Drunk Puppets

by Emily

Holla! holler, not Spanish for hello; but hello nonetheless

I usually blog before heading to work (since I eat my “dinner” in the afternoon and just come home and go to bed) so the fact that I’m not blogging until now should indicate just how successful this day was. <– not very

Speaking of not successful things, let’s talk about the 4mile run on today’s training plan. It ended up being not a run, not so much, but more of a walk. In fact, it straight up was a walk. My “troublesome” knee felt funky and I planned on running anyways but every running step I took felt like my leg was going to give out. I tried a few jaunts, looking like my puppet-master was drunk, before I finally gave up. My husband is the nicest man ever, so instead he joined me for a 4 mile walk, 1 hour and 13 minutes. Followed by some strength and stretch moves at home. Something is better than nothing, something is better than nothing…

After a quick shower I headed out to my biannual dentist appointment. This venture was more successful, my teeth were pronounced “perfect,” though he noted that wearing retainers is not an excuse to skip flossing! Ironically, once I confirmed that my pearly whites were doing well, all I could think about was coffee!

We headed to the Spot for a small frozen coffee.

The caffeine boost took me from dragging to functional, but it still didn’t give me the energy to make the planned dinner that I keep putting off. The good news is that this procrastination means I can keep procrastinating on grocery shopping. The other good news is that I read an entire new book from start to finish while I should have been cooking.

The bad news was that this plate of baby carrots with blue cheese dressing

and this slice of Swiss cheese

ended up being dinner.

Also a huge bowl of Cinnamon Pecan Special K.

I didn’t have huge hopes for this cereal – Special K is usually good but not great – but I actually really enjoyed it. And I’m crediting it in keeping me full through work in spite of eating nothing but carrots and cereal all day! Can we pretend that since it’s summer vacation I’m not a Dietetics student who should know better?!

21May2011

Pretty Good

by Emily

Hello there; I hope everyone’s having a nice weekend. It’s been a good Saturday around here, I spent lots of time with the husband, I got to take a few walks, and I received some good news I’ll be sharing later.

Our plan this morning was to cash in a Groupon for brunch, so to kill time while the restaurant opened I headed out to the Farmer’s Market and the Co-op.

While I was up on that end of Elmwood I stopped in at Wilson Farms for my new favorite coffee.

Half Jamaican Me Crazy Coffee (regular) and half Jamaican Me Crazy Cappuccino (sweetened).

Adam and I also drove over to the lake to check out the crazy fog.

Spooky!

Then it was time for brunch at Empire Grill.

But apparently brunch is only a Sunday thing, boo. And the bad news didn’t stop there, Adam and I hated our ~~brunch~~ lunch order. I really don’t want the blame the restaurant (the food wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either), we just made really bad order choices for our preferences.

We split a Blue Point Toasted Ale,

the Caribbean Shrimp and Mango Salad with mixed greens, mango viniagrette marinated jumbo shrimp, black bean and pineapple salsa and a mango viniagrette,

and the California Turkey Wrap with coleslaw, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, onions and a chipolte aioli.

I sort of hate raw spinach and I hate wraps so, again, it wasn’t really the restaurant’s fault. Nonetheless, I ended up eating basically nothing for brunch.

Thank goodness for Banana Split Cupcakes!

Amid chowing down on two cupcakes, Adam and I took a trek to the post office and got to enjoy almost 2 miles of walking and talking, win!

Random sidenote (super random when you consider that this isn’t even a new top) – how awesome is it that this shirt has a bustle?!

I had fancy plans for dinner, but when Scrubs reruns are on you never turn down pizza.

Adam and I split another Buffalo chicken slice,

along with a big pile of baby carrots.

Yep, pretty good for a Saturday!

19May2011

Thank You, Friends Up North

by Emily

First things first, the winners of today’s giveaway were Jenny and Monica –

Congrats guys, get me your mailing addresses and I’ll send out your coupons. Everyone else (and Jenny and Monica too, you can enter more than once if you’re feeling extra lucky), don’t forget that another giveaway chance will be posted tomorrow morning.

I feel a little strange writing this post because today felt a little strange. We haven’t been getting enough sleep and I feel like I’ve been walking through a haze. I’ve been insanely hungry and I’m sure it’s tied to my lack of sleep. Though let’s pretend that I’m hungry from my good habits instead of my bad ones, like my workout this morning!

I had 40 minutes of cardio on the agenda so I hopped on the elliptical – level 6 random – for 40 minutes. I worked up quite a sweat, but my pace was super slow and I knew that I wasn’t really pushing myself so I added 25 minutes on the stationary bike. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with the fancy tv-style settings, but I was dripping when I finished so I must have done something right. As I was getting off the bike, I spotted a fun looking game setting that I’m eager to try out next week.

By the time I got home I was hun-ga-re! Enter my newest dream team.

I topped a 1 cup serving of Quaker Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares with a serving of Amande strawberry flavored almond milk yogurt and 2 Tbsp of crunchy peanut butter.

I probably won’t buy this yogurt again, the texture was definitely a little “fake” and I’m not too keen on non-Greek flavored yogurts anyways, but I do highly recommend it for any vegans looking for a yogurt fix. I sent my pb through a spin in the microwave to get it all melty and it became very swoon-worthy.

Unfortunately I didn’t eat “breakfast” until I got home and showered from working out and it was near noon. My insane hunger coupled with the weird meal times meant I ended up grazing all day.

I had a perfect, crunchy pear.

Two onion rolls with Smart Balance Light.

And a packet of cinnamon roll Oat Revolution with brown sugar, a splash of skim milk, and a big handful of raisins.

Around 2 I did stop stuffing my face long enough to get gussied and leave the apartment – it’s time to find a summer job! My long stroll up and down Elmwood (in a suit, with a packet of resumes) wasn’t fruitful yet, but at least it got me back off the couch. I have a couple of prospects I’m feeling hopeful about, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed because the next step will be looking for jobs that aren’t walking distance from the apartment.

Adam picked me up towards the end of my walk home and we split a mini turtle Blizzard.

Then we came home and made a pile. <– watch “Where the Wild Things Are,” you’ll thank me

I was flying solo for dinner so I went simple.

A leftover Reuben Stuffed Turkey Burger,

with a big plate of baby carrots to get in some veggies.

Notes – 1. I added a slice of cheese to that burger right after I snapped the photo. 2. My hand has been sneaking into the tin of cashews all evening but there’s no pictoral evidence. 3. Those burgers are really good!

And with that, I’m off to watch “Missing” on Netflix Instant Watch. I rediscovered it recently and it’s rocking my socks. Is there anything Canadian tv can’t do??! I also loved “Are You Afraid of the Dark?,” “Braceface,” “Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy,” “That’s So Wierd,” and “In a Heartbeat.” <– loooove

Did you watch any of those shows back in the day?

9May2011

Buffalo, Take Me To San Fransisco

by Emily

This post is my entry into a contest that will hopefully take me to San Fransisco for the 2011 Foodbuzz Blogger Festival. The Tyson Grilled and Ready Chicken was provided as a free sample via the Foodbuzz Tastemakers’ Program.

I moved to Buffalo after spending two years in the best place on earth. That’s Brooklyn, NYC, if you’re not sure. Before that I was born and raised in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and attended college in Miami, Florida. The places you call “destinations” I call home. What could Buffalo have to offer me?

For one thing, my new home is the birthplace of Buffalo chicken wings.

Which have spawned Buffalo sandwiches, Buffalo shrimp, Buffalo tacos, and most importantly, Buffalo chicken dip.

When I took my first bite of Buffalo chicken dip – supremely spicy and dotted with pockets of creamy cheese – I knew I’d found my new home.

No matter how nice your home may be, it’s ok to have a little wanderlust! When I attended the very first Foodbuzz Blogger Festival in 2009, it was one of the best weekends of my life.

I fell in love, with the bloggers, the city, and the food! I was heartbroken when we had to tighten our purse strings this fall and financial constraints kept me from attending the festival a 2nd year. So that’s why I’m hoping to win a trip to this year’s event.

It’s not just about winning though, not that winning’s ever bad; the winner of the contest will have an opportunity to cook their dish for the crowd at the festival. People don’t think of Buffalo as a foodie hotspot (I know I sure didn’t!), but I’m proud of my town. I want the opportunity to share my city’s namesake flavor.

Buffalo Wing Baked Pasta, serves 8

22 oz bag Tyson Grilled and Ready Chicken Breast Strips
14.5 oz whole wheat rotini pasta
1/2 cup plus 1 cup medium heat Buffalo wing sauce (I recommend Anchor Bar’s!)
16 oz Neufchatel cheese (1/3 less fat cream cheese), softened
1/2 cup reduced fat blue cheese dressing
10 cups fresh spinach
1 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese

Cook pasta al dente according to box directions. Drain finished pasta and return it to the pot (remove from heat when pasta is finished). Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Farenheit.
Heat frozen chicken strips in a nonstick skillet on medium heat for 3 – 5 minutes or until warm. Add 1/2 cup Buffalo wing sauce to chicken and continue to cook for one minute.
Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Combine cream cheese, blue cheese dressing, and remaining 1 cup Buffalo wing sauce in the pan. Heat until melted, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes.
Pour sauce over pasta. Add chicken and spinach to the pot and stir well to combine.
Spread pasta mixture into a greased 9×13 inch casserole dish. Top evenly with cheese.
Bake 8 – 11 minutes, until cheese is melted and beginning to brown.

I ate my serving with carrots and celery, because that’s how we serve Buffalo chicken dip.

What dish is your town famous for?

7May2011

Are My Hoisin The Club?!

by Emily

Forget about what Rebecca Black says, Saturday is where it’s at! We didn’t even do anything all that exciting today – studying, grocery shopping, easy dinner – it just was a good day.

Since I’m ridiculous about meals on the weekend I went with lunch – snack – dinner rather than breakfast – lunch – dinner. Besides, lunch for breakfast means you get in more veggies.

Yes, that is Wegman’s hot bar. Yes, I’m aware we have a problem.

Fruits (pineapple, berries, strawberries, watermelon),

Veggies (avocado, squash, mushrooms, carrots, brussels sprouts, broccoli),

and a mini crustless Quiche (with tomato and artichoke heart).

Adam and I split a Zone Perfect Sweet & Salty Trail Mix Bar for dessert.

The kind folks at ZP sent me some samples of their new Sweet and Salty line since they knew how much I adored their Cookie Dough stuff. Adam and I agreed that the bar was good, but not as good as the cookie dough ones. There was a great peanut butter flavor spread throughout it, and the bar lived up to its sweet and salty name. I’m looking forward to trying the other variety.

In addition to being repetitive and crazy, constant hot bar isn’t cheap! Adam has to purchase lots of random snacks and coffees this summer (he’s off for 2 months to study for a major exam and focuses better in public venues) so we need to save our pennies where we can. I tried to do an extra good job of stocking up on groceries this week; I’d rather spend a little more money at the store and save some money not going out for random things throughout the week.

One of my have-snacks-in-the-house-stop-buying-nachos-damn-it purchases was a 10ct box of mini 100-calorie popcorns, and one of those bags ended up being my afternoon snack.

I also grabbed a (sweetened) cappuccino from Wilson Farms.

Looking back at this post, it seems like I had more than enough to eat today, but you know I couldn’t keep my hand out of the cashews while I cooked dinner!

We whipped up a simple stir fry that ended up being delicious.

The inspiration for the dish was the 2 unopened bags of spinach that were starting to go bad, but these guys were the real stars –

Step-by-step, serves 3-4.

Heat 1 Tbsp evoo in a large pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add 10 cups of raw baby spinach.

Cover and cook until wilted.

Add 1 15 oz can baby corn, 1 15 oz can stir fry mushrooms,

5 green onions, sliced, and 2/3 cup salted cashews.

Top with 4 Tbsp Hoisin sauce and continue to cook.

In a small bowl on the side, whisk together 3 large eggs.

Make a hole in the veggie mixture and pour eggs into it.

Cook until starting to slightly scramble then toss to combine. Continue to cook stir-fry until desire doneness is reached.

Delicious.

I topped my bowl with Sriracha,

and Adam added some baked tofu to his.

I stole a few pieces of tofu and they were so tasty I’m planning on making them again soon so I can share the recipe with you guys.

When I’m feeling unsatisfied after dinner a yogurt bowl for dessert is always the answer.

This one centered around a Dannon Light and Fit Caramel yogurt.

I almost never eat fake-sugar yogurts (if I’m not eating Greek I’m buying Stonyfield because it is humanely sourced) but this guy was pretty fantastic. Topped with unsweetened shredded coconut, the last of the butter toffee almonds, and a few butterscotch chips.

Sweet dreams, readers!

6May2011

Seis de Mayo!

by Emily

Okay, okay, so I’m a day late on my May 5th post. Normally I hate to do long-overdue recap posts, but since my new 30 day goal is to post everything, here it is. Quick sidenote – mad props to everyone who engages in drogging (aka drunk blogging); I wanted to share this yesterday but it was just not an option 😉

My classmates I add were touched by serendipity yesterday, when Cinco de Mayo and our last day of classes fell on the same day. After a very long last day of classes (9:25 in the morning to 7 at night) we were able to head out for some much-needed celebration.

First, the morning. Our last day of lab included drawer check out and a final exam. I had a little extra time in the morning to study since I had to skip my workout (boo!), and I think I did pretty well on the exam. I didn’t have it together for breakfast, but I did grab a medium iced coffee with skim milk from Starbucks.

And it was so good I forgot to take a picture until I was down to my last sips; clearly I needed coffee!

Our last lab let out pretty early, and we were left with a six-hour break before our final evening class. No problem, I took my friend Rachel on a mini tour of Elmwood! We ambled down the street from school, stopping to visit a friend at work and hit up the Spot for a study session. I grabbed some brown rice veggie sushi from the co-op for lunch.

And actually stopped at the co-op on the way back to school for dinner as well.

During my night class I noshed on Thai cucumber and peanut salad,

and some vegan pasta salad.

Suddenly we were taking our last quiz of the semester, packing up, and we were done with our first year of school!!! I mean, there are finals next week, but still exciting.

Cinco de Mayo plans were supposed to include a holiday appropriate trip to Cozumel Bar, but a $10 cover later we ended up at JP Bullfeathers.

That was a Jack and ginger ale, but it tasted more like dirty water. Weak drinks aside, JP Bullfeathers ended up being a perfect spot for our end of school celebration; not too packed for good conversation, but busy enough to still be fun.

We ended up sitting at a table and ordering some food as well.

My friend Janessa and I split the turkey and gorgonzola pannini,

which was delicious. Turkey sandwiches seem to be my go-to restaurant order.

And how to do go out on Cinco de Mayo without margaritas?!

What’s the Spanish word for sloshed? Let’s just say I’m glad I could walk less than a minute and be home!

I did stay up to share some dessert, of course.

That’s a caramelized macadamia nut and chocolate mousse tart that Adam brought home.

Now on to today. In true college-girl fashion, I managed to stay in bed well past 1pm!! It helps to have the bladder of a camel and a four-day break before finals begin. 🙂

Adam and made the executive decision that we needed a day together, so we took down a full season of Scrub’s recaps and an entire pizza.

That’s a bruschetta pizza topped with extra green olives, the best pizza topper ever.

The ~~half a~~ pizza pretty much covered all my food groups (what?! dairy, grains, veggies…) but I did sneak in one more veggie with a slice of carrot cake from the co-op.

A few facts – Carrot cake does to count as a veggie. I think I need to be done with the co-op for a few days. It was a glorious day with my husband.

Did you do anything to celebrate Cinco de Mayo? What are you looking forward to this weekend?

1May2011

May Day

by Emily

Welcome, May! You haven’t quite warmed up to us yet, but you allowed me a glorious run around Delaware Park with the husband, so I think I’m going to like you.

The half marathon plan called for 4 miles this morning, so we set out through our neighborhood for a loop around the park and back. Runs like this are when I’d kill for a Garmin; MapMyRun isn’t 100% accurate when you’re not going in a straight line. To the best of my knowledge, we ran 4 miles, in 48 minutes. That’s crazy slow, but I ran the entire time so I’m feeling proud of myself! We finished with a short walk around the ‘hood to bring our workout to 1 hour.

Then I came home and got into bed. The run didn’t really tire me out (my legs feel great!), but we’ve been staying up way too late watching “Scrubs” lately. Running knocks my hunger back anyways, so I gladly showered and fell into bed without breakfast.

When I was done with the Sleeping Beauty routine I made myself a glass of hazelnut cocoa,

and some baby carrots.

And we just finished a Southern feast of a dinner –

Cheddar and Scallion Corn Bread from Fitness Magazine,

Sloppy Maple-BBQ Turkey Joes from Everyday with Rachael Ray,

and some steamed spinach.

I ate my spinach in the ‘joe juice and it was so good! I definitely took an extra large serving of everything. A great meal all around.

We ate the early dinner because we are headed to Shea’s Theatre to take in a show. I am beyond excited! My parents bought us tickets for Easter and we are seeing one of my favorites.

For funsies, see if you can guess the show from my hints –

Any ideas? I’ll be back tomorrow with a recap!

29Apr2011

A Random Assortment

by Emily

Spring had sprung. Spring sprang so hard that it wore itself out and had to go lie down.

Let’s pretend we’re chatting face-to-face, this is the expression I make when discussing Buffalo’s descent back to 50* weather –

At least it’s not hot?!

Today was actually a busy day (hence the late recap post); I attended an event this evening and helped set up a bit as well. Since a friend was coming home with me between class and the event, I needed to get in my workout before class. <– not a good day to oversleep. Sometimes when you try to live a healthy life (especially when you make the unhealthy choice to stay up too late at night) you’ve got to weigh your options. For me today, workout > breakfast.

I had a great gym session and I’m glad I squeezed it in! My right knee was feeling a little funny so I lowered the resistance and upped my time – elliptical level 6 random, 40minutes. Followed by a quick strength/stretch session.

When I got to campus for class – after I walked home, showered, walked back – I grabbed a Red Velvet Latte for breakfast.

Skim milk, half syrup, fully delicious!

After class I went to the health center to get my PPD read and learn the shocking news that I don’t have TB. <– I was holding my breath. I celebrated my health with a new yogurt find for lunch, Athenos 0% Greek with strawberry.

I love the idea of jam-on-the-side Greek yogurts, but this wasn’t my favorite. Actually, it was super sour and unappetizing, and I threw it out after a few bites. I’m glad I also packed a clementine which got the taste out of my mouth.

P.S. I brought in the last of the ‘Smores Cupcakes to share and they got rave reviews.

I volunteered an hour helping to set up the event – the Nutrition Club arranged for a few local dietitians to come in and speak to us tonight – and then Rachel and I headed back to my apartment to watch Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Shonda Rhimes’ saptastic tv is so much better when you have another girl to sniffle with!

I’m obsessed with taking people to Wegman’s hot bar, so we headed there at 5.