Long Week Wrap-Up; The Perfect Date? I’d Have To Say April 25th.

Woah!  It’s been almost two weeks; this is going to be a loooooong post, and that’s after I cut out a whole bunch of stuff.  I left in lots of coffee, dinners in bowls, and tasty medjool dates.  I’ve had a bad case of the Blogging Blahs recently and I just can’t get myself to sit down and write.  Even though I’m not talking about it much, we have been eating fancy meals and doing fun things.  Like spending last Saturday in Manhattan…

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On our way to the theatre!

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We saw Bullets Over Broadway and loved it.  Zach Braff – one of my idols – played the lead and the show was super funny.

Here is some of what’s gone on {my plate} since I last posted – –

breakfasts and lunches

Amazing hot chocolate and a vanilla almond KIND bar.

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Smoothie = frozen banana, dates, vanilla almond milk, vanilla almond butter, cinnamon-maple sugar, and vanilla bean paste.

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Yogurt bowl.  2% Fage topped with cooked strawberries, chopped date, and pecans.

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Yogurt lunch.

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Dannon coffee Greek yogurt,

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plus dates with sweet and spicy pecans, and an apple.

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Super salad.  I packed spring mix topped with blue cheese, sweet and spicy pecans, and chopped apple, then added some Italian dressing from the salad bar at work.  P.S. The cafeteria was on point this week; I bought several cheesy slices of pizza and had creamy lobster bisque with giant pieces of meat.

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Lunch with Au Bon Pain.  They sent me some coupons to try out their new late spring menu.

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We tried the Sriracha Chicken Sandwich—all-natural chicken with Sriracha sauce, pickled banana peppers, arugula, tomatoes and lemon aioli on a baguette.  Interesting, but not too spicy for the husband.

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A Lemon and Sweet Cheese CroisBun – flaky croissant blended with butter bun, filled with sweet cheese and lemon curd.

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And an Arnold Palmer with their black currant iced tea.

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Everything was really yummy, but we were pretty annoyed because the location we chose was out of the new salads, both of which sounded amazing.

[BBQ Chicken Salad—all-natural chicken marinated in barbecue sauce, romaine, roasted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, three-cheddar blend and light ranch dressing.  Fresh Fruit & Baby Kale Salad—fresh watermelon, strawberries, mandarin oranges, feta and sliced almonds on a bed of baby kale and balsamic vinaigrette.]

I will not be going back to that location, but I will be heading to ABP for a salad asap.

drinks and desserts

Many iced lattes with my magic milk straws.

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Also the cookie dough iced coffee from Dunkin is still great.

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And this double espresso over ice – with skim milk and sugar – from Café Dada that filled me with joy.

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We are officially giving two thumbs up to Rice Dream’s Horchata.

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Adam actually liked it even more than I did.

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Still working my way through Buzzfeed’s Frozen Treat’s list; #33 was cholado from Las Americas Bakery.

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We got Raspado, shaved ice with homemade fruit syrup and sweetened condensed milk.

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Caramel date shake – sea salt caramel gelato blended with dates and skim milk.

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Frozen hot chocolate from Tim Horton’s.  Please note – they sent me a free coupon so I could sample this new product.

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It wasn’t as good as the frozen hot chocolate, but it was definitely delicious.  We would plan on purchasing them again this summer.  The fudge on top was out of control.

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This cookie dough candy was as good as you’d expect it to be.  <– i.e. if that sort of thing sounds good to you then you’ll probably like it but if you thought“dear god, why would you dip cookie dough in chocolate” then you’ll probably think it’s too sweet.  I thoroughly enjoyed half and then was happy to throw the rest away.

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Brooklyn Farmacy is officially our new favorite place.

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A family restored the 1920’s pharmacy and turned it into a soda fountain heaven.  The music, fixtures, and staff wardrobe are all throw-backs to the ’20s but in a way that is touching and kitschy rather than cheesy (think classy, not Johnny Rockets).

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We shared a hibiscus float and a maple egg cream that were both indescribably good.

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We practically ordered a second round!

dinners

Farro bowls.  Leftover farro tossed with soy sauce and rice vinegar / sautéed shiitake mushrooms and shredded carrots / sauerkraut sautéed with Sriracha and sugar / sliced cucumber / and a fried egg.

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Here it is before the egg went down.

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Pasta bowls.

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Whole wheat linguine / spinach and roasted broccoli / sauce made of a raw egg cracked into the hot pasta plus a splash of milk and huge handful of shredded swiss cheese / topped with panko fried with evoo, smoked paprika, and truffle salt.

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Burrito bowl at Calexico.  Rice / black beans / guacamole / cojita cheese / avocado sauce / and jalopeños.

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Old-school burger and fries at Bareburger.  Turkey burger – on a bun! – with pickle chips, tomato, lettuce, mayo, and ketchup.  Just like a McDonald’s burger from when I was a kid.

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Cheese plate!  Assembled entirely of items from Trader Joe’s.

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Dates, salmon jerky,

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orange slices, pear,

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rosemary crackers,

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and Italian truffle cheese.

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The cheese was an early appetizer for our sushi night.

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I got a pickle veggie roll and a non-authentic fried stuff roll.  Both were only ok.  We had sushi a couple of times over the past weeks and none of it has been very good.

A fancy dinner, after our date at the theatre, at Stone Park Café.

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We started with a salad of baby arugula, toasted pecans, artichoke hearts, and blue cheese vinaigrette.

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And the scallop and marrow tacos.  Uggggh.  These were insane.

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I had seared Catham cod with Odessa eggplant, baby bok choy, and lemon gremolata.  Apparently this was the first time I tasted cod outside of fish and chips?!  SPC is one of our favorite restaurants in the city so I know this was good, but I wasn’t a big fan.

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Adam’s dinner blew mine out of the water.  Butternut squash and thyme ravioli with brown butter, pine nuts, and mixed mushrooms.

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Thankfully he was very generous with shared bites.

Are you sick of this post yet?  That’s all she wrote!

Weekend Wrap-Up; Oh, Sugar, Sugar

I don’t have a ton to share from this weekend but every thing I do have a photo of was super tasty.  My sweet tooth was certainly satisfied by the past three days!

Greek yogurt, strawberry, and chia from The Epic Seed.

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The packaging here was very neat.  The flavors were tasty, and I plan on buying this again, but I think I would have preferred this with regular, thinner yogurt because it was very thick and a bit difficult to eat.

Strawberry milk slush from Kung Fu Tea.

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Adam took one sip and declared “this is the best drink I’ve ever had!”  We both loved it and want another immediately.  The texture was perfection; a great replacement for the granitas we used to adore in Park Slope.

Easy dinner at home.

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A sandwich – smoked trout mashed with miracle whip and smoked paprika, on rye pumpernickel swirl with swiss cheese, cooked in butter – with baby carrots on the side.

A trip to Momofuku Milk Bar‘s Williamsburg location.

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We shared a cereal milk shake that was fine but not too exciting.  Corn flakes don’t exactly do it for me, I want the bottom of a bowl of Lucky Charms.

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And a slice of crack pie.

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This was teeth-achingly sweet, aka fantastic.

And next-door to Milk we discovered a tiny, hole-in-the-wall Thai spot that is our new favorite.

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My tofu Pad See Eiw was chewy and wonderful.  The tofu was perfectly seasoned.

While we were in Manhattan for the Green Fest (<– more to come on that tomorrow) we discovered H Bake Shop.

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We got the Lilac, a berry cupcake with lavender frosting.

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This was fabulous, the first cupcake ever to rival the greatness coming out of Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine.  The price was a teensy bit higher than SSS, but this was also the prettiest dessert I’ve ever had.

What’s missing from this post?  Another migraine (boo!), grocery shopping with giant coffees, a burger for Adam and fried pickles for me from SmashBurger, lunch at the Green Fest, and a trip to the movies for the newest “Captain America” (we liked it!).

What was sweet about your weekend?

Weekly Wrap-Up; Eggs And Easter Candy

I’m bouncing back from a bad migraine this afternoon so this post might be lacking my usual witty prose (<– just go with it).  I don’t want to think that too much sugar may have been a potential trigger for the migraine, but it will probably be hard to convince you otherwise once you finish the post 🙂  Also, upon completion I am forced to note that 90% of these pictures are pretty god-awful.  The food was yummy though, I swear!

lunch

Oatmeal Monday.

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Apple on the side.

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Quaker Summer Berry Oatmeal,

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topped with Reese’s eggs.

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I read the egg carton further that night and discovered that they contain trans fat, dun dun dun! – so I had to throw the rest out.  My only hard and fast nutrition rule is never eat trans fats.

Spicy Sandwich Tuesday.  A whole wheat Sandwich Thin with Applegate Farms Herbed Turkey, Fontina cheese, strawberry jam, and pickled jalopeños that seemed to have retained a lot of their heat.

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I cooled down with cinnamon applesauce.

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And crunched through kale chips.

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Worst.  Photo.  Ever.

Egg Salad Wednesday.

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This batch of egg salad was made with tons of caramelized onions, miracle whip, smoked paprika, and raisins.  It was fabulous stuffed inside a Pocket Thin.

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With the rest of the kale chips and an apple.

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Leftovers Thursday.

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See more of this casserole down in dinners.

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With a wonderfully crisp Lady Alice apple and Haribo colas.

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Last of the Egg Salad Friday, aka today.

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This time with a slice of Fontina.

dinner

Stir fry night.

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Served on top of packaged Kung Pao noodles.

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My ‘fry contained edamame, bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, and pineapples, cooked in pineapple juice and green curry paste.

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I usually try to put too much into my stir fries and I end up hating them; this simple version was fantastic.

Stir fry leftovers.

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My veggies, plus steamed sweet potato chunks, and fish sauce and soy sauce, cooked in evoo, with an egg at the end.

A winning new recipe.

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Turkey Reuben Casserole.

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Click here for the recipe.

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Plus spinach and baby kale sautéed with evoo and dried blueberries.

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Let’s be real, I pretty much choked down those greens.

Chipotle post-migraine.

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Brown rice with peppers, chicken, lettuce, cheese, and lots of mild salsa.

snacks, aka Easter candy

I made a Cadbury Cream Egg Cream.  What?!

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It actually didn’t work all that well, I felt like my eggs got burnt in the microwave, but I salvaged it with a bit of chocolate milk.  Adam and I were both pretty pleased with the final result.

Speaking of candy eggs, these Ferrero ones from my basket were sure gone in a hurry.

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Just like a Rocher but without the nut in the center.

Grape Crush licorice.

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When I veered away from the Easter goodies my snacks went horribly awry.  I got an email from Dunkin that a Coolatta would earn me 25 bonus points and, sucker for loyalty rewards that I am, I had to get one.

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Disgusting.  It wasn’t homogenous at all; the coffee, milk, and sweetener separated into terrible layers.

That was a bad note to end on, but overall it was a tasty week.

Weekly Wrap-Up; Have A Hoppy Easter

Who else has been hitting the chocolate eggs this week?  Easter candy abounds!  We are spending the holiday with my in-laws – all three of our nieces! – so I’m going radio-silent on the blog front this weekend to focus on family time.  I’m planning on skipping my weekend post, I’m not even packing a camera, and I’ll be back with a weekly wrap-up next Friday.

breakfast

Iced Americano with chocolate milk.

DSC09314I tried the cafeteria breakfast.

DSC09341Scrambled eggs with turkey and veggie sausage.  The coffee cup held wonderful Cisse milk chocolate vanilla bean hot chocolate.

DSC09337lunch

Oatmeal.

DSC09251Quaker Honey and Almonds with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

DSC09255And an apple.

DSC09258Plus I snagged this delicious, thick!, strawberry lemonade from the cafeteria.

DSC09312Egg salad.

DSC09291We made awesome egg salad for lunches this week; medium-boiled eggs, finely chopped celery and green and red pepper, miracle whip, pickle relish, mustard, and dill.  Packed in a whole wheat pocket thin.

DSC09294Plus wasabi seaweed and grapes.

DSC09297The next day was chicken salad.  A whole wheat bagel thin with chicken salad, fontina cheese, and pickled jalopeños.

DSC09332Plus an apple to take away some of the heat.  Peppers were the perfect addition to that sandwich.

DSC09327I packed cookies, but I put them aside for a treat my coworker brought it, an Easter bun with cheese.

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Easter candy, duh.

DSC09363Juicy bears.

DSC09309Cafe Dada iced coffee that the husband sweetly delivered when he picked me up from work one day.

DSC09315Cookies.

DSC09347Cereal bowl.

DSC09282This was a sample of Graham Crunch from Cascadian Farm with vanilla almond milk.

DSC09278DSC09280Very tasty.  This stuff is just begging to be made into cereal s’mores bars.

I made my new favorite milkshake for Adam and myself.

DSC09334Coffee frozen Greek yogurt with chocolate milk and toasted coconut.

Bubble teas from Kung Fu Tea.  Coffee milk tea for me.

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Dinner at a diner.

DSC09265I got an eggplant parm panini.

DSC09266It was yummy but ridiculously filling.

DSC09270And then we had pie!

DSC09272Cream pie!  My slice was banana cream.

DSC09274It was flipping fantastic.

Chicken salad.

DSC09300Big piles of Nana’s chicken salad.

DSC09306With roasted green beans.

DSC09304On Wednesday we went to Williamsburg for dinner with a girlfriend.  She took us to Snacky.

DSC09321DSC09318It was fantabulous.  The space was adorable and the menu was all my favorite things.  Adam and I split a salad with seaweed and sesame dressing.

DSC09322And I got a rice bowl with spicy bbq miso chicken, plus kimchi and a fried egg.

DSC09326I swooned my way through that bowl.  It was perfect, exactly my favorite meal.

And we made similar(ish) bowls for dinner at home the next day.

DSC09358A hash of chopped sweet potato, browned mushrooms, sliced spinach, green onions, and smoked trout with rosemary and smoked paprika.  Topped with a fried egg.

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Have a great weekend!

Our Weekend Trip To Buffalo

We moved from Buffalo to Long Island almost 10 months ago now and we felt overdue for a visit!  Adam is on Spring Break this week so I took a personal day on Friday and we made the 8 hour drive back “home.”

It was a great weekend.  I’m still pretty sick so we kept things low-key and it ended up being a wonderfully relaxing trip.  And we still had time to cross off all of the must-do’s on our list.  We ate all of the food we were missing, walked down Elmwood, visited my old job to get all nostalgic and purchase some terrific toys, attended a baby shower for two dear friends, went out drinking with the whole crowd, and took a long walk around the park to look at the buffalo.

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Here were the food highlights…

Bubble tea from Gin Gin.

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I got vanilla-almond milk tea with tapioca and popping boba.

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Thai Orchid for the best Thai food ever.

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My tofu Pad See Ew did not disappoint.  So chewy!

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SPoT for breakfast.

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Iced coffee and a Mike’s sandwich on an everything bagel.

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Juice at Ashker’s.  A blend of kale, spinach, cucumber, and carrot.

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We split a duck feast at Blue Monk.  Duck Reuben and Duck Poutine.

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And on the way out-of-town Danielle took us to Aroma for a brunch that would have been a weekly tradition had we known about it while we still lived in Buffalo.

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That Buffalo Bloody Mary had gorgonzola and Frank’s in it!  And my salad came topped with artichoke hearts, calamata olives, fried leeks, tomatoes, shaved parmigiano-reggiano, balsamic vinaigrette and a poached Oles Farm free-range egg.

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It was a fantastic, delicious visit.

The long car rides weren’t even that bad – honestly they were sort of fabulous – thanks to the audiobook I was sent to review.  Doing Harm by Kelly Parsons is an exciting debut novel about medicine and moral dilemmas in which a surgeon must confront, outwit, and overcome deadly threats to his patients and himself.  The audiobook is voiced by Robert Petkoff, who has voiced countless thrillers, including those of Michael Palmer.

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This was our first time listening to an audiobook and I think we are officially hooked.  It made the time fly by.  Time for a book review…

cons –

  1. Some of the medical terms were mispronounced – fascia, parenteral nutrition, rhabdomyolysis – and it was distracting.
  2. The author was weirdly obsessed with hairdos; there was only one lone character, out of every single other character both big or small, whose hair we didn’t get a description of.

pros –

  1. The story completely sucked us in, we would sit in the car for at least five additional minutes whenever we reached a destination!
  2. The experience of being a surgical resident was very accurately captured, Adam couldn’t believe how spot-on the author managed to be.
  3. Most of the medical plot was fairly accurate as well.

Overall I’d recommend reading, or listening to, Doing Harm.

Do you ever listen to audiobooks?

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.

cafeteria

Cereal on the go. DSC08875

Blackberries and a very unripe nectarine.

DSC08881 Fage lime 2% Greek yogurt.

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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.