Sunday picnic and bike ride…

Hi Readers -

Where ever you are reading this, I really hope that you are enjoying beautiful weekend weather like we are here in Boston! We have really lucked out this weekend, it is an A+ weather wise!

This afternoon Ben and I decided to take advantage of the great day. We went on a two hour bike ride and had a twenty minute picnic in the middle. What fun!

Here I am with my sweet ride (a Cannondale F7 – which I love, after I replaced the bike seat with something comfortable!!)

Yes – I am always one for safety, and I wear my pretty bike helmet wherever I go

We stopped at this pond on the Newton / Boston line and enjoyed a few snacks we had packed for our trip. Bread & Chocolate (our local bakery that we are lucky enough to live right across the street from) supplied us with a good deal of our picnic treats…

We had a few of their most amazing crostinis ( I love these things! ) with the rest of the tuna I made yesterday and some red pepper hummus as well…

We also had a bite of banana bread (also from B&C) which is so amazingly good…

We had a visitor during our picnic as well… but he was not after our food (surprisingly!) and just wanted to come over to say hello…

We also enjoyed a couple of slices of an apple with a dab of peanut butter… we did not finish all of this, so I will probably have more later

Ben and I live in a very hilly neighborhood… sometimes I can get annoyed because it makes my biking and running more of a challenge – but it definitely makes for a good work out! We had a great time biking around, it was a lot of fun.
We’re off to a cookout tonight. I hope you’re all having a great weekend, too!

I am so behind!!!

OK, seriously, what the heck happened to last week??? Somehow it’s Monday night already – and I am way behind in food blogging – again!
So, I’m going back in time… all the way back to Thursday!

The reason I decided to go back to Thursday, is that the French theme continued on that day! Instead of my yogurt and fruit, I opted for an amazing croissant from Bread & Chocolate. Wow. I do love croissant – but I so rarely have them. Sigh. I did not eat the entire pastry, I gave a bite to my friend Katherine

I was so surprised that the pastry kept me full until 12:30 in the afternoon. I went for a short walk at lunch because there was a break in the constant rain… but it only lasted a few minutes!  Because I did not eat the yogurt on Thursday morning, I opted to bring it for lunch!

This is low fat Stoneyfield yogurt, raspberries, and my own Mix My Granola (chai seeds, dried blueberries, etc) – it is soo good! I also included three strawberries on the side, and I had a hard boiled egg for some extra protein (oh, and because I’m a freak – I only ate half the yolk…) The egg was a bit of a mess, so no photo was taken

After work Ben and I met up in the Back Bay and decided to spend a lot of the evening walking around the great city of Boston. We popped into The Melting Pot where Ben got one of his favorite drinks, a spiced pear martini, and I had a glass of Pinot Noir. We also enjoyed this lump crab cake together:

We had a fun time going into some of our favorite shops (Lululemon and Vineyard Vines especially!)

I was extra happy that it was Thursday night because I had taken Friday off from work…. an early weekend for me!  I really enjoyed Thursday night, and I slept in on Friday morning.

I enjoyed a great breakfast on Friday:

Breakfast was a small bowl of yogurt with raspberries, granola and a TJ’s wheat bran muffin – I love these muffins because they are only 80 calories!

Friday was a super busy day… I ended up running errands and then picking up Ben from work at around 3:45. From there we drove to Schenectady, New York where we went to my college reunion at Union College. It was a busy and super fun weekend!

Tuesday – Summer in Boston

Hi All -

Welcome to summer time in Boston! What on earth is going on? It was 94 degrees today in Boston…. so much for spring! The good news is that things are going back to a more spring like temperature tomorrow… maybe 60. I love temps that are about 65 – 70 (or even cooler if I’m being honest) because it makes being outside enjoyable and it makes exercise easy. My walks today were just darned hot and uncomfortable! Oh well.

This morning I went over to Bread and Chocolate to get a cranberry applesauce muffin… yum!

You probably can’t tell from the photo – but this muffin is a really healthy portion. The muffin fits in the palm of my hand.

At noon I had a few bits of fruit from my traveling fruit bowl! The grapes that Ben got yesterday really went perfectly with the berries.

Lunch was another turkey sandwich – this time with TJ’s everything pretzel slims (I love these things!!)

My afternoon snack was walnuts and a few semi sweet chocolate chips.  Today I only had half of the portion I had measured out and what is pictured.

At 6:30 I met up with two of my very good girlfriends at Sonsie on Newbury Street. This is our favorite place to meet up in Boston for drinks and aps. We love to catch up with each others lives and (of course) people watch. Fun times!

Before meeting up with my friends I met up with Ben in the Commons and we walked through the Commons and the Public Gardens. It was soooo hot!! It was not the best day to go for a long walk, but eventually I made it to Sonsie. (This is not a far walk at all, but I was totally feeling the heat!)

At Sonsie we ordered spring rolls, calamari and a “burger” mini-pizza. We snacked on everything and all of the food was very good:

Thankfully by the time we were done with dinner, I could feel the city was in the process of cooling down. It was in the 70s when I got off the T – a huge difference from 94 this afternoon. Summer might have been here for a day, but it was not here to stay – not yet at least. I am really going to appreciate the spring weather once it comes back … I think tomorrow it’s only going to be in the 60s and I’m going to love it!

OK all – I hope you are all having a great night! See you tomorrow.

Tuesday, starting to feel better

Happy Tuesday, everyone.  I’m starting to feel a bit better today – I went to work which was an accomplishment.  This morning I also realized that I had part of my appetite back.  I went across the street to Bread & Chocolate for breakfast and decided on a lemon blueberry scone My ol’ classic / favorite!  I searched through my old blog pictures to find a pic of this lovely scone, but did not seem to have one on file – how strange!  I guess we’ll just have to use our imagination – it was wonderful!

Before lunch I had to stop for a morning snack – thankfully I had packed a banana… it really saved the day. After eating next to nothing for the last couple of days, I was definitely hungry today.  I’m thinking this is a good sign?  The banana helped me get through the rest of the morning. (I had no camera today – thanks Google images!)

For lunch I just had to have soup… do you ever find that when you’re sick with a cold you just need soup?  I do! Today I went to AuBon Pain and got medium (they did not have the small size option today – what the heck is up with that?!) chicken and wild rice soup and a piece of bread.  It was a good meal and really hit the spot on a cold, rainy and sick day.

When I got home I had a few snacks – an apple with peanut butter (here is an old picture of another apple and Barney Butter!):

I also had a few TJ’s  everything pretzel slims… yum.  I also had an Emergan’c - pink grapefruit flavor!

I didn’t have any good ideas for dinner tonight – but I did have a glass of milk with Aria protein powder mixed in… I know, a bad excuse for dinner, but it did the trick tonight.  Later I had a couple of handfuls of popcorn that Ben and his parents were also snacking on.

Well, I still have to get extra sleep since I am still recovering from the cold.  Ben and I are leaving for Maine tomorrow – but the blog will continue during our mini-vacation. See ya’ll tomorrow!

Thursday

OK, I think I finally realized why I’m so tired this week.  This past weekend Ben, my mom, Lara and I took a 24 hour road trip to DC. Seriously, we were in Washington, DC for 27 hours and we spent 16 hours driving… it was worth it! But this week I have been paying the price.

Tonight I am celebrating the fact that there is just one more day left to my work week. I am overjoyed…

This morning Ben and I stopped by to see Eunice at Bread & Chocolate, which of course made for a yummy breakfast.

To celebrate Thursday, I decided to go with one of Eunice’s amazing orange poppy seed muffins – I think I have mentioned that this is one of my new favorites at B&C!

I also enjoyed a medium French roast coffee with some milk.

My muffin got me through until 12:30 when I was finally able to stop for lunch. Today I had a wonderful salad from Lambert’s.  The salad had a good amount of protein thanks to a hard boiled egg (which I almost ate all of) and some awesome grilled chicken! I also had broccoli, lots of cherry tomatoes, orange peppers and green peppers, romaine lettuce and a small amount of pasta and spinach salad… yum! Unfortunately, I did not have my camera today so I had to take a picture with my phone. Meh. Obviously, it was a horrible picture.

Along with the salad I had a piece of whole wheat pita bread. It was a great lunch and I did not even need an afternoon snack.. I can’t remeber the last time that happened! Tonight Ben, Lara and I went out for dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Paisano’s … I had chicken enchiladas. My plate had three enchiladas with verde sauce, rice and beans. I had an enchilada and a half (Ben and Lara had the other half of the second one) and saved the third along with some rice and beans for lunch tomorrow.  Ben and I love Paisano’s it is very authentic Mexican and Guatemalan food and on the weekends they have a great mariachi band that is very entertaining!! If you’re looking for a great place to eat, go to 221 High Street in Waltham.

Ok, well I’m signing off to get ready for my day tomorrow. Happy almost Friday, everyone!

Thursday, lunch in a pinch

Hey all -

On Wednesday I was running late to work, and I was sort of out of my easy turkey sandwich fixings… so I skipped packing my lunch and was stuck buying pizza at the caf at work. I hate it when I have to buy lunch, especially when I have a really busy day at work and only have time to eat in the caf.  I really do not like the caf food very much and it always seems really expensive to me. Oh well.

Today I really did not want to have to buy lunch again. I got up a little earlier this morning to make sure I could put something together, even though I didn’t have too many options in the kitchen.   Lunch in a pinch is exactly why I keep cans of soup in the kitchen cabinet!!  This morning I grabbed a can of Trader Joe’s organic veggie / lentil soup, a few crackers and a few pieces of cantaloupe. I thought the cantaloupe would be a mid-morning snack, but I was able to save it for lunch.

I am also currently out of my instant oatmeal… this was a problem this morning because I thought about making stove top oats or oat bran, but I also wanted to get to work early…. so I decided to go across the street to my favorite bakery – Bread & Chocolate!  I am so thrilled to report that I have a new favorite breakfast item from B&C! This morning I got to chat with Eunice… and I realized as I was there talking with her that it had been way too long since I had last been to the bakery.

My morning muffin was an orange poppy seed muffin. Yum. It went perfectly with the medium French roast coffee that I also got at B & C. While I can’t eat there everyday, it is soo wonderful when I do! I can also tell that my stomach is getting better at surviving from breakfast to lunch – because even though I did not have oats this morning, I made it until 12:15 easily today.

Lunch was pretty good this afternoon, considering that I threw it together as I was running out of the house!  The Trader Joe’s organic veggie lentil soup is almost as good as Amy’s lentil soup and it is less expensive.  I had half the can today, and then saved the rest of the soup for tomorrow’s lunch.

About two hours after lunch, I enjoyed my last Trader Joe’s oatmeal and raisin cookie.  (these things were soooo good!)

And at around 4:30 I had my almonds and raisins.

After work Ben and I went to one of our favorite local hang outs, aptly called The Local. It’s a great restaurant / bar and it’s a lot of fun.  I enjoyed a Whale Tale beer and a few snacks while we were there. Ben had a Kobe beef burger. I didn’t have dinner there, I was not really hungry for a restaurant meal and nothing from the menu really grabbed me.  When I got home from The Local I had a really big glass of milk… and I haven’t figured out dinner yet!  I should go and get on that…

Go Blue Devils!  Duke is playing at 9:40 tonight, which means it’s going to be a late night for me…  I’ll see ya’ll tomorrow!

Busy few days…

Ugh, I do not know what is wrong with me this week. We’ve been super busy and I haven’t had much of a chance to blog.

It’s now time for bed and I thought I would do a quick recap and post pictures later. Wednesday for breakfast I had the same thing as Monday and Tuesday… Kashi Go Lean Crunch and TJ’s High Fiber cereal.

I had a yogurt for a mid morning snack – which worked out well because since I had a late lunch. Instead of going right to lunch at noon, I went for a forty minute walk in 60 degree weather!! It was sooo wonderful outside on Wednesday – a true taste of spring. Too bad they are calling for snow next week.

For lunch I had a cup of Trader Joe’s Split Pea soup and a few crackers (photo tomorrow!)

After work I met Ben and we went up to Beverly  to Endicott College. We went to a great gallery show of Boston artists, and our friend Rebecca had a piece in the show. It was  a lot of fun. In the car ride up (which took about an hour in rush hour traffic) Ben and I split a Quaker granola bar. It’s amazing that even just splitting one of these bars took my immediate hunger away!

After viewing the art show, I enjoyed some of the hors d’oeuvres that were in the lobby…. by the time I had some cheese and crackers, it was about 7 o’clock and I was really hungry. I hate eating when I am really hungry, because I usually do not make the wisest decisions. I had a Clif bar in my purse, which I could have eaten on the way home… instead I over indulged in the food in the lobby.  I did have a couple of really wonderful strawberries… yum!

On Thursday I had a great applesauce cranberry muffin from Bread & Chocolate. It was great to see Eunice, it had been over a week since I had stopped into B & C…  My muffin was really great this morning, it really hit the spot!

It was super windy today at work… so I did not go for a walk even though the temperature was not super cold – I might have been blown over if I had dared to go outside!

For lunch, I had the other half of my Trader Joe’s split pea soup, low sodium Saltine crackers and a travel packet of Barney Butter. The BB was an important addition to today’s lunch. Sometimes it is important to add some fat / protein to a lunch that is virutally fat free. The addition of Barney Butter kept me full a little longer this afternoon!

After work Ben and I hit the gym. We did half an hour of weights and 25 minutes of cardio. I did the elliptical while Ben did the bike. Fun times.

For dinner, we went to Whole Foods and enjoyed the salad bar.

Ok, I’m signing off now. I’m exhausted and must go to bed!!

See you all tomorrow.

Thursday – probably the worst lunch ever!

Hey guys -

So, Thursday was such a weird day!! I did not get around to posting a re-cap yesterday because when I got home from work and picking Ben up from work, I changed into my PJs and got right into bed at around 6:30 Thursday night!! I could not believe it – but I was 100% exhausted.  Ben and I watched a couple of episodes of The West Wing (it is our favorite TV show ever) and I went to sleep really early.

But let me get back to how Thursday started! We went over to see our friends Eunice & Steve at Bread & Chocolate… I had a medium coffee with milk, and one of my favorite muffins – the Apple Sauce Cranberry muffin!  The muffin was definitely a great treat.  The picture of my favorite muffin looks really large, but it’s a close up. It really is not a large muffin at all – it is a perfect sized muffin!

This muffin got me through until my lunch time – which due to a super hectic day at work, was later than normal. I am not going to spend much time on the blog discussing the lunch I had on Thursday – because it was completely horrible. Just picture chicken salad, orzo, peas and mushrooms. It sounds “not bad” but some how the end result was fairly disgusting.

It’s sort of a long story – but I was running seriously behind Thursday morning and did not have time to pack my lunch or breakfast. Thus, I had to buy lunch at work. By the time I got to take lunch, there was not much selection in our caf. So I was stuck. The only thing I did consume was a few Wheat Thins and a Laughing Cow cheese wedge that I had grabbed in my mad rush out the door. Sigh.

I got back to my desk and I was still starving. (Honestly, I do not think crackers and cheese would hold over many of us… or maybe it is just me!) I was happy to see a Quaker True Delights bar in my lunch bag. This was the first time I tried the Honey Roasted Cashew Mixed Berry bar. It was really good!  The berries and salty cashews really complimented each other perfectly.  Take a look at all of the berries you can actually see in the bar!

I was planning on going for a run after work – but I think the lack of food paired with the really stressful and tiring day at work did me in. As I said, by the time I got home, I had no energy and opted for a good night’s sleep!

Thankfully it paid off for a pretty productive day on Friday…

Thursday – a recap for a few days…

Wow! It has been a long while since my last post, I apologize to the avid readers. (All two of you!) I had a long weekend, and got out of the habit of posting every day… lots of stuff going on, and just did not have a free moment really.

But during the last few days, I have kept a photo journal of the types of food I was enjoying, for the most part.

I went home to my mom’s house on Monday – after being snowed in all Sunday. My mom and I had some great food – lots of fresh fruit, especially!  On Monday, we had lots of errands to run and we ended up walking around getting our stuff taken care of for over three hours! One thing on my agenda was to get a new pair of Uggs since my pair has a hole on the left boot   But I cannot complain, since they are six years old – they were great while they lasted!  Of course right now is a super busy time for Ugg purchases, I think.  Nordstrom was OUT of Uggs! I had to place an order – and I hope they arrive soon! Since the hole is above the ankle, I can still wear mine – but I’m excited for my new ones!

After getting our errands done, mom and I were too tired to think about dinner really. So we went to Whole Foods where I got salad, and we both enjoyed their tripple squash soup. I liked this soup A LOT – especially because it was low in sodium (for soup).  I think a serving (one cup) was about 8% of your RDA of sodium.
Here is the salad:
I had mixed greens, grape tomatoes, chickpeas, cous-cous, tofu, cucumber, and carrots.
Here is the soup:
Yum!

Tuesday was Inauguration Day!! What an exciting day. I spent the early morning hours at the doctor’s office for an appointment which was a long and drawn out process. But Mom and I got home in time to see the festivites!! Thank goodness – I was really worried we were going to miss some stuff, but we got home just in time!

Because I spent the morning at the doctor’s, I had a late breakfast – but it was a great one! I had a packet of TJ’s heart healthy oatmeal (isn’t all oatmeal heart healthy?) and I added half a mashed up banana and a handful of wonderful blueberries… The banana added some bulk to the oats, and the blueberries made it even more wonderful!

For Inauguration Day my mom made a special lunch to celebrate and I made brownies for dessert. The lunch was a Mexican chicken casserole (I’ll have to get the recipe and post it some time soon!) and it was great. It was a mixture of chicken, low fat & low sodium cream of chicken soup, diced onion, celery, cheddar cheese (reduced fat) and eight small tortillas torn into bite sized pieces all mixed together in a bowl. We poured the mixture into a baking pan (9″ x 11″ x 1 1/2″ I think) and topped the mixture with one cup of organic salsa and then topped the salsa layer with a little bit more shredded cheese. We baked it at 350 for 30 minutes. that is just the recipe from my head  – so I don’t know if I would recommend going right off to make it just yet

Anyhow – the casserole was amazingly great – especially for a freezing cold day. My mom and our friend Annie enjoyed brownies after lunch – but I had to wait until after my gym workout. I certainly enjoyed a brownie after dinner on Tuesday night. Yum.

Wednesday started off just the same as Tuesday. I had a bowl of the same oatmeal (TJ’s oats, 1/2 a banana mashed in, and a handful of blueberries… I even ate it out of the same bowl!)

Come to think of it – a dash or two of cinnamon would have been perfect with this mixture!

After breakfast I had another round of Doctor appointments Yuck!! I got to work around 12:30 and immediately had lunch. I had packed a Dannon all natural Lemon yogurt and a baggie of awesome red grapes (ya’ll know how much I love grapes!!).

That held me over for a while – and later I had two graham crackers as an afternoon snack.

I thought dinner on Wednesday would be a bit problematic, but all turned out for the best. Ben and I were btoh getting home for the first time in a couple of days, and coming home to a house empty of food for the most part. Thankfully I was able to put together a meager dinner of pasta, tomato sauce and TJ’s turkey meatballs for us. It was not much – but it did the trick! (and I forgot to take a picture of this!?)

This morning I had a great lemon blueberry scone from Euince at Bread and Chocolate. Yum. I was torn between the apple sauce muffin (my favorite!) and the scone.  But the great thing about Bread & Chocolate is that you cannot make a bad decision

Lunch today was perfect. A wrap of spinach and plain tuna:

I sort of dig the Chicken of the Sea individual size containers! I just grabbed one, put it in my lunch bag and was all set for lunch – so easy! The protein really helped me get through the rest of the afternoon!

Around 3:30 I had to take a break for my afternoon snack. Chobani vanilla with blueberries and granola. That kept me going until I finally got home from my long day at 7:30 tonight!

Ok – well, as you might be able to tell, it’s been a long few days. I’m ready to hit the hay – but I’m so glad to get this post out to you all!

See you soon, I hope!

We can do it!

Hey all – Happy weekend, and hopefully it’s a long one for most of you!

I am surprised that I made it through the work week!  For actually getting up and going to work,  I decided to reward myself with breakfast yesterday   I have a new favorite scone at Bread & Chocolate – which I never thought would be possible. I now love the cranberry orange scone!  I love the savory flavor of the cranberry (and there were so many mixed into the scone – yum)! It really cuts the sweetness of the scone, making it perfect. I still love the blueberry lemon, of course!  Here is the scone:

The scone was still sweet – and I might have preferred a bagel for breakfast, but it was lovely and wonderful at the  same time!

Instead of coffee on Friday, I enjoyed a cup of Vanilla Chai tea in my Rosie the Riveter mug. We can do it!

I love this tea! I just wish it was decaf so I could drink it all day, especially while the weather is so darned cold!  I added a little bit of soy milk into the tea, and it really made it wonderful.

Lunch was officially dull and hurting! Once again this week, it was an almond butter and jam sandwich on protein bread. I have to say – the protein bread has really saved me this week! Thanks to the bread I’m getting an extra 14 grams of protein in my lunch – and thus, I am less hungry though out the rest of the afternoon.  During lunch I read a little bit of the new Real Simple that arrived on Thursday night! It’s always a great day when I have a RS in the mail – I love this magazine!

Because I had nothing for lunch, I ate my Chobani as part of lunch.  I had a great mix in for the yogurt today!  A free sample from Bare Naked granola…  it was great and really made the yogurt perfect.

Yum.

I left work a little bit early yesterday to meet up with Ben and his colleagues for a farwell get together…. this was Ben’s last week at his job at the school   But he’s moving on to a great new job that we are both excited about.

I got to Union Street in Newton Centre at 4:20 and no one else was there – even though the e-mail get together said 4pm! I was able to get the last seat at the bar, I ordered a IPA and read my book until the rest of the gang showed up.  It was a little cold for beer, that’s for sure, but it was the easiest thing to order and it was good!  Also a great way to celebrate the weekend. I cannot remember the last time I had enjoyed a beer… it had been a while. I actually did not finish it completely – there was definitely a sip left at the end of the night!

As for food, we split nachos which are so great at Union Street. There were four of us splitting a plate of nachos and another group of four splitting another order of nachos.  What a weird dinner – but it hit the spot. It was warm!

We got home around 7:15 or so. I had half a cup of Kozy Shack rice pudding with a sprinkle of cinnamon. I did not have it in me t0 make a real dinner… but I probably should have!

I am pretty sure that I feel asleep at 9:30 last night! I woke up around 4AM to say good-bye to Ben (he was leaving for DC and the inauguration!) and went back to sleep for a few hours. I finally got up around 10 this morning!  I cannot believe that I slept for so long.

I had a great bowl of oatmeal this morning. Today I made two servings, and saved the second for tomorrow morning. I like thinking ahead and preparing meals in advance when possible!

Today’s bowl of oats was wonderful.

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup of soy milk

1/3 cup water

1 tbs of Dole Raisins (I love this brand!)

1 tbs of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tbs of granola

1 pinch of cinnamon

1 pinch of pumpkin spice

1 spoonful of barney butter!

What a wonderful breakfast for a cold morning!

Right now I’m wrapping up the blog and trying to figure out if it’s cold enough to skip the gym. What a horrible thing to say!

I’m pretty sure I’ll be going to the gym in a few minutes…. I am feeling the need for exercise!

Happy Saturday everyone!