Tag Archives: cucumber

A Bahn Mi Attempt

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I forgot to charge my camera and had to plug it in this morning while I should have been photographing breakfast.  It was a good time to be camera-less; my foods were predictable (is anyone even remotely surprised that I ate a big bowl of two ingredient ice cream for breakfast?) and my activities were boring.  I will say though – I don’t know what my neighbor did, but the next time the cops block my entire street and make it take 30 minutes for me to repark my car, I just might go on a crime spree of my own.

So it’s no biggie not to blog breakfast and lunch, but missing dinner would have been a crying shame.

I mean that crying part literally, I went a little heavy on the Sriracha in my spicy mayo!

For dinner we had my best attempt at Tofu Bahn Mi.  French bread topped with spicy mayo, baked tofu, carrots, and cucumber.

For the tofu I cut a block of extra-firm into five slices and then pressed.  I marinaded the dry slices overnight in a mix of sugar, rice vinegar, and tamari.  Then today I baked the slices at 425* for 30 minutes.  While the tofu was baking, I cooked the carrots in the leftover marinade.  Then I stirred together Sriracha and mayo, thin sliced some cucumber, and assembled.

We also had roasted asparagus on the side.

If you’re wondering why my asparagus pile looks so small, it’s because the ‘gus is Adam’s favorite veggie and one of his favorite foods.  I.e. he freaked out and took half of what I served myself to put on his plate.  I’m just glad he’s so in love with something green.

Meanwhile, the dog’s in love with my coats.

And I’m in love with the two of them.  And with 2 ingredient ice cream.

Weekend Woot-dates

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Did everyone have a good weekend?  I didn’t get much work done, but the food and fun categories were filled to the brim!  We are starting another take-out reduction challenge and we definitely made the most of purchased meals this weekend 😉

Saturday morning I got up and went for a run!

The gym wasn’t open yet so I did my CT10k workout out in the wild at Delaware Park.  I forgot my watch at home and ended up having to count to 150 in my head as I switched from walking to running intervals.  I’m not sure how accurate I was but it was a great way to keep my thoughts occupied.  All total I did 4 miles in 53 minutes.  The wind was out of control and it ended up being a resistance workout of sorts; it was actually super fun to keep pushing through.

I drank the 2nd half of my G2 during my run.

And then I had a big iced coffee with English toffee syrup and Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk in the car.

In the car because we were heading to Toronto!

Last month I promised Adam all-you-can-eat sushi as a reward for participating in vegan month.  We failed at vegan month (recap post to come), but I figured he still deserved his reward for trying, especially since our fails were mostly due to my fat/laziness and not his lack of committment.  My parents sent us $ for Valentine’s that perfectly covered the cost of our fun international date, so off we went.

Lunch was delicious, way too many bites to even attempt to recap.  Adam and I did a lot of sharing, but the spread below shows everything I at least tasted.  Adam had many, many, other bites that I didn’t photograph.

Yum!  I’m still a little stuffed just thinking about it.  But we did find room for dessert.

Thank goodness, because this was actually the best cup of froyo I’ve ever had.  I thought I was going to die from a happiness overload.

A small serving of tart plain yogurt topped with fruit, sprinkles, and a huuuuuuge pile of popping boba.

I was grinning wider and wider with every bite.

After our drive home and an extreme shopping session at Wegmans, I did end up with room for a late dinner.

On that plate was a buffalo chicken sub with blue cheese and an order of fries.  Devoured.

Sunday has been spent on the couch.  Adam is starting a new project this week, in addition to the general being a med student craziness, and we took full advantage of today’s free hours for cuddling and sci-fi.

I did venture outside for brunch though.  My old friend Katie was back in town for a visit!

That sort of fun calls for a Bloody Mary, extra spicy.

Finding a Sunday brunch spot without a 45 minute wait took some doing, but we ended up having a great meal at Panos.

I got the kid’s meal 1-1-1.  A sunny side up egg, a pancake, and hash browns.  Then I smothered everything in syrup.

Every bite was delicious and I seriously considered licking my plate clean!

During the afternoon I ate a bowl of Malted Heath Bar Toffee Blondie 2-Ingredient Ice Cream.

x2.  That stuff is ridiculous good.

Adam had an evening meeting so I pushed back our dinner plans and ordered Chinese.  Told you I was taking advantage of my last days with take-out!  Once our food gets here we are watching our last ever episode of Stargate: Universe and eating crab rangoons.  Yippee!

Are you a sci-fi tv fan?  Did you watch any of the Stargates?

Nowhere To Dip My Crusts

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I’ve got my eye on a 6 am yoga class so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Adam’s got an early bedtime going tonight.  The chance of me actually making it to 6 am yoga is about 50%, but if I make it I’ll be 100% happy.

This morning’s bowl of oats did not hold me over; I think the banana helps with satiety more than I realize.  My stomach was growling within an hour!  I ended up serving myself a small scoop of leftovers.

Plus a few big bites straight from the container.  And a glass of chocolate milk.

1 cup of skim milk with 2 Tbsp of chocolate syrup, over ice.

When I was a kid I would always serve my milk, chocolate or otherwise, over ice.

I went to school early to get some stuff done in the library.  On my walk, I stopped at Ashker’s for a double espresso.

With milk (cream?) and sugar.

It was so thick.  Ashker’s has not served us wrong yet!

School went well, I had a meeting after class and set up a meeting before class, so if nothing else I was productive.  And I got my copy of the Dietetics Newsletter … with an article by ME in it.

It’s possible I talk about the banana’s jacket (aka peel).

It was super cool to see my name “in print.”  One of the things I want to do with my degree is get freelance jobs writing articles for health and wellness magazines.  Or have my own column some day!

It worked out very well that I left my car on campus, because I ended up having to run a few car-necessary errands on my way home.  While I was out and about I picked up a peanut butter swirl brownie to split with Adam.

My half –

It wasn’t very good.  Boo.  Ever since the Co-op stopped selling that candy bar I was obsessed with I’ve been disappointed with them.

I had a salad of Romaine lettuce, sliced cucumber, and thousand island dressing.

And dinner was pizza.

Buffalo chicken pizza.

And it was so dang good that I went back for a third slice later on!

When I put pizza on the meal plan I forgot that I would have nothing to dip my crusts in.  The horror!  For the next two weeks I’m going without diet soda.  The horror!  As an assignment for school, we had to choose an item that we regularly consume to stop eating for two weeks.  Since part of our career will involve counseling patients who may no longer be able to eat certain foods, our teacher wanted us to experience what it was like to give up a favorite.  I’ll be honest, if I had known what the assignment was beforehand I probably would have picked a different item!

Have you ever stopped eating a certain food?  Why’d you give it up?  How long did you go without / has it been since you’ve had it?

This will be the first time for me, other than our past 2-week to 1-month vegan challenges.  And speaking of which, we are doing another vegan challenge this February.  I’d love to have any of my omnivore readers join us!

Day Of Work

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After two very (very, very, very) lazy days, it was time for a day of work. This Sunday was all about getting things done. I –

  • put away two loads of laundry
  • did some dishes
  • ran some errands
  • organized my school binder
  • made all of my note cards from last week’s notes
  • did a case study for clinical practice
  • made a delicious dinner

Breakfast was worth a thumbs up too.

I stirred a Liberte Coconut Yogurt into a big scoop of 1% large curd cottage cheese, topped with shredded sweetened coconut.

The coconut flavor was nice, but the resulting texture was mind-blowing. Too creamy for words.

In between errands and school work was lunch.

I picked up a grab bag-style to-go container from the Co-op.

A salad of yam, corn, and black beans; cilantro tofu; peanut tofu with lots of broccoli; and a little bit of vegan pasta salad.

We took Webster with us on our walking errands and his little sweater was so becoming!

He’s still not 100% down with snow, and shivers like a total wimp.  I tease him mercilessly, telling him that his ancestors in Germany only used to hunt badgers in a climate-controlled living room.

While we were out I found a new M&M variety – Dark Chocolate Mint!

Delish.  These had just the right level of chill to them.

Sometime between the lunch and dinner hours we had salads.

Romaine with chopped cucumbers and a dressing made of the remains of the yogurt Caesar shaken with evoo and cider vinegar.

Dinner was a real winner.

For 4 servings of creamy, cheesy, buttery, vegetarian yet protein-rich pasta, combine –

  • ~ 4 servings of small shape pasta, cooked
  • ~ 1.5 cups peas
  • 2 pint mushrooms sautéed with chopped green onion and 5 Tbsp butter
  • 4 oz sharp cheddar, shredded
  • 12 oz 0% Plain Fage

So much yum! I didn’t tell the husband that there was plain Greek yogurt (which he thinks he hates) in the pasta and I didn’t hear any complaints. I think pasta with peas and cheese might be our favorite dish.

I’ve got to get back to work; I’m going to hit with week with running start!

Which flavors of M&M’s have you gotten to try?  I think I’ve had them all – regular, peanut, almond, peanut butter, dark chocolate, pretzel, cinnamon, and coconut – the only flavor I missed with strawberry pb which I never found despite hours of searching!

Toasted Is Like Frosted

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I made it over the hump, it’s time to wind down the week.  I know it’s pathetic but I’ve got to admit – three days of actually doing things has left me exhausted!

I did have to hurry, but I managed to leave the house to walk to campus for my two afternoon classes on time.  We learned about Diabetes Mellitus for two hours, and then had the introduction to our class on integrative medicine/nutrition.  My packed lunch was a little weak though.  A mini box of Brown Sugar Quaker Oatmeal Squares (a HLS sample).

And a huge cup of iced coffee with skim milk and English toffee syrup.

Not enough food and too much caffeine made me very shaky and cranky!  Adam picked me up for a quick grocery trip after class and I’m surprised he didn’t strangle me in the frozen aisle.  It’s possible that I stood and stared embarrassingly longingly at the hot bar.

A Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar did the trick when I got home.

This new flavor is an easy cranky killer.

I also had a handful of sliced cucumber.

Cucumber slices with a sprinkle of salt are legit better that potato chips, and I say that as someone who really loves potato chips.

Dinner started with a salad course.

Romaine lettuce with chopped cucumber and yogurt Caesar dressing.

Then more salad and veggie.

Roasted green beans.

And a salad of crock pot chicken, mayo, green grapes, and toasted pecans.

Guys, toasted pecans are ridiculous good.  And I’m telling you that because I told Adam three times during dinner and he hates me.

What’s your go-to ingredient for jazzing up chicken salad?

They Were All The Best

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What was the best thing you ate today?  If you’re a normal person you probably answered that pretty quickly.  But if you’re me, every single thing you ate was “the very best thing you ate today!”  If pressed, I guess I’d say the juice.  But that choice wasn’t easy.

My morning started off perfectly with a 60 minute hot yoga class.  I picked up a 30-day unlimited pass to Evolation Yoga on Groupon and I am so excited to get my yogi on this month.  Minus one child’s pose during the camel pose, I managed to huff and puff my way through the entire hour.

It’s a good thing that working out kills my appetite for a bit, because my day got away from me and food didn’t happen until the afternoon.  The husband was home from a night shift when I got back from yoga and I just couldn’t resist crawling into bed with him and the dog.

At 1:30 my friend Kim came by to pick us up and we set off for the hospital that we’ll be doing our clinical practice at this upcoming semester.  We’re all getting pretty nervous and we wanted to do a walk through to set our minds at ease.  I even put on my working-lady clothes so it would feel more like the real thing.

When we got home, the husband and I headed out to Ashker’s.

<– Fraggle Rock; love it!

He got a perfectly thick espresso and I got a juice!

My mother-in-law had to mail me a gift receipt and she sweetly included some fun $ with it.  As you’ll see, we took full advantage of it.

Ashker’s was great about letting me go off-menu and build my own juice.

Kale + spinach + cucumber + carrot.

So dang good.  Veggie juice might be the only thing on the planet I find more refreshing than diet pop!

Then we got Chinese take-out.  Beef and broccoli for Adam, a ridiculously giant plate of crab rangoon for me.

Holy frick you guys, I love crab rangoon so much.  Too much, in fact; I ate it at least once every other day during the first week of the new year.  Now you know why I wasn’t blogging much then 😉

That plate is special too.

Pink glass, which my mom actually collects, from right here in Buffalo.

Pretty nifty.

But I could have basically eaten off of the floor,

with rangoon it’s all good.

My late afternoon was spent on Pinterest.  I’ve been trolling people’s pages for weeks, it was high time for me to finally create my own account.

I made myself feel so full and disgusting with Chinese food that I thought I’d never be hungry again.  But several hours later we were out running errands and suddenly I was ready to gnaw my own arm off.  I made a 1 oz bag of trail mix and devoured it before I could even think about getting home to my camera.

The mix included sesame sticks, peanuts, and honey roasted sesame seeds.

And when Adam found a $10 pizza deal for any pizza with any toppings, I totally bit.  And totally ate a slice in the car on the ride home!  We had a nice dinner.

Romaine topped with celery, buckwheat groats, and yogurt Cesar dressing.

Pizza (3 slices total) with jalapeños and pineapple.

Totally delicious, thanks for the inspiration, Kath.

The Final Location

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Today we traveled to the final location of our winter vacation.  It’s good to be “home” for good!  The last two days were spent with cold-like symptoms.  Hence the no-blogging, no-working, no-working out, and no-resolutioning.  Well, that’s no entirely true.  I have read a book a day from Kathy Reich’s Temperance Brennan series.  Each one is better than the last, I swear.

Anyway though, today, we were headed to Toronto. The morning got off to a rough start – I am feeling less than 100% still and it’s possible I’m cranky – but by 12 we were on the road. And by 12:30 we were back home getting our passports. But then, we were on the road.

A Big Gulp of Cherry Coke Zero did a lot to raise my spirits.

As did starting another Temperance Brennan book.

And before I knew it, we were there.

Our plan was to head to a neighborhood with froyo and then hunt for a late lunch there.  We weren’t certain what we would find, so we were thrilled to come across a cheap, all-you-can-eat sushi joint.

Just what the doctor ordered!  What?  Adam’s practically a doctor.

Everything was delicious.  I had … A small bowl of green salad.

Cheese wontons split with the husband.

A piece of tomago sushi (egg).

Two rolls split with the husband.  The Rock and Roll white fish, salmon, pepper, masago, cream cheese, tempura, eel sauce.  The Fire Roll crab meat, avocado, cucumber, masago, spicy mayo, tempura, eel sauce.

A Sakura Roll avocado, tempura bits, hot sauce.

Fried tofu split with the husband.

A piece of butterfish sushi.

Some baked eggplant and grilled veggies.

And finally spicy crab, tempura, and california hand rolls.

We got our money’s worth but weren’t too too stuffed; a perfect all-you-can-eat experience.

To clear some stomach room before froyo, we took a short walk down ultra-cool Bloor St.

And then finally it was time for Menchies.

I topped plain tart and hot chocolate yogurts with small amounts of Skor bar, hot fudge, Smarties, and crunchy pb, and large amounts of rainbow sprinkles and popping bobba.

Perfection.

We had an uneventful drive home and now the boys are over for a game of poker.  I’m banished to the office so it’s possible I’ll get a jump on some schoolwork, but it’s doubtful.  It’s looking like our late, big lunch with count for dinner, but if I end up munching on anything I’ll update.  Otherwise, catch you in the am!

STT; Wednesday Afternoon – Thursday Morning

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Wednesday

Yesterday afternoon I made another stop at the gym; woot!  I hopped on the treadmill for 9 sets of 2 minutes running/2 minutes walking.  36 minutes and 3 miles.  I’m going to need to make myself do some strength training soon, but for now I’m taking baby steps.  Plus, my legs got sore enough that I decided to make Thursday a day off.

After a shower, I was heading downtown for a mini-meet up my old school was hosting.  I hate going to things like that by myself; I am seriously the worst with faces.  I love getting to catch up with people but if I’m not with a friend to tell me who people are then it feels more stressful than fun.  Thankfully (ha!) there really was no one I knew there, just a bunch of younger kids.  I met up with one friend from my class and we quickly fled in seach of dinner.

Crystal – a high school friend that I am thrilled is visiting the same time as I – and I headed over to Benny Iguanas, the new location of a sushi place that was very popular back in the day.  I started with a tofu/veggies miso soup.

And got a cucumber-avocado roll for my meal.

The catching up was better than the food, but the meal wasn’t terrible.

Thursday

I started this morning with dessert.

Plus a little of this –

And some of this –

The holiday season just isn’t complete without some “Carebears Nutcracker.”  Though it’s possible that I “borrowed” that DVD from a Blockbusters in Brooklyn 3 years ago!

I also had breakfast.

A 2% Pineapple Chobani with a sliced banana.

And now I’m heading to lunch with my mom, hopefully for more sushi!

How do you feel about high school reunions?