What I Ate Wednesday

This morning Caitlin and I decided that we wanted to venture out. We had the whole morning off (my first class didn't start until 2pm) so we went into the city center for coffee and a treat.

Caitlin suggested that we try Duke's because she knows that they have good wifi and we wanted to being to plan our trip to Amsterdam. We leave for Amsterdam at 6am on Thursday morning and return late Sunday night so we have a very good amount of time in the city.

I had never been to Duke's before but fell in love with it! We leisurely enjoyed our latte's, talked about plans for the weekend all the while enjoying the festive atmosphere.  I think this will be a great place to bring my laptop and get some of my work done during finals week.

Dukes' Decorations

My Latte

Grabbed a festive shortbread man covered in chocolate and m&m's from the English Market on my way home

We have some great things planned for this weekend, very excited to do it all and share it with you when I get back! 

What I (Didn't) Eat Wednesday

Recently I received an email from my grandpa saying that I was not posting enough on my blog about food so this post goes out to him! (Side note: this is a little bit of sarcasm, my grandpa emailed me saying he is enjoying my "food blog" because it seems I post more about food than travel so I thought I would run with the joke and talk about it some more!) 

My last What I Ate Wednesday was all about what I have been making myself to eat since I've been here.  And I thought it would be appropriate this week to talk about all the things I cannot eat because Ireland seems to have different taste buds than America does.

Luckily, this whole post is on a happy note because along with the recent arrival of my friends came some of my favorite foods that I have been missing so much!

My stash of goodies thanks to Emily and Marty

1. Mac and Cheese (both Annie's and Kraft). I have not found anything resembling mac and cheese here, not even another knock off brand.  While I can make it homemade, and I have a few times, there is nothing like the good fake stuff.  When asking them what to bring I truly could not decide which one I missed more so I had them bring one box of each. 

2. Goldfish! This is one of my all time favorite go to snacks at home, and I have been unable to find cheese snacks of any variety here (that means no cheez-its, chex mix, etc.). This is due to the fact that snacking is significantly less common in Europe. Both my French and German roommates have never heard of most of our snacks, or the concept of eating all throughout the day, or on the go, because it is not common in European cultures.  This has made me have to adjust a lot and eat more at each sitting. 

3. Jif peanut butter.  Now this one was me just being picky.  I have found one type of peanut butter here (panda butter) that is excellent for Irish peanut butter, but just ok in comparison to the good stuff we have back home.  They have peanut spread which is a lot stickier and leaves a funky after taste in your mouth.  But when the opportunity arose to get the really good stuff (Jif) I had to take it! 

4. Last, but not least, pretzal M&M's.  For some reason I have been unable to curb my sweet tooth, even though I have tried hard to.  This treat is perfect because it is both sweet and salty, however they do not have this type of M&M over here; they call their version "crunchy" M&M's. 

And while what I really miss most is home cooking from Mom, Dad, and especially Grandma, that cannot be transported across seas as easily as a few of my favorite American snacks. Now the hard part is rationing out these snacks so they last me until December, when all I want to do is eat the whole bag of goldfish in one sitting! 

What I Ate Wednesday

As much as I wish I could claim I was creative enough to come up with the title of this post, I have to admit that I took it from Courtney's blog Sweet Tooth Sweet Life.

Here is a run-through of everything I ate today in my attempts to conquer cooking all on my own!

Last Sunday, I made a big pot of chili to have on hand for the upcoming week when I was too tired/lazy to make a meal. Chili is a favorite back home with my mom, sister and me and so it was also a bit of comfort food.

Chili: tomato sauce, corn, pinto beans, kidney beans, chick peas, tomatos, ground turkey meat, and to be topped with LOTS of cheese when served!


Another experiment on Sunday was of making home made french fries! French fries are absolutely one of my favorite foods and I read on one of my blogs a way to make them yourself and so I tried it out. (I didn't eat this Wednesday but I thought it warranted mentioning anyway)
~They turned out well, I will probably need to tweak the recipe some more but for the first time they are good. Also, they are baked not fried so they tasted a little different, but still yummy!

BUT now for Wednesday's run-down:

Breakfast: Slice of whole wheat toast topped with banana and cinnamon (this is a staple in my diet!)

Lunch: Turkey pesto sandwich with cheddar cheese and tomatoes on a plain bagel, eaten with an un-pictured clementine 

Workout: Mid-day run through the park, I am trying to take advantage of being able to run outside for as long as I can! 

Snack: This is very necessary after my workout because I have class from 5-7 and can't eat dinner until afterwards, and I can't survive that long! I had a yogurt and a (couple) handfuls of peanuts. 

Dinner: Rice bowl consisting of leftover corn, pinto beans, and chickpeas, and cherry tomatoes with LOTS of avocado!