My Indian Name is Runner of Many Errands

Would you believe me if I told you we just got home?!  Well, sort of.  But it has been a busy day.

Adam came home this afternoon and we headed out on errands – H&R Block to file our taxes and SuperCuts so I could get a trim.  Neither errand was all that exciting; taxes are sort of a joke when no one in the household has any income, and in the same vein all I can afford is a $13 hair cut.  I did find out that when I donate my hair to Locks of Love this spring I can get my hair cut for free, so that’s good news.

We were so cranky with hunger by the time we headed home that french fries with vinegar from ETS were a necessity.

Obviously.

I’m glad we got in some veggies of the non-fry variety for dinner.

We made a big batch of Emily’s Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup.

The soup is full of sweet potato, rutabega, kale, and black beans, then topped with avocado.  It was very tasty, so head on over to The Daily Garnish to check out the recipe.

The minute we were done eating (and I use the word “done” loosely here) we head to rush out the door to UPS.  Sidenote – Mom, Tiffanys sent me back my fixed bracelet.  Sidenote 2 – Don’t ever buy the Tiffany Sea Starfish Bracelet, it’s gorgeous, but the stone falls out of the charm like 8 times a month.

We had to stop at Rite Aid for some things on the way home (um, hair dye, get excited!), and now we’re about to settle in with some Sour Patch Kids and X-Files.

What’s your favorite kind of soup?  I actually not much of a soup girl, but this recipe may be a new favorite.

10, 9, 8…

I have 10minutes to blog before I have to get back to the husband.  My articles were not correct and now he’s helping me scour the medical databases for more.  Ready, set, go!

1st, the Sandwich Thin I ate for lunch today was delicious.  I loved the oats sprinkled on top.  2nd, I was starving when I got home from school this afternoon so I ate this packet of cashews,

from a Valentine’s package from my parents.

I also had a handful of pretzels that escaped the camera.

Finally, dinner.

I whipped up two servings of my Easy Peasy Peanut Noodles for Adam and I.  We used linguine with broccoli and yellow squash.  I went ahead and steamed a bunch of veggies to have on hand the rest of the week.

The final dish turned out delicious.  This was the first time Adam has tried my peanut sauce and now he is totally smitten!

Minutes to spare!

The Super What?

I may have been a cheerleader, but I just don’t follow football.  Even the Super Bowl.  There, I said it!  Adam and I are pretty much on the same page about everything.  But he cares about the Super Bowl a little bit, and that’s a whole lot more than I do.

We were on the same page with breakfast this morning though.

I whipped us up a batch of smoothies, 1 part frozen strawberries to 1 part chocolate peppermint stick soy milk.

We needed a sipable breakfast because we were busy moving around giving the house a deep clean.  I don’t want to tell you how long it’s been since I scrubbed the stove (um, never!), but it took me a good 20minutes to get the burners clean.

Once we were no longer living in squalor, we headed to Wegman’s for lunch.

Fruits,

and veggies,

plus a sandwich from home.

I split a pita and filled my half with Tribe Roasted Garlic Hummus, green pepper, and cucumber slices.

It was a nice lunch, and it fueled us through a weekly grocery trip amongst the horde of people who somehow forgot that today was the Super Bowl.  I don’t want to judge, but were those people all afraid that their carts of chips and beer would spoil if they bought them more than an hour before their parties?!?

I’m home alone tonight, Adam cared just enough about the game to head over to a house with cable.  I did send him off with party food though.

Spinach and Artichoke Hummus –

  • 15.5 oz can chick peas, drained
  • 14 oz can quartered artichoke hearts in brine, drained
  • 3/4 cup frozen spinach
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp plus 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup salted soy nuts
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat tsp oil in a skillet over medium-low.  Add garlic and saute until just beginning to brown, 1-2minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Add spinach to the pan and cook until completely thawed.  Remove pan from heat and set aside.
  3. Place chick peas in bowl of food processor and pulse until smooth.
  4. Add artichoke hearts to the processor and continue pulsing until smoothie, scraping down the sides as needed.
  5. Working in ~ 1/2 cup batches, add spinach and garlic to processor and pulse until smooth.
  6. Pulse in soy nuts and Tbsp oil, until mixture is well-combined.  Note – the soy nuts will add a chunky texture to the hummus, if you prefer a smoother end product then you will need to start but processing the nuts first.
  7. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I stayed home doing girly things, like cleaning out the food processor, baking tomorrow’s lunch, then cleaning out the food processor again.  It’s a good thing I took many cooking bites, because after the send round of blade cleaning I decided I was not going to make dinner.

Really, it doesn’t come up that often that I have dinner by my lonesome, so why not revel in the situation and make myself a batch of single serve cookie dough for dinner?

Yeah, yeah, I had this yesterday too.  But this was different, this was peanut butter single-serve cookie dough.

  1. Using a fork, mash together 1 Tbsp Smart Balance Light and 2 Tbsp chunky peanut butter.
  2. Mash in 3 Tbsp flour and 2 Tbsp sugar.
  3. Pour in a splash of Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk and mix well.
  4. Place in the freezer for 30minutes, stirring occasionally.
  5. Top with a serving of chopped up Chocolove bar.
  6. Eat with a spoon, moaning occasionally.

Do you watch the Super Bowl?  Who were you cheering for today?

Seriously, have you tried the single-serve cookie dough thing yet?

Friday Night Frozen Yuuuums

I did the Friday shuffle!  In fact I shuffled right on through to bedtime!

After class I walked down Elmwood to meet up for lunch with Katie at Wasabi.

I’d like to tell you I ordered a hot water to drink because I’m so mature and healthy, but really it was more of a Japanese waitresses cannot understand me when I’ve got retainers in my mouth thing.

I ordered the lunch special which came with a miso soup (not always vegetarian, fyi, though this one was),

and two sushi rolls.

I got a cucumber and asparagus roll,

and a tempura sweet potato roll.

We had a great lunch and spent a long time catching up.

Then I headed to the Spot to get my study on.  I ordered a grande soy latte with two shots of amaretto syrup.

But then I discovered that drinking hot coffee with retainers in is disgusting and threw it out.

Caffeinated or not, I managed to get all of my notecards for the week done, phew!

Adam and I didn’t both didn’t get home until after 7, so all plans of a fancy dinner flew out the window.  Thank goodness I had the best frozen meal on earth on standby.

The Tandoor Chef Veggie Pad Thai is ridiculous tasty and vegan to boot.

Yuuuuuuum!  It’s nothing like nyc, but this is literally the best Thai food I can get in Buffalo.

I also had some unsweetened applesauce topped with red hots and simply sweet granola.

Can I say “yuuuuuuuuum” again?

Any exciting plans for the weekend?

Matching Meals

There was no Saturday post because I just couldn’t figure out the logistics of it.  Two things were happening yesterday – I was starving and my teeth were killing me.  This meant I started 80 different food items, then gummed at them pathetically before moving on.  I just didn’t know how to blog it without saying “I ate two bites of this, and three bites of that..” a million times.

But today, today was definitely worth blogging.  The husband and I ate matching meals all day!  That’s not to say he didn’t eat several things that I didn’t (or that he was particularly excited about this) but for the most part our meals were twins.

We started our day with hot chocolate.

Made stove-top style with skim milk, sugar, and Green and Black cocoa powder.

I’ve been loving the cocoa lately, and this homemade version might have been my best cup yet.

We also had yogurts.

I ate the Liberte, 0% Strawberry.

The Liberte yogurts are sooooo rich and creamy but they generally have a lot of saturated fat so I was thrilled to find this 0% one.

Then we had matching lunch plates.

Leftover mini cheesy meatloafs with roasted sweet potato fries.

This meatloaf was good the first day, but it definitely got better after sitting in the fridge.

We watched some “X-Files” while we ate, then headed to my campus to get some schoolwork done.  I hit up the gym while we were there. A quick treadmill work out – warm up + run 1mile (9.10) + incline walking – 2.5miles and 35minutes. Followed by a quick stretch and a few planks.

For dinner we went to Cheesecake Factory to use up the last of our Christmas gift certificates.

We shared an order of avocado egg rolls.

If by shared you mean split 1-5 and include Adam growling at me while I ate my one.

Our dinner plates weren’t exactly identical, but we did share many bites.  I ordered my favorite, the fresh vegetable appetizer salad,

and Adam got the spicy cashew chicken.

We had a lot of fun sharing, and we’ve both got lunch leftovers for tomorrow!

Plus we split a cookie dough cheesecake for dessert!

Would you ever be interested in seeing a day of Adam’s meals?

Minimums and Maximums

Minus the fact that I lengthened it by forgetting my lunch until I was a block away, my walk to school actually wasn’t so bad!  I was cold, but not oh-my-gosh-I-think-I’d-rather-just-curl-up-in-the-snow-and-die-cold.

My first day of classes went well (this semester is going to be hard!) and p.s. my packed lunch ended up being delicious and satisfying.  To top off my good day, I even headed to the gym after class.

1mile in 9minutes 10seconds, followed by a quick .25mile walk cool down.

(This next bit is mostly on here for my records, feel free to skip ahead.)  I’m excited to get back to the gym, and I’m even more excited about a fun fitness thing that might be happening the second week of March.  I want to make sure that I am (1) ready, as in, in shape and (2) ready, as in, not injured so I made a loose workout plan for the next month.  In addition to strength training, the following are my minimum and maximum workout goals for each week.

  • 1/24 – 1/30:  run 1 mile; x-train 20-30minutes
  • 1/31 -2/6:  run 1.5 miles; x-train 25-35minutes
  • 2/7 – 2/13:  run 1.5 miles; x-train 30-40minutes
  • 2/14 – 2/20:  run 2 miles; x-train 30-45minutes
  • 2/21 – 2/27: run 2 miles; x-train 30-50minutes
  • 2/28 -3/6:  run 2-3 miles; x-train 30-60minutes

With between 4-6 cardio sessions each week, all done on the treadmill and elliptical.  Basically I want to get back into shape, but to force myself to move slowly so I don’t mess up my legs again.  I can walk as much as I want, but I want to stick to the maximum miles running on any given day.

Anyways.  When I got home this evening I was treated to a killer migraine, but I managed to push through and ended up with a banging dinner.

Lemon-Artichoke Risotto, a la Rachael Ray.

This was my first ever attempt at risotto and it ended up being pretty painless.  Stir, stir, stir, and you end up with a nice creamy dish.

Add leftovers and a few steps on the side, and you’ve got a great dinner.

Risotto,

leftover bbq chicken from yesterday’s pizza,

and some steamed brocoli.

Also a side of cheese, we watched The Initiation of Sarah while we ate 😉

Have you ever made risotto?

Like a Saftey

Confession – in order to write my clever title I had to Google “football players who tackle.”  And I was a cheerleader.

Anyway, that’s what this weekend has been about, tackling my to-do list:

Hooray!

I tackled two weeks worth of laundry (actually, the husband tackled this, but I folded!),

I tackled the pile of outgoing mail,

I tackled my huge stack of unsorted magazine clippings,

I tackled my planner for the semester,

And more!  I didn’t work the whole weekend, but I did more in two days than I’ve done in two weeks.

Breakfast this morning had a mix of carbs and protein to fuel me up.

That’s a plan fat-free yogurt with Crofter’s Strawberry Jam stirred in, topped with Kashi H2H and some chunky peanut butter.

So good!  Peanut Butter and I have totally resparked our love affair lately.

Around noon I headed out to run some errands at school and replenish our food stores.  Wegman’s was terrible this afternoon – the hot bar was barely stocked and the store was packed.  Nonetheless, I managed to carve out a booth of calm and spend an hour tackling my NYE resolution to read more.

Eating materials, hot bar Asian style veggies, potatoes, and sweet and sour chicken.

Reading materials, The Food of a Younger Land, Mark Kurlansky.

When I got home from pushing my way through the hoards I snacked  on a mini bag of kettle corn and a glass of skim milk.

Dinner involved some prep throughout the day – chicken getting soft and shreddable in the crock pot, red onions caramelizing on the stove – but the end result was beyond worth it –

Bbq chicken pizza with caramelized red onions and gouda!

I topped a store-bought crust with caramelized red onions, shredded chicken tossed with bbq sauce, and gouda, and 10minutes later I had pure, steamy bliss.

Bliss served with a side of roasted asparagus.

It was a pretty heavenly dinner.

Dessert was from the bulk bins; yogurt pretzels, chocolate pretzels, and a piece of local sponge candy.

I’ve got to go shower and get my beauty sleep; school starts tomorrow!

Snow Filled Saturday

Howdy all, happy Saturday!  It’s been chilly and busy ’round these parts.  I had lots of errands to run, but more on that later (tomorrow).  Basically I have today and tomorrow to tackle this monster to-do list –

Before I got started on my errands I grabbed this coconut aloe juice.

So good, the best coconut (or aloe) drink I’ve had yet!

The weather was insane today, whiteout for miles.  

It took me forever to get the five miles to the post office, probably because I was only going 10miles an hour!  At least the bad weather meant that this adorable snowflake ended up on my steering wheel –

I snacked on a bag of kettle chips when I got home.

And made myself a Peanut Noodle Lean Cuisine for lunch.

This was actually very good, the sauce was mild but nice.

I also snagged a minneola.

And while I was ruthlessly cutting down my magazine clipping I snacked on a 7-Layer bar.

Then came dinner.

A recipe from Everyday with Rachael Ray, Stir-Fried Pasta Primavera (sorry I can’t link to this recipe).

I basically followed Ray’s lead, with a few healthy changes:

  • I wanted 3 big servings (vs. 4), so added a bit more veggies and used a bit less pasta
  • subbed parsley for basil
  • subbed light for heavy cream

The end result was delicious.

I almost never order cream sauces when dining out but lately we’ve been loving them at home.

What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods today?