Feeling Thankful

by Emily

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?

6Nov2009

We Are Here!

by Emily

I’m finally in California! I’ve been waiting for this since I was a kid! I need to finish getting ready so I’ll keep it quick, but I wanted to check in.

My flights went well, things were nice and uneventful. Because of the challenge (I’m not gonna lie, I love airport food, it is totally worth the money to me usually) I tried to pack all of my own snacks for this travel day. I’m not quite sure how things will work on my return flights, but I do have some bars stashed in my suitcase.

I ate breakfast before I got on my first flight, a crumpet(!) topped with Crofter’s Superfruit Spread and an egg.

I cooked the egg in the microwave – small bowl, crack, stir, salt & pepper, 45second nuke – and it worked out very well. I was worried about how well this would keep as ‘leftovers’ but it was pretty tasty. I’ll be doing the micro method more often.

I ate a sandwich on my second flight. For my sandwich I packed 3slices of turkey on 2slices of bread, with a packet of horsey sauce from Arby’s to squeeze on in flight.

My long flight (5+hours) went well. I watched “Why I Wore Lipstick to My Masectemy” on my laptop and bought a “Real Simple” and “Bon Appetit” that kept me very occupied.

Camile and I met up in the airport and headed to our hotel via the BART. We are sharing a room and the receptionist was totally sweet and upgraded us to a king bed.

I think the room is gorgeous, it is tiny, but well decorated. Plus the front desk has awesome candy.

As soon as our bags were dropped off we headed out to explore the area around our hotel – Market Street. I munched on an apple from home to hold me over.

Now we are finishing getting ready for the first Foodbuzz event, a cocktail party! I am so excited to meet all the bloggers! I’ll be back with a recap this evening.

What eats do you pack for travel?

1Nov2009

Happy 80th Nana!

by Emily

Hello, hello, hello! Sorry to skip out for the weekend but I had a fabulous time. I flew to Ohio (with a bunch of other family members) to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday. We did party/family time all weekend, which meant TONS of cake! I missed the husband a lot but I had a great time, my family is so funny! This post won’t be as detailed, due to length, and if you get too bored skip to the bottom to find the winners of the Zevia contest.

Friday we had to get up nice and early to make it to the airport for my 6:35am flight. I was hungry when I got to the airport but it seemed early and I knew I would sleep my first flight so I decided to wait.

On my layover I got egg and cheese on a cheddar jalopeno bagel.

It was very tasty but I dropped half on the floor so I only ate half of it.

I was so excited when I finally got in to the Dayton airport!

My mom and grandma picked me up and we drove over to Tipp City to do some shopping (also the location of my grandmother’s surprise party!). We saw all sorts of fun things.

Nana (grandma) was impossible to get to her surprise party, she kept insisting the chosen restaurant was too nice, too slow, etc. I finally had to pretend I was going to pee my pants if we didn’t at least go in to the restroom! When she saw all of her friends she was so surprised she cried!

My mom and my aunt (who flew up with my mom a few days earlier than me) did such a good job planning and decorating!

We did a party lunch at Coldwater Cafe and it was very nice. I got a bloody mary to drink.

And for lunch I split – more halfs! – a turkey pannini (with artichoke spread and cheese) with my mom.

I ignored the chips but the sandwich was great.

My grandmother cried when she opened her presents and again when they brought in the cake!

I am not really a chocolate cake fan so I took a small bite and then packed up the rest to bring home to Paps (grandpa). I also packed up all the bread from the table baskets. My family teased me but they are either going to use it again, ewww, or throw it out, wasteful.

We got to go home long enough to pick up my grandpa and then we – me, my mom, my aunt, my grandparents, and the dog – squeezed into the car for a long drive to Toledo where my uncle lives. I seriously can not handle how funny my family is, we had such a good time!!

We were running late when we got there so we had a quick dinner from Wendy’s. I got a baked potato with broccoli and cheese.

I also ate one of my pumpkin cheesecake cupcake/muffins, so good!

My uncle is a high school football coach so we went to watch his team. It was their last game of the season, against their biggest rival, and they whooped them, so it was a lot of fun. My uncle had the marching band play happy birthday to Nana and she cried again!

After the game we went to a ‘end of season’ party my uncle was throwing for the other coaches. I had a small vodka and coke,

and a small slice of pizza.

And then there was more cake and more tears!

Quite a night was had by all 🙂

For Saturday breakfast I had an English muffin with homemade strawberry jam and scrambled eggs.

We spent the morning having family time before we headed to another birthday party, this one for my cousin’s baby! Lunch was buffet style at the party.

Cheesy potatoes,

fruit,

and veggies.

And of course more cake – I just ate the icing off this piece.

Over the course of the party I sipped a beer

and had a good time hanging with my mommy and grandma.

My mom, aunt, and I (all Virgin Islanders) walked to and from the party because it was so exciting to be cold! It was sad saying goodbye to my cousins but then the six of us packed back into the car and headed back to my grandparents’ house. More uproarious fun was had, including the hilarious/horrifying realization that my grandmother – who was driving – talks with her hands a lot!

It was Halloween, so I broke out some fancy chocolate I bought for the occasion.

We all had a small piece.

When we got home we had to rush to get dressed before meeting my grandparents’ best friends for dinner. It was a great last meal. I had a bloody mary again, to which I added a ton of Siracha and sizzled my mouth off!

My grandmother shared her side salad with me,

and she and Rose gave me their martini olives.

They are both amazing and both happen to read the blog, hi guys!

I also had a small piece of bread.

I was torn on ordering but when the waitress said unlimited toppings on the flat bread pizza I was sold! I asked for roasted red pepper, green peppers, red onions, caramelized onions, tomato, spinach, and mushrooms.

Mmmn. I ate 3/5 pieces.

It was another late night and I think we left my grandparents thoroughly exhausted!

This morning my mom and I both had 6:50 flights so it was another early trip to the airport. Goodbyes were easy; I see my grandparents for Turkey Day and my mommy and aunt for Christmas!

For reasons explained in the next post, I packed my own breakfast. A banana from my grandmother’s house,

and a seasonal Pumpkin Spice Cliff Bar from home.

My flights were all blissfully uneventful. I was very excited to see the husband at the airport. Apparently he went to a Halloween party last night so I’ll have to track down some pictures of his costume. He made himself spaghetti this weekend so I had a big bowl of that (doctored with mozarella and red pepper flakes) while I wrote this monster post.

My fingers are exhausted, it is definitely time to say Goodbye! I will “see” you all this evening, hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Zevia Winners

I used a random integer generator to choose the winners.

Runners Up who receive a mixed six pack

(#18) Annalene – i actually have tried Zevia before & I have to say that while they may take some time to getting used to the flavor after the initial drink or 2 these are actually quite good! my favorite is the lemon lime
(#5) Jenny – I would love to try the all-natural diet sodas. I work the night shift, and am obsessed with my diet Pepsi….but always feel guilty about the weird ingredients and colorings.
(#17) Erin – I really want to try this stuff since I love the occasional diet coke.
(#2) Holly – I’d love to win – this soda has been all over blogs and I’ve never tried it!
(#14) Erin– Zevia sounds great!

Grand Prize Winner who receives a mixed case

(#9) Molly – Sounds good!

Winners – shoot me an e-mail (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) by Tuesday morning to claim your prize!

28Oct2009

Seriously, Make It

by Emily

What a day, what a day! Early in the week headaches have officially been canceled out, today bumped my weekly productivity up to 100%! Things actually started off a little rocky; we were awake so late we slept through the alarms! I panicked for a moment but I realized that my legs were hurting pretty badly so it wasn’t the world to cancel my gym session anyway.

I finished my post-lab work at home and then headed to The Spot to study. I was dreaming of a Mike’s Sandwich but I didn’t actually get there until after 11 and they were no longer serving breakfast. Buffalo parking is a bummer. The barista totally empathized with my craving though and hooked me up with an everything bagel with sliced turkey and colby cheese (+ diet coke).

Craving decimated!

A few hours later I also got a tall Americano with skim milk.

My focus today was out of control, I only got distracted twice! Once when I was reading about the visible light spectrum and started thinking about how my rings act like a prism in the sun…

and again when I got this…

I drove to school around 3:30 and continued the study frenzy before my 6:30 class. In total today I completed reading an entire chapter (with 11pages of notes!!), pre and post work for this week’s labs, and a class session. Plus I put away 4 loads of laundry when I got home. And I made a grocery list for tomorrow. I’m going to do a little baking before my trip 🙂 Tomorrow is still going to be a bit crazy but I made a definite dent.

For dinner I finally got the try my Moussaka.

Yums! You broiled it for a bit so the cheese got all nice and brown and I loved the combo of veggies.

I had an Orange Zevia to drink.

Dessert was fall personified – chopped up Cortland apple, sprinkled with cinnamon and 2T cinnamon caramel apple dip, heated in the microwave, topped with a crumbled Maple Pecan Boomi Bar.

Seriously? Seriously? This might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. The caramel thinned out when it melted so it coated every single piece of apple; the apples got nice and soft; and maple pecan boomi bars are freaking better than cookies. Make this. You will not be sorry.

Thursday is looking to be pretty rushed, so it will probably be another full day recap post. See you Thursday night after lab!

Don’t forget about my Zevia giveaway.

Also; watch this. Seriously, it’s the funniest thing ever.

28Oct2009

Dreams of Root Vegetables

by Emily

Whew, Tuesday is almost over! My meeting went well, I still have no idea which career path I’ll choose but it is exciting to learn about the options. After my meeting I swung by the house to pick up the husband, who graciously offered to go along on my printing/mailing resume errands.

True Story – while we were driving he got annoyed that I don’t know what I want to do and said – “You’ll never know what you want to do. Next thing I’ll know you’ll want to be a turnip! Do you need to go back to school to be a turnip!?!” And now he has called me Turnip for the rest of the day. Holy cow I love my funny husband!

On our way home – resumes successfully mailed, hopefully I will be substituting at some point – we stopped in The Spot for coffee.

I got a small Chaider; steamed apple cider and chai tea. Mmn, fall! I actually think I’m going to head back to the Spot to work tomorrow, I haven’t been getting much done at home 😦

I was feeling sick with hunger when we got home so I got a snack while I worked on my lab (which I can not do without help, boo!).

A bumped log,

with Granny Smith slices with cinnamon caramel apple dip.

I had a coupon for the dip and you know I’m a sucker for all foods fall.

After struggling with Chemistry for forever I moved on to making dinner. On the meal plan was a recipe from the November “Everyday with Rachael Ray” ‘lightened up’ moussaka.

I can’t share the recipe but if you bought the magazine and are planning to try it here are the changes I made:

used 99% lean ground turkey instead of beef
skipped the food processor and used low fat whipped cottage cheese
used half graffiti eggplants
add 1/2 pint mushrooms

We actually got busy and didn’t even eat dinner so I’ll have to review the recipe tomorrow! I have a busy day planned tomorrow – no room for headaches! – so don’t be surprised if I don’t post until dinner. Night!

Don’t forget to enter my Zevia giveaway!

20Oct2009

Ice Ice Baby

by Emily

It’s been a busy, but random. I had plans of getting up early but the husband felt like studying until 1am last night which totally threw me off. When we were in the city and my job was crazy he was always mad at me for staying up until 4am while he tried to sleep (especially difficult in our one room apartment!). Here, where he is in medical school and I do nothing am not, the situation is reversed. We have multiple rooms now but I’ve found I have a hard time falling asleep without him around – cheesy relationship moment alert!!!

When I did get up at 10 this morning I went straight to the phone for the next 3 hours! I don’t know if I actually accomplished that much, but at least I got the ball rolling! My hunger was totally off and I ended up eating the last serving of pretzels for breakfast!

Unhealthiness aside, here is a healthy tip: buy a food scale! I’m not saying you need to be obsessive and measure everything you put in your mouth, but things like pretzel nuggets add up faster than you think – a serving of those bad boys is ONE ounce. Once you are eating pretzels straight out of the bag for breakfast, there is no way you are going to pull out a measuring cup. But plopping the bag on the food scale? Easy. (P.S. My scale read 1 and 1/4 oz, so with the weight of the bag I had a perfect serving left)

At 1pm – once I had at very least left a message with every single number on my list – I set out for the gym sat on the couch and kissed Adam and stole some slices of his turkey pepperoni. I ended up pushing the gym back to the end of the evening in favor of going to the post-office and being dropped off at the Spot. I worked on Chemistry by myself for a while before Caroline met me for some group studying. By myself I got a late lunch.

A big diet coke and a turkey cajun wrap (turkey, lettuce, tomato, pepperjack cheese, cajun sauce, ww wrap).

The salad looked over-dressed so I didn’t even taste it, but I demolished the sandwich.

During my social studying I also had a medium pumpkin pie latte (pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon; 1pump syrup, skim milk).

Yums.

Caroline dropped me off at home at 9 and after so very brief glancing at the magazines I got in the mail we set out for the gym. It was about time too, I’d been rocking this look since 10am!

I always work out in baggy t-shirts but I went ahead and bought some running tank tops last weekend. Somehow I feel more “official,” not that I look too fine in that picture!! I’ll show you all of my new finds as I wear them; this one was $4 at Target.

On the treadmill I did 10minute warm up – 20minute run – 5 minute cool down. In the end the totals were 3.25miles and 361 calories. My legs are still crazy bothering me (my knees, hips, ankles often hurt but lately it is an intense pain in my calves!). I did a lot of stretching when I got home and now I am trying icing them.

We’ll see how it goes.

I can’t believe I’m doing such a late recap post but considering that dinner just kind of never happened I guess it’s not that surprising! I got a lot done today, but tomorrow is still going to be jam-packed. We just found out our in-laws are visiting this weekend which makes this week even busier. I’ve got to go deal with my ice bags and take a shower, see you in the am!

Do you ice? Any tips for me?

19Oct2009

Curried Chicken and Cider Soup

by Emily

I totally lied when I said I was going right to class. That was the plan, but I was so cold (inside my house, with the heat on) that I just couldn’t bring myself to go outside yet! I sat on the couch and read my book.

Heat seems like it is going to rock my socks, it’s a memoir about, among other things, training as a prep chef for Mario Batali. I am all about memoirs and food, so it seems like the perfect fit.

Once I did get off the couch and get dressed I realized I was wearing an outfit from my teaching days and the whole thing felt sort of surreal.

I don’t know if anyone read my job identity search post this morning, but the one thing I do know is that do not want to teach! I swear I sort of have PTSD from my experience!

Also, I was super hungry so I packed myself a snack for the road –

1 oz buffalo wing pretzels with some turkey pepperoni (don’t worry mom, I only ate at lights!).

That totally did not cut it though. After I finished printing at the library I set off in search of food. I ended up with an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese.

Class went well, we are studying electron orbitals which I love – it’s like a puzzle! When I got home at 9 I got right to work on dinner. We made Curried Chicken and Cider Soup from “Everyday with Rachael Ray” (click on the name for the recipe link).

I skipped the cumin, and substituted 1C of water with 1C extra cider, but otherwise I followed the recipe. I topped my bowl with buffalo wing pretzel nuggets for a crouton-like effect.

I don’t think I would have liked it without the added spice, it was pretty sweet, but with the addition it was perfect.

Afterwards I had this fun drink I bought a while back.

It’s not really Sangria, more like strawberry soda. It’s from Japan and was totally cool; you had to pop the top to release a marble.

I was supposed to paint my nails tonight but it is almost 11 so it looks like I’ll be heading straight to bed. Tomorrow I have a gym trip planned, plus tons and tons of schoolwork, and hopefully some job searching. Sweet dreams!

Do you like buffalo wings? I’m not a huge wings fan but I love buffalo sauce!

15Oct2009

Savory Instead of Sweet

by Emily

Hello, lunch-eaters! My morning has gone well; it looks like the notecards won’t be finished until tomorrow but my labs are totally up to date. My pumpkin pudding smoothie held me over well but I did snack on a bowl of red grapes while I worked.

By noon it was time for lunch. When I received a Nature’s Pride sample as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers program I actually was sent two loaves. I seem to hardly ever eat bread and I was worried that Adam would move too slowly and we’d develop a mold problem, so into the freezer one loaf went. Once we were ready for more bread we simply moved the loaf down to the fridge and gave it a few hours to defrost. This is a good solution if you find a bread(product) sale at your grocery store too.

bread

With 12 Grain I made a yummy french toast, so I knew that would be good for 100% Whole Wheat as well. But I was feeling adventurous. Which led to…….

savory french toast! I sanwiched sliced turkey, Crofter’s North American Superfruit Spread and dijon mustard between two slices of Nature’s Pride Whole Wheat. Then I dipped the ‘wich in a mixture of egg/.5C chicken broth. I cooked it for ~3minutes on each side in a pan with .5T Smart Balance Light. Finally it got topped off with maple syrup, Chipotle Tabasco, and squeeze cheese.

Mmmn. I loved this mess mix of flavors! Next time I would leave off the sqeeze cheese (which I mostly ate around anyway), but we had it and it looked fun. I doused it with hot sauce the the spice/egginess combo was perfection.

I am watching an episode of “Mercy” while I eat my lunch and then it’s back to work. I think I will cook dinner before I leave for class, but I’ll post it this evening. All that really matters is that I remember my lab goggles!

Have you ever tried savory french toast? What’d you think? {I realize this is similar to a Monte Cristo}

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: turkey

Feeling Thankful

We Are Here!

Happy 80th Nana!

Zevia Winners

Seriously, Make It

Dreams of Root Vegetables

Ice Ice Baby

Curried Chicken and Cider Soup

Savory Instead of Sweet