First First Friday In Allentown

by Emily

You know how I got into bed way too late last night? Well I stayed up an hour even later pinning desserts.

For reals. Stupid, but have you discovered Serious Eats yet? It could have been the 2 am browsing, but I’m officially a giant fan. Fun aesthetic, beautiful pictures, delicious recipes and reviews.

This morning was rough but I woke up by “snoozing” on Twitter in bed and that helped me ease into the day. Congratulations, Kath and Matt!

I ate breakfast on the walk to school.

My Müller Splendid Strawberry Früt Up yogurt was, in fact, splendid. It’s a strawberry mousse on top of regular yogurt (as in not Greek) and the yogurt was ridiculously, delightfully thick. It felt like a total treat – a real treat, like pudding, not like when people try to say that fruit is dessert – and was only 140 calories.

My classes went well (I didn’t fall asleep once, I swear!) and before I knew it I was walking to work. Sidenote – I work every day except for my clinic days (T/R) from now through next Sunday and I’m a little anxious to see how that’s all going to go down.

Lunch was packed for work.

An apple,

and a Raw Revolution Chocolate Coconut Bar.

It was good I didn’t bring more because I barely had time to eat that, there were lots of boxes today.

Adam meet me on foot at the end of my shift and we headed out to cross off another birthday list item.

This was our first First Friday and we both had a great time. I’m sad I couldn’t take art pictures because we saw some great stuff. I did manage to take quick snaps of my bites though.

Mostly cheese and its accompaniments, plus a small pour of wine. And we went to one open house that was giving out free popsicles.

All in all it was a fabulous time.

However – working 7+ hours and then walking 4.5+ miles was a little too much for my feet. I whimpered the last five blocks or so getting home. My 4-minute workout plans are out of the question and even though I’m starving I’d rather skip dinner than have to walk somewhere to get it. Boo.

Does your town do any type of First Friday event?

4Sep2012

[Food] For Thought

by Emily

Food

Hello, hello. Today’s activities would be tricky (and boring!) to explain so I’ll stick with the food. One note – My stomach was bothering me all afternoon but the main reason I didn’t eat any veggies is because my bag of green beans had gotten slimy and gross. Here we go…

Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar.

Turkey sandwich – Sandwich Thin, 2 slices of Applegate Farms Smoked Turkey, 1 slice pepperjack cheese, strawberry jam.

The last of my Mike and Ike’s.

The last of these Barbara’s cheese puffs, about half a serving. Funny story – Adam had a friend over (just one) on Monday. He bought two bags of snacks, the cheese puffs and some salt and vinegar chips. All that was left is what I ate today, and that only survived because he knew I wanted to taste them.

A low-fat coffee yogurt with honey-roasted peanuts and honey.

A dapple plucot.

A cheese sandwich – an onion roll with about 2 oz of melted cheese (a mix of extra-sharp cheddar, 2% swiss, and 2% provolone).

A Reuben Stuffed Turkey Burger with 1000 island dressing.

3/4 of a Jamocha Shake that Adam surprised me with when he came home.

Food for Thought

Since I didn’t have much in the way of content for this post, here are the links to a few articles I think you guys might find interesting:

Think organic produce is healthier than conventionally grown? This study review doesn’t find that to be true.
Greek yogurt has more protein (and less calcium) than traditional yogurt. An interest group lead by Chobani is urging the USDA to differentiate between Greek and traditional yogurt on the My Plate food groups.

3Sep2012

Burgers and Boba

by Emily

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. We got the holiday off, which meant I had time to go on a date with the husband and catch up on school-work.

I started my day with a 0% lemon Oikos.

I was so thrilled to see the new Oikos flavors on our shelves! This was smooth and creamy with just a bit of tart flavor. I have the pineapple variety waiting for me in the fridge as well.

Plus the last of my Chameleon Cold Brew with skim milk and ice.

I’m not sure if it’s because I used a bigger ratio of coffee:milk today or if it’s an effect of the bottle sitting open for a week, but today’s cup was more bitter than my previous ones. Nonetheless, I’m still very sad to see the coffee go. I’ve marked it on the 9/23 week’s list in advance to celebrate the end of my retainers.

When we walked around the park a few weeks back, both Adam and I had a major hankering for a zoo trip. After running an errand this morning, we decided we should take advantage of the husband’s rare day off and go for it.

We were disconcerted by the wrap-around-three-blocks line,

but quickly got over it when we found out that Tops was offering special $1 admission for the day.

Score! They were hosting a few games on the premises as well and I won this cup of Mike and Ike’s.

I ate half during our visit and think that the sugar helped me make it through the heat.

We saw so many animals!

My favorite reptile is the Dab Lizard and I was thrilled to catch a glimpse of one today.

Do you have a favorite reptile.

I packed a big bottle of water in my purse but rocking jeans was a big mistake; I was dripping the minute we stepped out of the car.

Since a mid-day shower was required anyway, I tried my hand at this 4-minute workout –

Holy crap! I was basically dying by the end. The husband and I have decided to do it 3x/week. 4-minutes is always doable.

Lunch was sushi from Wegman’s.

Pssst, Buffalo peeps, this another item with money off from the student coupon packet.

This afternoon, I finally did something with these purchases from our trip to Toronto’s Koreatown.

Taro milk tea + rainbow boba = mmmmmmn!

It was too much fun (and a cross-off on a birthday list goal!) to have made these items from scratch.

I spent most of my evening hard at work, but did find time to make a great dinner.

Roasted green beans,

and a Reuben Stuffed Turkey Burger.

I ate mine on an onion roll with extra sauerkraut, Swiss, and 1000 island dressing.

Reuben Stuffed Turkey Burgers, serves 6

lb 94% fat-free ground turkey meat
1 cup sauerkraut, squeezed to remove as much liquid as possible
1 large egg
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1.5 tsp dried caraway seeds
3 (1 oz)-slices Swiss cheese
2 Tbsp thousand island dressing

Slice cheese into quarters; you should end up with twelve 1inch x 1inch squares.
Place meat, sauerkraut, egg, breadcrumbs, and caraway seeds in a large bowl. Use your hands to mix until well combined.
Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, divide the meat mixture evenly into twelve 1/4-cup portions. Flatten six of the portions into patties.
Place 1 tsp thousand island dressing and two cheese squares in the center of each flattened patty. Top with remaining portions, pressing on the edges to “seal” the patties.
Place a greased grill-pan over medium-high heat. Cook burgers until browned and fully cooked through; 5-8 minutes on each side.

I’m off to join Adam and Webster on a walk!

Are you a reuben sandwich fan?

25Aug2012

Sunday To Go

by Emily

One day to go before the fall semester begins. I wish today could have been full of adventure, but sadly I worked, errand-ran, and ate a lackluster dinner. Ho-hum but part of the time was spent with the husband so it wasn’t terrible.

I did not get in bed last night as planned. In fact, I stayed up past the boys leaving and the husband falling asleep. Today I am le tired and the bags under my eyes are gigantic. I hope to get in bed nice and early on Sunday because it’s bad enough to go back to school fatter, I hardly need to look worn down too. At least my hair is finally growing out of its awkward stage!

In spite of the sleepiness, I did manage to make breakfast before work.

Plain fat-free yogurt topped with 1 Tbsp ground flax, 1 Tbsp maple syrup, and some canned tropical fruit mix.

I was glad to have eaten because work was pretty crazy; the Elmwood Arts Festival is this weekend so there were lots of people wandering in.

I plan on checking out the festival tomorrow and today I did snag a $1 orange San Pellegrino.

I saved my fair-food eating for tomorrow and packed a sandwich for lunch.

A Sandwich Thin with 2 slices of turkey, a slice of pepperjack, and strawberry jam. Plus a Raspberry Fields Honest Tea to drink.

I probably should have gone with coffee instead because I was dead on my feet by the time my shift was over. Also, ready to gnaw off my arm. I bought a giant slice of cheese pizza (folded and eaten New York style) on the walk home.

I shared ~ 1/4 with Adam which was a true testament of love. Dinner was fair away and not awesome and I ended up very pleased with this impulse purchase.

We ran errands this evening, including a purchase of ink that has left me crossing my fingers that the printer was out of ink and not actually broken. I’m too tired to check now but printing is early on my agenda tomorrow.

On our grocery errand (which was stupid because we have to go back tomorrow too) I bought a fun-size peanut butter Snickers.

I only ate half; apparently they aren’t very good.

Dinner wasn’t good either. Well, parts of it were. For example, my low-fat (because it was made with skim milk and low-fat froyo) chocolate coffee milkshake was pretty tasty.

1.5 thumbs up, Lake Effect Diner.

And I was so pleased to see this on the menu –

It encouraged me to order non-vegeterian, in the form of a Chicken Souvlaki Wrap.

“Grilled marinated chicken breast, shredded lettuce, green bell pepper, black olives, diced tomato, crumbled feta cheese and Greek Dressing in a grilled herb wrap.”

I added cucumber and pepperoncini to mine, a good idea since otherwise the sandwich would have been completely tasteless.

The feta was bland and it probably would have helped it there had actually been Greek dressing on the wrap. I only ate half and left feeling pretty unsatisfied.

I shouldn’t even complain though because my meal was at least edible. Adam’s bacon and sausage were burnt to a crisp and his “sunny side up” eggs were cooked through. Yucky. Lake Effect, we thought you had such potential!

Speaking of potential, I’m not going to live up to mine at yoga tomorrow morning if I don’t get in bed this instant. Good night!

Locals, are you attending the art festival this year? Did you eat anything I just have to try tomorrow?

17Aug2012

Curry And Lemongrass, Too

by Emily

The past 48 hours haven’t been all that exciting, but they have been busy. Work, fun, then work. No working out, unfortunately. I’m not even going to attempt a workout before my early shift tomorrow either. I do have big goals for next week though, because I’m hoping to get myself started on a healthy schedule (re: bedtime, working out, and cooking dinner) in the week before school starts.

Thursday’s breakfast was a yogurt bowl.

Note – I’ve eaten a LOT of yogurt the past two days, be prepared.

This bowl was Wegman’s Low Fat Honey Yogurt topped with sliced yellow plucot and white nectarine and 1 Tbsp ground flax.

It was so good I did a similar breakfast the next day and plan on buying more of the honey yogurt asap.

I spent Thursday morning curled up on the couch with a Patricia Cornwell novel. I’m hoping to blog quickly to get in bed with that same novel! Reading and eating made for my perfect morning.

I took a reading break to walk the dog and snagged this white chocolate macadamia cookie from the co-op.

I should have made time for a real lunch instead of a cookie because I was starving by the end of my shift.

I had evening plans with friends and knew I would be too cranky to function so we stopped at Code Blue for juice along the way.

My customized drink included kale, spinach, collard greens, carrot, and watermelon. So tasty and the fun ingredients were very exciting to try.

And it didn’t matter that we stopped for juice because our plans were a total bust. We’ve been excited about seeing Salt-n-Pepa for a month but it just didn’t pan out. The line was three times longer than the amount of people let in. Boo! But we did catch a few lines of “Let’s Talk About Sex.”

I got home late and had pizza for dinner.

1.5 (big) slices total. Buffalo and bbq chicken flavored.

I spent the night by myself because the husband had 24-hour call (more like 32 hour call!) and the dog and I slept very fitfully on the couch.

Today’s breakfast was a repeat of Friday’s.

Wegman’s Plain Fat-Free Yogurt, sliced white nectarine and yellow plucot, and 1 heaping Tbsp each ground flax and Biscoff spread.

Then more yogurt for lunch. Coffee with a honey stick and honey-roasted peanuts.

The honey + peanut + coffee yogurt combo is a childhood favorite of mine.

At work I drank a Big Gulp of diet pop and split this bag of mini Rolos with my co-worker.

I also had a jalapeño cheddar bialey in the afternoon (with a slice of pepperjack).

Adam requested Thai food for dinner and since he came home from a 32 hour shift and did the laundry, Thai food it was.

I got veggie Pad See Eiw. The husband ordered and we forgot to say “extra veggies” for me so I was pleasantly surprised to see my plate chockfull of the green stuff.

From Sun Restaurant, by the way. The noodles get a 10-out-of-10 but the sauce only got a 5.

Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.

Coffee Caramel Buzz. Better than Bonaroo Buzz but not as good as Schweddy Balls. <– I have officially eaten too much ice cream!

11Aug2012

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

by Emily

This is a “Do as I say, not as I do” post. The past 48 hours have been… strange. I feel like crap mentally and physically and I’ve been eating crap. I’ve been weirdly, intensely thirsty all day; like I want to pour a milkshake down my throat all day long (which I basically did!). I get sort of depressed every fall about missing teaching and I might be panicking a bit about the start of my last year of school. So I’ve been eating only crap and lots of crap. Lots of crap because apparently crappy food isn’t all that filling. Do we think I said crap enough times for this ~~post~~ month?

as I say –

Don’t drink your calories.
It’s okay to have a treat, but probably not more than 3 1 a day.
Skipping breakfast might set you up to make bad choices the rest of the day.
Sometimes you should eat fruits and veggies just for the nutrients, even if you’re not feeling them at the moment.
It’s ok to feel hungry sometimes.

as I do –

Friday’s “breakfast” was wasabi trail mix, ~5 oz worth in total.

And two pieces of the amazing sea salt caramel my parents brought from Canada.

Lunch was a quick run to the co-op hot bar during work.

Chicken salads and veggie salads.

The kale was the best (take note, Emily!)

I did another try at a caramel macchiato in the afternoon, this time at The Spot.

Does that look like an iced caramel macchiato? No. And it was disgusting anyway; there were at least 5 inches of straight foam. I took three sips and dumped the rest down the sink.

I didn’t eat enough during the day and that is where the bad dinner decisions started. Adam had to pick me up from work so we could run errands across town that took forever, I started to have a tantrum, and somehow we ended up at Arby’s for small Jamocha shakes.

Um, and also mozzarella sticks.

I hate mozzarella sticks. But these were actually pretty good.

I’ll start Saturday’s recap by saying this – Friday was healthy in comparison. But at least I finally had a sweet coffee win.

I gave up on caramelmacchiatos and moved on to a tall white mocha coconut frappucinno.

For lunch at work I packed a plain 0% Greek yogurt with a honey stick,

and a Fiber One chocolate chip cookie.

I also bought a Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha.

And on the way home I had this, because two milkshakes a day is totally normal and healthy.

Seriously though, this was actually a good decision because it was outstanding. This sign has been calling to me for days –

“Emmmmmmily. ‘Greek iced coffee milkshaaaaaake.’ You’re not even sure what that means but you need it.”

But I still didn’t eat any real food and I ended up eating half of this candy bar while we were on a never-ending trip to Target.

I did eat a real food dinner, but it is dark and stormy (honestly it is, I’m not trying to be cute) and my pictures were disgusting. Go ahead and try to imagine a plate of chicken nuggets and baby carrots. I’m also 90% sure that you should imagine some popcorn in the near future too.

Who’s up for fruits and veggies on *Monday? Me! (*Note – I would say tomorrow but tomorrow my in-laws are coming to take us out for bbq for my belated birthday lunch and lets be real.)

8Aug2012

Chicken Chicken

by Emily

Please note – if you were my dog you would read that title as “chick-ON chick-ON,” since that is what we say whenever we feed him chicken.

Not a lot has gone down in the two days since I left Ohio, but there were a few highlights. I did get to eat lots of chips and several large diet sodas.

Our drive back to Buffalo and my parents’ flight home went off without a hitch.

My dad drove the whole way home for me and I finished knitting my scarf!!!

The fine people at Honest Tea noticed that I can’t help but buy a beverage whenever I walk past the co-op and sent me a few new flavors to try.

I got a new retainer, hopefully my last new retainer ever. *fingers crossed*

We had to take the dog to the vet to get a cyst on his tail lanced and it was the grossest/coolest thing ever.

Poor baby!

The vet trip actually happened today and it’s a good thing that went well because it was pretty much all I accomplished today. I didn’t get much sleep at my grandma’s house (I was on the couch and there was cable) and I stayed up too late again last night and crashed hard today.

I did manage a good, late breakfast.

Oh, Green Monster, I love you so. My original recipe is still my favorite. 1 frozen banana + 1 cup frozen spinach + 1 cup oj.

So ~~green~~ good.

I also ate half (aka 1 serving) of this Honey Noosa Yoghurt.

I got lunch from the hot bar while I was grocery shopping (hey, that’s an accomplishment!).

Two types of chicken,

plus roasted veggies.

I tried to get a skinny caramel macchiato as an afternoon snack but I ended up throwing it out after a few sips.

This drink was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted. It was super sour, but like there was something wrong with the coffee, not the milk. And I used part of a birthday gift card so it was extra sad.

Dinner was more chick-ON.

Baby carrots,

honey mustard for dipping (Ken’s Lite and it was very good, if you’re wondering),

and two servings of Wegman’s chicken nuggets.

I’ve been wanting nuggets for days and these hit the spot.

Tomorrow’s plans include not sleeping through yoga, medicating the dog, a shift at work, and a fun nighttime event with the husband.

What is your favorite sauce for nugget dipping?

4Aug2012

TJ, Totally Jazzed

by Emily

The past few days have been a ton of fun. I’ve done a lot of eating!

Yesterday morning I got started on one of my 27 things.

I knit a few things as a kid and it seemed to come back to me pretty quickly. My grandma has had to help with a couple of disasters though.

I had yogurt for breakfast and moved on to another kind of yogurt for lunch.

Self-serve for the win. I did a mix of desserty flavors topped with all of the chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel things.

‘Twas good, but whenever I go crazy decadent I always realize that I like my plain tart with fruit and boba the best.

Our Friday activity was The Greene. We went for shopping, walking, and people watching. And eating. We got Turkish for dinner at Pasha Grill.

They gave us delicious bread with sun-dried tomato oil for dipping. My piece, x2.

I should have held off on the basket because I ended up needing bread with my dinner as well.

I ordered the cold appetizer sampler as my entrée. [clockwise]

Hummus – pureed chick peas with a hint of garlic, tahini, fresh lemon juice, and olive oil.
Pilaki – pinto beans with carrots, green peppers, and diced potatoes in a light tomato and olive oil sauce.
Tabuli – cracked wheat tossed with tomatoes, sweet onions, fresh peppers, parsley, lemon juice, and olive oil.
Haydari – thickened homemade yogurt with fresh dill, mint, garlic, and walnut.
Eggplant with tomato sauce.
Babaganush – smoked eggplant puree flavored with tahini, olive oil, and garlic.
Ezme – finely chopped tomatoes, onions, walnuts, and hot peppers, mixed in olive oil and herbs.
Dolmasi – grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, raisins, and flavorful herbs.