"We took a trip to Shady Grove..."

Happy Monday!

It's summertime for me! I still can't believe I graduated. It hasn't really hit me yet! I feel like I'm on Spring Break or something and will be going back to school soon.

I gave myself a few weeks off before I start working so today my short hiatus from real life begins! Here's what I hope to accomplish today:

1) Plant tomato plants with the boyfriend
2) Start unpacking, going through, and organizing my stuff
3) Work out
4) Start my garden

It doesn't look like much but I have a feeling I'm not going to get to everything. Number 2 can take all day!

This weekend I took my parents and the boyfriend to lunch at a place called Shady Grove in Pittsburgh. It's located in the Shadyside neighborhood, which is one of my favorites. It has tons of cute shops and boutiques like Williams Sonoma, The Chocolate Moose (candy store), Victoria's Secret, Apple, and Prantl's Bakery. It was one of my number one running destinations while at school.

Shady Grove is a restaurant and bar. The day we went it was 84 degrees and sunny and Shadyside was packed with people walking around on such a beautiful day. Shady Grove has outdoor and indoor seating but since it was a 15 minute wait to get a table, we didn't request to be outside. We always go with whatever's quickest!


The inside was casual yet sophisticated. I loved how they had these metal trees as decorations throughout the place. They also had tons of huge flat screens. I'm sure this place is packed on game days! The lighting was pretty dark, but it set a nice ambience.



The menu included sandwichs, burgers, salads, wraps, and melts. They also have pizza but no one at my table ordered it. Everything looked so good that I was torn between options. Luckily, my Dad agreed to split meals with me. I ordered the portobello mushroom burger with feta and roasted peppers and he ordered the hot veggie sandwich, which is tomato, onion, basil, garlic, oregano, spinach, roasted red peppers, portobellos, marinated in balsamic vinaigrette with provolone, served on ciabatta.




We had half of each. They were both amazing! The feta was a little salty on the Portobello burger but other than that, I was completely satisfied with my meal. I substituted the fries for a side salad, took off the top of the burger bun, and ate my meal with a large glass of water with lemon.

Sorry about the lack of pictures of everything. I still feel weird whipping out my camera and taking photos of my food and the restaurant. Don't worry, Im sure i'll get used to it soon enough!

For breakfast this morning I kept it simple. I'm currently at the boyfriend's house and scavenged whatever I could find. This ended up being a small banana, smothered in almond butter with a small pear and cottage cheese, sprinkled with cinnamon.



If you have a food blog, how did you get used to taking pictures of your food around people? Do you still or ever feel weird doing it?

I'll leave you with a graduation picture. How funny is this? I graduated with the 3 stooges!

Wheat Bran is my New Best Friend

Thanks to Tina and her wheat bran lesson, I bought a bag from Bob’s Red Mill on my last shopping trip and let me tell you, my wheat bran-infused oats held me over til 2:30pm this afternoon!! I was hard at work on my last school project (ever!) and didn’t even think about food until I looked down at the clock and saw it was 2pm already. I highly recommend getting this stuff! The taste of my oats didn’t change, it just made them more substantial. Love it!

Since I’m moving out in a few days, I’m trying to use up all of my frozen/refrigerated food. Thus today’s lunch concoction was born:

Multicultural Bulgur

Ingredients:

¼ cup bulgur

½ cup frozen spinach

1/8 cup black beans

1/8 cup feta cheese

Tbsp Italian dressing

Directions: Boil a half cup of water and pour over bulgur in bowl. Let sit for for 8-12 minutes or until absorbed.

Meanwhile, microwave frozen spinach.

Mix everything together and wa-lah, multicultural bulgur! It’s a little bit of Middle Eastern, Mexican, Greek, and Italian.

I heated it up for lunch (although I’m sure it wouldn’t be too bad cold) and added some flax and sunflower seeds to the mix. Not bad for whatever I had in the fridge!

So as I said, I’ve been hard at work all day on my last project as an undergrad. I took a design class this semester where we learned how to use Adobe InDesign and so for my final project I chose to do a catalog for my Aunt’s cookie company. She just opened up a storefront for her cookie company so I thought I’d help her out.

Isn’t it cute? It smells AMAZING in there, I don’t think its possible for someone to go in there and not buy something! I may or may not have had one of these last time I was in there...

While looking at all her delicious baked goods in the computer lab, I snacked on this:

My new favorite flavor of Larabar! The cherry flavor is pretty overpowering but I love it. Here are the flavors I’ve tried so far, in order of favorite to least:

1) Cherry Pie

2) Coconut Crème Pie

3) Pecan Pie

4) Cinnamon Roll

The ingredient list on these babies blows me away every time. Dates, Almonds, Unsweetened Cherries. It’s so rare to see such a short list these days.

I also made a quick stop at the Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) Book Center to use up a $20 gift card I got from my employer for Christmas. I noticed sale signs this morning so I thought I’d check it out. I think I did pretty well for 20 bucks.

I got Burt's Bees Super Shiny Grapefruit & Sugar Beet Conditioner (does anyone else run out of the conditioner bottle way before the shampoo bottle?), a birthday card for my Dad who's turning 50 tomorrow, some green tea that was on sale for 19 cents a piece, a portfolio for my impending job search, and Food Smarts.

It was on sale and looked interesting!


"Does a menu at a French restaurant look totally Greek to you? Do you know your chickpeas from your chittlins? FoodSmarts can help. It's the fun way to raise your food IQ, with interesting and useful facts on foods from popcorn to pot au feu."


The sample questions looked good. Expect to be seeing some interesting foodie facts in the future!


As I've been writing this I've been snacking on this:

The last of my bananas, covered in a tbsp of cashew butter with honey, cinnamon, and flax. Not very photogenic but one of my favorite snacks.

Ok, off to see what I can come up with for dinner and then the Office is on tonight!