Who has time for words when they’ve got a warm puppy newly home from boarding school?
Note – I’ve made chocolate-dipped potato chips and now there’s no going back.
Tag Archives: tofu
(Pho)ning It In
I regularly drop off the face of the blogging planet and I haven’t even started my next rotation yet! It’s rumored to be time-consuming and exhausting, but I’m sure that won’t keep me from hitting my 30-days goal this time. I mean, I made it an entire day the last round!
You missed – bubble tea with a friend, Adam and I splitting an entire bag of chips and dip for dinner, and other stuff that can’t have been that exciting because I honestly can’t remember any other food item from the past two days.
Also, the end of my purple hair.
I had to get rid of the streaks before my next rotation so I’m back to brown, albeit a darker, redder brown. I’ll try to get a picture in good light this weekend.
Today was the end of my winter break make-up and an on-campus meeting before we switch placements (I’ve got five weeks of clinical rotation in a local hospital coming up on Monday). Coffee was needed.
I earned a free coffee with a book store punch card so I went big (literally!) with a venti non-fat half-pumps toffee nut latte. Note – I drank my giant coffee and a diet pop in lieu of water all day and I totally paid the price this afternoon.
I was running late this morning – we ran out of water in the middle of my shower!!! – and I packed a fairly ridiculous trio of foods for my breakfast/lunch. A green pear.
A Honeycrisp apple.
And a package of Annie Chun’s Brown Sugar and Sea Salt Roasted Seaweed.
I wasn’t exactly full, but at least it all tasted good.
Our meeting got out a smidge early and three friends and I made it over to the mall for some high school-style fun. We wandered, window shopped, and got froyo.
A little plain tart with tons of popping boba for me!
Unfortunately, my dehydration kicked in during the fun and I ended up getting hit with a bad migraine. {Sorry to be such a downer guys!} I made it home just in time to throw up in my own bathroom; always a plus. Then I took medicine, and a nap, and managed to feel much better in an hour or so.
My boys joined me for the nap and this scene occurred –
They are too cute.
Once I rallied, Adam and I headed out for a fun dinner.
Red Pepper might be my new favorite restaurant. They gave us free tea and fried wontons,
and served me the best bowl of vegetarian Pho I’ve ever had.
Adam and I both thought that the broth was swoon-worthy.
I took the 2nd half of my trough home with me and we are quite excited for leftovers tomorrow.
‘Night!
The Sunday Scurry
I’m in a quandary: I want to blog because yesterday I started my “30 days of blogging” challenge again, but I want to get off the computer so I can hang out with my boys. I didn’t say it was a large quandary. I’ll just keep this quick.
Leftover pineapple crisp (from my Slow Cooker Desserts cookbook).
Ritz crackers with white bean truffle dip.
A lunchtime snack plate.
Honeycrisp.
Crunchy peanut butter.
1 serving of Sweetriot 70% Dark Chocolate with Kickin’ Coconut*.
Co-op hot bar after work. Fried seitan, cucumber salad, and peanut noodles.
Homemade Thai curry for dinner.
Green curry and light coconut milk with a bit of tamari and rice vinegar. Nasoya Black Soybean Tofu Plus** fried in coconut oil. Tons of broccoli and a can of straw mushrooms. Cashews. Tasty Bite Thai Lime Rice.
My boys.
*the chocolate was out of this world; it had all the healthiness of dark but the creaminess of milk chocolate
**Adam and I both want to buy this tofu again; we didn’t press it but it still stayed firm and got nice and crunchy, plus it had a good, different flavor
Don’t forget to enter my cookbook giveaway.
Kool And The Gang
Q: Do you know what these two things have in common?
A: I used the Kool Aid to (re)dye my hair!
I never captured it in a photo, but over the last week or so I lost 90% of my purple and was left with a lot of white/grey streaks. Since I don’t have an appointment to go back to brown for another two weeks, this wasn’t exactly a good thing. So last night the husband helped me sit with my head in a bowl of concentrated Kool Aid.
It was windy today!
I’ve still got some white but overall it looks much better. We’ll have to see how long the color lasts. I used to dye my highlights with Kool Aid in high school and I remember getting at least a couple of weeks out of it.
The hair photos were taken on my way to work. I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather; I had a fever and I was super achy all over. Adam fed me an aspirin and I stayed in bed until the last possible second. I’m feeling much better now {knock on wood}. And thankfully I was only working a partial shift.
I skipped breakfast for bed and was very excited about food when I got home this afternoon.
1/3 cup of Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola with Naked Vanilla Oat Milk and tons of chopped dapple plum and nectarine.
Plus lots of tea. A cup of Revolution Tea Lavender Earl Grey,
and a cup of chai with 1 tsp honey an hour or so later.
I carried the lavender theme over to my snack as well.
My mom got these floral candies from a student whose parents are from Japan.
My dad says they all taste like peach, but I swear the ones I tried had subtle differences.
We spent a long-ish time on errands this evening and I got a small plate of hot bar to keep from getting too cranky.
Maple cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes plus sautéed veggies and 3 pieces of General Tso tofu. It’s been ages since we’ve roasted sweet potato fries and we definitely need to make them again soon.
Dinner didn’t take very long to prepare once we got home, but it sure was good.
I had 1.5 servings of Wegman’s Don’t Be a Chicken Meatless Nuggets dipped in honey.
They were great, far more enjoyable than I ever find chicken nuggets to be.
I made use a hot spinach salad for our veggie component.
(recipe to follow) We loved it. The spinach was super creamy and there was such a good mix of textures.
Dinner didn’t really fill me up though, and I ate some Smart Fries while I wrote this post.
Much better.
Hot Spinach Salad, serves 2
- 1 Tbsp Earth Balance vegan butter
- 1 pint white mushrooms, roughly chopped
- 2 pinches salt
- 3 heaping cups raw baby spinach
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup smoked almonds
- 1 Tbsp evoo
- 2 heaping Tbsp vegan sour cream
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown mushrooms with butter and salt.
- Add spinach to mushrooms, tossing until greens are completely wilted.
- Add remaining ingredients to pan and cook 1 more minute, stirring regularly.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend!
Have you ever dyed your hair with Kool Aid?
Last Friday Night
I spent Friday night getting a little drunk. Mind you, not so drunk that I would actually want to listen to Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.” We did watch some bad stand up comedy on Netflix though. <– Tim Minchin, not as funny as this joke would lead you to believe. (It’s so dirty, don’t click, Nana!)
Yesterday, Bitchtastic
Friday morning started with a Chocolate Dipped Coconut Luna Bar on the way to the hospital.
I had plans for a morning gym session but when I saw the weather report I decided to sleep in instead. We got really lucky here, the snow was annoying but not anything dangerous.
I had a nice day at the hospital in spite of the weather. I got to chart on several interesting patients and had a little more practice with doing pediatric TPN orders. I love the nutrition support aspect of dietetics but children are really different from what I’ve done with adults.
Lunch was a simple salad.
Chopped green pepper and cucumber with evoo, Sriracha, and some salty peanuts.
What a winning combination!
Plus a GoGo Squeez Cinnamon Applesauce packet.
Great on the go, but not as amazing as the pile of fruit I had when I got home.
Underneath my mounds of blue and blackberries was Naked Vanilla Oat Milk, a little honey, and 1/4 cup each All Bran Bran Buds and Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola.
So flipping good. And it was a good thing I got in a healthy snack because my responsible food choices took a downhill turn during the rest of the evening.
I blame the Bitch Bubbly.
A girlfriend came over and she, Adam, and I drank the bottle in mimosas.
The sparkling wine was pretty bad, but our next round was fantastic –
Sips Lavender Lemondrop Sparkling Cocktails! This was so fun, and quite delicious. I described it to my coworker today as “Kate Spade’s Four Loco.” I would definitely buy them again.
But maybe I’d eat dinner first next time. My evening meal ended up being… A slice of bread with Smart Balance Light,
and a huge bowl of popcorn with melted Earth Balance.
Major thanks to the husband for making me two bowls of popcorn; I spilled that first one within a matter of minutes!
Fashion Friday
Today, Tofutastic
Saturday’s meals were a little healthier. Still very tasty though.
For breakfast, Adam and I split a great pb & j.
With a pear on the side.
I worked today, but only a half shift, so I had time to get lunch from Wegman’s hot bar. Some tofu and veggies in mushroom dashi with two pieces of inari.
I did lots of Googling, and as far as I could tell mushroom dashi is just mushroom stock, so I’m still not sure what that yummy sauce was.
We made tofu for dinner too.
A bed of cabbage —a bag of “Asian Slaw” mix cooked with a bit of Earth Balance with caramelized onions tossed in towards the end— topped with walnuts —cooked in a skillet with salt and sugar— and tofu —super firm tofu cooked in the skillet we used for the onions, finished with a sauce of tamari, rice vinegar, sesame oil, Sriracha, honey, and orange juice.
I was glad I added the nuts at the last-minute to help break up the texture. The flavors were spot on though.
I had Goody Good Stuff Tropical Fruit for dessert.
Adorable, and much firmer than the other varieties.
Was your area hit with this weekend’s crazy weather?
All Over The Place
I’ve been all over the place the past two days, figuratively speaking. Literally, I’ve been in Buffalo, at work or in my apartment. Influencing the craziness of my eats? I started a 20 Day Vegan Challenge on Sunday, I was so hungry yesterday I thought I might actually eat a horse if one happened to gallop near me, and today I woke up far under the weather. What can you do?
Sunday was fairly ridiculous. In spite of being vegan and staying home from the Super Bowl party I definitely still managed to match the rest of America’s Super Bowl Sunday caloric intake.
Chips.
Summer roll from the co-op.
Fancy bread with olive oil, x2.5.
Vegan almond joy bar.
Gummies.
If my summer roll hadn’t been packed with veggies I probably would have had to turn in my diploma!
Then I got into bed at 9:30 pm Sunday night and barely made it out by 7:15 today. I don’t seem to be sick with any typical flu-like symptoms {knock on wood} but I am tired beyond reason. I swear to God I didn’t spend Super Bowl Sunday eating chicken wings and getting wasted, but when I woke up this morning I felt like I was drunk! It took me 10 minutes to really figure out where I was and I stayed in a haze for most the morning. And super embarrassingly, I almost passed out in the ICU during rounds! Hopefully no one else noticed but the RD I was with said I got very pale for a few minutes.
I grabbed a (non-diet) Dr. Pepper during a quick break and that helped get my blood sugar back up.
Lunch was a simple salad – romaine, raw veggies, pickled beans, and low-fat raspberry vinaigrette.
And I had a bowl of cereal when I got home. A serving of Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola topped with blackberries and Simpli Vanilla Naked Oat Milk.
The granola was some of the best I’ve ever had!
It held up in the milk without being too hard and it was loaded with big pieces of coconut.
I ate half of this Enjoy Life Ricemilk Chocolate bar while I did some history reading.
And kept dinner simple with an Annie Chun’s Korean Kimchi Soup Bowl.
I still had some reading to do for class so I needed to keep things quick.
Don’t ask me how I managed to drag myself to the gym after my night class, but I did. I am hoping to start up with the Couch to 10k program again. Today was 1 minute running/4 minutes walking, x 8. Except a great song came on and I ended up just running the last five minutes.
I was starving when I got home so I ate a slice of bread with Smart Balance Light while I packed our lunches.
All that stands between me and bed is a shower!
Did you watch the Super Bowl? What’d you snack on during the game?
Two Days, Too Many?
My mom called to tell me that not posting yesterday ruined my 30 day streak. But my focus wasn’t so much the daily posting as the posting of everything from each day. I’ve decided that as long as I blog everything I eat it will count towards thirty days straight of blogging even if I have to do some recaps. Thoughts?
The past 48 hours have included some really tasty things, but they have also included too many missed meals and way too much sugar. I need to keep getting better about my sleep schedule.
I didn’t have breakfast together Tuesday morning so I just had coffee – half sweet, half regular – from the cafeteria.
Lunch was a fun assortment. An apple.
A Cascadian Farm Crunchy Oats & Honey Granola Bar.
And an Artisana Cacao Bliss packet.
I planned on eating the coconut butter as a granola bar topping, but that got too messy and I ended up just spooning it into my mouth with a knife. That stuff is so flipping good; like a coconutty chocolate frosting!
When I got home I ate two fun sized candies, <– so unnecessary
and a Müller Strawberry FrütUp Yogurt.
A friend and I are doing a Vegan 20 Day challenge soon and I just can’t stop buying yogurt!
Adam and I haven’t seen much of each other lately so we decided to make Tuesday night Date Night and make use of our King and I Groupon.
We split the Tofu Tod to start. //fried tofu with a sweet and sour peanut dipping sauce//
This is one of our favorite Thai appetizers and King and I did not disappoint. We both kept grabbing spoonfuls of the sauce!
I went with the King and I House Noodles, vegetarian and Thai spicy. //broad rice noodles with egg, vegetables, and ground peanut//
I wish my meal had come with more vegetables, but I was very impressed with the spice level.
Adam commented that he could *hear* how spicy my meal was so I must have been doing a lot of sniffling! Sadly, his dish was too salty and he didn’t really love it.
The husband went with a coconut sticky rice and custard dish for dessert.
I took a few small bites, but decided to have these gummi candies instead.
They came from Wegman’s bulk bins and were totally to blame for the headache that caused me to lie down while taking off my boots, and end up falling asleep on top of the covers, fully dressed!
I was still pretty out of it this morning and I left for the hospital without so much as a scrap of food in my bag. I bought this serving of Kashi Heart to Heart from the cafeteria.
And I got Wegman’s hot bar after work to eat while I was journaling.
Many veggies with some chicken (salad and dumplings) and pasta.
I ate a Honeycrisp when I got home.
And then I ate a bowl of gelato for dinner.
And did so with impunity; I topped it with a protein-rich Bare Naked cereal sample.
The Talenti Caramel Cookie Crunch was good and the combination was even better.
And it was exactly what I was craving.
In healthier news, I made it to yoga this evening! 60 minutes of hot yoga was amazing, every time I go I love it. But – if I go both days this weekend I will have officially gotten 4 uses out of my unlimited pass, whoops!
I took advantage of my (messy) high yoga ponytail to show y’all my current hair.
The bottom is still good, but the top has lost a lot of color and has white streaks.
I have to go back to brown for my next internship placement so I won’t bother refreshing it, but I am still love-love-loving the purple. FYI: It is very difficult to take a picture of your own hair!
Hello, 2013
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a great first day. I started my year the best way possible – a long morning in bed with my husband and dog and an afternoon spent cleaning every trace of 2012 away from the apartment. He vacuumed and put away Christmas decorations and I organized and put away the Christmas presents. I also did some electronics cleaning; my cell phone, bookmarks, and google reader are sparkling. I even cleaned up my desktop.
Tomorrow I just have to organize my school stuff from last semester. I’ve got to start getting ready for the next (last!) semester; I go back to school in 20 days!
We started our day with smoothies for a late breakfast.
For two: 1.5 cups Silk Soy, 1.5 frozen bananas, 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut, and 1 Tbsp coconut oil went into the blender.
It was yummy! I got the coconut oil idea from Jenna Marbles and I think it was a good addition.
Lunch came in snack plate form. Roasted green beans.
And a sweet plate.
Sliced honeycrisp,
smoked almonds,
and the last cherry cheesecake brownie.
The mouthfuls with almond and brownie were great. I am not going to post the brownie recipe because it is cobbled together from a few sources but I am working on something similar that should be amazing.
I also had a small coffee – with lots of skim milk and vanilla sugar – when we went to Wegmans in the afternoon.
We may have made a grocery trip, but dinner was still pieced together from random things left in the fridge. Thankfully, it ended up being delicious.
Cornmeal crusted tofu.
I marinated pieces of 3/4 of a block of extra-firm tofu in Stubbs BBQ sauce all afternoon and then tossed the pieces in cornmeal (aka raw polenta) and corn starch and sautéed them in a bit of canola oil. We loved them, the crust was perfection! I dipped mine in honey.
Roasted asparagus.
With cooking spray, salt, and a bit of lemon.
Lucky quinoa salad.
I cooked 1/2 cup of quinoa, tossed it with 1 cup of canned black-eyed peas {for New Year’s luck!}, the leftover bbq sauce from the tofu, and some chopped green pepper. It was like a quick and dirty hoppin’ john.
For dessert we opened up the chocolate cream biscuit cookies we bought at Vineeta.
One serving each and I’m excited to eat the last three tomorrow. They were quite good.
How’d you spend the first day of 2013?
