Something Fishy

I don’t think it’s just a Monday thing, there is definitely something fishy going on with my head-space.  I’ve been falling asleep more easily, but waking up multiple times a night, often just before my alarm goes off (often causing me to reset the alarm to a later time).  I’ve been totally distracted – my to-do list was practically untouched today – and getting out of bed feels like waking the dead.  I felt like I was peeling myself up at the late hour of 9:30 this morning.

My late wake up hour couldn’t interfere with my trip to the volunteer services office at the hospital though.  I ended up throwing jeans and a jacket over my nightgown!

I’m probably the classiest class-less person you know 😉

I wanted to speak to the volunteer office in person because I had to tell them I still won’t be volunteering until after May 7th.  I can only get to volunteering via a longish walk, and I’m pretty much useless there unless I’m running things up and down the stairs.  I felt badly, especially because I’m probably done with volunteering once summer school starts, but my leg was killing me on the walk there which helped me know it was a good decision.

On the way home I stopped into the gas station for a coffee.

I went with my usual half/half method – equal parts vanilla creme (unsweetened) and English toffee cappuccino (sweetened).

I want to say the caffeine gave me the study boost I needed, but it was more like I stared at my Chem book without moving for 1.5hours, grrrrr!  I did make an inspired sort of lunch.

I topped a everything bagel thin with 1 microwaved egg and a slice of buffalo wing cheese.

And I burnt some kale chips for a side.

Tasty, and I did manage to take some notes while I ate.

I need some advice.  This is my new $19 one piece from Old Navy –

Nevermind the fact that I clearly have been eating too many nachos, please tell me this suit doesn’t look completely ridiculous in a sport-swim capacity??  I’m planning on heading to the South Campus gym pool this Wednesday to make like a fish.

I had to pick up some stuff – dry cleaning and the husband! – but I ate another egg for some pre-workout protein.  This time hard boiled.

Today’s workout was less ‘exotic,’ by exciting in its own rite.  I slooooowly hiked up the gym stairs so that I could have a stretch/strength workout using actual equipment.  The gym was packed and I hurt my leg on the stairs, so we ended up working out for about 15minutes, but it was a nice idea!

After our “work out” we did take a walk.  Our tax refund came today and we were pretty pleased, so we took a trip to the bank and for some celebratory ice-cream.  I waited all winter to try out Sweet Tooth.

It was adorable, they had awesome looking cookies, and even had serving sizes that were ACTUAL serving sizes; we’ll be back!  I got a “baby” cup of cannoli ice-cream.

Delish.  It was marscapone flavored ice-cream with chocolate chips and pieces of cannoli dough.  I’ve never actually eaten a cannoli (I know, I know!) but I loved this.

Post-shower (and another intense staring off into space session, wtf?!?), we threw together an Easy Peasy dinner.

  1. I boiled 7oz dry rotini pasta according to the box directions.  In the last 3minutes of cook time I stirred in 7oz frozen artichoke hearts and 1cup frozen peas into the pot.  Then I drained the pasta/veggies and returned them to the pot.
  2. Meanwhile, I sautéed 1 chopped onion over medium heat.  When the onion was browned I added 2T butter,2T  flour, and 2T half and half to the pan.  I stirred and gave the mixture time to thicken.
  3. Finally I poured my onions and sauce into the pot with the veggies and pasta, along with10 oz boneless skinless canned salmon, and stirred to combine.

It doesn’t look like much, but for how simple it was this dish was tasty and healthy.  (Note – this recipe makes 4 servings)

As soon as my teeth are brushed I’m going to curl up in bed with a magazine and hopefully fall asleep pretty quickly.  I do not have time in tomorrow’s agenda for sitting/staring.  Sweet dreams.

Have you ever had a cannoli?  What’d you think?

How to Train Your Dragon

It’s been an amazing day!  However, it’s also been a day when I realize I need to do something about my weekend eating habits, whoops.

Today was the day we switched out our summer and winter wardrobes, and made a huge pile of almost-never-worn stuff to donate.  We were so busy all morning I was actually too distracted to eat.  When we headed to Goodwill (around 2) I did stop in at Dunkin Donuts to buy a medium, nonfat, coconut ice latte.

I had been wanting to try one of these ever since I saw one on another blog weeks ago.  ‘Twas good!

While we were out, Adam and I headed to the movies to make a date of it.  A serving of TJ’s Gummy Tummy snacks made the perfect movie snack.

Plus they are adorable 😉

We saw “How to Train Your Dragon” (not in 3-D), which was shockingly good.  This is now both Adam’s and my new favorite movie!  I love modern children’s movies that don’t sacrifice themselves for adult humor.  This was funny for all ages, had a great message, and was totally adorable.  I’m a definite sucker for movies with any sort of fairy tale element – dragons, trolls, faeries…..bring it on!

Whilst at the mall I stopped in at Old Navy to buy a cheap, sporty-ish, one piece bathing suit.  I’m seriously going crazy not going to the gym and hopefully swimming will be able to fill the void.  I told Adam today that I’m worried my soul will be broken by the time I’m allowed to run again.  The South Campus gym has a pool, so this week I’m going to try going for a swim.

We couldn’t let the afternoon end, so when we got home from the mall we took a walk around our neighborhood, and came upon this –

La Tee Da has been on my ‘to eat’ list ever since I read about it on Yelp months ago, I had no idea it was right next door.  The menu looked amazing and the restaurant was filled with all sorts of adorable touches.

I had a lot more to photograph but my camera died.  Dinner out wasn’t in our original plans so we were kind to our wallets and decided to split a drink and some appetizers.  We got some amazing (free) bread and evoo.

Belinis are my favorite.

And we ordered the fried artichokes and the eggplant buffalo ‘wings’ –

Yummmmm.  Every single bite was delish.  The concept of eggplant wings seems to be a totally Buffalo concept and it is amazing.

For dinner dinner I made myself a spicy grilled cheese with two slices of Buffalo Wing Sharp Cheddar.

To be eaten while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer via Netflix.  I would say Adam and I have fully milked his Spring Break, wouldn’t you?  😀

Do you enjoy “kid’s” movies?  What’s your favorite cinematic genre?  I love children’s cartoons and raunchy comedy.

New York, New York

My apologies that this post is delayed, but I knew it was going to be a loooooong one.  On Monday, after a weekend in PA with my in-laws, Adam and I traveled “home” for a day in New York City.  I grew up in St. Thomas, went to college in Miami, and currently live in Buffalo, but the 2 years and I spent teaching in East New York and living in Park Slope are the ones I am always homesick for.

It rained, hard, all day but nothing was able to dim our spirits.  We ended up not being able to do the trip we had originally planned – on the agenda was a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge – but it was a fabulous day nonetheless.  We skipped all of the tourist stuff, and instead did all most of our favorite things to do when we lived in the city. 

Physically it probably wasn’t the healthiest day: we walked too much on my hurt leg and ate way too much sugar.  But mentally it was just what I needed.  I Love New York.  All of the reasons people complain about the city – the crowds, the noise, people walk too fast, you can’t drive – are all of things I love best about it.  I adore the crowds of people, and it helps that I’m naturally a fast walker and a walk lover.  I think New Yorkers are friendlier than the rest America and the ‘concrete jungle’ is my definition of beauty.  I was obviously raised to love the beach, and I can see the magical quality of the dessert and the allure of the fairy-like sense of the forest, but the city is where I feel most with serene.  I love the buildings, the gardens, the graffiti.

Adam and I got into the city around 10am.  As soon as we hit the Verrazano Bridge we both started to smile.

We actually parked the car in ‘our spot’ in our old neighborhood for the day.  We didn’t have a car until we moved to Buffalo so when we lived in Park Slope we did a lot of walking.  Most days when I got home after school I would walk the 8+ blocks from my subway, then the 8+ blocks the other direction to Adam’s subway, and then back home, in addition to the walk in the morning and making at least one trip out at night.  7th Ave feels more like home to me than our apartment did!  So our first item one the itinerary was a long walk down 7th Avenue.

We stopped at Pinos pretty much the second we got out of the car.

Pinos used to be our spot for pizza, we had it at least once a week for two years.  In fact, it was such an institution that I mentioned watching Scrubs and eating pizza in my wedding vows!  I split a plain slice with the husband.

And he saved me his crusts to dip in my diet coke.

Delicious!

I think Park Slope is one of the most beautiful spots in the city.  There are so many interesting and beautiful things to look at.

Just to give you an idea of how much we walked, we covered 2.5miles before we even left our neighborhood!  All that walking made us thirsty, so we headed to ‘Snice, our favorite vegan spot.

We split a vegan malted milk-less shake before we headed to the B Train.

Then we headed uptown for a walk in Central Park.

We were statues for a little bit,

before we headed inside Whole Foods for a break from the weather.

I managed to resist the pull of the salad bar but we did a little sampling.  I had about 4 shot glasses worth of food, but was told I couldn’t use my camera in the store?!

Next we headed to Delancy.  We cut the ambling a bit here because we had a mission – Sugar, Sweet, Sunshine!  SSS is our favorite spot in the city.  They have cupcakes – delicious, crumbling, innovative, wonderful cupcakes, for a $1.50, unheard of in the land of Magnolia Bakery.  We always used to bring our visitors here.

Honestly I could not decide on my flavor, I ended up getting two!  It took a lot of willpower, but I cut them in half and shared with Adam, ultimately eating only one full cupcake.

Strawberry with cream cheese frosting.

This was a seasonal flavor that I’d never tried before and I am so glad I decided not to skip it.  Cream cheese frosting is always a favorite, but what made this was the actual chunks of strawberry in the cake.

Pistachio.

This.  This cupcake is my favorite thing on earth.  I don’t even really like cake, usually I lick the icing off of cupcakes and am done with it, but the cake part of this is even better than the icing.  It is pistachio perfection.

In an absolute sugar/love cloud we hopped on the F Train and headed down to Cobble Hill, an artsy little area of Brooklyn.

As we walked around we spotted a bar with an Abita sign (my favorite) so we stopped in for a beer.

I drank most of my Christmas Ale, then switched with Adam and polished off his Turbo Dog.

Our real destination in the The Hill was Trader Joe’s.  My parents requested 10gagillion #s of unsulphered dried fruit and we picked up a few staples for ourselves as well.

Carrying multiple jars of TJ’s Sun Butter = so worth it!  I also bought a honey Greek yogurt to get a little protein into my day.

And we stopped in at Starbucks for some calorie-free rehydrating.

Our final stop was back to Park Slope for dinner with Lana, one of my oldest friends.  We hit up Beet.  If you read my old blog and saw all the Thai food we ate at Mango, Beet is its brother restaurant.  I love how funky all of the restaurants are in the city.

And Beet was totally artistic; my diet coke had a straw wrapper rose in it and Adam’s scallop fried rice came in the shape of a star.

I ordered the Pad See Eiw with veggies and tofu.

Buffalo has been totally unable to satisfy my Thai cravings, but this hit the spot!  The Pad See Eiw I’ve had since we moved can’t even compare to how good this is!

We were sad to say our goodbyes to Lana, but it was 9pm and we had a 7+ hour drive ahead of us.  You know how that turned out already, but I will add in the fact that Adam drove the entire way home and basically deserves ‘Best Husband of the Year.’

All in all, it was a fabulous day in the city.  The husband and I both gave it a 100%.  The rain might have been frustrating, but the temperature was perfect and we were comfortable all day.  It sucked that my leg hurts, but I managed to walk a TON.  We did exactly what we wanted to do and came home feeling invigorated.

Have you ever been to NYC?  Love it or is it not for you?

Achoo, Achoo!

I’m feeling sick so I’ll keep this quick.  (I’m a poet and I don’t even know it, ha!)  My s-i-l has cats that I’m super allergic to I’ve been sneezing my head off.  So I’ve got showering, packing, and sneezing 8bazillion times still on the agenda before bed.

This morning I made a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with skim milk.

I’m not gonna lie, Adam was getting some seriously whining about my inability to make a Green Monster.  Sometimes (like all day today) the food situation with my in-laws is frustrating because I eat so differently than they do.

When Adam and I went to gas up the car around noon I spotted a ‘make-your-own’ milkshake machine and squealed with glee.

I’m not sure why these are so exciting to me but they really are.  Adam and split a mint chocolate chip.

And then we came home for a real lunch.

Celery and carrots with a little bit of ranch,

part of a Cara Cara Orange,

and a turkey sandwich.

I also had a few of these throughout the afternoon.

My m-i-l made an adorable bunny cake –

But it was box cake with can icing and there was no way that was worth the trans fat ingestion.

Dinner was a Mexican affair.

Turkey nachos,

and chicken, peppers, and black bean quesadillas.

Adam and I were in charge of making the quesadillas but I only ended up eating half of one.  I did go back for nachos seconds though.

My b-i-l made a plate with nachos just for the two of us and I was in heaven.

My favorite part of dinner was my beverage though.  Diet cola with Strawberry Crush, hell yeah!

I ate way too much crap this weekend, but I know that that streak will be continued tomorrow because we have a foodie day planned……..in New York City!!!!!

Do y’all have any idea how excited I am to back to the city?!  Oh man!  We are getting there around 11 and staying until around 7pm.  It’s obviously not the trip we had planned originally, because our favorite thing to do in NYC is walk, but we wanted to go in spite of my injury.  Even a low-key day will be a lot of fun.

We have an 8+hour drive back to Buffalo and I have classes Tuesday afternoon so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post a recap.  I hope everyone else had a great weekend.

What is your favorite US city?

Eating Like I’m on Vacation

It’s been a good day of family fun.  Sadly I had a ton of school work to do so a lot of my time was spent with my nose buried in a book.  I managed to sneak in a few a few strength training exercises as well; I packed a resistance band for just that purpose.

For breakfast I arranged a little bowl.

4oz of 2% cottage cheese, medium sliced banana, Multigrain Cheerios.

And for lunch I roasted up a huge plate of veggies.

Broccoli and cauliflower.

I made some for my sister-in-law too; she’d never tried roasted veggies before and she ended up loving them.  I guess I’m influencing all sorts of people!

I dipped my hand into this two or three times as well!

We ended up going to an all you can eat Chinese buffet for dinner.  I’m not the biggest buffet fan and this one was seriously lacking in veggies but I made do.  I ge that people want to eat crap (and I ate my fair share of it), but I don’t understand having such a variety of food and not managing to squeeze in a single veggie!  I was glad I ate a produce-heavy lunch.

Plate 1 –

I ate all of the (not so good) green beans and half of the chicken.

Plate 2 = a bunch of fried stuff.  I’m not sure why the camera randomly ate this picture, I guess my Sony likes crab rangoon.

Plate 3 –

My favorite!  I was mmmning and yumming through this whole plate of fruit.

There were some tasty looking desserts but we planned to go to Rita’s after dinner.

I’ve been so excited about trying to find one of these because the menu is a lot like Jeramiah’s in Orlando and the husband totally came through and spotted one today.  I got a small gelati; mint chip italian ice and twist custard.

So good, I was basically swooning.

Everyone else is eyeing the board games but I have a ton more work to get through tomorrow so I think I’ll turn in soon.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

What’s your feeling on buffets?

Under the Influence

Hello from PA!  It was a loooong day in the car but we made it.  I’m more than ready for bed, and I have an actual topic to discuss, so I’ll keep the food recaps quick.

Breakfast this morning was a new kind of Green Monster.

For two (Adam and I) I blended 2cups frozen spinach, 1cup frozen strawberries, and 2cups skim milk.  They were ok, not even close to my regular GM love.

The reason I made the crappy new Green Monsters was because the husband tends to not like oj in smoothies, but was willing to give spinach smoothies a try.  Adam almost never eats breakfast, and doesn’t eat anywhere near enough servings of veggies, so if I could get him on the Green Monster band wagon it would be positive all around.  I know it seems like I eat a lot of crap (especially in comparison to the other healthy living bloggers) but in general I’ve been a good influence on the husband’s diet since we met.

  • He eats far less red meat now, maybe once a month or so.  He grew up in a more than once a day meat family.
  • He’s even gotten on board with the occasional vegetarian dinner.  And surprise – he loves tofu!
  • 90% of what I cook is healthy.
  • I always keep the house stocked with healthy snacks.
  • And even though he eats his own junk from time to time, he’s basically stopped eating any trans fat because of what I’ve told him about it.

Obviously as a medical student the husband has more health knowledge than the average American, but it feels really great to help someone I love make good choices.

For brunch (eaten at 9:30am?) I polished off the rest of the gumbo.

So fricking good, I can’t wait to share this recipe with y’all!

And when we got on the road we split a bag of Fizzy Skittles.

I am in love with the new nutritional panels I’ve been seeing on some products.  Obviously that blurb doesn’t tell the whole story (and there is complete info on the back) but I love being able to know calories at a glance.

By 7 we were starving for dinner.  When we pulled off Adam got giddy at the sight of this –

Eat n’ Park.  Meh.  I’m not big on diner food but he was very excited.  This is where the husband influences my choices (and not for the better!) I ended up ordering an Oreo Milkshake with my meal.

I always request skim milk when I order a milkshake.  I get no more enjoyment from a whole milk milkshake (in fact I much prefer skim) so it never hurts to ask.  Never be embarrassed to make healthy substitutions, even to a not-so-healthy order!

For dinner I ordered the pirogues.

I was starving but these were just not good.  I ate about 1/3 and then I stopped.  I know I’m not exactly the picture of good choices, but I do have one hard and fast rule – If it’s not good for me and I don’t like it I don’t eat it.  There are so many foods that I love and so many foods that are good for me, why eat something ho-hum just because it’s there?

You’ll never guess where we ended up stopping to get me the rest of my dinner –

Wegman’s salad bar!  I got lots of veggies and I loved them.  I’m not gonna lie, I picked all of the broccoli out of the container!

I also love these quad-containers, perfect portion control.  Thai style tofu and veggies,

General’s chicken,

and Paneer Mutter.

Yums!  I gave Adam a big bite of all three dishes and he loved them as well.

I was left perfectly satisfied by dinner, and probably should have just said no to pizza at the in-laws, but it just looked too tasty.

A weekend trip isn’t exactly a ‘vacation,’ tomorrow I’m going to try to eat a little less crap.  It’s bedtime in these parts, sweet dreams!

How have you influenced your significant other’s eating habits?  What healthy changes have you inspired (or been inspired by)?

Bags and Burst Bubbles

Hi all!  This needs to be quick or I’ll be late to class.  I mostly wanted to warn you guys that I’ll probably get my tests back today so don’t expect a chipper dinner post 😦

I ended up eating an entire bag of green beans of lunch.

Roasted with a bit of salt they are just so addictive!

I ate while watching another addiction; “Mercy,” so bad and yet so good!

And managed to get in a fabulous 20minute strength/stretch session.  Yays!  Even though I’m not at a gym, my mats still get grimy, so I pulled out this bag of wipes my mom got me.

Good smell + natural + clean up = triple duty.

I also just made my first fresh (as in not frozen) spinach Green Monster.

It was good, but I prefer the thicker consistency of my frozen spinach ones.  Sorry to all my readers who like me and want to think I’m cool – not to burst your bubble, but yes I totally matched my outfit to my smoothie!

Spring Has Sprung

Hi folks, I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend.  Is it spring in your neighborhood yet?

I couldn’t go on the nice long walk like I would like so I celebrated the start of spring via wardrobe today –

I’ve waited all winter to break out that headband 😉

Between Adam’s flu and my broken leg our grocery trip was long and harrowing.  We got the essentials though, and put them home in the fridge in time to head to the mall for an early dinner.  We stopped to get gas and I grabbed a coffee to tide over my hunger.

I tried a new trick to get tasty, healthy coffee.  2/3 snickerdoodle coffee (flavored beans) and 1/3 English toffee from the cappuccino machine (sweetened).  It made the perfect blend.

We can’t not go to Jack Astors.

I ordered the vegetable pad thai.

The sauce was nothing like pad thai, but there were tons of veggies (zucchini and carrots) so I was happy. 

I ate about half, most of the veggies and eggs, not a lot of the noodles (leftovers) –

And then Adam and I went to the movie theatre for Alice in Wonderland.  Carrol is one of my all-time favorite authors so I was so excited for this movie!  I was a little worried because I always prefer the books (and I did this time too) but overall I was pretty impressed.

Adam’s sickness means we are turning in early, which means I’ll see you all in the morning 🙂

Have you seen “Alice” yet?  Thoughts?