Bread In Chocolate, Mystery Burgers, And Thickened Pepsi

by Emily

I have got to stop falling asleep without blogging! Some days (many days) are crazy and boring and I skip posting. Other days are crazy and delicious and make me want to blog. But two crazy and delicious days in a row makes for one loooooong recap!

Monday

Breakfast was all about the FNCE samples. Gross was the Strawberry Del Monte Squeezable fruit.

There was a flavor there that I just didn’t care for. Almost savory?!

Great was the Jamba Juice Fruit-i-licious Probiotic Trail Mix (I ate the whole bag, or 2 servings).

It had tons of fruit and nuts and just enough chocolate to be fun.

I planned on making dinner before I went to work so I made a quick trip to the store on my way home from school. Coffee with skim milk to warm me up when I got home.

Archer Farms’ Cinnamon Vanilla Nut is the best flavor I’ve ever gotten from Target.

My lunch snack was a sweet tasting plate.

A sliced banana with crunchy honey pb,

and half of a Theo Bread and Chocolate Bar.

I love this bar! Normally 70% would be a little dark for me but the saltiness of the bread really brings out the sweet in the chocolate.

I also ate a 100-calorie bag of kettle corn.

I managed to get dinner made, but not with much time to spare; I ate on the walk to work!

Roasted green beans,

and a turkey burger on a bun with sharp cheddar and Miracle Whip.

I’m going to stay cryptic and just say “burger” because this recipe was so tasty that it warrants its own separate post tomorrow. I know most people scan these long recaps and I do NOT want this burger recipe to get lost!

After work, I ate a slice of turkey while I packed Adam’s lunch.

And that was it. It was quite lucky that I ate dinner for lunch because otherwise I would have gone to bed hungry.

I got my flu shot Sunday morning. PSA – Flu shots save lives. Even if you aren’t worried about the flu, you should get the shot because it helps protect the people around you. That said, I am having a major adverse reaction to my flu shot!

I couldn’t get a picture that really shows anything (it is surprisingly tricky to photograph your upper arm), but imagine a giant, raised, red area around my injection site. It itches like crazy and is making me insane. Adam didn’t see my reaction until Monday night but as soon as he did he fed me an allergy med and put me in bed.

Tuesday

When I say that Adam “put me in bed” on Monday night, it is worth mentioning that he let me pass out teeth unbrushed, jeans still on, and alarm clock unset! I managed to make it to school on time but I was very confused this morning!

There wasn’t much time for breakfast so I grabbed a Chocolate Zico Coconut Water,

and an Odwalla Chocolate Almond Coconut Chewy Nut Bar (a FNCE sample).

Dee-lish-us! The bar immediately moved to my “top five bars” list (now that Balance Bars aren’t good there is a major hole to fill!). It tasted like real food, really tasty real food.

We were on campus today so I also got to cash in a free coffee card at the book store.

3 shots of espresso with tons of vanilla sugar and skim milk. And then I twitched wildly for the rest of the day…

Instead of clinical practice at the hospital, today we had an intensive lecture on enteral and parenteral nutrition – i.e. feeding through a tube into the GI tract or through a vein. It is insanely complicated but at least I think the calculations are a ton of fun. I’m certainly not the smartest person in our program (not by a long shot!) but when we do any sort of math I’m usually the first person in the room to finish. Who knew as I struggled through 9th grade pre-calculus that I’d grow up to get all tingly over formulas?!

Another fun part of the day? A rep from Nestle came in and showed us some different products. We got to taste thickened water and thickened diet pepsi (honey consistency) –

Their commercial thickener is just xantham gum – like I used to use in my smoothies! – plus a few preservatives.

Also fun was the longer lunch period that let my friends and me go to Wegman’s.

I hadn’t packed food so this was very serendipitous.

Buffalo chicken chowder,

and a green veggie brown rice sushi roll with spicy mayo on the side for dipping.

Between buffalo sauce soup, spicy mayo dipping, and the wasabi that I slathered on top of my sushi, this lunch left me sweating!

I stole a fun sized candy bar from my friend for dessert.

Ignore my sandals, and note that I bundled up today for Fall.

Fall is here exhibit b – tea with skim milk and cinnamon sugar.

Fall is here exhibit c – the apple crumble candle I burned while I studied.

Fall is here exhibit isn’t she done with this gag yet?! – an apple crumble yogurt bowl.

This is another dish I plan on making often. A 0% Plain Greek yogurt topped with cooked apple (a chopped Sweet Tango microwaved for 2 minutes with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tsp agave) and crumble (KIND Oats and Honey Clusters granola, a FNCE sample).

The rest of dinner was a random assortment of snacks while I studied. A chocolate chip cookie dough mini Larabar (FNCE sample).

A mini tortilla with 2 slices of Applegate Farms Honey Maple Turkey and melted sharp cheddar.

Cold, leftover green beans for veggie needs.

And a 100-calorie bag of kettle corn.

As I said, looooong! Like hot-dog-dog long.

Have you ever had an adverse reaction to the flu shot?

11Oct2012

It’s 10-11-12!

by Emily

I’m blogging a two-day recap from a blanket nest with a killer migraine, so please excuse any typos. I was hoping to be back on a “normal” blog schedule by now, but I’m not sure that’ll ever happen this semester!

Going back to yesterday… Wonder of wonders, I made it to the gym! 20 minutes on the elliptical; random level 6. The machine was out of water so I drank a fruit punch g2 while I worked.

It was embarrassing to have so much fuel for such a short workout but I ended up being very thankful that I had it. I guzzled most of it during my workout, then refilled the bottle with water and drank all of that on the drive home. I guess I came back from Philly a little dehydrated.

From my trip to the gym, I came back short on time. Thank goodness Adam had the day off yesterday; he drove me to school and packed my breakfast. FNCE expo samples were heavily featured. An iced coffee with skim milk.

A mini apple pie Larabar.

An apple it its true form.

And a serving of Cheddar Cheese Beanitos.

I was a big fan of the (pinto bean and flax-seed) chips. They were nice and crunchy with just a touch of spice.

I’m also a big fan of things working out in the lab. Look at what I made in Microbiology – spread plates and pour plates!

Adam’s undergrad degree was in Microbiology Immunology and sometimes it is downright embarrassing to show him my class-work!

I had several to-do’s after lab, but I made it home in time to make dinner before work. My mid-day meal was pretty lame. 2 small corn tortillas microwaved with ~1/4 cup shredded cheese.

Plus a 2% Fage with Peach.

And the last two Buttered Rum Raisin Cookies from the batch I brought my friend.

We are getting in all of our Christmas stock now and work was more like a workout; I carried boxes up and down the stairs for my most my shift. I was very glad to have dinner already finished when I got home.

Green Tuna Enchiladas; serves 4-6

1 tsp evoo
1 medium green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
(2) 10 oz cans tuna
1/2 cup plus 1 cup green tomatillo salsa
12 small corn tortillas
4 Tbsp light half and half
3/4 cup reduced-fat shredded taco or Mexican-style cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Heat evoo in a large pan over medium heat.
Add onion and peppers to oil and brown, about 7 minutes.
Add tuna and 1/2 cup salsa to veggies and cook 2 more minutes. Remove from heat.
Spoon 2 T filling into each tortilla and place into a 8×11 inch casserole, seam-side down. Too keep tortillas from cracking and breaking, it is helpful to cover them with a damp paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds.
In a separate bowl, stir together the last cup of salsa with half and half. Spoon mixture over enchiladas.
Sprinkle cheese evenly over casserole and bake 20 minutes.

Dinner did not fill me up like I was hoping. I ate a huge spoonful of Skippy Natural Super Chunk with Honey; aka the very best peanut butter ever.

And I had dessert. I am working on a hot chocolate recipe so I’m not going to share the ingredients now, but I will tell you that this batch included a serving of Caramel Apple Milky Ways for funsies.

It was ridiculous good. Ridiculous.

Moving on to Tuesday… Today had a productive start but has steadily gone downhill. I had a difficult time getting out of my warm bed and ended up eating breakfast on the walk from my car to the hospital. A Sweet Tango apple,

and a Full Moon Brownie Z-Bar, which I actually hated.

I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was specifically, but the taste of the bar was not good to me.

Today was my busiest day at clinic yet. I had a patient on my own in the morning, then worked on another in a group later in the afternoon. We had our first practice with tube-feeds today and it was both fascinating and frustrating. We’ve learned a lot in school but it’s all been in isolation; in the real world conditions overlap. For example*, you might have a patient in End Stage Renal Disease that has increased protein needs for wound healing and is also a Diabetic. *just an example, this wasn’t a specific patient that we worked with today

Also, my friend Janessa and I offered to turn-key some of what we learned at FNCE, so we did a short presentation on ketogenic diets for epilepsy. The group had to stay late so that we could present and I love them all for still being interested in what we had to say.

I ate a late lunch during my afternoon errands. Vegan pecan cornbread stuffing from the co-op.

Buffalo peeps – run to the co-op to get some of this stuffing, it had the perfect blend of flavors and textures.

Then hot bar at Wegman’s while I ran through my notes before shopping.

I did three types of vegetable stir-fry.

I am glad that I got in veggies and time studying, because both were in short supply when I got home. Minutes after walking in the door, I got an immense migraine. It came on much more quickly than they usually do and made me unbelievably nauseous.

Adam brought home pizza for dinner and I ate a big plate once I was able to get out of bed.

Now I have to go try to study for tomorrow’s giant exam. <– so screwed

What is your favorite store-bought peanut butter?

10Oct2012

Food Fun At FNCE In Philly

by Emily

I’m home! If you didn’t know, I spent the past five days in Philadelphia attending the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ (AND) Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE); alphabet soup, much?!

I went with two fabulous friends and we had a great time. Our days were packed (I need a vacation from this vacation!) and I am very glad I made the decision in advance not to blog. In fact, I’m barely going to do a recap.

I would love to talk about the sessions I attended, and all of the things that I learned, but I have homework to catch up on, a shift at work this evening, and a huge test on Friday, so I doubt it’s going to happen.

I do have a few shots of some of the fun food though.

Amazing (2nd only to my favorite place in Brooklyn) eggplant pizza that we had the first night when we stayed with one of my friends from high school.

Taro milk bubble tea.

Hot, spiked, apple cider from a street fair. We also had pumpkin beer and apple pie shots; we were drinking seasonally this trip.

The expo –

My swag –

It was amazing/ridiculous and my friends and I ended up offering a bag of food to a man I saw digging in a trash can as we were walking from the conference to our car.

Pumpkin pie frozen yogurt.

The best espresso I’ve ever had.

Sidenote – I drank my coffee holding back tears. We went to eat a vegan cheese-steak on our last day in town and found out that the place was out of seitan!

The Chobani bar at the expo was hands-down the best part.

This Strawberry FrozFruit was a very close second. My favorite thing in high school was the coconut version.

And a final treat at home – tiny chocolate hamburgers that I brought back for the husband.

Who’s hungry?!

24Sep2012

Crazy Cakes

by Emily

Crazy-cakes is one of my favorite expressions and for the post title I’m using it both figuratively and literally. It is crazy stupid that I’m blogging at 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Things have been crazy busy and the next two weeks are only going to get crazier. Finally, I fulfilled a birthday list goal and made a crazy good cake.

The past few days have been crazy on the healthy living front but I want to blog them because I don’t live a healthy living blog, I live my life. And in my life 90% of what I’ve consumed in the past week has been pizza. I’ve decided that attempting to work out over the next week would actually be unhealthy because I’m already getting so little sleep (my planner is workout-free until October 10th). I’m super stressed and not doing the best job of balancing school work with too many hours at my job. But again, this is my life.

As I prewrote these posts in my head I had a lot to say, but now that it’s been 4 days since I last blogged I think we shall go WIAW-style for the recaps. Note – there is no recap from Thursday because I took the day off from everything, took no pictures, caught up on “Awkward” and “Covert Affairs,” and ate pizza and Chinese food for dinner. It was both necessary and delightful.

The Next 2 Weeks

(9/26) 3 homework assignments are due
(9/27) the 4 major assignments from my community clinical rotation are due
(9/28) I’m presenting a journal article for my research methods class. It is a 25 minute Powerpoint presentation and it makes up a large percentage of our grade.
(9/28) we have our first Microbiology test
(10/1) we have our first MNT test <– it is going to be so difficult that our teacher recommended that we all quit our jobs if we can
(10/6) two friends and I are driving to Philly for 4 days for a professional conference <– fun, but also holy frick, when am I going to pack?!

Friday

Breakfast on the walk to school. Zico Chocolate Coconut Water.

Muller Blueberry Bliss Frut Up.

Blueberry Bliss Luna Bar.

China Breakfast Tea with skim milk and a pb-chocolate magic straw while at work.

A See’s candy that my bosses brought us back from their trip to California. (I had never tried See’s before and now I am a fast fan; soooo creamy!)

A caramel apple non-fat latte as I geared up for a late night. (Cafe Aroma, Buffalo peeps.)

Wegman’s frozen cheese pizza and a sad salad of romaine and 1000 island dressing.

Cake!

One of my goals for my 27th year was to bake a cake from scratch. I figured I’d only do this once, so I wanted a recipe that was delicious but didn’t call for cake flour. After much pondering and Googling, I settled on this Hummingbird Cake recipe from Serious Eats.

If you’ve never had Hummingbird Cake before (I hadn’t!), it is a yellow cake with chopped pecans, crushed pineapple, and mashed banana in the batter that is frosted with cream cheese icing. This combination of ingredients ends up being amazing.

I made the following changes to the recipe and they all worked out –

light brown sugar instead of dark brown
low-fat buttermilk
canola oil instead of vegetable oil
1/3-reduced fat cream cheese

I baked the three cakes when I got home from work on Friday night. This activity, of course, included a sprint to purchase more eggs at the co-op 10 minutes before it closed.

Then Saturday morning I layered and ~~frosted~~ helped Adam frost the cake.

His surgeon’s hands came in very handy.

It ended up being a big success!

I brought the cake to book club and it got two-thumbs up all around. If I ever have to make another cake in the future I will definitely think of hummingbirds.

Both of my book club offers were pineapple-based, because I also made my Tropical Fruit White Sangria.

This batch was made with –

2 cups chopped pineapple
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup Cruzan Guava Rum
1 bottle Rosebud Gold (a local sweet white wine)
10 oz lemon seltzer water

Saturday

Eaten before my 10 am shift at work because I had been up since 5:00 frosting and studying. Leftover bbq chicken pizza and sliced apple.

Popcorn with Smart Balance Light.

A Zevia Cola at work.

A pizza bagel on my break. (The Spot uses the very best tasting marinara sauce; it is super zesty.)

My friend picked me up from work and I immediately guzzled two giant glasses of sangria instead of helping her set up.

Book club food, a slice of cheese quesadilla with guacamole and mango salsa, plus two toasts with shrimp dip.

A slice of cake.

Drunkenly eaten at midnight, my 3rd serving of pizza for the day and carrots with french onion yogurt dip.

Sunday

Homemade cole slaw.

A slice of cake.

A See’s candy at work.

Dinner while grocery shopping. Sweet and sour chicken plus wok-seared veggies. (This was randomly really tasty and the best hot bar meal I’ve had in a while.)

A medium, non-fat (no whipped cream) Apple Steamer during our class study-session at The Spot.

Baby carrots and french onion yogurt dip while I wrote this post.

An Important Question

Don’t you think that the dog sort of likes like Oprah when he sits with his arms crossed like this?

18Sep2012

Candied Bacon Pancakes

by Emily

I know that title drew you in, but a lot of stuff happened before the pancakes; it’s been two days! It’s only Tuesday, but am allowed to say that this week sucks? I still haven’t worked out (in fact, I slept through my last unlimited yoga class this morning and I’m so sad), I started reviewing class notes for upcoming tests and realized that I’m starting three weeks too late, and I’m in a terrible mood. I wish I had a day to catch up but instead I had to go to stupid meetings and tomorrow I have to go on even stupider errands. Bah!

Yesterday, I had a 0% Plain Oikos with a honey stick for breakfast.

Plus a Mott’s Caramel Hot Spiced Cider.

This appears to be another product so new that it’s not on the website. It was also the start of an appletastic lunch.

Nature’s Path Apple Pie Crunch Chia Plus Bar (I’m loving these; my favorite parts is definitely the chia seeds),

GoGo Squeez Cinnamon Applesauce Packet,

and Apple Month candies.

Plus more candy in the form of a serving of Caramel Apple Sugar Babies when I got home from work.

They were the best Apple Month Candy yet!

Also when I got home from work, I had a total meltdown and Adam saved the ~~day~~ dinner by remembering our Living Social deal to SoHo Burger.

There was actually some nonsense with the deal and I’m pretty annoyed with SoHo Burger as a business, but the food was good and I need to get to bed soon so nevermind.

Adam and I split a Gimme Smore Spiked Shake. (I ate 45%) Chocolate fudge, roasted marshmallow, graham crackers, vanilla ice cream, Bacardi Select Dark Rum.

And an order of the Truffle Tater Tots. (I ate 30%) New twist on classic house made tater tots seasoned with truffle oil, parmesan cheese and parsley.

For my meal I did a burger and a salad.

A side Caesar (I ate everything but the croutons),

and a “naked,” aka without a bun, Turkey Burger. (I ate 95%) 8oz fresh organic turkey breast topped with brie cheese and cranberry chutney.

We shared our leftover burger bites with the dog when we got home and he was very happy to see us indeed.

I got in bed the minute we got home. Literally; I gave the dog his treats and then handed the husband my dress from under the covers! And then I stayed there through my alarm clock and didn’t get up until I was an hour late this morning. And I’m still tired.

Coffee with skim milk and a pb-chocolate magic straw was clearly how I needed to start my day.

Then I had a dipping plate.

2 servings of baby carrots,

in 3 servings (for only 150 calories!) of Cedar’s French Onion Yogurt Dip.

The dip was tangy, creamy, and delicious, and yet another product not found on the company’s website. <– what is up with that lately?!

And a Butterfinger Pumpkin.

Speaking of unhealthy (but delicious) things, I impulse-bought lunch while I was making a much-needed grocery trip this afternoon. Mac and cheese and sweet and sour chicken. I didn’t have my camera and I can’t get the phone photo to format so you’ll just have to take my word that it was ridiculously unhealthy.

Speaking again of stupid but tasty purchases – I bought two more pumpkin beers!

Dinner was a two-course breakfast affair. First, eggs.

Spinach and bok choy cooked in evoo and salt with eggs with light half & half and crumbled blue cheese.

Then candied bacon pancakes with a little maple syrup.

That picture wasn’t worth the wait, was it?

16Sep2012

Crazy Week Was Crazy

by Emily

Phew, am I glad that’s over! Ha! Not really; this week was crazy but the year is bound to only get crazier. And I didn’t even have that much going on with school last week. I did, however, work every single free day. Also, the husband’s residency applications went out today. <– giant stressball

Here’s what’s been going on:

I haven’t blogged since Wednesday
I didn’t work out a single time last week (insert major sad face here)
I didn’t do ~~any~~ enough school-work
I worked my butt of at work-work
I put in a lot of hours helping the husband to finalize his application and edit his personal statement
I had to videotape myself giving the husband a nutrition education (it was hilarious)
I didn’t eat anywhere near enough the past few days and I’ve been out of control cranky
I went to the co-op and stocked up on organic ramen so I never have to skip so many meals again (I was truly that busy)

I don’t have time to do a proper recap but I have taken a photo of every food item that’s passed my lips so I am damn well going to blog them!

Thursday

My clinical group toured the food bank as part of our community rotation. I car-pooled with a friend and we used a BOGO coupon for iced coffees with skim milk along the way.

We discovered that Got Milk’s Magic Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Straws turn iced coffee into something magical.

So flipping good!

We spent the 2nd half of our food bank visit sorting tomatoes. It was nice to help out but I had to squelch some major throwing urges.

Lunch was plain yogurt with 2 Tbsp flax and chopped plum and nectarine.

Dinner was Jenna’s Baked Polenta with Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Cheese, and Tomato Sauce.

I made a bunch of changes but the basic recipe was still hers. My updates –

made 4 servings
1 cup of polenta (cooked without butter)
2 pints mushrooms (sautéed in 1 Tbsp butter 1st)
1.5 cups marinara
1 cup gorgonzola
cooked 20 minutes

It was really, really good!