Life In Lists

by Emily

Some Thoughts from Yesterday

I finished the last published book in the Temperance Brennan series from Kathy Reichs and I’m devastated. There’s a new one coming out this summer but that’s not soon enough! I get really into what I’m reading and when a good book is over it’s like a friend has moved away.
I want to also be sad that this is the final season of “House” but honestly I’m not sure how they’d top this season. The most recent episode was amazing! While I love books (Duh!), I also get really moved by good tv. I always tell Adam and if I had watched more as a kid I probably would have grown up to work in television. I am genuinely awed by people like Hugh Laurie, Emily Deschanel, Joss Whedon, and Hart Hanson. Anyway though, “House,” I’m loving the character development. Thus week House and Chase grew in ways that were both amazing and realistic to the characters.

A Few Things Done Today

A CT10k workout. Week 1.2 was 9 sets of 3 minutes walking, 2 minutes running. With 5 minutes of cool down for 50 minutes, 3.85 miles.
I met with a friend to work on a group project. Sometime next month we are doing a nutrition education session for a group of preschoolers. Not the age range I’m used to but it should be fun.
I bought a Groupon for 2 unlimited months at Evolation Yoga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll have to wait a bit to activate them (I can’t get as much out of them as I’d like and also put the time I need into the CT10k running plan) but I am so flipping excited.
Not my schoolwork. Like the paper due tomorrow that’s going to ruin my Thursday.

What I Ate Today

1. Lunch for breakfast.

In the bowl was a concoction just crazy enough to work. Leftover Smokey Maple Baked Beans, roasted butternut squash, 4 oz of chopped up tempeh, and a dousing of Anchor Bar’s Medium Wing Sauce.

Delicious, but I was crying and snotting after every bite. I was glad I had this onion bagel with SmartBalance Light to help break up the spice.

2. Dinner, from Wegman’s.

Veggies with a piece of tofu,

plus a small serving of noodles with cabbage.

And grape leaves.

I had three. We bought the ‘leaves because Adam tried to order some at his lunch today and they came stuffed with meat and covered in a cream sauce. Weird! I’ve never ever seen them offered like that before. Pretty annoying too that the menu didn’t mention either of those additions.

3. Snack. I stole the last two servings of Adam’s Somersaults.

Somersaults are his favorite snack item (he basically squealed when we discovered them on sale at Wegman’s) so I want to feel bad for eating them, but they were downright delicious.

Some Questions for You

What is your favorite book series?
Have you ever encountered grape leaves with meat and/or cream sauce?
What’s your favorite packaged snack food?

14Feb2012

Free Means It’s Extra Romantic

by Emily

Did everyone have a good day of flowers and chocolate boxes shaped like hearts? Let me just tell you, there is almost nothing I wouldn’t do right now for a box of chocolates! We are exactly halfway through Vegan Month today and I foresee a big candy purchase come March 1st.

Clinical practice went well today, I think my red shirt must have made me seem extra confident. I worked ahead on our assignments for the semester and when I finished screening my assigned patient our teacher actually threw an emergency screening my way. It stinks to have to do an extra set of SOAP notes but I felt really good that she trusted me to take on something extra.

I had a free coupon so our romantic Valentine’s Day dinner was … Moe’s!

In addition to (way too many of those) chips, I got a veggie burrito.

Inside was a little bit of rice, pinto beans, grilled mushrooms, lettuce, corn salsa, pickled jalapeños, and lots of guacamole.

It ended up being maybe the best burrito I’ve ever had. I was thrilled to take a closer look at the toppings menu and discover pickled jalapeños as an option. I think my dream burrito would be mahi-mahi, cabbage, pineapple, pickled jalapeños, and some sort of cheese.

What would be in your dream burrito?

14Feb2012

I Need A Plan

by Emily

I’m a girl who needs a plan. I am obsessed with my day planner. I make weekly meal plans in bed as I fall asleep. As you’ve seen, if my workouts don’t follow an exact schedule they tend not to happen.

That’s why, without a 10k in sight on the day planner, I’ve decided to follow this Couch to 10k Plan. Not because I’m signing up for a race, but because I hope it will get me back to the gym and back in my running groove. I decided to start at week 4 because I was reasonably certain that I could handle 2 minute spurts of running.

But I also need to follow the plan. I didn’t this morning and it cost me an hour of time and aggravation. I had three things to do in the morning – errands, moving my car, and my first CT10k workout – and the plan was to leave with Adam. But I had weird, vivid dreams all night and a 6:30am rousing made me feel like throwing up. I ended up waiting in bed until 8:50, getting up just in time to move my car. I drove to school, no spots. Went on one errand and back, no spots. It wasn’t until my third return to school that I finally found a place to park. Arrgh!

But my treadmill workout went great. Week 1.1 was 11 sets of 2 minutes running, 3 minutes walking. With warm up and cool down it came to 63 minutes and 4.5+ miles. I don’t know the exact distance because a guy walked by and kicked the plug out of my machine just as I was finishing up.

The rest of my morning/afternoon involved a lot of hurrying to get to class on time and not a lot of feeding myself. Whoops. After class I had a mock interview to go to. The interview was required for a class assignment but I’m really glad to have the experience. It was video-taped (holy crap, that zit on my chin!) and getting to actually see myself in action was helpful. My interviewer said I was great, by the way. Woot!

Then Adam picked me up and this happened –

Hello, lover. Going two weeks without diet soda wasn’t impossible but it wasn’t fun either.

But while we were at 7-11 something scary happened too. A major head-on collision right across the street, complete with fire and explosions. Adam run over to help and I’m not going to lie, it was kind of sexy to see him in action. (<– I can say that now because everyone involved was ok)

Adam reeked of smoke and I hadn’t eaten all day so we told ourselves we were in shock and headed out for Thai food. Such a good decision! And they must have still had lunch pricing going because it was super cheap too.

The husband and I split two dishes, pretty much equally. Cashew nut tofu, which came with rice.

And Pad See Ew, without egg.

Both dishes were great. You seriously can’t go wrong with broad rice noodles. Both dishes were sadly lacking in veggies though, and I was glad that this meal was “lunch” and not “dinner” so I could squeeze more produce into my day later on.

Several hours and some school work afer my late lunch, it was time for late dinner.

I had a baked potato topped with Smokey Maple Baked Beans.

And a side of roasted green beans.

Much better.

Have you ever witnessed a scary car accident?

13Feb2012

Funky Monkey Vegan “Ice Cream” Pie

by Emily

Do you like pie?

What a silly question, everyone likes pie. I know there may be some preference as to the pie variety, but I challenge you to show me someone who hates all pies. And this is a pie for the masses, vegan or otherwise.

This recipe started rolling around in my head a few months ago, but I made myself wait for Vegan Month to take it from the figurative tip of my tongue to my literal plate. You guys know how much I like Ben and Jerry’s, right? Well when I’m not eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream I tend to peruse their flavors page like a desperate stalker on restraining order. And from there the idea started knocking around in my head. What if Chubby Hubby and Chunky Monkey had a little rolly-polly baby. A peanut butter-pretzel-banana pie baby? With cinnamon for good measure?

I can tell you now what happens. You devour that pie baby.

I’m certainly not the first person to add peanut butter to the banana soft serve recipe that took the blog world by storm. But I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to serve it in a pie.

It was a good idea. An idea I strongly suggest you try on your own.

Peanut Butter Banana Pretzel Pie, serves 8

2 cups pretzels
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegan butter substitute
4 medium bananas, frozen
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk (if using a plain milk substitute just add 1 tsp each vanilla extract and sugar)
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
Place unwrapped butter in the center of a 9-inch pie pan and put in preheating oven until butter is fully melted.
Place pretzels into the bowl of the food processor and process until smooth, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add sugar to bowl and pulse a few times until combined.
When butter has melted, pour the crushed pretzels into the center of the pie pan. Mix the crumbs and melted butter, then use your fingertips to gently push onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
Bake crust 10 – 12 minutes until firm. Set aside to cool for at least 15 minutes.
Wipe out food processor (it doesn’t matter if a few pretzel crumbs get in your filling) and place bananas and almond milk into the bowl. Process 2 – 3 minutes until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
Add peanut butter and cinnamon to bowl and process 20 – 40 seconds more until well-combined.
Pour filling into cooled pretzel crust, using a spatula to spread it in an even layer.
Place pie in the freezer to firm up for 1 hour. You can make and freeze the pie a few days ahead of time if you like, just be sure to place in the fridge to thaw for 30 minutes before serving.

12Feb2012

Peanut Butter Practice

by Emily

It’s been a good weekend! Good food, good fun, good friends. Not much activity on the school-work front, but we’ve got a 4-day weekend coming up next week so it was hard to motivate myself. Plus Friday’s 3am session of book reading hit me pretty hard.

I’m so glad I did it though, this was the first book club where we all finished reading on time and we finally got to talk about the book! So much fun. I wasn’t an English major/teacher for nothing, I love analyzing literature.

The food wasn’t bad either. Janessa made vegan 7-layer bars.

And Anna brought this big bowl of fresh fruit that pretty much had my hand planted in it all evening.

My offering fit both the dessert and fruit categories; peanut butter pretzel banana pie.

It got good reviews all around and I’m excited to share the recipe with y’all tomorrow. But that could have been the booze talking too.

Lemonade, club soda, and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka (to fit with the book!). I had that glass x2.

I got home after midnight and was very excited both to get in bed and stay in bed late this morning.

Breakfast was a toasted onion bagel with SmartBalance Light.

Plus a cup of lemonade and club soda.

I left the vodka out today, but had that glass x2.

Today was another round of fancy lunch and easy dinner. Lunch was healthy, vegan, and included a new recipe to boot.

Roasted French green beans,

pearled barley,

and Smokey Maple Baked Beans.

The beans weren’t quite Southern bbq good, but for quick and vegan I’d say they’re pretty great. Here’s a link to the recipe.

While Adam and I watched “Grey’s” this afternoon I ate this bowl of popcorn x2.

And then headed to yoga on a full belly. 90 minutes of hot yoga will make you wish you’d done more water and less salt. This class was the very last practice of my 30-day pass and I’m pretty devastated. I’ve come to enjoy yoga so much more than I ever thought possible. I’m still not very good, but every shaky, sweaty minute is filled with glee.

I picked Adam up for a “cookie walk” and we came home with peanut butter cups from the Co-op.

It was good but I wish it had been a bit smaller, even this sugar fiend couldn’t finish her serving.

Dinner was peanut butter laced too.

I promise that bowl was as tasty as the picture is crappy.

Into the skillet with evoo went leftover pasta, leftover (pre-cooked) yellow squash and broccoli, and my peanut sauce. The noodles get all crispy when you stir-fry them and the sauce forms a crust that’s pure heaven.

Now it’s back to the grind. Hopefully this weekend of play has left me rejuvinated for work!

Do you love to read? Do you enjoy discussing the things you’ve read, or would you rather not analyze them?

9Feb2012

Let It All Out

by Emily

Question first – What is currently stressing you out? Think about it and really let it out in the comments, you’ll feel (a little) better!

I want to apologize for the on-again-off-again blogging schedule of late. I also want to be honest with you guys about the fact that I’m having a hard time. There’s not necessarily one big thing that’s bothering me, but there are a lot of little things that are adding up. I am 80% sure that I believe in fate, and I am 110% that I believe that any seemingly negative thing you go through leads you to a better place. But it’s still hard not to get a little freaked out by all the questions I have about the future.

Where will we have to move for Adam’s residency? What if Adam doesn’t get a residency? What if Adam’s chosen career means he’s away all the time and I’m lonely? Should we have kids? When should we have kids? Should I get pregnant next year so if that I don’t get a job right away when we move I’ll get to be home with the kid until it’s all sorted out? Should I wait to have kids until I’m established in my job? How do women with full-time jobs breast feed? How do you make an impression at your job if you excuse yourself every hour to pump and are also already 28 years old and starting out in a brand new field? What if I can’t find a job? What if the career path I’m on isn’t the one I want? What do I want to do with my life?

And to be honest, the above questions are only a snapshot of all the things I’ve been worrying about. It’s hard not to feel a little defeated when I can’t do anything proactive (at the moment) to answer those questions. Sometimes you just have to have hope/faith/optimism and wait it out.

Sometimes – like last night – you have to eat a veggie sub and a bucket of french fries and sit on the couch watching old episodes of “Family Guy.” But then the next morning you have to do your hair and put on your comfy-yet-sexy shoes.

So that’s what I did!

And in my comfy-yet-sexy shoes, I drove to school early and made my way through a big stack of school work. I haven’t stopped working since, and bit by bit, I haven’t stopped feeling a little better, a little more in control.

The theme for my meals today was – late. Breakfast was at 10, lunch was at 5, and dinner was at 9. My late breakfast was eaten in the computer lab while I worked.

Holy frick I love reusing containers so much I over-served Adam’s lunches for this week so that reused cheese container held a half serving he’d left behind. In the mix was penne pasta, roasted zucchini and yellow squash, sautéed mushrooms, spinach, diced tomatoes, marinara sauce, and a drizzle of olive oil.

It was yumtastic; I’ve been a good wife this week!

Also helping me get back my happy, clinic went really well this afternoon. We are starting to do SOAP notes and learning more about what RDs actually do helps a lot to relieve my anxiety. Plus, I screened patient who agreed to do another round of diabetic diet education. I can’t really say much about clinic (thanks HIPPA), but so far all of my patients have been really nice.

When we got back to campus it was time for late lunch.

Not cottage cheese*, another reusable. *I may not have been eating a very healthy diet lately but I have been sticking to the vegan challenge at least. And no soda for another 3 days either.

In the container were leftovers from Monday’s dinner; brown rice, roasted broccoli, and Asian Orange Tofu Bake.

Continuing the citrus theme, I had a navel orange.

And a piece of dark chocolate for dessert.

When we got out of class at 8 I drove a friend home and then hurried to make dinner.

Purple grapes.

And a Sandwich Thin with mustard, roasted garlic hummus, and 4 oz of raw tempeh.

I wasn’t expecting much but this sandwich was goo-ood.

This post took me awhile to write, but it felt good to put it all out there. Thanks for “listening,” seriously. I’ve got a low-sodium diet education presentation tomorrow and I’m still riding a productivity high so I’ll probably burn the midnight oil today.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

8Feb2012

Tropical Tapioca Panacea

by Emily

I love hot yoga but it’s a pain in the neck, literally. I felt fine on Monday night, just like I might have pushed my back a little too far, and fine all through the day on Tuesday. But then when I got home from clinic last night I was so sore I could barely move. I’m not sure why I took so long to feel the pain, but it came on strong. Even today I still feel pretty awful!

Breakfast was a serving of Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk.

Plus a naval orange for vitamin C.

I’ve got my first test of the semester this afternoon and I am not feeling ready. Fingers crossed!

For lunch I packed a jam jar of one of this weekend’s kitchen efforts, Tropical Tapioca Pudding.

This pudding was inspired by the great vegan tapioca pudding you used to be able to get at the co-op. I think my version is pretty great too. The pudding has the perfect balance of chew and cream and the bananas are little pillowy clouds floating throughout!

Tropical Tapioca Pudding, serves 4

1/2 cup small-pearl tapioca
13.66 oz can light coconut milk (aka 1 and 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 medium bananas, sliced
1/2 tsp vanilla

Place tapioca in a bowl with enough warm water to cover completely and soak for two hours.
After 2 hours, drain tapioca.
Combine coconut milk, sugar, salt, and drained tapioca in a small pot over medium-low heat.
Cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add banana slices to the pot and cook another 5 minutes, stirring carefully. Cook until tapioca are translucent.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Move to a covered container and cool in the fridge for 1 hour before serving.