Tag Archives: tofu

Successful Sunday

by

Finally, some productivity!  Actually doing something today was a nice change from Saturday’s pace.  Although I did sleep in still 🙂

Lunch was very, very orange.  An everything Bagel Thin with extra sharp cheddar and a honey tangerine.

With a serving of Guylian chocolate shells for dessert.

Followed by a run.  In today’s workout one bad turn deserved another; I ended up running further than planned once I realized how stupid it was to have gone without sunblock.  I really do have to stick to my pace plan and up my time gradually, but it did feel great.

  • 5minutes walking
  • 10minutes jogging
  • 5minutes walking
  • 3minutes jogging
  • 3minutes jogging

2.6miles in 26minutes.

Afterwards a trip to the mall with Katie was in order.  I wish I could tell you I was excited about my purchases, but basically I had to buy clothes for summer school because my pants don’t fit.  Woot.  More on that in tomorrow’s post.

The mall trip took longer than anticipated (why the frick are all the pants at BR/J.Crew/Gap so cheap and thin looking right now?!) and it was easy for Adam to talk me into hot bar for dinner.

Grilled broccoli,

wok seared veggies,

vegetarian meatballs = yums,

curried tofu salad,

and chick pea salad.

It turns out I went a little too vegetarian because this wasn’t all that filling.  I ate a cookie dough Balance Bar when I got home to finish filling up.

And I’ve been working on my binder project ever since.  I’m going back to immerse myself in blissful filing, hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Sheetz Envy

by

The weekend is coming to an end, and it’s been a long but fun day.  I have a lot to do before bed so I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet.

As predicted I did some snacking last night; the boys were eating jalopeno poppers and they sounded to good to resist.

It was 1am though and I wasn’t even really hungry.  All of which is yet another testament to why I should stop doing things like staying up until 2:30 in the morning!

This morning I got off to a healthy start with some from-home-food; 1cup Kashi h2h with skim milk.

We slept in, and my almost 5 year old niece of course did not, so lunch came very soon after breakfast.  Her choice was Arby’s, so I went with a turkey bacon ranch sandwich.

I wasn’t all that hungry so I ate half of my food and gave the rest away.

We went out in the yard for a game of catch and some bubble blowing and by the time Adam on I were on the road at 2:30 I was finally feeling my lunch hunger.  I did some nutritional sleuthing online before we left and found that my brunch (cereal + sandwich) had ~400 calories so I aimed for a 500ish calorie car snack.  I do NOT count calories, but I do think they are usefull data for abnormal eating situations.

Can I just say, I am sooooo jealous of anyone who lives near a Sheetz!  I managed to cobble together an amazing, healthy meal for the car.  A Naked coconut juice box.

A Sabra hummus and pretzel pack.

And a small fruit and cheese plate.

I can’t even explain how thrilling it was to find this type of food at a gas station.

By the time we rolled back into Buffalo it was after 7pm so we stopped in at Moe’s to pick up dinner.

Jr sized burrito with pino beans, a smidge of rice, cheese, pico, guacamole, and cilantro.

The texture was good, but this was actually a little bland 😦  I’m feeling hungry still and I’m going to be up late so I’ll almost definitely eat something else later.  My camera needs to charge so no pictures, but I’m eyeing my CF spicy chicken leftovers.  Hope everyone else’s weekends got wrapped up nicely!

New York, New York

by

My apologies that this post is delayed, but I knew it was going to be a loooooong one.  On Monday, after a weekend in PA with my in-laws, Adam and I traveled “home” for a day in New York City.  I grew up in St. Thomas, went to college in Miami, and currently live in Buffalo, but the 2 years and I spent teaching in East New York and living in Park Slope are the ones I am always homesick for.

It rained, hard, all day but nothing was able to dim our spirits.  We ended up not being able to do the trip we had originally planned – on the agenda was a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge – but it was a fabulous day nonetheless.  We skipped all of the tourist stuff, and instead did all most of our favorite things to do when we lived in the city. 

Physically it probably wasn’t the healthiest day: we walked too much on my hurt leg and ate way too much sugar.  But mentally it was just what I needed.  I Love New York.  All of the reasons people complain about the city – the crowds, the noise, people walk too fast, you can’t drive – are all of things I love best about it.  I adore the crowds of people, and it helps that I’m naturally a fast walker and a walk lover.  I think New Yorkers are friendlier than the rest America and the ‘concrete jungle’ is my definition of beauty.  I was obviously raised to love the beach, and I can see the magical quality of the dessert and the allure of the fairy-like sense of the forest, but the city is where I feel most with serene.  I love the buildings, the gardens, the graffiti.

Adam and I got into the city around 10am.  As soon as we hit the Verrazano Bridge we both started to smile.

We actually parked the car in ‘our spot’ in our old neighborhood for the day.  We didn’t have a car until we moved to Buffalo so when we lived in Park Slope we did a lot of walking.  Most days when I got home after school I would walk the 8+ blocks from my subway, then the 8+ blocks the other direction to Adam’s subway, and then back home, in addition to the walk in the morning and making at least one trip out at night.  7th Ave feels more like home to me than our apartment did!  So our first item one the itinerary was a long walk down 7th Avenue.

We stopped at Pinos pretty much the second we got out of the car.

Pinos used to be our spot for pizza, we had it at least once a week for two years.  In fact, it was such an institution that I mentioned watching Scrubs and eating pizza in my wedding vows!  I split a plain slice with the husband.

And he saved me his crusts to dip in my diet coke.

Delicious!

I think Park Slope is one of the most beautiful spots in the city.  There are so many interesting and beautiful things to look at.

Just to give you an idea of how much we walked, we covered 2.5miles before we even left our neighborhood!  All that walking made us thirsty, so we headed to ‘Snice, our favorite vegan spot.

We split a vegan malted milk-less shake before we headed to the B Train.

Then we headed uptown for a walk in Central Park.

We were statues for a little bit,

before we headed inside Whole Foods for a break from the weather.

I managed to resist the pull of the salad bar but we did a little sampling.  I had about 4 shot glasses worth of food, but was told I couldn’t use my camera in the store?!

Next we headed to Delancy.  We cut the ambling a bit here because we had a mission – Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine!  SSS is our favorite spot in the city.  They have cupcakes – delicious, crumbling, innovative, wonderful cupcakes, for a $1.50, unheard of in the land of Magnolia Bakery.  We always used to bring our visitors here.

Honestly I could not decide on my flavor, I ended up getting two!  It took a lot of willpower, but I cut them in half and shared with Adam, ultimately eating only one full cupcake.

Strawberry with cream cheese frosting.

This was a seasonal flavor that I’d never tried before and I am so glad I decided not to skip it.  Cream cheese frosting is always a favorite, but what made this was the actual chunks of strawberry in the cake.

Pistachio.

This.  This cupcake is my favorite thing on earth.  I don’t even really like cake, usually I lick the icing off of cupcakes and am done with it, but the cake part of this is even better than the icing.  It is pistachio perfection.

In an absolute sugar/love cloud we hopped on the F Train and headed down to Cobble Hill, an artsy little area of Brooklyn.

As we walked around we spotted a bar with an Abita sign (my favorite) so we stopped in for a beer.

I drank most of my Christmas Ale, then switched with Adam and polished off his Turbo Dog.

Our real destination in the The Hill was Trader Joe’s.  My parents requested 10gagillion #s of unsulphered dried fruit and we picked up a few staples for ourselves as well.

Carrying multiple jars of TJ’s Sun Butter = so worth it!  I also bought a honey Greek yogurt to get a little protein into my day.

And we stopped in at Starbucks for some calorie-free rehydrating.

Our final stop was back to Park Slope for dinner with Lana, one of my oldest friends.  We hit up Beet.  If you read my old blog and saw all the Thai food we ate at Mango, Beet is its brother restaurant.  I love how funky all of the restaurants are in the city.

And Beet was totally artistic; my diet coke had a straw wrapper rose in it and Adam’s scallop fried rice came in the shape of a star.

I ordered the Pad See Eiw with veggies and tofu.

Buffalo has been totally unable to satisfy my Thai cravings, but this hit the spot!  The Pad See Eiw I’ve had since we moved can’t even compare to how good this is!

We were sad to say our goodbyes to Lana, but it was 9pm and we had a 7+ hour drive ahead of us.  You know how that turned out already, but I will add in the fact that Adam drove the entire way home and basically deserves ‘Best Husband of the Year.’

All in all, it was a fabulous day in the city.  The husband and I both gave it a 100%.  The rain might have been frustrating, but the temperature was perfect and we were comfortable all day.  It sucked that my leg hurts, but I managed to walk a TON.  We did exactly what we wanted to do and came home feeling invigorated.

Have you ever been to NYC?  Love it or is it not for you?

Under the Influence

by

Hello from PA!  It was a loooong day in the car but we made it.  I’m more than ready for bed, and I have an actual topic to discuss, so I’ll keep the food recaps quick.

Breakfast this morning was a new kind of Green Monster.

For two (Adam and I) I blended 2cups frozen spinach, 1cup frozen strawberries, and 2cups skim milk.  They were ok, not even close to my regular GM love.

The reason I made the crappy new Green Monsters was because the husband tends to not like oj in smoothies, but was willing to give spinach smoothies a try.  Adam almost never eats breakfast, and doesn’t eat anywhere near enough servings of veggies, so if I could get him on the Green Monster band wagon it would be positive all around.  I know it seems like I eat a lot of crap (especially in comparison to the other healthy living bloggers) but in general I’ve been a good influence on the husband’s diet since we met.

  • He eats far less red meat now, maybe once a month or so.  He grew up in a more than once a day meat family.
  • He’s even gotten on board with the occasional vegetarian dinner.  And surprise – he loves tofu!
  • 90% of what I cook is healthy.
  • I always keep the house stocked with healthy snacks.
  • And even though he eats his own junk from time to time, he’s basically stopped eating any trans fat because of what I’ve told him about it.

Obviously as a medical student the husband has more health knowledge than the average American, but it feels really great to help someone I love make good choices.

For brunch (eaten at 9:30am?) I polished off the rest of the gumbo.

So fricking good, I can’t wait to share this recipe with y’all!

And when we got on the road we split a bag of Fizzy Skittles.

I am in love with the new nutritional panels I’ve been seeing on some products.  Obviously that blurb doesn’t tell the whole story (and there is complete info on the back) but I love being able to know calories at a glance.

By 7 we were starving for dinner.  When we pulled off Adam got giddy at the sight of this –

Eat n’ Park.  Meh.  I’m not big on diner food but he was very excited.  This is where the husband influences my choices (and not for the better!) I ended up ordering an Oreo Milkshake with my meal.

I always request skim milk when I order a milkshake.  I get no more enjoyment from a whole milk milkshake (in fact I much prefer skim) so it never hurts to ask.  Never be embarrassed to make healthy substitutions, even to a not-so-healthy order!

For dinner I ordered the pirogues.

I was starving but these were just not good.  I ate about 1/3 and then I stopped.  I know I’m not exactly the picture of good choices, but I do have one hard and fast rule – If it’s not good for me and I don’t like it I don’t eat it.  There are so many foods that I love and so many foods that are good for me, why eat something ho-hum just because it’s there?

You’ll never guess where we ended up stopping to get me the rest of my dinner –

Wegman’s salad bar!  I got lots of veggies and I loved them.  I’m not gonna lie, I picked all of the broccoli out of the container!

I also love these quad-containers, perfect portion control.  Thai style tofu and veggies,

General’s chicken,

and Paneer Mutter.

Yums!  I gave Adam a big bite of all three dishes and he loved them as well.

I was left perfectly satisfied by dinner, and probably should have just said no to pizza at the in-laws, but it just looked too tasty.

A weekend trip isn’t exactly a ‘vacation,’ tomorrow I’m going to try to eat a little less crap.  It’s bedtime in these parts, sweet dreams!

How have you influenced your significant other’s eating habits?  What healthy changes have you inspired (or been inspired by)?

Sandwiches, Smoothies, and Schedules

by

Hello again, happy Monday!  This will definitely be the longest recap post I’ve done in a while – Friday through Monday.  Physically things have been low-key but mentally there’s been lots of drama – my flight was canceled!  And since I’m in St. Thomas it could have meant getting into Buffalo on Tuesday and not having a ride and missing class.  I was freaking out a bit.  Thankfully 45minutes on the phone + my firm but calm voice got me on a different flight that leaves/gets in on pretty much the same schedule.  And now my layover is shorter and in Philly and not Charlotte.  🙂

I’m a big proponent of the firm but calm voice.  I was polite, and said multiple please and thank yous, but unwavering.  I didn’t ask whether or not I could get on another flight, I simply said “I will be leaving St. Thomas tomorrow, what can you do to help me make that happen?”  And it worked.

Anyway, back to Friday.  My mom served me a slice of cake,

which promptly got stripped of it’s icing because I don’t eat cake.

Then I moved on to greens, a small container I put together at the salad bar we stopped by.

Lettuce, beans, corn, cheese, 1 hard-boiled egg and a drizzle of light Cesar.

I also made myself some frozen coffee – coffee, ice, skim milk, and 2T sugar.

Soo much better than Starbucks could ever do.

Dinner was all about the leftovers.

Oven baked okra is kind of my favorite.

And I served up some leftover baked tofu on toasted rye with hot pepper raspberry preserves and sharp cheddar.

Friday night I did end up going out to meet some friends.  We had a good time and I had a few drinks but photo-taking was abandoned in favor of trying to keep my balance on one leg!  I don’t know how on earth I managed to stand on one leg past 2am but a fun time was had by all.

For Saturday morning breakfast my mom and I hit up one of my favorite places on earth – Barefoot Buddha.  I had fresh-made lemonade,

and a Bigfoot Bagel Sandwich.

Frittata, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, cream cheese, spicy sauce…

I love these sandwiches so much I ate them on my wedding day!  I know most brides say they are too nervous to eat but I was just nervous my friends would devour them before I got any 😀

We hung out and studied for a bit and I had a passionfruit, banana, coconut smoothie.

We laid low the rest of the day before going out to a fabulous dinner at The Cellar.  We did a lot of sharing and the lighting was low so let me apologize for the picture quality in advance.

There were way too many things I wanted off the drink menu but I finally settled on the Caribbean Champagne.

Champagne with coconut rum and key lime juice.  GREAT combination.

We split a cheese plate that was kind of out of this world.  The goat cheese was my favorite but the stewed plums were pretty fantastic as well.

My plate –

And at The Cellar the chef always sends out an amuse bouche.

Ahi wontons.

Plus homemade bread and butter.

For my meal I got the Vegetable Cutlet – panfried, potatoes, peas, carrots, eggplant and pickled papaya, and tiki masala sauce.

The cutlets were delicious but my favorite part of the entire meal was the eggplant wrapped papaya.  I ate one cutlet and took the other home, and I had a few bites of my dad’s tamarind mahi as well.

We were stuffed, but couldn’t not order a dessert plate to share.  It came with little forks,

because we got four little desserts!

NY cheesecake with fruit sauce and bananas foster,

cinnamon creme brulee and chocolate mousse.

Yum, yum, yum; I wished I could have had a BIG serving of the bananas foster.

Sunday morning I made a nice green monster for breakfast.

My mom and I got our nails done (green again, I’ll show you later!) and then I picked up nachos for lunch from the bar I used to work at.

Yum, but I think it’s time to be fully done with any sort of nachos for a while.

We saw a matinée of “Our Family Wedding,” during which I munched on a box of Nerds.

I would like to show you dinner but it was so dark at our table I never could get a picture.  I shared green bean fries with my parents and ate half of a tamarind turkey burger.

When I got home I had 2 maple pecan sticky blondies for dessert.

Dreena would be sad to know I deveganized these, but at least I made the recipe for my parents!

This morning (Monday) I’m hanging out at school for a bit before I head home to pack.  I brought a pineapple Chiobani for breakfast,

but that didn’t begin to cut it.

I ended up also having an egg and cheese biscuit from Wendy’s.

It is 100% time to stop eating like I’m on vacation!  Especially because I’m not sure what the workout situation with my leg is going to be like.

I had fabulous spring break but I am more than ready to get back with the husband and back on a schedule.  I get in late tonight so I won’t be posting today’s eats but hopefully Tuesday my sleeping, eating, and blogging will all be back on track!  I can tell you now though, that I have a Greek Gods honey yogurt in the freezer for a pre-packing treat!

When you get to the end of a vacation are you sad it’s over or ready to get back to business?

Playing Catch Up

by

Hello, hello!  As per the title of my post, I have lots to do so I’ll make this quick.

When we got home last night I munched on some turkey bacon.

I’ll never ever ever eat pork again, but turkey bacon is one of my favorite things and my mom always has it ready for me when I come home.

And I also ate a small bowl of cole slaw while we cooked dinner.

My dad (who’s a little bit picky) was doing leftovers so my mom and I made a roasted feast.

Tofu: cut a block of firm tofu into 6-7 pieces and place on a foiled, sprayed baking sheet.  Rub with maple syrup, sesame oil, salt, and red pepper.  Bake at 450* for 35minutes.

Baked okra.

And my mom made some sautéed cabbage with almonds.

Delish!

Then, for the second night in a row, I passed out fully dressed at 8pm!!!  I had been getting to bed really late and sleeping really poorly for the last few months and apparently my body is finally ready to catch up on some of that lost rest!

I even slept in (6:40) a bit this morning so I was glad I packed a breakfast sandwich last night while preparing dinner.

Although first I had a banana half so I could take Alieve on a non-empty stomach.

Eaten in the car, my sandwich was rye bread with roasted red pepper and goat cheese spread, chive cream cheese, turkey bacon, and spinach.

This was a fantabulous combo.  I thought I was fueling up for my bone scan but unfortunately once I got to the hospital I decided to cancel my appointment.  The scan was not 100% positively going to be covered by insurance and even if it was if I went out of network I’d have a $360 co-pay.  I’m using the crutches and resting my leg this week regardless so I’ll just wait until I’m back in Buffalo for the bone scan.

Equally fun was when I realized that using crutches with a button-up shirt was a bad idea.  There were at least 15men watching me struggle across the parking lot when my shirt popped open all the way down to my belly-button!!  This shirt usually goes in my conservative pile, not my Brittany pile!

Now I’ve got to spend the day catching up on Anthropology reading.  Thankfully I’ve got a lunch date planned with my mom in the middle!

What is your favorite kind of bacon?  I honestly really prefer turkey to pork but I do think that the fakin’ stuff can be pretty tasty.

13 Miles = Ice Cream

by

You guys!  Thank you so much for all the congratulations on my race.  I truly appreciated all of your comments, they meant a lot to me.  My leg is painful but I’m still so happy about the race.

We spent most of the day laying around but finally I managed to get ready for dinner.  Royal Thai was our pick for this evening.  I wanted to try to pack in a few calories so I started with a Thai iced tea.

For meal I ordered Pad See Eiw noodles, with tofu subbed in for meat.

I am just not hungry still, I only ate about half of my meal.

Not hungry, however, did not mean I couldn’t make room for Jeramiah’s when we drove by  😀

I went with small gelati; mint chip ice with twist soft serve.

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!  I’ve told Kristen about a million times that I’m moving in with permanently!

We are going to watch a bit of tv, and I am going to do some more stretching, and then it’ll be early bedtimes all around.  I hope everyone else had a great weekend!

What is your favorite icy treat?  Other than soft serve I actually don’t really like ice-cream.  I am a much bigger fan of froyo or gelato.

Oh the Places We Went!

by

Hey guys!  My second day in Orlando was so much fun; we are having a great time and eating lots of tasty foods.  Sadly, I feel like I need to keep this post quick because it’s bedtime and I’m tired.  It’s funny how the better the quantity of blogging material I have the more the quality of my posts go down.

Kristen was great about getting food requests to have in the house this weekend.  Breakfast was Dannon Greek yogurt with a chopped nectarine, topped with a tsp of strawberry jelly, in a go cup.

The nectarine was so delicious, Florida is definitely the place to be for fresh fruit right now.

After breakfast we trekked to Disney to pick up our race packets and hit up the expo.  I had a good time checking out the fun shirts and stuff but didn’t really have money to spend.  I did pick up a belt pack (i.e. fanny pack) which I proceeded to wear for the rest of the day.

We did lunch backwards today, dessert first then grown-up food.  First things first, Menchies!

I’ve been jealous of Meghann for months and my envy was totally justified, this place was ridiculous!

I got original tart yogurt with fresh fruit and a small dab of marshmallow sauce.

YuuuuuuuuM!

Lunch was not new to me, but is something I’ve been missing in Buffalo – Whole Foods salad bar.

I got seitan and veggies, bbq seitan, kung pow chicken, a stuffed grape leaf, and some roasted veggies.

Then we met up with a bunch of our friend’s friends at Universal Studios.  Seriously?!  I could not have had more fun today.  This was my first time at Universal and it was amazing.

Even if I did get a little wet.

My favorite part was the Dr. Seuss area.

Fun fact – my tattoo was partially inspired by the star bellied Sneetches.

It was so great to walk around all day and stretch my legs.  When we left the park I, ahem, refueled with a white chocolate and heath covered marshmallow stick.

Our dinner plans were for Seasons 52 but sadly there was an issue with our reservations and the plans fell through at the last minute.  We had driven past an Elephant Walk on the way that my friend Camile was super excited about so we ended up going there.

I had a diet coke and amaretto to drink before dinner.

And I ate 2 pieces of tempura salmon sushi for an appetizer.

I really wasn’t sure what to order for dinner.  The food choices were more American-Chinesse than what I usually prefer (authentic as possible Thai).  They had honey shrimp, sesame chicken, and similar things that sounded good but I knew would be unpleasantly unhealthy.  I ended up ordering tofu and veggie stir fry and asking for the sauce on the side.

My meal ended up being pretty tasty, I was definitely not disappointed.  I didn’t eat any of the rice but I pretty much decimated the rest.

We had big plans of heading out after dinner but we were all so tired it seemed much more pleasing to come home and go to bed.  I know 11:30 isn’t exactly early, but it will make for a better wake up tomorrow than a night of drinking would have!

What is your favorite Dr. Seuss story?  I am a really really big Seuss fan.  The Sneetches, Yurtle the Turtle, and The Butter Battle are all favorites but Oh, The Places You’ll Go really has my heart.