This Week I Loved…

by Emily

I adore eggnog, and this (vegan, 80 calories per half cup) stuff is at least 90% as good as the real thing. Enjoyed in both overnight oats and cold brewed coffee.

*Sandwiches from the cafeteria*

I didn’t pack lunch for most of the week because I bought a sandwich on Tuesday and got hooked. Turkey and provolone on an onion roll with mustard, mayo, and spicy banana peppers.

*Chips*

I had tortilla chips – with cheese and fresh salsa – with my sandwich one day and became a woman obsessed. I ended up making Adam a separate, grown-up person dinner and then eating chips and cheese several nights.

*Cola-flavored candies*

So good! Extra fizzy cherry cola Pop Rocks and cola float hard candies with a creamy center.

*A new book obsession*

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

I finished Cutting for Stone this week and thought it was absolutely wonderful. Author Abraham Verghese is a doctor as well as a writer and he did a skillful job of portraying the medical scenes in the story in clear and approachable way (most of the main characters are doctors so this came up a lot). The characters are all flawed but beautiful, and I fell head over heals in love with Ghosh.

What books have you loved lately?

25Nov2014

The Slanted Woods {San Francisco}

by Emily

Wednesday morning we stopped at Peet’s for an eggnog iced coffee to go with my Ferry Building farmer’s market pear.

Then we made our way over the bridge through the pouring rain,

and up to Muir Woods for a stunningly beautiful hike.

We bought trusty $4 ponchos to get us through the 4+ miles in the downpour, but I wasn’t able to take many pictures.

Mostly we just got shots of Adam and me being goofballs.

We got completely soaked but still had a wonderful time.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to dry off before our late lunch at Coqueta, a Spanish tapas place that knocked our socks off.

My cocktail – cream sherry, Luxardo amaretto, sherry vinegar, Manchego, and golden raisins – was one of the best I’ve ever had.

We split a variety of small plates, all of which we enjoyed greatly.

Huevos Nacional – deviled eggs filled with spring pea, smoked pimenton alioli, on pickled saffron potatoes and olive oil poached bonito.

Housemade potato chips with shaved Manchego and vermouth vinegar salsa. A play on bagels and lox of smoked salmon, queso fresco, and truffle honey.

Wild and cultivated mushrooms with garlic, chili, and sherry.

And Catalan-style vineyard greens with a caper-raisin puree, raisins, pine nuts, and garlic. <– my favorite dish of the day

For dessert we did caramel popcorn with Manchego cheesecakes that were amazing caramel lollipops with a liquid cheese filling.

And churros with drinking chocolate and a mixed berry powder for dipping.

Every last bite of this meal was inventive, fresh, and freaking delicious.

After more walking,

a stop at Humphry Slocombe for fluffernutter ice cream with butterscotch sauce, (<– Adam got ice cream almost every day)

and a New Orleans style coffee from Blue Bottle,

we were ready to drink our dinner at 21st Amendment Brewery.

21st Amendment brews Hell or High Watermelon, one of my top favorite beers, so we were excited to taste our way through their menu.

We shared Hell or High Watermelon, Vina, Framboise Forte D’or, Belgian Chocolate Stout, and a yummy honey meade from a guest brewery.

Also, a giant plate of fried cheese curds.

Ridiculous! And we were completely sober by the time we finished the 4 mile trek back to the hotel.

Thursday morning I fueled up with a praline chestnut latte and a local apple.

Plus a great rose macaron that we picked up along the way.

But the super steep hills still totally kicked my butt.

We were supposed to spend the morning in Golden Gate Park but unfortunately the crazy rain scared us away. We ended up eating our way through Japantown.

And actually even getting some Whole Foods hot bar while we hid and tried to keep dry.

Thankfully our afternoon plans were an indoor tour/tasting at Anchor Brewery.

We had a great time and definitely recommend it.

The rain cleared up in the afternoon while we spent some time in Chinatown.

And Boba Guys served us the best bubble teas of the year.

My almond milk coffee with boba and housemade almond jelly was delicious.

Then we were back to the Market Building where we couldn’t resist a final Vietnamese iced coffee from Out the Door.

An ironic choice considering our dinner reservations.

The Slanted Door has been on my list for years and it did not disappoint.

Piña colada – El Dorado 3 year white rum, house coconut cream, fresh pressed pineapple juice, pineapple gum, and lime.

Adam got a truly fabulous steak and I did three veggie options for my meal. Fried kabocha squash – palm sugar & lime caramel sauce, thai basil.

A green papaya salad – pickled carrot, rau ram, crispy shallot, roasted peanut – that was my favorite dish of the day.

And the Catalan Farm spicy broccoli – braised tofu, lion’s mane mushroom. The spongy mushrooms were so cool!

We did another round of churros for dessert.

As well as a brown butter cake trifle with huckleberries, lemon curd, and hibiscus meringue.

The meringues were as tasty as they were gorgeous. A great way to end our fourth day!

31Oct2014

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Happy Halloween!

Things were busy, busy, busy, busy this week at work. <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you didn’t have a childhood and you need to go rent the movie immediately!

As I’ve mentioned, my clinic is transferring over to an electronic medical record system at the end of this year. The nutrition department needs a new charting form (built from scratch) to accommodate our specific patient population, but since I am the entire department things have been pretty hectic. Plus we are in the middle of planning a big event and I randomly had a bunch of newly diabetic patients this week.

Additionally, I do some consulting work on the side reviewing nutrition educations and I had a big batch of articles to get through this week. I really enjoy the work – did you know that I did some editing/reviewing for a famous Caribbean author as a child? – but it can be hard to get motivated to get myself back into work mode once I’m home and changed into Adam’s sweatpants at the end of the day. Snacks help.

My meals were all totes amaze this week and/but you will see quite a bit of repetition…

breakfast

Vega Peanut Butter Cup Bar and an orchard apple.

Iced coffee with chocolate soy milk and an apple.

Orchard apples and espresso with milk and sugar.

The energy shot in the middle was a sample from my Urth Box and it was a giant nope.

lunch

Yogurt bowl. It’s funny, at least once a week someone will comment about how good my yogurt lunch looks.

Dannon Pumpkin Pie Greek with fresh blackberries and TJ’s Pumpkin O’s. Plus a candy corn salt water taffy.

Take-2.

With TJ’s pumpkin Greek and Pop Rocks.

Dark Chocolate Mint bar from Zing.

This was all I had time to eat on Thursday but it kept me full all afternoon. Thanks, 10 grams of protein.

snack time

Lindt’s “Hello My Name Is” bars are pretty much my favorite. Cookies and Cream!

An “Apple Pie A la Mode” = honeycrisp apple cider + RumChata + Goldschläger.

Locally-made yogurt.

Trying to bribe myself into doing my freelance work, I … stole some of Adam’s Cheetos (we both are a little bit insane about themed foods),

Ate licorice bears,

And dipped a big, sliced apple into butterscotch peanut butter.

The apple dippers beat out my other snacks in nutrition and flavor.

dinner

We made Rachael Ray’s Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage using this fun pasta as our base.

We tend to rarely repeat recipes but this is one we’ve made several years in a row now (back in the day!).

So good. I subbed TJ’s soy chorizo for sausage and fat-free half and half for cream but otherwise followed the recipe.

Round 2.

I made a big bowl of leftover pumpkin pasta and leftover white cheddar macaroni with spinach, topped with chunky cranberry apple sauce that one of my nutrition co-workers made for me.

Adam was not willing to put fruit on his pasta, but my bowl was delicious.

Pizza Night!

Ugh. These came out so flipping yummy and neither Adam or I could shut up about it. We loaded them with ridiculous toppings and they probably ended up being far more caloric than delivery but they were also the best pizzas we’ve ever eaten. We used a ball of dough from Trader Joe’s and it split perfectly into two nicely sized pizzas.

Traditional – marinara sauce / low-fat shredded mozzarella / sautéed green pepper rings / tons and tons of mushrooms browned in butter.

Plus, slightly less traditional.

Oh yes, you know I went there! The best pizza I’ve ever eaten ever including the amazing, giant slices of Buffalo chicken from Zetti’s – pumpkin puree / low-fat shredded mozzarella / TJ’s Pacific Rock cheddar / onions sautéed with liquid smoke and smoked brown sugar / tons of crumbled turkey bacon.

Plus we had sautéed kale on the side, with liquid smoke, maple syrup, and more bacon.

For nutrition.

We also shared a Warlock.

Best of the season! There wasn’t actually much pumpkin flavor, this was just a really delicious stout.

Round 2.

Leftover pizza.

Kale chips with truffle salt and roasted broccoli with bbq.

The pizza was just as swoon-worthy eaten cold. How do I get more, immediately? And we ate this while watching “Nightmare Before Christmas” so I was pretty much exploding with excitement. <– picture strange, giddy laughter and me singing along with my mouth stuffed full of pizza.

What was on the best pizza you’ve ever eaten?

18Oct2014

Books And Bites; Five Favorites From The Week

by Emily

{1} Coffee

I made a fantasmic batch of cold brew this week. Brooklyn Roasting Company Iris Espresso brewed with pumpkin spice and vanilla bean paste. Two notes – 1. Go read all of the coffee descriptions on BRC immediately; you’ll drool all over your keyboard. 2. I am adding vanilla bean paste to all of my coffees from here on out.

Served over ice with Almond Breeze Hint of Honey. <– I’m a fan.

{2} Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Mint from NibMor.

Did y’all know that NibMore lives right up the road from me in Great Neck? I’m excited that this tasty bar is local.

{3} Oatmeal for lunch

I know that these overnight oats look a little rough, but the flavor was perfect. In the morning before work I stirred together 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup oats, 3/4 cup almond milk, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds. The mixture thickened up nicely by lunchtime.

The blob on top is butterscotch peanut butter. <– Ahh-mazing! Adam and I are obsessed.

Another day, another (oat)meal.

Veggie and fruit leather, a SweeTango apple, and *new* Quaker Caramel Apple Oats.

{4} A great, Greek, green dinner

Leftovers.

I was worried about the phyllo dough, but my Greek Tofu Pie reheated just fine.

Plus leftover green beans sautéed with garlic aioli mustard sauce and sliced almonds.

We had a rough week health wise – one night Adam had a fever and I had a migraine and we sat on the floor and ate chips and aspirin for dinner – so having leftovers available was great.

Worth mentioning too – My leftovers from Max in Williamsburg.

The pasta and sauces are all made in-house and they are out of control.

{5} A new favorite novel

The Center of Winter by Marya Hornbacher. I haven’t actually gotten all that far into this book yet – partially because I’ve needed to nap on the train and mostly because the writing is so beautiful that I go back to the beginning of the page and reread when I hit the end of most of the pages.

Hornbacher is one of my favorite authors and her first book, a memoir focusing on her eating disorder, shaped the way I think about literature. <– I am planning on blogging about that in more detail next week.

Her first novel has been truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read. I wanted to share a short {meta!} passage to give you guys a taste –

All the seasons here in the north move toward their own end, except winter, which moves towards its center and sits there to see how long you can take it. Spring twitches impatiently in its seat like a child wanting to go outside, straining toward summer, and summer, all lush and showy, tumbles headlong toward the decay of fall. Fall comes and goes so fast it takes the breath away, arriving in brocades of red and gold and whipping them off in only a few weeks, leaving a landscape ascetic, stunned with loss.

Outside, in the soft blue-gray dark, the snow fell. A child sat at the kitchen table and pretended her father had not died, because you were there. As long as you were there, she did not need to be afraid, or go outside, and so she was not afraid, of cold or anything else. Death did not kill her off but merely left her maimed, like a shot animal that startles at the noise more than the pain and scrambles even faster through the underbrush, wide-eyed and sweating at the flanks, not pausing for the ripped and useless leg it now drags behind it as it runs. The animal has three legs left. Terror makes that enough.

Have you read any of Hornbacher’s work yet?

19Sep2014

Things From The Week

by Emily

Hello, hello! I have a mere five things to talk about today, I was too busy with lots of little things last week to take many pictures. I mostly wanted to check in and reassure y’all (MOM) that I’m out of my funk. We spent the weekend eating tons of pizza and finishing up “The Office” and it totally cured my bad mood.

thing #1 – TV

Loooooooved the ending of The Office! Pam was kind of starting to drive me crazy in the last seasons, but I thought the finale was perfect. Both the wedding and the cameo made me cry!

thing #2 – Bars

Lots of on the go bites this week, and these were two of the best. Zing Dark Chocolate Hazelnut.

I liked the chewiness. And I was quite pleased by this –

I also loved the KIND Honey Smoked BBQ Bar, though I accidentally deleted the picture of it. This savory line is perfection for the times you want the convenience of a bar but not the typically sweet flavor.

thing #3 – Yogurt

I found the pumpkin spice Chobani!!! But you know I won’t eat that until October, so more importantly, I found the Apple Cinnamon Chobani.

It was very delicious paired with pomegranate arils.

thing #4 – Baking

Part of what was keeping me busy this week were the three September birthdays in the Nutrition office. I made a big batch of my Pumpkin Double Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins and they got good reviews.

thing #5 – Coffeeeeee

I found Chameleon Cold Brew in NYC, finally. Yippee!

I also scored more Stumptown boxes and the Blue Bottle boxes, so I’m going to have some extra-fancy caffeination next week.

18Aug2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Last Days Of Summer

by Emily

I don’t know how it got to be mid-August already, but we are doing everything we can to make the most of our last days of summer. This weekend we grilled, ate too many bowls of ice cream, and even got our toes wet going stand up paddle boarding!

SUP has been on my bucket list for years and I am so thrilled I finally got to try it out. I loved it! Amazingly, given my general level of grace and athleticism (level: zero), I didn’t fall once.

We had an absolute blast and the hour flew by. SUP is definitely something I want to do again. I can see how on-board yoga would be a ton of fun too.

Here are some of our sunny eats…

lunch

A pink grapefruit bonanza Friday at work. Chobani 2% Pink Grapefruit Yogurt with two sliced red plums and Polar Pink Grapefruit Seltzer on the side.

I ran out of time in the morning to also pack an afternoon snack and, duh, this wasn’t enough food. Enter candy at my desk.

I’m not a big black licorice person either, but I don’t know how anyone dislikes Good & Plenty.

A strangely satisfying sandwich.

I put two split hot dogs on a Bagel Thin (toasted with butter) with shredded light three-cheese blend and balsamic ketchup and this throw-together-the-last-of-the-fridge-contents-before-grocery-shopping sandwich ended up rocking my face off.

snacks

Friday’s at-work breakfast. <– I wake up too late for breakfast most weekend days so I couldn’t make this a category

An Amazing Grass Chocolate Superfood packet (from Urthbox) with vanilla soy milk and a Pink Crisps apple.

I was all about the coffee this weekend. I ended up calling Adam on the ride home from work practically crying while I stared at a McDonald’s coffee advertisement. This home-brewed Starbucks espresso blend with fat-free sweetened condensed milk hit the spot.

I did go to McDonald’s for a $1 iced coffee the next morning though. Meh. These guys were much better.

All shared with the husband, who is another raging java addict.

It is fair to say that I was also all about the ice cream.

I’m retty damn excited about that Horchata spiced Blue Moon as well! I had Strawberry Biscoff Sour Cream Gelato over warm double-chocolate sour cream brownies two nights in a row.

The brownies were just the Baker’s One Bowl recipe with a heaping cup each chocolate chips and low-fat sour cream stirred into the batter once it was mixed up.

To end the weekend, on Sunday we went big before we went home, with Pat Bing Soo from Tous le Jours.

Now I get why people rave about TlJ, that bowl was Adam’s favorite shaved ice yet. Milk and strawberry shaved ices topped with scm, vanilla ice cream, red bean, watermelon, mocha, strawberry, kiwi, and mango. Everything was delicious but we could barely make a dent in that monster!

dinner

Friday, we ate the last of our veggie, turkey, and marinara pasta bowls.

This meal is really a better fit for fall and you will definitely be seeing it again in the months to come.

On Saturday, we grilled.

Adam did an awesome job making dinner and then the three of us ate our meals outside (the boys also had steak).

My plate had grilled asparagus, zucchini, and turkey hot dogs, oven-roasted corn on the cob, a few sautéed mushrooms (topping for the steak), and Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce for dipping.

We marinated the asparagus in A-1 citrus marinade and tossed the squash in evoo before grilling. Everything came out fantastically. I can’t believe we lived in this apartment for more than a year before we fired up our grill!

And on Sunday, we went out in the city. Haru unveiled a new Times Square Location and a new seasonal cocktail this summer and they invited me in to check them both out.

The restaurant is down a side street and out of the tourist foot traffic of Times Square and the location is quite pretty.

The lighting was terrrrrrrible for photos – too yellow for my crappy camera and nonexistent photog skills – but good for eating, and the tables were nicely lit at 7pm. I hate eating a meal in the dark. The music was unobtrusive – mellow and pretty quiet. I hate dark rooms and loud noises because I basically like to dine like an 80-year-old.

Adam ordered hot sake and said it gave him a nice warm feeling.

I am not a sake girl, but I stuck my tongue in and did have to agree that it was smooth.

I, of course, went with the seasonal cocktail – The Red Lotus.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this post, I have the recipe to share with you!

Yum! The drink was not too sweet but it felt nice and juicy. It went down very easily. I adore lychees and am always sad that you don’t see them on more menus but now that I have the recipe I can make this drink at home.

Adam started with the miso soup.

He said it was what you would expect.

And we shared an order of the appetizer special – Lobster Gyoza.

Holy lobster meat, ~~Batman~~ Aquaman! The dumplings were bursting with lobster – this dish is a steal for just $10. The gyoza were a good size and they were easy to bite; I hate struggling with stringy foods and chopsticks. The flavors were very straightforward, which let the lobster shine.

The husband went with the sushi for dinner. 2 tuna / whitefish / yellowtail / albacore tuna /shrimp / tobiko / and a tuna roll. (I count an extra piece but I’m not sure what it was.)

His fish was fresh and flavorful. Adam said the size, texture, and temperature were all good. Usually you see yellow caviar instead of red so he was very excited about his tobiko roll.

I did the vegetarian sushi.

Avocado / eggplant / shitake mushroom / tofu / asparagus / oshinko / inari / and an avocado cucumber roll.

My plate looks simple, but this was the best veggie sushi I’ve had in years. The rice was nicely seasoned and the vegetables were all cooked beautifully. The mushroom had an almost smoky flavor and that bite of eggplant was the best tasting vegetable I’ve had at a restaurant this year!

All in all, we both agreed that the menu was straightforward but on point. Haru isn’t doing anything unique – there weren’t any specialty rolls that thrilled us – they are doing the basics incredibly well. We’ll be back!

Please note – I dined at Haru free of charge. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

The Red Lotus Seasonal Cocktail, for 1

2 oz. peach vodka
1 oz. cranberry juice
3 lychees
1 lime wedge
1 lychee for garnish

Muddle lychees and shake with vodka, juice and syrup. Squeeze in some lime, drop the wedge in and shake, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish the drink with lychee for soothing effect.

15Aug2014

Friday Favorites

by Emily

Here are the things that rocked my face off this week…

1: Easy, giant, veggie-laden pasta bowls.

Hearty and healthy is always a good combination – pasta / zucchini roasted with truffle salt / 2 pints of browned mushrooms / ground turkey sautéed with spices and chopped green peppers / red sauce

I could not even believe how buttery the roasted squash ended up tasting. Zucchini may just be my new favorite pasta addition, after soft-boiled eggs, of course.

2: Roasted Red Pepper Falafel and Moroccan Red Lentil Cakes from Veggie Patch.

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

I had not tried VP products prior to their media team reaching out to me, but now I am looking forward to buying more on my own. Both products had about 7 grams of protein per ~200 calorie serving and were nice and filling as the “meat” to a meal. We thought that red pepper was a zippy take on falafel and we very impressed with the texture of the red lentil cakes – the carrots studded throughout were neither soggy nor crunchy and they provided a nice note of sweetness.

Fittingly, we ate the goodies on top of Greek salads two days in a row.

All Veggie Patch products are free of GMOs and trans fats.

3: Pumpkin Yoghurt from Noosa.

OMG!! I know, I know, Pumpkin Month is still 7 weeks away, but this flavor is a Target-exclusive and I could not run the risk of it disappearing. p.s. if any New Yorkers spot the new coconut flavor, please tell me immediately so I can go buy it.

The ingredients list includes cream cheese and cinnamon, which is probably why this tastes like flipping cheesecake.

4: 4-Ingredient Strawberry Biscoff Sour Cream Gelato.

Gah! I made Lady and Pups’ Self-Made Sour Cream Gelato and swirled in cooked strawberries and Crunchy Biscoff before putting it in the freezer.

There’s no going back. This stuff is too easy; the base is literally just sour cream and sweetened condensed milk that you stir together. FYI – I used low-fat sour cream and fat-free SCM and encountered zero textural issues.

5: Blue Moon Cinnamon Horchata Ale.

Just, are you kidding me?! Add this to the list of short beers that I can happily finish a full bottle of myself. It was the perfect balance of cinnamon sweet to, you know, beer. And when I went to the website to link I discovered that they have a Caramel Apple variety and my heart actually skipped a beat. How do I get my hands on that???

Food for My Brain Bonus: Streaming the old seasons of the American version of “The Office” on Netflix. I realize that I am several years late, but now I’m obsessed. I started watching last weekend and I’m up to season 5, if that tells you anything! It is horrifically awkward – I suffer from severe secondhand embarrassment and had to watch the entire first season with squinched eyes, through my fingertips – but also incredibly funny and sweet.

How much do I envy you – have you gotten your hands on a caramel apple beer yet?

22Jul2014

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

by Emily

I’ve been pretty busy and I’m running a bit behind, but I ate some really yummy things last week so I didn’t want to skip the post. Here are some faves from last Monday through Friday…

break the fast

A purple smoothie.

Frozen blueberries and strawberries with maple syrup and vanilla almond milk.

Bar/fruit/coffee day 1.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Balance Bar, a Pink Lady apple, and iced coffee from Starbucks. I poured a splash of half and half into my coffee by accident last week and it ended up tasting so yummy that now it’s turned into a bad habit!

Day 2.

Caramel Almond & Sea Salt KIND Bar {former freebie}, a very juicy nectarine, and cafeteria coffee with skim milk and a splash of half and half.

ladies who lunch

Cafeteria meal.

Salad with broccoli, black-eyed peas, cheddar, balsamic, and a scoop of egg salad. Plus fries dipped in honey mustard on the side.

Sandwich.

Leftover bbq chicken on a Bagel Thin. With bread and butter pickles, chips, and cherries.

Yogurt.

Chobani 2% Pink Grapefruit Greek Yogurt with KIND Raspberry Clusters with Chia Seeds {former freebie} and cherries on the side. The yogurt was a limited edition that needs to become part of the permanent line-up. It was freaking incredible, sweet and tangy with little pieces of citrus spread throughout. I must find the watermelon variety.

snack attack

Chocolate-covered pretzels from Wegman’s.

I brought Adam some back from my Buffalo trip and made the mistake of tasting “just one.” Those things are addictive! It’s a good thing I didn’t do a taste-test in the store or I would have brought home pounds of them.

Trader Joe’s makes the best turkey jerky I’ve ever tasted.

I don’t know how the keep the texture sooooo soft.

Chocolate covered strawberry floats! Chocolate frozen yogurt in strawberry Crush.

We thought we were so clever with these.

Campfire milkshake from Ralph’s Ice.

It was insane how much this tasted like a toasted marshmallow. It was pretty intense though, there is no way I could have finished more than half of this.

Baby spinach salad.

With sweet and spicy pecans, dried blueberries, shredded carrot, evoo, honey, and lavender salt. My best salad combo to date.

dining on dinner

Salad atop salad.

The base was baby spinach with dried blueberries, sweet and spicy pecans, evoo, honey, and truffle salt.

Topped with pulled bbq chicken (and a pile of salt and vinegar chips in the back). Just boneless, skinless breasts cooked in the crockpot, shredded, and tossed with TJ’s Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce.

The sauce was wonderful, very sweet and a little spicy.

Pasta that was simple but good.

Whole-wheat rotini with browned mushrooms, ground turkey (sautéed with tons of garlic and dried oregano), frozen spinach, low-fat sour cream, and a can of tomato sauce.

This was one of those meals that seemed like it would need more flavor but then you kept eating until you were furiously scraping the bottom of the bowl.

National Thai with a girlfriend. I got spicy noodles with veggies. They were super chewy, had a good variety of vegetables, and were actually spicy; I’m pretty sure National has become my favorite Thai spot in the city.

Afterwards we went out in search of mojitos.

We ended up finding passable mango mojitos at a tiny Mexican spot in Park Slope. Their menu also mentioned watermelon daiquiris, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back again this Friday.

what’s happening

I was getting into such a great groove with my workouts, but then I got excited and upped the length of my runs too quickly. My right knee was horrifically swollen and the husband told me to stay out of the gym until the inflammation went down. Boo!!! I took a week completely off from exercise (minus a few long walks this weekend) and popped anti-inflammatories and iced like crazy. I’m going to start back in with short, easy workouts this week and continue to ice regularly. I’m going a little stir-crazy so please cross your fingers for me!

On a more positive note, I just finished reading Fault Lines by Nancy Huston and I’m recommending it to pretty much everyone.

It’s a story about a family and each section of the book is told from the perspective of a different generation. Huston did a great job of building the story in layers. The parts of the story that were told through the lens of childhood were wonderfully done.

It is my 29th birthday this Thursday. We can’t fit in any celebrating this week so Adam and I took a quick trip to Philadelphia this past weekend. I gave that its own post because this one was getting too long, but we had a wonderful time.

Have you spotted the new Chobani varieties in your area yet? Has anyone tasted watermelon??

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: vegan

This Week I Loved…

The Slanted Woods {San Francisco}

Best Pizza Ever; Weekly Wrap-Up

breakfast

lunch

snack time

dinner

Books And Bites; Five Favorites From The Week

Things From The Week

Weekend Wrap-Up; Last Days Of Summer

lunch

snacks

dinner

Please note – I dined at Haru free of charge. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

Friday Favorites

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

break the fast

ladies who lunch

snack attack

dining on dinner

what’s happening