Caroline Dines

…I just haven’t been documenting as much! With Christmas fast approaching, work and personal business have been taking priority over my daily posts. I have been working extra hours so that I can take a nice long break beginning Christmas Eve all the way through the New Year! I am so excited since I will be heading home to Maine to be with my family and Darin’s family and will be cross country skiing (my favorite form of exercise!), sledding, skating, maybe even snowboarding. So as I said, you can rest assured that I have still been consuming food, (probably too much with all the sweets around here!) but with holiday parties that don’t allow for paparazzi shots I am feeling like quite the neglectful blogger. Either way here are some of my highlights for the past few days.

Breakfast on Wednesday was a lovely Multi-Grain Bruegger’s Bagel which was “scored” from the Community Social at the house which took place on Wednesday instead of it’s normal Tuesday this week. I added Light Herb and Garlic cream cheese to my hollowed out vessel.

After breakfast I hustled off to the Haley House which turned into a very rewarding shift. I had quite a few customers and also some individuals who stopped by to just get warm (I actually gave one a free cup of coffee). Since the Haley House is not JUST a bakery and it’s primary goal is to provide community to individuals in the South End who may not have a home to call their own, I felt really pleased that the regulars were starting to become familiar with my face and felt comfortable talking to me. I put out our fabulous cupcakes as free sample; partly because I wanted to try a bite and also because I knew they would draw people in!

The rest of Wednesday was spent working and saying goodbye to a co-worker who is moving to Denver and will be dearly missed. We went out to a local bar called The Mission which had delicious bar food in my opinion. Sadly I have no pictures from the evening but I am sure you can picture in your mind such dishes as Sweet Potato Skins, Mussels, Bruschetta, and a killer Nacho plate. I had a Magner’s Cider with my appetizers which was such a treat since I was actually “working”. The next morning I was craving some fruit and “carby” goodness so I dug into my last ruby red and prepared a peanut butter toast to eat with it. The flavors here weren’t exactly complimentary but it hit my cravings perfectly and provided adequate nutrition I believe.

I’ve been hitting yoga hard this week and after my session on Thursday I came home ravenous. Lucky for me I had a fresh bag of TJ’s Salsa chips and a tub of Sabra Hummus.

I don’t think I have ever tried these chips before but let me just tell you if you have any love for Doritos and just can’t justify eating them anymore, try these! They are not as heavily doused in seasoning but have a great taste which allows the chip to stand alone fine or pair with salsa, hummus or any other dip you can think of.

This morning I woke up thinking about breakfast. This hasn’t happened in awhile (maybe I have been too full from the night before?) so I decided to resurrect an old classic: GREEK YOGURT MESS! This one contained one little tub of Strawberry Oikos, a sprinkle of blueberry muesli, some walnuts, and unsweetened coconut. SOO good and even though it’s not very seasonal the coconut looked like snow so that has to count for something right?

Yoga was another awesome sweat sesh and I came home ravenous. I actually dreamed this sandwich up on my frigid walk home and it came out better than I had expected.

I toasted two slices of my low carb When Pigs Fly bread, smeared one slice with Sabra hummus and the other with TJ’s roasted red pepper spread. Then I cut two slices of cheddar cheese and topped it off with two Claussen sandwich stackers.  Such an awesome sandwich! A good cheese sandwich is sometimes so satisfying in my opinion.

It was “oh so photogenic” too, don’t you think?

And I would be remiss if I didn’t include the dessert from last night since a bite or two of it did make it’s way past my lips today. I had a full “tree” last night and was able to photograph them without many questions since I just said in front of the families that they were too cute not to picture. After all they ARE too cute! They are a brownie base with green colored frosting, m+m’s for decoration and a candy cane trunk., They’re supposed to be Christmas Trees if you couldn’t tell!

After a long week I am so ready to be done with work related stuff. Luckily I have plans to meet up with Meg C. for a vegan dinner at Veggie Planet in Harvard Square and hopefully some drinks afterwards. Happy Friday everyone!