Tag Archives: greens

Peanut Butter, Pasta, and Peace

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I’m back!  I’m still pretty pissed about my foot, but at least I am calm about it now.  It’s not just that my foot hurts, it’s mostly that the hurting is making me unable to walk normally, which is making my knee and hip really hurt.  Even if I ignore the pain I physically can’t make myself walk normally and I’m worried that once I can run again I’ll have messed up my hip or knee.  Argh!  I’m going to take one more day off and then attempt to go to the gym tomorrow. 

Moving on.  I didn’t sleep  well last night (shocking right?!) so I slept in until 9 and then got up and got organized for volunteering.  I ate a PB&J Lara Bar on the walk to the hospital.

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I love this flavor!  When I put my shoes on at home I seemed ok, but by the time I was a block away I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  My ward (dialysis) didn’t have anything seated for me to do so I offered to help in the volunteer office.  I spent an hour or so on the telephone helping people get appointments for free heart health screenings.  There wasn’t much else for me to do so I got home much earlier than usual.

I took advantage of the found time to make dinner for tonight.

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I have night class, so Adam can just throw this in the oven when it’s time for him to eat.

Then I got started on noon eats.  For lunch I made my Easy Peasy Peanut Noodles (click the link for the recipe).

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I used a Justin’s pb packet and added baby arugula and shredded carrots.

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Delish.  I love reheating pasta in a pan so it gets all nice and crispy.

I have class from 6:30-7:50 tonight but I’ve got to leave before 3:30 so I can go to the pharmacy to pick up my foot medicine.  We have our first chemistry quiz (and our first lab!) this week so I’ve got lots of studying to squeeze in today.  I’m glad dinner is done with 🙂

There are three reasons for the end of this post:  1) Caitlin’s brilliance this morning reminded me, 2) I’ve been planning on posting some inspiration ever since I found out that today is The International Day of Peace, 3) my attitude has been pretty negative lately, I would like to put out some positivity.  That said, here is a list of some of my favorite quotes –

“A man is what he thinks about all day.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  ~Edmund Burke

“People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.”  ~Douglas Yates

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life – it goes on.”  ~Robert Frost (I actually have part of this one engraved on the back of my i-pod)

“This one step – choosing a goal and sticking to it – changes everything.”  ~Scott Reed

“Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you hold well.”  ~Josh Billings

“For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those ‘it might have been.'”  ~John Greenleaf Whittier

What is your favorite quote?

Prep = Snap

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Since I started to prepare ingredients yesterday making breakfast this morning was a snap.  All I needed was a pan and 4 eggs.

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For two servings I used (approx) 2C kale, 2t evoo, 2oz extra sharp cheddar.  Look at those yummy greens.

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Lunch was less than stellar in the greens department for the second day in a row.

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Who could pass up buffalo chicken pizza?  The vouchers we get wouldn’t cover pizza and a salad and I’d rather not spend my own money at the hospital.

Volunteering went well again, although I wish I had more to do.  I’m there 6hours a day and they don’t go by very quickly!

When I got home I made the afternoon snack of artificially flavored champions.

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Diet cherry flavored colas are my favorite kind of soda.  I bought the candy – Kazoozles, which were like Twizzlers filled with goo and made by Wonka – at the gas station yesterday because pink lemonade totally caught my eye.

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Tonight is Adam’s semi-formal.  I’m not planning on taking pictures – tonight is his night, it’s not the appropriate time to explain about the blog – but I will do a full recap.  I will definitely take pictures of my new dress though.  See you when I get home from the ball!

What do you do to ensure a healthy breakfast?

pasTa

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I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love!  If I could run off with a smoothie without hurting Adam’s feelings I would, but more on that later…

Our errands went ok, we have to go back to the post office tomorrow but we dropped off our donations at Goodwill and got the things we needed at Target.  I also got majorly suckered into some candy –

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York Patties used to be my favorite candies and an ad in a magazine at Adam’s doctor’s office totally got me craving one – way to go former communication majors!  I also ate some of the husband’s mini truffles (x3).

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For dinner we made AnTEAoxidant Pasta (my name, recipe courtesy of an old Self magazine).  So good!

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I had my portion with a big glass of iced h2o.

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AnTEAoxident Pasta, serves 4  (I made some changes to the recipe, mostly to make it lower fat and to accommodate our lame pantry, so I’m posting the changed recipe below)

  • 6 green tea bags
  • 2.5C dry ww penne
  • 2C chopped broccoli
  • 2C chopped kale leaves
  • 1 14.5oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 3/4C fat free ricotta
  • 4t evoo
  • 1T balsamic vinegar
  • 1T chopped garlic
  • salt and pepper to taste

>Bring 6C of water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Add tea bags; turn off heat and let steep for 5minutes.  Discard tea bags and bring back to a boil.  Add pasta and cook according to package directions.  Add in broccoli and kale in the last three minutes of cooking.

>Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine tomatoes, ricotta, oil, vinegar and garlic; mix well.  Drain pasta and cooked vegetables; add to bowl and toss well.

It was good, but nothing on this Earth is as good as this smoothie –

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  • 1small banana
  • 1C Goya frozen soursop pulp
  • 3/4C So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk

Holy frick it is good! 

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Soursop is so good, it is my favorite childhood taste memory.  Legend has it that soursop makes you sleepy which is the idea tonight.  We are watching more “My So-Called Life” and then I am trying to get to bed by 10.

What is your favorite childhood taste memory?  Mine is soursop juice and baked macaroni and cheese from the old grocery store back home.  When I went out shopping with my parents around lunch time my dad would buy it for me and I would eat it with my fingers in the car!

Thunder, Turkey, Too Much

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I am so hungry!  I’ve eaten so much, as you will see in this post, and I am still starving!  I finally just stopped eating because it was getting ridiculous.

We didn’t have much to get at the grocery store for this week – milk, bread – but we stocked up on some snacks for our upcoming road-trip.  Due to some plan changes I just found out that I will be driving from the city to Buffalo alone by myself in the car.  It’s a little scary – moving vehicles put me to sleep in minutes – but my plan of attack is to do a lot of snacking and chug some sugar free energy drinks.  By the way, for obvious reasons, I won’t be blogging during the move.  We lose our internet this Wednesday and it won’t be set up in Buffalo for about a week so I will be taking a quick hiatus.

The errand took a little longer than planned because we got caught in a massive thunderstorm –

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I looked like a drowned rat.  By the time we got home I was (wet) starving so I grabbed my emergency candy from when I thought the CPR class was running until 6.

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Limited Edition Coconut M&Ms.  These were really good, the coconut flavor was very present without being too strong.  Plus some had cute little palm trees stamped on them.

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I also love these “what’s inside” nutrition stat bubbles.

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What a clear, colorful way to make sure important information does not go overlooked.  My only complaint is that they do not list trans fat in the bubble – that is by far the most important thing I look for when I read nutritional labels.  Even when I am totally pigging out I never eat trans fat.  With the disagreements over how trans fat effects fertility it is disgusting to me that this [added] ingredient is still in products.  It’s one thing to say that Big Brother shouldn’t put laws on how much fat products can have or restrict supersizing, it is up to consumers to be informed.  But when it comes to trans fat there is a real glut of information, even many informed consumers aren’t informed and they deserve to have risk-free food.

While we were cooking I also lopped off the top of a kiwi and ate his brains out with a spoon.

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This was the best method at maximizing flesh eaten and minimizing mess I’ve found so far.

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For dinner we sauteed extra lean ground turkey with frozen collard greens and some peas and then added Newman’s Own Cabernet Marinara.  We ate that on top of some wheatberries Adam cooked in bulk the other day.

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I ate a ton of toppings over 1/3C of wheatberries.

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Tasty, and quick.

Of course I was still hungry after dinner, so I dipped into our car snacks stash and at a small large bowl of cheddar goldfish

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And finally a mini strawberry rice krispies treat.

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As I said before, I’m still hungry, but it was time to stop.

Unfortunately I never got in even a mini workout, but I am just so wet!  I need to go shower so I can snuggle up in bed.  I’ll leave you with some interesting happenings online –

1. Surprising Secrets of Celebrity Chefs from MSN.  My favorite tip was from Ming Tsai, there are so many wonderful, easy applications for store bought wonton wraps.

2. Kath and Caitlin both blogged about free samples in bloggerland.  I don’t get many samples (although I’d like to get more!) because my blog is pretty teensy and I don’t ask for them.  However, when I do get freebies I think I do a good job of mentioning that the item is a sample.  I will always be completely honest about how I feel about a product – if it’s bad it’s bad, my blog isn’t big enough to be worth compromising my integrity.  While I don’t get a lot of free samples, I do do a fair amount of product reviews on here.  I know sometimes it seems like I gush about everything but honestly, I’m just really excited about food!

What is a non-negotiable for you on nutritional labels?

What do you think about blogger freebies?

Wednesday Morning – Friday Morning

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Hello, vacation-style!  I hope everyone is having a good week, the vacay has been nice and relaxing so far.  I’m in a bit of a time crunch today so I’ll try to keep this recap pretty brief.  Just fyi – I only have internet when I go to work with my mommy so I’ll be doing a recap every few days until I get back home.

Wednesday – travel day

Our flight was at 8:15am so we had to get up nice and early.  We had to leave our car in long-term parking so we actually drove to the airport.  Thankfully, Mapquestgot us there in time to get breakfast, of sorts.  There were not many restaurants and those that were there didn’t have full menus.  I ended up with a Wendy’s Maple Baked Frescuit with egg and cheese.

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It actually tasted pretty good; I love the sweet-savory combo so cheese with maple syrup was nice.  And when I looked up the nutritional information online this morning I learned that it only had 390calories.

Being at airports always makes me think about having kids (not that it isn’t on my mind anyways!).  Adam and I have always discussed how important it is to make exercise fun for kids – the more you make movement into a game the better.  Even now, when we come to a moving walkway one of us will ride and the other will walk alongside and we will race!

We had a straight flight, which meant we were at my house before 2pm!  My mom always has a gift waiting for me on the bed.

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I wanted to get right into reading but Adam needed to go to his old doctor to do some forms for medical school so off we went.  I ate a baggie of baby carrots during the ride.

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The husband took forever so my father and I ended up taking a long walk on the boat docks.  I drank a Ting.

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My parents cooked us a great dinner.

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WW pasta with parmesan cheese,

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spinach and tomatoes cooked in toasted sesame oil,

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and broiled salmon.

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I also ate a slice of dry sourdough toast.

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They did a great job, everything was delicious.  Also good was my snack.

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Huge cup of coffee with skim milk,

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and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

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We played Pictionary and cards and by the time we were done I had actually eaten 4 cookies!  My cookie control was down a bit because of booze 🙂

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My favorite drink on earth is oj with cinnamon Stoli.  They actually stopped making this Stoli, my mom and I have 2 of the last bottles available, but it is equally good with Goldschlager. We each had one, yum.

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Thursday – “it’s so hot!”

In spite of not staying up all that late playing games (my dad is pretty intense about bedtime, he is my sleep role model) we could not get going Thursday morning.  I was supposed to get up and work out but that did not happen.  I woke up 3hours later than planned, ate breakfast, and went back to sleep for the rest of the day.  The husband and I think it’s because it was so hot.  At least I did have a great breakfast.

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A small chopped nectarine, half a banana, and ground flax seed.

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Plus a Low Fat Pineapple Chiobani.

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This was the first time I ever saw this flavor and it was awesome, I hope this comes to NY!

After my intense napping session I managed to drag myself to the shower and get gussied.  We ended up eating at the restaurant right near where we got married so Adam and I had to take some pictures!  This spot is exactly where we said our wedding vows –

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We had a fun time, it is hard to believe it’s been so long since December 28th, 2007.  1.5years, we are not even newlyweds anymore!

After some rememberings we headed to dinner, I slept through lunch so I was pretty starving.  I started with a beyond fabulous passionfruit colada,

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and my dad and I split a sandwich and salad for dinner.

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Fire roasted chicken paninni sliced chicken breast, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and a garlic and basil ailoi.

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Key Lime Caesar Salad.

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I ate half of everything.  The sandwich was good but a little greasy and I loved the salad, the lime cut through the usual creaminess wonderfully.

After dinner we went home for more board games and cards – Monopoly and Gin Rummy – we are serious nerds about game night!  I drank an iced coffee with skim milk, along with some desserts.

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First, two homemade chocolate chip cookies,

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and even better – Greek Gods Honey Greek Yogurt,

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frozen,

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oh yeah, this was so good!  Freezing Greek Yogurt (I’ve only tried it with flavored but I imagine that plain would be a lot like Pinkberry) turns it into slushy, granita-like goodness, I highly recommend it.

Friday– wake up!

Today, I managed to get my butt out of bed!  I went with my mom to an 8am spin class so we had to get up by 7.  We left extra early because we dropped Adam off at the beach, with a bucket of beer!  I ate this Luna Bar in the car for breakfast.

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The class was 60minutes of spin and floor work.  I don’t know if it was the sugary breakfast, that I was feeling sick yesterday, or that I’m out of shape, but my butt was kicked!  I felt so sick I actually had to sick down and skip the lunges.  I chugged some water and I’ve been sitting so I’m feeling a little better but it sucked at the time.

Now I’m hanging out at my mom’s library, hopefully headed towards some studying.  The husband and I are getting lunch soon so we’ll see what happens.  I will most likely be doing another post on Sunday, hope everyone has a great weekend!

For now, I will leave you with a list of the songs I played while I typed, found on my mom’s i-pod!!!

  • Viva la Vida – Coldplay
  • Single Ladies – Beyonce
  • Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas
  • Low – Flo Rida
  • Blame It – Jamie Foxx
  • That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings

Lazy Hazy Days of Summer

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Hi there folks!  Was anyone else feeling lazy in the heat today?  I just couldn’t seem to get going, ever!  In my defense, originally, my alarm clock didn’t go off so I got a late start.  I pushed myself out the door and headed to Starbucks for a study session.

I did breakfast there since I felt bad bringing in my own food, a low fat spinach feta wrap,

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and a small Naked Green Machine juice.

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All together:

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Way to go Starbucks, I couldn’t believe how good this was!  I will certainly be going back to order this wrap again, it had great flavor and chew.  Plus I hit every food group and got a tasty meal for just 410 calories.

My study efforts were not as successful.  The table next to me (after intense eavesdropping I think it was a girl and her landlord who was also her boss) had the longest, loudest conversation!  But even after they left I couldn’t focus.  I ended up working from 10:30 – 12:00, staring into space for another half an hour, and then calling it quits.  I came how to veg out and was very happy about it 🙂

Plus I had a great lunch.

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I’ll be honest though, I started with dessert.

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After my row of Riter Sport I had roasted yellow squash,

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roasted cauliflower, and

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carrot salad (the recipe is posted here).

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Also a serving of Asiago cheese.

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I spent some serious time enjoying Bones, and I enjoyed a few too many of these salt water taffies my parents brought us from Hilton Head (they went to a wedding before visiting us) too.

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I’d like to say it stopped there, but I ended up eating a bunch of other random crap throughout the afternoon.  First I stole some of A’s chicken nuggets,

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yes they are dino shaped, and yes he is 23.  And then I ate 1/4C of peanuts.

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Finally I realized I wasn’t getting full so I made myself stop and just wait for dinner.  I think part of the problem was boredom and part was being tired.

Dinner was easy peasy:  quinoa, topped with canned seasoned mustard greens, and baked tofu.  Plus a sprinkle of goat cheese.

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The tofu I drained, pressed, thinly sliced, rubbed with rice vinegar, rubbed with maple syrup, sprinkled with jerk seasoning, and cooked at 475 for 20minutes.

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I made another cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk and no sugar added CIB (this time in vanilla) to drink with dinner.

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I got a very very exciting package in the mail the other day (can you guess what it is?) and I refuse to open it until my CIB is gone.

Husband and I are planning on going out for dessert later but I’ll post about that in the morning.  This summer is not going to be successful until I start following a bedtime!  Peace.

Don’t forget about my Flogg giveaway!  It ends tomorrow at noon and you can enter by commenting at this post.