I Hate Eggs Almost As Much As I Love Them

by Emily

It’s Friday, Friday, Friday! The completion of my first week back at school means that weekends mean something once again.

Typical Friday lazies be damned though, I banged out a ton of work after class this afternoon. That’s what going to the gym in the morning will do… A classmate and I sat at a coffee shop and studied from 12 until almost 4.

I had to go to Talking Leaves (a local, independent book store) to buy my music textbook, so we sat at the attached cafe and had lunch.

Chicken pesto panini.

This bad boy – I ate 3/4 – wasn’t even the whole sandwich, I shared the other half with Janessa!

Plus a coffee with skim milk.

Adam picked me up and I came home and kept the productivity ball rolling; all of my (many!) assignments for the semester have been entered into Todoist.

Plus I made another gourmet dinner.

Walnut-Breadcrumb Pasta with a Soft Egg, from Cooking Light. We only made two servings so we basically eyeballed all of the measurements, and we used panko breadcrumbs, but other than that we followed the recipe for a change. The end results were worth a little obedience.

The soft eggs were perfectly thick and drippy. They were also a pain in the butt. We had an impossible time getting them peeled, and all I can say is that it’s a good thing we made a few extra! We “buy” (I won a year’s worth of free eggs) Eggland’s Best vegetarian-fed eggs and my mother-in-law says the chicken’s low protein diet is what makes our egg shells so hard to peel.

With two perfect clementines for dessert.

These are just so dang good! (thanks Katie)

Have you found the secret to easy peel eggs? Please share!

26Jan2011

My First Long Day

by Emily

So Wednesdays are a bit insane; I get to campus at 11am and I don’t finish classes until 8:40pm! By the time my final class was done I was feeling very, very tired. Sidenote – that tiredness was not helped by the fact that our music teacher does not allow food or drinks in the classroom…..in a 3hour long class……at dinner time. [end rant]

This morning I made sure to eat an extra filling breakfast to make up for yesterday’s missing dinner.

That’s a serving of plain Siggi’s topped with 2 tsp maple jam, 3 Tbsp chunky peanut butter, and a serving of Special K Red Berries.

Delicious, and the (tons of) peanut butter packed a protein punch that kept me full all morning.

Lunch was less exciting. I packed a minneloa from home,

and bought a southwest chicken flat bread from the book store cafe.

My sandwich was tasty, but my teeth have started hurting and I could only eat half of it. Boo!

I have lots of break time on Wednesdays – 1 hour + 45 minutes + 2 hours – but unfortunately I didn’t make good use of it at all today. I’ll have to chalk up the wasted time to first long day tiredness. Probably from now on I’ll go to the gym in my 2 hour break, but I didn’t want to go all sweaty to my first class session.

When I got home at 9 tonight I was beat. All I could manage for dinner was a hot chocolate and a frozen meal.

Caramel Praline Hot Cocoa,

and a Pumpkin Squash Ravioli Healthy Choice.

P.S. This is disgusting. I ate it because I was exhausted and starving, but they were steamed apples in with the squash chunks and the ravioli were sweet and disgusting.

I’m finishing an episode of The X-Files with Adam, and then bedtime can’t come quickly enough!

When was the latest class you took in college?

25Jan2011

Chew On This

by Emily

So this is going to be my smile for approximately the next year –

That’s actually more of a grimace, but you get the point.

If you are thinking “this is a food blog, I don’t care about your embarrassing mouthware!” then chew on this ~~fun~~ fact- most of the nutritional problems in the elderly are directly related to issues with their teeth. Dietetics definitely recognizes the link between the health of your teeth and your overall health; we had several lectures last semester devoted to dental carries alone. As much as I wish they wouldn’t, my trips to the orthodontist are definitely going to have an impact on the way I eat in the coming months.

I can take the retainers out to eat and brush my teeth, but ideally they need to be in my mouth as many hours a day as possible. This has a couple of scary effects on my diet –

I can no longer be a grazer. In order to maximize my retainers-in-mouth time I need to generally stick to three meals and day and they need to be as short as is realistically possible.
I cannot really eat during my classes. I suppose I technically could, but I don’t plan on taking out my retainers in the middle of a lesson. I’m not really sure how this is going to work, especially with my 6-8:40pm class.

After I was done reliving my teens I spent the morning running random errands. We’ve got quarters for laundry, a new stock of stamps, and my mouth looks like it belongs on someone who gets felt up in the hallway; done and done.

My mouth doesn’t really hurt yet (it will), but the crunchy salad I had planned for lunch was not happening. I ended up walking down the street for a slice of buffalo chicken pizza.

Followed by some nice cold ice-cream.

And I’m glad that lunch was calorically heavy because it ended up also being dinner. I’m not sure whether it’s the after-effects of yesterday’s migraine, all the extra spit I have going, or a combination of both, but the thought of eating dinner was just sickening. I’ll have an extra big breakfast tomorrow!

Suggestions needed! What the heck should I do about eating on campus?

24Jan2011

Minimums and Maximums

by Emily

Minus the fact that I lengthened it by forgetting my lunch until I was a block away, my walk to school actually wasn’t so bad! I was cold, but not oh-my-gosh-I-think-I’d-rather-just-curl-up-in-the-snow-and-die-cold.

My first day of classes went well (this semester is going to be hard!) and p.s. my packed lunch ended up being delicious and satisfying. To top off my good day, I even headed to the gym after class.

1mile in 9minutes 10seconds, followed by a quick .25mile walk cool down.

(This next bit is mostly on here for my records, feel free to skip ahead.) I’m excited to get back to the gym, and I’m even more excited about a fun fitness thing that might be happening the second week of March. I want to make sure that I am (1) ready, as in, in shape and (2) ready, as in, not injured so I made a loose workout plan for the next month. In addition to strength training, the following are my minimum and maximum workout goals for each week.

1/24 – 1/30: run 1 mile; x-train 20-30minutes
1/31 -2/6: run 1.5 miles; x-train 25-35minutes
2/7 – 2/13: run 1.5 miles; x-train 30-40minutes
2/14 – 2/20: run 2 miles; x-train 30-45minutes
2/21 – 2/27: run 2 miles; x-train 30-50minutes
2/28 -3/6: run 2-3 miles; x-train 30-60minutes

With between 4-6 cardio sessions each week, all done on the treadmill and elliptical. Basically I want to get back into shape, but to force myself to move slowly so I don’t mess up my legs again. I can walk as much as I want, but I want to stick to the maximum miles running on any given day.

Anyways. When I got home this evening I was treated to a killer migraine, but I managed to push through and ended up with a banging dinner.

Lemon-Artichoke Risotto, a la Rachael Ray.

This was my first ever attempt at risotto and it ended up being pretty painless. Stir, stir, stir, and you end up with a nice creamy dish.

Add leftovers and a few steps on the side, and you’ve got a great dinner.

Risotto,

leftover bbq chicken from yesterday’s pizza,

and some steamed brocoli.

Also a side of cheese, we watched The Initiation of Sarah while we ate 😉

Have you ever made risotto?

23Jan2011

Like a Saftey

by Emily

Confession – in order to write my clever title I had to Google “football players who tackle.” And I was a cheerleader.

Anyway, that’s what this weekend has been about, tackling my to-do list:

Hooray!

I tackled two weeks worth of laundry (actually, the husband tackled this, but I folded!),

I tackled the pile of outgoing mail,

I tackled my huge stack of unsorted magazine clippings,

I tackled my planner for the semester,

And more! I didn’t work the whole weekend, but I did more in two days than I’ve done in two weeks.

Breakfast this morning had a mix of carbs and protein to fuel me up.

That’s a plan fat-free yogurt with Crofter’s Strawberry Jam stirred in, topped with Kashi H2H and some chunky peanut butter.

So good! Peanut Butter and I have totally resparked our love affair lately.

Around noon I headed out to run some errands at school and replenish our food stores. Wegman’s was terrible this afternoon – the hot bar was barely stocked and the store was packed. Nonetheless, I managed to carve out a booth of calm and spend an hour tackling my NYE resolution to read more.

Eating materials, hot bar Asian style veggies, potatoes, and sweet and sour chicken.

Reading materials, The Food of a Younger Land, Mark Kurlansky.

When I got home from pushing my way through the hoards I snacked on a mini bag of kettle corn and a glass of skim milk.

Dinner involved some prep throughout the day – chicken getting soft and shreddable in the crock pot, red onions caramelizing on the stove – but the end result was beyond worth it –

Bbq chicken pizza with caramelized red onions and gouda!

I topped a store-bought crust with caramelized red onions, shredded chicken tossed with bbq sauce, and gouda, and 10minutes later I had pure, steamy bliss.

Bliss served with a side of roasted asparagus.

It was a pretty heavenly dinner.

Dessert was from the bulk bins; yogurt pretzels, chocolate pretzels, and a piece of local sponge candy.

I’ve got to go shower and get my beauty sleep; school starts tomorrow!

22Jan2011

Snow Filled Saturday

by Emily

Howdy all, happy Saturday! It’s been chilly and busy ’round these parts. I had lots of errands to run, but more on that later (tomorrow). Basically I have today and tomorrow to tackle this monster to-do list –

Before I got started on my errands I grabbed this coconut aloe juice.

So good, the best coconut (or aloe) drink I’ve had yet!

The weather was insane today, whiteout for miles.

It took me forever to get the five miles to the post office, probably because I was only going 10miles an hour! At least the bad weather meant that this adorable snowflake ended up on my steering wheel –

I snacked on a bag of kettle chips when I got home.

And made myself a Peanut Noodle Lean Cuisine for lunch.

This was actually very good, the sauce was mild but nice.

I also snagged a minneola.

And while I was ruthlessly cutting down my magazine clipping I snacked on a 7-Layer bar.

Then came dinner.

A recipe from Everyday with Rachael Ray, Stir-Fried Pasta Primavera (sorry I can’t link to this recipe).

I basically followed Ray’s lead, with a few healthy changes:

I wanted 3 big servings (vs. 4), so added a bit more veggies and used a bit less pasta
subbed parsley for basil
subbed light for heavy cream

The end result was delicious.

I almost never order cream sauces when dining out but lately we’ve been loving them at home.

What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods today?

18Jan2011

Representative, REPRESENTATIVE!

by Emily

Woo-whee, today has been a frustrating day! This morning I lost two hours of my life to customer representatives, two hours I’ll never get back. Can I just say – I hate automated phone systems!

I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store until much later than planned, so most of the day’s eats were random things from my almost bare fridge. 1.5Tbsp of cheese spread with Mary’s Gone Crackers.

A mug of hot cocoa with mini marshmallows.

And the last of the Plain Siggi’s. I introduced Siggi’s to Adam this week and he totally fell in love, I’m so proud!

I drizzled the last serving with honey and a serving of chunky pb.

Divine.

We couldn’t get to the store until after 7pm, so we ended up picking up dinner at Moe’s while we were out.

Chips, queso dip, and a buffalo chicken burrito.

For dessert I munched on the random grab bag of candy I picked up from the bulk bins.

And we watched Futurama while we ate, it was the perfect evening to counteract my annoying morning!

14Jan2011

Some More Than Others

by Emily

Some parts of this afternoon were more successful than others. For example, I did not realize that the gym was already closed for MLK weekend. And since I wasn’t gyming it, I had a hard time convincing myself to go to school just for my errands. Tuesday? Seriously though, I know that not working out the last two weeks was a terrible idea, and my goal for the weekend is to jump back into strength-training.

Lunch was neutral, leaning toward successful.