Tag Archives: salad

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?

I Am NYC Homesick

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I had an amazing time at BlogHer, but it’s always great to be back to reliable internet home!  I hate to rush through a recap of a good time, but it’s after midnight and I did miss my husband!

If Thursday night was a healthy living fail, Friday night was a blogger fail – I forgot my camera!  We attended an art gallery at BlogHer and then walked down to Lexington Ave for some fabulous Thai food.  I stuffed myself silly 🙂  When Camile e-mails me her photos I’ll post some up later.

Saturday morning there was a long lull between breakfast and the first session so we decided to walk over ‘late’ and just pick up breakfast along the way.  I got a bagel with egg and turkey bacon, no cheese,

and a Zico coconut water.

Everything was super tasty but I knew the expo hall had samples waiting so I stuck with half of my bagel.

Later in the morning I sampled a new “dessert” line from Yoplait.

So good, I can’t wait until these come to Buffalo.

Lunch was vastly improved over the first day as well.

A bean salad with yellow raisins,

green beans,

and a small piece of salmon.

For dessert I grabbed a Jello Mousse Cup, also good.

Later in the afternoon I also snagged a blondie,

and a baggie of apple slices.

At 5, Camile and I met up with a group of bloggers for some green juice and a power walk.

[thanks for the group shots, Kath!]

I went with spinach, parsley, carrot.

I’ve been missing green juice like crazy since we moved to Buffalo, so this hit the spot!

We walked around Central Park for an hour or so, then hightailed it back to our hotel so we had time to make it back to converge with the group for dinner.

We went to Eatery, which was wonderful.

I ordered the Adobe Salad, which came with grilled chicken, smoked bacon, jack cheese, blue tortillas, black beans, buttermilk dressing, and honey chipotle dressing.

The honey chipotle was out of this world.  I ate about half of my salad in total.

We spent some time at the BlogHer Gala (mostly people watching and marveling at the mommy bloggers boogieing down) and then made the long walk back to our hotel.  To say we were delighted to find a Pinkberry mid-trip would be an understatement.

Just yum.

I got a small original (tart) froyo, topped with yogurt chips, coconut, and praline crunch.

OMG.

This morning Yelp turned up a brunch spot right down the road with tons of rave reviews, Penelope.  It was set up like a country kitchen and the eclectic touches abounded (the coffee cups didn’t match!).

It was too freaking adorable.

And my brunch was out of control.

FBLT – fakin’ bacon, avocado, lettuce, and tomato with black pepper balsamic mayo, served on sourdough with homemade french fries.

Delicious.  The mayo put it over the top.  It was monstrous too; I only ate a couple of fries but I still could only down 3/4 of the sandwich.

On the way out we stopped by the killer dessert case,

and 7.5hours in the car later I was splitting a peanut butter blondie with Adam.

During that 7.5hours I also consumed a Rockstar.

Camile had read about JP Bullfeathers on my blog and requested that for dinner.  I don’t know what is up with me and chicken fingers lately but I went with the buffalo chicken sub.

With blue cheese for dipping, duh.

I spent the rest of the evening showing the husband my swag.  Oh gosh, you guys, the swag!  I’ve decided I have a mildly unattractive level of excitement about the freebie coupons.  Could be a problem.

Do you have a favorite brunch spot in your neighborhood?

48hours of Fun

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Aaaargh!  Two (FULL) days worth to recap?  I actually debated not writing this post but I’ve blogged every single eat since my 25th birthday and I’d like to keep that streak going.  I’m keeping this one pretty dry though.

-~-Sunday-~-   We did lots of sharing so my photos are more of a basic representation than a spot on accurate one.

We started with breakfast from Pano’s.

I ordered the Artichoke Omlette, which came with fresh spinach, artichoke hearts, and a a touch of basil pesto.  I also requested that they add broccoli and only use half cheese, pepperjack, i.e. there is cheese on the top but not the middle.

With some hasbrowns,

and a slice of sourdough.

Delicious, but I couldn’t come close to finishing; we packed up the second half for the husband. 

By the way – our leftover situation this week was ridiculous, at one point our fridge had 8 to-go boxes in it!!!

We spent a looooong time at a nearby outlet mall, which was tiring but amazing.  At some point I ate this baggie of dried fruit (kiwi, apricot, hibiscus).

And we had to at least get appetizers at Cozumel’s.

Complimentary chips and salsa,

Maryland Blue Crab and Avocado Handrolls.

I love how Cozumel’s has healthified Mexican food; the rolls were not fried, contained no creaminess or cheese, were stuffed with sprouts, and were totally tasty.

My plate –

Dinner ended up being a bit of a fiasco, everything closes on Sunday here!  We drove around for hours looking for a place and the husband’s new phone came in totally handy.  In the end we headed to Jack Astor’s, which was the perfect choice.

We shared lobster and crab dip as an appetizer.

For my meal I ordered the chicken fajitas, which came with cheese, sour cream, onions and peppers, lettuce, salsa, and smokey bbq sauce.

I never order fajitas but assembling my own meal was totally fun.  I ate two fajitas and then packed the rest up to add to our to-go boxes.

-~-Monday-~-   We had to get up super early to take my parents to the airport (boo!) so Adam and I stopped at a bagel place on the way home and got a tomato pesto bagel with salmon shmear to share.

We also split the leftovers of my omlet from Sunday.

It was actually a pretty great breakfast.

I was starving (all day, it was insanely annoying) so I also finished off the rest of my chicken fingers from the other night.

The husband headed to work and I passed out.  I didn’t wake up until around 1 and then I spent the rest of the day sneezing.  It was out of control, I sneezed at least 50times yesterday!  I don’t know what allergy flared up but I felt like death warmed over and even had to skip a friend’s birthday party last night because I couldn’t control all the snot running down my face (gross, sorry!)!

Mid sneezes and tissues I did find time to eat a bunch of crap.  Strawberry yogurt bar from Lindt.

This came from the outlet store and rocked my socks.  It was a single serving (love) and was creamy, and tangy, and crunchy, and perfect.

A piece of whatever this is –

my parents brought it; sort of tastes like a dried crepe with sesame seeds?

An entire bag of chips!

A small piece of banana bread with Smart Balance Light.

Dinner was at least healthy (and epic).

I topped a small bed of lightly dressed spinach with roasted yellow beets,

purple tomatoes,

crumbled goat cheese,

and candied pecans.

OMG!

The combo was out of this world, yellow beets are 10x better than regular ones.

Oh, and I also had a bowl of SmartPop kettle corn.

-~-Today-~-   I’m not sure what the day holds.  I have a terrible case of grumpies for some reason.  I have a dinner I’m excited about cooking and a trip to the gym is definitely in order because I haven’t worked out in 2 days.  We shall see….

48hour recap = 4 reader questions

  1. Have you ever tried beets?  Yellow beets?
  2. What is your favorite appetizer to order at a restaurant?
  3. What is your favorite flavor of Lindt truffle?
  4. Are you attending BlogHer this weekend?

Prioritizing

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Today has been such fun!  It’s felt packed, but in the best way possible.  First things first, let me announce the CSN Stores giveaway winner –

Clare (#14) please send me an e-mail – emilyhwaxATgmail.com – so I can get you your prize.

This morning actually felt a little stressful; I way overslept and was trying to squeeze in lunch plans, a workout, apartment cleaning, showering, and being on time to pick my parents up from the airport.  I’m really proud of myself though because I made exercise a priority.  I realized that Katie wouldn’t be upset if I made our lunch date a maybe, and my parents wouldn’t care if the apartment was messy, but I would care if I skipped my run.  So I went!  And I ended up having time to (quickly) do everything else too.

I did cut my length though, which ended up being for the best because my calves were stupid tight.  I didn’t manage my times as much, just ran and walked whenever I needed to.  In the end I did ~1.6miles and 20minutes.

I kept my lunch date, and picked Katie up for a trip to Panera.

I did the half/half deal; half a strawberry, poppy seed, & chicken salad,

with half a turkey and artichoke pannini,

with an apple as my side.

The sandwich was gooey and crunchy and perfect but the salad was NOT good.  I ended up leaving 95% of my salad even though the other half of my tray was practically licked clean.

After dropping Katie off I went to the husband’s computer lab to print off airport directions; what, I’ve only lived in Buffalo a full year?!?  We had a fun time showing them the town, we hit up the mall, Target, Allentown, the Erie Marina, and finally had a fabulous dinner at Pearl Street Cafe.

There was a long wait so we went the bar so that my parents could try some of the microbrews.  I went the tall Johnny Walker Black and Coke route.

Drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk!  I did not eat enough today to functionally handle this big drink and the poor husband definitely dealt with me being a little loopy during dinner 😉

Foodwise my mommy and I split a small Chicken Cheddar Pizza.

It came with broccoli and black olives, a fantabulous combination.

I had this slice times 2 –

As well as a few big bites of Adam’s lobster ravioli.

It was a perfect “Welcome to Buffalo” dinner.

How do you make exercise a priority?

On the Move

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Thanks for all the birthday wishes guys!  Even though it didn’t feel very celebratory, I ended up having a pretty good 25th birthday; I like things low-key.  We are 99.9% moved but the last two days have been H-A-R-D!  We did everything but the kitchen yesterday, the kitchen today, and our pictures need to be hung sometime this week.

I must have been nervous/excited because I slept maybe 40minutes Friday night.  I actually got out of bed at 3:40am to take a shower.  Our U-Haul pick-up was at 7am so it was an early morning.  Don’t we look excited?

I did manage to have a pretty good breakfast though.

Fage with Strawberry,

and some blueberries (I didn’t eat the whole pint, but I didn’t want to diry a bowl to put them in).

And I even managed some birthday flare – glitter painted nails.

We were 100% focused on moving so breakfast ended up having to hold me over until late evening.  I did grab a few chunks of watermelon mid-morning though.

And I drank this G-2 throughout the day.

Moving was a serious workout and the husband and I were both sweating bullets so we knew we’d need to replenish some electrolytes.

We moved and we moved and then we moved so more.  Then finally (8pm!) it was time for dinner.  It was my birthday so we got a little gussied.

But after some rain, and some raising of fists to the sky and proclaiming that it shouldn’t rain on birthdays, we moved the party to Cheesecake Factory.

There was a 60minute wait (keep in mind that we last ate at 8am) so we found our way to the bar.  I got a passionfruit mojito because it was made with Cruzan rum.

And then I was drunk.  The combo of not sleeping, not eating, busting my butt all day, and then booze was just too much for me, I could barely keep my eyes open at the table!

We finally got seated and Adam and I practically cheered when the bread basket was brought to the table.

He also shared one of his avocado eggrolls with me.

Dinner –

I ordered the buffalo chicken sandwich,

with a green salad on the side.

At that point I was too tired to be very hungry, so I ate all of my salad but only 1/3 of my sandwich.  But what’s a birthday without (cheese)cake?

We got the caramel pecan turtle cheesecake to split.

It was tasty but too much, I took 3 bites and wrapped the rest up for Adam.  Bed never felt so good!

This morning I took a walk in search of breakfast.  The co-op is only .9miles from my new apartment, this could be dangerous!  Sadly the co-op wasn’t exactly bursting with fruit that didn’t require a utensil so I headed to Starbucks.  It might be baby food, but it’s still fruit!

I also got an egg white, spinach, and feta wrap.

Again today we were too busy for lunch, but I did grab some chocolate chip cookies (baked fresh for the husband prior to the move).

The only real snafu in the move so far is that when I turned on my oven to make dinner this evening the fire alarms went off.  Fun fact: the alarms in our apartment are electronic so taking out the battery doesn’t shut them up 😦 We turned it on twice and both times there was no smoke but still deafening noise.  We called to have it taken care of tomorrow and I plopped my “oven roasted” asparagus into a pan to cook on the stove.

I also ate the rest of my buffalo chicken sandwich (with blue cheese dressing).

Not a bad dinner at all.

We don’t have internet set up yet so the husband dropped me off at the Spot so I could blog.  We should be getting it hooked up on Tuesday but I’ll be checking in sporadically until then.  Be on the look out tomorrow for pictures of the new apartment and a giveaway!

What’s the worst moving snafu you’ve encountered?  Last year our BUDGET (hate them) truck leaked and ruined our matress, but other than that we’ve been pretty lucky.

You’re Like School In Summer*

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*A hypothetical, cracking wise, unseen you; obviously, my blog readers have loads of class!

I did, however, spend this summer day at school.  And I don’t mean online class school – which I’ve been heavily slacking off in, remind me to buckle down please? – I mean literal, classrooms, 18-year-old-make-make-me-feel-very-old students, school.  Yes, today was Transfer Orientation Day.

I’m not going to bore you with the whole recap, but the very exciting points are –

  • I’m not the oldest person in my major; many people seem to be my age and I’m even younger than a few!
  • I think I’m going to adore most of my classmates, Dietetics seems like a fun group.
  • Our program director recognized me.
  • I am so excited to head back in the fall!

I don’t really do the stale donut thing so I packed a Chocolate Chip Brownie Lara Bar sample for breakfast.

Fab-u-lous!  Best damn brownie I’ve ever had, granted, I hate brownies 🙂

Lunch was buffet style and I filled up a pretty good looking plate –

Aaaaand then the fire alarm went off and they evacuated us, which meant I threw most of my uneaten lunch in the trash.  I ate most of the salad and veggies, all of the watermelon, a bite of the macaroni, and none of the cupcake.

He husband dropped me off in the morning, so when orientation finally let out (it was fun, but 8am – 2:30pm, really?) I set off on my 2.5mile walk home.  Once we move I won’t be able to count my to/from school trips as incidental exercise any more since it is a gloriously short 8minute walk to BSC from our new apartment!

I’ve been doing some organizing but my lack of  a full lunch finally forced me to settle down for a snack.  I went with a sundae of sorts.

A container of Pomegranate Passionfruit Siggis yogurt, a little bit of homemade key lime pie ice cream, blackberry topping, and some graham cracker crumble.

I’ve got a super random dinner that I’m quite excited for, I’ll see you then!

What was/is your favorite thing about YOUR college?

We All Scream for a Completed To Do List

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My to-do list took a slight turn, but it’s been a busy, productive day nonetheless.  I did lunch on-the-go while we were at campus doing my printing.  Pink Pineapple Funky Monkey,

and a Carrot Cake Lara Bar.

Yum, on both counts.

I spent the afternoon working and organizing (and marveling at our ice cream maker!) and we decided to move the schedule around and do some moving work this afternoon.  I had to fax something from Office Max so we did a little Target trip and also spent some time mapping out our new rooms.  It stinks to have to double pay rent, but having access to both apartments for the full month of July is definitely less stressful than trying to move all at once.

In the end, we went to the new apartment –> Target –> new apartment –> Bed Bath and Beyond.  We also managed to check every single item off of our to buy list, phew!  It felt really good to get that all done.  Excitement aside, we didn’t finish up until after 9pm so we ended up getting a late dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

I had some of the famous bread with butter.

And then we did lots of sharing.  An endive small plates salad (with blue cheese and pecans) to start.

And entrée split down the middle.

The husband gave me one of his avocado eggrolls,

and we split the spicy cashew chicken.

Mmmn, this is my very favorite thing at CF and it was nice to split so I wasn’t tempted to eat too too much.  We ended up with a nice plate of leftovers for Adam’s lunch tomorrow too.

When we finally got home we had dessert: that ice-cream I’ve been yapping about all day –

We used a recipe from Rachael Ray Magazine, Key Lime Pie Ice Cream.  The husband didn’t want graham crackers so I left them out and sprinkled some on top of my dish.

We enjoyed some Futurama reruns whilst mmmn and ahhhing.

Afterwards (way way too late) I talked him into doing a quick mini workout with me; 10minutes of strength and stretch moves.  Bedtime is imminent.

What is your favorite flavor of ice-cream?  My real favorite is plain (tart) froyo!

Sample

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It’s been a fun evening but I probably should have been in bed hours ago so I’ll try to keep this short 😉

When the husband got home this afternoon we took a much-need 1hour nap.  Then we geared up to go to the gym.  I realize today probably didn’t provide the best circumstances for a work out (lack of sleep, not a lot of food) but I’m finding that if I take even one day off from gyming it that one day turns into two, and three, and so forth.  It’s like my lack of motivation snowballs.  So for the next 30days or so – the amount of time it takes to form a habit – expect to see some sort of formal workout from me every day.  Even if it’s just 10 minutes of stretching, hopefully making it “official” will keep me motivated.

Today’s workout was 30minutes on the elliptical.  I set the machine to level 6 random, and did backward pedal/forward pedal intervals as well as several sprints.

I gave it my all and was so tired afterwards I had a hard time raising my arms to wash my hair in the shower!  I think I managed to look pretty cute though, dontcha think?

The only thing I like more than ruffles is trying out new restaurants with the husband and that is precisely what tonight’s date entailed.

We’ve had SAMPLE on our radar ever since we wandered past it last month during the art festival.  The concept is that you get to SAMPLE a lot of little tastes.  It’s like tapas but the serving sizes are even smaller, single portion, no sharing.

The husband and I are a unit though (gag) so we managed to share a bit.  Like the cheese plate we split –

Carmelized onion, goat cheese, and roasted pear butter pannini.  Housemade ricotta cheese with fire roasted pineapple chutney. Aged provolone “fondue” with roasted tomato & basil pesto and baguette cubes.  I ate about 1/3 of this; it was ok, but nothing exceptional.

Or the 2-for-1 rum drink special that prompted us to order strawberry mojitos –

The husband’s entrée consisted of little sandwiches and “lots” of meat –

Cuban sandwich, steak frites, beef on weck, and pulled pork.

I got one sample plate to taste, Fish and Chip –

Beer battered salt cod served on a crispy potato guafrette with napa cabbage cole slaw.  The cole slaw was crazy good, but I was glad to only have a small bite of the fried fish.

I took the healthy route for my meal and choose something of the “Small Plate” menu instead of the “Sample” options.  Beet salad –

Tender green salad with roasted beets, gorgonzola cheese, and beet vinaigrette topped with housemade candied walnuts.  This was very good, but certainly not the best salad I’ve ever had.  I prefer this combo with goat cheese.

For dessert we split the Sample Some More –

Housemade graham crackers, chocolate peanut butter cream, bruleed vanilla marshmallow with dark chocolate sauce, and peanut brittle, served with dark hot chocolate.  This dish was a winner, you can’t go wrong with ‘smores!

In the end we agreed that we had a good time but probably wouldn’t go back (unless it was to sit at the bar and eat dessert).  The concept was wonderful but the execution wasn’t quite there.

I knew Adam would still be hungry but in my effort to feed him I shared too much of my salad and ended up a bit hungry myself.  We drove around for awhile and ended up grabbing a 4-piece chicken nugget kid’s meal at Wendy’s.

I know a lot of bloggers wouldn’t eat Wendy’s, period, but I was actually pretty proud of myself for this choice.  My meal wasn’t quite big enough so I had hunger and not appetite (look at that nutrition vernacular!) and this was a reasonable little meal.  We are going out of town again this weekend so our fridge is pretty bare and I can’t think of any fast food option that would be a better choice than a kid’s meal.  I could have probably done without the fries but Wendy’s fries are sooo good – I like the extra squishy ones – and I did share some with the husband.

How do you get/stay motivated for your work outs?  Any tips for me as I get back into shape?