chips.  All tasty.

After my brother-in-law left, Adam and I spent the afternoon hanging out until I had to go to work.  Dinner had to be simple since my shift started at 6, mac and cheese leftover from last week.

Plus some amazing cookies (recipe’s coming tomorrow) when I got home.

Also plus 2 servings (?!) of Lindt truffles that were eaten on the couch and out of reach of the camera.  Whoops.

It’s going to be a busy week, I’ve got to get to bed!

I’m Sure Immortals Was Great

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It feels good to be back!  It will feel even better to actually have my computer back, but I’ll take what I can get.  I will admit that it’s felt a little freeing not having a computer this past week.  Sure, I still check my e-mail on my phone every 10 minutes, but not being tethered to a seat reminded me of how much the old me hated sitting in one place for hours, even in front of  a computer.  Something to think about.

I spent yesterday cooking and Adam spent the morning cleaning.  I like having company because it makes us pretend to live like adults!  While he worked, I munched on a simple but delicious sandwich.

Half a jalapeno cheddar bialey with 2 slices of Applegate Farms Honey Maple Turkey and a thick schmear of Crofter’s Organic Grape Spread.

I know I say it every time, but the spicy + sweet combo makes my world.

My brother-in-law got into town around noon so we took him to lunch at JP Bullfeathers.  We were sat in the downstairs “wine cellar” area, which was fun.

It was in the 40’s at that point so I relished a warm lunch.

I got a cup of jalapeno corn chowder which I was thrilled to see contained lots of whole kernels of corn.

And an order of garlic bread which I was sad to see was topped with cheese.  Who puts cheese on garlic bread?  I ate three pieces nonetheless.

The lunch as a whole was very heavy and it left me feeling full but not satisfied, if that makes sense.

I had to leave the boys to head in to work.  They went to Blue Monk while I was gone, a trip that required me to have to drive them to the movies later, ahem.  I actually walked from school over to Blue Monk to pick them up on foot first.  It was a nice walk, made even nicer by the purchasing of green juice from O3.

I made my own mix instead of ordering off of the menu, but I believe that what I ended up with was spinach, celery, cucumber, and carrot.

I had no desire to see “Immortals” so I stayed home and did some work.  I knew the dinner plan was pizza so I made sure to eat a nice salad when I got home.

A spinach bed with chopped apple, crumbled blue cheese, groats, and Wegman’s Yogurt Casaer dressing on top.

I’m not sure the salad will make me any less hungry for pizza, but I’m glad I at least got in some produce first.

I also ate a serving of Lindt truffles.

And as soon as I pick up the movie-goers it will be pizza time!  I’m not going to blog again today so the husband can have his computer, but assume I’ll have 1-3 slices of the good stuff.

I will see you all again (phew!) tomorrow.

Health Fair Fare

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Good morning!  I’m especially chipper today because I got a whopping 10 hours of sleep last night.  I always turn into a bit of a bear at the slightest hint of cold but it appears this year my body requires a full-scale hibernation!

Yesterday morning did get off to a good start with a yogurt bowl.  Into the last ~ serving of Wegman’s 0% Greek yogurt I stirred 1 Tbsp chia seeds, 1 Tbsp maple syrup, and 2 Tbsp Silk Plain Almond Milk.

Then I plopped in a big handful of raspberries before the mix had time to resolidify.

And since I used up the last serving I could use the container as my bowl; portable, yo.

Note: I use the word “yo,” unironically, often.  If we’re going to be friends you should know.

We have our Coordinated Program stuff on Thursday which usually means a 4-hours-straight block of class, but yesterday we technically got out a bit early because we were putting on a health fair!  The program was split into two projects this semester – one group is organizing the chili sale (my group) and the other group organized an on-campus health fair – but everyone in the class ultimately participates in both.  I think the Health Fair group did a great job!

The fair was professional and I was especially impressed with all of the non-dietetics students for how interested they were in learning about nutrition.  I was at the “quiz” table (not shown) and it was a ton of fun.

We didn’t really have time for lunch but I did snag a baggie of baby carrots from one of the other tables.

Plus we all hit up the bake sale.

Our pumpkin fudge pops were a hit!  I also ate most of this carrot cake bar my friend Hillary made.

Yum.  We laughed that it wasn’t really dessert, just that I was making sure I got in my orange veggies for the day!

We recently got a recall notice for the husband’s car so I spent my afternoon out at the Toyota dealership.  I did a little bit of studying and made the best meal I could from the vending machines.

I brought Adam home a handful of those pretzels but it was too late, he had already eaten two big servings of leftover African Peanut Stew, aka both of our dinners.  I was pretty tired and I couldn’t get take-out so instead of grumping around all evening I just got into an early bed.

And since clearly getting up at 5am this morning was easier that most, I had time for breakfast at home today.

I mixed a Stonyfield Low-Fat French Vanilla Yogurt with pumpkin pie spice and 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin, then topped with 1/4 cup of All-Bran Bran Buds and 1 Tbsp unsweetened coconut.

This was like mousse with crumb topping … sort of!  I do adore that Bran Bud cereal though.

I’m done with class at 1pm today and I’m hoping to bang out a lot of work for next week’s test.  We are getting back our 2nd test from last week today and considering how bad the 1st one was I bet I’ll be motivated.

Which has more caffeine (no looking it up!) a grande coffee from Starbucks or a Red Bull energy drink?

What I Should Have Known

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Can we talk about my cortisol levels?  Because today was stress-full!  Not in an anything-serious-happening sort of way, more of an I’m-irritated-and-I-feel-my-heart-racing-please-let-me-go-have-a-nap way.

For irritating things #1, you need some background info.  Like “my classes start at 8am every day.”  Or “it takes me 3-5 minutes to drive to campus most days.”  And “the walk from the parking lot to my first class takes 10 minutes no matter how quickly you scurry.”  Got all that?  Because I woke up at 7:47.  Yeah.  I should have known that staying up late with Adam and eating cookies and big bowls of mac n cheese was not going to leave me well rested.  I ended up only being 3 minutes late to class though.  Extrapolate that and think about just how pretty I looked today.

Irritating thing #2 is that we don’t have our tests from last week back.  I’m not irritated with the teacher because I know time-consuming grading can be.  (Though I am irritated with another teacher because we took a test in that class a month ago and still don’t have it back!)  But it is irritating to have to keep obsessing over how I did.  I think one test went really well and the other went really, really poorly so for a multitude of reasons I’d like to have them back and be able to just move on!

Since I clearly didn’t pack any food and I had group meetings during all of our breaks, my first meal of the day was consumed at 3pm.  To keep myself from going crazy I bought a half-sweet pumpkin spice latte on my drive home.

And then I tucked into this –

That’s a leftover serving of mac ‘n cheese with chopped carrots and celery stirred in and Greek yogurt and Sriracha on top.

I went a bit heavy with the Sriracha, I should have known that my mouth would be on fire.  I ended up just stirring everything together.

This killed the cheesiness (favorite flavor 1) but the end product was very spicy and creamy (favorites 2 and 3).  I should have known that it’d be perfect.

Plans for the evening include –

  • school work (hopefully)
  • dinner (for sure)
  • stress reduction (any suggestions?)
  • a workout (please, please, please, Universe, give me the motivation to do this!)

Fun Fact Fridays Monday

Here are some of the things I hope I knew during my test last Friday –

  • Sugar alcohols, which are naturally found in some foods, are produced by reducing the carbonyl group of a sugar to a hydroxyl group.  They are used in gum because they are sweet but do not cause dental carries (cavities) and have less kilocalories than sugar because they are not absorbed as readily.
  • Corn syrup is produced by the hydrolysis (break down) of corn starch.  For high fructose corn syrup, they hydrolyse corn starch then use an isomerase to convert glucose to fructose (the sweetest monosaccharide).
  • professor’s opinion, backed by multiple peer-review studies – HFCS isn’t any worse (or different) than sugar.  The problem is that we are getting too many sweeteners (sugar, HFCS, honey, agave, etc) because they are added to everything.
  • In 2010, the average consumption of sweetened products was 131.9 lb/person/year.  This was an increase from 2009.

Food Bank Blog

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Hello, there!  I think I got a little bit too much sleep last night because I was definitely feeling a bit off today (two beers does not equal a hangover).  Things got a bit dicey this afternoon but now I’m feeling good and ready to tackle some studying for tomorrow’s scary exam.

Getting up my blog post this morning meant I ran out of time to pack food, not a good thing since I drank my dinner.  I grabbed this Pro Bar on my way out the door since I figured it sort of had enough calories to count for lunch and breakfast.

It did not, but more on that in a minute.  I am done with Pro Bars either way though.  For one, holy saturated fat!  I know most of it comes from the healthy nut source but still.  For two, every single flavor I’ve tried has tasted exactly the same.  And they all have chocolate chips in them regardless of if that fits the flavor or not.

We spent our four-hour class working on case studies dealing with pediatric nutrition.  Case studies are always fun, but a little scary too because soon we will have to be doing this stuff with real patients.  My group’s dealt with obesity-related sleep apnea.  The 24 hour recall portion was sooo frustrating; think 10-year-old girl eating 2 breakfast burritos, 2 bologna cheese sandwiches, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, 42 ounces of pop and sweet tea, a coffee (?!) with a 1/4 cup of half and half, and more in the span of a day.

After class I spent two hours volunteering at the campus food bank.  I didn’t know about it until I signed up, but apparently my school has a food bank set up for low-income students who run out of food/money at the end of the semester.  A group of us went to sort donations by food group and expiration date and then make bags with 2-days worth of food for students to come pick up.  The selection was a little frustrating – we made 60 bags but only had 6 cans of fruit – but I am glad to know that BSC does offer a service like that.  Plus it was a lot of fun; I love organizing!

What was not so fun was my lack of planning coming back to bite me mid-afternoon.  We were at the food bank until a little after 2pm.  By 1pm all I had eaten for the past 24 hours was 2 beers and a Pro Bar.  I had a killer migraine and several people mentioned that I was starting to slur my words.  Not fun!

No Take-out ‘Tober was painful today.  On the walk home I swear I was thinking about Pad Thai so hard I could taste it.  But I stuck to my guns, and I ended up eating exactly what I was craving.

I’m Starving And Cranky, Flavor and Protein Packed Pasta Toss, serves 1, all measurements approximate

  • 1 cup cooked pasta
  • 1 cup chopped carrots
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • 3 splashes chicken broth
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 Tbsp chunky peanut butter
  • 1 Tbsp tamari
  • 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 dash Sriracha
  • 1 large egg
  1. In a large skillet, cook veggies in broth until liquid is gone and veggies are adequately softened.
  2. Meanwhile, whisk together peanut butter through Sriracha (microwave to soften if need be).
  3. Add pasta and sesame oil to pan, toss, and cook until crispy and browned.
  4. Pour peanut sauce over veggies and pasta.  Cook 2-3 minutes.
  5. Scramble in egg.

So. Flipping. Good.

Rice noodles would have been an itsy bit better but I used what I had on hand which was this pasta sample from the Healthy Living Summit.

I tried a bite plain and give it two thumbs up.

Two questions –

  1. Does/did your school have a food bank?
  2. Did anyone end up deciding to do No Take-out ‘Tober along with us?!

Cruciferous Cooked In Cider

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This afternoon I decided to forget the fancy coffee for the sake of my wallet and find something to snack on at home instead.  Hello, cookie box!  I went with a buttercream frosted cinnamon pumpkin cookie.

Yum!  The cookie was cakey with great aftertastes of pumpkin and the frosting was thick!  We are loving Cheryl’s especially because they include a nutrition panel on each cookie and don’t contain trans fat.

Thank you for the Halloween gift, in-laws!

I also ate a red plum on our way to store.

We only needed to pick up a few things but I’m glad we went because we ended up finding lots of Monday afternoon deals, including 50% off Justin’s almond butter.

Dinner included hot dogs, baked beans, and apple cider stewed cabbage – the fall fantasy meal!

The baked beans were a vegetarian Wegman’s brand, I had a half cup with 2 chopped Applegate Farms Uncured Turkey Hot Dogs.

The beans were only ok but I think the hot dogs were good, it’s been so long since I’ve had one I can’t really remember them!

Since I was eating my dog via beans I nibbled on a bun with Smart Balance Light while I cooked dinner.

I’m glad I kept these components separate because I had a bite of Adam’s bunned dog and was underwhelmed.

The apple cider stewed cabbage was overwhelmingly fantastic though.  I cooked 1 lb of coleslaw mix (chopped cabbage and carrots) in 2 cups of fresh apple cider until tender.  Then strained off the liquid and sautéed with salt and 4 Tbsp of butter until crispy and almost burnt.

Ah-mazing!  I ate my entire huge pile.  I wasn’t planning on using that much butter but I let what I had out get too hot and it ended up being such a tasty mistake.

It was quite the good dinner.

What’s not good is how much I have to do before my tests.  The plan is to stay up another hour or so, then get up early(ish) to continue to work.  I have a bunch of errands to run tomorrow afternoon and I’d like to be on the review/paper-writing portion of my to-do’s at that point.  Wish me luck!

Fun fact – cruciferous veggies include (among others) horseradish, kale, collard greens, cabbage, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, and mustard seeds!

Goats In The Grass

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So that turtle sundae was about as amazing as an afternoon snack gets.  My finger scooped several more tastes of the coffee caramel throughout the afternoon!

Thankfully I was looking forward to dinner, in large part due to my most recent co-op discoveries.

First, a maple yogurt from Maple Hill Creamery, made with organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

I so wanted to love this.  This was my first time trying any dairy product sourced from 100% grass-fed cows.  To give you some short background info, grass-feed cows provide different nutrient content (via meat and milk) than their “traditionally” fed counterparts.  Eating polyunsaturated fatty acids (such as omega-3 and omega-6) is essential for a healthy diet, but the ratio of those PUFAs is important as well.  The typical Western diet has a greater ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s and does not fall within the healthy range of the 1:1 – 1:4 ratios.  Milk from grass-fed cows provides a healthier 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.  Plus, Maple Hills Creamery is a NY company with great business practices that I’d love to support. 

However, I just didn’t enjoy this!  I want to try MHC again and I definitely want to try 100% grass-fed dairy again, but I just don’t enjoy flavored non-Greek yogurt that much.  The flavor of this was way to sour for me, no sweetness or maple flavor at all.

Once I realized that I couldn’t eat more than a bite of my yogurt – and more than a bite of 50% of my dinner calories – I ended up stealing from Adam’s packed lunches.

I know that doesn’t look very fancy but I promise it was good.  The husband threw chicken breast, carrots, and sweet potatoes into the crock pot and cooked until delicious.  Then topped the final dish with a healthy dose of A-1 Steak Sauce.

I ended up going back after a few bites for a dollop of sour cream to balance out the A-1, but overall I loved this.  The melded flavors of the sweet potato and chicken were amazing.

The second half of dinner was the real winner though.  Cue my new favorite salad.

A romaine base, topped with 1 Tbsp of Catalina dressing, craisins, groats, and goat cheese.

Can we talk about the goat cheese?  This was the co-op purchase that panned out.

A Double Cream Chevre from First Light Farm and Creamery.  A local business with sustainable business practices, and the producers of the best flipping goat cheese I’ve ever eaten!  I was dying eating my salad.

This was so creamy and rich!  Locals – buy some asap!