Rock Star

The day is done and I am a Rock Star!  I am 100% + done with school for this week.

This morning I worked straight through breakfast but around 1 I prepared lunch for A and I.  We bought this Arnold Everything Rye bread on Thursday so we knew we wanted sandwiches.

Tuna salad!  We use a little bit of mayo and a LOT of pickle relish in our tuna salad.

I sprinkled hot paprika on my portion, I had about 1/2 a can (since A ate 1.5cans!)

{More his/hers} I added salt and pepper and cheddar cheese to the bowl after I took my portion out.

I ate my sandwich along with a sliced plum and some Dirty Salt and Vinegar chips.

All together.

I did morework and a little later I made this split-tastic bowl.

A sliced banana, a sugar free banana fudge pudding, 1 crunched double stuff oreo, and a few cinnamon brown sugar almonds.

.more work.

When I was 80% of the way done I went to the gym.  I did 35minutes on the treadmill – 1minutes walking/2minutes jogging for 3.4miles.  Then I did 5minutes of abs and stretching on the mat and 5minutes of arms on the machines.  In spite of being a total fat ass for the last 6months we discovered I can now do 40lbs on some of the arm machines – more rock starness!

After the gym I walked to Staples to do work and to Union Market to buy fruit and a surprise for A, I also bought this Naked Gold Machine Juice for the walk.

Then home, and then to Starbucks to do my final piece of work.

I ordered a tall nonfat iced latte so I wouldn’t feel bad sitting at a bench but A came down a bit later and drank 90% of it.  I made grade reports for all of my students that show every assignment so far this semester and the grades they earned on them.  I have high hopes that kids do make-up in the next 2weeks but it looks like I will be failing a lot students my FINAL QUARTER of teaching.

Once done I came home and made a late lame/awesome dinner.

This was Tofu -Deveganized!  I drained and pressed a block of extra-firm tofu then cut it in half.  Then I cut a hole in the side of the block, careful not to cut through to the other side.  In the hole I stuffed turkey pepperoni and reduced fat mozzarella cheese.  I covered the hole with a small slice of tofu, rolled the block in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried in .5t evoo.

Awesome.

On the side sauteed A and I some frozen broccoli rabe with wasabi sesame seeds and then added in the leftover dipping egg for the last few minutes of cooking.

It was inedible – the frozen rabe was cheap and it was all bitter bitter stems.  This dish was more bitter than a fat wife whose ex-husband just married an 18year old.  My other failure was the Stonewall Kitchen Wasabi Mustard I tried to use as a dipping sauce, also terrible.  But the tofu?

Fabulous.  I would, however, recommend baking at 450* for 30minutes instead of frying, I was pressed for time.

I tried a few sips of A’s beer but ended up going with a diet Dr Pepper cherry.

I totally had to have dessert. Turkey Hill Mint Choco Chip ice-cream with 2 double stuffs crunched over the top.

Mint chip is a favorite of mine but this might be the best kind I’ve ever had, go Turkey Hill!

A and I have super fun plans to celebrate a work free day tomorrow, I can’t wait!  Sweet dreams all.  I will end with some bonus questions -

1. What are you excited for on Sunday?
2. What do you put in your tuna saldd?
3. What is your favorite ice-cream flavor?

Flop

I was so tired last night that I flopped into bed without even a thought of blogging.  I’m feeling much more energized today, but I’ll get to that later.

Yesterday morning, I ate a Key Lime Larabar for my train breakfast.

Lunch was a yummy assortment:  coconut water with passion fruit,

four slices of fakin’ bacon,

and leftover roasted veggies.

I headed straight home from school, stopping to wander aimlessly around Barnes and Nobel.

For dinner I tried some new things as well, including these squash from Trader Joes.

This is where the real flopping began.  They are cute, and healthy, but sort of squishy and unpleasing.

I ate them, and I’ll eat the leftovers today, but I’m not happy about it.  I dipped them into some sweet and sour sauce but it didn’t really help.

The other item on the place is a tofu scramble with sliced baby portabellas.  You’ll notice I’m not giving a recipe.  Yeah.  I ate one bite and then passed my plate to A who inexplicably loved it.  They just felt too unhealthy, a much better choice of dinner was Newman’s Os 2×3,

and a big bowl of popcorn.

I topped the ‘corn with melted SmartBalance because I realized it was vegan and that was exciting.  I’m sure the future RD in me (hopefully, someday) should cringe at this dinner, but it made me really happy

Saturday morning got a much healthier start.  I put my name on a list for a free Pilates reformer demo a while ago and I finally got my e-mail this week.  So I started my morning with a 30minute private session.  The moves are very similar to floor work, but using the machine really made me focus on the alignment of my body.  I really enjoyed it and if I somehow come across some $$ I’m thinking of signing up for a few sessions.  I ended my workout with 5minutes of hills walking on the treadmill.

When I got home I made a tasty, tasty bowl of cereal.

1C PB Puffins with a few blackberries and small sliced plum.

I am (super excited about) going to the blogger meet up tonight so I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.  Hopefully I will be back here for lunch though, Happy Saturdaying!

Have you ever taken a Pilates class (mat OR reformer)?  If you’ve tried both, which did you prefer.

Am I Fakin’ Bacon???

Question for my readers – Is it still considered “pigging out” if you are only eating vegan things?  Well, pigging out or tofuing up, my belly was kept very satisfied today!  It’s been a foodie lovefest over here at EatingChalk.

Things started very well with my train breakfast this morning.

These Bumble Bars are so frickin’ amazing!  This is another item I ate occasionally in college but have found too pricey as of late, however, I splurged yesterday while at the neighborhood “hippie store.”  The bars are vegan, organic, and gluten-free.  I had Mixed Nuts, which had sesame seeds as one of the first ingredients on the list.  OhMyGoodness they had the best sesame flavor.  I think this is an item I will have to splurge on more often.

I also had a piece of TJ’s fruit leather.

School was interesting, not really good or bad.  I have to toot my own horn (especially because I’ve been so terrible at my 30arm reps a day challenge) – I broke up a fight today in class and my boys class was super impressed at how strong I am.  Woot!

Without meaning to, I packed a lot of sweet components in today’s lunch, all wonderful though, be forewarned, more raving is coming!  I ate the little bit of leftver tofu from last night.

A TJ’s chocolate soymilk box.

1/2C of blackberries with two small plums.

And a Stoneyfield Farms ‘O Soy Chocolate Yogurt.

Um, WOW!  Wow, wow, wow, this yogurt was beyond fabulous.  I always say no wimpy yogurts can stack up to plain nonfat Greek but this was a contender tastewise; I love the combo of tangy with chocolate.  I wouldn’t eat this as often as Greek yogurt (even though it only had 160calories it had 22grams of sugar!) but it will be my go-to item when I want something sweet from now on.

I stayed after school to work on my TAN.  While I plugged away I ate a Chocolate Chip Cosmocrisp Jam Frakas Bar.

Again, holy crap this was good!  The flavor was deliciously honeyed (consequently, after checking I realized the bar contained honey and was Not vegan, I shouldn’t have made the assumption just because it was from Lara).

Once I got home I actually met up with A for a walk.  He found a patch of fresh cement that he carved our initials into so we had to go take a looksie.  We extended our walk to loop around the neighborhood.  During our travels we stopped in at ‘Snice, which I’ve been obsessed with since my blogger meet up.  A and I each got a Milk-less Shake.

He had cappuccino and I had malted – soooooo good!  Again, this is an item I would choose vegan over regular for; I don’t eat much fullfat dairy so milkshakes I can’t order with skim milk make me sort of sick.  (not that that stops me from eating them, something in my brain refuses to accept that I can’t eat certain foods.  When we were in college there was a TGIFridays near campus and we ate their regularly.  At the time I was having a lot of weird food allergies <I still really don’t know what the deal is but I know that Hawaiian fruit gummies and frozen pot pies make me very very sick> and after eating their pecan crusted chicken salad I threw up, a lot.  However, that salad was really really tasty.  So the next three times we went I ordered the same damn meal and threw up when I got home.  If A hadn’t seriously threatened to leave me I’d probably still be ordering it!)

Enjoying our shakes while we walked, we stopped in to the grocery store to buy to veggie cheddar cheese.

Check those nutritional stats.

I need to be honest though, we bought the cheese so I could make vegan bacon cheese fries (that’s right, say that dish a few times and try not to salivate).

I enjoyed the first batch of oven baked fries I made so much that the small potato in the pantry has been taunting me ever since.  I used one small potato to make the “fries” and topped it with 1 slice of veggie cheese and 1 slice of fakin bacon.

Y-uuuuuuuuuuM!

After doing a bit of school work it was time to make dinner (I realize I probably could have stopped eating, but dinner was actually started last night, and I’m a fatty).  This dish was inspired by a recipe from THE BINDER.

I have torn recipes out of magazines most of my life.  Since I’m nerdy as hell, I organized them into a binder, by category.  After a few years of being mocked, my mommy found me a binder made just for such a purpose, legitimizing my lameness.

It’s pretty and I greatly enjoy organizing my finds.  I actually also have a workout binder, and a “good ideas” binder, but I’ll discuss them more in a later post.

Dinner was inspired by the recipe binder but I put my own delicious spin on it.

Coco Loco Tofu, serves 2

• 1package firm tofu, drained and pressed
• 3/4C unsweetened shredded coconut
• 3/4 of a can of unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2C rice vinegar

1. Mix coconut milk and rice vinegar in a shallow tupperware.
2. Take the prepared tofu and cut it into 6 slices (I did 7, but only because I’m clumsy).
3. Place the tofu into the marinade and leave it for at least 2hours or over night.
4. (After marination is done) Preheat the oven to 450*, and prep a baking sheet with foil and baking spray.
5. Place the coconut flakes in a shallow bowl and drudge the tofu slices through.
6. Lightly spray the slices with baking spray and cook for 25minutes.

I used the leftover coconut milk by stirring it into leftover rice before I reheated it.

And I also prepared some oven roasted veggies, brussels sprouts and colored cauliflower.

Oven roasted brussels sprouts are seriously my favorite food, I like them even better than broad rice noodles.

All together.

I realize I’ve said every item today was “the best thing ever” but this truly was.  If you are a tofu newbie I beg you to make this recipe so you too can become an addict.

This was a long post, so it’s time for me to hit the hay!  Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

What is your favorite way to eat veggies?  I think everything is better oven roasted.

Boo! Boo-hoo?

It’s been an interesting day.  I did not manage to eat breakfast, and was in fact 20minutes late to school!  The metro is screwy on Fridays; it seems I’ll have to come in extra early from now on.

Here is the “breakfast” I did manage to throw together on my first prep at school:

A diet coke and pretzel Combos is a breakfast right?  I actually didn’t get to eat lunch either, some students came by for extra help, so this was my fuel for the day.  I stayed at school until around 5 too.

Once on the train I got into the Halloween spirit with three of the new Kisses.

Look at how cute they are!

I also had this new Izzie – Halloween Blackberry.

But two sips in I forgot it on a bench!

To make up for my mishaps I made myself some brain food.  The bowl of mush is actually a plain nonfat Chiobani, a tsp of real maple syrup, a tbsp of ground flax, and a chopped golden plum.

A and I need to hit up the gym and the grocery store, but have a simple dinner planned, so hopefully the magazines my mom mailed me are in my future!

One Day Down…

…one more day off to go!

I tried a new treat as a snack before dinner; a golden plum!

With some dried apple and two saltines with natural peanut butter.  This was good, but tasted identical to a black plum; I bought two, so I’ll see what the next one is like.  My favorite new try this year has been the pluot.

And I tried something new for dinner as well, okra!

I sliced the slimy stuff, dipped in egg and chipotle Tabasco, and rolled in plain breadcrumbs.  After 20 minutes at 450* they came out crunchy and delicious.

I also had leftover steamed broccoli and beanie weenies (I prefer stuff like this cold, so I just ate out of my storage container).

All together.

For dessert I had 3 dark chocolate snowcaps.

A bag of mini kettle corn.

And dessert oatmeal.

A 1/4C of oats (cooked with skim milk; never again, it was identical to with h2o) topped with a tbsp each dark chocolate chips, unsweetened coconut, and granola.

I have a busy day planned tomorrow, so I’ve got to head off to bed.

Is It Too Late To Be Posting Lunch?

It’s been a productive day.  I got my whole week planned (to be fair it’s only a three-day week) while I snacked on this:

A can of organic minestrone with a wholewheat bagel topped with PromiseActiv.

Later on I had this bag of soy chips.

I went to Crunch for a quick workout – a 5minute warm up on the treadmill followed my 30minutes of strength training with A.  Mostly arms and abs work.  I’m planning on making the gym a rule everyday (or at least 6 days a week).

Then we went to Staples to make copies.  We walked a longer way and passed a McDonalds, so I tried these apple dippers.

100calories (if you lick the container clean) for a filling and fun snack – what a great choice for 23year olds kids.

From there we stopped at Union Market for some grocery shopping – I love this store!  Since we have two days off we purchased some exciting veggies to make.  A also bought this fancy homemade foccacia and cheese, which I sampled when I got home (alongside a black plum).

On the rest of the agenda is showering, making posters, eating a fun dinner, and hopefully some good old Sunday night tv.

“House” in the House

I’ve spent most of the evening watching reruns of House.  I think this show is fairly amazing.  I also ate dinner.

I used these ingredients (Mary’s Gone Crackers Gluten Free Caraway Crackers, turkey pepperoni, and french onion lite Laughing Cow)

to make my favorite snack:  Emily Pizzas!

I also had a bowl of KashiGoLean topped with granola, a black plum, and some skim milk.

This granola is from Target and it’s fairly impressive.

The last of my natural honey peanut butter (less than a tsp).

I ended up with a bowl of broccoli slaw with pesto and pine nuts.

Back to finish my House marathon!

Manhattan on a Weeknight?!?!

What a loooooong day!  I’ll start at the beginning.  I had a whole wheat wrap with a banana and (natural) pb and j (triple berry preserves) for breakfast. 

I usually use half a banana for this, and I think I’ll go back to that.  I ended up throwing away the last few bites which is such a waste.

And for lunch I ate a black plum, an apricot, and a yogurt.

I don’t usually do fruit on the bottom (I don’t like yogurt with any added sugars) but boysenberry sounded too interesting to pass up.  I also ate part of a piece of birthday cake (but all of its icing!) at the end of the school day.

I stayed late a school and went directly into Manhattan to the doctor’s.  When I met A we shared a smoked turkey with brie sandwich.

I ate most of this half, the place labeled a whole as 630calories, so about 300calories?  I’m planning on posting about NYC menus sometime soon.

For dinner we had Tavern on the Green as planned.

It was so beautiful in the restaurant – I love how purposefully overdone it is!

I had a sourdough roll with butter to start.

And for my main dish, scallops with wilted radicchio, fennel, red delicious apple butter, and toasted hazelnuts.

Um, YUM!  The flavors went together perfectly, but honestly my favorite part was the fennel.  I devoured it.

For dessert A and I split the sour cream marscapone cheesecake.

This was good, but not spectacular.  It was pretty rich so we ended up leaving a couple of bites behind.

On the COLD walk home we split a tall skinny cinnamon dulche latte from Starbucks.

And to be perfectly honest, I’m probably going to go make a mini bag of popcorn now!  It wasn’t the healthiest day, but by far not the worst either.  I’m planning on getting up at 5:00 to do some schoolwork so I’ve got to hurry off.  Night all!

Oh My Goodness, a Recipe

I ate backwards tonight.  I started with some popcorn:

A mini bag of this yummy stuff.

And followed it up with a serving of dark chocolate snowcaps.

My daddy sent me this months ago and I’m sure they will go bad before we even make a dent!

And then I made a real dinner.  Stuffed peppers.  The ingredients:

(I did not end up using the tomato).  Turned into this:

My (made up randomly from my head) recipe goes as follows:

Slice the tops off two peppers (red and green in this case) and fill with the following

• 1.5 C broccoli slaw
• 1.5 C rinsed black beans
• 1 T chipolte hot sauce
• 2 T wasabi sesame seeds
• 2 T raisins
• 2 T pine nuts

Fill up the peppers and top with 1oz each sharp cheddar.  Put in the oven at 400* for 20minutes.  Voila!  I would dial down the filling measurements some (or add a pepper) because there was some leftover.  Which I ate topped with nonfat Fage and paprika as a snack before dinner.  (I also ate 2 big handfuls of unphotographed nuts)

My plate.

I ate the red pepper with a dinosaur plum and the rest of my Fage topped with a tsp of triple berry preserves and some cinnamon sugar.  I watched reruns of “CSI” while I ate, and finished with this little guy.

I’m ecstatic to go read my magazines, I will see you all in the morning!

*****Updated to add:  I finished In Defense of Food last night, which I loved.  And finally got around to this coccoa from last year!

Age? Time Ain’t Nothing But a Number

I didn’t have time to eat breakfast today, so I had breakfast for lunch!

A to go bowl of Kashi Heart to Heart, with a single serving box of soymilk, and 3 prune plums.  Very, very satisfying.  I don’t buy soymilk because it is higher calorie than skim and I often waste the end of it, but I really enjoy it in cereal.  I also had three unphotographed caramels (90calories) at the end of the school day.

Equally satisfying is the snack/meal I’m eating right now -

A plain nonfat Chiobani, mixed with about a tbsp each of maple syrup and ground flax, topped with a black plum and a bit of my lavender walnut mix.  The texture of this (grainy and creamy at all once) is fabuloso!

I stayed at school late, so I have no schoolwork for the evening (though I might work ahead) and all that’s on the agenda is a gym trip and dinner.  I’m hoping to be home in time to crack into one of my new magazines.

A and I met at the Atlantic Center to use some gift certificates from the wedding we were worried might expire.  I got some cute underwear from Victoria’s Secret (I’m notorious for cute underwear, it was a major topic of conversation in my high school’s locker room) and some things from Target.  I picked up some exciting Halloweenie food that will be making a blog debut soon!