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Hot In The City: Grilled Cheese!

It is HOT in New York. HOT HOT HOT. Currently (8pm) my weather widget says:

95 degrees F (35 C). What is the best thing to do on a hot day? Get your nails done of course! (I actually had these done yesterday, which was almost as hot.)

This is a “UV manicure” which is supposed to last up to 2 weeks. We’ll just see about that. If it does I will never go back to regular manis, which only last 2 days for me. So far it hasn’t chipped, so it’s off to a good start 😉 The woman put a kind of gel on my nails that hardened; then she put on the color. I love dark nails – I always go for dark red/brown/purple, even in the summer. I think I will do purple for the wedding (it’ll be tasteful). Speaking of the wedding…

We got Bobby’s wedding band today. It’s very nice but you’ll have to wait until after the wedding to see it.

Oh, this is a food blog? Okay! Here is my lunch:

It’s a grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes. I put it in Mr. George Foreman before I left for work. It was a li’l soggy by lunchtime but still yummy.

Ingredients

I made Bobby a similar sandwich this weekend – just grilled chicken (love you, George) with tomato; sauces were mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce… (same bread and tomato as mine):

He liked it.

Exercise of the day: Pick Your Level: Weight Loss Pilates with Ellen Barrett (Netflix). Walk home from work (1.4 miles). Walk to Tiffany’s and to dinner (Chipotle) (1.5 miles).

Was it hot where you live? What did you do to beat the heat?

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The Girl of Sandwich or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bread.

That’s one very long title. But I think it works. I’ve been digging the sandwiches lately. Nature’s Pride (I keep wanting to call them Nature’s Path, but that is a different company that was kind enough to send me goodies!) sent me a bunch of bread the other week and I’ve been dutifully eating it up. (I say “dutifully” as though it’s a chore; it is not! I love this bread.)

I discovered this fantastic lunch sandwich that is filling and probably the most delicious sandwich I have ever eaten. It is so simple and yum:

  • whole wheat bun (ideally from Nature’s Pride)
  • 1 laughing cow spreadable swiss cheese
  • tomato slices
  • lots of lettuce

I have had 6 of them I think and I am still not sick of the combo! I only have one more whole wheat bun left and that’s for tomorrow (Bobby had one of the 8 original buns for a PB sammy but then I told him to eat the white buns since I don’t like those as much and he has been polishing those off instead).

The other thing I have been making white the big rolly buns is my breakfast. I spread a bun with peanut butter and top it with coconut flakes.

How can you not love this? I make breakfast and lunch at the same time (in the morning before work), then I take my breakfast over to the couch and savor it before I leave for work. This big white poofy carb is the perfect brain food to get me through the day. I do love white carbs sometimes. Totally necessary.

Exercise of the day (free again): Exercise TV’s 6-Round Slimdown with Stephanie Vitorino. It’s a 40-minute strength/cardio/abs workout consisting of 6 5-minute rounds that each incorporate strength, cardio, and abs. You do need weights, which I don’t have. You’re also supposed to have a medicine ball, but I used a circular glass candle holder thing and it worked for me. I got pretty sweaty and I was only slightly terrified that I would hurt myself the the candle holder. The only odd thing is that some “5-minute” rounds are 3 minutes; others are 6-7 minutes. But it didn’t bug me.

Hump day’s over. Time to get ready for the weekend… Do you have plans for the long weekend? I am going to do WEDDING PLANNING and get brunch with Bobby and a friend on Sunday.

P.S. Did you notice I switched back to “Say Yes to Salad“? If you want to change your blogrolls back that would be lovely. The vote came in and I decided to go with what the people said.

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Healthy Eats for a Busy Life

This week has been very very busy. I’m trying to get as much as I can out of this free Equinox pass (for the intenSati Warrior Challenge) and work is pretty crazy and I’m also trying to have a social life. Is that impossible? I wish I didn’t have to sleep.

I have eaten some very yummy things, though. These are steamed Japanese sweet potatoes:

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I just cut up a humongous ‘tater and steamed it for about 6-7 minutes. The chunks were small enough that it cooked quickly. Tasted kind of like a ripe kabocha, but not quite as good. I miss kabocha squash – I should definitely make an effort to get some. I think I had this sweet potato with some maple syrup. Those are paint chips in the background.

AM New York (a free paper that I get going in to the subway) has had coupons recently for $5 off at Energy Kitchen. Energy kitchen is a fast food store that only sells dishes that are under 500 calories! I love it. I got this total tuna sandwich the other day:

jan 15 2010 002

It has 290 calories. Obviously you can’t just have one dish from there, because it wouldn’t be much food – but if you get a sandwich and have something extra like an apple, it’s a really yummy, healthy, satisfying lunch. I wish I had pictures of the other things I’ve tried: the veggie egg wrap with broccoli and onions (274 calories), the ostrich (!) burger (271 calories), the steamed broccoli side (kind of boring), and the sauteed mushrooms and onions side (very good!). My coworker likes Energy Kitchen too – his new year’s resolutions had to do with being healthier and eating less meat, so we like similar stuff!

Last but not least is this great salad I had a few weeks ago when I was in NJ for new year’s:

jan 03 2010 022

It’s called the Whole Earth Salad (named after the Whole Earth Center in Princeton, where my dad and sister got it). I wrote down what I think is in it so that I can try to recreate it: kale, almonds, rice/bulgar, cabbage, carrots, sesame seeds, marinated firm tofu, and a lemony dressing. It’s vegan (and vegetarian).

Off to snuggle. What are you doing this weekend?

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Blogger Love and Review: Peace Food Cafe (New York City)

Last week on Tuesday night I met up with one of my favorite bloggers… Dori! She took us to a great vegan place on the upper west side called Peace Food Cafe. It’s completely vegan and they also have a lot of raw options.

Unfortunately neither of us had working cameras so I don’t have a picture of us together… but I did manage to take (crappy) pictures of the food with Bobby’s Droid. Bobby and I split 2 dishes – the kabocha sandwich ($9) and the mushroom duxelle pizza ($9.95). Dori got the kabocha sandwich too.

08 kabocha sandwich

Did you really think I wouldn’t get the kabocha sandwich? It’s actually listed as roasted japanese pumpkin sandwich on the menu. It came with some kind of pickled veggie and sprouts. It was really good, but the bread was a little bit dense for my tastes. I loved the caramelized onions and mashed squash in the sandwich. The vegan cheese and walnuts didn’t sit too well in my stomach either.

09 pizza

The pizza was amazing. The mushrooms were so good – they almost tasted meaty. I wasn’t really a fan of the roasted veggies on top but Bobby happily ate them up for me.

We couldn’t skip dessert – we got a HUGE piece of chocolate peanut butter swirl cake and devoured it.

10 dessert

This was so rich but so delicious.

And now I have to be honest… while the meal was delicious, it was not very filling. Bobby stopped at Grey’s Papaya for a hot dog on the way home and I stopped at Whole Foods for some cornbread. And this is probably why all of my pants are too tight (well, not just this one time, but in general I have been eating a lot more than I usually do). Might be time to reign it in.

More blogger love – Bekah sent me a holiday care package! These almonds and granola are wonderful. She’s a talented girl.

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Thanks, Bekah!

Today’s question gets us into the holiday spirit… What is your favorite holiday gift (either to give or receive)? When I was little I loved big gifts, but now I actually like things that are homemade and thoughtful. I’m pretty easy to please. A fresh batch of Christmas cookies or a knitted scarf both sound perfect to me.

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New month!

Last night I had this:

And also another BSI muffin.  They are so good.

This morning I did yoga – Vinyasa power flow #3 – from yogadownload.com.  Such a great site.  Let me know if you check it out.

Breakfast at work was 1/2 cup oats, 3/4 cup soy milk, 1 cup water plus a splash, and 1 sliced banana.  The extra milk made it so creamy.

Snack was a Chocolate Brownie Zbar (my favorite).  Then I did my walk.  I finished a book I got from the library on Saturday called The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg.  It’s a bunch of short stories about life and doing what you want and being happy.  It’s really good and I definitely recommend it.

For lunch I made a salad (3/4 apple, 1 tomato, romaine, mushrooms, bacon bits, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and s&p):

And a delicious open-faced sandwich (thinly sliced chicken, vegan nacho cheese, sliced 1/4 of an apple) on this new bread that I got from Trader Joe’s – the brand is Alvarado Street Bakery.  They make great bread.

I had a nice big snack of a BSI muffin, a vanilla chobani, and an apple.  I crumbled up the muffin and stirred it into the yogurt… so good:

And then when I came home I made dinner.  I gave the kelp noodles another try but I still don’t like them.  Tonight I mixed together the kelp noodles, veggies (carrot, tomato, onion), and I chopped up a big chunk of tofurkey.  I topped it with a soy sauce/vinegar/sugar dressing. I had to throw it out.

I also made butternut squash fries again, and due to the kelp noodle failure, I mostly just had the fries with organic ketchup.

For dessert I had 2 small fuyu persimmons and some grapes topped with a little more than 2/3 cup of lowfat ricotta cheese.  I am in love with this stuff.  I crumbled BSI muffins on top.

Bobby’s and my 3 year anniversary is this Wednesday – we still haven’t decided where to go out!  Any suggestions for type of food/cuisine?  What do you guys do to celebrate anniversaries?