Someone very kindly let me know that there has been a dispute about feeding garlic to dogs. Check out more info here. There have been mixed results in tests, and vets differ in their beliefs. I’m sure it will be fine this once, but I probably won’t do it again. Thanks for the info, kind, gentle person.
Hey gang,
So lately Marshall has been really finicky about what he’s eating. His foster dad would feed him a mash of “people food,” but I was hoping to avoid that and have been feeding him the best dog food I could find, Instinct, which came highly recommended by Jaclyn. He’ll eat the dog food, but he’s constantly begging, so I was hoping that if I made him a people food mash and combined it with dog food, that might take the edge off, so to speak. After a bit of research online about homemade dog food, I came up with this very simple concoction:
Chicken grilled with garlic (the garlic is good for keeping away fleas, in addition to smelling and tasting awesome):
Boiled carrots:
And brown rice, with the impatient master in the background:
Mixed 1 part rice to 1 part carrots to 1 part chicken:
Success!
And I even managed to make my own dinner in the process: brown rice, chicken with garlic and some asparagus grilled with mustard:
This was a very satisfying dinner - I bet Keri would be proud.
After dinner, I wanted to check my mile time. A couple of months ago, I was running between a 13 and 14 min mile. Last night I ran between a 11 and 12 min mile, which was a great improvement! When my friend Ellen ran the marathon, she did between 9 to 10 min miles the whole time. BADASS. I cannot wait til I get up to that level.
During the dog food and dinner prep, I even managed to make my lunch for today, but of course I forgot it at home. GRR. So frickin unfortunate. Ah well, it will still be there tomorrow. And in any event, prepping dog food, dinner, lunch, big grocery shop, running a mile, going off leash with the dog - I feel like last night was pretty productive!
This morning for breakfast I had the usual eggs: 1 egg, 2 egg whites on whole wheat bread and a banana. I forgot to take a photo, but I think we all know what it looks like by now, don’t we?
I have mucho writing to do today, which is a blessing and a curse, so I better get to it. Happy Tuesday!
Hey gang,
So for lunch today, I wanted to keep things fresh with some vegetables, fruit, and lean protein. I feel like my system needs some cleansing, and the best way I know to do that is through produce and lots of water, which reminds me…
Okay, now I’ve got a big ol’ glass of water by my side. Commence with the blogging! (I lost my water bottle…I need to find that thing…)
I headed over to Guy and Gallard with the Marshmallow and got a turkey sandwich (you’d think I’d had enough of turkey, but apparently not) with sprouts, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. I also got a big cup of mixed fruit, which I hate buying because it’s sooo overpriced, but the apples looked mealy.
The fruit was good, but I started thinking that they can’t possibly be in season right now. I’m terrible with the whole ‘in season’ thing. I belong to a CSA, as you guys know, so I get seasonal stuff from them, but when I’m left to my own devices at the grocery store, I just buy whatever I feel like eating. So in an effort to figure out what’s in season, so at least I know what I should buy, even if I don’t always follow through, I did some research. I found out through the NRDC that in early December in New York the following fruits and vegetables are in season:
To find out what’s in season in your area, you can look it up at the NRDC Eat Local page or at the Sustainable Table.
I’ve got a grocery shop planned for tonight, along with a walk for Marshall and a run for me, so I’m going to plan to stock up on these local, fresh, and cheap seasonal fruits and veggies.
Hello loyal readers,
I trust that you guys had a fabulous Thanksgiving, and if you didn’t, there’s always leftovers to keep you warm at night. The rest of my holiday was great, and as promised, here was the highlight of my T-giving: the Thanksgiving Sandwich:
Tada! Turkey and sweet potatoes on one side, and allllllll the rest of the side dishes on the other side, EXCEPT the best part, cranberry sauce, which my mother threw out. Boo Mom, BOO.
All folded up and ready to go:
So delicious.
After a hellish day of travel on Saturday due in part to this horrible accident (7:30 AM from VA to 5 PM in NYC - terrible), I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday spending time with friends, unpacking (so surprised I managed to do this before coming back to work - I’m usually a ‘I’ll unpack two weeks after I get home’ type person), and cleaning my apt.
Fortunately, I didn’t overindulge too much over the holiday, my Thanksgiving plate was full, of course, but, as Keri says, one meal, one day won’t kill you. It’s several meals and several days where habits are born and weight is gained. The days and meals surrounding Thanksgiving I did several runs and ate light, so I think I did my part. The holidays are not a time to lose, but a time to maintain. And I think I’ll be able to maintain pretty well. I do want to amp up my exercise, though. I miss getting those daily endorphins.
This morning I went to my usual haunt to get my usual breakfast, one egg, two egg whites on whole wheat bread, banana, coffee:
With Marshall under my desk! I’m on such a coffee kick these days. Yesterday I nursed a huge cup in bed for 4 hrs. GLORIOUS.
Once more with my coworker Tom being a goof:
Happy first day back from vacay - hope you’re feeling as refreshed as I am!
Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Since arriving at my parents house on Monday night, I’ve done a whole lot of nothing - it’s been great! What is it about your parents house that makes you want to stay in your pajamas all day? My mother is the queen of Thanksgiving, so without further adieu, here was the breakdown of our Thanksgiving dinner:
Starting off with the key to most Thanksgiving dinners, we have the turkey. Our bird this year was 21 lbs for 6 people, which means lots of leftovers. More on that later.
Next, my personal favorite part of Thanksgiving, STUFFING:
My mother cooks our stuffing inside the turkey, which is the best way to do it, in my opinion. Our stuffing consists of breadcrumbs, butter, onions, and celery.
A close second for my all time favorite Thanksgiving foods is the breads:
Cranberry bread on the left side, pumpkin on the right side. The pumpkin was a little dry this year, which was a bummer, but the cranberry was delicious as always. This is definitely our family’s favorite - it barely lasts to the day after Thanksgiving, and is definitely gone the next morning.
So for the first part of sides we have:
From bottom clockwise: mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rutabagas, acorn squash, and peas.
Here we have butternut squash on the left and sweet potatoes on the right.
As usual, my eyes were bigger than my stomach:
I had a little bit of everything. I probably finished 75% of this plate.
Since we ate at 4, I had plenty of time to take a nap during Home Alonebefore dessert. We reconvened for pie around 8. Homemade apple on the left, storebought pumpkin on the right:
My mother is an excellent cook, but the one thing she can’t make and never could is pumpkin pie. She can make everything else perfectly, but burns pumpkin pie every time. I opted for a slice of pumpkin with a bit of ice cream and homemade whipped cream on top:
So after dessert, my mother got to work on one of the best parts of Thanksgiving: leftovers! She makes the best turkey soup, which you can see in the making here:
This is the stripped bones from the turkey, any skin, celery, carrots, onion, salt, pepper, in a water/chicken broth combo and a bit of turkey gravy. Boiled, simmered for three hours, strained, and then refigerated overnight. Then in the morning, discard the layer that’s risen. For soup, we add rice, peas, and a bit of turkey to the broth. Definitely a highlight of our Thanksgiving.
My personal favorite is the ‘Thanksgiving sandwich’, which I plan to make for dinner tonight. Stay tuned!
So the NYC Blogger Conference met this weekend for our monthly dinner at my place, where I made tacos, Ari made guac, Jaclyn made black bean salad, and Betsy made three types of amazing cookies. Not to mention the tub of margaritas we drank. Maybe it was due to that tub of margaritas that we drank that nobody took any pictures. Bad bloggers. Seriously, I have no idea what happened. Between Betsy trying to run off with Marshall, the three-woman judging panel, and political debates, things got a little hazy.
This morning I traveled from the Upper West Side to Chelsea via NYC subway with a dog, suitcase and two bags. It was not fun. Right after work, I’m loading up again to catch a train to Stamford from Grand Central to meet up with my older sister and her dog, Dozer. The four of us are driving down to VA for the holiday. It’s funny, my favorite thing about NYC was always the Thanksgiving Day Parade, but even though I live in NYC, I never get to see it in real life! Ah well.
I was too cold to leave the office for breakfast, so I settled on some old cereal from the cabinet: shredded wheat and a bit of Kashi with nonfat milk:
Counting down the hours to the end of the day…Happy Monday everyone!
Not only is it Friday, but it is Friday before a holiday week. This is a good thing. Sorry I didn’t post dinner last night. Two reasons: 1) My computer at home is painfully slow. 2) I just had leftovers of the ridiculously delicious and uber fattening Spaghetti Carbonara. This morning was Friday morning breakfast at work, so I took part with a scooped out onion bagel, a little bit of cream cheese, and some fruit.
Today is less cold than yesterday, thank goodness, so I think I Marsh and I will go on extra long walk in the park tonight. He’ll be happy. See you for lunch!
So, I definitely miscalculated how much salad I had left. I was all excited for lunch and went into the fridge only to find this:
Fail
So I bulked it up with those Wheat Thin Chips you see there (which, by the way, are awesome), plus two more little handfuls you don’t see there. Not my ideal pairing, but it is frigidly cold outside and I wouldn’t go out if you paid me. As I type this I realize I have a greek yogurt in the fridge. Score. So I will be having that as well. Look here it is:
So maybe I won’t need a snack. Who knows? Clearly I am eating and blogging in real time, so this was not well thought out.
Tonight Eva and I are going to drink adult beverages on the Upper West Side. Exactly how I like my Thursday nights: in my neighborhood with alcohol.
My salad at lunch yesterday was so huge - I couldn’t finish it all! I ended up saving half of it for lunch today. I was glad I had a veggie-filled lunch because dinner turned out to be a carb-fest. After work and a walk for the Marshmallow, my friend Dave came over and made us dinner. He chose to make Spaghetti Carbonara, which was incredibly good, but the farthest thing from salad you could imagine. While he made dinner, I snacked on some French bread and a glass of Reisling (not pictured).
Since I started out with carbs, I broke up the monotony with….more carbs! The incredibly delicious pasta, with more bread:
Man, you’d think I was running a marathon or something (Not til 2010!).
Anyway, it was delicious, and I have three or four containers of leftovers. Wonderful. 
This morning I woke up STARVING. Marsh and I went out for our morning walk. I’ve been meaning to take some pictures of our little corner of the park. These pictures don’t even do it justice - it’s incredible. I should have got a couple while there were still leaves. It was gorgeous.
On my way to work, I thought my stomach was going to eat itself. Oh my goodness was I hungry. I picked up the usual on my way in:
I don’t know if it’s the FREEZING cold weather or what, but along with breakfast, I was craving coffee. I like coffee always, but sometimes I LOVE coffee. Now I got me some Steely Dan playing, and a great cup of coffee in my hand, life is good.
It’s back to basics day here on WFWS! Today for the first time in over a month, I craved a huge bowl of veggies for lunch! Egg whites and veggies, guys, things are on the up and up!
In keeping with the NYC theme, for lunch I accidentally purchased the salad that ate Manhattan. Apparently it’s been so long since I’ve hit the lunchtime salad bar that I forgot that the bowls come in two sizes: ‘large’ and ‘trough o’ salad’. Unfortunately I chose the latter. Hence:
Fortunately I kept it simple with the mix: spinach, chicken, avocado, tomatoes, carrots, peas, broccoli, and sprouts. This salad was so big the fork they gave me was a joke in comparison. I tried to take a picture of the salad dwarfing the fork, but this is what came out:
Misleading
It looks huge, but in reality did not even cover the diameter of the salad bowl. As Jaclyn would say, ‘wah, wah, waaaaaaaaaah.’
I can’t even tell you how awesome I’m feeling today. In celebration, I leave you with probably the best scene in cinematic history, which I am currently obsessed with. Happy Hump Day!
