I Walk In This World

Good Saturday morning blog friends!

Today Hubz went to breks with a friend at the local diner, and I chose to stay home and chillax in bed.  After some stretches and doggie snuggles, I popped up and took Hillster out for a rainy morning walk.

On the walk I decided if Hubz was getting yummy diner Breks, I needed to make something similar.  I am guilty of food jealousy.  Srsly.  You can ask my family.

So I whipped up some french toast!  I used whole wheat bread dipped in eggwhites, skim milk, cinnamon and a splash of vanilla.  Once dipped, I cooked the toast on a hot buttered griddle.  Never afraid to use a little butter, am I?!

Topped with farmers market peach and VT real maple syrup.  The in-laws are visiting again this weekend, and since their garden is da bomb, they brought us some goodies!  See that dish of black raspberries?  That’s from their garden.  Delish. 

• french toast with peach slices and maple syrup
• fresh black rapsberries
• coffee

Was this as good as gooey (fattening) diner breakfast french toast?  No.  Was this amazing for healthy + homemade + hitting many of my daily nutritional goals?  Absotutely!!

And now I’m blogging and relaxing.  I have a party to go to tonight (fun!) and plan to not do too much between now and then.  Maybe a little exercise…but that’s it.  Sounds delish, right?!

Last night I watched SATC and sipped on some camera-shy Sierra Nevada Pale Ales while Hubz was out playing volleyball.  August has been such a crazy month with parties, family, friends, etc that I couldn’t have been happier to chill at home last night.

We made Friday night (whole wheat) pizzas for Din.

• pesto + fresh tomato + Italian blend cheese + Applegate Farms chicken sausage

The other one I forgot to photo, but it was a standard mushies + peppers + onions.

My plate…

• 3 slices of pizza
• tossed spinach salad with homemade garlic dijon vinaigrette
• glass of TJs sauv blanc

I got a lot done at work yesterday, which is funny cuz it was Friday.  I guess I like to clear a lotta things off my plate so that Mondays (which I hate) are a little easier.

I did our grocery shopping over my lunch break (holla for $50 for the entire week!) and treated myself to a salad bar salad for lunch.

• spring mix lettuce
• carrot
• cukes
• red onion
• broccoli
• cherry tomato
• peas
• celery
• mushrooms
• pickled beets
• pickles
• 1 hb egg
• 1-2 T of seafood salad
• 1 tsp of spinach pasta salad
• topped with my homemade garlic dijon vinaigrette
• side dish of watermelon

How come salad bar salads are always so amazeballs?  I could never recreate this beaut at home.  And for $3.96 I think it was pretty dang great.

So.  What’s everyone up to today?

Last night we had a dinner fail.

Hubz and I drove down to Cherry Hill, NJ to meet my sister for her final gown fitting (until the 1 right before the wedding)!!  Hubz walked the mall while sis and I did wedding gown stuff.  She looked beyond gorg, fyi!

Afta, we went to Bahama Breeze for dinner.  Hubz and I decided to split an appetizer and an entree.  Smart choice!  And I started things out with a simple glass of Mondavi Sauv Blanc.

We got the red pepper baked goat cheese appetizer…

Which we split 3 ways.  Good, but I am a goat cheese purist I think.  I prefer it cold (not baked) and not full of junk.  Just the cheese please.

I still ate this xs 4.

Cute decor.

For Din, we ordered the jerk mahi mahi with mashed sweet taters and plantains.  We split this exactly in half.

Um.  Painting a layer of Hunts BBQ sauce onto a sadly cooked piece of fish does NOT jerk mahi mahi make.  I was really unhappy with it.  Thankfully the mashed sweet taters and plantains were good.  But for $18, I was wrought with disappointment.

But YAY for us for choosing a fish on the Good Alternatives List from the Seafood Watch pocket card!

The other disappointment was that I ordered a 2nd glass of vino for dessert.  I almost NEVER order dessert, and instead often choose to have a second glass of wine after dinner.  That’s the path I chose yesterday, but another Bahama Breeze Fail.  They never brought it.  And of course the bill came and we were charged for it.  So I had to motion the waitress over to discuss with her…

No worries blog friends, I shall make up for my lack of wine with tonight’s Din!

I only worked a half day in order to accommodate the plethora of driving that needed to be done, up and down the middle section of NJ.  To keep me hopped on caffeine, I stopped for a mid-day nonfat espresso frap with a side of bling.

Lunch was light b/c I knew we’d be going out to dinner.

• tossed salad + rolled up slice of ham
• watermelon
• another rolled up slice of ham with slice of chz inside
• water to drink

And b/c y’all know I’m a Wild Woman, here’s another wild and crazy snap of Breks!

• passionfruit + pineapple + mango + banana
• almond milk
• ice
• low fat yogurt

This was a good smoothie using the diff fruits!  And nothing beats almond milk.  I’m a total convert.

Happy Friday friends!

Cripe!  I haven’t blogged in over 24 hours and I’m so behind in pics.  Sometimes, this sucks.

Let’s just get to it.

Just had Din after getting back from a 2+ hour fundraiser for local candidates running for City Council.  Hubz is the Campaign Manager so attendance is mandatory.  It was a nice time.  We’re far too busy prepping for our vaca (last minute) to make Din, so we ordered Sunday Pizza.

• brick oven pizza  w/onion
• green leaf salad with kale (good addition) + carrot + cukes + peppers+ pea pods + cranberries + goat cheese
• Smuttynose IPA
• water

I know I’ve said it a zillion times, but our local pizza place is so much better than everything else out there.  SO much better.  But, I was a good girl and filled up on salad first so I only at 2 slices (which I cut in half each to make it feel like more food) of pizza.

The fundraiser was fine.  I try to keep politics off my blog for sensitivity reasons, esp since Hubz is a campaign manager.  So I’ll keep my thoughts about the fundraiser quiet.  But it was a lovely day and I had some lovely chats with diff people! 

My eats…I started with a Rolling Rock (yeah PA). 

Check out the pretty food table.

My plate of afternoon eats was 1 shrimp, 1 slice of swiss + 4 crackers, 1 tortilla and salsa, some veg + dip, fresh fruit, white wine.

And then the desserts came out, which were many and oh so tempting.  But I stayed far away and just took 1 bite each of Hubz plate.  Then I did go back and eat 1 of the butterscotch walnut bars, which were SOO flipping good.  I think I’m a butterscotch addict.  Srsly.  I love it.

The centerpieces were flowers from the hosts’ garden.

Lunch was grab and go + an attempt to use up all the perisables in our house, hence the plethora of cheese on our sams.  Mine is the one with the ham tongue sticking out on the left, lol.

We had to eat while walking to the car to go to the mall.  Hubz needed new shorts and we had a supa Eddie Bauer coupon.  Of Course I manged to find 2 items worth purchasing.  I did good though.  1 fushia empire waist 3/4 length sleeve top (perfect for layering for hiking in New England) and a pair of black waterproof/sunproof hiking shorts.  And then a quick stop at Bath and Body Works for body spray (holla new White Citrus for $12!).

[insert Erin running around doing laundry between Breks and going to the mall]

Breks was a 100% repeat of yesterday.  Again,  I’m trying to use up all perishables, meaning muffins and fruit.  And yesterday’s Breks was SO good, so why not?

Got about 6 hours sleep, which is fine.  Not great, but eh, ok.  I plan to sleep more tonight, although it’s 10:30pm and I’m still doing laundry and have yet to pull out anything for packing.

<———–procrastinator

Last night’s dinner party was fun!  Our friends Dina and Jared visited and we had a lovely evening together.  Lots of chats + wine.  Dina’s Greek and brought this fantastic wine to have with dinner.

The spread was creamy pesto pasta + organic chicken sausge, salad, homemade cheesy garlic bread.  Honestly, the garlic bread was the evening’s Highlight!  So flipping good, and I totally made up the recipe.  Def going in my cookbook.

Ok, Hubz is gonna kick my ass if I don’t get off this computer and help pack for our trip.  Wish me luck!

Nite!

…on my desk at work

I think he’s cute.  He’s the biddiest spider ever.  And he’s brave cuz when I grabbed the camera and lined up his cameo, he didn’t even flinch.  Most spiders woulda ran.  Not this guy. 

He’s my friend.

Breks was a bowl o grains with extra krap thrown in there too…

At the table…

• Treehugger Crunch + cheerios + cinnamon Puffins + banana + dried apricot + dried blueberries + 1 tsp trail mix
• skim milk
• COFFEE

I manged to eat this at home this a.m.  But if there WAS a way to eat cereal in my car, I’m sure I would have figured it out by now, and would be doing it daily.

It’s my dog’s fault.  If she weren’t so damn sweet and cuddly in the morning, I’d never be late for work.

Last night we had our traditional Sunday night pizza from the local brick oven pizza shop.  Mine was topped with onions and Hubz’ was topped with sausage.  We both were good girls and boys and ate giant salads on the side.  He had a beer and I had that wine.

Din…

• salad with cukes + carrot + maters + snow peas + cashews + Goddess dressing + 2 crumbled hummus flava Dr. Krackers
• 2.5 slices on onion brick oven pizza
• house red wine (2 small glasses)

This pizza is so good it’s unfair to really tell y’all about how good it is.  (((NJ pizza))).  This red wine is different and really good.  There’s a tart bite to it that is really fun. 

Before Din, I was in the mood for cookies, so I threw together my Outstanding batch of coconut chocolate chip cookies.  The recipe I have is really fantastic.  I’ll share it once my book is published someday. 

Erin must exercise control to not horse house these in quantities not suitable for a lady trying to stay trim.

Spidey has run away now.  Hopefully he’s not having babies.  Well.  That would be a miracle actually.  Can you imagine?  I’d be totally rich…discovering a male spider that can have babies all.over.my.desk.  Rich I tell you!

<——wonders how many people are totally skeeved out by that image?