Read Head

by Emily

It was an interesting if not entirely productive morning. My computer had an incredibly annoying virus which I dealt with, but which took forever. I was freezing – in spite of the heat being on and my turtleneck – so I curled up on the couch with a comforter and a book. So cozy! I fell asleep for a bit and was woken up by UPS –

Yay! And then I finished my book! I have always loved to read, I devour books, but it’s been forever since I’ve been able to just curl up with one for hours. I read Madness, Marya Hornbacher’s (second) memoir. It was good; very sad, but interesting. I read her first memoir, Wasted, when I was in middle school and it seriously changed the way I thought about literature. Hornbacher is such a beautiful writer, her style is all off the place and full of vivid descriptions, it’s perfect for me.

The rest of the afternoon, unfortunately, was completely killed by a migraine 😦 I’ve grown out of them for the most part, and now they are pretty responsive to Ecedrin Migraine, but they still eat up a few hours. When Adam got home around 5 I realized that part of the problem was having not eaten since breakfast so we split a Granny Smith apple.

I spread my portion witha 100calorie pack of Justin’s Organic Honey Peanut Butter. I love pb on tart apples.

Our main fun for the evening was a trip to the grocery store so we made a weekly meal plan and off we went. I love doing errands with my husband so much!!! The grocery store is one of my favorite places, especially because they gave me several free samples today 🙂

Dinner was eaten in a strange series of courses, all of which were quite good. I was at the stove, so I ate most of them there, which was actually sort of cathartic. Btw, I was at the stove because I was making Adam a Wholly Wholesome Pumpkin Pie.

The husband is a crazy-face; he is obsessed with pumpkin (“punkin” he says) pie but won’t let me make it from scratch because apparently that would be gross?!

First dinner course, 2 celery stalks with 1t light chunky blue cheese dressing.

My huge package this afternoon came from Dr. McDougall’s. I had never heard of their soups before, but when they sent me a description and asked me if I wanted some samples I happy obliged. I tried veggie today.

The company was quite sweet, and sent me this pretty place setting from Crate & Barrel. So fall-ish!

I liked the nutritional stats on the soup, and almost never eat one portion when it comes to soup, so I ate the whole box.

It was quite good.

Third course, and the other reason I was at the stove, was bbq cabbage.

I didn’t measure anything but I’ll give you the basic steps/ingredients. Heat Smart Balance Light in a pan over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 head chopped napa cabbage. Cook for 2-3minutes before adding 1/2 – 1 cup of water and covering. After sufficient steaming time, douse with worchestire sauce, hot sauce, honey, ketchup, and apple cider vinegar. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 7-10 more minutes. Delish, it ended up being like I imagine Kim Chi would taste.

Finally, I ate 1.5 servings of Synder’s Buffalo Wing pretzels while Adam and I watched the new episode of Bones.

The perfect date evening!

It’s too bad I spent most of my day asleep, because now I have more to do this weekend, but I do feel well-rested. We have a lot planned for tomorrow, all of which I’m pretty excited for. Happy weekending everyone!

Who is your favorite author? As I mentioned, I have a reading obsession, but Hornbacher is definitely one of my favorites. I am also a big fan of C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Gregory Maguire, and Kurt Vonegut.

15Oct2009

Late Lab

by Emily

The longer I ate my lunch the more I loved it! I will definitely do without the squeeze cheese next time but everything else was perfection. I enjoyed my online tv watching as well. If you have not watched the new show “Modern Family” you need to; it’s comedy genius!

After lunch I had 1 serving of Halloween Dots for dessert.

Then I got started on cooking dinner. I made a chicken cacciatore recipe from this month’s Cooking Light.

But I actually didn’t eat until much later. As soon as the food was packed up I set off for campus. I didn’t do so hot on my test last week (83%) but lab went well! I always stay until the end of lab to work on calculations, which means I don’t leave until 9pm!

When I did finally get home it was time for dinner.

I ate a teeny plate because Adam and I split a chocolate mint milkshake.

Yes, it is 30* outside. Yes, I am 24 years old and eating ice-cream for dinner. The chicken was pretty good, Adam loved it.

I’ve got an early morning planned so I’ve got to get ready for bed. Sweet dreams!

Do you watch tv/movies while you eat or is that dangerous for you? I know studies always say not to eat in front of the tv but I love to. I think as long as you only portion out a reasonable amount of healthy food (rather than digging mindlessly from say a bag of potato chips) it’s fine to eat and veg. Plus, it’s tv, not open heart surgery – I’m able to notice when I’m full and push away my plate even if there’s food left.

11Oct2009

Tastes of Fall

by Emily

Another productive day, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the streak continues! Plus, I’ve full-force started eating “October food,” another trend I hope to continue 🙂 After my breakfast post I attempted to do a little work, but Adam and I realized we were way too distracting to each other at home,

so we packed up our stuff and went to a coffee shop to work!

All my diet soda talk in the last post got me craving one, so that’s what I had!

The husband got a fancy shmancy hot chocolate.

We were at The Spot, so you know I wanted a Mike’s Sandwich, but when I thought about all the food fun I had planned at home I decided to resist. We studied for 4hours and I got a huge chunk of Chemistry work done.

On the way home I had the husband drop me at the gym. It was not so fabulous. My foot still hurts and my calves were really really tight. I really need to talk to a professional about strength-building/stretching exercises for my calves, knees, and hips. In the end I did 2.83 miles on the treadmill, and tons of stretching, for 36minutes and 361 calories.

After my shower we closet swapped our summer stuff for winter duds. Folks, we need to go shopping. I have almost no winter wardrobe. In NYC I dressed inappropriately and just dealt with being cold and uncomfortable, but that is not going to fly here in Buffalo (I’ll die!). We scheduled in a big mall trip for next weekend – p.s. we budgeted for this already.

Then, the foodie fun began! I made my first pumpkin pie through a straw of the season.

1/2C 2C “>Stoneyfield Farms Lowfat Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, 1C pumpkin puree, 1T maple syrup, 1/2C skim milk, dash cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice.

So good!

While I was drinking “pie,” I started baking pie! I made a Maple Spice Pie from one of my favorite cookbooks, Pie, Pie, Pie: Easy Homemade Favorites, by John Phillip Carroll. I used a Wholly Wholesome Organic Whole Wheat Pie Shell.

Small blip, apparently you need maple syrup for a maple pie, who knew?!

After an emergency run to the store things were back on track. It had to set, so I started dinner before diving into dessert. This combo came (basically) from the September issue of Health (recipe here). Tofu and eggplant with cabbage over soba noodles.

I swapped tamari and worchestire (sp?) for miso and sesame seeds for sesame oil, but other than that I followed the recipe. It was wonderful, I loved the soba noodles and the texture of the tofu was great.

I had more pumpkin alongside dinner, Wolaver’s Organic Will Steven’s Pumpkin Ale.

And then finally it was time for dessert!

The pie was good, but super messy. The inside tasted like caramel apples to me!

I took a huge slice and actually made myself a bit sick 😦 Now it is time for bed, I’ve got to get my sleep if I want another productive day!

What fall foods have you enjoyed this year?

7Oct2009

Random and Randomer

by Emily

My title makes me think of “curious and curiouser” a line from Alice in Wonderland(one of my top 5 favorite books!). I am so excited for that movie to come out, I can’t wait to see Tim Burton’s spin on it. In general I’ve been super annoyed by all of the children’s books turned live-action movies (The Grinch, Cat in the Hat, etc; blech) but I have high hopes for this one. I am also excited for “Couples’ Retreat,” which comes out this weekend. I have a trip to the movies planned to celebrate my first Chem exam.

If breakfast/lunch were random, dinner was randomer. For full disclosure’s sake, I would like to mention that I’ve eaten 3-5 fruit gel candies without photographing today. Equally junky was the snack I bought for class; I usually don’t eat during class but I was super hungry when I got to campus –

I never buy Snyder’s pretzels because I have zero self-control with those delicious nuggets but this vending machine find had a slightly more reasonable 2servings per bag.

After class Caroline asked if I wanted to grab dinner and do some review. After wasting time all day it was the perfect opportunity to make up! Plus, we got Wegman’s salad bar which you know I love.

Steamed broccoli,

roasted brussels sprouts (nowhere near as good as the ones I make at home, *mental note to make them soon*),

and curried tofu.

All pretty yummy. I love that the curried tofu had raisins in it!

We got a lot done and I got home around 10. It ended up being a semi-sucessful day. My foot has been really hurting and favoring my other side has caused my right hip to hurt but I am hoping to make it to the gym for a run tomorrow. I have a doctor’s appointment this Friday which we put me out of commission for at least a few days so I don’t want to fall too far behind. I’m going to do some blog reading and then I need to hit the sack to rest up for tomorrow, night!

Do you like raisins in things? I love them, I put raisins in salad, cookies, where ever I can fit them.

29Sep2009

Pizza Party Part Deux

by Emily

I haven’t gotten much work done but the rain was the perfect atmosphere for watching some “tv.” In the hours after breakfast I was starving so I ate a Cookie Dough Balance Bar.

These are seriously the best things on Earth!

Lunch was inspired by leftover pizza ingredients and these guys.

I was excited about these Boca Spicy Chik’n Meatless Patties, but a little concerned by this warning –

I read through all the ingredients and have no idea what this is about. Does anyone else know? I combined spice + pizza for one super sandwich.

I rolled a patty in a Flat Out with ~2T each pizza sauce, shredded carrots, 2% colby jack cheese, and Anchor Bar Buffalo Sauce.

I ate some leftover peppers from last night alongside.

Quite a good lunch.

Dessert was pretty good too.

Purely Decadent Non-Dairy Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream with Crofter’s Superfruit North America Spread.

The skies are looking a little less foreboding so I might make it to the gym today after all. My other focus of the day is chemistry. See you for dinner.

For Funsies – What is your favorite animal? In no particular order, I love duckbilled platypuses, spiny echidnas, otters, and pigs.

28Sep2009

Rain Check

by Emily

The intense torrential downpour all day mucked up my plans, but I did find some fun substitutes! I had so many crazy dreams last night that I ended up pressing snooze on the alarm this morning until after 9. I ate a Cashew Almond Boomi Bar on the way to volunteering today.

I liked the flavorbut I was running late so I only ate 3/4 of it.

For lunch at the hospital I used my voucher to get a sandwich from the cafeteria.

Chicken salad in a jalopeno wrap with spring mix lettuce, bell peppers, banana peppers, sundried tomato and pesto sauce. I ate 85% or so.

Adam had the day off from school (Yom Kippur) so he picked me up at the hospital to save me from the rain. I had planned on going to the gym but once I saw the sky it didn’t take much convincing to get me to see a movie with him! We went to a 3o’clock showing of “Surrogates,” which we both enjoyed. We hit up Dairy Queen at the mall.

I ordered a small oreo cookie dough blizzard.

I was very glad that Adam drove me to class because the rain was so bad you could barely see. We ended up taking the (slow) main road home instead of the highway because it was so bad.

When we got home we made the perfect rainy day dinner – pizza! I would say it was super veggie, but by the time the husband got done with it it was super cheesey!

On a store bought crust we piled

12oz pizza sauce
2C reduced fat mozzarella cheese
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 chopped yellow bell pepper
3/4pint mushrooms
1/2 sliced yellow onion

We precooked the veggies for 15minutes at 475* before we put them on the pizza. Look at how sweet our pizza sauce was –

It was very tasty, but we definitely bought it because I fell in love with the can!

After it came out of the oven I ate 1/4 of the finished product.

Yums. We watched the new episode of “Bones” while we ate and towards the end I had a half serving of Lindt Sea Salt Dark Chocolate.

Yums x2.

I’m disappointed that the gym didn’t happen because I have to go back to the doctor on Thursday, but such is life. I always appreciate hang out time with the husband. Have a great night everybody!

What do you like to put on pizza? My favorite toppings are green olives and broccoli. I also really like cheeseless pesto pizza.

23Sep2009

Crossing My Fingers and Toes

by Emily

I actually got in bed before 10pm last night, but when we wake up 8bazillion times a night you kind of are tired no matter when you go to bed! I wouldn’t have mattered when I woke up today though, I let my sadness over my foot kind of take over my whole day. Not good, Emily, not good.

For breakfast I made 0% Fage with a heaping teaspoon TJ’s Sun Butter.

And lunch made tasty tasty use of leftovers (and made leftovers for tomorrow!).

I chopped up cooked lasagna noodles and stir fried them with broccoli, carrots, seitan, evoo, soy sauce, and chipotle oil. It was super tasty, but I don’t think I like seitan as much as I once did. I used this package from West Soy, and it just tasted a little off.

All in all the plate was still pretty good though.

Adam came home early from school (a class was canceled because of a big test this week) and we watched “Boogeyman” together. It was a strange movie, but the eating of 4squares of this greatly upped my enjoyment.

I got to school in time to print off class notes and purchase a stuffed buffalo for my niece. We are visiting Adam’s brother in Ohio this weekend. I also gave Jamba Juice a second chance.

Much better. When I got home from class I supplemented “dinner” with these pretzels.

Tomorrow is a big day, I have my first lab, my first quiz, and hopefully my first day back at the gym. Wish me luck!

What are you crossing your fingers for this week?

20Sep2009

Peppers and Pie

by Emily

My biggest accomplishment this afternoon was getting rid of my headache, but that’s actually a pretty big accomplishment in my book! I finished GhostWorld and I can officially say I’m not a fan 😦

After crappy movie hour I finally did my kitchen to-do’s. I pre-made pasta for lunches this week, made dinner, and…..I made a pie!

Tyler Pie to be exact. I can’t give you the recipe, but it is from Pie, Pie, Pie; Easy Homemade Favorites by John Phillip Carroll. I’ve made things from this book throughout the years and I highly recommend it. Here is the description he gives in the book –

Incredible as it sounds, in the past, it was not uncommon to christen foods, particularly desserts, after political figures. Named for the 10th president of the United States, John Tyler of Virginia, this pie has its heritage in the South. Though the ingredients are simple, the pie has a caramel-like flavor and a smooth texture that combine to give it a soothing quality. It is a suitable for breakfast as it is after a good meal.

More on that later though, dinner was a success! I pulled the recipe completely from my head and it ended up being great 🙂

Stuffed Peppers, serves 4

5oz ww penne pasta
1C chopped broccoli
1T evoo
8oz 99% lean ground turkey
1/2C marinara sauce
4oz log goat cheese
4 peppers, any color (we used red, yellow, and orange)
1/4 shredded cheese (we used 2% cheddar)

Cook pasta, following box directions. In the last 3-5minutes of cooking stir in broccoli. Drain and set aside.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 475*. Cut the tops off of the peppers. Using a spoon, scoop out the pith and seeds, careful not to break the bottoms of the peppers.
Put pot back on stove, turn heat down to medium and heat evoo. Add turkey meat and cook for 2-3minutes. Pour in marinara sauce and finish cooking meat through. Remove from heat.
Add pasta and broccoli back to pot, along with goat cheese, and stir to mix.
Spoon pasta into peppers. Split cheese ontop of the peppers. Place peppers on a foiled cookie sheet.
Bake for 15minutes.

Notes on the recipe –

* Think anti-Sir-Mix-A lot with the peppers, get ones with flat bottoms (i.e. they will stand alone)

*I did not do this, but I highly recommend preheating the peppers for 5-10minutes

* Each serving has ~400calories

Our peppers were pretty small so I ate some filling on the side.

I took too much though, I ended up leaving most of the extra filling. I needed room in my belly for pie!

It was pretty good, it had a nice eggy taste to it. I got some free coupons for Wholly Wholesome products so I used one of their pie crusts.

We watched “The Open Window” while we ate, which was also a strange movie. And now it is late, and bedtime. Nighty night!

Do you bake?

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: veggies

Read Head

Late Lab

Tastes of Fall

Random and Randomer

Pizza Party Part Deux

Rain Check

Crossing My Fingers and Toes

Peppers and Pie