Today Was The Day

by Emily

Hello, hello! I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning, or rather I traveled to school the right way today. By walking!

I’ll be glad to have my car and parking permit when the weather gets a bit more blustery, but for now I think I’ll try to hoof it more often. The weather was crisp and cool, and the 20 minutes of travel gave me time to clear my head. Plus, it’s better for both my body and Mother Earth’s.

I ended up not really packing breakfast or lunch, but doing a brunch-type meal during my first class. Roasted green beans are delicious, even leftover and cold, but they did feel a little gaggy at 8am.

I pushed through, because I knew something better was coming.

I know that cinnamon raisin Bagel Thin looks unassuming, anything but!

I toasted him and spread one side with the most amazing goat cheese and the other with reduced fat pumpkin cream cheese. The combination was out of this world.

Confession – I bought the cream cheese in early September while we were visiting my grandparents in Ohio.

I brought it back home to Buffalo and squirreled it away until Pumpkin Month. It was still good. And it was good.

Finally I packed a crunchy Sweet Tango apple,

which I ate during the 3-hour break. We have a tough test coming on Friday so I crunched while I studied.

It’s possible my friends and I didn’t spend the entire three hours with our noses in books. Gossip, Grey’s Anatomy, and Biscoff Spread discussion might have filled some time as well. Especially when we realized that we made plans to get cupcakes more than a month ago and they still hadn’t come to fruition. We decided today was the day.

First we had to get through 2 more classes. Class #1 answered some really interesting questions I’ve always had about starvation mode and weight loss, and class #2 handed back last week’s exam that I scored a 96% on. Something to celebrate!

As soon as we were dismissed a group of us hit the Elmwood strip and walked down to Zillycakes.

I can’t believe that I’ve lived in Buffalo for three years and hadn’t gone in here yet; the inside was adorable.

Janessa and I decided to split to maximize our flavor sampling potential.

2 minis and full, which ended up being the perfect serving of cupcake when shared.

We had 1) a mini vegan pumpkin with vegan brown sugar and spice icing.

I ate this first because I was expecting the least of it, but this flavor actually ended up being my favorite. The icing was perfectly spiced and crunchy in a really pleasing way.

2) A mini caramel apple cupcake with salted caramel buttercream and toffee bits.

This was my least favorite, but it was still delicious. There were pieces of dried apple in the cake which we both loved.

3) A full-sized mudd cupcake with dark chocolate ganache.

The cake was studded with Oreo crumbles, just like dirt pudding! I liked the icing but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. It was like a dark chocolate pudding but I always thought that ganache was supposed to have a more thick, stiff texture? Either way, it was delicious.

Wednesday’s class doesn’t get out until 4:30 so after cupcaking and taking a long walk with the husband and dog it was time for dinner.

We cooked up a box of mac and cheese with ~ 2/3 cup each frozen edamame and frozen veggie blend (carrots, peas, corn, green beans, lima beans). We got 2.5 servings out of a 2 serving box so ~~beefing~~ vegging things up certainly helps to spread your dollars and calories. I topped my serving with a dollop of sour cream and a liberal sprinkling of Sriracha.

Mmmmmmn. I ran several sprints with the dog though (he was unusually energetic today) and my smallish serving was not enough. I ended up going back to the kitchen for the last slice of GH sourdough spread with Smart Balance Light.

Now I’m perfectly satisfied.

Have you ever had ganache? What’s it like?

25Sep2011

Shrimptastic

by Emily

I can’t even tell you how freaking good it feels to be back to blogging. I know I don’t always blog everything (though if I blog for a day than I include everything that goes in my mouth) but going extended periods without posting just feels strange!

I’ve got a busy week ahead – 3 tests and 2 projects by Friday – so I set my alarm for 8am to get working. I got a little distracted by house organizing and puppy training but I got a good bit of work done too. I was extra fueled by coffee.

Into my big mug (thanks Janetha!) went 2.5 cups of coffee, 2 Tbsp English Toffee syrup, and a big pour (~3/4 cup?) of Silk Plain Almond Milk.

Hello, dog.

I went unorthodox for breakfast because I found the last serving of bacon, corn, and shrimp chowder lurking in the back of the fridge.

Food safety regulations would have called for tossing this but it tasted great and I feel fine.

Around 12:30 I headed over to Delaware Park for a run. Running at high-noon wasn’t my best idea but this ended up being a terrible workout in general.

ran 1.75 mile lap in 19:30
paused break for peeing and stretching (I drank a big cup of water with my big cup of coffee; slosh city)
“ran” 1.75 mile lap in 24:30
walked 1.75 mile lap in 43:30

That’s 3.5 miles in 44 minutes plus 1.75 miles more walked. This run was pretty much a shitshow. 9 minutes into my second lap my feet went completely numb and I had to walk to avoid twisting my ankle. Adam had tightly tied my shoes for me but loosening them didn’t help and I wasn’t off pins and needles until I actually took my shoes off. I wanted to finish my last walking lap because I had my notecards with me to review so I ended up doing 1.75 miles barefoot. It seemed like a good idea at the time but my gigantic, excruciating blisters indicate that it was actually a terrible idea. Ouch!

I was at least cheered up by my shower thanks to this lavender soap my mom sent me –

When I was a kid my mother loved lilac (which smells like cat pee, by the way) but my dad and I couldn’t get it together so we’d always buy her tons of lavender-scented goodies. I teased her for years about being an old lady but in the last year or so I’ve become completely obsessed with all things lavender. Guess I’m the old lady.

Adam offered to help me hobble through the grocery store so I did a quick-lunch out of hand. A black plum,

and a Sweet Tango apple.

Holy crisp and juicy, Batman! I was so thrilled to loudly munch through a fresh apple; Sweet Tangos are divine.

We did Wegmans and the co-op and when I got home I hungrily dug into this container of Dr. McDougall’s Spicy Kung Pow Noodles.

Pretty darn good. The was a nice amount of spice to these and it felt like a ton of food for 220 calories.

Dinner involved more shrimp and tasted better than it looked.

On the left is a small serving of Cooking Light‘s Bombay Shrimp Curry. My changes to the recipe included using ground mustard instead of mustard seed, skipping the cilantro, and using a veggie mix with peas, corn, carrots, lima beans, and green beans. I also skipped the rice because I had just eaten pasta.

Unfortunately, we hated it. Adam and I both could barely choke this down. The flavor was strangely flat and it was spicy in an unpleasant way. Do not recommend.

I know the stuff on the right looks bad, but I promise it tasted sooooo good.

Cheesy baked eggplant! Using this Italian eggplant I picked up at the farmers’ market last week.

For two – into my mini casserole dish went a thin layer of marinara, a layer of thinly sliced eggplant, a sprinkle of salt, a thick layer of marinara, and 2 slices of 2% provolone cheese. Baked at 450* for 45minutes.

Gah; this was unbelievable! The eggplant got soft enough to cut with a fork and baking the cheese intensified its flavor x100. We are going to make this again as a main meal very soon.

For dessert I used Mixchief Jell-O Mix to make Cherry Coke Jell-O.

How fun! It wasn’t as strong as I would have liked but I would try it again and substitute more cola for water next time.

That bowl had 2 servings but I only ate one. To be honest I’m feeling pretty unsatisfied; I think I will most likely end up adding enough dessert to this day while I study. I’ll update later if I do.

How often do you update your blog? Does it feel strange to take breaks.

***Updated to add – I did have a 2nd (fiberific) dessert; 1/3 cup of All Bran Bran Buds with 2 tsp of crushed Heath bar. No picture because the dog chewed through my camera cord. <– ugh!

15Sep2011

Oh, Balls

by Emily

Oh. Hello there. Are you here to hear me talk about my balls? Well calm down, I’m getting to that. I do have some exciting ball news but there was lots of excitement today.

Like my discovery of my new favorite smoothie of all time.

I know it doesn’t look like much but this new combination was freaking amazing. I put 1 cup of lemonade and 2 Tbsp of chia seeds in my blender and left them to soak. Five minutes later I added 1 cup of frozen strawberries and then blended like crazy. Here’s an outside picture so you can really see the color –

Un-be-leave-a-bull! The chia seeds mostly blended but still left a nice chew and their nuttiness was the perfect foil to the sweet and sour of the strawberry lemonade.

Even better, my smoothie actually held my stomach through my 4 hour class. I attribute this to the chia seeds. My 2 Tbsp of chia seeds gave my smoothie an extra 140 calories, 5 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber, and 7 grams of polyunsaturated fats (mostly omega-3s). source

That’s not to say I wasn’t ready for lunch though. We had a “welcome back” department lunch today, complete with food.

I took a slice of mushroom pizza,

a few fresh veggies,

and some amazingly fresh strawberries and watermelon.

I also grabbed a 2nd slice later on.

In other lunch news I finally had an apple month win!

This caramel apple iced coffee from my school’s coffee shop totally hit the spot. I did only drink half of that monster (I thought I was ordering a small) but I definitely made sure to get every last lick of caramel out of my cup.

Fully fueled, I headed to the gym for a L-O-O-O-N-G spells long workout. I had a time goal and a length goal and I ended up hitting my time goal long before my length one; ie I took too many walking breaks and was slow! I did a looong warm up and looong cool down with walk/run intervals in between that ended up being a lot of walking.

In the end I covered 9 miles in 1 hour and 53 minutes. As slow as you can move and still call it running but the distance at least is nothing to sneeze at. P.S. I’m having some issues with the bones in my right foot but my legs feel great; yay!

Alright already, let’s talk about the balls.

S’mores Oat Balls. Click here for the recipe link. I swear to God this recipe was inspired by the S’mores Quaker Chew Bars and not my desire to say the word balls repeatedly after eating and rewatching Schweddy Balls.

The recipe was simple but the end result was delicious yet subtle. Part s’more, part oat, totally acceptable for breakfast! I resisted any nibbling while I assembled but I did eat two balls as soon as they were formed.

Make them at home, I promise you’ll love my balls.

Since we ate dessert first dinner needed to be a 15 minute affair.

I prepared 2 servings of spirals pasta, stirring frozen spinach and peas into the mix in the last few minutes of boiling. Then I made Emily’s Nutritional Yeast Sauce and tossed everything together.

Yum, I thought the nutritional yeast was really good; though that could have been my love for peas with pasta talking. Head over to The Daily Garnish (recipe link) to see all the benefits of nutritional yeast, but suffice to say dinner was healthy.

Adam has a test tomorrow and I have a really hard time sleeping when he’s not in bed (the upcoming surgical rotation should be fun!) so I’m going to stay up with him. Studying, blog reading, perhaps a shower; who knows what I’ll get done.

P.S. I used the word “balls” 10 times in this post. Sorry, Nana!

26Aug2011

Tasty Combos

by Emily

My lunch today was made of a tasty combination.

I actually assembled this meal at the co-op hot bar last night, but then squirreled it away in the fridge when we opted to go out to dinner instead.

Kale salad and pea salad,

almond chicken salad and Waldorf chicken salad.

Tasty combos indeed.

That was the smaller box though so it wasn’t quite as much food as it looked. I had two hummus cookies on the side.

I also ate this protein bar from my HLS swag bag.

Jillian blogged about hers and made me jealous. I thought it was pretty amazing too; very nice balance of sweet and salty!

While I was lunching Webster was also munching, on my cell phone, camera, magazine, and laptop cord to name a few things.

It looks like my agenda for the rest of the day needs to include *taking a long dog walk, filling a prescription, making dinner, dealing with some emails, and *buying a new chew toy!

18Aug2011

Birds Eye Take Two

by Emily

Tonight for dinner we tried the second half of the Birds Eye Chef’s Favorites sample I was sent as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program. To read my thoughts on the line as a whole (convenience, nutrition, etc) please read this post.

On the left is Lightly Sauced Primavera Vegetable Risotto.

Sadly, this was the one variety I didn’t love. The white rice/carrot/pea combo reminded me too much of fried rice and it was a bit gummy. I should note, however, that the husband thought it was pretty good, better than the other risotto in fact. I only ate half of my serving and he happily finished it off. Each serving contains 180 calories, 4 grams of protein and 14% of your daily sodium.

On the right is Lightly Sauced Roasted Red Potatoes and Green Beans with a Parmesan Olive Oil Sauce.

I was a bigger fan of this one. The potatoes were neither mushy nor too firm and the sauce was good without being heaving. 120 calories, 3 grams of protein, and 12% of your daily sodium per serving.

To enlarge our meal Adam and I also split a thing of spicy lump crab roll.

The sushi from Wegmans is shockingly good.

My facial appointment went well this afternoon; definitely not something I would pay a full price for but fun to use a Groupon on. I’m pretty sure the lotion she used with end up making me break out but the shoulder massage was greatly appreciated.

I had to stop by the co-op this afternoon and I was so hungry I ended up buying a small box of hot bar and inhaling it on the walk home.

Adam confirmed my suspicions that walking whilst eating does make you a fatty but it was totally worth it. I got waldorf chicken salad and a few tortellini.

I’m going to wrap this post up now because (surprise, surprise) I still haven’t packed. I’ve got to go figure out what I’m going to wear this weekend!

Are you going to the Healthy Living Summit? If you see me there pretty please say hello; I’m terrible with faces and I’m afraid I’m just going to be stuck in a corner by myself!

28Jul2011

Cheesy Peasy

by Emily

This afternoon I got my Great Fundraising Act contribution ready for mailing tomorrow.

Would you like to see what hand-rolling 30+ sugar cookie balls does to your palms?

Ouch! But at least it makes it ok for me to get caught red-handed having a reward for my hard work.

Sugar cookie frosting sandwich, x2.

My snack embodied sweet, so dinner was savory.

Cheesy Peasy Garlic Pasta (recipe available here and included at the end of this post).

Plus a side of roasted asparagus.

I was so excited about the creation of this recipe – which totally achieved the thick, cheesy sauce I was shooting for – but unfortunately it didn’t really fill me up. I wasn’t sure if I was really hungry or residually hungry though, so I decided to wait a bit before refilling my plate. Adam had a volunteering commitment in our neighborhood so I walked with him to deliver a cookie sandwich to the friend he was meeting (hi, Patrick!).

When my stomach was still grumbly mid-walk I decided to stop by the co-op for some protein. Waldorf chicken salad fit the bill.

It filled me up and pleased my taste buds, yum! If you haven’t tried grapes in chicken salad yet you don’t know what you’re missing.

Cheesy Peasy Garlic Pasta, serves 4

8 oz uncooked rigatoni
1 cup frozen peas
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp reduced fat cream cheese
1 cup skim milk
4 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 Tbsp fat-free ricotta

Cook pasta al dente according to box directions. In the last three minutes of cooking time, add frozen peas to the boiling water. Drain peas and pasta and set aside.
While pasta is cooking, heat evoo in a large pan over medium-high heat.
Add garlic to the oil and saute for 2 minutes; remove from pan and set aside.
Add flour and cream cheese to the pan and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add milk to the roux mixture and cook 3 more minutes, stirring constantly until thickened. Don’t worry if your mixture still is lumpy at this stage.
Reduce heat to low and stir in cheddar cheese and ricotta. When the sauce has fully mixed and achieved a smooth texture, remove the pan from the heat.
Add pasta, peas, and cooked garlic to the sauce in the pan; toss to combine.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with a vegetable.

27Jul2011

Bed Time Bungle

by Emily

I’ve been slathering sunscreen and popping my vitamins ever since I turned 26, but I’m still figuring out that whole bedtime thing. Last night I stayed up way too late watching Charmed. Like, way, way too late. And my ability to control my popcorn consumption suffered as a result.

I was too tired for proper photography, but not too hungry to force me to eat a proper meal. My eats for the day so far include – Wasabi peas.

Sabra Roasted Pine Nut Hummus with Pretzels.

A lemonade that sadly tasted like dirty syrup.

And two packs of Shark Bites.

Guess I should go gourmet for dinner, huh?

1Jul2011

Grog Not Groggy

by Emily

After my run this morning I joined my parents for an hour and a half bike ride. I burnt the crap out of my forearms yesterday so I ended up biking in 85* weather in this –

Worth it. We rode all around the path and over some gorgeous bridges. I so wish I’d had my camera but I couldn’t figure out a place to put it.

We came home for a refreshing breakfast.

0% Plain Greek Gods Yogurt with a strawberry honey straw, blueberries, peach, and Great Harvest granola.

I have maybe a half serving of granola left and my heart is breaking.

Getting lunch was not my strong suit today and I will admit that I was a little cranky this afternoon. We did do some fun things though, like explore a neat farmer’s market.