food – Page 11

When Brian visits…WIAW#11

November 19, 2014 by Alicia 4 Comments

Happy Wednesday!! Can you believe Thanksgiving is just over a week away?!? Where has November gone??

Last week, Brian was lucky enough to come visit for more than a 24 hour period, which I was really excited about. Although I had to work 2 days and still fit in my yoga, I had all day Saturday with him, which was perfect. We ate out a lot as is what typically happens since I only buy food for myself and never know when he is going to visit. I thought I would link up with Jenn for What I ate Wednesday for some of my food highlights last week.

On Thursday, Brian met up with me at my office for lunch. We decided to walk to Reading Terminal which is a HUGE indoor market with tons of places to eat. It is a bit overwhelming at first and hard to see everything in a short 1 hour lunch break, but then we found a place we could both agree on and I got a delicious hamburger, fries and homemade lemonade.

For dinner Thursday night, we both wanted some light since lunch was so filling. The weather was absolutely horrible (rain –> hail –> snow). We drove to a restaurant a few blocks away and got some sushi. I don’t eat fish, but I enjoyed a cucumber and avocado roll and also had some miso soup.

Friday afternoon, I had lunch on my own, but Friday evening we met up in Narberth where my yoga studio is and checked out the Great American Pub. After yoga, my stomach was hurting a lot and I think I ate too much beforehand or I would have enjoyed the meal more, but I really enjoyed the appetizer we got, chicken spring rolls and then I could only manage to eat some of my chicken pasta salad, which was really good too, but would have enjoyed more greens with it. I took the rest home to add more spinach and salad fixings to it and to last me a couple more meals.

Saturday morning, I got some things down around the apartment and then we headed out at 10am for brunch at a cafe near by. I enjoyed the short (but wide) stack of whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes with some sausage. I couldn’t even finish the pancakes and they kept me full for hours.

Saturday evening we decided to cook at home. We stopped at the grocery store and picked up some steaks. I made spiralized zucchini and Brian cooked the steaks. It is amazing how well we work together in our small kitchen, but I am happy it works. It was a nice delicious meal in the comfort of our home and a perfect way to spend our last night together for a while.

Now it’s time to get back to some cleaner eats at home for a while. I don’t think I will need to go out for food for a some time.

Do you like to eat out often?

Happy Halloween Tombstone Brownies

October 31, 2014 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Hey guys, just popping in quickly to say Happy Halloween!!

After my long day yesterday with expensive tire charges and surviving getting my flu shot

spending a night in the kitchen was much needed. This was my first attempt at tombstone brownies. I think I overbaked the brownies a tad, but they were still delicious and I love how they turned out with the tombstones (pumpkin spice milano cookies).

That’s all for me today!! Happy Friday and Happy Halloween!!

Be safe and try not to eat too much candy 😀

Treat Yourself Tuesday #10

October 14, 2014 by Alicia 4 Comments

Hey guys!! A short post on a few of my treats from the last week. Thank you Becky for hosting and reminding us to treat ourselves 🙂

Firstly, on Friday, I caved and got a cupcake. I haven’t had a cupcake since August as I have been saving money. When I saw a smores cupcake on the menu at the cupcake truck, I had to get it. Well it was between that and pumpkin spice…so basically deciding between summer and fall right? Anyway I decided to try the smores because I never got my smores cupcake in the summer. I am not sure why they decided to put it on the menu in October…

As tasty as the cupcake was and a great fuel for my swim after work, it was a bit disappointing. For one, it had too much frosting so I had to scrap some off and two, there was not enough graham cracker. They just sprinkled graham cracker crumbs on the frosting. I have had a better smores cupcake where they did a graham cracker crust on the bottom and prefer that. However I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered melted Hershey’s in the middle.

On Saturday I went to Target and while walking by the DVD section, I saw this for under $5 and had to get it. Two movies in one!! I find I have been buying more DVDs lately since I don’t have cable… [side note: Miss Congeniality was the first PG13 movie I watched]

I also picked up some of these to try as they were on sale. They are delicious by the way.

On Sunday, I decided to order a new water bottle. I figure I need a back up and my Camelbak straw always gets like moldy after a couple days…yeah it’s gross…but since I only use it for water and I clean it every few days, I have lived with it. I used to have an Under Armour water bottle like this but left it at the gym one day. Bonus, it was free shipping since this water bottle supports breast cancer.

I also treated myself to some yoga and reading outside in the sun on Sunday. Have to soak up that sun before winter.

I love how steady I feel in crow pose these days. I feel my fingers making small adjustments just like when I am doing balance poses and standing and my toes make small adjustments, but I feel very steady. Amazing to see how far I have come because in March of this year I couldn’t even hold crow for a split second. Also had to do my bridge pose too. Trying to practice it more to get my hands closer to my feet.

When Bloggers Plan My Meals: MIMM#15

October 13, 2014 by Alicia 8 Comments

Happy Monday!! Happy Columbus day for you lucky folks that have off and happy Thanksgiving to Canadians!!

I am a little annoyed that I have to work today since I do accounting and well the banks are closed today, but we work a day behind so basically I will have to figure out how to spend 3 hours of my day tomorrow when there is no cash to reconcile. Oh well…moving on.

This weekend was pretty good. I was super productive on Saturday so then on Sunday I got to relax most of the day and hang around the apartment catching up on emails and such. Last week I was out of town and didn’t have time to prep food for the week so my meals mostly involved some defrosting from the freezer with the fresh veggies I had picked up on Sunday. This week I wanted to try some new recipes as I have become tired of eating the same thing and I will be starting yoga teacher training in 11 days, so I will be needing to pack some dinners to go soon.

I can not tell you enough how much bloggers have changed my life. They introduce me to new foods that I never would have tried before, like spaghetti squash. Umm I had never heard of this squash before last year. I know that is probably crazy, but I’m not really a squash person so other than the frozen squash my mom used to buy and the butternut squash she recently started to buy, I had no idea what other squashes were out there. Spaghetti squash caught my interest though and I made it for the first time last year when it was in season and loved it.

This year when fall hit and I saw the spaghetti squashes I was so excited to buy one, but I now don’t live with my parents and that means I am short on kitchen stuff, so cooking a spaghetti squash meant I needed a pan to bake it in. Well I finally purchased a pan this weekend at Target and they actually had a 20% off sale on Pyrex stuff which was sweet and I got to make my spaghetti squash. I decided to make this recipe from Liz with a few tweaks. I did not use tomato sauce. I just used a bit more of olive oil and tomatoes.

Bloggers have also introduced me to quinoa. I tried making quinoa a few weeks ago, but I just added some onion and other veggies and wasn’t sure what to think of it. Saturday night for dinner, I made this recipe from Lisa’s blog. Instead of butternut squash though, I used sweet potatoes. Turned out pretty good, though I am still iffy on the quinoa flavor. The balsamic vinegar and honey dressing was good though and the vegetables over powered the quinoa so that worked for me. I also roasted the brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes in the over for 45 minutes before adding them to the pan to mix everything together.

Of course I had to have some fall themed dessert after dinner, so I whipped up a quick batch of these amazing truffles by Erin. Though I think I had too much pumpkin, at least when covered in chocolate they held together well, but storing the remainder in the freezer since they were melting quickly in my hands.

Sunday continued the blogger recipes with trying Arman’s recent chocolate chunk cookies for breakfast. Though I made them after eating some pancakes and then ate one cookie just to taste and saved the rest for snacking. I don’t think my batter resembled any sort of “dough” and the cookies were not very photographic, but they were light and fluffy and tasty. As long as it tastes good, that is all that matters.

I really don’t know what I would do without the amazing blogger recipes out there. It is very nice when they plan my meals for the week especially when they are budget friendly too.

After a rainy and cloudy Saturday, it was perfectly sunny on Sunday and I enjoyed some yoga outside and some headstanding inside (because I still need the wall just a bit).

I am really embracing the beauty of Fall this year! I love the colorful leaves on the ground and the sunny days where I get some time outside to enjoy it!!

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Thank you Katie for hosting!

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