Studies and Sweets

Another day at study central has come to a close!  Tomorrow is a horrifying all day affair, and then my final is at 8am this Saturday.  And then I go home!  To the beach!

My high volume low calorie lunch did not do the trick for me at all.  Usually I am more of a volume eater (popcorn?) but I was starving again .2seconds after eating.  I distracted myself for a minute with my fancy Christmas socks,

and then was hungry again.  I snagged a piece of peppermint bark on my way out the door.

We had some errands to run – like picking up an exciting package at UPS – before we made our way to Coffee Culture around 2.  Which is where we stayed until 8.  Actually, I got there at 2, Adam spent an hour being a creeper.  Keanu Reeves is shooting a movie here in Buffalo and Adam wanted to get an eye-full of his man-crush.  Lucky for him my friend Caroline was involved in the shooting and she snuck him in for a peak.  Oh man was he ever excited!

When I went to order my coffee (with skim milk) the man told me a small with a homemade cookie would cost me $2, who could resist that?

This peanut butter cookie might be the best cookie I’ve ever eaten.  It was crumbly and chewy at the same time and just perfect.

A few hours later it was time for dinner.

I got the “All American” – whole wheat panninni, roasted turkey, cream cheese, american cheese, ranch dressing, cranberries.  I know it sounds goopy and over the top but the dressings were all really light and it ended up being delicious.

I feel like I “should” be full, but I’m still not, and it’s very likely I’ll have a snack before bed.  Otherwise, I will see you all tomorrow.  Caroline and I are planning on spending all day studying at the Spot again, so I’m not sure when I’ll post, but expect it to be boring! 🙂

Don’t forget, my Amy’s giveaway ends tomorrow at noon!

Cheese and Chocolate

It’s an hour later than my goal bedtime so I’ll make this speedy.  I didn’t get much work done today, but I do feel cozy and relaxed.  And full – I ate little things every hour or so and I might have overdone it a bit on the snacking 😉

Crackers with cheese log.

It’s a good thing Adam likes to call me Mouse, maybe that will soften the blow when I gain 20pounds on cheese alone!

I also finished off the Food Should Taste Good Olive Chips, less than half a serving.

And I ate a small square of leftover lasagna.

Next I tried a new candy that my mom bought me.

Tea Infusions Milk Chocolate with Black Masala Chai.

Mmn, I prefer dark chocolate but I loved the way the taste of chai (my favorite tea) came through.  Plus 1 serving, half a bar, had 140 calories which feels reasonable.

I would love to be the sort of person who ate this with a cup of tea, but we have a bottle of Coke Zero leftover from the party so that just wasn’t going to happen.

We took a break to celebrate the second night of Hanukkah,

and, finally, a few hours later we got food from Jim’s Steakout.

A spicy buffalo chicken sub,

and french fries.

Not my healthiest day!

What’s your favorite kind of tea?

Celebrations Galore

What a fabulous Adam’s birthday – Christmas – 2 year anniversary day!  We had celebrations galore!

We started the festivities with Adam’s 24 birthday (actually taking place next Friday) –

Barb made a yummy looking cake.

I passed, I had my dessert for the day already picked out, you’ll see later.

Next up was Christmas.  Among a bunch of fabulousness – most of which I’ll be showing on the blog over the next few weeks – were some awesome drawings from our niece.

Smurfs!

Finally our 2-year anniversary.  Adam and I celebrated by making matching fools of ourselves.

Aren’t our race windbreakers awesome?  I will certainly be wearing that.  And I scored the very last extra-small so it fits perfectly.

Adam’s choice for ‘birthday dinner’ was Red Robin, so that’s where we headed.

We ordered chips with salsa and guacamole for the table, here’s my plate –

I always ask for side plates when I’m sharing an appetizer, if I picked I would have eaten 4x as much.

Here is the reason I passed on birthday cake earlier in the day –

Oh yeah, that is a gingerbread milk shake!

So yum!

I ate some grown up food too.

Jamaican Jerk’d Chicken Burger spicy Jamaican Jerk’d chicken breast, topped with pepper-jack cheese, grilled pineapple, cool mango mayo, and lettuce and tomato; served on a jalopeno cornbread kaiser roll.

I ate about 3/4 of my sandwich and 2/3 of my fries.  Running kills my appetite sometimes.

The family is safely headed home and we are settled in for the night.  Adam might actually go see a movie (Ninja Assassins, gag) but I’m all set to curl up with some recipe planning.  Have a great night!

What month has the most holidays for you?  December is our busiest month.  We go Adam’s Birthday, Christmas, Wedding Anniversary – 11, 25, 28.  And we celebrate Hanukkah in there too!

Just Call Me Mrs. Peno

This evening was not at what I was expecting (but still good!).  Adam came home this afternoon and we made a pile*.  For hours.  Fabulous 🙂  *If you don’t know what I’m talking about watch the movie Where the Wild Things Are.

Prior to the pile Adam made a bagel that he was randomly super nice and shared with me.

It was 9:30 before we thought about dinner so we ended up redoing our weekly meal plan and heading to Subway.

I got a 6inch honey wheat with chicken breast, buffalo sauce, ranch, pepperjack, lettuce, tomato, and lots of jalopenos.

It was super spicy, but not that filling.  Which is why I also ended up eating most of this –

I’m having a love affair with jalopenos.

And Bones was fantabulous.  I didn’t get a gym trip in but I am planning on doing arm exercises when I do my pt.

As far as the race tomorrow we have decided to walk it – LAME.  It’s a 5k and we are less than thrilled, but it is just too stupid for me to risk running it when my doctor told me not to.  Such is life.

What is the best thing you’ve ever eaten jalopenos in?  In nyc I used to get jalopeno and cheddar cream cheese on bagels and it was socks rocking.

Feeling Thankful

Again, I’ll try to keep this quick, but it’s been a great Turkey Day.  I’m thankful for family, good food, and my wonderful husband.

We slept in until 10:30 this morning (I’m feeling sick again, boo!) and then woke up to the world’s tastiest breakfast.

My grandma is so cool, she had Greek Gods’ Honey Greek Yogurt waiting in the fridge for me!  I had a small bowl of fruit,

and honey Greek yogurt with berries and a sliver of homemade coffee cake.

Mmmmmmn!  I was in love with this breakfast!  If it wasn’t Thanksgiving I would have gone back for another bowl!  I think I’ve got my aunt hooked on Greek yogurt now too 🙂

We went to a family friend’s house for Thanksgiving at 1, so we headed out around noon to socialize.  Look how cute my grandparents are!

I’ve gone to Thanksgiving with this family ever year I’ve been with my grandparents and it’s always so much fun.  They have the best decorations, I wish I could have gotten more pictures.

I made a small appetizer plate with pretzels, honey raspberry dip, and crackers with dirty martini dip.

And I had a light beer to drink.

As I mentioned before, I am actually not much of a Turkey Day food fan!  I didn’t even eat any turkey meat!  I tried to just take a small bit of everything.

Clockwise from the top – stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, roll, jello mold salad, cranberries.  I finished everything on my plate (except for the roll which I gave away).  I didn’t actually eat very much, but I didn’t do seconds because I knew dessert was coming.

I actually gave away that mini cake in favor of a second cookie!

It was great getting to catch up with people and Adam was definitely stuffed!  He took a fat nap before we even headed home, and hit the couch asap.  My grandmother and I wanted to take a nice walk but unfortunately it was raining.  The other disappointment was that there was nowhere for me to volunteer.  I really wanted to put in some time at a food bank or soup kitchen today but everywhere my grandma called had too many volunteers.

We ate dinner around 7, and I was actually hungry again.

Leftover sweet potato casserole,

and a yumtastic sandwich – turkey, cranberries, cream cheese.

Plus apple and celery salad on the side.

I was still a bit hungry so I went back for more salad.

We played cards after dinner.

I had a coffee with 2% and an amaretto stick,

a mini 7-up,

and a small handful of caramel corn.

We kept my grandparents up past midnight playing cards, I’d say it’s time for bed!

How was your turkey day?

Road Tripped

We are in Ohio!  My grandmother’s internet isn’t the best and it’s been a long day so I won’t be able to be as detailed as I would like.  It’s been a good day though 🙂

We got up at 6:30 this morning and were out the door before 7am.  The trip was 400+ miles so we had to get an early start.  I packed up food for the road, a la Thanksgiving Challenge, threw on a sweatshirt and split.

I had some am amazing grass – 1banana, 1scoop grass, big pour skim milk, 8 ice cubes, blender.

I was so proud of the husband for drinking some too!

A few hours later I ate a yummy leftovers sandwich.

1.5 buffalo blue bean patties on toasted bread with honey and jack daniels mustard.

We split the driving fairly evenly – 2hours Adam, 2hours me, 2hours Adam.  The switches were a nice excuse for pee and diet soda breaks!

When we got in to Piqua my grandparents had a great lunch ready for us.

Carrot and dill soup was delicious.

And the two-cheese grilled cheese were so nice and gooey.

There were also spicy bread and butter pickles and sunchips on the table.

I ate more chips throughout the day than was a good idea!

To drink I had half of Adam’s holiday Coke,

and I split a lime beer with my grandmother.

For dessert I had a cherry cordial from the box of candy we brought as our hostess gift.

We had a great time hanging out with my grandparents.  We played Euchre and my grandpa bought us all fun lotto cards!

I didn’t win, but it was nice to dream.

My aunt and uncle drove up this evening and we all had a great dinner together (more soup and sandwiches!).

The soup was white chicken chili,

and the sandwiches were pulled chicken – I think we are done with chicken for a bit!

I also had one delicious deviled egg.

Dessert was homemade old fashioned cream pie.

It was awesome, but the crust was store-bought so I just scraped out the filling.

Plus coffee with 2% milk.

Look at their adorable sugar bowl!

Now it’s almost 10 and I would love to get in bed!  Overall it’s been a fabulous (filling) day!  My grandmother is such a good cook and it’s so great to be with family.

What do you usually pack for road trips?

Great Expectations

Nothing went as planned today, in a perfectly great sort of way.  I ended up not lying down – exhausted from my foodgasms – as Adam came home with the mail which included an unexpected check from my old job.  Yays!  I’m not going to lie about how excited I was about that $, I got a little bit teary.

I was in such a good mood I even “wasted” a cute outfit on class.

Don’t worry, there are flip flops below that blazer.

Class unexpectedly was let out early, and I ended up at a friend’s house with Adam for an unplanned study session.  I love sitting and listening to the studying med students so much, it is so interesting!  And I got a lot of my own reading done.

We didn’t get home until 11, and my planned dinner of frittata leftovers got gobbled up by the husband.  I was pissed that I had to eat another Sunshine Burger for dinner!  🙂

Dipped in some stolen Arby’s sauce.

I used less sauce than anticipated, and couldn’t bear to throw the extra away, so I smothered a small turkey sandwich with it.

I was still a little hungry anyway so this actually worked out well.

That seemed to be the theme of the day, things going better than planned.  One of my favorite quotes (and in general I’m usually not too keen on ‘God’ quotes) is “If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans.”

What got REplanned in your day today?

Foodgasms

Good afternoon!  Today has been nice and productive; I mixed together a schedule of work and fun and this online stopwatch has been crucial

Amid the work has been the cleaning of the kitchen, the completion of the laundry, and a major chunk of Chemistry reading.

During some of the fun (NCIS watching) I shared a cup of tea and honey with the bears.

Did you know that Ulrick moved all the way from Brooklyn with us?  Unfortunately the tea didn’t really rock my socks.

I guess I only like Yogi if we are still talking about bears!

A bit later I had a strange snack that was exactly what I was craving (yes, in my dirty tea mug) –

Sliced bell pepper and 1/2C stuffing bread crumbs with 1T prepared pesto (from the Foodbuzz Festival!).  It sounds strange but it was a craving-fulfilling, 100ish calorie snack that held me over until lunch.

And what a lunch it was.  OhMyGosh.  It’s funny because Jenna and Brandi both talked about how much they enjoy food – like really really enjoy it, more than just ‘oh this is good,’ like foodgasms in posts today and now I’m going to do the same.  Sometimes I get so excited about what I’m eating that I flap my arms like a deranged bird.  Today’s lunch was super simple and yet it elicited tons of flapping.

Today felt life-changing.  Today was the day I tried Sunshine Garden Herb Burgers.

Holy frick.  I didn’t think it was possible to get so excited about a veggie patty but I’ve managed.  This might be my new favorite food.  It’s not, because I love roasted brussels sprouts and broad rice noodles too much to demote them, but it’s close.

I microwaved one patty and ate it on white toast with Jack Daniels mustard.

One of the best sandwiches ever.  Chewy and hefty and the mix of flavors was to die for.  I love love loved the vinegary kick from the mustard and burger.  I almost got up and made myself a second sandwich.

And then I remembered dessert.

This is the best idea I’ve ever had.

Ricemellow, the filling scooped out of a slice of ‘Smores Pie, and a few chocolate chips.  Melted in the microwave for 20seconds.  It was like ‘smores x1million.

I love my readers.  I really do.  So I’m going to take this opportunity to remind you to make some good decisions.  #1 – Make ‘Smores Pie.  The recipe is here.  It’s from my grandma, it’s easy, and I’ve literally never met someone who didn’t like it.  #2 – buy this:

It’s vegan, it tastes like marshmallow fluff, and it is socks rocking.  I’ll be honest, even if it wasn’t wonderful I’d like it just because I’m in love with the packaging.  Seriously though, go buy it and report back to me.

That is all.  I got myself so excited I just may need to go lie down.  I will get up in time for class at 6:30 though, and I’ll see you for a dinner post this evening.

Is there a food YOU would like to strongly recommend today?