Newlywed, Newly Veg!

If it’s from Starbucks, it can!!!

Hi friends! How has your day been so far?

Mine has been okay.  I headed over to Barnes and Noble early this morning to do some online grading work that I’ve been putting off.  Normally, I just get coffee or sometimes a soy latte, but this morning, I decided to go a little crazy and get a Tazo Green Tea Latte.  Starbucks calls this drink “an intriguing blend of Matcha green tea, lightly sweetened and combined with soy milk.”  Ummm…lightly sweetened my BUTTOCKS!  This baby was sweet.  I mean, sweeter than this:

And this:

Pretty sweet, right?

Now, the fact that it was so sweet should have tipped me off that it wasn’t something I needed to be drinking but…the sweetness sucked me in!! Plus, I just got a tall, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Wrong.

One tall green tea soy latte contains 270 calories and 42 grams of sugar.  FOURTY-TWO!!!! I could have just had a big bowl of ice cream…I guarantee you I would have enjoyed it more!

Now, I know in the grand scheme of things, 270 calories is not a lot.  But I’m one of those people who prides themselves on not drinking their calories (wine doesn’t count, right?).  I scoff at the fools with their mochafrappalattetinos, extra whip.  Don’t they know how bad that is, I think, as I sip my hot tea, plain. 

But today, Starbucks, you got me.  You sucked me in with your promise of “intriguing” green tea, and indeed, I did find it intriguing.  It intrigues me that you were able to shove 42 sugar grams into a 12 oz. beverage that is supposedly mostly green tea.  Yep.  In the words of Chandler Bing, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued.”

Moving on.

Lunch sucked too.

Gah! Sorry guys—I’m having kind of a bad day, food-wise!  I came home wanting something warm and filling.  We’re taking a yoga class at 5:30 this afternoon, so I knew that I’d be forgoing any sort of snack later on in the day. 

Unfortunately, it seems to be one of those days where nothing sounds good.

At the store on Sunday, I bought some  House Foods Tofu Shirataki noodles.  Have you seen these?  I remembered seeing them on the Hungry Girl website, and I thought I’d give ‘em a whirl. 

Anyway, nothing sounded that great for lunch today, so I figured, why not some noodles? 

I opened the package and was greeted with the pleasant smell of what can only be described as anal glands.  Those of you with dogs might know what I’m talking about here.  WHEW!!! These things smelled FISHY.  They describe it on the package as “authentic.”  Authentically what, I’m not sure.

But, after I gave them a good rinse, the smell had decreased significantly.  I mixed the noodles with a big handful of spinach and some grape tomatoes, and popped them in the microwave.  Finally, after the spinach had wilted down and the dish was hot, I topped it with some pesto.  I also had some carrot sticks on the side for some crunch.

Here are the noodles, plain:

And in lunch form:

Looks okay, right?  The taste? Eh, not so much.  Honestly, I would try these noodles again, but I think they would go much better in something like an Asian noodle bowl with broth.  The pesto didn’t really stick to the noodles (they’re really slippery and chewy), and the flavors just didn’t meld at all.

Of course, on the plus side, there are only 40 calories in that whole big package.  Honestly though, I’d much rather just have regular pasta and cut calories in other places. 

Because the noodles were such a disappointment, I also ate a big crunchy Pink Lady apple…and that was definitely the best part of lunch!

Sorry to be Debbie Downer today…I’m actually having a fine day, but my meals are having some issues!

Hopefully tonight’s dinner will make up for it.  We’re going to the hot  yoga class in State College (about 45 minutes away), and then eating at one of our favorite restaurants afterwards…you’ll have to check back in to see what it is!

Hope your day is full of better eats than mine so far!

Good evening!  Hope you’ve had a lovely Tuesday!

My afternoon really flew by.  My first classes went smoothly—not much can go wrong on the first day when you’re just talking about the syllabus!  I have a big break between my second and third class, so that might grow a little old, but today it gave me a good chance to catch up on blogs and online grading. 

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions about Baxter’s little “indoor bathroom” problem.  Baxter does have a sweater and a vest that he can wear in the cold weather (although he HATES them).  I think maybe we need to work on clearing a larger area for him to do his business in.  He’s usually really good at going on walks, but now that there is snow everywhere, he doesn’t have any trees or bushes to pee on!  I think if we clear a large, non-snowy area at the side of our yard, he might have better luck at going. 

Or maybe we can train him to go in the toilet like Jinx, the cat from Meet the Parents.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my lunch post, dinner was unplanned for tonight.  We both returned home from teaching HAUNGRY and ready for dinner!  I snacked on some Somersaults as we gazed blankly into the pantry, trying to figure out what to make. 

I’d had it in my mind that we could make some sort of simple pasta dish. 

Then we realized that we didn’t have any pasta.  Doh!

We finally settled on another Asian-inspired meal: brown rice, topped with warm kale and edamame salad. 

Pretty good for flying by the seat of our pants, right?

Ryan cooked up a pot of brown rice.  While that cooked, I threw some kale into a saute pan, along with minced garlic and a big spoonful of minced ginger.  Added a few shakes of tamari, and it was ready to go!

After cooking the kale down for about five minutes, I added about a cup of shelled edamame. 

Once the rice was done, we topped it with the kale + edamame, as well as some halved grape tomatoes and a pretty squiggle of this dressing:

Mmmm…this dressing (a new purchase) was good!  It went perfectly with the mild tamari flavor running through the kale.

The meal:

There was a surprise hiding under that big pile of food…

…Paris!  Isn’t this plate cute?  TJ Maxx, baby!

Sigh.  I wish I was in Paris right now, instead of cold, snowy, Altoona Pennsylvania. 

Actually, if we’re going to play that game, I wish I was in Hawaii. 

Well, I’m beat!  I think I might soak in a nice hot bath with the book I started last night, a memoir called The Kids Are Alright. I got about 30 pages into it last night, and I’m really liking it!

Night, folks!

*full disclosure:  I had a Kashi pumpkin pie bar for dessert!