pre-run breakfast

On running mornings, I eat two breakfasts. I start with coffee (lately I’ve been using 1 tbsp creamer and 2 tbsp coconut milk–yay for just as sweet with fewer calories!) and either a banana or toast with peanut butter.

This morning is a morning I’ve been waiting for for a LONG time. Well, since my birthday, to be exact.

Justin’s nut butter!!!! Susy gave this to me for my birthday and my mouth has been watering ever since! It’s a huge splurge (like $10 at the grocery store!), so it’s not the kind of thing you just go and grab willy-nilly.

And it’s maple. I LOVE maple-anything. I caved a week or so ago and bought Bobby Flay’s recommended Deep Mountain Maple Syrups on OpenSky and received them last night. It was $25 for three bottles of the best, straight-from-the-tree-maple syrup (which came to more like $35 with tax and shipping–yikes!), but when I saw that the set included Regular (Grade A Medium), Grade B (which is uber dark and strong and hard to find in the grocery store) and GINGER Maple, I had to. I tried to find it online, but alas, as all the very best local/small farms go, there are only two places in the country you can get it: Union Square Greenmarket in NYC and a little shop in West Glover, VT. Since I wasn’t heading to either of these places anytime soon and I just HAD to gave the ginger variety, I succumbed. (Andrew wasn’t thrilled when he heard about it, but when he saw them last night he changed his tune! He’s super excited about them as well. At least he can sometimes appreciate good food.)

If anyone wants to know what OpenSky is, use the link above or ask me and I’ll let you know!

Anyway, back to breakfast.

I had to get dog food yesterday, which requires a trip to Hamburg, a village a lot like East Aurora, about 15-20 minutes away. It has both a Tractor Supply and a Clyde’s Feed (apparently it’s more rural here than I thought!), which are the cheapest places to get Taste of the Wild. The best part? There is a Great Harvest in Hamburg. Dog food trip = Great Harvest trip.

So, I popped in and treated myself to a mini-loaf of their whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread, which was actually a mix of raisins, craisins, flax and groats yesterday. That’s the neat thing about Great Harvest and other small bakeries; they can mix up something new and hand-write a sign if they want to.

So, I’m currently enjoying super fresh, made-by-hand bread with Justin’s Maple Almond Butter. YUM.

After my run I’ll mix up a fruit smoothie with some yogurt and flaxseed meal and then I have a phone date with Emily!

date night and how i’m going to make up for it today…

Andrew and I went on a date last night. An actual date. I don’t even remember the last time we had a “true” date. Sure, we go out to dinners and movies all the time, but they never feel like a “date.” It’s just not-eating-at-home, or grabbing something convenient, or going to see the new summer blockbuster with Andrew’s family. I think because we can go out often, we DO go out often, which takes away some of the “special-ness” of it all.

So, we decided mini-golf would be our date. It was a typical New York summer night; the temps have dropped again (thank goodness!) and I was in a t-shirt, pants and a jean jacket–can you believe it! As always, I lost to Andrew, but perhaps played my best 18 holes EVER, so that was fun. After golf we stopped into Target to explore the new “Fresh” section they just put in. We shared a cherry ICEE and a bag of popcorn and walked up and down the aisles, which was probably more fun for me than for Andrew, but it was nice to see what they had.

We left with some odds and ends and then made ANOTHER stop…this time to get DESSERT. (Not that I needed it, but I’d had a crazy craving for chocolate and we’d discussed going to Taffy’s; I needed no more persuasion than that!)

Taffy’s is a 60-year-old hot dog and milkshake stand that is now on the corner of a busy intersection in Orchard Park. Strip malls filled with Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s, Lowe’s and the like have sprouted up around it, yet it remains a local favorite. It’s a tiny building surrounded by four-person gliders with canopies–perfect for a summer day or night.

They’re known for their milkshakes; they have a menu with about a hundred (or more!) options, all divided by main ingredient, like fruit or chocolate. Thank goodness! I’m indecisive enough!

I got a Raspberry Truffle milkshake (raspberry and chocolate) and Andrew got a vanilla ice cream cone. We split an order of cajun curly fries. YUM. We’ll definitely go back, and I’ll be bringing the camera because Taffy’s deserves a post of its own!

I’m still four pounds away from my goal (grrr), so in order to make up for last night’s overindulgence, I’m going LIGHT today. Very light.

Breakfast was a banana (I love eating bananas plain when they are yellow with just the tiniest hint of green; once they have the brown dots all over them I tend to mix them into things or slice them on toast with peanut butter) and coffee. After my workout, I fixed myself a fantastic, Kath-approved snack:

I mixed up plain lowfat yogurt, flaxseed meal, 1 tbsp chocolate chips and the last of my frozen cherries in the blender, then topped with the last of my Great Harvest Groovy Granola. YUM. The granola makes it pretty high in calories (220 for 1/2 cup) but it also keeps me full for awhile.

I’m planning on finishing up the last of my hummus and veggies for lunch, with some fruit. I’m cooking here tonight, finally, and we’re having Trader Joe’s Mango Chicken Sausages (they’ve been living in the freezer since Ohio!) with barbeque chips and fruit for dinner.

I bought Birthday Cake-flavored Kefir at Wegmans yesterday (I know, it sounds weird) in hopes that if I poured it over fruit it would KINDA taste like ice cream. We’ll see.

overnight oats with drizzle

Finally! I pulled a Kath and drizzled some peanut butter on my breakfast!

I’d been jonesing for some overnight oats topped with some of the last of my Great Harvest Groovy Granola for a couple days now, and I figured my frozen cherries would be just the fruit to make it with.

Last night I mixed up half a banana, 1/4 C instant oats (I’m going from “doesn’t prefer” to “major dislike” by the day), 1/2 C milk, 3/4 C frozen cherries and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

This morning I threw it all in a blender and topped with 1/2 C granola and, for once, a drizzle (1 tbsp) of Susy’s homemade white-chocolate peanut butter! YUM.

Although I don’t think I would do the oats in this combination again; I think a fruit and yogurt mix is a better combo with the granola and peanut butter. There is always tomorrow!

Busy day ahead:

-Pilates/Yoga then Kickboxing at the gym

-home for lunch

-maybe to the co-op for some picture-taking/documenting of their mural (more on that later!)

-Wegmans (we’re in DESPERATE need of some doggie bags!)

-date-night with Andrew 🙂

Happy Wednesday!