Tag Archives: veggies

Unhappy Owl

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It is 2o’clock in the morning, holy frick holy frick holy frick!  Let me just add that I am not even caught up with all my work yet.  I am at least, completely finished with the assignment that is due tomorrow (I got 102.2%, woot).  Clearly, this will be a speedy post; I took a few walks, did something very exciting I will mention tomorrow, etc. but I will focus just on eats.

Snack = Justin’s Nut Butter Honey PB packet, squeezed straight into my mouth.

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Justin’s was so sweet to send me a box of samples, and I will be doing a full review tomorrow.

Lunch = tried some new veggies, i.e. turnips, parsnips, okra.

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Okra is actually not new to me perse, but I kept it whole this time.  Oven roasted.

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I ate all the okra and put 1/3 of the rest into the fridge for tomorrow.  My tasty dipping sauce was – buffalo wing sauce, ketchup, maple syrup, chipotle tabasco.

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Dinner takes forever = 5 salt water taffies.

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Actual dinner =

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Orange Tofu from Eat, Drink, and Be Veganby Dreena Burton.  It was good, but I had to sub some ingredients and I imagine it could be better.

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Oven roasted white asparagus.

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Broccoli, keeping with the citrus theme I sauted chopped broccoli and shalots in some clementine olive oil.

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Yums.

Studying hurts my brain snack = packet of Rolos.

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Nighty night!  I probably will skip the breakfast post tomorrow, but will be back after volunteering at 2.

What’s the latest work usually keeps you up?  When I was a teacher I would often sleep 2-3hours a night and still be behind!  Nyc’s standards from English teachers were out of control.

Errands to Ecstasy

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 I found time for a mid-day post!  We’ve been busy, but having fun.  I ❤ errand Saturday with my husband.  We got up around 8:20 and got straight to work; there’s been a lot of movement today.  After loading up the car with stuff for Goodwill (including a heavy mattress that gave me an arm work out) we headed out to our car inspection.  The car took about an hour so Adam and I walked to the post office and back while we waited.  Afterwards we dropped off our donations.  During the drive I ate this Balance Bar I found at Target yesterday for 78cents.

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Gah, too good!  I ate the cookie dough flavor and it was literally like cookie dough.  I try not to eat them that often because they have much more saturated fat (3-4g) than I prefer, but they are a really great occasional treat.  I gave Adam a bite and he fell in love too.

Next we took our coupons to Wegmans.

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I’m sure you’re all shocked that Adam insisted on salad bar again 🙂

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I knew I would eat some snacky food tonight at the party so I skipped my usual buffet philosophy (90/10 healthy food to splurges) and went all healthy.  I had Bourbon grilled chicken, Asian baked tofu, and steamed veggies (that is a small container).

We got a ton at the grocery store (I got another arm workout carrying purchases up the stairs) and then came home to do some cleaning.  I stopped to paint my toenails and figured drying time was a good time for dessert.  I don’t know if you guys remember my super sample sundae?  Forget that.  This is the new hottness –

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Purely Decadent Dairy Free Coconut and Crofter’s Asia Superfruit Spread.  Ridiculous.

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This is hands-down my favorite ice-creamand the jam addition was out of this world.  I was in ecstasy.

We have a few more to-do’s this afternoon, and then tonight people are coming over for wine/cheese.  I’ll do a recap but I’m not sure how many pictures I’ll take.  See you later for some drogging!

  1. Do you use coupons when you food shop?  I don’t comparison shop or anything like that, but I do clip coupons.  I keep them in a mini file folder, organized by category and expiration date.
  2. Do you bring your own bags to the grocery store?  I sometimes slip, but 90% of the time we bring cloth bags from home.  It’s good for the environment, and I find it way easier to carry heavy bags over my shoulder.
  3. What was your most exciting grocery purchase this week?  We got some organic, dairy free chocolate syrup with a bear on the front that I am pretty eager to open up!

Don’t Cry Over Chopped Onions

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Wow, today has somehow been packed!  We slept in until 9:30 or so, due to a late night last night, and then got out and had husband/wife time.  I’ve missed Adam now that he is in school full-time!  When we were finally ready to take off our pjs we headed out for errands -can recycling, change making, grocery shopping – check.

Of course, Adam was able to convince me to get Wegman’s salad bar!

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I got tofu curried salad, with red and green peppers, nuts, and raisins

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and a small portion of chicken and broccoli, heavy on the broccoli.

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Adam and I split a Black Forest Berry Honest Tea to drink.

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We tried to shop quickly, but I got distracted by my hysterical laughter over this –

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🙂  I am super excited to be done with volunteering next week so I can buy fun veggies to make for lunches at home.

After we finished the errands Adam played Devil’s advocate again and convinced me to go watch “Inglorious Basterds.”  I was super hungry by the time we got to the theatre and I ate 90% of a thing of pretzel bites.

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When we got home Adam took a nap and it got later and later.  Suddenly it was 8:30 and we had tonsof baking to do.  For dinner we made a Rachael Ray recipe, Lazy Chicken.  It got majorly modified, for some good reasons – I wanted to use my farmers’ market tomatoes,

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and some bad reasons – this was our potato,

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so I decided it ended up being my own recipe. 

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Here is a link.  I had only a small plate.

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It was good, but I was saving my self for –

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homemade french onion dip!  The recipe was from Delicious Dips by Diane Morgan so I can’t post it, but I highly recommend buying the book.  We shared a small bowl with toasted (homemade) sourdough bread.

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Yums.

We are watching “My So-Called Life” and snuggling and then it’s off to bed.  See you Sunday.

What have you made from scratch recently (ever)?

Epic Fail?

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It took me so long to get going this morning (food blogs? guilty!) that I was actually hungry before I left.  I dealt with it by eating a hunk of sourdough flatbread.

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I don’t care what it was supposed to be like, this was good!  I’m going to try to do it right next week, but I will greatly enjoy eating this with the dip I’m planning on making tomorrow.

For actual lunch I ordered a sandwich from the coffee shop below my apartment where I went to study.

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It came with three bean salad, which I disliked and only took one bite of, but the sandwich I adored.

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Roasted eggplant with hot sauce and blue cheese on a whole wheat bun.  This is a combo I will be recreating!

I studied for about 1.5hours before I realized I was too distracted and should go home.  On the way out I bought a cupcake.  Homemade chocolate cupcake with real strawberry icing, who in their right mind would pass that by?  It was pretty delish, but I left a fair amount of base, because I don’t really like cake (which makes it even stranger that I keep ordering cupcakes!)

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It’s possible my attitude of whimsy seeped into the rest of my day and I watched Bones reruns instead of studying…..

Around 4 I got gussied and headed out to meet Adam and another med school event, at Steer, this one to celebrate the first full week of school.  I drank a Rolling Rock,

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and a had a small plate of veggies and pizza.

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We stayed ’till around 7:30 then ran home so Adam could get a sandwich before we went to our next meet-up.  I grabbed a PB Gnu bar to eat in the car.

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But was very underwhelmed and ended up giving half of it to Adam.

We got to Pearl Street Brewery around 8:30 where we had a very fun meet-up.

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Sarah is in town with one of her best friends because her friend is getting married and her sister who lives in Buffalo is making the wedding cake.  Confused?  Everyone was really nice and funny and it was great getting to catch up with Sarah.

I ordered an Oatmeal Irish Stout,

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but everyone else was drinking something called “The Widow Maker.”

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For eats I got an Fresh Apple and Pear Salad.

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Apples and pears sauteed in rum and brown sugar served over mixed greens and topped with toasted pecans and fresh goat cheese; with brown sugar rum vinaigrette.

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It was frickin fabulous!  I ate about 3/4 of it and only didn’t take the rest home because I knew it’d get soggy.  P.S. That brown rectangle is one of Sarah’s portabella mushrooms cooked in beer.

A med school friend came by and met us so after dinner we stayed for a game of pool, and ended up leaving around 11:30.  And now it is way too late and time for bed, toodles!

To Market

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What a day!  Saturday is only half over and I am grinning from ear to ear  🙂

Most of our agenda so far has been shopping.  We started at the farmers’ market.

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I loved getting to explore a new farmers’ market, and this isn’t even the only one in town!  There was tons of fresh produce and we bought some great veggies to use this week.  The produce there is definitelymore expensive than at the grocery store, but I think it’s worth it.  One, when you consider that the veggies are basically organic it doesn’t seem as expensive.  Two, in addition to getting food for your family you are helping the famers to put food on their tables; these markets help to support small local businesses.

Next we went to Target for some cleaning supplies and cards.  I got handed a free sample of Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters so I ate them in the car.

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The taste was ok, but it would have been a bazillion times better if made by hand, or at least Lara Bar style.

Our final stop was food shopping at Wegmans.  Adam was starving (it was after 1:30) so we decided to do lunch at the salad bar.

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Yums!  All this was less than $6.  I got blanched cauliflower and curry cauliflower,

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General Tso’s Tofu and steamed veggies,

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and one piece of sesame chicken.

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My plan of attack with buffet situations is to do 90/10 healthy food to splurge.  I also like to stick to a majority of veggies.  I am especially pleased with Wegman’s salad bar because they post the calories for most items.  For example – I wasn’t going to get the tofu because I figured it was deep fried, but then I saw that it was 210calories for 1cup.

After we got home and unloaded all of our purchases I made my best snack ever.  This –

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equals perfection.

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  • Stoneyfield Fat Free Plain Yogurt
  • 1/3 a Jonasgold apple
  • sprinkle of cinnamon
  • crumbled Cinnabon Breakfast Bar [yes mom, this was from the box I bought you]

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We finished most of our fun, now I have to tackle our practical to do’s.  See you for dinner.

What is your plan of attack at buffets? 

Do you shop at farmers’ markets?

Am I Awake?

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Thanks so much for all the half marathon support guys!  I am very excited and nervous but since I’m not starting training until September I am trying not to obsess about it until then 🙂

I was running too late to post this morning but I did manage to make breakfast for myself and the hubby.  Just barely though, my dreams have been throwing me off!  All this week I’ve been having very realistic dreams that then confuse me when I wake up.  Today I dreamed 3 times in a a row (in such realistic detail that it was like watching freakin Food Network) that I was cooking eggs; I ended up oversleeping.  And then when I got up I made eggs.

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For 2 servings I used 4whites and 1 whole egg, 1t evoo, and ~2/3C chopped broccoli.  I was proud of myself for using leftovers (broccoli from our AnTEAoxident pasta and egg whites from our homemade ice cream) but I went wrong somewhere because I barely made any.  I ended up giving part of my (small) portion to Adam so he had enough to eat.

I got to the hospital for volunteering early so I got a frozen coffee to make up for the eggs.

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This wasn’t the healthiest of choices (although it sort of was, which was disappointing for a hospital cafe) but I was majorly craving frozen coffee and it hit the spot.

Today was my first day on my actual placement for the next three weeks of volunteering – dialysis.  I learned a few interesting things but the ward was really slow today so there wasn’t much of me to do.  I hope I’m not having to stand around as much tomorrow.

For lunch I used my voucher to get a slice of white pizza with black olives.

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Delish!  The only way it could have tasted better is if the olives were green, which I’ve discovered is the best pizza topping ever.

When I got home I realized another positive to having volunteering being my only responsibility for the next few weeks: this gets to be my uniform once I get home at 2:30 –

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Fun fact – I was wearing these pajama pants (which actually used to belong to Adam) on Christmas morning when Adam proposed to me!

On the agenda for this evening is a short run, a super low-key dinner, and a fun project.  Adam has another “first week” event tonight so I’ll be on my own.  See ya later alligators!

Have you ever volunteered?  What did you do?  I volunteered at a hospital in Brooklyn last year and in high school I did most of my 40required hours at the animal shelter.

Excited!

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First things first, my exciting news – one of my best friends and I just registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon in March!  I am super excited but very nervous.  I am sure you will hear lots lots more about it in the upcoming months, especially once I start my training in September.

My parents had lots of excitment for us at the post office –

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They sent magazines, books, bath products, and a huge stack of cookbooks I’ve stored at home for the last few years.

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That isn’t even all of them, some didn’t make the cut!

They also mailed the two adorable vases I bought an Anthropologie years before I had anywhere to put them.

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Now they are right at home on my cookbook shelf 🙂

Adam and I spent some time talking about his first day and looking over his schedule and then we got started on dinner.  We made a recipe from the March issue of Fitness in under 30minutes!  I’ll post the recipe below but just to warn you, I’m not so big on measuring – I used way less cilantro and peanuts than called for, and more chicken because the husband scoffed at the suggested portion.  Also, where it called for sesame oil and red pepper I used 1t of the chipotle oil* my mom sent instead.

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Here was my portion –

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It was pretty darn delicious.

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Cilantro Chicken with Peanuts, serves 2, from the March ’09 issue of Fitness

  • 8oz skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into strips
  • 1t cooking oil
  • 2t reduced sodium soy sauce
  • 1t rice vinegar
  • 1/2t roasted sesame oil
  • 1/4t crushed red pepper flakes
  • 3/4C fresh cilantro leaves
  • 2C Chinese cabbage, finely shredded
  • 2T dry roasted peanuts
  1. In a medium nonstick skillet, cook chicken over medium-high heat 3-4minutes, or until chicken is tender and no longer pink.
  2. Add soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and pepper.  Stir and cook 1 more minute.
  3. Remove from heat.  Stir in cilantro.
  4. To serve, spoon mixture over cabbage and sprinkle on peanuts.

If you follow the recipe the nutritional stats per serving are: 231calories, 30g protein, 6g carbohydrates, 10g fat (2g saturated), 4g fiber.

After dinner I ate a serving of Lindt mini truffles (180calories for 3, in fantastmic flavors like cappuccino, caramel, and hazelnut) before I got ready to go out.

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Adam had a first day of medical school mixer at a bar nearish our apartment.  I wore my new perfume – how cute is that packaging?

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And my new favorite shirt.

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I met a lot of neat people, it seems like he has a pretty great class.  We stayed until almost 10 playing pool and chatting.  I drank this x2 –

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The bar made its own microbrews, I had a Blueberry Blonde Ale and an Irish Oat Stout.

My goal is bedtime by 11 again, especially because I’m hoping to get up and cook Adam breakfast tomorrow.  Sweet dreams all!

Have you ever run any sort of race?  How did it go?

pasTa

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I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love!  If I could run off with a smoothie without hurting Adam’s feelings I would, but more on that later…

Our errands went ok, we have to go back to the post office tomorrow but we dropped off our donations at Goodwill and got the things we needed at Target.  I also got majorly suckered into some candy –

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York Patties used to be my favorite candies and an ad in a magazine at Adam’s doctor’s office totally got me craving one – way to go former communication majors!  I also ate some of the husband’s mini truffles (x3).

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For dinner we made AnTEAoxidant Pasta (my name, recipe courtesy of an old Self magazine).  So good!

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I had my portion with a big glass of iced h2o.

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AnTEAoxident Pasta, serves 4  (I made some changes to the recipe, mostly to make it lower fat and to accommodate our lame pantry, so I’m posting the changed recipe below)

  • 6 green tea bags
  • 2.5C dry ww penne
  • 2C chopped broccoli
  • 2C chopped kale leaves
  • 1 14.5oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 3/4C fat free ricotta
  • 4t evoo
  • 1T balsamic vinegar
  • 1T chopped garlic
  • salt and pepper to taste

>Bring 6C of water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Add tea bags; turn off heat and let steep for 5minutes.  Discard tea bags and bring back to a boil.  Add pasta and cook according to package directions.  Add in broccoli and kale in the last three minutes of cooking.

>Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine tomatoes, ricotta, oil, vinegar and garlic; mix well.  Drain pasta and cooked vegetables; add to bowl and toss well.

It was good, but nothing on this Earth is as good as this smoothie –

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  • 1small banana
  • 1C Goya frozen soursop pulp
  • 3/4C So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk

Holy frick it is good! 

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Soursop is so good, it is my favorite childhood taste memory.  Legend has it that soursop makes you sleepy which is the idea tonight.  We are watching more “My So-Called Life” and then I am trying to get to bed by 10.

What is your favorite childhood taste memory?  Mine is soursop juice and baked macaroni and cheese from the old grocery store back home.  When I went out shopping with my parents around lunch time my dad would buy it for me and I would eat it with my fingers in the car!