Best Ever

by Emily

It’s a good thing I decided not to blog after dinner yesterday because we ended up staying out for drinks! It was a late, fun night.

We started our evening with dinner at Las Culebrinas, Adam’s favorite Cuban place on the planet. They have rolls with the best garlic butter.

We also ordered some appetizers to share.

Fried plantain with shrimp in red sauce and mozzarella sticks.

For dinner I got Mahi Mahi crusted in corn flakes and topped with a honey mustard sauce.

It was a little too fried for me but the sauce was so good.

And it came with a side salad with great dressing.

We did lots of sharing (though no one went near Adam’s beef because he was moaning so loudly – and whispering sweet nothings to his chocolate flan – and we were all a little afraid). I ended up eating the equivalent of 3/4 of my plate.

Afterwards we walked around Coconut Grove for some more people watching. And somehow ended up at Uncle Moe’s for drinks. Like the Cow Tipper.

Here’s a shot with my hand for size comparison.

My mom and I split this one, obviously. It was tasty, but not as strong as it sounds.

Which is good, because I was feeling good this morning. I decided to skip the hotel breakfast, which was lackluster yesterday, and get in a quick gym trip instead. 15 minutes on the treadmill for a bit over a mile.

I ate my stolen pear for breakfast.

Along with a NuGo Dark bar packed from home.

And we stopped by our old favorite Thai place for a bubble ~~tea~~ smoothie.

Strawberry coconut smoothie with bobba.

So freaking good!

Plus a few peppermints for freshness.

Amid the day’s exploration we also spent some time at the mall. I know shopping seems like a strange vacation activity, but my parents live on an island so it’s more exploratory for them than the beach. My dad shared a pretzel with me while we were there.

I ate about x2 what’s pictured. We were practically frozen so I also bought an earl grey with steamed skim milk.

A few stops later, and we were at my favorite place on the planet.

Where I made the biggest cup of froyo I’ve ever eaten.

Everything chocolate and caramel, smothered in marshmallow.

Heaven. Pure heaven.

And the evening only got better. The plan was to go to Joe’s Stone Crab, but a 2-hour wait scared us away. The disappointment was very serendipitous, because we ended up having a best ever dinner at Joe’s less formal take-away spot next door. You ordered your food at a counter and brought it to the booth yourself and it ended up being just perfect.

To start, Adam and I split a seafood bisque.

It was creamy and tangy with big chunks of fish.

Then the four of us split an order of stone crab.

Stone crab is like the best crab you’ve ever had, on steroids. It is meaty, yet tender and buttery.

I got most of two claws, dipped in butter and mustard.

I drank a spicy bloody Mary with my food but I was too excited about the crab to remember to photograph before a few sips in.

For the rest of the meal, my mom and I split two sandwiches.

The shrimp po boy and the lobster Reuben.

The po boy was good, though I mostly ate the shrimp out of the bun, dipped in remoulade.

The Reuben was out of this world. Everything that’s good about a Reuben but with the added amazingness of lobster.

Everyone kept laughing at me for chewing with my eyes closed but I just couldn’t help it. The big pieces of meat were absolutely perfect.

I thought I couldn’t be happier, but then Adam bought me this t-Rex juice container.

Best trip souvenir ever.

My favorite activity in any city is bike riding, and for the hour after dinner that’s just what we did.

It was so much fun, though our times in the sand basically left my thighs burning! Then we spent another hour walking down the club strip on South Beach for the ultimate people watching. It was the best vacation day ever. The best.

21Nov2011

Delirious Dinner

by Emily

I’m going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the plethora of typos that will most likely pepper this post. Between my 4+ hour sleep deficit and wracking my brain all day for answers to two major tests, I’m a bit off my game. And the husband was on a 24-hour shift last night and he’s wrecked as well. Our joint delirium made for an interesting afternoon.

But first, lunch.

Despite appearances, that’s not a yogurt.

It’s also not a 6oz container but a big guy, stocked with last night’s roasted dinner leftovers.

These were still good cold, but I had to shovel them in at 10am which felt a little odd.

I want to think my tests went well, but honestly I’m not sure I even remember. Thanksgiving break is going to be all about catching up on sleep.

When I finished my make-up exam at 3, I picked up the husband so we could do a quick grocery restock. My gnawing hunger led me to the gingerbread men.

Such a good idea. Adam ate his buttons, and thought this was so funny he made me snap a picture.

I told you we’re tired.

Except that tired is the understatement of the century. Between bad luck, Adam’s distraction, and my complete and utter confusion at life, we went to three different grocery stores and somehow ended up with nothing more than a bag of pears to show for it. Frick.

Some complaining, more confusion, and lots of aimless driving later, and we managed to end up at a Chinese buffet for dinner.

We were totally drawn in by the bubble tea.

Adam and I split this Taro one.

The food wasn’t necessarily good, but it certainly wasn’t bad either. Not healthy at all and a miserable lack of vegetables, but overall we had a nice dinner.

Green beans, baked salmon, 2 stuffed mushrooms, and a crab rangoon.

Sushi, chicken with broccoli, and some cheesy crab salad that blew my freaking mind. It was so rich I couldn’t even eat all of what’s shown but I was seriously in heaven.

Tiramisu, pineapple, glazed banana, pudding, coconut gelatin.

I had lost steam by dessert and shared .25 – .5 of this with Adam, but I did devour the coconut jell-o.

I love buffets because getting to try little bits of lots of things makes my soul happy. If I could find a buffet with actual healthy options I think my heart would explode with joy.

And sleep in 3, 2, 1 …

How do you feel about buffets? What dish do you always look for on the line?

17Nov2011

No Sleep Makes Strange Cravings

by Emily

Hello, hello. It’s been a long time (48+ hours!) since I’ve posted and it’s felt even longer. It’s been a crazy couple of days. My meals since I last blogged have been anything but impressive, but it kind of made me want to post all the more since I’m trying to put it all out there. I will add the disclaimer though that this is a *do not as I do* post 😉

I didn’t tell y’all last time, for obvious security reasons, but Monday was Adam’s 1st 24-hour shift at the hospital. It went very well, but I’m still glad that he’ll get to sleep at home most nights this year! I was tired, he was tired, the dog was tired.

<– That’s the scene I walked in on Tuesday afternoon. Swoon.

I had a ton of schoolwork to catch up on and was worried about sleeping without Adam so I pulled a bit of a 24-hour shift myself and only slept 2 hours on Tuesday night. <– this was a terrible idea, but more on that in a minute. I studied mostly standing at the mantle, which was lovely, and had a civilized midnight snack of tea with skim milk and dark chocolates.

Since I packed lunch before my all-nighter, Tuesday’s meals got off to a good start. I mixed together a Stonyfield 0% Chocolate Underground Yogurt with pumpkin puree and the end result was pretty amazing.

I also packed some citrus.

I ended up eating just the tangerine and giving away the orange.

And I bought a coffee – with tons of skim milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon – during a break in class.

Brunch was tasty, but not very filling, so when I came home to my sleeping family I stole a slice of Adam’s Newman’s Own White Pizza.

I also ate this fruit packet.

Wednesday (today) involved a major test and a major paper, so working on practically zero sleep Adam and I knew to grab hot bar for dinner Tuesday night.

An Indian dish and some tofu,

veggies,

which included some “Asian” Brussels sprouts that we so wildly good I almost drove back to Wegman’s to buy more!

I also snacked on a bowl of pretzels and coffee & cream malted milk balls.

And then the evening took a turn South. It’s possible I had a full-scale meltdown and confirmed that I’m now too old to pull all-nighters. Writing my paper involved such dramatic sobbing that I had to reprint a copy of my article because I got it wet with tears. Pathetic, I know.

When I did wrap things up, around 2am, we both celebrated with bowls of Lucky Charms.

Thanks for the cereal, husband, and for loving me in spite of me!

Tuesday I was too tired to be tired (if that makes sense) but today I felt every single missed hour of sleep. Meet breakfast –

And lunch –

Why, yes, classmate wondering why I’m photographing two bags of combos at 10am, I do write a healthy living blog.

But my paper was turned in and my test was at least passed, so today wasn’t a total fail. All I wanted to do at 4:30 when class finished was go home and sleep, but instead I headed to work. Tonight was my final shift which was actually sort of sad. I suppose I won’t miss random strangers calling me an asshole and hanging up, but the whole getting paid thing was nice.

When I got out at 9, I picked up Adam so we could fulfill the strangest food craving I’ll ever have – a McDonald’s Fillet-O-Fish Sandwich.

I hate McDonald’s. I’ve never even tasted this sandwich before. But for some reason I was smelling it all afternoon and it was driving me crazy.

This wasn’t even good (I was right, McDonald’s is gross) but at least I can move forward now.

P.S. I still have to shower (it’s after midnight) and tomorrow I have to *start* studying for Friday’s giant test so if you think tonight’s post was whiney and/or incoherent you probably should wait to read again until this weekend!

Have you ever craved a food that you’ve never tasted before?

13Nov2011

Yay, Buffet!

by Emily

It was a good weekend end. It’s been great having my brother-in-law in town for a quick visit. I managed to have a good balance of work/schoolwork/and fun today too.

We started our morning with smoothies.

1.5 cups of mango puree, 1.5 Tbsp honey, 1.5 cups frozen peaches, and 1 container of Stonyfield Mango and Honey Low-fat Yogurt; split three ways.

This was the last of the mango puree but I definitely plan on purchasing more soon.

My smoothie made me shiver, so I made a cup of tea to warm up with.

2 bags of red velvet tea steeped in skim milk. It was tasty, but the dog snuck his snout in halfway through so I had to abandon it. I moved on to pizza leftovers instead.

Atop notecard making. Holy crap do I ever still have a lot to do before Wednesday’s exam!

I did take a mid-day study break to go to Brawler’s Deli with the boys for lunch. Their portion sizes are ridiculous; check out this half of Adam’s sandwich!?!

My meal was healthier, but equally big.

A side salad with a bit of balsamic and spicy mustard on top,

a cup of gouda beer soup,

and Adam’s side of cole slaw.

I ate all of the cole slaw, 3/4 of the salad, and 2/3 of the soup, when the game reached halftime and the Pearl Street Staff set out a huge (free!) buffet. Score!

I took some fruit, carrots, and spinach and buffalo chicken dips with chips. All tasty.

After my brother-in-law left, Adam and I spent the afternoon hanging out until I had to go to work. Dinner had to be simple since my shift started at 6, mac and cheese leftover from last week.

Plus some amazing cookies (recipe’s coming tomorrow) when I got home.

Also plus 2 servings (?!) of Lindt truffles that were eaten on the couch and out of reach of the camera. Whoops.

It’s going to be a busy week, I’ve got to get to bed!

6Nov2011

Fall Back Into An Hour

by Emily

Did everyone remember to reset the clocks for today? I’m thrilled with DLS this year, it’s been entirely too dark the past few mornings. Though it does stink to be out-of-sync with my parents again; we don’t change the clocks back home so they’ll be an hour ahead of me all winter.

I needed that extra hour today too. I had a 10:30 group meeting and I’m not sure I would have made it on time at “real” 10:30. My friends Janessa, Kim, and I worked on our cultural food project at the Elmwood SPoT from 10:30 to 2. I bought breakfast to eat while we worked.

A giant fruit cup.

There was honeydew, watermelon, and pineapple in there and I gladly paid $3 for it.

An everything bagel with veggie cream cheese.

This was ok but I’m not sure why they used so much cream cheese. I scrapped some off after the photo and I ended up losing a lot of the veggies.

And an iced coffee with lots of skim milk.

Iced because we sat at a table in front of a big window and were fricking boiling.

At least the warmer weather meant we could take the dog on a longer walk this afternoon. We even took him off his leash on the block near our house so he could practice being a “free-range” puppy.

I ate this Stonyfield 0% Chocolate Underground when I got home.

Served in my ice-cream cone bowl because it was eaten as a dessert. I topped the yogurt with a Tbsp each butterscotch chips and shredded coconut.

Butterscotch chips are way better in yogurt than chocolate because they don’t harden as much in the cold.

Since I’m working from 6-9 tonight we ate an early afternoon dinner.

It was the early bird special, stir-fry style!

Into our wok went:

chopped broccoli
cole slaw mix cabbage and carrots
canned straw mushrooms (<– love!)
canned water chestnuts
smidge of hoisin sauce
5 Tbsp stir fry sauce

Underneath my serving of veggies was 3oz of cooked whole wheat spaghetti that I reheated in a pan with 1/2 Tbsp sesame oil and a large egg.

It was a very tasty and satisfying dinner.

It feels a little strange to blog before work, but since 9 o’clock will feel like 10pm I doubt I’ll want to eat anything when I get home. If I decide to snack I’ll update.

Finish this sentence – “With my extra hour today I …..”

30Oct2011

Way Too Busy For A Sunday

by Emily

Hi, all; hope everyone else had a relaxing Sunday! My day has been busy and stressful, but cooking for the Chili Sale went even more smoothly than we could have hoped so I’m not going to complain.

I have some amazing, funny, hard-working classmates.

We made almost 200 servings of chili today! 100 beef and 75 vegetarian. There was a lot to do, and all of the measurements were based on my math so I was pretty nervous, but we got it all done and finished just under our time goal.

I was too busy to eat breakfast but I did sip on this half-sweet, pumpkin spice latte throughout the day.

Plus a slice of veggie pizza that our instructor bought us for lunch.

A classmate whose family owns a local restaurant brought us fancy cookies.

I planned on eating half a jack-o-lantern but I got distracted by stirring and ended up only tasting a bite or two.

When I got home I made up for lost sugar by eating a small square of this chocolate-cheesecake bar I baked up with leftover muffin batters.

Did I mention what type of muffins they were yet? Pumpkin Double Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins! Oh yes. I’m posting the recipe some time tomorrow and I urge you all to copy it down. I brought most of the mufins to school today and my classmates all gave them rave reviews.

Other afternoon snacks included a slice of 2% provolone cheese,

and this fruity yogurt bowl.

I topped some Fat-free Plain Stonyfield yogurt with TJ’s mango butter and a handful of (sweetened!) shredded coconut; the bowl was quite tasty.

I needed to be well-fueled because my main to-do this afternoon was shooting a fun video for my dinner post. I’ll see y’all then!

28Oct2011

Staying Alive, Staying Alive

by Emily

Let’s not talk about last night. Dinner was a disaster, studying was a disaster, bedtime was a disaster. Let’s not talk about this morning either. No breakfast, no answers to the test questions, no remembering that my car was parked on the wrong side of the street and that deciding to walk would earn me a ticket.

Let’s just start this post at 11; that’s when the eats for today started anyway. I spent the hour between my test and class in the food lab, planning for the Chili Sale. We are selling on Tuesday and cooking all day Sunday so my group had to go think logistics. We’ve got a specific plan for what all 18 classmates will be doing in the kitchen for 6 hours on Sunday, but I’m pretty sure it’s still going to be a shit-show.

Today’s food lab was the fat substitute group. Normally I don’t snap pictures because I’m too busy taste-testing but there were a few things I couldn’t eat today so I had the time to photograph. We tried regular and reduced fat samples of potato chips,

pudding,

and shredded mozzarella.

I could totally tell the difference between the original and modifieds! Appearance, texture, and flavorwise.

After lab I got some real lunch (and breakfast!) at the campus bookstore.

Del Monte Tropical Medly fruit cup for vitamin C.

Plus this go picnic snack pack. It contained crackers with hummus,

and roasted edamame, a fruit and nut blend, and a small square of dark chocolate (all of which were fantastic).

This ended up being a very filling lunch, though 520 calories is low to cover two meals.

I was stuck on campus until 2 so I got a little bit of studying done. After our crazy chili week we have two super difficult weeks of testing and assignments and I’m hoping to be a little better prepared. And speaking of being prepared … I am recertified in CPR! That was what my committment at 2 was, BSC offers classes to students for free. 2 hours of chest compressions felt like quite a workout! I can’t think of a better motivation to start hitting the gym than the fact that I might be too fat and out of shape to save a life.

This weekend is going to be super busy (I’m spending Saturday and Sunday on campus) so when I got home I did some preemptive cleaning and got ready for our weekly grocery trip. Plus I put dinner into the crock pot.

I refueled around 7 with a Honeycrisp apple.

Plus half a Wolaver’s Pumpkin Ale, split with the husband.

We weren’t fans sadly, neither of us finished our half. The first sip was heavenly but every subsequent taste felt a little more bitter. I washed my mouth out with a cordial.

And then we were off to the store.

Thankfully dinner was preparing itself at home because we were HUNgry like Attila by the time we got home.

And this meal was gooood!

Roasted green beans.

Tofu “fish” cakes from More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow.

And a hunk of Piccolo bread from Wegman’s bakery.

Some notes on the bread – a) it was perfect; chewy yet airy; b) I dipped it in olive oil but couldn’t get a good photograph; and c) another (smaller) hunk was also hungrily eaten in the car on the way home!

Are you CPR certified?

27Oct2011

Fruit In My Purse, In My Chocolate

by Emily

I should NOT be blogging right now but I needed a study break! Tomorrow is going to suck; I’ll leave it at that.

Breakfast was grabbed quickly but ended up being good. A Revolution Foods Organic Berry MashUp.

I’ve seen some chatter on the internet about how lame it is for grown women to eat “baby food” but all I have to say to that is – sorry you don’t know what’s good? These are delicious and if you can find another way for me to stick a half cup of berries straight into my purse, I’m all ears.

Plus a sample box of Cascadian Farms Dark Chocolate Almond Granola from HLS.

This was so crunchy and tasty that I actually snapped a picture on my phone to remind myself to buy more!

Since you can already see my warm jacket peeking out from those pictures I’ll admit defeat and show you bundled up look –

It was in the low 30’s today, there could have been snow! There’s even another shirt on under that top layer (which was Adam’s!).

Not to worry, no one could see that I was wearing stripes + stripes + plaid, that layer was purely for bundling.

Towards the end of our 4-hour class our instructor took us on a field trip across campus to see some of the research posters being presented by faculty from across the disciplines. We got out of class early and they had food, score!