WIAW Back in the Swing of Things

Well, it is about time that I face reality. Even though it is abnormally warm in Boston, my beach vacation is over and I am back to the books for the next two months. I will be putting in some long days of studying for the USMLE Board Exams, so my routine is starting to look pretty monotonous. Study, eat, study, run, shower, eat, study, study, study, eat, sleep. I didn’t know it was humanly possible to sit for so long and cram so much information into my brain each day! At least I have good, healthy food to power me through the day.

Breakfast: 7:30am

A productive day always starts with a good bowl of oatmeal in my book. I made my trail mix oatmeal, adding cinnamon and chia seeds to the mix and cooked in just water, since I have run out of unsweetened almond milk! Delicious and wholesome, enjoyed with black, French press coffee and a bottle of water.

Morning snack: 11am

Before my sprint work out, I needed a little fuel to carry me through. My favorite pre-run snack is dates dipped in almond butter. They are sweet and protein packed, but won’t sit heavy in your stomach while running. Enjoyed, of course, with another bottle of water. (Gotta make my 3L for the Game On challenge!)

Lunch: 1:30pm

The warmer weather makes salad eating much more enjoyable! A few friends and I met for lunch, and sat on the lawn in front of school to take full advantage of the beautiful weather! I had a big bowl of lettuce topped with thawed corn, peas, a black bean burger, and salsa. This was pretty spicy, and huge! Good thing I had a big bottle of water to wash it down with!

Afternoon snack: 4pm

I was pretty hungry after my morning of sprinting and biking, so I had a big bowl of Greek yogurt when I got home! I used some applesauce to sweeten it, and added a bit of almond butter, cocoa powder, and cinnamon in an attempt to get something comparable to a chocolate pudding. It wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but it tasted good enough. Plus, the protein powered me through the rest of my afternoon of studying!

Dinner: 7:45pm

An impromptu roommate dinner was called for by Marie this morning! Who am I to say no to a chance to cook a delicious meal while processing life with such a good friend? We made what I am calling Cauliflower Dal, and it might be the best recipe we have concocted in quite some time. It is simple, flavorful, and really healthy! The recipe post will be up tomorrow, if you are interested! We chose naan over rice to help soak up the sauce, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner together.

Even though my day was busy and life is starting to get stressful, my health is a priority and I am glad to take the time each day to prepare and fill myself with good, nutritious food! Remind me that when things get even crazier in the upcoming months!

Question: What is the best thing you ate today?

WIAW on the Final Day of the Vegan Challenge

How quickly a month goes by! Somehow, it is already February 1st, punctuated by the fact that it wasn’t pitch dark when I left the clinic at 5pm yesterday, and by the end of our month long vegan challenge! I will be back soon to share thoughts from my mom, dad, and friend, but for now, my food and thoughts on my last day as a vegan!

Breakfast: 7:45am

I had a full day yesterday, scheduled to shadow a clinical pharmacist from 8:30am-12:30pm and perform an observed physical exam from 1-5pm. A busy day must start with a good breakfast! I enjoyed some reheated whipped banana oats with a few blueberries, fresh banana slices, and sunflower seed butter stirred in.

Lunch: 12:30pm

Breakfast must have been good because I wasn’t hungry until I broke out my salad! A big bed of greens with green bell peppers, carrots, chickpeas, avocado and balsamic viniagrette. A pear as a palate cleanser, all enjoyed with a bottle of iced tea from the cafeteria. (I left my water bottle at yoga on Saturday and my hydration has seriously been lacking since then! Good thing my friend grabbed it for me so I should have it back soon…)

Dinner: 6pm

I definitely got hungry midafternoon, but was too busy to have time to take care of it. By the time I got home, I was ravenous! Good thing I could make 5-minute microwave soup… all from scratch! Check out Monday’s post about my vegan broccoli cheddar soup, which I made and enjoyed again after my long day.

Dessert: 7:30pm

I munched on some air popped popcorn, dusted with cocoa powder, cinnamon and sugar. A sweet treat to end the night, along with some chammomile tea and a handful of trail mix for good measure.

I have enjoyed exploring vegan eating over the past month, and am surprised at how quickly I adapted to a life without cheese. If I could live in my own insular apartment and always cook for myself, I would love to stay vegan. However, I am still in a very social part of my life right now, and potlucks and being hosted by friends and family is a greater priority for me. I do not want to wear the label of vegan, but will continue to cut back on the amount of dairy I consume. I am striving for balance, not perfection, and this is what seems right for me. I will be back soon with my parents thoughts on how they will continue!

Question: How do you handle hunger when you don’t have time to take a break?

WIAW With Few Words

Our beautiful Christmas Tree this year!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Well, sort of. Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday, but the weeks leading up to it are always stressful and crazy. Too much work, too many social engagements, and not enough time to squeeze everything in. Let the countdown begin until my last exam, after which I can truly celebrate the holidays. Not to mention that the sun sets on Boston at 4pm, making days seem even shorter! Because it is the holiday crunch time, this post will be mostly pictures of What I Ate!

Breakfast: Honey Walnut Oatmeal: oatmeal, 1/3 banana, honey and walnuts

Lunch: Mixed salad greens with sprouts, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, goat cheese, Balsamic and olive oil. Finished with a breath freshening apple.

Snack: Peanut butter and banana on crackers

Dinner: Slice of this beautiful frittata, served with homemade hashbrowns (recipe idea courtesy of my sister!) and a croissant, provided by my friend and dinner guest. The frittata was made with eggs from my friend's chickens (such a cool gift!), and contained peppers, onions, sun dried tomatoes, and goat cheese. Dessert, unpictured, was a mug of hot chocolate with a shortbread cookie. The meal, mostly unpictured, was enjoyed with good company and conversation, which I hope excuses my photo fails.

A day filled with lots of class, but lots of good food! Need veggies and carbs for brain power! ;)

WIAW For Two Days Straight

Wait, what is today? Wednesday? Are you sure? Maybe it’s because my meals and snacks for the past two days have been shockingly similar, or maybe all this time cooped up at my desk is starting to get to me… but I can hardly keep the days straight any more! I am not a meal repeater and need variety in my eats, so you know these must be good if I could eat the exact same thing two days in a row! Recipes will be up tomorrow, so this is just to whet your appetite!

Breakfast

Oatmeal, of course! Today’s flavor was chai spiced: I steeped a chai tea bag in hot water while I was finishing up last night’s dishes. When the kitchen was clean(ish) and I was ready to make breakfast for real, I removed the tea bag, added some milk and brought it to a boil. I added in my oats and chia seeds, a dash of ginger, and a few shakes of cinnamon. Sweetened with a spoonful of honey at the end – it was like a chai tea latte with some staying power!

Mid-morning snack

Fruit and nuts both days! Today’s mixed was perked up with the last handful of my chocolate covered espresso beans… it’s never to early for a chocolate pick me-up, right?

Lunch

A big bowl of “Cheater’s Chili” two days in a row! Sweet potatoes, lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes and onions… so simple and good! You’ll have to come back tomorrow to see why I cheated! Lunch was paired with an apple, but those are boring to photograph!

Mid-afternoon Snack

I made the mistake of running an errand hungry. I couldn’t resist the 75% off candy corn at Rite Aid, but was able to create an intervention when I got home. I made this great sweet-n-salty snack mix with air-popped popcorn dusted with cinnamon, salted peanuts, and candy corn. The popcorn fills you up before you can eat too much candy corn, and it satisfies all cravings at once!

Dinner

Have you eaten a persimmon before? Until last week, I had never even heard of them! My friend’s parents have a persimmon tree in their backyard in CA, though, and so I got to try a few from the last shipment. Not so sure if I am a fan of just eating them sliced, but I am a fan of them on this pizza! They are super sweet, and so I got the idea from a fig and prosciutto sandwich I tasted over the summer in Italy. How can you go wrong with a goat cheese pizza, right? A friend and I enjoyed this pizza for dinner last night, and I am looking forward to the leftovers for tonight! You can look forward to it as well… the recipe will be up tomorrow!

WIAW Protein Packed Edition

Time for another What I Ate Wednesday! Finding a healthy balance keeps getting harder as school keeps picking up. We have three exams before Thanksgiving (one is tomorrow!) and I have several other deadlines approaching for clinical shadowing, student groups, and volunteer commitments. Just taking one day at a time though, and trying to eat well for energy for my long days! Monday was not a good energy day. I was hungry almost all day despite eating normal meals, found myself reaching for coffee more often than usual, and was sluggish for much of the day. After putting together this post and comparing the two days, I realized why! Protein! Monday’s meals were significantly lacking in protein, and therefore I got hungry pretty quickly between meals. I sure made up for that on Tuesday!

Breakfast: 7:30am

My friend sent me a Facebook message describing a delicious breakfast porridge made with leftover quinoa. She simply let it soak in milk, added sliced apples and cinnamon, and enjoyed a wonderful fall breakfast. I chose to add pumpkin to mine instead, and the results were fantastic! I used 1/2 cup quinoa leftover from cooking, soaked in 1/4 cup coconut milk and 1/4 cup pumpkin with a dash of cinnamon overnight (or 2 nights in my case). In the morning, I re-heated it and served it with cinnamon and raisins for a great, filling breakfast. This kept me full through a long exam review session and a morning meeting or two!

Lunch and snacks: 12pm

I snacked on the clementine during my first meeting, and then finally got a real lunch break. I enjoyed leftover cranberry quinoa, with this portion being pretty heavy on the delicata squash! Didn’t plan too well to have quinoa two meals in a row, but again I was full and happy from this lunch! I enjoyed the apple for dessert, and saved my clementine for a mid-afternoon pick me up between scheduled clinical classes.

Dinner: 5pm

I forgot to take a picture, but luckily other food bloggers are more diligent than I! Photo cred to http://www.the-new-healthy.com/2010/09/peanut-butter-jelly-time.html

Panera is often my study spot of choice because of their free WiFi and bottomless cups of coffee. (Lesser known fact: I worked at Panera through my senior year and for the summer before medical school, and will always have a special spot in my heart for this place!) I have bought enough cups of coffee this year to get a free bowl of soup with my rewards card, so dinner was on Panera tonight! I love the black bean soup and enjoyed it with a piece of baguette for dipping. Told you my day was protein packed!

Dessert: 8pm

I must admit that I wasn’t hungry for dessert, but was craving something when I finally made it home from my long day. I made this in a similar way to my sugar-free apple crisp. I used up some leftover canned peaches sprinkled with cinnamon for the base, and then mixed some oats, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, and walnuts with the sweet peach juice. I let it all bake and enjoyed a single serve peach crisp in just a half hour! Followed by a handful or three of honey roasted peanuts and a lot more studying, I think I sure made up for my previous day’s protein deficit!

Question: What was the “theme” of your meals today?

WIAW in the Future

How is it Wednesday already? This week has been long, but at the same time is flying. Because of scheduled school events, I have had no good days to take pictures of my food. (Not really appropriate to explain to your professor over a lunch meeting why you are photographing your vermicelli bowl…) Don’t wanna miss out on Jenn’s party though! So for this week, I am switching it up a little bit. Instead of showing you what I have been eating, I will share what I will be eating!

I got my Boston Organics delivery today. It is like Christmas every other Tuesday! I love getting home and finding a big box of produce, love having a full fridge of healthy food, and love that it is mostly local and all organic. I usually get half fruits and veggies, but I am still stocked up on a bunch of apples and clementines from the grocery store, so switched to the 2/3 veggie box for the week. In the box this week:

• 3 small delicata squash
• 2 yellow onions
• 2 big beets
• head of lettuce
• bunch of kale
• 3 big carrots

• 1 large tomato
• clamshell of basil
• 3 apples
• 2 plums
• 4 bananas
• 1 bag cranberries

Many of my friends are curious about how I cook through a box in a week, having been recent CSA or Boston Organics customers themselves, or skeptics of a program like this. I get my box every other week, supplementing the later part of the last week with some frozen veggies, and adding a few bulk seasonal fruits (either through the delivery program or from the grocery store) to round everything out. I find this to be the perfect system for me, but starting a program like Boston Organics will take some experimenting with how much you eat, how often you want your delivery, what you want your mix to be, etc.

Here are some thoughts of what I will make from my produce box this week…

• Miss Smart’s Stuffed Delicata Squash
• Frugal Feeding’s Thai Carrot Soup
• My own kale salad with roasted beets
• A stovetop cranberry jam – anyone know a good recipe?

My mind is easily changed, though! Have you made anything lately with these veggies that was outstanding? Let me know in the comments section below!

One thing my mind can’t be changed over… how to use the basil. It is already gone! I made Chelsey’s vegan pesto, which I am nicknaming the poor student’s pesto. My classic pesto can become quite pricey thanks to the fancy cheese and pine nuts, and this is a nice weekday alternative for a pesto craving. I cut down a bit on the olive oil and added a big scoop of hummus for creaminess, but otherwise kept the recipe the same. I mixed this in with some leftover broccoli and diced tomato (from last week’s farmer’s market trip) and some angel hair pasta. This will definitely be a favorite spread/sauce from now on!

Question: What will you be eating this week? Any ideas for my box? Like I said, my plans are flexible!

WIAW Fall Edition

So happy that it’s Wednesday! The last of our lectures for the cardiovascular section is today, leaving me with just 1 1/2 more days of intense studying and then 3 whole days off… As exciting as a distant long weekend may be, Wednesday is even more exciting because of Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday Party! Hope you have had some great meals so far this week!

Breakfast: 8:30am

I woke up early and didn’t want to wake my roommate up while banging around the kitchen, so I snacked on a clementine until a more decent hour. When the sun was finally up (even though my roommate still wasn’t!), I decided to try a new oatmeal bake: peanut butter and banana. I mixed 1/2 cup oats with 1/4 cup milk, 1 tsp ground flax, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1/4 mashed banana. I baked it at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, broiled it for another 2 minutes, and then coated it with another swipe of peanut butter and sliced banana. Paired with a huge cup of coffee, it made for the perfect morning!

Lunch: 12:15pm

I am not usually a salad for lunch kind of girl because I get hungry too quickly after. But my Boston Organics box this week was packed with veggies begging for salad use! I packed myself a big salad with red leaf lettuce, baby spinach, sprouts, carrots, dried cranberries, and balsamic hummus dressing. I always keep the dressing separate when I bring a salad to go so I don’t have leak problems in my backpack en route, and so the lettuce isn’t soggy by the time I get there! No lunch is complete without fruit – a plum and another clementine!

Mid-afternoon snack: 4pm

As predicted, I was hungrier than normal mid-afternoon, after walking to and from school (my bike lock broke, so I am foot mobile until my new one comes!) and spending a lot of brain energy in an exam review. I inhaled this bowl of grapes while settling back down into study-mode.

Dinner: 7pm

I am so thankful roommate dinners are back! It is great to cook and share conversation together, and have an excuse to slow down for an hour or two. Plus, we usually make some pretty fantastic food! As we enjoyed a bowl of butternut squash soup with some toast, we decided that fall flavors were our favorite. Pumpkin, squash, apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger – so much warmth in fall food!

Dessert: 8pm

If we weren’t convinced of our love for fall enough, this bowl of sugar-free apple crisp sure set us over the edge!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for the Butternut Squash and Apple Soup and the Sugar-Free Apple Crisp recipes!

Question: Are you a seasonal food lover? What is your favorite fall flavor?

WIAW Leftover Edition

I had a lot of fun participating in Peas and Crayons‘ What I Ate Wednesday last week, from taking pictures of my daily eats to getting inspiration for simple meal ideas from other bloggers. I am excited for my second WIAW, and hope to do this more in the future. Yesterday’s meals were pretty simple, pulled together from leftovers. I hate wasting food and will always use up leftovers (or freeze them) before cooking a new meal, even if I am getting bored. Freezing leftovers has been a huge help in the past, since I will often freeze individual containers and then have my own, homemade TV dinners when life gets hectic. Another way I have found to avoid leftover boredom is to reinvent them. Keep reading for some of my leftover makeovers!

Pre-breakfast snack: 7am

I set my alarm for 6:45am, with no intentions of leaving my warm cozy bed for class. Instead, I brewed a pot of my pumpkin spiced coffee, grabbed a handful of peanuts in the process, and crawled back under the covers with my mug and clinical textbook to learn about the cardiac exam.

Breakfast: 8am

After making it halfway through my reading, I decided to face the day and my cold apartment. I finally made myself some Pumpkin Oatmeal! I saw it on so many WIAW’s last week, and pumpkin recipes keep appearing everywhere, so I knew I had to have some. I followed this recipe at Oh She Glows for the oatmeal, but skipped the suggested toppings, choosing a few toasted almonds and some fresh ground cinnamon instead. So yummy! A hearty breakfast that sneaks good-for-you veggies without you even realizing… (Yes, pumpkin is a vegetable and it is rich in fiber and Vitamin A!)

Lunch: 11:45am

Lucky I had leftover Subway sandwiches on hand for what turned out to be a hectic afternoon. The break in the rain I needed to bike to campus never came, and so I was resigned to taking the bus. Unfortunately, the bus takes at least 3 times as long, and so I had to inhale my lunch as I was getting ready and flying out the door. I gave the Veggie Sub a little more staying power with a slice of melted cheese on one side, some hummus on the other, and a few extra pickles in the middle. Perfection. Good thing my new travel mug kept my peppermint tea piping hot until I got to school! Peppermint tea works way better than gum as a breath freshener (no one wants their (future) doctor to have Subway breath!)

Snack: 4:30pm

A long day of learning about heart sounds and the complete cardiac exam left me quite hungry by 4:30pm. I didn’t want to eat too much, since my yoga class was in an hour and it is not advised to go to hot yoga after eating a meal. I ate the pear I had picked out for lunch and didn’t have time to eat, and drank a whole lotta water in preparation for yoga. Good thing! This was the hardest yoga class I have ever taken! Granted, I have only been to 3… but it was a challenge, and I loved it! My arms feel strong, my legs feel stretched from the previous day’s 10.5 mile run, and I sweated more than I knew possible! (TMI? Sorry!)

Dinner: 8pm

The only One problem with not being able to bike to class is not being able to bike home! I was probably a treat to sit next to on the bus – sweaty, tired, and hungry (read: cranky). I heated up some leftover winter melon soup (almost through that gigantic pot!) but was sick of having eggs with it. Instead, I sauteed a few mushrooms in chili oil and added them to the soup with some soy sauce for a different spin. It was a nice change since I have eaten a lot of this soup lately, and it was good to have so much liquid after hot yoga.

Dessert(s): 9pm

Still pretty hungry after my big bowl of soup, I sought a sugar-free dessert. This is a trick from my roommate for “baked” cinnamon apples! Just cut up an apple, sprinkle it with cinnamon, and microwave it for 2 minutes. The apples give off a bit of juice that makes a quasi-sauce, and the natural sweetness and spice of the cinnamon really shines through. Not eating added sugar really opens up your taste buds!

Still hungry, I munched on some peanuts and raisins after my apple. I was really craving something salty, and needed a bit more protein in my day.

I settled down to finish studying for the evening, and was still hungry and thirsty from yoga! I made some decaf green tea with a few slices of fresh ginger (my new favorite night time drink!) and had a slice of toast with Smart Balance. I may or may not have sprinkled a tiny bit of salt on my toast… finally hit the spot!

Question: Have you ever done hot yoga? Do you experience weird salt cravings afterwords, or does it take your body a while to recover from the fluid loss?