Almost Spring And Almost Celebrating

by Emily

Today has been just fantastic, one of those days that reminds me how happy I am with my life. I felt totally blessed.

First, lunch. I was too busy for breakfast but I did have a nice noon-time meal. Dannon Oikos Cafe Latte Greek Yogurt. So smooth and creamy, and the flavor was better than any other coffee yogurt I’ve ever had.

Cascadian Farm Crunchy Oats & Honey Granola Bar.

GoGo Squeez Cinnamon Applesauce.

’twas a good lunch.

But the news I got just before lunch was even better – Adam is going to be a surgeon! Ok, so it wasn’t surprising news, but it was good to have things confirmed. Today is the first half of Match Day and on Friday we’ll learn where (and if) we’re going to move. So exciting! I opened the e-mail and burst into tears, right there on the Neuro floor. Apparently I’ve been a little bit stressed. But I can’t stress enough, how proud I am of my husband!!!

I got home before him this afternoon so I got him a few congratulation gifts.

I may have stolen a few bites. 2 dumplings,

and 2 big bites of frosting.

Yum!

And I got more good news this evening – my night class was canceled! This meant I had free time to celebrate the real news with Adam. The past two days have basically been Spring so we took a long walk up Elmwood, in sandals natch.

My taste buds are even more ready for Spring than my feet. We wanted to get take-out so we could go home and watch “The Nanny” and I had the hardest time choosing food because I had to have something fresh. I couldn’t stand the thought of cheddar, popcorn or runny eggs, my usual favorites!

I ended up getting a green juice for our walk.

And bringing a salad from Ashker’s home.

I added banana peppers, tomatoes, and kalmata olives to the Roasted Turkey, Apple, Walnut Salad; which also came with spring mix, feta, craisins, and Vidalia onion dressing. It was exactly what I’d been craving.

Dessert was something amazing.

I’ve been stalking local freezers for weeks and I squealed with joy when I finally spotted Ben and Jerry’s Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt last night.

Three things you should know:

I adore both lemon and lavender in dessert
I have a legit problem with Ben and Jerry’s ice creams
I recently decided that Liz Lemon is my spirit tv character

I had 1.5 servings and loved every bite.

Buffalo people – I found my pint at the Elmwood Tops.

Have a great night!

6Mar2013

Loaded

by Emily

I’ve made it halfway through the first week of this rotation and I only sort of want to nap for a million years. The teachers have warned us for years that this is the placement that makes everyone get in bed at 9 pm. I’m crazy, so I’m still staying up ’til midnight, but I’m definitely tired!

I’ve been eating breakfast at the hospital but I need to figure out a new system because the cost of bars is going to add up. This one was a free sample at least.

And tasty too. Cascadian Farm Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bar.

Lunch was more black-eyed pea salad (beans, green pepper, cheese, smoked almonds).

The Talenti gelato pint made an awesome leftovers container; gotta love that screw-on lid.

Plus a pear.

I skipped the dark chocolate today because I knew we were planning a big dinner.

Of course, then I decided to get a milkshake on the way home.

You have to do a yearly Shamrock Shake! This was so good.

I also had a bagel thin with smoked salmon cream cheese when I got home.

I’ve been so hungry today, I want to say it was yesterday’s workout but let’s be real, I only did 4 miles.

Dinner was fantastic; loaded baked potatoes for the win.

Toppings included turkey bacon, mushrooms cooked in turkey bacon drippings, Smart Balance Light, shredded cheese, and green onions.

We were both practically licking our plates.

And I had a Toasted Onion Sea Snax while we watched The Nanny.

Love that show! We’ve got two more episodes to go and then I’ve got to get to bed. Good night!

25Feb2013

Day One Of Thirty? {Again}

by Emily

Complaints first – The chance for 8-hours of sleep passed before I even started this post. All of my end of internship assignments are due on Friday and I’m freaking out. I ate two snacks after dinner and I am still flipping hungry.

Complaints aside, it wasn’t a bad day. We got lots (and lots) of shipments at work so I was nice and busy.

The morning started with smoothies.

For two: 1 Thai young coconut, ~1 cup frozen blue/blackberries, 1 medium frozen banana, and 2 Tbsp Hey Shuga! <– don’t forget, you still have another ~hour to enter my giveaway!

I didn’t have a lot of time for lunch so I kept it simple. A Garuka Bar (from my yumvelope).

The sweet peanut butter coating was addictively good; I planned on snacking on it throughout a task but every time I tried to walk away I took another bite instead!

I also had a Fage 0% Greek Yogurt with Cinnamon Apple Raisins.

The flavor isn’t listed on the Fage website and I’ve only seen it at Target. The apple compote was good, but nothing can really compare to the pure decadence of the honey and strawberry flavors.

I only had an hour between work and night class so Adam and I cashed in a coupon for Subway for dinner.

6 inch turkey with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, banana pepper, red onion, and honey mustard on Italian herb and cheese bread.

I knew my sandwich wouldn’t quite fill me up and I shared this peanut butter spoon with Webster when I got home.

Then I also had a plate of baby carrots with the last of some smoked gouda spread.

And a bag of Smart Fries.

I ended up dipping my “fries” in yellow mustard. And then I had a big glass of water; methinks I’m a bit dehydrated!

29Jan2013

The First Of The Last

by Emily

{Technically speaking} today was the first day of my last semester of undergrad! Yays! Instead of the hospital, I spent my day on campus for orientation. It was also the first day of my night class.

Orientation was definitely not as exciting as my days at the hospital. Cue medium non-fat latte.

Caffeine gave me the jitters though; I should have just waited for the adrenaline to kick in once we learned how busy this semester is going to be! On top of full-time internship hours there are many projects to be done. I’m the only person in my program who is taking a non-major class (my night class is a history to fulfill my final graduation requirement) this semester and balancing everything is going to be pretty nerve-wracking.

I spent my lunch break running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get all of my campus tasks done (applying for graduation, registering my history class as pass/fail, buying books). When I did finally get to my sandwich it was worth the wait.

Sandwich thin with 2 slices of turkey, tons of pickled jalopeño, 50% reduced-fat sharp cheddar, and mango jelly (made by my aunt’s mother-in-law from St. Thomian mangos!!).

Plus a package of sesame seaweed,

and a 100-calorie milk chocolate bar.

I was starving when I got home and I snacked on a Tbsp of peanut butter,

and a cup of tea with skim milk and sugar.

You guys are geniuses – I actually heated the water (3 minutes versus 90 seconds in the microwave) and my tea was much stronger! I still didn’t love this cup but I think the tea itself was to blame (a pumpkin chai sample).

I did an easy, early dinner before I had to head back to campus for my history class. Leftover roasted brocoli with marinara sauce.

And a Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake meal.

I also snacked on these milk coffee candies during class.

He let us out early for our first day and so far I have no complaints.

Well, just one complaint – why the heck didn’t I get in bed already?!

21Jan2013

Winter Weight Gain

by Emily

I came through my first full-time day at the hospital with flying colors! Well, I guess I was a little in the gray when I ran out of time in the morning and had to skip breakfast, but that was the only hiccup. I had fun, learned a lot, and made it through 8 – 4 without thinking longingly of my couch once!

We were busy on rounds (walking around the floor and listening to the medical residents give an update on all of the patients) all morning and I was too busy to miss breakfast. Then I got to grab a tea latte from Tim Horton’s while we charted.

My earl grey with frothed skim milk was great. And the RD let me chart on a patient! I’ve got to do a lot of work independently to meet all of my internship curriculum goals so it was a good sign that they let me hit the ground running. In the afternoon, among other things, I observed a gestational diabetes education that I’m eager to try on my own.

I was worried about finding a table in the packed cafeteria, but thankfully the RDs invited me to sit with them for lunch. I’m with a different person each day of the week so it was great to get to meet some of them in advance.

I packed a really tasty sandwich.

A multi-grain Sandwich Thin with Crofter’s strawberry preserves, 2 slices of Applegate Farms Honey & Maple Turkey, Cabot’s 50% reduced sharp cheddar, and pickled jalopeños.

A pack of Annie Chun’s Sesame Roasted Seaweed Snacks.

And a Trader Joe’s 100-calorie milk chocolate bar.

This lunch was perfect – fun, healthy, and it helped fuel my brain through its first afternoon of actual thought!

Before I knew it, the day was over and Adam was picking me up. His lab was closed for Martin Luther King Day and I was thrilled that he could drive me because it is brutal outside. My phone’s weather forecast for Wednesday is a giant, ominous looking snowflake.

My workday may have flown by, but our errands took forever. Adam and I ended up splitting an ice cream Twix bar while we were out and about.

He {claims that he} hates Twix bars so the sharing portions were in my favor.

I also snacked on a Caramel Pineapple Chobani Bite with the last of the blackberries.

This snack was so flipping good, I can’t wait to eat the rest of the pack of Chobani and I must buy more fresh berries immediately! The caramel gave the yogurt a little extra sumthin’ sumthin’ compared to the regular pineapple variety and the entire gorgeous carton only has 100 calories. Plus it smelled delicious and made me want a big slice of cheesecake.

– – – Sidenote: Why, oh why did I keep scrolling through Chobani’s website? I need the Key Lime Crumble and Almond Coco Loco Flips, need. I’m sure they won’t hit Buffalo for another couple of months and I’m basically going to die. – – –

Dinner was a big salad with some confusion about its roots.

Inside the jumble –

baby spinach
peanut sauce
1 Tbsp ground flax
chopped green pepper
chopped red onion
buckwheat groats
chopped honeycrisp
leftover 1000 island bbq sauce pulled chicken

Somehow all of those flavors just worked together.

I’m still feeling a bit hungry but I did a lot of nibbling while I assembled dinner and tomorrow’s lunch so I’m closing my kitchen for the day. I’ve been steadily gaining weight since we moved to Buffalo but recently my unhealthy habits have been out of control and I’m officially too fat for some of my work pants. Pride and health may not have motivated me (though they really should of!) but my wallet sure does – it’s time to lose some weight! I’m not planning on going on a diet, far from it, I’m just going to stop being ridiculous. Wish me luck?

Did you gain any weight over the winter holidays?

12Jan2013

Cashews, Coffee, And Curry

by Emily

First things first, I need to announce my Taste of Treme Giveaway winner –

Jordan, let me know how the cookbook stacks up against Abita’s! And please e-mail me with your mailing address. Congrats!

I apologize for not posting the results sooner; we have had a rough couple of days around here. Webster has been having seizures.

So far (that we know of) he had one Friday morning and another at 4:30 a.m. last night. I ran him to the vet in hysterics on Friday and she said that there could be a variety of causes but that seizures are not all that uncommon in dogs his size and that she wasn’t too worried. We are waiting for some lab results and I will be sure to keep y’all updated as we learn more.

Once he recovers he seems to be in good spirits but both episodes were pretty scary for me, especially because Adam has been out-of-town. It is a bad feeling to see someone you love out of control and not be able to help. Both times I just petted him and gave him kisses until it was over.

I had my sights set on a hot yoga class this morning but it just didn’t feel right to go, instead I stayed in bed an hour longer with the little man in my arms. I’m glad to spend time with him but I do need to get myself to a class asap. I have been to a grand total of 1 class during my unlimited two months; if I don’t get my act together over the next two weeks it will mean that I paid $75 for a single yoga session, yikes!

Once we got up, the dog and I did have a successful day. Lots and lots of cleaning was done. And I made homemade cashew milk.

How Sweet Eats’ Vanilla Cashew Milk was good, but probably not worth the time committment to ever make again. I’m glad I got to experience it once though.

I did a lot of taste testing while I made the cashew milk and then I took advantage of the dirtied blender and made a big smoothie for breakfast.

Midmorning we put on our sweaters and took a walk.

Webster is ultra-super-mega cute in his gray sweater and he got several compliments today.

Lunch was spread across some afternoon snacking. An apple.

An Almond & Apricot Kind Bar.

A Nutffles Red Velevt Truffle. (just 25 cents at 7-11)

A plate of baby carrots dipped in pineapple salsa.

And finally, I did some baking with the “pulp” from the cashew milk.

After I got out all of the liquid, I spread what I could salvage on a baking sheet and dried it in the oven at 200* for 20 minutes. Then I mixed up the cashew meal and baked it macaroon-style {vanilla extract, egg white, sugar}.

They were far better than I was expecting and I ended up having 4. I am very anxious for Adam to try them because he loves coconut macaroons and I think these were even tastier.

Basically all I’ve done over break is sit on the couch and eat junk (by the way, my pants currently don’t fit: oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!) so tonight’s dinner felt extra fancy and healthy.

I reeeeeeeeeally want to cook dinners like a grown-up this semester so I need to get back into the habit before school starts on the 21st. This meal was a good place to start.

Roasted asparagus.

White rice leftovers – from Chinese take-out I ordered on Friday 70% because I didn’t want to leave the dog to get food and 30% because I wanted someone to deliver diet soda to me in the apartment.

Green Curry Fritters from Cooking Light.

I was really impressed with this recipe; such a fun combination of flavors! I did make a few changes, all of which I suggest you follow my lead on if you make the recipe –

substituted turkey for chicken (am I the only one who greatly prefers ground turkey to chicken?!)
used an entire bunch of green onions, whites and greens
substituted nayo for canola mayo
used 2 Tbsp green curry paste
skipped the sesame oil
substituted 2 Tbsp of tamari for the soy sauce
substituted 1 heaping tsp Sriracha for the sambal oelek
substituted 1 tsp galangal paste for ground ginger
substituted coconut oil for canola oil
sized my patties to yield 10 instead of 12

Adam should be home in a couple of hours and tomorrow we are actually getting a visit from my Maryland aunt and one of my cousins! I haven’t seen that set of family in far too long and I could not be more excited.

Now the dog is curled up at my feet and I’m about to pour a cup of tea and make myself finally organize my school materials from last semester.

Everyone please give your pets a big smooch for me.

29Dec2012

Oh Baby Please Don’t Snow

by Emily

Hello, again. I didn’t blog the two days after Christmas because I got hit with a winter cold. I’m still feeling badly but I’m definitely on the mend. And yesterday was our 10th/5th anniversary! 10 years of being together and 5 of being married; they line up exactly because we made a point of getting married on our previous anniversary.

We spent yesterday doing our favorite things (sushi, froyo, a movie…) and just enjoying each other’s company. I don’t talk about it a lot on the blog, but I am so fortunate to have Adam in my life and I could not be happier. We both feel unbelievably lucky to get to be together. We watched our wedding video this morning and had a great time reminiscing. I’m going to try to get it up on YouTube if I can because it’s also hilarious! And there’s great footage of my grandpa giving a toast (a poem he wrote for the event) that made me cry. It is so amazing that we have his voice on record, it makes our wedding video all the more special to me.

Breakfast today was a big bowl of cereals.

All Bran Bran Buds, the last serving of Cascadian Farms Dark Chocolate Almond Granola (Adam ate through this stuff in a hurry!), toasted coconut, and skim milk.

I also had the rest of the dip (4-5 Tbsp?) with some kettle chips.

And this cookie butter candy bar that I found in the back of the pantry while putting away Christmas gifts.

Score!

The afternoon brought nachos (with black beans and salsa).

We need “tv watching food” for our “How I Met Your Mother Marathon.” <– it’s good, but no “Scrubs”

To drink, I had the organic aloe vera drink from Aloic.

I have missed aloe drinks like crazy since we moved away from Brooklyn (where you find find them in every bodega, in fabulous combinations with tasty tropical fruits) so when Aloic offered to send me two bottles to try I happily accepted. Here are the stats –

The drink’s taste was crisp and clean; it went down easy! And the pieces of aloe were fun to chew. If you’ve never tried an aloe drink with pulp, the closest comparison I can think of is the jelly that often comes with bubble tea. Delicious.

And I ate the last of the tree pasta with salt and evoo.

I really need to consume some veggies but my cold is making everything healthy sound terrible. Also, I have yet to go back to hot yoga and I can feel my wallet weeping with every missed class during my unlimited Groupon period.

I’m not going to post dinner, because I’m not sure yet what we’re having. Instead two updates –

1. The weather – it is freaking snowing!

That was the view from inside the car before Adam dug us out yesterday so we could go on our anniversary date.

2. My hair – it’s freaking purple!

I continue to lose dye with each shower (that’s clearly not right) and as the color gets lighter it becomes much more noticeable.

I love it!

26Dec2012

Our New Christmas Traditions

by Emily

Happy holidays, from our family to yours!

We spent the last two days making memories and building our own traditions. We missed our family like crazy, but other than it was one of our best Christmas days ever. It helped that most of our new family traditions involved eating lots of tasty food!

One event I hope not to turn into a tradition was December 23rd’s 3 am grocery trip. We had a slight misstep with the baking I did for my co-workers’ Christmas gifts. One of my pies burnt to a crisp and I had to go buy a replacement gift in the middle of the night. Also, we ate the salvageable half of the burnt pie… at 3 am.

I made my Hello Dolly Pies and they were delicious. I hope everyone liked them!

We exchanged gifts at our company holiday breakfast.

Our bosses took us out for a delicious meal at Mythos. I had never been there before but I’m still sure that what I ordered was the best thing on the menu. A burrito with turkey, eggs, potatoes and cheddar, smothered in hollandaise.

It came with berries and Greek yogurt on the side and everything was delicious. I ate half and brought the rest to Adam who loved it as well.

We ran a few errands when Adam picked me up from breakfast and we ended up going on an adventure. Vineeta International Market has been hiding under my nose on Grant for months!

We had a grand time wandering around and came home with lots of goodies.

Including the Thumbs Up cola we shared.

Then we trimmed the tree.

We couldn’t buy a big tree because the dog is a monster but we enjoyed this little magical grow tree I bought Adam for Hanukkah.

And then we had pie.

Gaaah; can this be a yearly tradition? That pie is so fricking good.

So was the eggnog seltzer I sipped on all day.

I had a salad for lunch.

Romaine with peanut sauce, buckwheat groats, chopped honeycrisp, and cheddar.

Plus the last of the sugar-plum candies.

We did pizza for dinner.

Why mess with our usual traditions?

Then we stayed up late watching “How I Met Your Mother.” We’ve decided that’s our new tv marathon of choice.

This morning (Christmas!!) we slept in late like a couple of old people. It was pretty great. The dog started his morning with sirloin and bacon wet food.

And I started mine with toffee.

Plus a glass of eggnog with nutmeg.

Then we got all fancy with breakfast.

Seriously fancy. Check out we bought at Wegman’s –

Lobster for Christmas breakfast? That can definitely become a tradition! We cooked turkey bacon and then used the skillet to sautéechopped lobster tail in butter. Then we scrambled in egg whites (leftover from the pies, plus one yolk) and baby spinach.

It was quite good. And lunch was a winner as well.

We used this Christmas tree pasta that my co-worker gave me.

I sautéed sliced mushroom, chopped red peppers, and baby spinach in butter and evoo. Then I tossed in pasta, a big dollop of Nayo, and a huge handful of shredded cheese.

Ridiculous good.

And the bowl Cannoli ice cream I had next was even better.

Ben and Jerry just keep getting it right.

For dinner we went over to our friends’ house for a party. We brought over a good dip, and terrible chips for everyone to try.

The White Chocolate Peppermint Pringle’s looked so nasty that there was no way Adam and I could pass up the experience of trying them for a measly $2. Pro tip – freaking terrible, aka totally worth the money to try.

My dinner plate.