WIAW: Snow and Switch Day

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

It snowed yesterday morning and my walk with Luna was both gorgeous and cold.

It was switch day, meaning I'm done with NICU and I switch to an elective, CART, our Child Abuse Response Team. It's something I'm definitely interested in, our department here is great, and I also have a lot of projects going on right now so I'm also grateful for normal hours instead of those 12 hour shifts.

Breakfast: Cereal and Banana. I thought this shredded wheat cereal would be just another of the same old thing, but for some reason it's better. I can't put my finger on why, something about the texture.

Lunch: Tofu Stirfry with Vegetables. I was on campus, so I got it from the cafeteria. I forgot to take a picture, but it's beige and ugly anyway. They usually have this on Tuesdays and it's the one cafeteria meal I get excited about. 

Dinner: Hot Cereal with Banana. I fell asleep at 630 and sort of missed dinner. At 2:30 I woke up and was starving, so this is sort of breakfast but also sort of dinner. I used to eat oats every day, but it's been months, and this mix is really good with cranberries, almonds and lots of texture variety. I got it in my December Vegan Cuts box. 

I hope you're having a good week.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

WIAW: Night Schedule

   

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

I'm on nights in the NICU for the past couple weeks so my meals are really weird right now. Not only do I typically eat a little less healthy, but I eat at totally weird times. When I'm at work for the night, it's pretzels, chips and hummus for dinner. In the morning it's 2 different kinds of fried potatoes. 

Yesterday was a day (night?) off so instead of the cafeteria food these are the things I made at home. 

Breakfast (5:30 AM, after being up all night): Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

These are from the More Peas, Thank You cookbook. They're ok though I think they lose something with the altitude baking, just not quite perfect. With some icing though, they're very good.

I ate these with my husband before he left for work and then fell asleep around 6:30.

I woke up about 1 because I needed to go to the post office while they were still open for passport applications. I'm travelling in a few months and my passport's the last thing I never changed over from my maiden name. 

I had to drive to another town because all the post offices here in Albuquerque require appointments for passport applications, so I took Luna with me and we stopped at a new dog park on the way back. It had a separate section for little dogs and she seemed to like it. 

Lunch I guess?: Tempeh bacon wraps. Around 6 it was John's dinner time and I guess it would be my lunch. We made tempeh bacon wraps: pita, melted Daiya mozzarella, tempeh bacon, spinach and tomato. I also had some leftover pasta. 

Dinner: Cinnamon rolls. Before falling asleep I ate a couple more of the cinnamon rolls from this morning. I'll spare you a second identical picture.  

Also tea and orange water. 

Like I said, weird food day. Way healthier than the potatoes I'd been eating from the cafeteria though - at least there was some whole wheat flour and something green.

I hope you have a great day.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

WIAW: The End of 2014

                                     

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

It's the final WIAW of the year. Whether you're planning to stay up and party for midnight or working like me or planning to be asleep by 9 PM, I hope you're having a great day and end of the year.

I've been having very snacky/small meals lately because I'm about half switched over to night shift schedule, but not completely. I'm never really hungry for a meal, but I'm kind of hungry more often. The first few nights my stomach is always upset if I eat in the middle of the night anyway so its a balance. 

Breakfast: Toast. One with Peanut Butter and one with Earth Balance. I forgot to take a picture but we have this good bread that was on sale. 

Lunch: Tomatoes, almonds, leftover pasta. Really this was spread out over a couple hours of eating a little bit at a time, but we'll just call it lunch. Also the second pic is recycled from a previous week. Technically this week's pasta shape is penne, but everything else is the same. 

Snack: Clif Bar

Dinner: Banana Pancakes. It just felt like a breakfast for dinner kind of night. I don't think anyone needs a reason to have breakfast for dinner - it's always a good idea. I used this recipe but mashed the banana, used brown sugar and left out the flax. I forgot to take a picture until I was packing up the leftovers, but they turned out pretty as pancakes go.

Hydration: This isn't a usual section on my WIAW but it is kind of important. I'm always underhydrated - I do have a hard time making it a priority. I started setting up infused water again and that has helped. I just throw a couple orange slices in a 32 oz. mason jar of water overnight and it makes it that much easier to drink because its something I look forward to doing. 

I hope you have a happy, healthy New Year's Eve.

Thanks for reading, see you soon [in 2015!]

WIAW: Christmas Travels

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

Guess where I am?! I'll give you 2 hints.'

1.

2.

Ok that may not be enough information. I was hoping to highlight the gloomy skies and the now somewhat famous #pdxcarpet. It's Oregon!

After doing this on Monday night: 

I'm off for a break from work and John and I are home with my family for Christmas.  

So here's What I Ate Wednesday, a travel day.

Breakfast: An orange, Multigrain Cheerios, coffee. We were really on the remnants of food supplies, but the orange was still really good.

After breakfast we scraped the ice off the car and got on our way to the airport. 

Snack/Second Breakfast: Keva Juice. Knowing we'd be landing after lunch time, I got this Keva juice. I replace the sherbet with fresh banana. This one is guava.

Lunch: Pho Thein Vietnamese, Vegetable Pho. On our way out of Portland we stopped at a Pho place on Glisan, and got salad rolls and veggie Pho. Very good. 

Dinner: Family style Thai - salad rolls, Tom Kha soup, Tasty Mango Tofu, Mussaman Vegetable Curry. The best Thai food ever? I haven't been to Thailand yet so of course I can't say that, but this place in Newport, OR where we're hanging out at the beach is some of the best Thai I've ever had. 

And I also had some unpictured vegan Muddy Buddies (the chex mix with the peanut butter chocolate and powdered sugar) that my sister had made. Very good.

It was an awesome day of food.

And if anyone ever tries to tell you that you shouldn't have salad rolls twice in consecutive meals, well you just hit them with a salad roll and chastise them for their ignorance.

Today we'll be spending the morning at the coast and then heading back to my parent's house for the Christmas. My presents for my family are only half wrapped because I had to bring them in a suitcase, but at least they were all purchased a while ago. Here are all my sisters last night piled on the couch. It's good to be all together again.

I hope you have an excellent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day whether you celebrate it or not.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

WIAW: Beige Foods and Scurvy

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

So I was gathering up meals for What I Ate Wednesday and I realized its a lot of beige and very few fruits and vegetables. 

I personally haven't seen scurvy in my patients, but one of my fellow residents has seen it in kids who just ate fast food for every meal - if you don't eat fruits and vegetables you get scurvy. That's the one where you're vitamin C deficient and you get weak, anemic and bleed easily. Its not great. Eat fruits and vegetables.

For a quasi-healthy living/medical/food blog I sure am setting a good example.

Breakfast: Yukon Gold Potatoes

Breakfast potatoes are supposed to be cut up and roasted or whatever, but I just rubbed some oil on these, poked some holes in them and put these in the microwave for 5 minutes. Sort of like breakfast potatoes but different.

Lunch: Leftover Pumpkin Baked Pasta

This looks like a small portion, but I had 3 bowls this size. I'm not kidding. Also leftover coffee because I still had a mug's-worth sitting in the pot from this morning. 

Dinner: Tempeh Pot Pie Stew

It's been a slow cooker-heavy past couple days here, thanks to John who has been trying to get some vegetables into me while I've been sort of overwhelmed by work. This recipe started as actual pot pie but then we mixed everything together so we made it as stew. I can't decide if its the least appetizing picture I've ever taken or just in the running. Maybe sometime I'll write an ugly food post - I have a lot of material.

I'm telling you - beige and scurvy.

So eat your fruits and vegetables everyone and here's hoping I'll see you next week for a more colorful WIAW.

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

WIAW: Thanksgiving Week!

What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

It's Fall!

Welcome back WIAW-ers. I'm Kari, I'm a pediatric resident in New Mexico, and I really appreciate you clicking on over.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many of you are not American, and therefore likely aren't celebrating the great day of Turkey, pie and family. 

It's the holiday tomorrow, and I'm fortunate enough to be invited to the home of a friend's family, since I won't be traveling or seeing my own family - outside of the husband and dog that live with me and can't escape me of course. 

I'm trying to keep it healthy this week in preparation for a little indulgence on the big holiday. 

Breakfast: Shredded Wheat, Banana and Coffee 

There's also a vitamin in this photo. Woo health! Breakfast has gotten a little boring lately. I've just been feeling kind of uninspired. I often get that way in winter when berries are out of season. I'll work on it.

Lunch: Leftover Winter Vegan Corn Chowder

I made this over the weekend and above is the linked recipe post. It's really really good, I'm not just saying that because I made it.

Snacks: Clif Bar, Tea, Antidote Chocolate in rose salt and lemon

This Candy Cane Green Tea from Trader Joe's is one I bought last year. I'm not sure if they still have it - I haven't looked - but it's decaf so great for any time of day.

The chocolate is wow fancy. It came in the Vegan Cuts box this month and I really liked it, but it's very rich and I definitely think it's appropriately portioned - I wouldn't want more than that little piece.

Dinner: Chickpea Noodle Soup [the Veganomicon recipe]

With some red wine from Whole Foods. I had soup twice today and it was great. I love winter.

I'm on Adolescent rotation right now which is great because I do get Thanksgiving off. Granted I'm on call on Friday and I work on Sunday, but still it was a nice short week.

Happy Thanksgiving and WIAW!

Thanks for reading, see you soon.

WIAW: The Final Week of NICU

Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

Welcome back WIAW-ers. I'm Kari, I'm a pediatric resident in New Mexico, and I really appreciate you clicking on over.

4 more work days of NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). I like to think of it in terms of wake-ups. 4 more wake-ups for the NICU. For this academic year anyway. I'll be back in December. 

I don't want to give the impression that I don't love my job, being a pediatrician is totally my dream, but being a resident is sometimes hard to enjoy and though the NICU has been an unexpectedly positive experience overall, it's still not my life's work. 

Switch day is next Tuesday, and I go to the Emergency Room. The major advantage of that rotation is that the shifts are spread throughout the month so since I'm not taking vacation, I still have a couple stretches where I might have 2 days off in a row. 

I've taken to referring to Wednesday mornings as "Housewife Wednesday" while on this rotation because I get to send John off to work and then hang out with Luna and I don't have to be in clinic until 1. 

She's giving me these eyes because we're not outside.

I typically get some house or cooking things done, grocery shopping, laundry, though not always - sometimes I just have piles of admin stuff and work to catch up on. This morning I have a meeting for a community grant I'm writing, but after that I need to go get a gift for a friend's bachelorette party, so it will be a mix of both. 

Wednesdays this month are also often one out of maybe two days when I manage to fit in a blog post. Better than nothing?

So thanks for reading the long intro. Here's WIAW:

Breakfast: Quinoa Bran (idk what to call this, post about it coming later) with Strawberries and Banana. Naked Juice/water and coffee. Costco was closed for Easter this week so I liberated these from my hospital cafeteria to tide me over.

Lunch: Instant Minestrone. I thought it was a little ambitious of this instant soup to dry to do minestrone, complete with beans and pasta, and I had to try it. It was all right, but I think I'll stick with the asian flavors and noodle soups - they seem to lend a little better to the instant variety. Unpictured apple.

Snack: Trail mix.

Dinner: Zucchini Quinoa Lasagna. This is from More Peas, Thank You and it's a favorite. It's easy, healthy, and very easy to adapt for food allergies. This picture looks like it's glowing and all I can say is I'm grateful the days are longer and the blinding sun makes it into my house.

Dessert: Soy Creamy Ice Cream Sandwich. Chocolate.

So that's how it's going this week. I hope you're all having a good one. See you soon.