Hot Bar Makes the World Go ‘Round

Today was Study Saturday, sort of.  We were up waaaaaaay too late last night, and it shifted the whole day back.  At this point I am at least all caught up and ready to begin studying for my two tests next week.

We puttered around the house a bit in the morning and I made myself a Pumpkin Pie Through a Straw.

We didn’t have a lot of pumpkin leftover so I ended up having to add some ice for filler, which made it less tasty than usual but still pretty fricking tasty!

Around 11 we packed up our stuff and headed to Wegmans cafe for a study session.  Between our hot bar obsession and the fact the booths are perfect study session size, Wegmans is the perfect spot.  And we were jazzed to see that they had Halloween decorations up and employees dressed in costume!

Not gonna lie, lunch was still the most exciting part.

I got a random mish-mash of little bites.  Steamed broccoli and brussels sprouts,

wok seared veggies, bbq tofu, and sesame chicken and shrimp.

Full-bellied, we got a lot of studying done.  Except for the two hours we wasted on an intense conversation about the social construct of gender roles/child care/alimony.  <– dorks!

We got our weekly grocery trip in before we came home.  I had to spend a certain amount of $ in the bulk bins to use a coupon so I filled a baggie with assorted chocolates.

And downed them the minute we walked in the house 🙂  Think chocolate covered peanuts, pretzels, sponge candy…

On the agenda for tonight is a tasty, saucy (<–puns) dinner that’s my entry into a certain fun contest…..

Rye Sense of Humor

This is a late lunch post because I ate a late lunch – my oatmeal held me over until 3pm!

I had forgotten to take my planned leftovers down from the freezer, so I settled on a nice sandwich plate instead.

That’s a slice of toasted rye, topped with Miracle Whip and pickle relish, stacked with 3 thin slices of turkey and 2 slices of 2% colby cheese, stuck under the broiler for 5minutes.

I kept it open-faced because I want to really taste the cheese and not just a bunch of bread.  I will say though, I definitely enjoyed having the rye (with carraway seeds!).  When I was growing we always had rye in the fridge; I never even tasted white bread until I was in college!  Maybe that’s why I have such a wry sense of humor….. 😀

Some baby carrots on the side for crunch.

This was the perfect one-handed meal to eat while I worked on my laptop.  I crunched and munched my way through part of a group project.

The plan tonight is an easy dinner, a fun dessert, and hopefully switching out our winter and summer wardrobes.  Oh, and some more school work!

What kind of bread was in your childhood fridge?

An In and Out Post

Can I do 100 words or less?

We had a late dinner party to attend yesterday so I did some random snacking to tide me over until 9pm.

Two of our Russian friends provided a traditional ethnic feast.  My plate included potatoes with mushrooms, salad, and bellinis with caviar (omg, the caviar!).

The table also had liver and onions and tongue!!!

We didn’t get home until after 2am – I was the only non-drinker in the room – and even abstaining from alcohol couldn’t keep me feeling peppy today.  Let’s sum Sunday up with more random snacking.

Also picture and unphotographed glass of chocolate milk and several extra handfuls of peanuts.

Word Count – 111

Tough Transitions

I did not get enough done today (don’t I say that every day?!?!) so I’ll keep this post simple.  I did accomplish a walk to the farmer’s market/co-op for some local goodies.

And a trip to Wegman’s to complete the groceries.  We had a hot bar coupon so the husband and I got lunch.

Can you guess which side of that container is mine?

I filled up on an assortment of veggies,

with sesame tofu and chicken.

Not even an hour after eating I felt empty.  The feeling was so bad I ended up walking to get a (ginormous) slice of bbq chicken pizza.

Post-pizza I had a Double Fudge Brownie mini ice-cream.

And then I was FULL.  I ate my 2nd lunch around 3:00 but I ended up calling it dinner because I haven’t gotten hungry again!

I am finding the transition back to school to be much harder than I expected; and I didn’t think it would be easy!  I think part of the issue is that I didn’t just quit my job and go to school, but rather worker bee –> unemployed –> student.  Do you have any advice to help me become a student again????

Gourmand on the Go

I left the house more than 20 hours ago, good golly it’s been a full day!  Another clue that things were busy – 1o0% of my food was eaten on the go today.  I would say I’m definitely mastering the art of eating healthy on the fly.

This morning’s breakfast contained some pretty snazzy components –

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a chocolate Oikos, 3 dried figs, 1/4 cup of homemade granola, and a plucot.  Things got less fancy in a hurry when I had to load those guys into a to-go cup –

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Still delicious though.

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I didn’t have time to finish before my first class started so I had to throw out some of my stellar combo, but breakfast on the go is a work in progress.

Lunch was identical to the other day; Whole Grain Sandwich Thin, Laughing Cow Queso Fresco and Chipotle cheese wedge, and three slices of turkey.

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I hate to be repetitive but I see many more of this exact sandwich in my future; it’s just so good!  I thought I was going to hate the Arnold’s Sandwich Thins (I got them as a free sample from the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program), but they are actually exquisitely doughy.  They remind me a lot of when I was a kid and a I would mush a piece of bread up into a single, delicious square.

I did mix up my side though, a sliced cuc.

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Classes were pretty intense; I finally attended my last nutrition lecture and it’s going to be a lot of work.  I’m taking 7 courses this semester (several are 1-credit labs) and I’m already feeling a bit overwhelmed.  As soon as classes were done today I curled up with my planner, binder, and a computer to map out my assignments for the semester.  Todoist was key.

I was stuck at school until 5pm (rain) so I ended up searching the food court for sustenance.  Thank goodness I gave it another chance, I found a build your own salad place.

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Romaine base, 2 servings of roasted veggies, green bell peppers, carrots, red onions, and blue cheese crumbles with a bit of balsamic.  It came topped with a tasty breadstick.

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We were only home a minute or two before we headed back out.  Our dinner plans were Korean night with a group of friends.

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Gleesh our friends are good cooks!  My bowl was sticky rice with carrots, cucumbers, kim chi, garlic paste, nori, and an egg.

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Yum!

Korean night eventually turned into boys’ only poker, and I sat on the couch catching up with the girls until after midnight.

Adam insisted on pizza on the way home (guess which one of use was drinking instead of driving?!) and I wanted to take part in the fun so I had him cut a slice in half for me.

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Tasty bbq chicken pizza, without undoing my day’s worth of healthiness.  I mostly wanted a taste anyways.

It’s another busy day tomorrow, Bedtime, Bedtime, Bedtime!

Have you ever tried Korean food?  What’s your favorite dish?

Second Day Snowballs

There is a reason why health professionals advice against skipping meals.  I didn’t actually chose to go dinnerless last night, it was more a necessity of circumstances, but I paid the price all the same.  That unhealthy act snowballed into a whole day of poor nutrition.

I was starving when I woke up, but Tuesday is my 8am class day and there just wasn’t time for breakfast.  I packed a Cookie Dough Balance Bar instead.

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I have class from 8am – 7:30pm (with some big breaks) most Tuesdays and I wanted to stay on campus to study.  I packed myself a healthy lunch.

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I spread a wedge of Laughing Cow Queso Fresco and Chipotle on a Whole Grain Thin Bun and topped it with three slices of turkey.

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On the side I had a baggie of green bell pepper slices and baby carrots.

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And a small dark chocolate for dessert.

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And that held me over for a good minute and a half.  I sought out sustenance in the food court and came back with, this –

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Yeah.  Clearly if I want to eat healthfully on campus I’ll have to pack my own snacks from home.  I ate 90% and felt like crap, but that was at least less distracting than gnawing hunger.

My evening class snack was also unhealthy, but that was by choice.

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Who could say no to caramel apple frozen coffee?  That’s just unAmerican.

Adam made himself a respectable dinner, but I had yet another coupon that was about to expire so I picked up a Moe’s kids’ meal.

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I’m going to try to turn in early; that’ll be the healthiest thing I’ve done all day!

What’s Up Doc?

Thank you for all your feedback on the giveaway.  I really do appreciate every comment I get here on my little corner of the internet 

While I worked on my to-do list I this morning I also worked my way through a big pile of baby carrots.

I know people say that baby carrots are just trumped up packaging of the big guys but I really do prefer them.  Babies seem much crunchier and sweeter to me.

At lunchtime I turned to the freezer.  We have a pretty tight food budget this year and I try to snatch up frozen meals on sale so I tend to have a random assortment.  Today I grabbed a Lobster Cheese Ravioli from Healthy Choice.

I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the quality. 

The ravioli were delicious, even a little better than the Buitoni variety we tried the other day.  I liked the generous portion of squash as well, my only complaint is that the marinara sauce was too watery.

Actually, I guess my other complaint is that I’m currently starving!  To be fair though, 260calories held me over for a while, it’s not necessarily the meal’s fault that I’m ready to chew off my own arm.  The husband is having hunger pains as well so as soon as I hit publish I’m off on a snack hunt.

Big girl carrots or baby carrots?  Or carats?

P.S. Opinions on the font size?

Distractable Me

The range of activities today mean that I have very few pictures, but considering the late hour it’s just as well.  We did a lot of indulging today too, but since we move on my 1/4 of a century I’m basically declaring it Birthday Week! 😉

Yesterday I had breakfast for lunch, and today I had lunch for breakfast.

I ate the 2nd half of my tasty turkey sandwich,

alongside three carrots.

We ended up not moving at all today, which was great because moving yesterday was even more of a workout than I had thought; I’m so sore!  My legs practically feel like they did after my half marathon, which is I guess is what living on the top floor without an elevator will do to you.  I’m always glad to squeeze in the incidental exercise, and today I was glad to squeeze in more time finishing my paper.

The main reason we switched our plans is that we were off being *movie stars!*  Some of our friends are involved in shooting an orientation video to show to first year medical students and they called this morning to ask us to help out.  Adam and I got to shoot a library love scene

Afterwards we were in a movie frame of mind and we ended up heading to the theatre to watch Despicable Me.  The husband and I split a big tub of popcorn but it was too dark to photograph.  Poor nutrition aside, the movie was a good decision; it was so cute!  We highly recommend it, even to grown ups (although it’s also worth noting that it is a great kid’s movie, it was funny without relying on inappropriate adult humor).

When we got home I made myself a sliced Gala apple with 2tsp of TJ’s Sun Butter.

Dinner got out of whack because of my paper writing, but we did make a trip to DQ for (16oz) Oreo Cheesequake Blizzards.

What can I say, it was another bogo birthday week coupon!  I did manage to control my spoon and only eat half though, the rest is in the freezer waiting for me for another day.

When I did finally finish my work the husband threw me together a quick dinner.

Nobody makes sunny side up eggs like Adam does!  The bread is from a thin sliced loaf of rosemary and olive oil; we tasted a sample on Saturday and it was so good we knew we had to buy it.

Can you keep it to one day or do you celebrate a Birthday Week as well?