Tag Archives: veggies

NYC – Day 1

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Hello from Nyc! Our hotel is lacking internet so this day late post come from the McDonalds across the street.

I’m just using wifi though, we have real brunch plans at eleven.  For now I’m sipping a diet coke and this Tropical Revolution Foods Mash-Up.

Yesterday morning started with a pre-6am shower before we hit the road for our 8hour drive.

I started my car breakfast with an Empire apple, to put me in an empire state of mind.

This was the most sour red apple I’ve ever tasted! It was quite crunchy and good though.

Plus a blend coffee; ie 2/3 (regular) cinnamon hazelnut coffee, 1/3 (sweetened) English toffee cappuccino.

Coffee really fills me up so I ended up having just the apple for breakfast, but I did steal a bite of the husband’s peanut butter Snickers.

Holy yum! Such a good idea, candy manufacturers! Plus, each square has 125calories, pretty good for a dessert with protein.

We had a lot of hours to fill in the car, I poured through magazines and even painted my nails –

pretty good for 70mph! I guess keeping myself pretty is why I’m so spoiled; the husband stayed on driving duty the whole way!

Our hotel is right on 7th Avenue, which is fabulous for the price.  I’m used to sleeping in Brooklyn so it’s fun to dream in a new area.

You better believe our first stop was Pinkberry!

A small original tart with strawberry, mango, yogurt chips, and praline cream.

There were two spoons, but basically for show because I pretty much dominated it.

And our next stop was green juice.

Carrot, apple, lemon, cucumber, and spinach gets a huge smile from me.

Then we spent a couple of hours walking around our old neighborhood in Park Slope. It was fabulous. Sidenote: we are deliriously trying to pretend we are still local, so the underabundance of city shots is not due to a lack of fabulousness.

Among our old haunts was a quick trip to Watana, where we split Drunken Noodles with steamed tofu.

My plate, x2.

This was so good it hurt! Broad rice noodles are hands down my favorite food.

During the 20(short) block walk back to the subway we also shared a Curiosity Cola.

Quite good, like Coke but without the syrupy sweetness.

We are here for the weekend with friends from high school (Ian lives in MA – and his girlfriend lives here – and Gory lives in PA) so our next stop was meeting them at their train. From there we headed to Bon Chon for dinner.

Ian called it “the new hotness” but beyond that we didn’t know what to expect. It ended up being Asian meets fried chicken. With complimentary rice wine to start.

I ate a super spicy chicken wonton,

and for dinner I ordered the Soy Duk Bo Ki, a sweet rice cake dish prepared with fish cakes, scallions, onions and soy garlic sauce.

The fish and rice cakes were super chewy, it was a totally unique texture. Adam thought it was gross, but I happily devoured 3/4 of the plate.

Even better than good food was the chance to catch up with old friends 🙂  I wasn’t drinking, so I was in bed watching tv by 2, but the boys were out past 4!

I’m not sure what the plan for today is, but my ideal itinerary includes cupcakes!

First Post of the New Year

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2011 is off to a productive start.  Probably because last night I gave the husband his 5-4-3-2-1-midnight! kiss and then headed straight to bed.  It’s not an official resolution, but bedtime is going to be a focus of mine in 2011.

Healthy breakfasts are also going to be a focus, but that was kind of a flop today.  To be fair, I just got back from a 10day vacation, so the choice was candy or nothing.  (I went with nothing).

Instead I unpacked, put away all the Christmas decorations, organized my new day planner, and wrote up a grocery list and meal plan.  The husband and I also got in our first workout:  20minutes of strength and stretch moves, side by side on our yoga mats.

Next up was a trip to Wegmans to deal with the food situation. It was 50*(?!?) here today, so this was my entire outfit, no coat!

It was after noon by the time we got to the grocery, so we had a lunch date at the hot bar.

I got Brussels sprouts with honey walnuts, white beans and escarole, Asian style veggies,

and a single piece of sweet and sour chicken.

I looooove it, but more than a bite really is overkill/unhealthy.

After a quick trip home to drop off the groceries, we headed to date #2 – the movies.  We were both dying to see “The Black Swan” and were crushed when we thought it wasn’t going to come to Buffalo.  As soon as we saw the updated movie listing on Thursday we knew what our plans for the new year were.

While at the mall I took advantage of post-holiday sales and snagged some bras and hand soap, both of which were boring but necessary. We also checked out the new candy kiosk.

A quarter pound of sour gummi cola bottles makes for a very exciting movie snack.

During a very exciting movie! The Black Swan was gorgeous, and very tense. I realized during that credits that I was clenching my hands so hard I hurt my finger!

Our dinner plan was an easy peasy three ingredients.

Pasta, marinara, canned sardines.

The husband is obsessed with sardines but I’ve been too afraid until now to try them. The smell is less than appetizing, but fish – omega-3 – is so healthy for you and this is the only kind of seafood we can afford.

I had the husband deal with them – mash, pan fry with marinara sauce – until it was time to top the pasta.

Looks good, great idea, but ultimately not for me.  I ate about half of my plate but was gagging and putting on major theatrics the whole time.  It didn’t help matters that Adam way undercooked the pasta, perhaps I’ll try again another time.

Thank goodness we had a spinach side salad planned.

Topped with Newman’s Own Asian Sesame dressing and Sahale Snacks Valdosta pecans.

And thank goodness for popcorn!

How did you ring in the new year?

STT; Wednesday Afternoon – Thursday Afternoon

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As predicted, yesterday afternoon was spent on a swim workout. My mom dropped Adam and me off at Morningstar beach for an hour. We had fun, but also got in a good workout. Adam would swim a distance away from me and then I would swim as hard as I could until I reached him. Repeat.

For dinner we refurbished pad thai leftovers.

Stir-fried with extra veggies – okra, carrot, broccoli, celery – and egg.

We also went to see The Fighter. I got in some fruit with apple slices as a movie snack.

And there was German chocolate cake waiting when we got home.

I had a (big) slice with a glass of skim milk.

Yum, good job mom!

For breakfast this morning I mashed a small banana with cinnamon, and spread it on two mini buns with almond butter.

Made quite the tasty little sandwich set.

The wind has been crazy recently so we spent the morning hiking around The Point and watching the waves crash.

I’ve snacked on a bag of cheez-its,

and split a gingerbread Clif bar with Adam.

Now (after this quick stop at school) the whole family is going for a long walk downtown.  The plan tonight is a belated anniversary dinner, and then tomorrow we fly on home.

STT; Sunday Afternoon – 3rd Anniversary

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Sunday afternoon, after a quick trip home for provisions, we headed to the movies. We saw a matinée of True Grit, which I just loved. Cowboy movies are so not my thing, but somehow I knew this one would just rock my socks. The story line was funny and touching and I loved the vocabulary.

I packed a baggie of baby carrots,

and bought some Jordan Almonds at the theatre.

We did a quick and easy dinner when we got home.

Baked okra with ketchup,

cole slaw,

and two mini buns (split), toasted and topped with leftover spinach dip.

Plus dessert.

One of our guy friends was flying out Monday afternoon, so we met him that morning for brunch.

A few other friends came along and it was great to catch up with everyone.

I ordered a mahi mahi sandwich with a side of cole slaw.

Delish!  Mahi mahi is my favorite kind of fish, so light and flakey.

I left my bun, but devoured everything else.

Dessert (clearly I’m on vacation, who really needs lunch dessert?!?) came at home in the form of 7-layer bar.

Around 4 – we are really watching our sun exposure – Adam and I got in an afternoon workout. We headed to the beach, and amid the frolicing did 30ish minutes of hard swimming.

We met up with visiting family friends for dinner. I wasn’t feeling confident about the healthiness of the meal, so I supplemented with some baby veggies before dinner.

Good thing, because pizza was dinner. I ended up with a shrimp scampi slice,

and a bbq chicken slice.

Adam and I also split a Caesar salad with extra veggies.

And I had a piece of homemade toffee when we got home.

Today (the 28th) is our 3rd wedding anniversary!!! We’ve celebrated by spending the day doing things we both love. Like starting the morning with a run… We got in an hour+ workout that included a bit of walking, 2 miles of running, and the mile uphill walk home. Between today’s run and yesterday’s swim, both of our legs are pretty sore!

Next on the agenda was lunch at our favorite restaurant.

Plus some time sipping coffee and reading.

I ordered a Vietnamese Latte (sweetened with condensed milk),

and Adam and I split the spicy sweet potato wrap (with spinach and rosemary goat cheese).

We’re unsure of the agenda tonight – there’s a party we might skip – but all I really need is an evening with the (3year’s old) husband!

STT; Merry Christmas – Sunday Afternoon

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I hope everyone had happy holidays!  Adam and I have been feeling extremely blessed.  I’m also feeling busy, I hate how brief I have to make these recaps!

Ok, back to Friday afternoon.  Since we had already paid the daily admission fee, Adam and I headed back to Magen’s beach.  He swam, I read a magazine, and we both clapped in delight over these signs –

On the way back, we had to hit up an island institution.

Going to St. Thomas without making a stop at the dairy is practically criminal!  Adam and I split a Bailey’s Delight, made with rum raisin ice cream, egg nog, and brandy.

Then it was time for the final prep for our big Christmas Eve party.  A family friend who knows we usually just have to scrounge on the 24th brought over turkey chilli with kidney beans for dinner.

The rest of the evening’s eats were indeed party food.  I have no pictures from the actual party, but you can assume I ate at least one of everything, and that it was all delicious!

My hot pepper peach cheese ball.

Baked spinach and artichoke dip.

Baked brie topped with cranberries and walnuts.

Dippers.

Pinwheels.

Fixings for mini turkey sandwiches.

Mini bagels with cream cheese and lox.

Frosted shortbread.

Snowballs, macaroons, and 7-layer bars.

We were also fully stocked with booze.  I spent most of my evening carrying around a tray of tequilla shots – it’s a Christmas tradition!  And while I did manage to skip that particular tradition, I got so wasted on orange juice with Goldshlager (don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it!) that Adam had to pour me into bed.

Christmas morning began the best possible way – with a light workout!  Adam and I ran for about a mile near the beach, then hiked the mile home.  It was a short workout, but considering that we had double hangovers and presents to open, I’m pretty proud of us.

A small glass of egg nog was consumed during stockings,

and then a lovely breakfast before presents.

Sidenote – our family does stockings, breakfast, then presents.  Always.  What was your Christmas morning tradition?

Gingerbread coffee with 2% milk,

a small plate of eggs with red and green pepper and Applegate Farms turkey bacon,

and a 0% Plain Chobani with a slice of coffee cake.

I should have given myself a bigger serving of eggs, I gave away most of my bacon/yogurt/cake.  In spite of our refreshing run, I think my nighttime imbibing had made me a little picky.

Not too picky, however, to turn down a big handful of maple sugar cotton candy(!!).

After present opening (which was plentiful – thank’s mom and dad!) there was lunch.

Apple slices and baby carrots,

and crackers with leftover hot pepper peach and spinach dip.

Plus dessert.

Dinner was consumed at my aunt’s house, with a large group of family and friends.

Plus a slice of garlic bread,

and a slice of delicious yellow cake with blueberry jam and vanilla buttercream.

I helped with the frosting, pulling a recipe from Eat, Live, Run that was to die for.

This morning started with another light workout.  Adam and I walked up and down the beach for 45minutes, then hiked the mill uphill homeward.  I wore my heart rate monitor and was pleasantly surprised that our 1hour, 11minute workout killed 290calories.  It’s nice to know that our sand trudging burned up more than the back of my leg muscles.

Lunch was leftovers. 

Turkey chilli,

 and macaroni and cheese made with swiss cheese, chives, and white truffle flavored oil.

Sidenote – my cousin made the mac and cheese for Christmas dinner and the husband liked it so much he went back for thirds!

I also ate the final serving of Junior Mints,

which helped fuel me up for…. a long nap!

We are at school now, and rest of the day’s agenda is movies, dinner, maybe drinks with friends.  See you soon!

St. Thomas; Tuesday Morning – Thursday Morning

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We’re here. We’re here, we’re here, we’re here!  We’re also busy; this will be a quick recap post.

Tuesday morning at the airport, Adam and I did a good job putting together breakfast from our packed snacks.  We split the Orange Cranberry Cliff Bar,

and shared sharp cheddar, baby carrots, and a gingergold apple throughout the morning.

Our flights went well, and on our layover I found a Salsarita’s for lunch.

(Delicious) chips with spicy salsa,

and a chicken burrito with black beans, a little bit of rice, corn salsa, red onions, medium salsa, and shredded cheese.

So tasty and fresh, especially for a plane meal!  I ate about half of everything.

Before we knew it we were in my childhood home.  Being handed homemade toffee,

and finding gifts on our pillows.

I could get used to this!  The husband and I did some wrapping of our own too.

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner.

Spicy chicken with whole-wheat linguine,

mushrooms and broccoli with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds,

and mandarin oranges.

We ate all squished together in a clump, because someone decided to start a puzzle at the table 😉

For dessert my dad and I opened up these Klick Halva Truffles.

Adam went out (late!) with some of our guy friends from high school, but I stayed home rereading All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein and laughing at the notes I wrote in the margins while writing a 15page final paper on it.

Wednesday morning was all about dinner leftovers for breakfast.

And 10minutes of strength and stretch moves.  My goal for vacation is to (at minimum) get in a good stretch every day.

For lunch, we headed to Barefoot Buddha, my favorite restaurant.

I split a passionfruit smoothie with the husband,

and a bagel sandwich with my mother.

Yuuuuuuuum.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on errands, including finding a gloriously huge pile of Achie comics (donated to my mom’s library),

and getting all of our wedding rings polished.

Plus testing saved maple sugar cookies from Thanksgiving.

Out of the freezer, still good!

For dinner we headed to Island Time Pub with my aunt and cousins (2sets, one local, one visiting). The lighting was awful, but the dark did mean we got to enjoy these sailboat sail “trees.”

Adam and I split a Caesar salad, with green peppers and mushrooms added.

And a buffalo chicken pizza.

I had these two slices plus a third.

I also had two black and cokes with dinner.

After that I was the designated driver, so even though we were out with friend until almost 1, I stuck to diet coke.

This morning began with a workout. A good workout 🙂 St. Thomas isn’t exactly map-my-run-able and I don’t have a Garmin, so we are focusing on time instead of distance. We had my mom drive us down to the nearby beach so we could run (not that we ran I’m the sand, just near the beach). In the end we ran for 20minutes and walked for 18minutes. Then we slowly walked up the HUGE hill home; I’ll have to take a picture tomorrow. All total, 60monutes of activity, which felt great.

Breakfast was Greek Gods honey Greek yogurt, topped with some blueberries and banana.

I’ve spent the morning running errands with my mom, including a trip to school so I could write this post.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, what?!?

What’s the best airplane food you’ve ever had? The worst?

A Pre-(Impromptu)Party Post

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Ooof!  So far we have packed this winter vacation full of fun.  I’ve been AWOP (<–away without posting) so I’d love to give you guys a full recap, but frankly, we’ve got a party to throw!  Yes, the party is tonight, and yes, it was planned, um, today.

Yesterday evening we took my in-laws out to dinner at Pearl Street.  (No you didn’t miss a lunch post, I just didn’t eat lunch.)  I ordered a turkey reuben.

There isn’t actually a turkey reuben on the menu, but PS is fabulous so when I asked to sub turkey for corned beef they happily complied.

With cole slaw on the side.

We had some time to kill so we headed to Starbucks where I ordered a short, skim, salted caramel hot chocolate.

Then we headed to see….. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra!

No photography was allowed during the show, but I promise you it was as aesthetically pleasing as it was easy on the ear.  I didn’t recognize all of the music but the show closed with scores from “The Nutcracker” and “Messiah” and everything was wonderful.

During intermission, the husband and I split a cranberry juice with champagne.

Fast-forward to a morning that came way too quickly, and the husband and I were out the door to see his parents off.

We were out and about too early for Target, so while we waited for paper plates and napkins to become available we stopped into Bagel Jays to split a rye bagel with lox spread.

Delish!  The rye bagel was a pretty exciting concept.

During the fray I did take time to cash in a Groupon for a mani/pedicure.

And to grab lunch from the Wegman’s hot bar.

But then it was back to work!

We’ve got things mostly done now, so I took a break for blogging and dinner.

The other half of my turkey reuben was delicious.

But this microwaved frozen okra was not.

Even spicy paprika couldn’t save it.  I forced down half to get in my greens, but this was slime city.

And now I’m looking forward to seasonal beer, mint chocolate cake balls, and hot pepper peach cheese-ball!

Better Than 32Minutes in Bed or 2.8Miles by Car

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Hello, Saturday!  We’re having a fun visiting day, but stopped by the house to do a huge load of laundry chat so I figured I’d do a quick post.

We put the late in late-night yesterday, but I was determined to go to the gym today.  Our in-laws are staying in a hotel with a little gym so I could work out there, then shower in the room, and then head to breakfast.  Doing everything in the same building was soooo nice; I would up my gym time exponentially if there was one attached to my house!

I decided to hit up the treadmill for a short run.  My right arch was killing me so I kept having to take walking breaks to stretch my foot, but I manged 2.8miles.  With warm up/cool down I ended at 32minutes.  I was frustrated about how slow that is, but then I put it in perspective – 32minutes and 2.8miles of activity is never a bad thing!

Neither is breakfast at Pano’s!

Adam and I split the California Omlette, “avocado, sautéed mushroom, green onion, tomato, shallots, sour cream, cheddar, pepper jack and swiss cheese; served with home fries and (sourdough) toast.”

It was a tasty meal, and sharing left us with the perfect portion size.

I’m not sure entirely what the day will bring, but this evening will be spent at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.  Can’t wait!