Category Archives: samples

Quasi-Gourmet

     My camera was usurped this morning (the roommate is in Florida visiting his family), so here’s the photo-booth Monster picture of the day:

We had no bananas left, so this had 3 cups of spinach, 1 cup of unsweetened soymilk, 1/2 of a cup of frozen strawberries, 1/4 of a cup of frozen wild blueberries and the juice of 1 lemon.
     It was definitely not epic. Ah well, we shall move on. I had a bunch of errands to do: one that took me to Costco, I.E. lunch. My lunch consisted of samples of chicken-apple sausage, turkey-pesto meatballs and teriyaki meatballs. Not very healthy, but when you’re on-the-go, you can’t be picky. Plus, free lunch is always good, even if it is too few calories :).
     I was going to make Angela’s Cherry, Coconut Banana Bread, but alas, I could not find coconut butter. I tried! I called Whole Foods this morning to ask if they had it in stock: they transferred me a few times and finally told me that they had it in stock. I drove all the way to the store, dug through the baking aisle, and found coconut oil… When I got in line with my coconut oil and 10 cherries, I asked if coconut butter and coconut oil were the same thing. Turns out, they’re NOT! They told me they had it in stock, but apparently had sold out before I got there. Uncool. Whole Foods is on my $h!7 list at this moment >:(.
My cherries are pitted, frozen, and waiting to go on top of the banana bread!
     I searched FIVE other stores to see if they had it in stock, and no one carried it! C’mon! This is SoCal: all the stores should carry these crazy ingredients! Alas, there was no CocoButta. I did find whole-wheat/sweet potato gnocchi at Bristol Farms, as well as Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Half-win for them! I’ve tried to make my own gnocchi before with a recipe via Giada de Laurentiis, and that was a massive fail (Giada loves her salt. I do NOT!), so I think I’ll stick to store-bought from now on.
     Dinner was the whole-wheat gnocchi with vodka sauce and grilled zucchini, and a glass of Dogfish Head IPA.
“D-Lish”, as my friend Duck-Duck would say :). I ate half of this bowl before I was completely stuffed. Whole-wheat gnocchi is amazing, and fills you up a lot faster than the regular gnocchi so you eat less! Win-win-win!
     I saved some room for one of my chocolate bon-bons from Trader Joe’s (which Lynn coincidentally happened to have today as well! Random, eh?). I’m so stuffed that I could only have one, but I’ll try to fit a second one in later ;).
     As for now, I’m off to watch AWtR, yet again. I’m a corny, naive and innocent lady, so I’ll be watching my sweet movie with another glass of Dogfish and bon-bons and NOT feeling any guilt! Tomorrey I’ll be heading out to see “Charlie St. Cloud” in theaters on the opening day! I’ll give a full review tomorrow night after work!
What movie are you dying to see?

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Filed under Charlie St. Cloud, Costco, Dogfish Head, gnocchi, green monster, ice cream, samples, Trader Joe's

Costco & Fro-Yo

Well, it turns out that bell pepper slices with hummus aren’t enough for dinner for a normal person – silly me. As soon as I got to work, my stomach turned on me with a vengeance.

I belong to the Godiva Rewards club, which means I get one free piece of chocolate per month. Godiva ain’t cheap, so this is the only time I’ll ever enter the store – my wallet learned from my addiction a few years ago. To try and calm the wild beast that was screaming from inside my abdomen, I selected the Spring Rasberry Truffle. It has a thick, velvety rasberry center and is draped in white chocolate. So freakin’ amazing! It didn’t comfort my stomach for more than half an hour though, so I headed over to our trusty new Subway and got a 6-inch roast beef and turkey on whole wheat with spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, green bell peppers and mustard. I picked away all the excess bread that I didn’t want to eat and made the local birds very happy.

This morning began with Emergen-C, coffee and a breakfast scramble. I promise there will be something new for tomorrow! Just wait! We also went on another lovely hike that was again overcrowded with people. Good for all of them getting their fitness in – I guess I’ll just have to head out earlier to enjoy the peace and quiet!

Looking up towards the halfway point.

After a quick shower to attempt and rinse all the bug spray I’ve been accumulating during every hike, we headed off to Costco to stock up on some much-needed veggies.

But FIRST! We just had to stop for some frozen yogurt from Menchies! After my last fro-yo stomach pain, I stuck to the dairy-free Mango Sorbet, and topped it with fresh strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, and a touch of Mochi – a yummy rice candy that’s full of sugar and carbs :)! It was a perfect way to fend off the lunch-hunger that needed to be filled with free Costco samples.

At Costco we picked up a MONSTER bag of spinach which I’ll show you tomorrow, and a big box of coffee pods. Can’t live without my coffee! Samples were very low, and I skipped the baby brie on crackers and just had some stir-fried chicken on a toothpick. Not quite enough for lunch…

At home I caught up on my current favorite blog – http://eatliverun.com, and made myself a big Kitchen Sink Salad.
This one has an entire bag of Trader Joe’s baby greens, half of a bell pepper, an entire container of Spicy Ranchero Egg White Salad, and half a cup of warmed lentils and was drizzled with a balsamic-whole grain mustard dressing. This baby is gonna have to tide me over until tomorrow – I head back to work for another 3 hour shift tonight :-/.

Tomorrow will mark my first attempt at a GREEN MONSTER!!! A green monster is a massive blend of spinach, soy milk, bananas, ice and blueberries. I’m going to get in 4 servings of veggies before 8am! Wish me luck 🙂

KSS MAKES ME HAPPY!!!!!

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Filed under coffee, Costco, Emergen-C, green monster, hike, kitchen, salad, samples, sink