Tag Archives: carrots

What’s Up Doc?

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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

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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?

Fake It ‘Till You Make It

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This morning wasn’t a particularly good morning.  My alarm didn’t go off and I stubbed my toe.  But it felt like a good morning, because I said it had to be.  If you tell yourself you’re in a good mood and put a smile on your face, pretty soon you’ll actually feel like smiling.

I wanted to get my incidental exercise on today (2.5mile walk home) so I had the husband drop me off at school this morning.  When he gives me a ride it also means I’m at school 1.5hours early so I brought breakfast to eat on campus.  I think I redefined the word breakfast today though 🙂

Blueberries with a drizzle of honey and unsweetened shredded coconut.

A sliced red bell pepper with a serving of beet humus.

And some apricots from Peeled Snacks.

The apricots were supposed to be a snack for later but I was sooooo hungry.  I don’t know why my morning hunger has been so substantial recently.

Class went well today; fyi – I’ve scored a 90-100% on every one of the daily quizes thus far!  Not so exciting was the fact that our Monday test was moved up to tomorrow.  I only got a B+ on the last exam and I was looking forward to having the weekend to study.

I stopped at the Spot on Elmwood during the walk home and squeezed in some studying then.  I also managed to find some tasty vegan options for lunch.  Carrot and ginger soup,

and a (dry) sundried tomato bagel.

Lunch ended up being really, really good.  The soup was spicy and sweet and had huge tasty chunks of carrot.

Once I finished the walk home I got dinner in the crock-pot (we can’t eat until almost 8!) and now I’ve got to get started on some cleaning.  And find time to study for tomorrow.  But I’m doing it with a smile.

Does the ‘fake it ’till you make it’ philosophy work for you?

We’ll Call This a Whine-cap

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It’s been a strange couple of days around these parts.  My hunger has been really weird and I was in a random bad mood all day yesterday.  I’m sorry for not posting yesterday.  One thing’s for sure, I did NOT spend all of last night finishing the final season of “Buffy” with the husband instead of studying for my sociology exam.  Definitely did not.

We went to see “Killers” (ugh, waste of $) Sunday afternoon so I ate lunch via movie snacks – a big baggie of baby carrots and 2servings of spice drops.

I also ate this Himalayan mint – raw honey, unsweetened chocolate, peppermint oil – en route to the theatre.

When we were home, watching not watching Buffy, the craving for popcorn finally hit so we hiked over to Walgreeens to get a bag.

We also split a sherbet melon.

I was really excited about this new fruit but I think we let it get too ripe because it ended up basically being a mushy cantelope.

Dinner was another frozen meal from the Tandoor Chef line, Channa Masala –

While not as delicious as the veggie pad thai it was still ridiculously tasty, and the nutritional stats were a bit better.

I ate the whole box, or 2 servings.

This morning my move did improve drastically when the husband cracked open a young Thai coconut for me.

I drank some straight from the source but the rest of the water and flesh I blended with ice cubes and cinnamon-sugar for a fabulous smoothie.

Did you know young Thai coconuts only have ~200calories?  I finally looked it up, but I’d been assuming that the number was much higher.

I also ate a Thai Peanut Primal Strip in the car.

It was ok, but I prefered the flavor of the bbq.

The husband dropped me off at school today and took the car to the lab.  The benefit of that is twofold; 1. I had more time to cram study for my sociology exam, and 2. I got the incidental exercise of the 2.5mile walk home.

I was all set up to study in the food court when my stomach starting growling howling.  My smoothie and Primal Strip added up to ~300calories which isn’t a huge breakfast but is definitely able to hold me over on many a day.  Well not this day.  I seriously got panicked when it looked like I wouldn’t find a snack and I almost ate my packed lunch!  Thankfully I spotted a humus/pretzel pack at the coffee shop.

After scarfing the snack pack (and drinking an entire Sigg’s worth of water) I finally felt full enough to tackle my book.

I ended up being really confident about the information but the test only went alright because the questions were worded really poorly.  I feel like as a teacher for two years I’m qualified to comment on that and seriously, the test sucked.  Still, I got the best grade in the class, by a lot.  For reals kids?  I could also school you in how Buffy ended!

I stopped midway during my 2.5mile walk home to sit at a coffee shop and study for a few hours.  Since I knew the vegan pickings would be slim I packed my own lunch, a Kona Moka Pro Bar.

The flavor (a little touch of sweet) and texture (a lot like a Lara/Kind bar hybrid) were definitely impressive and it was pretty filling.  At 360calories this was more of a meal replacement than snack bar.

When I got home (after finishing my walk) I snacked on 2servings of yellow tortilla chips with 4T of chunky salsa.

Now I’m doing some organizing and waiting for the husband to get home and help me chop dinner.

Wow.  That was an insanely whiney post!  Any Monday complaints you’d like to whine about?

Sex in the City, PeeYoo

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Adam texted me just in time today to let me know he had to stay at the lab late so I did a quick turn-around and headed to the gym.  I did the elliptical for 20minutes, on random, level 6, then had a quick stretch before hopping in the shower and heading to pick him up.

Our fun activity was a movie date to see “Sex in the City 2,” so even though I was in a rush you know I took the opportunity to throw on a big necklace and headband!

If you’re wondering why that smile is more of a grimace, it might have something to do with this –

Dinner was consumed via movie snacks.

Baby carrots,

an entire cucumber, sliced, with salt,

2 servings of spice drops,

and I also split a small popcorn with the husband.

Perhaps not chock-full of nutrients but it was a lot of fun to eat.  I didn’t think the movie was quite as enjoyable though 😦  The fashion wasn’t as fun (harem pants, really?!?) and the Muslim traditions “humor” was forced and awkward.  I enjoyed the specific storylines about each couple but on a whole it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Did you see S&TC2 yet?  What’d you think?

A Day of Firsts

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In case you missed it, June is Vegan Month.  And what better way to start off the month than with a Green Monster?

This bad boy had 1 frozen banana and 1 cup frozen spinach blended with 1 cup of calcium + vitamin d oj.

Green Monsters were my favorite discovery during my two-week vegan stint in February, and I think they are going to be instrumental in getting me through this month.

Today was also the first day of summer school.  I have an online nutrition class in July, but in June I have to be on campus from 10:30 – 12:40 M-F for Sociology.  Here we are looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed –

And then during one of my five trips to pee before class started I snapped a picture of me looking nervous.

And right I was to be nervous, this is going to be a hard month!  My professor is funny but his lecture voice is really hard to understand and the syllabus is totally unclear.  I hate when teachers want to be all loosey-goosey with the due dates; tell me what I need to read for what dates!  Plus we are not allowed to have any food or drinks in the classroom?!

I had some business to take care of on campus and by the time I got home it was after 2 and I was starving.  I grabbed the first thing I could to tide myself over.

3oz of baby carrots,

and 1oz of yellow tortilla chips.

I was so hungry I was actually getting light-headed and nauseous.  Once I calmed down a bit I made myself a frozen meal as well, Tandoor Chef Vegetable Pad Thai.

The nutritional stats on this are pretty good,

and it is delicious!

It tastes just like tasty, authentic Thai food from a restaurant.  The pasta is the right texture and it is perfectly seasoned.  Plus there are pieces of spongey fried tofu that I adore.  I give this two thumbs up and highly recommend you try it, vegan or not.

I’m actually still feeling pretty sick so I’m going to set the alarm and see if I can take a quick nap.  I have to pick up the husband from the lab later and of course I’ve got some reading to do.

What is your favorite type of frozen meals?

Hitting the Dessert

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Thanks for all the support on my weight gain post, you guys are the best!  However, not one of you commented on the Cartman tie-in, apparently your senses of humor are a little more mature than mine?

Since today was my last day of volunteering I made full use of my lunch voucher and got a slice of the awesome cafeteria pizza.

I rounded it out with veggies at home.

Kale chips,

and part of a red bell pepper and baby carrots,

dipped into some homemade 1000island dressing (1T miracle whip, 1T ketchup, 2T pickle relish).

It ended up being quite the good lunch.

And a serving of Theo Bread and Chocolate bar for dessert.

I also had a bag of Pretzel M&Ms while I worked on my recipe binder.

Once the husband got home at 7 I got dinner in the oven before heading to the gym.  Note – I did some snacking while I cooked (1handful of chips, 1/2handful of cheese, and 2spoonfuls of filling).

If I’ve said it once I’ll say it a million times (sorry!) being able to move again feels great!  I will never take fitness for granted again.  I had a few twinges in my leg today so I did keep it easy though.  25minutes on the elliptical at level 5.  Followed by 10minutes of arms/abs/stretching when I got home.

By the time I got out of the shower dinner was looking pretty darn tasty.

The recipe comes from Everyday with Rachael Ray, Chicken Salsa Verde Bake.  It is definitely NOT terribly healthy, but it’s the last thing I’ll cook before Vegan Month so I went all out for the husband.  You can click the link (recipe name) for the recipe but here were my changes –

  • I boiled the chicken instead of pan cooking it
  • I used 1.5lbs of meat and subbed in a 15oz can of black beans to fill in the rest of the protein
  • I used low-sodium beans
  • I subbed in shalots for the onion
  • I used low-fat sour cream

It’s calorie-dense, but very filling and delicious.  A good mix of creamy yet crunchy and tangy and spicy yet creamy.

I ate half a red pear alongside my portion.

Dinner = done.

Hope everyone else is having a *sweet* start to their week!

What is your favorite South Park episode?