Tag Archives: sweet

If A Kid Were King…

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If a kid were king, dessert would be decreed dinner!  I think that’s a valid lifestyle choice, every once in a while.  Like tonight, though honestly the main reason I didn’t eat food-food for dinner was because we are out of food-food and desperately need to make a trip to the store.

When Adam got home from the hospital I fed him a malted heath bar toffee blondie, and ate another one myself.

I didn’t get a lick of work done but somehow I managed to fill my afternoon.  Mostly I was preoccupied seeing if my (reduced fat) ice cream would work out.  And … it did!

I made ice cream!  Shelly’s 2 ingredient ice cream is pure genius.

I made myself a (big) cup to-go to eat in the car on the way to UB.

And then I babbled about 2 ingredient ice cream the whole car ride.  I couldn’t share any of the good stuff obviously, but I did bring everyone blondies and they received glowing reviews.  I have a mile-long list of dessert ideas going and I have the feeling I’ll be doing a lot of sharing in the upcoming months.

The dance show was very cool.  Most of the numbers seemed like they ran a little too long but overall I enjoyed myself.  It was a modern dance exhibit (put on by the UB dance students) and just soaking up the vibes made me feel super creative.  Whenever I see a dance show I always leave feeling like I want to do pirouettes across the parking lot.

Afterwards we extended the fun with a trip to Starbucks.  I got a tall, non-fat Earl Grey latte.

We sat and talked over our drinks for a while and it was a ton of fun.  Friday night plans with friends need to be a more regular thing.  And bedtime needed to be 20 minutes ago; we’ve got a big day tomorrow.

Did/do you do any type of dance?  I did modern dance through fifth grade and adored it but my sense of rhythm is nonexistent; when I was a cheerleader I had to pantomime clapping because I was always so off-beat!

A Sweet Start

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That title is literal, I opened my day with some baking!

I didn’t get to taste the finished product at 8am, but you can bet that I licked those beaters, raw eggs be damned.

I also had an onion bagel with strawberry jelly.

Try that combo sometime, you won’t regret it.

School was not as sweet; my test was basically a disaster.  I knew a whole lot of material that wasn’t on the test, and a whole lot of nothing about what the questions were asking.  The class is with my favorite teacher whose previous tests (in two other classes) I all scored a 100% on so it was extra disappointing.

Thankfully the test at least meant we were done early, giving me time to work on a group project and go to the gym.  My CT10k workout for today was 12 sets of 2:30 walking / 2:30 running.  5 miles in 60 minutes.  When I was done on the treadmill I did some strength and stretch moves on the mat too.

I drank half of this lemon-lime G2 while I was running.

And when I got home I finally got to try those blondies.

I made Malted Heath Bar Toffee Blondies; swoon.  They are chewy and fantastic but you’ll have to take my word for it because the recipe was cobbled together from a few sources and wasn’t changed enough to be sharable.

I ate 1.5 and then made myself stop so I’d still be hungry for a real lunch.

Though I did get another bowl to lick.

I wasn’t done baking, oh no; can you guess what I made next?

Two Ingredient Ice Cream from Cookies and Cups to fold my malted heath bar toffee blondies into.  I used half light cream and low-fat sweetened condensed milk so I’ll have to let you know how it turns out.  The ‘cream needs 4 more hours in the freezer and I’ll be waiting with bated breath.

In the meantime I made a small green salad.

Baby spinach topped with 1 Tbsp each raisins, groats, and peanut sauce.

Plus I had a bowl of leftover linguine, turnip greens, and mushroom umami pasta sauce with a drizzle of evoo.

I think that set of leftovers was technically the husband’s, but it tasted too good for me to feel bad.

I need to buckle down for a few solid hours of work this afternoon and then I’ve got a fun weekend ahead.  Tonight I’m going with a  group of friends to see a dance performance at UB, tomorrow Adam and I are making a day trip to Toronto, and Sunday I’m having lunch with a dearly missed friend who’s back in town for a visit.  Wheee!

Anything exciting on the agenda for your weekend?

March Came Marching In

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Hello, from a new month!  My March came marching in; I have a feeling that this is going to be a good month.  But even if the rest of the March sucks, I’ve been more productive just today than I was all of February!

After my morning post, I headed to school for Statistics.  We have our first test next week; I’ve had a firm grasp on all of the material so far but I can’t help but be a little nervous.  Next  I picked up my carpool buddies and we drove to the hospital for clinic.  Funny sidenote – we couldn’t find street parking and the one spot we saw that was too short but would have been fine if the front car had pulled up a bit more … was behind the husband’s car!  I could have moved the offending vehicle but I don’t have the key to Adam’s car on my key chain!

I ate a Chocolate Dipped Coconut Luna Bar at the hospital.

I know I say it every time, but I still can’t get over home much this bar tastes like a samoa.  Speaking of which, there’s a samoa recipe I dreamed up during Vegan Month that I can’t wait to share with y’all!  I seriously rub my hands together like an evil villan every time I think about it.

Clinic went well, I had my first patient at the new hospital today.  He was being discharged as I went up to the floor so I didn’t get to do much, but I got to look through the chart and ask a few questions.  This hospital doesn’t have a screening/assessment form like the last one so I created my own and our instructor liked it so much she told me to make copies for everyone.  We don’t get to do a whole lot yet so getting praise for even the littlest things is still exciting.  And even more exciting was getting out early, woot.

I planned on working out after night class but I knew that would be a major drag so I took advantage of the extra time and hurried to the gym before class.  The CT10k workout for today called for 10 intervals of 2:30 walking/2:30 running (25 minutes total each), but I didn’t have quit enough time so I had to reconfigure.  I ended up doing 8 intervals of 3 minutes walking/5 minutes running (15 minutes walking and 25 minutes running total).  3.5 miles and 40 minutes.  First workout in two weeks?  Done!

Night class went well because we got out of that early too!  Found time is the best time.  We finished so quickly that I even got to eat my packed dinner at home.

In the repurposed jar is 1 serving of leftover Tempeh Brown Rice Casserole.

I pulled dessert from the freezer too; I finally got to try my Jordan Almond Cookies!

They were great, I wish I’d saved more for myself.

With my found time, I finally finished my notecards for tomorrow’s exam.  Better late than never?  I probably should go review those, huh?

How many cars does your family have?  If you are a multi-vehicle family, do you carry a set of your significant other’s keys with you?

Husband Sightings

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We did not go to the gym yesterday.  It’s possible that when I said “no buts,” I had forgotten that the husband recently stepped on a nail.  When he got home I noticed the little detail that he’s still limping.  I’m a jerk.

Gym or not, today my body wanted carbs.  Time of the month and all that (ew).  The following foods were eaten today, at random intervals approximating breakfast lunch and dinner.  An onion bagel with Smart Balance Light.

Roasted peanuts.

A bowl of cereal with Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk.

An apple on the walk to school.

An unphotographed clementine that my professor gave us at clinic.  We started a new rotation today and I’m actually at the same hospital as the husband for the next three weeks.  We passed each other in the halls twice; swoon.  Plus we had the same patient and when I saw his handwriting in the chart I about died!

Chips.

Vegan fudge from the co-op.

A pile of roasted green beans.

And a big bowl of popcorn with Earth Balance.

Have you ever worked at the same place as your significant other?

See If They’ve Got Any Chocolate Bananas, Foster

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Did everyone have a fun Friday?  I slept through most of mine, hence the Saturday recap post.

I woke up a little bit late(r than desired) yesterday so I headed to straight to the gym.  CT10k 1.3 called for 10 sets of 2 minutes running, 3 minutes walking.  50 minutes and 3.9 miles.  My workout was great, but I cut the time a little too close.  I had to literally jog – ugg boots, purse, push-up bra and all – part of the way back to school to make it to class on time!

I’m glad I made it, we had a great guest lecturer; a local RD who is certified as a Diabetes Educator.  Once you’ve been an RD for couple of years there are all sorts of specialty certifications you can pursue.  I think one in weight loss counseling could be fun.

When the guest lecturer was gone, I managed to eat breakfast during some student presentations.  Leftovers for the win.

The Seven Layer Casserole just gets better and better!  I also had a Goya Soursop Nectar.

Soursop (aka guanabana) is my favorite fruit; it is too exciting that my Wegman’s recently expanded its Goya line.  A guy friend in class joked that I’ve been a Goya groupie lately, (this was only my 2nd item but I think they are memorable because they’re a little outside the norm for class snacking) but it’s the closest thing to what I grew up with.

I stayed at school for a bit to work after class to work in the Dietetics computer lab.  I have to complete a three-day diet analysis as part of my portfolio and I needed to use a program that is only available on the computers at school.  I think maybe my eats during Vegan Month are a little too obscure for the program though; I had to make my best guesses at product substitutes and the program told me that my average intake for the last three days was 978 kcal/day.  I don’t think so!

For lunch, I opened up this So Delicious Greek Style Plain Yogurt.

No.  Just no.  I knew it was a gamble when I bought it but I took the risk because I’ve adored everything else I’ve tried from So Delicious.  Sadly the yogurt was exactly as I’d feared – straight up chemical.  The texture wasn’t terrible but the taste was like licking a counter in chem lab.

Instead I ate the two plucots that were supposed to top my yogurt out of hand.

I almost shed a tear of happiness at the taste of these.  They were still a little bit too sour, but that means that plucot season is right around the corner.

For the rest of lunch I paced frantically waited patiently for my oven timer to ring.

Bananas Foster Bars!!!  If Seven Layer Casserole was #2, these bars are the #1 best thing from last year’s Vegan Month.  I ate three.

I’m not gonna lie and say that my stomach didn’t hurt, but I’m also not gonna lie and say it wasn’t totally worth it.

But since I ate ~700 calories worth of cookies I did keep dinner on the lighter side.  Or I was going to anyway.  The plan was soup, but apparently my hour-long nap – at noon, on the floor – wasn’t doing it because I fell into bed at 8:30 last night!  Yay catch-up sleep.

This morning Adam and I headed straight out on errands.  Probably not my best idea to skip breakfast when I slept through dinner, but I was a woman on a mission.  I got so hungry that I convinced myself that spending $3 on a Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha wasn’t a waste of money.

But it really wasn’t a waste of money because it was delicious!  I loved chewing through it and the flavor reminded me of a grape Laffy Taffy.  Adam and I shared it and even he was a fan by the end.

Our other share wasn’t quite as healthy.

Five Guys fries make my soul sing.  Seriously.  I’ve made a bigger effort this past week to eat less crap, but we’re doing a different challenge in March that necessitates shoveling in FGF now.

Lunch was healthy and tasty.

I love storing leftovers in tupperware because when you are combining you can shake things together to get a really good mix.  This time I shook barley, roasted broccoli, roasted butternut squash, and Wegman’s Thai Peanut Sauce.  Topped with a few cocktail peanuts.

Delicious.  We’ve been trying new things from the Co-op’s bulk bins lately and it’s been fun branching out.

I made myself a really delicious dinner.

But I only got to eat two bites.  All of the sudden, Webster – in the worst show of behavior I’ve ever seen from him – shoved his entire face into my bowl!  Hello, mess; goodbye, dinner.

[Updated Sunday Morning To Add]

The boys came over to play poker, he got even more crazy, and I got so irritated I ended up just going to bed.  So now I need to find a nice big breakfast.

Stupid dog.

Question of the day, from my post title – Name that movie!

Funky Monkey Vegan “Ice Cream” Pie

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Do you like pie?

What a silly question, everyone likes pie.  I know there may be some preference as to the pie variety, but I challenge you to show me someone who hates all pies.  And this is a pie for the masses, vegan or otherwise.

This recipe started rolling around in my head a few months ago, but I made myself wait for Vegan Month to take it from the figurative tip of my tongue to my literal plate.  You guys know how much I like Ben and Jerry’s, right?  Well when I’m not eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream I tend to peruse their flavors page like a desperate stalker on restraining order.  And from there the idea started knocking around in my head.  What if Chubby Hubby and Chunky Monkey had a little rolly-polly baby.  A peanut butter-pretzel-banana pie baby?  With cinnamon for good measure?

I can tell you now what happens.  You devour that pie baby.

I’m certainly not the first person to add peanut butter to the banana soft serve recipe that took the blog world by storm.  But I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to serve it in a pie.

It was a good idea.  An idea I strongly suggest you try on your own.

Peanut Butter Banana Pretzel Pie, serves 8

  • 2 cups pretzels
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup vegan butter substitute
  • 4 medium bananas, frozen
  • 1/4 cup vanilla almond milk (if using a plain milk substitute just add 1 tsp each vanilla extract and sugar)
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
  2. Place unwrapped butter in the center of a 9-inch pie pan and put in preheating oven until butter is fully melted.
  3. Place pretzels into the bowl of the food processor and process until smooth, 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Add sugar to bowl and pulse a few times until combined.
  4. When butter has melted, pour the crushed pretzels into the center of the pie pan.  Mix the crumbs and melted butter, then use your fingertips to gently push onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
  5. Bake crust 10 – 12 minutes until firm.  Set aside to cool for at least 15 minutes.
  6. Wipe out food processor (it doesn’t matter if a few pretzel crumbs get in your filling) and place bananas and almond milk into the bowl.  Process 2 – 3 minutes until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
  7. Add peanut butter and cinnamon to bowl and process 20 – 40 seconds more until well-combined.
  8. Pour filling into cooled pretzel crust, using a spatula to spread it in an even layer.
  9. Place pie in the freezer to firm up for 1 hour.  You can make and freeze the pie a few days ahead of time if you like, just be sure to place in the fridge to thaw for 30 minutes before serving.

Peanut Butter Practice

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It’s been a good weekend!  Good food, good fun, good friends.  Not much activity on the school-work front, but we’ve got a 4-day weekend coming up next week so it was hard to motivate myself.  Plus Friday’s 3am session of book reading hit me pretty hard.

I’m so glad I did it though, this was the first book club where we all finished reading on time and we finally got to talk about the book!  So much fun.  I wasn’t an English major/teacher for nothing, I love analyzing literature.

The food wasn’t bad either.  Janessa made vegan 7-layer bars.

And Anna brought this big bowl of fresh fruit that pretty much had my hand planted in it all evening.

My offering fit both the dessert and fruit categories; peanut butter pretzel banana pie.

It got good reviews all around and I’m excited to share the recipe with y’all tomorrow.  But that could have been the booze talking too.

Lemonade, club soda, and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka (to fit with the book!).  I had that glass x2.

I got home after midnight and was very excited both to get in bed and stay in bed late this morning.

Breakfast was a toasted onion bagel with SmartBalance Light.

Plus a cup of lemonade and club soda.

I left the vodka out today, but had that glass x2.

Today was another round of fancy lunch and easy dinner.  Lunch was healthy, vegan, and included a new recipe to boot.

Roasted French green beans,

pearled barley,

and Smokey Maple Baked Beans.

The beans weren’t quite Southern bbq good, but for quick and vegan I’d say they’re pretty great.  Here’s a link to the recipe.

While Adam and I watched “Grey’s” this afternoon I ate this bowl of popcorn x2.

And then headed to yoga on a full belly.  90 minutes of hot yoga will make you wish you’d done more water and less salt.  This class was the very last practice of my 30-day pass and I’m pretty devastated.  I’ve come to enjoy yoga so much more than I ever thought possible.  I’m still not very good, but every shaky, sweaty minute is filled with glee.

I picked Adam up for a “cookie walk” and we came home with peanut butter cups from the Co-op.

It was good but I wish it had been a bit smaller, even this sugar fiend couldn’t finish her serving.

Dinner was peanut butter laced too.

I promise that bowl was as tasty as the picture is crappy.

Into the skillet with evoo went leftover pasta, leftover (pre-cooked) yellow squash and broccoli, and my peanut sauce.  The noodles get all crispy when you stir-fry them and the sauce forms a crust that’s pure heaven.

Now it’s back to the grind.  Hopefully this weekend of play has left me rejuvinated for work!

Do you love to read?  Do you enjoy discussing the things you’ve read, or would you rather not analyze them?

Tropical Tapioca Panacea

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I love hot yoga but it’s a pain in the neck, literally.  I felt fine on Monday night, just like I might have pushed my back a little too far, and fine all through the day on Tuesday.  But then when I got home from clinic last night I was so sore I could barely move.  I’m not sure why I took so long to feel the pain, but it came on strong.  Even today I still feel pretty awful!

Breakfast was a serving of Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk.

Plus a naval orange for vitamin C.

I’ve got my first test of the semester this afternoon and I am not feeling ready.  Fingers crossed!

For lunch I packed a jam jar of one of this weekend’s kitchen efforts, Tropical Tapioca Pudding.

This pudding was inspired by the great vegan tapioca pudding you used to be able to get at the co-op.  I think my version is pretty great too.  The pudding has the perfect balance of chew and cream and the bananas are little pillowy clouds floating throughout!

Tropical Tapioca Pudding, serves 4

  • 1/2 cup small-pearl tapioca
  • 13.66 oz can light coconut milk (aka 1 and 2/3 cup)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 medium bananas, sliced
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  1. Place tapioca in a bowl with enough warm water to cover completely and soak for two hours.
  2. After 2 hours, drain tapioca.
  3. Combine coconut milk, sugar, salt, and drained tapioca in a small pot over medium-low heat.
  4. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.
  5. Add banana slices to the pot and cook another 5 minutes, stirring carefully.  Cook until tapioca are translucent.
  6. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
  7. Move to a covered container and cool in the fridge for 1 hour before serving.

Have you ever tried tapioca pudding?  What about boba (large pearl tapioca that are placed in cold drinks and sucked up through a special straw)?