This weekend was...completely the opposite of what a good weekend should be. To  be fair, Friday night was pretty nice. We had found discount tickets to the Cirque de Soleil show in NYC (really great visual entertainment!) and then went to a nice outdoor bar and had some wine/beer. They served me what must have been at least 10oz (1.5 glasses) wine and my dinner was a bit on the small side, so after about 6-7oz I already felt light headed and Boyfriend finished off the rest. Saturday was spent working all afternoon with a side of hot yoga and in the evening, we were both too lazy to go out in the rain so I made mini-oatmeal pumpkin pancakes (detail below) instead to freeze and eat as a breakfast snack.

Sunday, I desperately wanted to get out of the city and we had the rare advantage of having a car.  But weather.com told us it would rain. So we decided to make a gametime decision on hiking and leaving the city.
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In the end, we did the opposite of something active, though we did it outdoors. We demolished this plate of seafood!

On a less gluttonous note, we also spent a lot of time walking around a farmers market that we had no idea lived by the Seaport and bought absolutely DELICIOUS Olive Bread and two types of Beef Jerky. But boy did we sample! Unfortunately, all the sampling happened before this huge seafood feast, so it was probably at least somewhat greedy.
To finish off our eventual ~3 mile walk, we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and wound up at my grandparents parents house for some old fashioned Russian food. Best part: the Russian fruit/veg markets in Brooklyn are ahh-mazingly cheap so we stocked up. Our refrigerator is looking pretty, pretty packed.

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On to the pancakes. These little guys, each a bit smaller than a salad plate came out to 70 cal each, though I think I could have added more egg whites, so maybe next endeavor will be 75 cals. I think if I were to exchange pumpkin for banana it would be more, but with blueberries, less. I'd say the 7 pancakes (+ a tester mini one) took less than an hour to make and now they're in my freezer! (well, actually NOW, only 3 days later, most of them are in my belly!)

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Ingredients (makes 7 'cakes)
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 cup pumpkin puree (unsweetened)
3 servings egg whites
1 tbsp vanilla
Plenty of cinnamon and ginger

I think in the end I added in about 2-3 tbsp sugar free maple syrup.

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All the ingredients get a good mixing in a bowl and each pancake was one heaping soup spoon of batter.

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These were pretty easy, I just used a nice hot non-stick pan with Pam and threw on two heaping soup spoons of batter on at a time. I had to pat the pancakes out to thin them a bit, but I think maybe with more egg whites, I'll leave them thicker. They cooked for about 2-3 minutes on each side and flipping them was pretty difficult.

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Well they're not the prettiest pancakes ever, but when I'm half asleep in the morning, I'm not so picky!

Here's the thing: they're OK but not great plain. They ARE great with just a schmear of reduced-sugar jam or the best: apple butter/pumpkin butter.

The batter came out to 7 cakes + a taster and 4 made it into the freezer before they made it into my tummy. This morning I popped one in the toaster oven and it was the perfect thing to tide me over until I could have a real breakfast after I did a bunch of work! =)

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And, to end the post on a really ugly picture, this is my second breakfast: Overnight Oats.

1/3 cup raw old fashioned oats
1/2 cup Light N' Fit Vanilla Yogurt
1/2 cup Chocolate Milk (Almond Breeze, Unsweetened, my new obsession!)
1/2 frozen blueberries
1 tsp chia seeds, 1 tsp cocoa powder.
*A tbsp of Walden Farms Chocolate Syrup
would have been great but I didn't have it*







Easy peasy to make:
1) Microwave blueberries until they are steaming, make sure they are popped or mash them a little with a spoon.
2) Throw all ingredients into a container (or a bowl if you're eating at home) and refrigerate overnight.
3) In the morning, give it a shake and enjoy the chewy but not raw oats and somewhat chocolaty/fruity taste.

Today promised to be a very busy morning at work and I had some stuff to do in the morning including finishing my Butternut Squash Soup (coming in a later post). Unfortunately, I DID find time to do a bunch of snacking along with my mini oatmean-pumpkin pancake (smeared with TJs Honey Apple Butter-100 cal total) so I couldn't top this jar with crunchy cereal like I wanted. (Not because I am limiting, but because honestly, in the end I was just full!)

Anyway, the overnight oats have definitely become more refined and I didn't blend it today because I wanted the chewiness. Turns out some of my errors before came down to choice of milk: Almond Breeze Unsweetened Chocolate wins out over 1% Skim Milk.

Today for lunch, I have the soup with a side of Olive Bread and some snacks =)

Since there are really no major plans for dinner cooking coming up this week and this weekend entails a wine-tasting/hiking trip to Ithaca (my old stomping ground!) I'm going to save the two really yummy dinners I made last week for two future posts =) Sorry for the looong post and the time between posts too!

<3 Jules




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    I'm a recent graduate from medical school and a pathology resident living in New York City. Like most girls living in the city, I've found that a lot of my social life revolves around the regular consumption of high-calorie food and alcoholic beverages. I've decided to start a blog about how I am trying to beat the bulge by eating and cooking defensively between social engagements and how even a busy girl can fit exercise into a busy life.

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