Tag Archives: yogurt

Finals Frustration

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I really wanted to post the last few days but I was upset about a bunch of things that I couldn’t put on the blog.  Today was the official end of the semester and the only word I can come up with to describe this day was “eventful.”  I’m still angry and disappointed about things I can’t talk about but I think that the pictures of today’s eats actually paint a pretty accurate portrait of today’s mood all on their own.

At clinic…

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While studying at a coffee shop…

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{note – that latte was made with *chocolate chip cookie* flavored syrup!}

On a trip to the mall…

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After the day’s third and final catastrophe…

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I work 20+ hours this weekend and then have a giant cumulative exam on Monday.  Ugh.

I’ve clearly whined enough; would you like to vent about anything?  I’d love to listen.

Froyo Flavors Playbook

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The husband was out of town on an interview yesterday so I ate a single lady dinner of cookies and popcorn.  Then I ate a big bowl of cereal (with melted peanut butter and vanilla almond milk!) in bed.  <– Shhhhh, Adam would be so mad.

Speaking of skipping posts, exam week is coming and I am flipping out.  I want to try to keep up blogging, since it’s not like I use every last minute of my time studying anyway, but I’m not sure how that will work out.  Exams are in 13 days!  I honestly thought that we had another week and didn’t realize how close they were until I checked my planner in the middle of class and gave myself a heart attack.

Anyway.  When I wasn’t freaking out, I also ate breakfast in class.  A Chobani Honey Banana Flip.

That yogurt is my favorite Chobani product.  The bananas add the perfect amount of texture and sweetness to lighten up the Greek yogurt.

I also had an apple.

And a Target Candy Cane Chewy Cocoa Granola Bar in between class 1 and 2.

I had to hang around campus after lab to work in the computer lab and I ended up buying these Sea Salt Smart Fries as a snack from the book store.

This was my 2nd time trying the Smart Fries and I think I can officially say that I like them.  The texture is a little like a packing peanut but I mean that in the nicest way possible!  They are really satisfying to crunch through and you get a big serving (~65 pieces) for 110 calories.

I had a run errands this afternoon (you might notice that I didn’t actually do any exam studying today) and got a small container from the salad bar around 5:00.  A lettuce mix with some dressing (I don’t remember the flavor but it was sadly really bad) topped with cucumbers, cider glazed carrots, roasted brussels sprouts, and a giant scoop of chicken salad.

The chicken salad scoop was about half as mayo-y as it looks and two times as big as it looks.

I actually just got home a little while ago because I was out with friends.  We wanted to go see “Silver Linings Playbook” and it is only showing in one random theatre here so we made an excursion of it.  An exciting stop along the way…

FroYo Culture had their holiday flavors out!

I got gingerbread, eggnog, and Heath yogurts with crumbled gingerbread, Heath bits, shredded coconut, x-mas m&m’s, and marshmallow sauce.

Too exciting!  The gingerbread flavor was actually too spicy for me but the eggnog was perfect.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be going back to Willaimsville before the season is over.

The movie was worth the drive as well.  All three of us loved it.  The plot was a nice mix of funny, wrenching, and sweet.  Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro were all amazing.  And there’s even a Julia Stiles cameo.  We laughed on the way home that it was funny to watch Julia Stiles play a support role in a dance movie.  <– “Save the Last Dance” still remains a favorite of mine.

And I ate a serving of Sun Chips while I wrote this post.

Food-food instead of snack-food would probably be a good thing tomorrow!

Did you see SLP?  Thoughts??

Cook Book, Cookies, Chicago Fire

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It’s felt like forever since I’ve blogged.  Thankfully (ha!) I was starving all day and ate a ton of food so I have lots to post about.

First things first – I need to announce the cook book giveaway winner.

Congrats Turn Towards the Sun, shoot me an e-mail (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) with your mailing address!

Breakfast was consumed during class but photographed in Adam’s car.  I waited until 6 am to will myself out of bed to finish writing a paper and was running behind.  Actually, I would have been fine but then I had to cuddle the dog before I took my shower and I ended up needed Adam to drop me off.  Thanks, husband!

A Wegman’s low-fat pumpkin pie yogurt that I was very impressed with.  The texture was perfect and the taste was so good I’ll consider continuing to eat this flavor in December!

An Iced Oatmeal Cookie Z-Bar (FNCE sample).

The 2nd half of this Chuao Honeycomb Bar.

Adam continued to be the nicest husband ever, and he walked the dog to pick me up after classes.  I love those boys so much!

I also love leftover pizza for lunch.

1 cheese slice,

with carrots and blue cheese dressing.

Plus batter bites for dessert.

I’m going to share the recipe tomorrow and here is my endorsement: I ate four and a half cookies today!!

Work went well.  We extended our hours for the holiday season which means my shifts are all an hour(+) longer but it wasn’t too painful.  I drank a cup of (Keurig) hot chocolate while at work but didn’t photograph it for obvious reasons.

Dinner was a serving of Seven Layer Casserole.

The recipe’s vegan but you don’t need a challenge to try it; it’s delicious!

Apparently that all wasn’t enough food because I also ate a bag of SmartPop while I caught up on “Chicago Fire.”

Are you watching Chicago Fire?  Thoughts??

A Perfect, Peachy Visit

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If you follow me on Instagram you may have already guessed that… WE WENT TO ATLANTA!!!

We got very lucky and had access to two free tickets that had to be used before the end of 2012.  I had two days off in a row from school and work so we started clicking on cities at random until we found a set of tickets that worked with my schedule.  We ended up in Atlanta!

We flew in late Tuesday night and left Thursday morning so it was basically a one-day trip and it was absolutely perfect.  We spent every last minute walking or eating – So. Much. Food! – and got to try lots of local flavors as well as froyo, twice!  Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

The gorgeous weather was totally in our favor; perfect walking around temperatures.

We started Wednesday morning with Sublime Donuts.

Adam and I shared three kinds –

Butterfinger,

dulce de leche,

and s’more.

Butterfinger was his favorite and s’more was mine. The donuts were great but they definitely confirmed that I’m not a donut person; I could tell that they were awesome but they just weren’t that exciting for me.  Give me a cupcake or froyo instead anyway.  <– twice that day!

Next up, we visited The World of Coca-Cola.

We learned some interesting Coke facts and saw lots of neat old products,

but the best part of the visit was the tasting room.

They had Diet Cherry Coke!

Actually, they had lots of flavors – 60+! -and Adam and I tasted every single one.

The basics –

Peppermint Sprite –

Africa –

Asia –

Latin America –

North America –

Europe –

Ahhh!  Adam was pretty ill by the time we were done but I told him that I’d be training for that day my entire life!

On our way out they even gave us a bottle to go.

I’m not even going to lie, I totally bought a Cherry Coke Zero a few hours later!

We spent a few hours walking around the downtown area before we were ready for lunch.

You won’t be able to guess what type of food we set our GPS for…

Froyo!  I got a million flavors (including apple pie!) with all of the non-fruity toppings.

To save a little money, we got lunch food from Publix instead of going to a restaurant.

I ate about 1/3 of that smoked turkey and mac and cheese.  Plus a short salted caramel hot chocolate while we recharged our phones at Starbucks.

For dinner we got Thai at Mali.  We shared the Moo Sho to start.

Steamed rolls stuffed with sautéed chicken, shrimp, egg, and vegetables.  Served with a peanut sweet plum sauce.

There was a little hiccup when they were out of the dish that brought me to the restaurant (seafood Pad Thai with crab claws), but we rallied by sharing two drinks.  A pineapple capirinha, pineapple, cacha rum, limes and sugar,

and a Thai tea-ni, tea infused vodka, vanilla vodka, sweetened Thai tea, and milk.

For my meal I got grilled salmon with sautéed vegetables in basil sauce, ordered Thai-spicy.

It was good; nice and spicy!  So spicy, in fact, that I ended up ordering a regular Thai iced tea to help cool down my mouth.

Dessert was round 2 of froyo.

I got taro, almond butter, and pecan pie froyo topped with sprinkles and sweetened condensed milk.

<– best bowl of froyo ever

The yogurt place was in a cool area and we ended up doing a final round of booze and food at the incredible Rosebud.

A can of PBR for me,

and pimento cheese with spiced saltines to share.

Amazing!  I adore pimento cheese and this stuff was ridiculous.  We waddled back to our hotel completely satisfied and happy.

It was an amazing trip and I feel very fortunate to have been able to take it.  Our Turkey Day wasn’t quite as traditionally thankful but I’ll tell you about that later.

Final Day In Philly

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My final day in Philly was delicious.  I was on my own while Adam took an 8 hour practical exam so I walked, ate, and read.  It was perfection.  I had to park the car in an all-day spot to save money but since I love to walk I was able to explore a large area on foot.

The Reading Terminal Market didn’t have as many vegan options as I’d hoped.  In fact, we learned on Sunday that the vegan cheese steak place was temporarily closed which was a good thing because it gave me a day to deal with my massive disappointment.  There were plenty of fun things to look at though.

Since I had trouble finding breakfast I went straight to dessert (and stayed there pretty much all day!).

Bubble tea for breakfast?  Why not.

This was a red mango tea with strawberry popping bubbles.  It was the best tea of the trip, popping boba is just so flipping good.

I spent some time at Au Bon Pain with the latest Kathy Reichs book and sipped a coffee with soy milk.

By the by, Reichs’ latest book was great.

Then froyo happened.

I have no regrets.  Vegan Challenge or not, Emily Wax does not walk past self-serve eggnog frozen yogurt.  I wanted to feel guilty, but this ended up being the best bowl I’ve ever had.  Eggnog yogurt and cream cheese yogurt (even better than the eggnog!!) topped with salty peanuts, shredded coconut, caramel, and butterscotch chips.

Ridiculous.  And now I have to spend the rest of my days searching for more cream cheese froyo.

The rest of lunch needed to be a little healthier – enter a green smoothie.  Almond milk, banana, kale, and cacao.

I did a “design your own elixir” and was very pleased with my combination.

We needed to get on the road quickly after Adam’s exam so we headed to Whole Foods again for dinner.

Bbq seitan, collard greens, curry “chicken” salad, sesame seaweed, garlic pasta, and wheat berry salad.

Plus a vegan cookies and cream cupcake was split for dessert.

We did 50/50 but I got 100% of the frosting and Adam got 100% of the cake.

I also grabbed a coco libre coconut water + chia raspberry lemonade for the car.

It was awesome.  I love chia drinks and this was the best I’ve ever had.

The rest of my car snacks (for the 8+ hour trip!) were decidedly less healthy.

I wasn’t even hungry by the end but I had to keep eating to stay awake and I woke up the next morning with a stomach ache.  No matter, nothing was going to take away from how wonderful our Philly visit was.

All in all, we had a fantastic trip!

Webster’s First Halloween

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You can tell that this post was a terrible decision since it’s 2 o’clock in the morning.  I’ll try to keep it quick.

You can tell that tomorrow is the first day of Vegan Month because I managed to eat two yogurts, buffalo chicken pizza, cheesecake, and a milkshake.

You can tell that it’s Halloween since I pulled out all of the stops some of the stops.

Black and orange outside clothing.

Black and orange inside clothing.

And earrings that look like candy corn.

Plus, my exam this morning was positively spooky!  😦

Before the exam, I got up and had breakfast.  A big bowl of Liberte Coconut Yogurt plus 1% large curd cottage cheese.

Plus coffee with skim milk.

When I got home – my exam went ok, my quiz went not ok, our lab activity took forever – I had more yogurt.  Apple Cinnamon 0% Chobani with honey roasted peanuts and a drizzle of honey.

I ran a few errands the afternoon.  The most exciting was the orthodontist appointment; not only am I cleared for 12 more weeks of nights only, but I won a contest!

$30 to Best Buy.  I was so excited, I never win anything!

Lunch was pizza.

I tried to really think about the foods that were going to tempt me during November. A buffalo chicken slice from Zetti’s,

with baby carrots and blue cheese for dipping.

Halloween candies for dessert.

Then it was time to dress my favorite dog up in his first costume.  We went meta this year…

A hot dog in a hot dog costume!

Webster was flipping adorable – several cars honked and gave us thumbs up! – but it was cold and wet and he was so mad at me by the time we got home!

Thankfully Adam’s arrival (he was away on an interview the past two days) cheered us both up.  He came bearing cheesecake!

That was literally the best slice of cheesecake I’ve ever tasted but I already had my sights set on something else so I took a few bites and left the rest for the husband.

My plan for dessert?  Pumpkin Coffee Caramel Chocolate Milkshakes!

Ben and Jerry’s Caramel Coffee Buzz blended with skim milk and pureed pumpkin (with chocolate syrup on the glass).  It was delicious and just what I needed to power through the last two hours of working on a final project.  The perfect way to end my dairy consumption for the month.

Happy Halloween!!

TV Dinner

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I think this is my easiest week thus far this school year.  I actually watched tv this evening!  I know that I really should have been working, but at least for this week it’s not the end of the world that I didn’t.

I was starving this morning and ended up eating all of my breakfast and my lunch within the first ten minutes of class.  Müller Passion Fruit Peach Früt Up Yogurt.

A Clif Grape Fruit Rope (FNCE sample).

And a Jalopeño Popper Burger on a Sandwich Thin with pumpkin spice cream cheese.

This was such a good sandwich combination.

I had a long morning of classes and then a doctor’s appointment – with a super long wait – in the afternoon.  Thankfully my appointment took me near Gin Gin, the restaurant with bubble tea that a customer raved about at work last weekend.

It was worth raving about!  The used two kinds of boba, regular and popping!

The bubbles were in a red bean milk tea, and that was delicious too.  I’m glad I took a chance on something different.

I came home with food too.

Hot and sour soup,

and Mongolian chicken (with carrots, cabbage, and a spicy sauce) with white rice.

I ate about half of each and then Adam ate the rest.

Plus ice cream (about a serving) straight from the pint.

With a side of “Private Practice,” “Castle,” and “Royal Pains.”  ‘Twas a good night!

Bread In Chocolate, Mystery Burgers, And Thickened Pepsi

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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?