Feeling Thankful

Again, I’ll try to keep this quick, but it’s been a great Turkey Day.  I’m thankful for family, good food, and my wonderful husband.

We slept in until 10:30 this morning (I’m feeling sick again, boo!) and then woke up to the world’s tastiest breakfast.

My grandma is so cool, she had Greek Gods’ Honey Greek Yogurt waiting in the fridge for me!  I had a small bowl of fruit,

and honey Greek yogurt with berries and a sliver of homemade coffee cake.

Mmmmmmn!  I was in love with this breakfast!  If it wasn’t Thanksgiving I would have gone back for another bowl!  I think I’ve got my aunt hooked on Greek yogurt now too 🙂

We went to a family friend’s house for Thanksgiving at 1, so we headed out around noon to socialize.  Look how cute my grandparents are!

I’ve gone to Thanksgiving with this family ever year I’ve been with my grandparents and it’s always so much fun.  They have the best decorations, I wish I could have gotten more pictures.

I made a small appetizer plate with pretzels, honey raspberry dip, and crackers with dirty martini dip.

And I had a light beer to drink.

As I mentioned before, I am actually not much of a Turkey Day food fan!  I didn’t even eat any turkey meat!  I tried to just take a small bit of everything.

Clockwise from the top – stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, roll, jello mold salad, cranberries.  I finished everything on my plate (except for the roll which I gave away).  I didn’t actually eat very much, but I didn’t do seconds because I knew dessert was coming.

I actually gave away that mini cake in favor of a second cookie!

It was great getting to catch up with people and Adam was definitely stuffed!  He took a fat nap before we even headed home, and hit the couch asap.  My grandmother and I wanted to take a nice walk but unfortunately it was raining.  The other disappointment was that there was nowhere for me to volunteer.  I really wanted to put in some time at a food bank or soup kitchen today but everywhere my grandma called had too many volunteers.

We ate dinner around 7, and I was actually hungry again.

Leftover sweet potato casserole,

and a yumtastic sandwich – turkey, cranberries, cream cheese.

Plus apple and celery salad on the side.

I was still a bit hungry so I went back for more salad.

We played cards after dinner.

I had a coffee with 2% and an amaretto stick,

a mini 7-up,

and a small handful of caramel corn.

We kept my grandparents up past midnight playing cards, I’d say it’s time for bed!

How was your turkey day?

Curried Chicken and Cider Soup

I totally lied when I said I was going right to class.  That was the plan, but I was so cold (inside my house, with the heat on) that I just couldn’t bring myself to go outside yet!  I sat on the couch and read my book.

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Heat seems like it is going to rock my socks, it’s a memoir about, among other things, training as a prep chef for Mario Batali.  I am all about memoirs and food, so it seems like the perfect fit.

Once I did get off the couch and get dressed I realized I was wearing an outfit from my teaching days and the whole thing felt sort of surreal.

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I don’t know if anyone read my job identity search post this morning, but the one thing I do know is that do not want to teach!  I swear I sort of have PTSD from my experience!

Also, I was super hungry so I packed myself a snack for the road –

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1 oz buffalo wing pretzels with some turkey pepperoni (don’t worry mom, I only ate at lights!).

That totally did not cut it though.  After I finished printing at the library I set off in search of food.  I ended up with an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese.

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Class went well, we are studying electron orbitals which I love – it’s like a puzzle!  When I got home at 9 I got right to work on dinner.  We made Curried Chicken and Cider Soup from “Everyday with Rachael Ray” (click on the name for the recipe link).

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I skipped the cumin, and substituted 1C of water with 1C extra cider, but otherwise I followed the recipe.  I topped my bowl with buffalo wing pretzel nuggets for a crouton-like effect.

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I don’t think I would have liked it without the added spice, it was pretty sweet, but with the addition it was perfect.

Afterwards I had this fun drink I bought a while back.

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It’s not really Sangria, more like strawberry soda.  It’s from Japan and was totally cool; you had to pop the top to release a marble.

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I was supposed to paint my nails tonight but it is almost 11 so it looks like I’ll be heading straight to bed.  Tomorrow I have a gym trip planned, plus tons and tons of schoolwork, and hopefully some job searching.  Sweet dreams!

Do you like buffalo wings?  I’m not a huge wings fan but I love buffalo sauce!

Friday Afternoon – Saturday Afternoon

Well, I am still enjoying my vacation.  How are you enjoying your weekend?  After my last post the husband and I headed to a local favorite for some lunch.

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If you ever visit St. Thomas, Shipwreck is actually a bit overpriced, but we had a coupon.  I ordered the Buffalo Chicken Sub, which came with fries.

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Spicy buffalo chicken tenders with pepperjack cheese and blue cheese dressing, count me in!

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I let Adam eat 90% of my fries but I demolished my sandwich.  I have a serious weakness for buffalo chicken sandwiches (good thing I’m moving to Buffalo NY, eh?).  In general I am able to make healthy choices at restaurants, except when I am choosing to indulge, but no matter what my intentions I am powerless when I see this option!  The annoying thing is that it doesn’t even have to be so unhealthy – I would probably like it better with grilled chicken!  My problem in recreating them is that I’ve yet to find a sauce that tastes like “buffalo” to me.  Any suggestions?

After lunch we headed home for some showers.  Adam spent the rest of the afternoon playing chess with my dad but I drove back to school to do some work.  I spent 4 – 5:30 doing chemistry studying.

Next the family headed out for a fun dinner at Enkai, a new sushi spot.  It was right on the water so husband and I posed for some pictures.

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I love my hometown (duh, it’s an island!) but I had to do some Brooklyn representing!

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The restaurant was super cute,

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I love it when tablescapes are mismatched.  But the lighting was really dim so my pictures are all terrible.  I also have zero description because I couldn’t take my usual close-ups of the menu descriptions.  We started with some edame,

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which I pretty much polished off by myself, sorry guys!

My parents don’t really eat real sushi, as raw as they get is smoked salmon (because they are used to lox and bagels) so we stuck to tempora shrimp, lobster, crab sticks, and smoked salmon.  My mom dad and I split 4 rolls,

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here are my pieces –

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Everything was delicious!  When I looked at my camera later I realized I only ate 11pieces (aka 1.5rolls), no wonder I was still a little hungry.

After sushi fun we came home for more games 🙂 We are definitely trying to rope my parents into playing at least one game a day while we are here.  I made my mommy and I frozen coffees (4C cold, strong, coffee; 1tray ice cubes; 1/2C skim milk; 3/4C coffee chip ice-cream) while we played.

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They weren’t all that sweet, but they were super icy – perfection.  I also ate 3 more chocolate chip cookies.

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I’ve decided I’m done with the cookies, I physically cannot stick to just one.

After game time Adam and I headed out to meet up with some high school friends at Mojos, a new bar.  They had some good drink specials so I got a $2 strawberry mojito.

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I was driving so after that I stuck with small sips of the husband’s Cruzan Dark with Cokes.  We stayed out past 2 though so by the end of the night not drinking I had eaten most of this pack of Newman’s Own Organic mints.

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Peppermint tummyache was more than worth the good time we had with our friends though.

Saturday – dining delight

Our late homecoming only slightly effected our wake up this morning, we made it out the door before 8:30.  We had plans to meet some friends for lunch and I wanted to get some studying done so we decided to park ourselves at my favorite spot on earth – Barefoot Buddha Cafe.  We timed it so we could have both breakfast and lunch there, it is that good!

For breakfast I ordered the Bigfoot Bagel.

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Holy frick, I cannot even describe how good this is!  It has turkey bacon, egg whites, tomato coulis, spinach, aioli…..drool

We ate breakfast around 8:45 and then I spent 9 – 12 deep in chemistry.  When it was time to come up for air our lunch date had arrived.

I was in the mood for hot coffee so I ordered a vodoo latte; it has espresso and coconut milk.

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It was gorgeous, look at the heart –

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And for food I got a sweet potato wrap.

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It had sweet potato, chipotle sauce, goat cheese, and was pretty fantastic.  Not as good as my breakfast but pretty damn close!

After lunch we ran some errands with my mommy and at some point it seemed like a good idea to go to Wendy’s for a cookie dough twisted frosty.  {for which I magically seem to have no picture} This put me over the edge fullnesswise.  Looking back on this post there has been a lot of indulging in the last two days (I feel like that’s been the norm these last few months, that is good for fun times but not as a norm!).  I want to assume that it’s time for some leafy greens and light choices but being realistic we are headed to a fancy French spot tonight and I don’t see that happening.  Tomorrow (maybe!).

We will probably meet up with friends again after our French dinner but I’m not sure what the plan for tomorrow is.  Just in case anyone is wondering about the lack of beach time I wanted to address that: even though I grew up on an island I do love the beach, it is gorgeous even if you’ve seen it a billion times.  However, I am very careful with my skin – growing up on an island means even without tanning I’ve already had way too much sun exposure – so I don’t tend to calmor for the beach.  And right before this trip my husband had an abnormal mole removed from his back so for now I’d mostly rather keep him out of the sun.  How do you take care of your skin?

I was born and raised in St. Thomas, here are some fun facts about my island childhood

  1. Down here we drive typical American cars (steering wheel on the left side) but we drive on the left side of the road.  The first time I had to drive on the right in the states it was pretty scary for me!
  2. I graduated from a private prep school in a class of 40.  I was very fortunate to be at private school (my mom is a teacher so we had tuition credits) because the year I graduated all of the local public schools were deemed non-accredited.
  3. I am a US citizen, but I can never run for president.  People born in commonwealths or US military bases outside of the US can, but people born in territories can not.
  4. Similarly, I could not vote in a presidential election until I established residency in the continental US.
  5. (Partly due to the lack of voting rights and partly because of the lack of highways) Even though we are a part of the US the drinking age here is 18 years old!!!

What are some fun facts about your hometown?

Sweet, Spicy, Sesame, Tangy

After the morning my day got pretty crazy; I’m glad I got my work-out in early!  Before my shower I scarfed the other 2/3 of my Cliff Bar.

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This had too much sugar to be a regular choice but it was very tasty.

My next course of action was to do some planning for my classes next year – I am attending a university in Buffalo as a non-degree seeking student so that I can complete some prerequisite courses for PA and RD programs.  The plan is to work part-time, volunteer (which I still need to figure out), and take classes.  As a non-degree I can’t officially register for classes until August 1st.  Well, when I went to look at the course offerings today to make a rough schedule I found out that almost every class I need is already full; by August 1st I doubt I will be able to enroll in anything!  I wigged out and cried for a good 10minutes before the husband convinced me that I just had to suck it up.  If I can’t take classes in the fall it will suck and I’ll be sad but I don’t have any control over that situation.  If I can’t take any courses I will have to work full-time, which will help us save money, and get my nutritionist certification, which I am interested in and excited about.  I’m scared that this could push back my loooooong journey towards a new career but I’ve got to roll with the punches.

After I pulled myself together I ate 1/2 of this (small) container of stir fry leftovers.

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Then we packed up our cart and headed to the post office.  The postal service in this (expensive!) neighborhood is shockingly bad, I’ve never been in when there wasn’t a line out the door.  Whether rain, snow, sleet, or long waits, nothing could stop our errands so we prevailed.

During the trip I drank this My Smoothie juice box.

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I knocked out two servings of fruit with this, woot!

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Finally, it was time to head to *bucks to get my study on.  I went with economics to choose my snack –

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an iced coffee (I added my own skim milk) and a rice-crispie bar were my cheapest choice at $4 and 300calories.  I studied from 3 – 7 straight, another woot!

My husband is the nicest man on earth so he did my laundry for me while I was studying, when I got home all I had to do was fold and hang 🙂  Post-laundry I started watching a riveting episode of Bones, I am so hooked on that show!  I paused during a commercial to eat a Yoplait Light and Fit strawberry shortcake yogurt.

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I’m not going to be able to afford Fage and Oikos as much next year (Greek yogurt doesn’t really fit into a budget unless you find a sale) but I think I’ll be a-ok with all these Yoplait Light varieties.

During a later commercial I ate my green veggie from dinner as an appetizer – Spicy Sesame Beans.

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I had a bag of mixed beans and carrots in my freezer that I heated in a skillet with a little evoo.  I topped my portion with a dab more evoo, some wasabi sesame seeds, and some red pepper flakes.

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Spicy spicy!

After my socks were fully rocked off by Bones we got started on dinner.  I received a package from Nakano with coupons and recipes yesterday so I used that for inspiration.

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I will say though, my chicken recipe was clearly all mine own – Apple Pretzel Chicken, 3servings

  • 1/2C Stonewall Kitchen caramel apple butter
  • 3T Nanako rice vinegar
  • 1C Newman’s Own Mighty Mini Pretzels, crushed
  • 1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into tenders
  1. Preheat oven to 375* and prep a baking sheet with foil and spray.
  2. Mix apple butter and vinegar in a low bowl and pour pretzel crumbs into another low bowl.
  3. Drudge chicken through wet and then dry bowls.
  4. Cook for 30minutes.

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I took a pretty small portion but it was delish, the perfect mix of salty and sweet!

For my side dish I tried to follow a recipe a little bit,

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but still but a pretty big twist on it.  Not only was I missing several ingredients, the original recipe called for (regular) potatoes with the skins peeled off.  I never follow that step in any recipe, why would I spend cooking time making something less healthy by peeling away fiber?  What I ended up with was Tangy Stovetop Sweet Potatoes, 2servings

  • 1large sweet potato, cubed  [note, I think I actually used a yam but that didn’t fit with my title alliteration]
  • 1/3C Nanako rice vinegar
  • 3T water
  1. Heat 2T evoo over medium heat in a skillet.
  2. Add potato cubes to the pan and cook for 5-7minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping up and brown bits.
  3. Season with salt and paprika.
  4. Pour vinegar and water into the pan and cook until all the liquid is gone.

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Yums!  Here was my plate:

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Before you get all judgey about the expanse of brown, remember that I ate my greens as an appetizer 🙂

My internet is ridiculous so this post took forever but there are still some to-dos left on the list for the night – 1) brush my teeth asap so I can put my retainers in to get some of the intense pain out of the way before sleep time (my braces experience was so ridiculous I can’t even get into it, but suffice to say I stopped sleeping in my retainers in college and now my perfect teeth are going crooked).  2) tuck into my stack of magazines……I didn’t say they weren’t fun to dos!  Sweet dreams all.

Do you ever peel fruits or veggies?  Why or why not?  Other than kiwis – which many bloggers actually down fur and all – I enjoy the tasty fiber whenever it’s available.