Saturday updates

Saturday morning we ate at the continental breakfast available at the hotel and then had to run out to the mall because my darling husband left his suit jacket at home.  What's hilarious is, after his mom and dad found out about this, the entire group at the wedding was aware and kept complimenting him on his new suit jacket.  I just wanted to complete the circle by making sure everyone not at the wedding was also updated on the situation- haha!!  Also, to be fair, I needed to buy some Spanx- just keepin' it real. 

I have decided my one and only reason I would ever move to a big city such as Boston, NYC, San Fran etc... is that they have all kinds of awesome, veggie-friendly foods at their fingertips!!!!! I found these Odwalla bars (which are non-existent in Pittsburgh) at a CVS in the mall! SCORE!!! 

After our excursion to the mall, I headed over to the ceremony/reception area to get all dolled up for the occasion.  Mike's mom offered to have our hair and make up professionally done and wow was it worth it.  We had a little nibble fest while we were getting ready, we had guacamole, fruit, cheese, salsa, and chips. Oh, and champagne :)  

[Insert long, long, loooooooong night of beautiful ceremony, pictures, delicious food, and lots and lots of alcoholic beverages.  I have a hard, fast rule that when I drink, I keep my phone somewhere safe so that I don't lose it. I've had bad luck with that in the past] 

Thursday & Friday Updates

Well I've been out of commission for the past few days and decided I'd better get cracken' before I get too far behind. This past weekend (June 30th to be exact) was Mike's sister's wedding. We went to Boston for the weekend, heading out on Friday.  I was, in a word, pathetic about taking pictures, something I definitely need to work on when I'm traveling. But wait, don't let me get ahead of myself... 

This was dinner on Thursday night. Unfortunately, it looked way more delectable in person. I was trying to make a pseudo nicoise salad. This is red lettuce topped with tuna, green beans, capers, blue potatoes, onion, and avocado. I drizzled balsamic vinegar on top and sprinkled on some chives. 

Super, super yums. I'll definitely be making this again. Also- I LOVE BLUE POTATOES! My papaw gave me some when I was younger one time and I've been in love with the pretty lil spuds ever since. 

Dessert was a big bowl of bing cherries with a night of Nurse Jackie. I freaken' love that show! 

Look how pretty and shiny the cherries are... yuuumm.... 

Friday morning we packed up all of our things, took Razor to puppy daycare, and scrounged around in our fridge for any remnants of food.  Mike had eggs and leftover chicken, I had half a bowl of oatmeal and some bread with hummus on top. They weren't even worth taking pictures.

After we got to the airport, I was a wee bit peckish so I got a bag of my ultimate, most favorite, "It's so good I don't care to feel guilty" treat..... 

And proceeded to eat the entire bag (well Mike helped).

This poor bird kept walking around the gate area looking utterly confused.  Clearly he missed his flight.

Our flight to Boston was stress-free and super easy- no complaints here! Once we got in, we took a cab to the hotel and relaxed for a bit.  The rehearsal dinner wasn't for a few hours so we ran over to Dunkin' Donuts and grabbed some sammies and iced coffee.  Oh wow, is their iced coffee delicious.. On our way back into the hotel with goodies in hand, one of the old ladies going to the rehearsal dinner was like, "You know dinner's at 6, right?" 

Yes, I know, thank you for reminding me about the dinner we flew specifically in for, but seeing as how I haven't eaten in 5-6 hours and am currently famished, you'll have to excuse me that I'm eating 3 hours before another meal. We can't all be 70 and eat one meal a day, sorry.  Also, who sits in a lobby, completely dressed and ready for dinner, three hours before the dinner.

So, after eating our sammies (I got a tuna melt, Mike got a breakfast sandwich) we dressed for dinner and went to the lobby to wait for Mike's parents to come down... 

We waited..... 

and we waited... 

Hi- still waiting. Haha. Oh my. 

The rest of the night involved riding the T, taking a subway, walking through China town. All in heels because I thought we were taking a cab. Not fun. 

Dinner was fantabulous, it was at a Chinese restaurant (well duh, we were in china town) but I forget the name of it.  I was too hot, tired, sweaty, and out of my element to take pictures but it all ROCKED. 

To be continued...

Hey Baby!!

Hands down, my favorite greeting I get from my male patient's with Alzheimer's is "Hey Baby!" or perhaps "Hey Sugar!". I love the things they say haha! Work was work. Nothing especially exciting... 

Breakfast also wasn't particularly exciting, I had a big bowl of my oatmeal goodness and washed it down with a big cup o' coffee (splenda & soy creamer of course!) 

For lunch I had a sammy made of Ezekiel 4:9 bread, hickory smoked Tofurkey, veggie cheese, pickles, tomato, lettuce, mustard, mayo- BAM! It was quite delicious, I'm really digging the Tofurkey brand lunch meats, much better than Yves (in my humble opinion). 

I also had some hummus and carrots :)

Dinner was exceptionally delectable, a salmon burger with avocado, sriracha, onion, and mayo (vegannaise) followed by sauteed green beans and eggplant with more sriracha. YUUUUUMMMMMM! 

I must confess, I also had some pretzel chips and hummus as an "appetizer" while I was cooking.  I don't know why I'm so famished when I get home from work every day. 

Mikey has improv tonight so workout, True Blood, and Ghost Whisperer for me!!!!! Woo! 

Oats n'at

I wasn't feeling a tofu scramble for breakfast this week so I made some more oatmeal for Monday-Thursday. Mike's sister's wedding is this weekend so we're heading out to Boston on Friday.  I had to go through the nauseating experience of trying to find a dress and I just absolutely couldn't find anything I liked. Blah. 

Moving on.... 

10 grain oats + chia seeds + peanut butter + cookie butter + vanilla soy milk = heaven

Top is premixed, bottom is after a good whippen'! 

I know the ingredients may sound gross but it's such a yummy treat for breakfast! 

I was super, super busy at work today so all I grabbed was some Italian wedding soup for lunch, bummer. Oh and I had a Clif bar, and alot, alot of water. 

After lunch, one of my co-workers went to Pittsburgh Popcorn Company and got a giant bag of popcorn, and by giant, I mean:  

Luckily she shared! 

This is the Jalapeno popper (I'm pretty sure). She let us take some home too!! 

For dinner I sauteed some green beans with garlic and olive oil and roasted some eggplant. I also had some smoked salmon with onions, capers, and some pretzel chips. Nothing schmancy... 

I am too tired to be witty. G'night 

Naps, Sushi, and TV, oh my!

I need a super chill day after the full Saturday I had so I slept in, and slept in some more, and napped a bit more before finally rolling my butt out of bed. I munched on a Clif bar and chugged some water, I really, really, really hate hangovers. Although, who actually enjoys them? 

Mike and I ran to Costco for some seaweed chips, fruits and veggies, pretzel chips, hummus, and we also found some delicious salmon burgers and ahi tuna steaks. I <3 seafood. 

Afterwards we ran over to Trader Joe's for some odds and ends not available at Costco and wow did their sushi platter look bomb. Mike and I split it for lunch followed by some hummus and pretzel chips. Super, super yum. I think Trader Joe's and Whole Foods sushi blows Giant Eagle out of the water by a thousand. 

I then proceeded to do laundry, read, and fall asleep. Mike woke me up an hour or two later- oops! I was really sleep deprived evidently. For dinner: salmon burgers, salad, steamed snow peas. 

And a gluten free brownie.... nom..

Foodie's Dream Saturday Part 2

After the expo, we headed over to the Strip District and walked outside and viewed all the outdoor markets/vendors. I bought some dates and prunes from an italian grocer- love me some fiber!

We spent maybe 30-45 minutes doing that before the men headed down to the area and we headed to an outdoor beerfest in the strip (I totally forget the name of it, oh well).  They had East End Brewing Co beer there so I was all set! That is, until they ran out- boo!!

I also had some egg rolls and a veggie dog from the Franktuary truck- saurkraut & mustard = perfection. I snarfed it down too fast and forgot to take a pic- oopsie!

After a beer or two, or three, or four.. Mike wanted to head out to see some Improv shows.  We had an hour or two to kill before the shows started so we stopped at my ABSOLUTE MOST FAVORITE PLACE ON EARTH!!!! 

Can you guess? Sure you can!

Kaya 

I started the meal of right with one of their delicious Caribbean inspired beverages, this one's called the Lava Lover. It has Malibu rum, coconut milk, pineapple juice & grenadine in it and was super divine. 

Yucatan Bean Dip = heavenly 

Kaya chips!! 

Aren't they super pretty? Yum yum!

I totally forgot the dinner menu gives you three gigantic jerk tofu tacos and I immediately regretted getting an appetizer. But they were soo delicious I made my way through (for the most part). 

So yummy!! 

Mike got the Kaya burger and wow does this bad boy look amazing... A burger with pickles, bacon, tomatoes, avocado, chihuahua cheese, a sunny side up egg, and Kaya's secret sauce.  He really dug it. 

I was being super indulgent today clearly, and ordered another beverage for dessert, the Caipirinha, a mixture of muddled lime, sugar, and Cachaça. Apparently it's the national drink of Brazil? Who knows but it was fantastic! 

After a wonderful, hilarious show by The Lupones at the Steel City Improv Theater, I was super tired and wanted nothing more than my nice, cool bed with a fan blowing on me. I at least had the forethought to chug not one, but three glasses of water. Woohoo for avoiding hangovers!!!  

I was so stuffed and felt so piggish I'm hoping to show some restraint and modesty in my food for the next week. Oye vey! 

............Another commercial for Magic Mike came on and I think I went brain dead there for a minute or so. 

Foodie's Dream Saturday

Well on Saturday, I woke up around 8:30-9:00am because I had major plans for the day! A friend of mine invited me to the "Hometown-Homegrown" food expo presented by GoodTaste! Pittsburgh which was down at the Heinz History Center.  Food expo's are quickly becoming my new obsession and this one was loads of fun.  I showered, chugged a glass of water, and ate a Clif bar on the way to the expo. 

Floor one wasn't too crazy hoppen', it had the sign in area, but what really caught my eye was a cookbook exchange!!! Me to cookbooks = moth to flame. I quickly ransacked the area looking for some good finds. While they had a pretty decent selection, I didn't find  anything that caught my eye, I already have way more cookbooks than appropriate so I exercised some self control here. 

They also had some smoothie samples going on, I stayed away from the passion peel as I was kindly informed by the staff that it had mango in it. 

I tried to take a picture to capture the pure chaos of the situation, this clearly doesn't do it justice. It seriously was full of old people and people with children (and their gigantic stupid strollers).  Definitely not my cup of tea, but there were so many food vendors there that I didn't care!! If you've ever been to CostCo, it was like that only times a thousand. I really can't stand crowds haha. That's the only downfall to food expos for me I guess. 

They had some super good peirogies going on, I had one and it was cheese and potato, delicious!  I never got the craze Pittsburghers have for the little things but now I fully understand.  I'm pretty sure these were supplied by Polish Pierogi Company. 

Some locally made dips by BL Sour Cream, I got the buffalo flavored kind. Yum!

A local restaurant was showing off their goodies, Home Cooked by Donna, wow were these collard greens awesome! The sweet potatoes were decent, not my fav though. 

I thought the Kaleido Kone Creamery had such a beautiful, elegant setting, plus it was ice cream so I was super jazzed!

CAKE BATTER ICE CREAM!!!!! So creamy and delicious

This is the second time I've had the opportunity to try SITO's foods and again, lots of delicious, healthy Mediterranean goodness such as stuffed grape leaves, lifits, etc. They also had an awesome fresh salad and their signature dressing for sale. I love mah veggies!  It's seriously such a pop of fresh, amazing veggies in every bite.

Up next was the Original Oyster House table, they had crab cakes and chips for samples and yum!! I liked it alot, I'll definitely have to make a stop downtown sometime and eat there! 

By far the biggest and best sample!! 

Beano's sauce display was pretty cute! I loved all their samples too! Good thing they're available at Giant Eagle.  Their specialty flavors are also available at Whole Foods I was told. 

When I saw this stand at the expo, I could have done backflips up the aisles (as if there was a square inch to do so). I absolutely love and adore Olio Fresca, they have the best olive oils and vinegars I have ever tasted.  I got another bottle of the dark cherry vinegar and would have gotten another white truffle oil but they were out! I'm not surprised, that truffle oil is heavenly. 

After we perused around the vendors, we had some time to kill before the cookie table contest so we went back down to re-check out the cookbook exchange and grab a drink. 

I grabbed a Naked Green Machine smoothie, quite delicious but an awful lot of carbohydrates for 1 bottle (seriously who doesn't drink the whole thing even though it says 2 servings? get real)

An interesting blend of stuff, it sounds terrible but tastes super yummy! 

I scored a book at the cookbook exchange after all, called "The Clueless Vegetarian" I haven't had time to look through it yet, but the reviews on Amazon seem promising. 

At the end of the day we popped in to scope out the virtual cookie table contest.. does anyone recognize the guy 2nd from the left? Because I sure did! Well actually, I thought I recognized him and when I asked who it was  I was super excited that I did indeed know the man. 

It's QED Cooks Chris Fennimore!! Wee!! 

My stash from the expo: 

BBQ Stus sauces (mustard and original) 

Gryphon Tea Company Lady Grey Tea- it smells intoxicating

Soergel Orchards reusable bag

Olio Fresca's vinegar 

The Clueless Vegetarian cookbook 

Whew, and the day was only half over! 

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well I'd have to say I'm pretty busy most days lately, we have one gal on maternity leave and today two more were on vacation so we were UBER busy. Blargh.  I ate one of those bars from my Healthy Surprise box on the car ride to the bus stop this morning. It was so rich and fabulous I was going to look online and order some but then I read the nutrition label and it was almost 300 calories with 14g fat, damn you coconuts, you are so good but so fattening! I knew I'd need to rally so I had an extra big cup of coffee with my soy creamer and splenda followed by some steel cut oats with the cookie butter/soy milk mixture. I also snacked on some almonds and walnuts. I forgot to take pics of the whole dang morning because I was so busy screening floors and looking up labs and what not. I also had a Lara bar which was dee-lish. I definitely need to buy more. 

For lunch I had to buy from the cafeteria and saw that they had a nicoise salad on the menu!! Hook, line, and sinker, I'm sold! I absolutely love nicoise salad but am far too lazy to actually prepare one at home. Who has time to blanch green beans, hard boil eggs, boil potatoes, cut up veggies blah blah blah. Just sell more nicoise salads Pittsburgh! I did eat all the tuna that was with the salad, it seemed to agree with my tummy way better than chicken or beef. Seafood stays. Also, after the pizza last night I learned that dairy is out. Nuff said. I also had some hummus with pita bread, no picture because I ate it in like 30 seconds, super famished. 

Eating at your desk= sad, by the way. 

Clearly I was in a salad kinda mood today because I cleaned a gigantic head of our CSA lettuce and made the world's largest salad known to man. It's topped with red onions, craisins, avocado, sunflower seeds, olive oil, garlic powder, salt & pepper, and my beloved dark cherry balsamic. 

I felt like we needed a protein of some kind other than the sunflower seeds so I had Mike grab from the freezer these frozen "chicken" nuggets we bought at Trader Joe's. 

I wish I'd realized how crappy this photo was earlier, also we snarfed the nuggets down so fast I, again, forgot to take a picture! Drat!! But also yay because they were so good! Mike said "If only all vegetarian substitutes tasted as close to the real thing as these do, then I could possibly do this" At one point while we were dating he said something similar while eating my veggie enchiladas but he avoids my vegan cheeses and tofu way more now that we're married.  Haha. He doesn't have to impress anymore! Oh well, I'm just thankful he's open-minded and eats the stuff I fix without complaint or ordeal, I know some guys would straight up refuse to eat some of the stuff I make. 

Even though I had a full, long, exhausting work day, I was actually in the mood to work out!! So.. I took advantage of this odd and entirely unlike me feeling and did a workout DVD. Maybe I'll actually start enjoying exercise.... well let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

I had a banana flavored Popsicle for dessert

Edit: I had two banana flavored Popsicle's 

Is it just me or does anyone else find the actor who plays George Costanza absolutely vile? I just can't even stand the man. Especially when he attacks Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman". PIG!!  

Yawn...

I don't know what my deal was this morning but I was super, super, super sleepy.  So sleepy I wore a jacket in 90 degree weather and when asked by a stranger why I would do such a thing, I just mumbled incoherently and got on the bus. I was so exhausted I couldn't even feel my own face let alone understand how hot it was outside. I'm thinking maybe, just maybe it was the dumbie doing freaking somersaults in bed next to me. It's kind of hard to sleep when someone is constantly body slamming the bed in an attempt to get comfortable. I'm just sayen. Not.. naming.. any... names...

Here is my arsenal of food to keep me going, steel cut oats with soy milk and cookie butter in it, a Luna bar, almonds/walnuts, and bing cherries. Oh also a massive cup of coffee with my usuals.  I don't think I would have been able to function today without the coffee..

Lunch: Vegemite sammy and a soygurt

Work was boring and uneventful so I'm going to skip over that... 

WOOOP!

Moving on to dinner! 

Pizza of smokey tomato sauce, mozzarella, tomatoes, roasted zuchinni and eggplant, with eggs cracked on top.  I ate more than I care to admit. Nuff said. 

I also was so famished I ate leftover baked tofu and some almonds with a glass of juice. Oye. Really full...

For when you're having "one of those days"...

This was really touching, I just hope the photos are legit or I'll feel really silly for crying so much haha!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/pictures-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity

Ode to Vegemite

***Warning: You must listen to Men at Work - Down Under or you will be deprived of the full experience while reading this post. Be warned. ***

I was packing my lunch for tomorrow, Mike asked, "Do you speak-a my language?" and I just smiled, and made a Vegemite sandwich. For MYSELF! Mikey doesn't like Vegemite. I on the other hand love it. I love it so much I could move to Australia and just eat it forever. See the thing Americans (I say this like I'm not one haha!) don't get is, a little bit, we're talking 1/4 tsp, goes a long, long way and you gotta mix it with some margarine! For those of you who aren't familiar, Vegemite is a savory spread commonly eaten in Australia, it's technically yeast extract. Vegans love it because it adds a great umami flavor to foods, I think it kind of tastes like beef broth personally. 

What a cheery bright label! This jar has been there with me through my ups and downs, the thick and the thin! It's my best friend. I <3 you Vegemite! 

This is how you do it up, Vegemite + margarine with tomato, onion, and avocado. Yummm.. You can see some of the dark bits of Vegemite on the bread, sorry for the poor picture. 

Man, there was a time in college where I literately ate toast with margarine, Vegemite, and avocado on it for breakfast and sometimes lunch for weeks, no I'd say months. So delicious. 

I also remember when I bought a jar of Vegemite back in High School (I actually bought it and had it shipped FROM Australia in that day!) and my mother threw it out because it had been in the fridge for months.  I was devastated, I had paid more in shipping than I had for the stupid little jar.  Little did she know, this stuff never expires. In fact, I don't even bother refrigerating it anymore- it's okay I checked with an Australian, they don't either! 

I also remember the first time I'd ever heard of Vegemite, I was watching Blue's Clues (yes it was that long ago) and Steve got a "letter" from two little girls in Australia telling all about Vegemite and how much it rocks.  For years I pined for this unknown substance. I had a girlfriend who went to Australia for a soccer tournament and bless her heart she brought me back some Vegemite (they have it in restaurants in little packets like we do jelly- awesome).  Clearly I've had a long, clandestine history with this wonderful condiment.

Also, don't be a poop-face and get Marmite. I would not approve. 

Also- if I had a patient with bilateral above knee amputations and hallucinations tell me he just got back from a long run, is it entirely wrong to barely keep from giggling? I am sick, I know...