Serendipitous Stop

by Emily

Hello from Ohio! I’m so glad we had this long weekend so I had the chance to get over to visit my grandparents. My grandpa is in the hospital at the moment unfortunately, but we’ll get to visit a bit and we’re hanging out with my grandma until Monday.

I went to bed at 3am ~~last night~~ this morning and my alarm went off at 7am so you know I turned to coffee.

Adam and I shared this cup, with a small splash of English Toffee syrup and a big splash of skim milk.

Webster had an appointment to get his booster shots so we headed to the vet’s office on the way out of town. Adam took him alone for the first visit while I was at HLS and I was so impressed today with how brave he was.

He was a total champ on the car road too. Most of the trip was spent like this,

or like this.

And he drank water out of a glass in the cup holder like a little traveler!

When we weren’t fawning over how cute the dog is, we were eating. I didn’t get a chance to pack lunch for myself and I got very lucky with a serendipitous stop. I was hungry and thirsty when I spotted a Chipotle so I asked Adam to pull over,

and then we realized that we were only 2 miles from froyo!

Booyah! You’ve seen my froyo face, but here is my “froyo and Chipotle?!?” face –

self taken in the bathroom mirror because even I have a little shame.

We actually ate our froyo first.

I stuck with a theme and got a small cup of low-fat mint froyo topped with snowcaps, crumbled Andes, Oreos, and fudge sauce.

Swoon.

Then I ate my Chipotle rice bowl in the car.

They let me do a small scoop of rice topped with black beans, fajita veggies, corn salsa, mild salsa, and a tiny sprinkle of cheese.

I topped the whole thing off myself with TONS of green Tabasco. Double swoon.

Other snacks included part of this apple which got warm and gross,

and this baggie of snacks (yogurt pretzels!) from my grandparents’ house.

We made it to Ohio in pretty good time and got to spend an hour visiting with my grandpa before coming home to a gourmet dinner.

I swear eating with my grandma makes you feel like you’re at a hotel!

Homemade cole slaw,

a slice of foccacia,

roasted asparagus,

and enchilada casserole.

I only left a bite or two on my plate but I definitely made room for dessert.

Homemade chocolate pie. I scraped my crust off for Adam (crust is to filling like cake is to icing) but practically licked the rest of my plate clean.

The filling of this was like chewable pudding, so good!

I am stuffed, exhausted, and ready for bed.

31Aug2011

Impulse Control

by Emily

I’ve made it to hump day and school is still going ok, phew! I’ve attended 5 out of my 6 classes now and it seems like this semester is going to be doable.

We have a super long lunch break on Wednesdays so a group of friends and I decided to take advantage of the time and took a walk down Elmwood to lunch at The Spot. We ended up walking a bit more than 2.5 miles round trip, booyah! Between that and walking to and from school and with Webster I think I can practically count walking as a workout for today.

Lunch was a fun mix of flavors. I can’t believe my Thai leftovers even lasted this long!

There’s less there than it looks, sad face, maybe about 1 cup’s worth of veggies and broad rice noodles.

Still nice and spicy though, I had to buy a cup of skim milk from The Spot to save my tounge.

I also packed some leftovers from last night’s dinner.

2 oz of Black and Blue Dip,

with celery and green bell peppers dipped in.

This was a great lunch, I love meals with lots of little pieces.

We got out just early enough from our final class that I had time to hurry home, cuddle Webster, and drive to the post office before it closed so I could mail a book I sold on Amazon. While I was out I also picked up a few necessities from Target. Including this impulse purchase –

Actually, I spotted a display of candy boxes at Wegmans on Sunday and have been obsessing about them ever since, so I’m not sure you can exactly call this an impulse purchase. Definitely a good purchase though, look at some of those flavors –

Yum!

After taking Webs on a walk the husband and I threw together the quickest dinner ever.

It helps to keep things speedy when almost every item on the plate is a leftover.

Like these leftovers tacos.

We spread a thin layer of the Black and Blue Dip on corn taco shells,

added a layer of the sautéed veggies from last night (onion, red bell pepper, and mushroom),

and topped with a layer of this Newman’s Own Medium Pineapple Salsa. <– divine

The seemingly random combo of flavors actually went together really well. The dip is pretty savory and the salsa is a bit sweet and the texture of the veggies went perfectly with the crunchy taco shells.

Plus a serving of bbq kale and beans on the side.

I actually single-serving froze the rest of those leftovers so I have them for lunches later on.

You know what our after dinner plans were.

Another cup of red velvet tea with skim milk and a serving of chocolates.

Adam and I mostly split them but I kept the bananas foster flavor all to myself. I’m actually finishing up my snack and we ~~speak~~ type.

What was the last thing you impulse purchased?

30Aug2011

Dip for Dinner

by Emily

I finished all of my schoolwork for this week, wrote an article for the Dietetics newsletter, and made a deeply delicious dinner. Go me!

The first round of dinner felt oh-so-sophisticated, dip and crudities.

The dip was my newest recipe creation, Black and Blue Dip:

Yield: 14 ounces; Prep Time: 10 minutes; Cook Time: 0

15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 oz (or 1/2 cup) blue cheese crumbles
4 Tbsp light sour cream
3 Tbsp A-1 steak sauce

Place beans into the food processor and pulse until mostly smooth.
Add blue cheese, sour cream, and steak sauce and pulse until well-combined, scraping down the sides of the food processor as needed.

The black beans and blue cheese are a fun flavor combo, the A-1 adds spice and depth, and the sour cream helps to smooth out the flavor. Adam described this as meaty (and fun for all vegetables!) so I guess this had umami! Each 2 oz serving had only 106 calories so this would be the perfect dip to bring to a party where you were hoping to keep things healthy.

I ate a 2 oz serving,

with baby carrots, green pepper, and celery dipped in.

Adam and I both agreed that this was a fabulous appetizer.

The second half of dinner was brinner.

I used 2 Tbsp of butter to saute 1 pint of sliced mushrooms, 1 sliced red bell pepper, and 1 Mayan onion. We pulled out half of the cooked veggies for later use and scrambled the rest into 3 large eggs.

This dinner ended up being a little small but it’s bedtime so what can you do? Meh.

What is your favorite thing to dip into blue cheese? Baby carrots are good but pizza crusts are better!

24Aug2011

Yesterday

by Emily

Hello, there. I wrote this last night and intended to post but Webster was being a psycho and it got too late. It’s a good thing he looked like this for several hours this afternoon or I might have smothered him.

Since I didn’t eat very much on Monday, I woke up yesterday starving. I turned to the tuna noodle casserole Adam made while I was away.

Good job, husband!

This was tasty and it filled me right up so I could work on my Sabra/Foodbuzz contest post.

Many nibbles were taken during the creation of those recipes.

But I still had time for lunch when all was said and done.

A toasted Bagel Thin with spinach and artichoke hummus dip,

plus a bowl of watermelon chunks.

For dessert I made myself 2 s’mores in the broiler.
It’s a lot easier to ignore the fact that your puppy is puking up the carpet he devoured when you’re eating a toasted marshmallow.

I also ate a serving of Raisin Bran Plus later in the afternoon.

This was supposed to be fuel for a free yoga class but since it was canceled at the last minute this ended up just replenishing my saddle bags.

For dinner Adam and I split these nachos.

I specifically said “whole black beans please, no refried beans” but for some reason these were loaded with both.

I still ate my full share though so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Moving to the present… I just got home from an orthodontist appointment and most definitely ate these cookies on my drive home.

They did impressions and I just can’t stand having that gross chemical flavor in my mouth!

Now I’m off to find some real food. I’m also headed to school to run a session with some incoming freshmen. Have a great Hump Day!

22Aug2011

Healthy Living Summit 2011 Mega Recap

by Emily

This post is going to be huge, so there are a few facts I want to establish before I begin –

* The Healthy Living Summit (HLS) was fabulous and I had a wonderfully fun time. However, since I didn’t have internet all weekend this is going to be a monster post and I’m not going to include as many details as I’d like.

* I met and hung out with some amazing people. So many, in fact, that I think it makes the most sense for me not to link back to anyone.

* I snapped a photo of every piece of food that went into my mouth but I wasn’t so good on people or places; I was too busy enjoying those things to photograph them.

Okey doke, let’s start from the beginning…

So, this happened exactly halfway between Buffalo and Philly –

Usually a picture of a flat tire would be followed by many four letter words but the only one I could think of was l-u-c-k. My trip to Philly was greasy, two hours longer than planned and completely exhausting, but I actually started crying because I felt so grateful. The things I am thankful for –

It rained 70% of my trip but not a drop fell during the two hours I was standing on the side of the road changing my tire.
My tire blew on a small side road and not when I was going 70 mph on the highway.
I was able to take off the nuts and jack up the car all by myself, and if the tire hadn’t been completely rusted to the axle I probably could have done the entire thing myself like a total badass.
The nicest man on earth not only stopped to help me out, but drove back to his house for the sledgehammer it took to get my tire off.
The nice man gave me directions to his nice friends’ body shop, where they replaced my tire and fixed me up for only $20.

Isn’t the world amazing? Before the whole debacle I drank a guava Rockstar for breakfast,

and afterwards I shakily ate the half turkey sandwich with cheese and cranberry mayo that I packed from the Co-op.

And I made it (with aching forearms) to Philly with time to shower and change before the HLS cocktail party.

The drinks, provided by Drink Chia, were super tasty.

This cocktail was a mix (I believe) of Drink Chia, strawberries, and vodka. It tasted sort of like a bubble tea with mini bobba!

The food was pretty good as well.

I had a corn and crab fritter, a piece of pretzel crusted chicken, a few small bites, plus another piece of the chicken.

Everything was tasty but there wasn’t quite enough sustenance for dinner so a few of us ended up in the hotel restaurant for a late night snack.

I went with the s’mores mousse shooter.

Plus I scarfed up one of the Lindt truffles they brought with the bill.

It was a sweet end to the first day.

The next morning (Saturday) we were up bright and early for breakfast. Cereal with skim milk,

an Oikos drinkable yogurt with a juicy plum – sidenote, I feel like I had food dripping down my face this whole weekend! –

and a much-needed coffee.

Around this point I realized I probably should be snapping more pictures like a good blogger.

Though I did snag a shot of me with two of my roomies.

I didn’t love the Quaker Smashbar provided on the snack break so I only ate half of it.

But I did love the RD Quaker provided as the key-note speaker. She wrote a book on being a flexatarian and I loved her points about embracing plants more than avoiding meats. In fact, all of the sessions were pretty darn informative and inspirational.

Before I knew it, it was time for lunch.

Side salad for greens,

quinoa salad, which had some sort of acid component that took it over the top,

and half a tofu sandwich on Great Harvest bread, squeal!

For dessert I grabbed a milk chocolate crunch Attune probiotic bar.

I had no idea these would be so delicious! I was very excited to see some coupons in my swag bag.

After the sessions we went to do some city exploring.

Here are all my roomates,

and here is the Liberty Bell.

I’m glad we sight-saw in the way that we did, because our travels took us to Farmacia for dinner.

Yum, seriously just yum x 1000. The wait staff was so sweet and accommodating of our 12-person party, the space was adorable, and the food was delicious.

I was ravenous and I think my heart actually skipped a beat when this bread and herbed butter were brought to the table.

I ate this slice times two.

Since it was a vacation I went with a John Daly to drink.

Sweet tea vodka and fresh squeezed lemonade, yes please! A few people sipped my drink and we all agreed it was the best Arnold Palmer ever.

And then came the food. Which was basically ridiculous.

I ordered the sweet corn and risotto croquettes. Which came with garden veggie ratatouille,

and sautéed spinach that blew my mind. It must have been the butter sauce that was floating on my plate.

The spinach was the best thing I ate all weekend, but the croquettes were perfect too; crunchy and creamy all at the same time. I ate 1.5 croquettes and all of my veggies and was basically in heaven.

You know I have to get self-serve froyo if I’m in a new city.

I got peanut butter, cream cheese (!!), and tart, topped with all the berries, caramel sauce, and sprinkles.

Fueled by sugar, a group of us stayed up until practically 3am! Normally a 3 am bedtime and 8 am Sunday workout would feel brutal, but I think I was too excited to be tired. I don’t have any pictures, but I did participate in the HLS 5k. A huge group walked/ran around the city including the Rocky steps.

When we got back it was time for oatmeal.

Topped with flax, cinnamon, and walnuts.

I also had about a billion mugs of Tazo Earl Grey tea with skim milk.

I am completely obsessed (I stole a few packets from breakfast!) and need to buy this asap.

After the festivities wrapped, a group of us did some more exploring around Philly.

This is what happens when you give bloggers a group photo-op –

For lunch we sought out Philly cheese steaks. I found success at the Basic 4 Vegetarian Snack Bar.

This monster was vegan, but there is basically no way that the traditional meat sandwich could be better.

I left a lot of the bread, but gobbled up the “meat” which was crunchy in the most pleasing way. Such a great way to end the weekend!

Around 2 I made my final goodbyes and headed out. Though I did stop at Whole Foods for an Argo Tea Mojitea for the road.

It was very tasty, but my next two drinks were much more telling. A grande white mocha coconut frappuccino with 2 extra shots of espresso.

And a huge diet pop with a splash of cherry coke.

Can you say exhausted?! But I made it home in one piece and had a wonderful weekend to boot!

Did you attend HLS? What’d you think?

7Aug2011

Pizza Powered

by Emily

As planned, we ordered a pie from Just Pizza last night and it was fabulous.

We got a Laura’s Old Fashioned – “The way our Mother used to make it. Made with Extra Thick Dough, a special Sweet Pizza Sauce (fresh sliced Onions in the sauce), Mozzarella & Romano Cheese, topped with Mushrooms.”

Not so fabulous was the way I felt after eating 5 slices this size.

Fat, ill, and irritated with myself for noting getting up an eating a salad. On the plus side though, it’s sort of like Adam and I were carbo-loading for our run this morning! If nothing else, our glycogen stores were nice and prepared.

Actually we were prepped all around, this is the run I got to test out my new shoes on.

I’m 90% sure I like them, but I’m going to run in them once more to be sure since my most recent pair sucked so badly.

I also tested out my new favorite shirt;

handmade by ME at last week’s tie dye party.

I think it’s pretty darn cute.

It was a good run to feel cute on, because I was mostly feeling like a jackass that I haven’t worked out all summer. My planned 3.5 miles were tough. We had two 1.75 mile loops around Delaware Park and I’m just glad I finished. I had to take a few walking breaks, but I made sure to run for a least five minutes each time and walk for no more than 2 minutes at a time. 3.5 miles in 40 minutes and 20 seconds. Followed by a 10 minute walk.

The rest of the agenda was shower ~ ice ~ grocery ~ clean the dirty apartment ~ dinner. Thankfully our grocery trip was made much more exciting by our plan to sit in the cafe for a few hours so Adam could study. I got cozy reading Nancy.

Sidenote – I am completely and utterly obsessed with the Nancy Drew books.

And got exciting lunch from the hot bar.

In an effort to save a bit of money, we also supplemented with salads from home.

In the end my meal ended up being arugula topped with carrots, 2 Tbsp of wheat germ, 1/4 cup of roasted chick peas, and 2 Tbsp of tarragon vinaigrette.

Plus roasted veggies, chili garlic eggplant, and veggies picked out of the cashew chicken,

and a few pieces of pineapple and berries.

Delish. I read my first Nancy and munched and was in absolute bliss.

Unfortunately, the grocery took longer than anticipated and once I added in a last-minute walk to the co-op and the task of packing Adam’s lunches, I plain ran out of time to clean the house. Tomorrow. And at least I’m a good wife.

Adam has one rice bowl for each day of the work week. And I took a good many nibbles that escaped the camera while I cooked.

I also made dinner.

Polenta that turned into a fairly intimidating, but tasty solid,

and huevos rancheros inspired tacos.

I scrambled 5 eggs (with skim milk, salt, and pepper) into sautéed chopped onions and green pepper, and then stuffed them into blue corn taco shells with a bit of sharp cheddar. I served Adam and myself 3/5 and 2/5 accordingly.

Dessert was 2/3 to 1/3 in my favor though.

A gigantic cowboy cookie I picked up at the co-op.

My entire right side of my body has ached ever since yesterday’s tennis game, so I’m going to go curl up with a book.

18Jul2011

Horribly Hilarious

by Emily

Just as needed, today was much more low-key than the first two days of my parents’ visit. Adam was at school all day so my mom and dad and I did some shopping, ate take-out at home, and saw a movie. It was just what ~~the doctor~~ my sore feet and back ordered.

For breakfast I ate the newest Clif Bar, Coconut Chocolate Chip.

I doesn’t taste like a samosa like the chocolate dipped coconut Luna Bar, but it was still pretty darn tasty. Just enough sweet to be fun but not sickening.

My parents and I were at the mall for-ev-er, and I ended up making a lunch snack out of samples from the kitchen supply store.

Normally I’d be upset about not getting a more substantial lunch (or breakfast!), but I knew I had the filling meal coming for dinner.

Can you beat Moe’s rice bowls? I submit that you cannot. Rice, blacks beans, sautéed mushrooms and green peppers, corn salsa, lettuce, cheese, and cilantro.

Also amazing were the (serving’s worth of) chips I grabbed from the communal bag.

I loved getting to introduce my dad to Moe’s, you just can’t help but love it.

You can totally help but love this Eat More candy bar I bought in Canada this weekend.

I’m not even going to say what that looks like.

I took two (icky) bites and passed it off to the rest of the family to try. Just as well, I was much more excited about my movie candy.

Gummi cola bottles! To be accurate, gummi cola bottles, cherry gummi cola bottles, and sour gummi cola bottles; multiple varieties for the win!

The movie was also a good idea, we saw “Horrible Bosses” and all four of us loved it! John Francis Dailey (Dr. Sweets of “Bones”) is a great actor but he can co-write one hell of a screenplay too. The movie was dirty and guffaw-inducing, just my style.

Have you ever had a horrible boss? You didn’t kill them did you?!

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.