What I’m Loving Lately: Snacktime Edition

April 12, 2014 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

Snacks on snacks on snacks! I’m not one of those people who eats three meals a day and that’s it. I have always been a snacker – I love eating several times a day and definitely get int that 3 p.m. snacktime mode. Here are a few snacks I’ve been enjoying lately:

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans

B and I picked up these beauties in Costa Rica and I can’t tell you enough HOW GOOD they are. They’re sweet and caffeinated at the same time – a great afternoon pick-me-up or really just anytime snack. I personally love the white chocolate (they taste like lattes!) but the dark chocolate aren’t that bad either (am I the only person who prefers milk and white chocolate to dark chocolate?).

cafebritt

My Oatmeal:

I got a chance to sample this for free thanks to a Sweat Pink promotion and I am IN LOVE! My Oatmeal has a ton of fun oatmeal varieties (like PB&J Cupcake!) and they also let you make custom oatmeal from a a variety of ingredients listed on their website – they then ship your custom oatmeal to you directly. There are about a bazillion combinations (okay, maybe not that many) and the one I opted for had the following: rolled oats and flax, brown sugar and oatmeal cookie flavors, with coconut, ginger, date, mangos and apricots. YUM! Oh and of course I called it Melissa’s Blend because I’m just that creative.

myoatmeal

It arrived while I was on vacation and it was such an awesome surprise to open after we got back. I was pumped. Take a look!

IT HAS MY NAME ON IT

Look at that dried fruit!

Obviously you can eat it as regular oatmeal. But some other cool things you can do:

Make granola with it. In my favorite granola recipe, just swap out the oats with the oatmeal! You probably can use less dried fruit if you want to since my blend has dried fruit in it AND less sweetener (brown sugar and/or honey) if you choose an Oatmeal that’s sweet.
Make cookies! I love oatmeal cookies and don’t doubt that adding some of this oatmeal would be a delicious add-in.
Eat it dry. I’m not gonna lie – I took a bag with me to work to eat as a snack – and just ate it dry. I had fully intended to cook it up and then just ate it dry. And I enjoyed it.

Kalebouli

I love tabbouleh and the first time I tried kalebouli I also fell in love. One of my favorite ways to eat kalebouli is actually on a wrap with hummus (okay I guess this isn’t quite a snack) – and the Flaming Ice Cube in Cleveland has an amazing kalebouli wrap.

But if you want to try making your own kalebouli so that you can try it as a snack – here is a recipe from the blog, Fragrant Vanilla Cake. You can make yur own pita chips and dip them in the kalebouli, or serve it with chopped veggies, pita, and hummus. Yum!

My standard from the Flaming Ice Cube – Kalebouli Hummus Wrap!

Some questions for you:

What are your favorite snacks to beat the 3 p.m. hunger? All of the above. Also a fan of anything sweet/salty – chocolate covered pretzels, Chex Mix, etc.
Are you a snacker? Prefer 3 meals a day and that’s it? Yup, i’m a snacker. But B isn’t. He has pretty much breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes he’ll eat carrots and peanut butter at work but that’s it. I bring LOADS of snacks and get pretty hangry when I don’t!
Do you like oatmeal? Do you ever eat it “raw”? I can’t be the only one ..
Dark chocolate? White chocolate? Which do you prefer?

Disclosure: I was given a free sample of My Oatmeal to try out via Fit Approach. All opinions are my own and I was in no other way compensated for this post. I have not been given any free kalebouli, free Flaming Ice Cube (unless you count the gift card my parents got me for my birthday?) or free chocolate covered coffee beans – but I’d love any of those!

Scenes from A “Do Nothing” Weekend

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 5 Comments

We all have those weekends. Those weekends when someone asks you what you’re doing and you’re SO happy to say, “Nothing!” Or maybe you’re not happy. But I was happy to be able to say that about last weekend. After a few weeks of traveling, and looking at my calendar and realizing that I’m traveling likely every weekend through April 19th, I was looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing. And boy, was it a GREAT do nothing weekend.

Here are some of the highlights:

Friday night included dinner at one of my favorite places, the Flaming Ice Cube. I love their vegan, carbolicious food before a long run! B and I split the Buffalo “chicken” dip, and I got the kalebouli wrap. I could eat kalebouli every single day and be happy.

Saturday started early with a 12 mile run with B and his sister. Despite not getting the pace we wanted (B was shooting for 9 min/miles for the whole time) I felt pretty good the entire time. Perhaps the key to feeling good is running slower? Mary kept on going for 15 total miles – I was very happy to be done with 12. And I think my body was too – after our run for a few hours I had some shooting pain down my back right side – from my glutes to just above my calf. Thank goodness it went away!

Post-run, B and I picked up some supplies at the West Side Market for meals for this week. I won’t be able to shop there until the end of April, so I took advantage of the opportunity to get tons of food – probably too much. I’ll be eating spaghetti squash, eggplant and butternut squash for a few days 🙂

Love the fresh produce!

Did I mention we also got lunch at the Souper Market (LOVE their bread and Mulligatawny) and shared a giant Apple Fritter from the West Side Market?

seriously, these are the BEST apple fritters

After the market, B and I decided to get coffee and tea. Well, coffee for him (Rising Star) and tea (from the new Hingetown Tea Revival shop) for me. I LOVED my ginger turmuric infused tea. And how cute is the shop?

After our Ohio City escapades, B and I decided to do some outlet shopping. I actually didn’t end up with anything (surprise! I’m saving money for our upcoming vacation) but B left with 2 new suits that actually fit him. I didn’t realize how big the suits he’d been wearing were on him until he tried on the new suits. WOW – what a difference! I can’t wait until he wears them 🙂 If he lets me I’ll post a photo because they looked really good.

And the night included a few drinks out and then a lazy evening of watching Game of Thrones (and I didn’t fall asleep during the episode!), homemade pizza, and wine.

Sunday I ended up having to work most of the day so I spent the day at a coffee shop before meeting B’s family for dinner. Today is B’s mom’s birthday (Happy birthday!) so we celebrated Sunday evening with more pizza, more wine and other Italian food.

Food, family and a good run. That’s what I call a pretty good “do nothing” weekend – don’t you?

I know it’s already Wednesday. But how was your weekend? Do you enjoy “do nothing” weekends? Do you already have plans for this weekend?

Killing Fruit Flies

September 30, 2012 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

B and I recently started making coffee in the mornings. After more than a year of being married, and having received a coffee maker as a wedding gift, we finally have started using it. And it’s great! B doesn’t have to spend $3-$4 on a Mocha each morning, and if I want, I can even add almond milk to a cup of mine. It’s been great – until we discovered that fruit flies love coffee grinds.

After a week or so of coffee grinds (and not too much else) laying in our garbage, and a few nights not home, I opened the trash can and out flew a gazillion fruit flies. No exaggeration – there were literally a gazillion fruit flies that flew into my kitchen. GROSS! This was more than one week ago. And I haven’t cooked at home since then. But today, they are all gone! How did I kill them all?

Vinegar and dish soap. I think there’s a saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar but in my case, vinegar did the trick! Here’s an easy way to keep away/kill those pesky fruit flies by just using supplies you most likely have on hand in your kitchen.

A Recipe for Killing Fruit Flies (I know it’s not the usual type of recipe posted here)

Here’s what you need:

2-3 tbs of vinegar (I used red wine vinegar, but heard the cider vinegar works well as well)
2-3 drops of dish soap

Here’s what you do:

Mix together vinegar and dish soap in a small bowl/jar.
Set bowl near where the fruit flies have been flying around.
Wait and let the flies get attracted to the smell of the vinegar. They’ll likely fly around the area for a little while before actually diving into the vinegar. The dish soap helps catch them — vinegar alone won’t do the trick.

Before:

After: