Weekly Wrap-Up; All By Myself

Adam is on spring break right now so I gave him my free ticket voucher and he spent a week in St. Thomas with my parents.  They are all disgustingly in love with each other and had a fabulous time.  Meanwhile I was home alone but at least I had the dog.

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Furry cuddles totally got me through.  And I definitely took advantage of meals as a single lady.

breakfast

Fruit and yogurt bowl.

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A strawberry Fage topped with fresh pineapple and cara cara orange.

A lackluster morning.

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A bottle of iced coffee that I thought tasted artificial and threw out halfway through.

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And a NuGo bar that was nowhere near as tasty as their salted pretzel variety.

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Smoothie.

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Coffee greek yogurt with frozen blackberries, toasted coconut, and chocolate milk.  <– Fantabulous

Smoothie 2 was frozen mango, blackberries, and spinach with coconut water.

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Have you tried the ice cream coffees from Dunkin?  This was butter pecan.

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I tried the cookie dough last weekend too and it was legit amazing.

lunch

Salad day.

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Arugula with carrots, pea shoots, honey roasted almonds, buckwheat groats, blue cheese, dried blueberries, and vinaigrette.

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Plus a cara cara orange and tamarind balls from home.

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My coworkers are mostly all from the Caribbean as well and they were thrilled that I shared my tamarind shipment.

Oatmeal and apples.

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Cherry Pistachio from Quaker.

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And Cherry Vanilla from Big Slice.

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This was the first flavor of these kettle cooked apples that I didn’t like.

Sandwich spread.

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An everything bagel thin with strawberry jam, sharp cheddar, smoked turkey, and banana peppers.

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Plus spicy peanut cucumber salad.

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And raspberry candies and the last orange.

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snack

Paper bag popcorn.

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Prune chocolates my Russian coworker shared.

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I ate this entire bag of Inner Peas in one sitting.

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It was pathetic but also delicious.

I topped with cool tub of fig yogurt with white chocolate chips and toasted coconut.

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Cookie mugs rocked my face of this week.

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I use this recipe, but swap the ratio of white to brown sugar.

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Do ittttttt.

dinner

Salad night.

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I had a TJ’s pretzel bread in the car as an appetizer.

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Then topped a giant bowl of arugula and pea shoots with medium-boiled eggs, blue cheese, turkey bacon, shredded carrot, yogurt blue cheese dressing, and truffle salt.

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And now medium-boiled eggs are my new favorite thing.

A combination of nibbles.  Pretzels straight from the bag.

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A granny smith dipped in peanut butter and lavender caramel.

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And baby carrots with red pepper hummus.

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Green eggs and ham.

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Eggs scrambled with okra, arugula, and swiss cheese.

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Soup’s up.

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This poblano and corn chowder was delicious.

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And now we’re off to do fun spring break stuff!

Weekly Wrap-Up; Busy Busy

Whew, has it been a busy week! I can’t even tell y’all, work has been wiping me out. <– Hence the 1.5 day late blog post.

Wednesday night I got home around 6:00, then sat at my desk with my boots and coat on until 8:00 when Adam got home and I finally had to get up! Then Thursday I managed to undress, and even get halfway into my gym clothes, before crawling under the covers and calling it a night.

Breakfasts

For the most part, I’ve stopped blogging coffee that isn’t extra exciting in some way, but you can assume I’m still obsessed and drink a cup whenever I can get my hands on it.

A NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bar.

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Starbucks spectacular.

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A tall nonfat iced vanilla macchiato.

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And the almond blend.

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Coffee and cereal.

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Chocolate Krave, plus there was a packet of hot chocolate stirred into my coffee. And today I stirred hazelnut hot chocolate into hazelnut coffee and it rocked my face off.

 Lunches

Leftovers.

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A Cara Cara. DSC08846

And the rest of the turkey reuben mac and cheese.

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An awesome cafeteria lunch.  I mixed together cream chowder and cheese soup, with popcorn on the side.

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Cereal on the go. DSC08875

Blackberries and a very unripe nectarine.

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And Quaker Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares and chia seeds.

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I was starving by the time lunch rolled around so I also bought a biscuit from the cafeteria.

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On Thursday I saw patients straight from 9 – 4. Then I had chocolate and diet soda at my desk while I charted and it was heavenly.

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Snacks

Kiss Me Organics offered me a sample of their Organic Matcha powder. Adam is obsessed so I readily accepted.

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I haven’t tried baking with it yet, but it blends perfectly into smoothies and lattes – both almond milk for me and skim cow’s for Adam. The flavor is delicious, not at all acrid like green tea can sometimes be. My only complaint is that the bag doesn’t list serving instructions or nutritional information.

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Matcha in a smoothie. I did pineapple, tea, ice, vanilla almond milk, ice and Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

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Good in theory but the lime flavor was a little too much.

Dannon coffee Greek frozen yogurt with lavender caramel and roasted peanuts.

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I also ate about a million handfuls of peanuts this week because holy frick, salty peanuts are so good!

Inner Peas from Trader Joe’s = my new favorite snack. They are exactly the texture I like to crunch on.

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Jelly Beans.

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Strawberry jam with toasted marshmallow is the best.

 Dinners

Adam worked Monday night so I made myself a giant bowl of cereal for dinner.

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Heritage Flakes and Reese’s Puffs with vanilla almond milk, a giant nectarine, and half a pint of blackberries.

“Pad Thai” with shrimp and broccoli.

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The quotation marks are because I used whole wheat linguine instead of the traditional rice noodles.

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Sandwich night.

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Sourdough toasted in the oven with strawberry jam, Bone Suckin’ mustard, and two slices of sharp cheddar, with a fried egg in the middle.

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Is there a better combination than cheese, egg, and jam?  I know ideally there would be a vegetable on that plate but when you consider that I slept through dinner the next night it doesn’t seem so bad.

And as soon as I hit publish I’m off to dinner with the husband. We are trying a Mexican place I’m quite excited about.

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Wrap-Up; A Giveaway Winner And Another Giveaway!

Hey there!  First things first, the winner of my Sandwich, Bagel, and Pocket Thins giveaway is – #30, laurajacobson.  {if you’re only here for the next giveaway keep scrolling to the bottom of this post!}

I haven’t talked much about work beyond posting some pictures of my office, so I thought I’d share a few updates:

a) Most of my coworkers love my purple hair.  Everyone has said that they wouldn’t have expected me to be the type of person to get a crazy color, which is funny because over the past decade I’ve gone purple or pink (or one really unfortunate shade of maroon) several times.

b) As of this week I’m going to be covering inpatient floors on Tuesdays.  I’ve been enjoying my job but it is very exciting to get back into acute care!  My heart belongs to tube feeds.  And since I’m just going where I’m needed, I’ll be able to get exposure to a little bit of everything.

c) It finally happened… one of my former students came into the clinic!!!  I saw her name on my list but didn’t put two and two together until she was standing in front of my door for nutrition counseling.  We both spent the first 10 minutes of our time reminiscing and freaking out. It was really fun to see how grown-up she was.

Now onto the food, in reverse. I had many really amazing new things this week and you’re in for a lot of gushing; you’ve been warned…

dinner

Fancy pasta.

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Whole wheat noodles, sautéed shrimp, and torn kale tossed with lemon, parmesan, and fat-free half & half.

A total fail.

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This was my attempt at okra masala, sans recipe.

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Things were going well until I added a 2nd round of dried herbs and spices, rendering the dish inedible.  I ate a bag of gummi bears for dinner instead.

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Plus my kale chips.

In celebration of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, Fairway contacted me to see if I would like to try* their house-baked beer bread.  Yes, please!

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The bread is made with NY local Blue Point Brewing Co. Hoptical Illusion IPA.

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The bread was delicious – between sandwiches and toasted slices with cheese melted on top we finished the entire thing in two days! – but even more magical was what happened when I went to go pick it up.  Apparently I had never been inside a Fairway before, because, holy foodie heaven, you guys, I have found my new favorite grocery store.  Fairway was better than TJ’s, Whole Foods, and even {gasp!} Wegman’s.  The store was impeccably clean, the produce was the best I’ve seen all winter, and I spotted at least five of the products I’ve been trolling other stores for over the past six months.  There was even a hot bar!  I don’t think I saw any store brands so my wallet won’t let me shop their exclusively but I am very jazzed to add it to my grocery rotation!

As for the bread, I decided to stay on theme and make turkey reubens.

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Beer bread, fresh sauerkraut, 1000 island dressing, and Applegate Farms Herb Turkey Breast and Emmentaler Sliced Swiss.

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For our green on the side we did baby kale sautéed with dried blueberries and honey roasted almonds.

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Such a good combo, the berries took it over the top.

And Thursday I was too lazy to make dinner soIatepopcornwhilewatchingtv,theend.

snacks

Recently Cow Wow reached out to me about trying* their cereal milk.

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Cow Wow is low-fat, kosher, gluten-free, all-natural and organic.  They sent me three flavors in an adorable little lunch box.

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DSC08532Adam and I split a Fruity Trudy Organic Low-fat Milk one night as a snack.

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The flavor was spot-on for milk from the bottom of a bowl of fruity cereal.  I hate fruity cereal, so it was a little too spot-on for me, but Adam liked it.  I’ll talk about the other flavors lower in this post, but to enter to win a lunchbox of your own just scroll to the end of this post!

A super sundae.

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Dannon Café Latte Frozen Greek Yogurt – the flavor was wonderful but the texture had the hollowness that low-fat ice creams tend to have –

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topped with candied pecans and Spoonable Flowery Lavender Caramel Sauce.

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Beer bread with cheese.

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I didn’t even use the oven that time.  I microwaved it.  Like an animal.

And Blackberry Oikos with the last of the pecans.

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lunch

Lunches vacillated between freaking awesome and very weak.  Monday was a strong showing.

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An Everything Bagel Thin with Applegate Farms Roasted Turkey, a fantastic crunchy cheddar from TJ’s, and banana peppers.

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DSC08560Plus a granny smith with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

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Tuesday I bought a salad from the cafeteria and didn’t take a picture.

Wednesday was insane and I ended up not having time for my packed lunch.  Instead I just drank this Arriba Horchata Energy Drink.

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I poured it over ice and it was ridiculous good.

Thursday I ate Wednesday’s lunch.

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A Cara Cara.

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And a Fage Coffee Fruyo.

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This yogurt is my new favorite.  It blows every other coffee variety out of the water!  This was not enough food though (I forgot my other bag of snacks at home) and I ended up eating candy at my desk all afternoon.  Boo.

breakfast

Last Friday I finally got to try the new vanilla macchiato from Starbucks.

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It was flipping fabulous and I’ve had one almost every day since.

Random sidenote – Now what I really need to try is this:

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I want it so bad I can practically taste it but none of the locations I’ve been to have had it frozen.  I’m a woman obsessed.

A set of cinnamon.

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Cinnamon Crunch Somersaults.

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And a Cinny Minny Cow Wow.

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Again, the flavor was a perfect match to the bottom of the cereal bowl.  And I do like cinnamon cereal so I was a fan.

A ridiculously fantastic breakfast sandwich.

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An Everything Bagel Thin with sautéed kale, fancy cheddar, roasted turkey, and a fried egg.

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It was tasty, filling, and it didn’t even take me all that long to make.

Cereal and milk cereal milk and fruit.

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A great pear – TJ’s has been killing it with the bosc and d’anjou pears lately.

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And my last flavor of Cow Wow.

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The fun of chocolate but not too sweet for breakfast.  Chocolate Chip Cathy was my favorite flavor by far.  Though they also have a marshmallow flavor and if I can ever get my hands on it I’m pretty sure it will win my affection.

*both the bread and the cereal milk were sent to me free of charge.  I was not provided further compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

the giveaway

To enter to win your own lunchbox packed with three flavors of Cow Wow, simply leave a comment on this post by 8 pm EST on Monday, March 17th.

***Update – #10, latanya, was the winner.

Sandwich, Pocket, And Bagel Thins {Giveaway}

I love carbs.  A lot.  A lot, a lot, actually.  But when it comes to sandwiches, I usually prefer to let my chosen filling shine.  That’s why I always order my burgers sans bun.  And why Sandwich Thins and Bagel Thins are pretty much the only bread products I’ll use to pack my lunches.  And it doesn’t hurt that the Thins are compact with a good chew (I hate fluffy bread for sandwiches).  So when I was offered an opportunity to share the love with you guys, I jumped on it!

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disclaimer –

I was sent coupons for free products, product information, and a $25 gift card in exchange for doing this review.  I was also given the opportunity to host a giveaway.  I was not provided further compensation for this post.  As always, all opinions are my own.

about the products –

[click on the links embedded within the headings to be redirected the official pages]

pocket and sandwich thins

Arnold®, Brownberry® and Oroweat® Products

All Arnold®, Brownberry® and Oroweat® Sandwich Thins® Rolls are cholesterol-free foods, containing zero grams of Trans Fat and no high fructose corn syrup.

Arnold®, Brownberry® and Oroweat® Sandwich Thins® Rolls

  • Weight Watchers®: 3 PointsPlus Value®
  • Flavors: 100% Whole Wheat, Healthy Multi-grain, Honey Wheat, Flax & Fiber

Arnold®, Brownberry® and Oroweat® Pocket Thins® Flatbread

  • Weight Watchers : 3 PointsPlus Value®
  • Flavors: 100% Whole Wheat, Healthy Multi-grain

bagel thins

Thomas’® Bagel Thins® Bagels

All Bagel Thins® are 110 calories, cholesterol-free, low in fat and contain zero grams of Trans Fat

  •  Weight Watchers®: 3 PointsPlus Value®
  • Flavors: Plain, 100% Whole Wheat, Cinnamon Raisin and Everything

my experience –

[click on the embedded links to be redirected to the recipe pages]

Along with my free coupons for the Thins, I was sent a $25 gift card so I could buy the additional ingredients for a recipe of my choice.  Here are the recipes that Weight Watchers® created for Sandwich Thins®.  And here are the recipes that Thomas’®  created for their Bagel Thins®.

I decided to make the Gouda, Ham, and Apple Bagel Thins® Sandwich.

gouda, ham, and apple, bagel thins sandwich

I substituted turkey for ham and used an Everything flavored bagel but otherwise followed the recipe.

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DSC08522DSC08526DSC08540DSC08544DSC08551The end result was delicious!  I loved how well the cool, crisp apple went with the warm, gooey sandwich.  I usually only think to pair produce with Brie and the Gouda was a nice spin.

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your chance to win {giveaway} –

We are offering you guys the chance to try the recipes for yourself.  One winner will receive coupons for free product and a $25 Visa gift card.  To enter – leave a comment on this post by 4 pm EST on Thursday, March 13th.

Weekish Wrap-Up

The title is sort of a pun!  Because this post is pretty weak.  Get it??

I’ve been all over the place with my posting schedule lately but it just feels right.  Especially this two-day “week” because I’ve been total snack monster so I’ve eaten a full post’s worth of food.  Here we go…

Cold-brew coffee with low-fat chocolate milk.

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Oh, I noticed you admiring my nails {just go with it}, here’s a better shot –

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I know they aren’t perfect – and I cleaned up the edges a bit after that photo – but I was so flipping proud to have managed them at all.  My hands have made me happy all week.

Onto pictures you’ve actually asked for… welcome to my office at work!

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It is never as messy as my hair is in that picture {yikes!}.

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I haven’t done much decorating, but I have a few touches to make it feel like home (mostly reminders of Webster).

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But back to my mocha, that did not make me happy.  I bought a jug of chocolate milk and made a week’s worth of coffee… but I used the butter rum flavored coffee from Target and ultimately it is just too nasty to drink.  I ended up throwing out my whole batch!

I had this Dannon pecan drinkable yogurt on the train.

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I was really impressed with how creamy it was.

Work lunch.

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An apple,

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and leftover shrimp pad thai from the weekend.

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I still can’t believe we were able to make it taste so good/authentic.

Another lunch.  This one not nearly as photogenic.

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Pumpernickel with miracle whip, grape jam, banana peppers, sharp cheddar, and smoked turkey.

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A red pear.

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And a mini Honeycomb chocolate from Chuao.

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Snacks at work: Lots of tea from my Numi samples.

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Haribo liquid center fruit gummi candies.

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And a bag of Somersaults.

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Snacks at home: A packet of tuna salad.

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A ridiculous peanut butter fudge mug cake.

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And a mini Firecracker Chocolate from Chuao.

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I don’t know how they keep the pop rocks so fresh when they’re enrobed in chocolate but this bar had crackle!

Last night’s dinner was rice noodles with bean sprouts and tons of broccoli cooked in peanut sauce.

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Normally this is one of our favorite meals but this dinner felt very meh.

And that’s all she wrote! I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week!

Weekend Wrap-Up; Winter’s Gone And I’m Not Sad

Winter is not gone for good, obviously, but it took a much-appreciated hiatus this weekend.  It was so warm yesterday that we could walk the dog without coats!

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Oh spring, you cannot come soon enough.

Stream of consciousness style, here is some of what I ate this weekend…

Thursday’s lunch.

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The new Key Lime 2% Fage is so ridiculously good.  I stopped on my way home that same day to buy more!

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Plus a Lady Alice apple.

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And a Strawberry Lemonade Cascade Ice.

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I bought the drink with my own money after enjoying my samples, but something in this reeeeeally made my stomach hurt so I probably won’t be buying it again.

Friday’s lunch was a delicious sandwich of 1 slice of pumpernickel topped with Miracle Whip, fancy blue cheese, banana peppers, and Applegate Farms Roasted Turkey.

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Plus an emmy’s dark cacao macaroon – my new favorite flavor.

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And a pear.

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The Somersaults you see in the background were swapped out for this Double Shot.

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My coffee obsession accepts all forms.

We blended up a final round of our favorite smoothie.

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That was the last of our chocolate peppermint soy milk until next holiday season.

I ate a bowl of sugar cereal(s).

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Kid’s aren’t all wrong, this was fricking delicious.

I dipped sliced green apple in a blend of melted peanut butter and dark chocolate sauce.

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I love green apples when paired with something sweet or cheesy but the thought of eating one all on its lonesome makes my lips purse up.

I tried another evolution juice.

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The Essential Greens with Lime was much, much better than the variety I threw out the other day.  Still can’t hold a candle to fresh juice though.

I ate a ton of ice cream.

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The Ben and Jerry’s Cores are out of control.  We’ve tried blondie salted caramel and chocolate hazelnut and both were great.  Adam actually liked them more than I did, which says a lot because he claims not be into ice cream.

A friend and I met up at Bierkraft and shared this cider.

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It didn’t taste like maple at all, sadly.  But it packed some kick, apparently, because we went out for burgers afterward and it didn’t occur to me to snap a picture until there was only one bite left on my plate.

I got an easy dinner from Trader Joe’s after I went grocery shopping at 8 pm on Saturday.

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Along with my salad – which was delicious – I had cheesy bread.  Aka a baguette baked with butter and sharp cheddar.

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That was more delicious than the salad.  Obviously.

We made shrimp Pad Thai.  And it was good!!!

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First, we had to turn this –

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into this –

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Making tamarind paste “from scratch” felt super badass, just fyi.  And it was very essential to getting a good sauce.

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Basically just rice noodles, carrots, bean sprouts, shrimp, eggs, and this sauce, cooked in canola oil and topped with lime, scallion, and crushed peanut.

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It tasted legit!  I can’t even tell you how proud I was.

Last night our dinner plans fell through and we ended up with turkey burger take-out from Bare Burger.

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Not the original plan but certainly nothing to complain about.  Mine had turkey bacon, peppers, fried onions, and smoked cheese.

Have you ever made Pad Thai at home?  How’d it turn out?

Weekend Wrap-Up; Beers In Brooklyn

‘Twas a super weekend, even if I didn’t watch a single second of a certain football game.  We don’t have a cable hook-up!  I would like to see if I can find the commercials somewhere online though.

My meals this weekend were the like Seahawks, unparalleled winners.  Here’s some of what we ate…

lunch at work on Friday

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A Tart Cherry Noosa.

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An Asian pear.

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And a flourless chocolate chip almond butter cookie.

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I made the cookies for Adam but they were so good that I ended up stealing another one when I got home that afternoon!  This recipe, but with Vanilla Bean + Espresso Barney Butter and half as many chocolate chips.

sweets and snacks

Cosmos.

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With Cascade Ice Cocktail Mixer, a splash of oj, and vodka.

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The fancy one was actually Adam’s, mine had ice and a straw.

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But mine ended up being his too in the end; I am just not a cranberry person.

A serving of Red Velvet M&M’s (new flavor!).

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They are very chocolate-y and also very headache-inducing.

A kid’s double scoop at Ample Hills Creamery on our date night.  I had Sweet as Honey on the bottom – Homemade honeycomb candy (made with honey from bees at Queens County Farm) in a sweet cream ice cream – and Gather ‘Round the Campfire on top – Toasted marshmallow ice cream with chocolate-covered graham cracker.

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I love this place!  The flavors were perfect.  I also tried a taste of the Peppermint Pattie and pretty much died.

cereal and milk {cereal and milk}

It’s back!

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I know the box says “new!” but the raisin Frosted Mini Wheats were my number one favorite as a child.  Also the only “sugar cereal” I can recall ever having in the house growing up.

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With Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and blueberries.

a recipe revisit

I wanted to remake my Berry Better Than Spaghetti recipe so I could reshoot the photos (not that the new ones are all that great!).

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I ended up making a few tweaks to the recipe too.  It turned out fantastic!

coffee love

Medium non-fat cinnamon brown sugar latte at Dunkin Donuts.

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I have been loving these lately but this one was too sweet.  Speaking of… has anyone tried the cookie dough or brownie batter donuts at DD yet?  I am seriously debating buying one.

Short nonfat caramel macchiato from Starbucks on errands.

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Our Trader Joe’s is always a madhouse and I love it when the husband is available to wrangle the cart for me because it means I can have coffee while I shop.

Iced coffee with almond milk from Café Dada.

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Love, love, love, love, love.  There is just no beating Blue Bottle.

brunch in SoHo

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A girlfriend and I met up at Penelope on Sunday.

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I had the Andrey’s Egg Sandwich – Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and peppers, topped with grilled chorizo fakin’ bacon and sun-dried tomato pesto on a fresh-baked croissant.  It was a strange order for me – I usually go with sunny side up eggs or something sweet – but very good.

beers in Brooklyn

Adam had the best date on Saturday, and I’m not just saying that because he got me tipsy!  I managed to find my top 2 favorite beers!  For reference, here’s my list –

Emily’s All-Time Favorite Beers Ranking

{1} Genesee Cream Ale

{2} Left Hand Milk Stout

{3} Heineken Light

{4} Red Stripe

{5} Abita Strawberry

{6} 21st Amendment Brewery Hell or High Watermelon

We started at Bierkraft, where I tried a Joe Mama’s Milk from Keegan Ales.

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I couldn’t taste the coffee at all, but this was nice and smooth.

Then we headed down to Dinosaur BBQ,

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where we found ($3) cans of GCA!

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I also had a Left Hand Milk Stout with my dinner.

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So much beer – for me – but it was all so good!

Dinosaur BBQ is actually from Upstate.  They make our favorite bbq sauce but we never had a chance to visit the restaurant while we were in Buffalo.  I was thrilled that a location popped up in our old Brooklyn neighborhood.

Adam and I split a sampler platter to start.

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Shrimp boil, chicken wing, deviled egg, and a fried green tomato.

I got a pulled chicken melt as my meal.  BBQ, caramelized onion, poblano peppers, and melted cheddar.

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I skipped my bun and cheese but quite enjoyed the chicken.  This definitely wasn’t the best barbecue we’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad either.  And we would go back for the beer menu alone.

What are your top favorite beers?  Do you tend towards high or low ABV?

Weekly Wrap-Up; Lots Of Leftovers

You saw most of this week’s eats yesterday, so this post is just to fill in the gaps.  What you’re not seeing – the coffee.  I was terrible about bedtime this week and the result was constant coffee consumption.  This work week ended up being particularly busy, so it was serendipitous that I was extra-caffeinated.

snacks

Numi Cardamom Pu-erh Tea with skim milk.

DSC07413Valentine’s style Junior Mints.

DSC07375Junior Mints are my favorite chocolate candy, second only to York and Pep bars, and these were shaped like freaking hearts!  Too exciting.

Popcorn with caramel and turkey bacon.

DSC07298Does that goodness need more explanation?

stuff I didn’t cook

Brunch at Biscuits and BBQ.

DSC07307DSC07299Adam went super Southern with chicken and waffles,

DSC07300while I got the bbq chicken sandwich.

DSC07303It was good, but I was expecting the meat to be pulled and smothered and I probably would have ordered differently if I’d known it wasn’t.  At least the serving was giant; Adam ate my 2nd half for lunch the next day.

We were mostly there for dessert anyway.  I read a review in the Times that said Biscuits and BBQ had some of the best key lime pie the reviewer had ever tasted.

DSC07305Yep.  Key lime pie is my favorite dessert and this was definitely one of the best slices I’ve had.  The only way it could have been better is if the traditional crust was a graham cracker crust – the way my mom makes it – because I like my extra-sweet with a side of extra-sweet!

Sushi take-out from Kisso.

DSC07327I went with two boring, cooked rolls (both with tempura!) but Adam said his chirashi was the best he’s ever had.

leftovers for lunch

Since I made a different recipe each night for my book review, I ended up with lots of leftovers for lunches.  Eating tapenade and tofu egg salad on my lunch break felt fancy!

A packaged lunch.

DSC07336Roasted seaweed.

DSC07338A Strawberry Apple Crusher.

DSC07341And some Bumblebee Spicy Thai Chili Tuna with crackers.

DSC07340I loooove that tuna, it is so flavorful.

An eggless lunch.

DSC07364Leftover eggless egg salad.

DSC07369Scooped with pita chips.

DSC07371With a side of green grapes.

DSC07373Crudités for lunch.

DSC07378Leftover lentil tapenade with celery and baby carrots.

DSC07391A giant honeycrisp.

DSC07385And baby Lindt HELLO bars.

DSC07382a dinner

The night I was left to my own devices in the kitchen I made mac and cheese and trees for dinner.

DSC07428Just a box of this adorable winter shapes mac and cheese with 0% Greek yogurt, smoked paprika, a tin of Bella cayenne pepper smoked sardines, and broccoli roasted with truffle salt.

DSC07408DSC07426Gussied up box macaroni is the best easy dinner.

What’s your go-to order when you’re channeling the deep South?  Adam does chicken and waffles while I like pulled chicken and fried okra.