Weekly Wrap-Up; Thanksgiving

by Emily

I hope all of my American readers had a great Thanksgiving! Among many other things, I am thankful for you guys. My holiday (and Wednesday) included –

Lots of Starbucks.

That was a Joy tea with skim milk, but not to worry, coffee was consumed both before and after.

On Wednesday we had lunch at a diner near the hotel.

My veggie frittata was giant. No one else has access to a fridge and the amount of leftovers Adam has accumulated is insane.

That night everyone came over to our place to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah {and drink Rumchata!}.

The dog was loved by all. My family always gives the best gifts…they are much cooler than I am! Including awesome pumpkin spice brittle that my cousin brought from Cville.

We had a great Italian meal that night but the lighting made pictures impossible.

You know I got photos of Turkey Day. Sort of. My dad’s Long Island cousin hosted us for an amazing meal. Appetizers.

My uncle Brian makes the best latkes ever.

I had a coke with single-barrel Cruzan from home and a caramel apple martini that was ridiculous good.

My dinner plate had cranberry, turkey with gravy, peas, green beans, and sweet potato casserole. For dessert I chose peanut butter smores bars that I brought and pecan and apple crumble pies. With Kaula whipped cream! I took pictures of all that, but have none to blog. ← blame the husband, who touches things that don’t belong to him.

What’s your favorite pie on Thanksgiving?

15Nov2013

Weekly Wrap-Up; How Is It Mid-November?!

by Emily

I keep thinking “I can’t believe it’s October!” but actually we are in the middle of November. This year is flying!

This week makes another wrap-up that is pretty light on content/photos. We are in the middle of yet another big life change and I’ve been all over the place. All over the place, figuratively speaking. Literally I’ve been in the apartment. On the couch. Eating. Have I mentioned that none of my pants fit?

Here’s some of what I’ve been eating (and eating, and eating)…

I discovered that my leftover salted caramel cream cheese macaron filling makes a pretty awesome fruit dip.

I even gave it its own recipe page.

With green apple.

And since there was clearly more dip than apple, I also dunked in some TJ everything crackers.

So good. There was a lot of this snack this week. Another day I topped the caramel with a dollop of my cinnamon maple pecan butter.

Spoonful by spoonful, the pecan butter container is getting pretty empty!

I loved this chocolate raspberry breakfast.

TJ European Style Low-fat Chocolate Yogurt topped with fresh raspberries, a scoop of Cascadian Farm Dark Chocolate Almond Granola and a spoonful of cinnamon maple pecan butter.

And cold (we were out of ice) coffee with skim milk on the side.

I planned on using SCM in my coffee but it exploded everywhere when I heated it in the microwave. Just as well because the chocolate yogurt was pretty sweet. I was impressed with the yogurt, I’ll have to check out some other varieties of their European style.

I’m going through some of my old recipes to reshoot the photos, and this week I made my pesto pasta casserole.

That picture’s not too great though, is it? And I used a bottle of pesto from Trader Joe’s that we both hated and it basically ruined the dish. Boo. But on the positive side, I think this was the very first TJ product that we didn’t love.

Another old (old blog!) favorite, turkey cheese crisps.

Classed up with crumbled blue cheese and a drizzle of honey when they came out of the oven.

The honey was sent to me from Golden Blossom Honey. {This product was sent to me free of charge. I was not provided further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.}

The GBH is a 100% American-made product with a signature patented blend composed of extra-white clover, sage buckwheat, and orange blossom.

My blue cheese and honey crisps were definitely a better dish than the original. The honey earned two thumbs up from me; the flavor was unique, but not savory the way I find some orange blossom honeys to be.

Our fridge is very bare, and I finally ate the frozen meal I bought the day we moved in, a Kashi Mayan Harvest Bake. Plantains, roasted sweet potato, black beans and kale with a spicy ancho sauce served over 7 Whole Grains & Sesame Pilaf, amaranth and polenta topped with a pumpkin seed garnish.

This is on my top-5 list for frozen entrees, both flavor and texture are great. Not quite large enough for dinner for me though. I planned on eating it with this truebar,

but it was disgusting so instead I ate a slice of seedy bread with Smart Balance Light and smoked gouda.

Much better! Though I was still feeling snacky after dinner and ended up eating a bag of Smart Fries as well.

I love those. I need to get to a 7-11 asap so I can buy more.

One night we got take-out from Jessie’s.

My fries with blue cheese for dipping were the best part, but my sandwich was pretty good too.

They have a fun group of Turkey Day inspired specials right now! My sandwich was turkey with stuffing and cranberry dressing on top. I want to go get the salad special soon, it has cornbread stuffing croutons.

The best sandwich of the week was one I made myself.

A slice of TJ seedy bread (one cut in half since this bread is much larger than the kinds I usually eat) with Applegate Farms smoked turkey, cream cheese, blue cheese, grape Crofter’s, and banana peppers.

So many good flavors. Having banana peppers in the house for sandwiches has been fun.

Number 1 food of the week?

Lavender and Salted Caramel Macarons. Obviously.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

26Mar2013

Two Meals At One

by Emily

Our last day in Charleston was our best day yet! Technically we’ve got tomorrow morning as well, but we head for the airport before 6 am so I don’t have high expectations. It was our best day of vacation, but I can’t give this post the love it deserves because I still have to pack! Keeping it quick…

Workout – 25 minutes on the stationary bike.

Breakfast – Virginia’s on King.

My plate.

2 sunny side up eggs.

Hash browns.

Grits.

Homemade biscuit (with butter and jam).

I basically licked my plate clean!

Fun 1 – Middleton Place.

Fun 2 – A stop at Sonic for a big Coke Zero with strawberries.

Fun 3 – We explored some more downtown and stopped at a coffee shop to warm up. While we were hanging out we just might have designed some Easter eggs.

Dinner – Breakfast was so good that we headed back to Virginia’s for a 2nd meal! Our instincts weren’t wrong, they brought us tasty cornbread (studded with broccoli!) with butter.

We also shared an order of pimento cheese with flat bread.

I went full-on Southern for my final meal.

Fried catfish.

Sweet potato fries.

And baked mac and cheese.

When in Rome. Everyone shared bites and agreed that my plate was amazing.

See you in Buffalo!

16Feb2013

Kool And The Gang

by Emily

Q: Do you know what these two things have in common?

A: I used the Kool Aid to (re)dye my hair!

I never captured it in a photo, but over the last week or so I lost 90% of my purple and was left with a lot of white/grey streaks. Since I don’t have an appointment to go back to brown for another two weeks, this wasn’t exactly a good thing. So last night the husband helped me sit with my head in a bowl of concentrated Kool Aid.

It was windy today!

I’ve still got some white but overall it looks much better. We’ll have to see how long the color lasts. I used to dye my highlights with Kool Aid in high school and I remember getting at least a couple of weeks out of it.

The hair photos were taken on my way to work. I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather; I had a fever and I was super achy all over. Adam fed me an aspirin and I stayed in bed until the last possible second. I’m feeling much better now {knock on wood}. And thankfully I was only working a partial shift.

I skipped breakfast for bed and was very excited about food when I got home this afternoon.

1/3 cup of Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola with Naked Vanilla Oat Milk and tons of chopped dapple plum and nectarine.

Plus lots of tea. A cup of Revolution Tea Lavender Earl Grey,

and a cup of chai with 1 tsp honey an hour or so later.

I carried the lavender theme over to my snack as well.

My mom got these floral candies from a student whose parents are from Japan.

My dad says they all taste like peach, but I swear the ones I tried had subtle differences.

We spent a long-ish time on errands this evening and I got a small plate of hot bar to keep from getting too cranky.

Maple cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes plus sautéed veggies and 3 pieces of General Tso tofu. It’s been ages since we’ve roasted sweet potato fries and we definitely need to make them again soon.

Dinner didn’t take very long to prepare once we got home, but it sure was good.

I had 1.5 servings of Wegman’s Don’t Be a Chicken Meatless Nuggets dipped in honey.

They were great, far more enjoyable than I ever find chicken nuggets to be.

I made use a hot spinach salad for our veggie component.

(recipe to follow) We loved it. The spinach was super creamy and there was such a good mix of textures.

Dinner didn’t really fill me up though, and I ate some Smart Fries while I wrote this post.

Much better.

Hot Spinach Salad, serves 2

1 Tbsp Earth Balance vegan butter
1 pint white mushrooms, roughly chopped
2 pinches salt
3 heaping cups raw baby spinach
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup smoked almonds
1 Tbsp evoo
2 heaping Tbsp vegan sour cream

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown mushrooms with butter and salt.
Add spinach to mushrooms, tossing until greens are completely wilted.
Add remaining ingredients to pan and cook 1 more minute, stirring regularly.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Have you ever dyed your hair with Kool Aid?

30Nov2012

The Best Thing Ever

by Emily

Howdy! It ~~was bedtime hours ago~~ is bedtime but I’m bubbling over with good cheer so I wanted to blog. Spread the love and all that.

Note 1 relates to note 2. Note 1 – Please ignore my crazy hair and old lady scarf and focus in on how fabulous my giant puffy sleeves are.

Love them! I bought this top back in my teacher days and it always made me feel like a professional city lady.

Note 2 – I got to Google Video Chat with Adam tonight and it was the best thing ever.

My husband is the most handsome man on the planet! And me…. well, I’ve got my great sleeves.

Adam has been/will be traveling a lot for interview this year and suggesting that we use the video chat today is the smartest thing he’s ever done. I can’t even tell you how good it was to see and hear him while we said goodnight. And this best thing ever is actually a silver lining on what seemed like a terrible situation. You see, yesterday Adam broke his cell phone. And if he’d had his phone with him on his trip today we wouldn’t have been on Google Chat at all. The money and time we are going to lose fixing it and the hassle of Adam having to navigate a new city tomorrow sans phone all pale in comparison to how wonderful it was to video chat this evening. <–silver lining

Don’t get me wrong, all of the travel has been/will be hard. A lot of his interview dates are right on top of one another and they make our busy schedule even more hectic. For example – he got to the apartment at 2am this morning and was heading to the airport by 6am. This meant I got 3 hours of sleep last night. Ugh.

It was a double pizza day. Making a smoothie meant getting out of bed five minutes earlier so instead I breakfasted on the cheese slice Adam brought me from our favorite pizza place in Brooklyn.

Amazing and also a bit sickening.

Clinic went well today, even though I was tired. In the morning I partnered with another student to chart on a tube feed and in the afternoon I shadowed a RD on the renal transplant floor.

Lunch was a mix of food from home and $2 spent at the salad bar with our great nutrition department discount. A ‘Thanksgiving leftovers’ sandwich of sliced turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and cream cheese on a Sandwich Thin.

Plus Food Should Taste Good Sweet Potato Chips.

And salad bar with cherry tomato, cucumber, carrot, red onion, and honey mustard dressing.

I always have to really talk myself into salad at home but when I’m out and about it tastes so good!

Dinner was round two of pizza since I was stuck on campus working on a group project.

A buffalo chicken slice that was nowhere near as good as Zetti’s. And I dropped a greasy piece of chicken on my nice pants. I clearly should have gone with another salad instead!

Finally, I ate 2 oz of chocolate covered kettle corn nuts while I puttered around the house this evening.

They are good, but not as good as they were inside cookies.

How do you stay close to your loved ones when you are physically far away?

20Nov2012

It’s December, Apparently

by Emily

Don’t worry, it’s not time to change your calendars; it’s only December in Emily Land. You see, the other the day at the store I just couldn’t wait.

And today I did something really crazy.

I know that looks more mushy than crazy, but those overnight oats are made with So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog! Nog in November? Who am I?!

My breakfast was so good it was worth breaking holiday timelines. 1/3 cup raw oats, 2/3 cup vegan nog, and 1 Tbsp chia seeds sat overnight. This morning I topped it off with a sliced banana, nutmeg, and a little more nog. Dee-lish-us!

Lunch was more on season with a Thanksgiving classic.

I made cranberry sauce from scratch yesterday! I used this recipe and it came out great. Today I ate a bowl with sweet and salty peanuts.

Plus the rest of my peanut butter rice krispie treat from the other day. {where the heck did this picture go?!} Maybe a little too much sugar for lunch? I was buzzing at work.

Speaking of work, I came home from my shift with a present for Adam and myself.

I’ve been eyeing Ghost Blitz for weeks and there was only one box left today so I bought it! We had such a good time playing this evening.

Adam and I shared a box of Thai spring rolls (with homemade spicy peanut sauce) while we played.

Round two was homemade veggie burgers. I topped mine with honey mustard.

And the tie-breaker (Adam won!) was 2 servings of Sweet Potato Chips from Food Should Taste Good.

I should have been in bed 3 hours ago. Boo!

18Nov2012

Weekend Whoops

by Emily

My weekend was full of eating oopsies. I accidentally ate something that wasn’t vegan. I didn’t get near enough fruits and veggies. I took pictures on the go that don’t look very pretty. And on both Saturday and Sunday I didn’t eat all day and ended up buying food at night (and eating far too much of it).

Saturday I worked from 10 – 6 and since I woke up at 9:25 breakfast wasn’t an option. We have officially moved into the Christmas shopping season and there was not a minute during my shift when I had time to eat. As soon as I was off all I could think of was food. He is what I ate, on the walk home! An apple from home.

And vegan stuffing,

and half a peanut butter rice krispie treat from the co-op.

All on the walk home. Sidenote – I gave the dog a bite of the rice krispie treat and he spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to get more. He’s peanut butter fiend!

Dinner was purchased with a Groupon to Lone Star Fajita Grill.

A guaco taco (sans cheese) with veggies, guacamole, and sprouts,

and a pile of chips with more guacamole.

I made it through dinner without breaking the challenge (Tex-Mex without cheese or sour cream?!) but ran into trouble with dessert. I ate the Justin’s Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups from my Simple Survival Kit package.

If you read “MILK CHOCOLATE peanut butter cups” and knew where I ran into trouble then you are quicker than I; it wasn’t until I finished eating that it occured to me that the cups weren’t vegan. After choosing to cheat on the Vegan Challenge several times already this month it is frustrating to mess up due to a stupid oversight.

I also ate the last two servings of Angie’s Kettle Corn straight from the bag.

Then I got into bed and slept for 11 straight hours. It was glorious!

But even with a good night’s sleep I still didn’t have it together to eat before work. I ended up eating co-op food on the walk home for the 2nd night in a row.

Chicken fried seitan, bbq tempeh, corn and kidney bean salad, and a stuffed grape leave. The picture is terrible but I was more concerned with shoving the food into my face than photographing it!

The food highlight of the weekend was this delicious bowl of cereal.

1.5 servings of Honey Nut Chex with a serving of honey roasted peanuts, fresh raspberries, and Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk.

I had to go to campus at 7:00 for a final meeting for a group project. This is the assignment that has been ruining the past month’s evenings; I’m so glad to be done with it.

A late take-out dinner from Vasilis Express.

A dolmas wrap (more grape leaves!) and fries. I ate 95% of that plate and I kind of still want to throw up. Too heavy!

What was your last edible oops?

12Nov2012

Farmicia in Philadelphia

by Emily

Our trip has been fantabulous thus far! We had a wonderful time catching up with family and then we got to do some Philadelphia exploring. My favorite things to do in a city are walk-walk-walk, people-watch, and eat and that is what we spent yesterday doing.

We hung out with my in-laws until around noon and then headed into the city. Sidenote – to family members who have traveled with me before, you would not believe how relaxed I’ve been about our itinerary; I’ve gotten much better at playing things by ear.

I ate an apple and an Air Head in the morning.

I was super carsick on the drive in, but managed to rally for our first stop – Whole Foods hot bar for lunch.

I so miss living in a city with a WF! We each bought a few small things but overall managed to contain ourselves. From the hot bar I got kale, spinach, and two varieties of vegan “chicken.”

Everything was delicious but my stomach was still feeling off so I only managed about half of my food. The husband, on the other hand, got crab and artichoke rice and loaded baked potato soup and practically licked his plates clean!

We spent some time just walking around and have both decided we would love to live in Philly, it’s too bad it’s not on our list of possibilities for residency.

One neighborhood was covered in gorgeous mosaics.

<– can you spot Adam in the last picture??

Our next stop was Little Baby’s for ice cream.

We tasted the pizza flavor (not vegan) which was astonishingly realistic and I ended up going with a scoop of the vegan sweet potato with burnt marshmallow.

This was the best texture I’ve ever found in a vegan ice cream! The flavor was a little too spot on though, I don’t really want to lick spoonfuls of sweet potato for dessert, so I passed the 2nd half to Adam. He got the caramel cardamom (not vegan) and was in heaven. If I ever get to go back (I hope so!) I’m getting the coffee toffee (with Blue Bottle coffee) and the vegan speculoos.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around China Town. We bought several fun things at markets. And you know I got bubble tea.

Passion fruit black tea with boba. I will most definitely be getting another today.

We didn’t run up the Rocky stairs or go to the Edgar Allen Poe house, but we did manage to walk past the Liberty Bell on our way to dinner.

I like to take in the culinary sights.

Dinner was a meal I’ve waited one and a half years for…

Farmicia! I’ve wanted to go back ever since my first trip to Philly.

I agonized over the drink menu (St. Germain? The drink with lavender essence? The drink with hibiscus essence?!) and ended up going with the Elation.

Prosecco with rose essence and fresh berries. It was perfect. Though I did steal the savory components from Adam’s martini.

Rosemary and olive oil bread.

Adam ate his pumpernickel with herbed butter and I was a little jealous.

For my entrée, I went with the same meal was I did on my first visit. Why mess with what works?

Corn Risotto Croquettes ratatouille, sautéed spinach, basil-parsley salsa verde.

Yuuuuuuuuuum! I had to close my eyes and swoon after several bites. The veggies were just as good as I remembered and the croquettes were out of this world. So serendipitous that the dish I loved the first time was vegan. I decided over this meal that my favorite flavor is “butteriness.” Not butter, because there was none used in these buttery croquettes, but butteriness.

Adam gave the meal a 9/10 and said it was the best food he’d had in quite a while. I concur!

I ate strawberry lime mentos for dessert.

We didn’t see our hotel for the first time until almost 9pm, so we were glad that it worked out. The room was fancy in a strange way, like the honeymoon suite at a pay by the hour motel.

But the bed was comfy and Adam got a good night’s sleep.

Today he is taking an 8 hour practical exam that you don’t become a doctor without passing. I know he’ll do great, but lets still keep our fingers crossed. I set myself up at a table in the Reading Terminal Market and plan on spending the day reading. And eating!

What is the strangest flavor of ice cream you’ve ever eaten? Pizza definitely tops my list!

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: yam

Weekly Wrap-Up; Thanksgiving

Weekly Wrap-Up; How Is It Mid-November?!

Two Meals At One

Kool And The Gang

The Best Thing Ever

It’s December, Apparently

Weekend Whoops

Farmicia in Philadelphia