Tag Archives: potato

Random Sampling

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There are two things you need to know about today going into this post – 1. It was an all over the place day; 2. It was chockfull of samples. Edited to add – whoops, make that three things – 3. I’m in a terrible, corny joke mood!  

Before I start I want to address the samples.  “Hello, Samples, how are you?”  Ok, ok, bad joke!  I just wanted to say that I respect my readers (you guys!) and try to give you the content you deserve (bad jokes aside), and I hope that this blog never feels like a commercial.  That said; I think part of my job as a food blogger – especially a healthy food blogger who also relies on a high volume of packaged foods – is to try, discuss, and introduce new and tasty products.  I hope you know that I would never sugarcoat a product that contains too much sugar (hyuck, hyuck), and that I always share my true opinion.  If I seem like I really like something, it’s because I do, not because I’m trying to impress a company.  And if it seems like I really, really like something, it’s because I’m kind of overeager and I’m pretty much always jazzed about something! 😀

All of that is to say that I started my morning with a sample.

Other than my diet soda addiction, I tend to shy away from “diet” products, so when Zone Perfect contacted me I figured it would be for a product that I should turn down because I wouldn’t purchase it on my own.  Then I realized that the products were cookie dough protein bars and all bets were off!  The bars came in a cookie jar (too cute!) –

And the packaging was adorable.

I decided to start with the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavor; could it stack up to Balance Cookie Dough Bars (my very favorite product of all time)?

Yes!  I’m not going to diss BCDB’s by moving them to 2nd place (not a chance), but I’m pretty sure these firmly tie for my new favorite!  The flavor was mild but the texture was exactly like cookie dough.  The fact that there were chocolate chunks (instead of chocolate coating) made the experience seem 100% real.  I sort of felt like a naughty baker all through breakfast!  Are they healthy?  The short answer is, it depends.  Obviously all protein bars have more chemicals (and saturated fat) than a plate of waffles or scrambled eggs.  But tastewise this would make eggs its b***h.  If you don’t currently eat protein bars, I wouldn’t suggest throwing out your real food to buy these.  But if you do, then stock up immediately because these are amazing.  Note – I’m only taking CCCD here, I’ll let you know when I try the other flavors.

The reason I was eating an on-the-go breakfast in the first place is because I had to be at school at before 8am to meet with a teacher.  Afterwards I did some final studying and then I headed off to the big scary Anatomy Lab practical exam.  Phew, glad that’s over!  I dont’ think I got an A, but I did alright; and I’m very proud of how much I learned.

In between classes I did more errand running related to my transfer credits.  Please cross your fingers for me that it’s all sorted out soon.  I also finished a big chunk of work for a project, freeing up my afternoon.

Today’s Food Lab is one we’ve all been looking forward to for weeks – fruit!

There were triffles, crumbles, crisps, and an awesome variety of fresh fruits (papaya, mango, horn melon..).  My group made applesauce; it was delicious and I’m hoping to remake it at home soon.

I ran a few errands around Elmwood this afternoon and then Adam set off to multiple mail locations.  I got a fun box from Sahale Snacks that you’ll be seeing soon.  Also, Random Integer Generator picked #9,

congrats Monica!  E-mail me (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) with your address and phone # so I can get you your prize.

I also got a fun mystery box!  When I was at BlogHer I had a long talk with the Terra Chips guys about how much I loved Blue, and I was thrilled to find this in the mail today!

Thanks Terra Chips!  We immediately tore the bag open and I had this handful x 3.

They are just regular potato chips but they taste so amazing!  The chips are extra thick and crunchy and the husband and I are both obsessed with them.

Next we headed to the mall where I confirmed the death of my i-pod, tear.  It wasn’t all bad though, I did have a coupon (I am on the mailing list to basically everything) for Aunt Annie’s Pretzels.

Jalapeno and Cheddar Pretzel?  Yes, please!

Cheesey and spicy and awesome and about a billionth of the calories of the jalapeno cheddar nachos I scarfed all last year (I looked it up, the pretzel has 300calories).  I ate a little bit more than half.

Finally, we made the evening a full-fledged date and headed to the movies.

We’ve been dying to see “Easy A” for weeks and I’m so glad we caught it while it was still in the theatres!  If you get a chance, see it!  The movie was funny and touching at the same time and the music and casting were awesome.  The dialogue was amazing and Adam and I pretty much want to grow up to be the main character’s parents.

I crunched my way through the movie with some prepacked snacks; a Gala apple,

and a cucumber.

We rounded out the date with a walk around the neighborhood when we got home.  Two things – 1) I am so glad I married someone who loves to walk with me; 2) I am so ready to go to the gym tomorrow!

When we got home I finished up dinner with a final sample of the day.

Special K Red Berries cereal now has more fiber, and I was sent a sample as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers’ Program.  Nutritional – 

I poured myself a heaping 1cup serving with skim milk.

Fab-u-lous!  I dont’ know why I don’t eat cereal more often, I’m always in love with it when I do.  It’s been a long time since I’ve bought Special K, but I’m putting it back on my  grocery list.  The flakes were just sweet enough and they kept their crunch, even through a long soak while I unpacked my binder.  Plus (especially for 110calories!) I found that a serving really filled me up.

In summary – 1) Today was a lot of fun; 2) I think this post just goes to show that it is possible to eat a healthy diet….in a hurry…..while still having a lot of fun (although my veggie consumption today was pretty sad!).

Have you seen “Easy A” yet?  (No, why the heck not?!)  What’d you think?

He’s Just Like Garfield

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I did not get enough work done today!  I got behind from my “free” weekend last week and I’m still making work up, and I have 4 exams next week so things are feeling a little crazy.  But I did something so that feels good.  Progress, people!

This morning we sent the in-laws off with a hearty breakfast from Panos.

I ordered “The Fix,” which was Two eggs, scrambled with Feta, in a grilled Pita, served with homefries.  I made some adjustments – mozzarella subbed in for feta, plus broccoli and spinach.

I forgot to ask for no butter on my pita so I ended up taking a few sandwich bites and then eating the insides out.  I left a lot of my huge pile of hash browns as well.

I think we sent them off full!  I wrote my blog address down for my m-i-l so she might start stopping by (hi Barb!).

I spent the morning studying – and internet time killing 😦 – at home.  The last of the 7-layer bar was calling me.

I cut it up into little pieces for ease in eating without crumming on my Orgo book.

Around 3 the husband came home from the lab and we drove over to my campus so I could go to the gym.  My knees have been feeling off so I decided to do a nice low-impact treadmill run.

  • 5minute walking warm up
  • 20minutes jogging
  • 5minute walking cool down

I covered 2.53miles.  I finished with a super quick stretch, the gym was closing as I left!

Adam and I studied in the library for a couple of hours – although, again, I got distracted by the internet; gleesh!  I packed some plums and a Babybel Light to snack on.

I also opened this Turtle candy bar my in-laws brought me.

I ate 1.5 and gave the rest to the husband.

I should not have wasted any more time, but when we got home and Adam asked if I wanted to go for a walk my answer was “of course!”  We didn’t have any destination in mind so we ended up visiting the store kitties.

The “store kitties” are two cats that live in a clothing shop on Elmwood, the husband is obsessed with them.  They are ginormous; one has huge paws and is just a big cat, and the other is a total fatty. 

Sidenote 1 – Adam and I have been talking for weeks about baking a lasagna just so we can take a picture of it with the fat cat.  Sidenote 2 – when we lived in Park Slope there was a store puppy, a french bulldog that visited a shop 13 blocks from our apartment.  We walked those 13 blocks at least 3 times a week so we could go in and be total dog creepers.

Dinner was a cinch when we got home because my m-i-l brought us all sorts of home cooked goodness.

Rosemary chicken (just to note, I only ate one of those two pieces, I don’t think I’m a fan of chicken thighs),

with roasted potatoes.

All we had to do was pan-steam some Red Russian Kale, finished off with a bit of sesame oil.

I dipped every component in ketchup 🙂

This meal felt very hardy.

Now I’m already late for my goal bedtime and I’ve still got to shower; I’m off!

Do you have any “store animals” in your neighborhood?

Friday (Mostly) Freebie

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So it’s been 14 hours since my last post, also 14hours since I last sat at my laptop; yikes!  I’m a bit concerned that this semester is basically going to be insane.  My packed lunch was tasty, I guess, I’m not really sure since I inhaled the sandwich while running to class.  The cucumber slices were good, but perhaps a bit loud for crunching during Orgo; insert red face here.  I did squeeze in some Friday fun though.

After my last class ended (3pm) Adam came over to my campus for a study session with me.  I am so much more focused when the husband is next to me, probably because I’m not texting him!  A little after 5, I headed to the gym.  30minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  I wasn’t so lethargic today so I was able to run interval sprints for the last 10minutes or so.

After a shower we headed to the mall to Johnny Rockets.

I came home from BlogHer with coupons for 2 free meals so we made that our dinner date.  Usually JR would not be my first choice, but I’m kind of cheap 😉  Adam and I decided to do some sandwich splitting –

I got the #12 turkey burger,

and he ordered a tuna melt on sourdough.

He loved the melt (I thought the tuna tasted funny) and I thought the turkey burger was actually pretty fabulous, not too greasy at all.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy pickles on burgers.  I ate ~ 1/3 of each sandwich and half of my fries.

Since all we had to pay was the tip we brought the evening’s cost up to a grand total of $6.71 by splitting a mini Brownie Batter Blizzard.

Cons – I don’t like brownies so I’m not sure why I thought I’d like this (I ate about 1/3 of it though).  Pros – our DQ has mini Blizzards now, yippie!

Does your DQ offer the mini?  What is your Blizzard order?

A Cautionary Tale

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So this afternoon, after I spent the entire day rocking my running skirt, I got sucked into blogs and didn’t realize until 5:40 that my campus gym closed at 6pm.  Fail.  I can’t take a day off from exercise, because one turns into twenty, so when I found a post-card in the mail informing me that our old gym membership expires on the 28th it felt very serendipitous.  We loaded into the car and set off toward a healthy evening.

I was hungry by then, so during the ride I ate a Banana Soy Joy bar, pulled from my BlogHer stash.

Meh, at the time I didn’t love or hate it.

We didn’t have much time at the gym so I tried to bust my butt the entire visit.  “California Girls” by Katy Perry is surprisingly motivating, as is this song.  30minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  I did a mix of backward and forward pedalling, as well as some sprint intervals.  I ended my visit with 10minutes of strength and stretch moves.

As I stretched my legs I felt an unpleasant tightness in the back of my neck.  During my sit ups I started to feel nauseous.  While we were leaving the gym I could taste that stupid Soy Joy bar through all the water I was chugging.  And five minutes later we were pulling over so I could throw up.  Mega fail.

We haven’t quite narrowed it down, but basically I have an intolerance for some food preservative(s).  I also have a major allergy to some specific preservative that is found in Hawaiian Punch products, but that’s another story.  I’ve eaten other Soy Joy bars before without incident, but the Banana flavor is definitely off-limits for me from now on.

By the time I had pulled myself together and Adam had stopped at Walgreens to purchase himself a snack (thanks for the concern, husband!) I realized that I would not be able to stomach the dinner we had planned.  No, the only thing that would do was jalapeno poppers, with cream cheese, NOT cheddar.  I know some people would feel sick just at the thought of eating poppers, but they were literally the only thing that appealed to me.

I’ll make a very long and sad story short – three stores (and some time on Yelp) later we claimed defeat.  Adam told me I had to eat something for dinner, and also to stop whimpering or I was going to be walking home, so I went the Buffalo sauce route, a close 2nd to jalapeno.  I was starving at that point, and a bit unreasonable as well, so dinner was a huge buffalo chicken finger sandwich and a huge thing of french fries.  Ultra mega fail.

Clearly I hated it.

Oh, Canada

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Tuesday was so absolutely busy that it’s taken me ’till halfway through Wednesday just to sit down and do the recap!  I’m not even worrying about today’s posts until later, I think this one will be looooooong enough.

Yesterday morning Camile, Adam and I piled into the car bright and early to pick up Benji; oh yes, we were going to Canada.

Actually, first we stopped by the American side of the Falls.

Adam and I, in our typical fashion, forgot our passports so while he ran back home the rest of us wandered across the bridge to a view of the Falls I hadn’t seen before.  Mother Nature knows where it’s at, everything was gorgeous.

For our car breakfast I packed a Cookie Dough Balance Bar,

and a Blueberry POM to split with Adam.

POM Wonderful recently sent me this new juice variety to sample.  I tend not to drink a lot of juice but POM has such concentrated nutrient value that I think it does have a place in a healthy diet.  Plus, juice usually doesn’t register fullness with most people but POM has such a strong flavor that I think it contributes to satiety.  The four of us agreed that while the blueberry was good, we liked the original variety better; the berries gave a bit of an aftertaste.  We also thought that it was too strong, we cut ours with water and enjoyed it better that way.

We crossed the border into a pretty touristy area, but the four of us definitely enjoyed marveling at the wax sculptures, the kooky decorations, and all the offerings at the gigantic Hershey’s store.  Everyone was hungry and ready to get out of the heat so we stopped at the Rainforest Cafe for lunch.

I enjoyed all the decorations and special effects, but thought that the menu was pretty overpriced.  Adam and I decided to split an entrée.

Splitting was a good decision, our meal was giant!  It ended up being wonderful though.  We shared pasta with peas, shrimp, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes.  We both adore sun-dried tomatoes and we felt like the food was pretty high quality.  Splitting worked out perfectly; I gave Adam all of the shrimp and most of the pasta and he let me go to town on all of the veggies.

Next we drove to Toronto!  I loved it!  Adam, Benji, and I kept asking each other all day why we didn’t just live there?!  Toronto seemed like a very walker-friendly city, we saw tons of bikes, there were a bazillion cute stores, the food options were great, and everyone was so nice.

We walked all day, my idea of heaven!  We started in Chinatown; I went into a small grocery store which was probably a mistake because now I’m dying to get back to shop.  You could buy Bobba!  Adam insisted that it wasn’t a kitchen necessity, but we did get some bubble tea.

I got a small passionfruit black tea with tapioca, yum!

We had to walk to see the CN Tower.

Tickets to get in were $20, so we spent some time craning our heads back and walked around the lobby instead.  I met a very fuzzy bear, which might have made Adam a bit jealous 😉

Afterwards we wanded around what I guess was the fashion district (there was also a button).

Fabulous, is pretty much the only word for dinner.

We searched for vegetarian Poutine and came up with Utopia Cafe.  Perfect crispy fries topped with vegetarian gravy and big cheese curds?  Fabulous.

I was so excited to get to try this classic (usually the gravy is meat based).  The four of us split a basket for an appetizer and now we all want to go back.

Our entrées were fantastic as well.  I got the curried chick pea and potato burrito.

The entrées all came with rice and beans and a green salad.

My burrito tasted so much like the roti I grew up eating, I felt like I was back in St. Thomas!  The potato and chick peas were cooked in a spicy coconut curry with raisins and served with some chutney.

I ate all of my salad, most of my rice (Adam happily scarfed down the rest), and half of my burrito.  I’m already excited about eating the second half for dinner tonight.

Then we piled back into the car for the drive back to reality the U.S.

Have you ever been to Canada?

Greens, Beans, and Time Machines

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I am officially caught up with school and ready to take my final exam tomorrow 🙂 I’ve definitely disliked being blog-neglectful, I can’t wait to get back into a schedule after the move is over.  For now, even though I love you it’s got to be another quickie (TWSS!).

 Breakfast/lunch were sort of spread out in three courses throughout the morning and afternoon.  I managed to get enough to eat, but consume in shifts that allowed me to study.  #1 A big bowl of fresh watermelon chunks.

#2 A serving of Barbara’s Shredded Oats topped with Silk Almond Milk and blueberries.

By the by, I hear a lot of people talking about binging on cereal and if you are one of those folks I highly recommend this stuff.  It is not very tasty dry from the box but fantasmic with some Silk Almond Milk.

#3 A long overdue green monster; 1frozen banana, 1cup frozen spinach, 1cup calcium + vitamin d oj.

When Adam got home this evening we played hookey from moving and instead took a long walk.  Our long walk was supposed to be an hour or so, to the ice cream store and back.  Instead we fell into a pointless fight and spent hours huffing and crying (who me?  I’m not stressed about moving!).  Don’t pointless fights just feel like you accidentally fell into some sort of time machine?  It’s like you can’t even believe how late it is when it’s over.  We did make it to the ice cream store eventually, but they were closed.  So instead we split a slice of melty pizza to hold us over for late dinner.

The husband had chicken to use up and I made myself a Mexican bowl of sorts.

Into the skillet went 2tsp evoo, chopped shallot, a small chopped potato, half of a chopped green pepper, black beans, 1egg and 2egg whites, 2T shredded cheddar, salt and tons of paprika.

I also had some green bean fries on the side.

It is late late late, Futurama–> bed –> goodnight!

Do you ever have pointless fights with your SO or do you bottle up your emotions and save them for times that actually count?

P.S. I also enjoyed a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Lara Bar, yum!

Culinary Confusion

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I ate a sundae for breakfast and breakfast for lunch, how’s that for traditional?  Really though, it doesn’t matter how “normal” a meal is, as long as it is healthy and tasty.  And breakfast and lunch both were!

My sundae bowl yesterday was so wonderful that I had to do a repeat.

0% Plain Oikos, a little bit of homemade key lime pie ice cream, blackberry sauce, and crumbled graham cracker.

I seriously fall more in love with the ice cream every time I taste it!

Breakfast lunch featured some favorites as well, hash browns and pizza eggs.

For the hash browns I chopped up a small handful of baby red potatoes then fried them in 1T Smart Balance with salt and paprika.

Tasty, but next time I’d let them cook longer and get those crunchy brown bits.

Pizza eggs are a favorite, and so simple!  2 eggs + 1oz extra sharp cheddar + 10 slices turkey pepperoni + 1/4 cup marinara sauce = taste perfection

Mmmn-mmm-mmmn!

What is your favorite way to eat potatoes?  Mine is oven baked fries.

The Sea Cow

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After my ultimate breakfast lunch was a bit of a disappointment.  I’d been salivating over the thought of green bean fries all week, but when I opened the bag today they were all slimy!  I almost went ahead and roasted them anyways but I was afraid it would be like eating a sea cucumber.

Instead I got my veggies from a bowl of Dr. McDougall’s Vegetable Soup.

On the side I roasted a small handful of baby red creamer potatoes; baking spray and salt, 400* oven, 20minutes.

In the last 5 minutes of roasting time I stuck in an onion bun with a slice of colby jack cheese.

All together they made a pretty tasty lunch combination.

I realize my day needs some fruits and dairy, but I’ve got those food groups covered with my planned dinner.  Said dinner will be consumed in the car, because we are driving to PA for the weekend to meet our new niece!  I’m very excited, but it does mean that I have 1hour now to pack, do some sort of work out, shower, and be ready when the husband gets home.

Just for fun – what is your favorite marine creature?  I have a minor otter obsession.  And, of course, the sea cow!

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