Weekly Wrap-Up; Cheesetastic

This week’s eats were all about the cheese and carbs {see also: several servings of unpictured pizza and popcorn}.  I’m missing many of the day-time meals but I managed to capture every single dinner for a change.

breakfast

Apple and honey french toast for Rosh Hashanah.

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I soaked a slice of Trader Joe’s sourdough in 1 large egg, a splash of milk, vanilla extract, and some cinnamon maple sugar and then cooked it in 3/4 Tbsp butter.  After my toast was frenched, I tossed a chopped Pink Lady apple in the rest of the Tbsp of butter with a little more cinnamon maple sugar.  Then I topped my french toast with my cooked apples and drizzled the whole thing with honey.

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Delish.

Tropical smoothie courtesy of the husband.

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He said Thai young coconut, frozen mango and banana, lime juice, and sweetened condensed milk all went in the blender.

On the weekend we ate eggs as a family.

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For two, I scrambled together 4 large eggs with salt, pepper, 1 slice of 2% provolone, and a big scoop of 2% cottage cheese.

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Cottage cheese is my favorite scrambled egg addition; normally it tastes very sweet to me but in eggs it is so cheesy!

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Plus toast with Strawberry Crofter’s on the side.

lunch

Leftover mac and cheese that I attempted to stir-fry.

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I reheated the mac in canola oil with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and Sriracha and then scrambled in an egg.  I’m not sure this dish really worked.

This next one looks like a “snack” picture, but I did in fact drink giant coffees for lunch two days this week.  I had several errands that ended up running long.

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The one pictured was a clover-brew of their Hawaiian blend, which was fantastic.  And yesterday I cashed in a drink freebie so I went big – venti non-fat iced latte with an extra shot of espresso and 2 shots of salted caramel(!!).

snack

Microwave mug cookie.

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Number 2 Pencil is basically a single-serve cookie genius.

Milk drink.

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This was a China Town find.  ‘Twas very thick and sweet.

ZICO latte.

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This flavor might even be better than their chocolate coconut water.

Sourdough with Smart Balance Light.

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If I’m eating bread with butter (versus jam) I almost never toast it, for some reason I prefer my buttered bread raw.

Froyo.

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Another snack that was on repeat this week.

dinner

You already saw our vegan mac and cheese.

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Served with roasted green bean fries for our green.

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We ate our fries right off of the baking sheet, like animals.  We don’t have a dishwasher and plates are annoying to wash, damn it.

Salad and casserole night.

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Adam said that my Cheesy Eggplant Bake is my best recipe, and that’s really saying something because I even cut back on the cheese this time.

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Served with side salads.

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Romaine lettuce blend, hemp hearts, cucumber, TJ’s peanut dressing, and Iberico cheese.

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The dressing did NOT go with the rest of the salad but it was all we had.

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The cheese was from this TJ’s pack that fancied up our whole week.

Kale nachos.

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A kale chip base topped with broccoli, roasted corn, and melted cheese.

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This was one of my better ideas.

Pizza on a quesadilla.

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Inspired by Jenna’s idea, but particularly this comment.

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I made quesadillas with flour tortillas and TJ’s reduced-fat Mexican cheese blend.  Then topped them with Tj’s fat-free refried beans, ground turkey (99% fat-free, cooked with taco seasoning), sliced orange bell pepper, and manchego cheese.

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With roasted kale on the side.

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I told you this was a cheesy week!

fun

We put up a photo wall.

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An assortment of pictures from college (round 1) to now, “framed” with washi tape.

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It may not be perfect, but we love it.  And it was so nice to add a pop of color to our drab living room.

We saw a racoon in our parking lot.

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This may be the first little bandit I’ve actually seen in person, which is funny because I’m completely obsessed with them.

We went on a three-hour bike ride in Central Park.

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Bike riding in the park may just be my favorite activity.  I’ve chosen it for my birthday several times now.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Weekly Wrap-Up; My Apartment Is Packed But I’m Still Here

I know this is a short “week,” but my laptop has been out sick since last Friday and I’m excited to have her back.

The days since I last posted have been crazy; moving requires a lot of work!  And since we had to pack up so early I’ve been living out of a duffle bag in my own apartment.  The food situation has been pretty ridiculous.  Also, I said a lot of goodbyes this week and they all involved alcohol.  The dog has been judging me.

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Breakfasts

Cinnamon Pecan Special K with skim milk.

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I’m glad that cereal is so tasty, because it was one of the only foods left in the house.

The day I tried to go without cereal (and use up some odds and ends) I ended up with…  skim milk, ~2 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk, and malted milk powder.

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It wasn’t bad, but I won’t be making it a regular breakfast either.

(Non-alcoholic) Drinks

Not so good, was the Honeysuckle Pear Drink Chia.

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The flavor combo had such potential, but I would not have purchased it if I had noticed that it contained stevia and monk fruit extract.  You know what is already sweet?  Honeysuckle and pear juice.  Why not just leave the ingredients at that rather than adding (the terrible flavor of) sugar-free sweeteners?

Very good, was the Honest Fizz Orange Pop.

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I realize there is stevia in this one that I’m not complaining about, but this was delicious.  The flavor was a perfect match to Crush Orange Soda, just a tiny bit less sicky-sweet.  I will definitely look for it again.

Flipping amazing, was the Cucumber Melon Polar Seltzer.

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If you see this – buy it!  It smelled so much like a watermelon!  My co-worker tasted it and we both agreed that it was the best seltzer we’d ever had.

Lunches and Dinners

Like I said, pickings were slim, so dinner was either brinner – aka breakfast for dinner –  or food from a restaurant.

The last slice of Finish the Fridge Frittata with a white nectarine.

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I was loving nectarines earlier this summer but lately I haven’t had much luck getting one that isn’t squishy.

The best “yogurt” bowl I’ve ever made.  Frozen blackberries microwaved with a little sugar on the bottom, Chobani 2% Banana Greek Yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese in the middle, and granola on top.

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I was heartbroken when I realized I couldn’t make another one of these bowls until after we finish moving.

On Monday, a friend and I drove up to visit to friends who relocated to Rochester after graduation.  We had a really nice day, including lunch at Aladdin’s.

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My spread was the vegetarian combo.  I chose Dolmades, Babaganoush, and Spanikopita.

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The food was amazing and we got to sit right along the canal, so the view was too.

On Tuesday, my sweet coworkers took me out for an early goodbye dinner.  We started the evening at Cantina Loco.  I didn’t really enjoy my first experience at Cantina Loco but I am very glad that my coworker knew enough to drag me back.  Everything was delicious, especially the pitchers of margaritas.

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And the Nachos Locos.

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They were covered in pork but I was a trooper and picked it off because the nachos were just that good.

For dinner I ordered the California Fish Taco – Crisp Fried Fish, Cabbage Slaw,
Pickled Onion, Spicy Sauce.

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Delicious!

We went to Founding Fathers afterwards and I am kicking myself for not going sooner.  Great bartender, great drinks, and apparently great free popcorn that I somehow didn’t notice.  Among other things, we had a shot that was basically a liquified snickerdoodle!

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The bartender asked trivia questions all night, which I loved.  I even gave him two new questions to add to his rotation.  What do you call this “?!” punctuation mark?  [Answer at the end of this post]

One night I got a spicy cajun quesadilla from The Spot.

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The prices are a little high, but the Spot’s food is quite good.

Last night’s dinner was my final slice of Zetti’s.

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My white broccoli pizza was delicious, a good way to finish out my Zetti’s addiction!

See you next week!

Answer – an interrobang

A Meal That Should Have Been Put Out To Pasture

Goodbye, Sunday; and hello, work week.  More importantly, soon it’s goodbye, 2012!  And that first sentence was especially unimportant because I worked today and only have two shifts during the actual week; go figure.

This day got off to a great start and then rapidly went downhill.  Sometimes that happens.  And I plan on doing some baking to cheer us up as soon I hit publish.

On a good note, check out this awesome box of new flavors that Cascadian Farm sent me to sample –

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I guess they heard my incessant raving about how good their Dark Chocolate Almond Granola is 😉  I ended up trying both products today, since I have no self-control when it comes to trying new things.  Both products (plus the Crunchy Bars in Peanut Butter and Oats & Cocoa) will be available in January of 2013.

Granola with yogurt for breakfast.

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I ate a big bowl of the Cascadian Farm Organic Berry Cobbler Granola on top of Wegman’s low-fat vanilla maple yogurt.

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The granola was marvelous; I might like it even more than the dark chocolate almond!  It was sweet without being too sweet and crunchy without being tooth-breaking.  The light isn’t tricking you either, it actually is pink!  Even the bites without dried fruit leave you with a lovely taste of berry cobbler.  Adam ate a big bowl too and said that the granola held up nicely in milk.  He reported that he found it to be delicious, with a good amount of clumps.

The bar I ate as my snack at work.

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The Cascadian Farm Organic Crunchy Oats & Honey Granola Bar gets the same review as the granola.

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I loved it!  And did a little bit of incessant raving this very afternoon as I tried to tell the husband how good my snack was.  It had exactly the texture I’m looking for in a crunchy granola bar and crumbled nicely.  And the oats had this amazing aftertaste of honey.  I wish I had a better food critic’s vocabulary because I don’t really have the words to describe how good the honey flavor was.  I’m going to go with – round, clover, and authentic (vs. honey flavoring).  Does that make sense?

And I can now report that both the granola and the bar did a good job of keeping me full.  The only other thing I needed to eat before the end of my 4 o’clock shift was this handful of hard candy that I was using as a cough drop.

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Also delicious, by the way.  They were milk coffee candies I found in an Asian market in Philly and I wish I had bought another bag-full.

My Cascadian Farm goodies kept me full through work, but by the time my shift was over I was starving.  Adam picked me up from work and we headed to an early dinner at DeFlippo’s with a Living Social deal.

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Fun right?  Nope, it sucked.  Like super sucked; sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked.  I was served the worst plate of food I’ve ever had in my life.  But on a positive note, it was so terrible that it was actually funny, so at least we got a good laugh out of the deal.  P.S.  The lighting is that bad in the rest of the pictures.

Caesar salad that was swimming in dressing and cheese and randomly came topped with tomatoes.

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Cold bread with even colder butter.

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Shrimp cocktail appetizer that Adam and I split.

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Randomly, this was delicious.  I don’t know how DeFlippo’s pulled it off – my guess is that microwaving the rest of the meal gave them time to shine with the appetizer! – but this was some great shrimp cocktail.  The shrimp had good texture and tasted very fresh.  They were served with enough cocktail sauce that you could actually dip each shrimp and the sauce was tasty as well.  Overall the dish was yummy; it was a very good deal for the price.

And then came my meal.

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French fries were inexplicably offered alongside my “Italian” “food.”

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These actually weren’t bad and I ended up eating most of them in desperate hunger.

“Eggplant parmigiana” {strong emphasis on the quotation marks} that was the single worst dish I’ve ever been served.

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The dish could not have more clearly been bought frozen.  They must have tried to fry it at some point, because the eggplant had sopped up an astonishing amount of oil.  The makeup was 80% breadcrumb, 10% cheese, 5% sauce, and 5% eggplant.  It was terrifically bad.  I made myself eat away a corner so as not to be rude, and when I made Adam taste a bite I laughed so hard I almost cried.  <– he called it abhorrent.

We got milkshakes on the way home.

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Peppermint swirl for me!

And now I’m off to make brownies.

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Have you ever had a meal so bad it was actually funny?

It’s December, Apparently

Don’t worry, it’s not time to change your calendars; it’s only December in Emily Land.  You see, the other the day at the store I just couldn’t wait.

And today I did something really crazy.

I know that looks more mushy than crazy, but those overnight oats are made with So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog!  Nog in November? Who am I?!

My breakfast was so good it was worth breaking holiday timelines.  1/3 cup raw oats, 2/3 cup vegan nog, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds sat overnight.  This morning I topped it off with a sliced banana, nutmeg, and a little more nog.  Dee-lish-us!

Lunch was more on season with a Thanksgiving classic.

I made cranberry sauce from scratch yesterday!  I used this recipe and it came out great.  Today I ate a bowl with sweet and salty peanuts.

Plus the rest of my peanut butter rice krispie treat from the other day.  {where the heck did this picture go?!}  Maybe a little too much sugar for lunch?  I was buzzing at work.

Speaking of work, I came home from my shift with a present for Adam and myself.

I’ve been eyeing Ghost Blitz for weeks and there was only one box left today so I bought it!  We had such a good time playing this evening.

Adam and I shared a box of Thai spring rolls (with homemade spicy peanut sauce) while we played.

Round two was homemade veggie burgers.  I topped mine with honey mustard.

And the tie-breaker (Adam won!) was 2 servings of Sweet Potato Chips from Food Should Taste Good.

I should have been in bed 3 hours ago.  Boo!

This Post Is {Pea}Nuts

We got home from Philadelphia after midnight on Monday and Tuesday morning definitely felt a little rough.  I had clinical practice all day so I had to solider through, but I became pretty much worthless the minute I got home.  Same story this evening.  However, I promise that if you make it through this post there will be two tasty peanut-y recipes waiting for you at the end!

Caffeine was a necessity Tuesday morning.  My friend and I shared this Silk Dark Chocolate Pure Almond milk in our coffees.

My other hospital eats included… An Apple Cinnamon GoGo Squeez.

An Enjoy Life Rice Milk Chocolate bar.

And a KIND Almond & Apricot Bar.

The KIND bar was the best.  The name only references almonds and apricots but the base was pure coconut!  It reminded me of a macaroon.  I bought another one at the store today and I’m pretty jazzed about it.

When I got home I had a serving of Cascadian Farms Dark Chocolate Almond Granola with Blue Diamond Almond/Coconut Milk and fresh blackberries.

Plus a serving of Rice Divine Mud Pie Ice Cream with peanuts on top.

My 2nd tasting of this ice cream left me with the same impression as my first; it’s awesome.

Dinner was awesomely quick and easy.

A microwaveable Punjab Eggplant dish from Trader Joe’s (I ate the whole package),

with a serving of pita chips for crunch.

I ate another serving’s worth of chip crumbles straight from the bag.

Wednesday’s meals were even better than Tuesday’s, but they did get off to a late start.  I’ll skip a long story about my unsuccessful breakfast and just say that I didn’t get to eat today until I got home from school.  And I got home after class, lab, and several hours working on a group project.

I was hungry as hell and thrilled that my dinner plans could come together in under 15 minutes.

I updated my Easy Peasy Peanut Noodles recipe (shared at the end of this post) and was pleased with the results.

If we call that my “3pm breakfast,” then the food I ate from the hot bar while we were grocery shopping was lunch.

Farro with mushroom and spinach,

and sautéed green beans.

Both were quite tasty.  This may have been the first time I’ve ever eaten farro and I enjoyed how creamy it was.

Dinner was snacks and beer.  I got out my food processor for some peanut grinding took several taste tests at every stage of peanut butter production.

This honey roasted peanut butter comes together in a snap but it is one of Adam’s favorite things that I make (recipe is shared below).  I also made Webster some pupsicles; if I have to clean the food processor I’m going to make sure I really use it first!  <– let’s be real; I’ve never cleaned the food processor, Adam always does it

We split a Wolaver’s Pumpkin Ale that was the perfect blend of sweet and spice.

Then we started a Dogfish Head Punkin Ale that I didn’t enjoy and passed off to Adam.

You would not even believe how many pumpkin beers I still have left!

As promised, recipes…

Easy Peasy Peanut Noodles, serves 2

  • 4 oz dry linguine
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • 2 cups frozen broccoli
  • 2 tsp canola oil
  • 4 Tbsp peanut butter
  • 2 Tbsp tamari
  • 2 Tbsp  rice vinegar
  • 2.5 tsp sugar
  • (optional) dash red pepper flakes
  • (optional) 1-2 Tbsp peanuts
  1. In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, tamari, vinegar, sugar, and red pepper flakes if using.  You may want to microwave the bowl for 30 seconds or so to help loosen the peanut butter.
  2. Cook pasta according to package directions.  When 5 minutes of cooking time remain, add frozen veggies to the boiling water and stir.  Drain and set aside when pasta is finished.
  3. Once pasta is cooked, heat canola oil in a large pan over medium heat.  Add cooked pasta and veggies to the pan.  Cook 3 – 5 minutes, until the noodles start to get a bit crispy.
  4. Pour sauce over pasta and toss to combine.  Continue cooking for 5 – 7 minutes, until desired consistency is reached.  My family likes to cook it until the sauce starts to form a crust on the pasta, but this dish is ready to serve as soon as everything is tossed together.
  5. Serve and top with peanuts if desired.

Honey Roasted Peanut Butter

  • 1 lb honey roasted peanuts (I highly recommend Trader Joe’s if you can get them)
  • 2 Tbsp canola oil
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  1. Put peanuts into food processor and process 1 – 3 minutes until mostly smooth.
  2. Add remaining ingredients and process until fully combined.

Farmicia in Philadelphia

Our trip has been fantabulous thus far!  We had a wonderful time catching up with family and then we got to do some Philadelphia exploring.  My favorite things to do in a city are walk-walk-walk, people-watch, and eat and that is what we spent yesterday doing.

We hung out with my in-laws until around noon and then headed into the city.  Sidenote – to family members who have traveled with me before, you would not believe how relaxed I’ve been about our itinerary; I’ve gotten much better at playing things by ear.

I ate an apple and an Air Head in the morning.

I was super carsick on the drive in, but managed to rally for our first stop – Whole Foods hot bar for lunch.

I so miss living in a city with a WF!  We each bought a few small things but overall managed to contain ourselves.  From the hot bar I got kale, spinach, and two varieties of vegan “chicken.”

Everything was delicious but my stomach was still feeling off so I only managed about half of my food.  The husband, on the other hand, got crab and artichoke rice and loaded baked potato soup and practically licked his plates clean!

We spent some time just walking around and have both decided we would love to live in Philly, it’s too bad it’s not on our list of possibilities for residency.

One neighborhood was covered in gorgeous mosaics.

<– can you spot Adam in the last picture??

Our next stop was Little Baby’s for ice cream.

We tasted the pizza flavor (not vegan) which was astonishingly realistic and I ended up going with a scoop of the vegan sweet potato with burnt marshmallow.

This was the best texture I’ve ever found in a vegan ice cream!  The flavor was a little too spot on though, I don’t really want to lick spoonfuls of sweet potato for dessert, so I passed the 2nd half to Adam.  He got the caramel cardamom (not vegan) and was in heaven.  If I ever get to go back (I hope so!) I’m getting the coffee toffee (with Blue Bottle coffee) and the vegan speculoos.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around China Town.  We bought several fun things at markets.  And you know I got bubble tea.

Passion fruit black tea with boba.  I will most definitely be getting another today.

We didn’t run up the Rocky stairs or go to the Edgar Allen Poe house, but we did manage to walk past the Liberty Bell on our way to dinner.

I like to take in the culinary sights.

Dinner was a meal I’ve waited one and a half years for…

Farmicia!  I’ve wanted to go back ever since my first trip to Philly.

I agonized over the drink menu (St. Germain? The drink with lavender essence? The drink with hibiscus essence?!) and ended up going with the Elation.

Prosecco with rose essence and fresh berries.  It was perfect.  Though I did steal the savory components from Adam’s martini.

Rosemary and olive oil bread.

Adam ate his pumpernickel with herbed butter and I was a little jealous.

For my entrée, I went with the same meal was I did on my first visit.  Why mess with what works?

Corn Risotto Croquettes ratatouille, sautéed spinach, basil-parsley salsa verde.

Yuuuuuuuuuum!  I had to close my eyes and swoon after several bites.  The veggies were just as good as I remembered and the croquettes were out of this world.  So serendipitous that the dish I loved the first time was vegan.  I decided over this meal that my favorite flavor is “butteriness.”  Not butter, because there was none used in these buttery croquettes, but butteriness.

Adam gave the meal a 9/10 and said it was the best food he’d had in quite a while.  I concur!

I ate strawberry lime mentos for dessert.

We didn’t see our hotel for the first time until almost 9pm, so we were glad that it worked out.  The room was fancy in a strange way, like the honeymoon suite at a pay by the hour motel.

But the bed was comfy and Adam got a good night’s sleep.

Today he is taking an 8 hour practical exam that you don’t become a doctor without passing.  I know he’ll do great, but lets still keep our fingers crossed.  I set myself up at a table in the Reading Terminal Market and plan on spending the day reading.  And eating!

What is the strangest flavor of ice cream you’ve ever eaten?  Pizza definitely tops my list!

Food Fun At FNCE In Philly

I’m home!  If you didn’t know, I spent the past five days in Philadelphia attending the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ (AND) Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE); alphabet soup, much?!

I went with two fabulous friends and we had a great time.  Our days were packed (I need a vacation from this vacation!) and I am very glad I made the decision in advance not to blog.  In fact, I’m barely going to do a recap.

I would love to talk about the sessions I attended, and all of the things that I learned, but I have homework to catch up on, a shift at work this evening, and a huge test on Friday, so I doubt it’s going to happen.

I do have a few shots of some of the fun food though.

Amazing (2nd only to my favorite place in Brooklyn) eggplant pizza that we had the first night when we stayed with one of my friends from high school.

Taro milk bubble tea.

Hot, spiked, apple cider from a street fair.  We also had pumpkin beer and apple pie shots; we were drinking seasonally this trip.

The expo –

My swag –

It was amazing/ridiculous and my friends and I ended up offering a bag of food to a man I saw digging in a trash can as we were walking from the conference to our car.

Pumpkin pie frozen yogurt.

The best espresso I’ve ever had.

Sidenote – I drank my coffee holding back tears.  We went to eat a vegan cheese-steak on our last day in town and found out that the place was out of seitan!

The Chobani bar at the expo was hands-down the best part.

This Strawberry FrozFruit was a very close second.  My favorite thing in high school was the coconut version.

And a final treat at home – tiny chocolate hamburgers that I brought back for the husband.

Who’s hungry?!