New Feature: Chocolate Reviews

Good morning! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a very busy week, hence the lack of posting. This weekend I played an awesome show with a guitarist and drummer that didn't even start until 10pm! So needless to say, I was up very late both for the show and to hang out afterward, as is the custom in the rock performance world! Went to bed at 4:30am (LATE, even for me!!) and woke up at 9am to watch Office Space, which I had never seen (it's great!) and then went about my long (but fun!) work day. I taught all afternoon and then my kids (aka students) at one of my studios had their big concert of the year and the orchestra that I have helped start performed at that event. Anyway, I am back posting today, obviously.

"They" always say to blog about what you know. I love food blogging and the wonderful bloggers I've gotten to know through it! So a new thing I'll be doing on here is regularly reviewing all the kinds of chocolate I eat. (Because I do eat A LOT of it!) Chocolate doesn't make me gain weight easily and doesn't screw with my blood sugar levels the way other desserts do. Probably because of the fat in chocolate and for the fact that I buy reasonably dark chocolate which has limited sugar + fiber! SCORE! So without further ado, I present the first chocolate review. Consider it my contribution to your taste buds! :) I know, I'm sooo helpful!

"Beaucoup Berries. Rich Dark Chocolate, Cranberries, Cherries & Vanilla"

7 Grams of fiber and 50% DV of iron! Cool!

Dagoba gets major points for a cute label! Above reads "You can deprive the body but the soul needs chocolate." Amen!

And "The Art of Chocolate Alchemy." I really enjoy it when companies put cute little slogans/interesting trivia/funny paragraphs on their packaging!

Look at that beauty!

I had a coupon for it at Whole Foods so I think I only paid around $1 for it. (Can't remember--sorry. I will start including the prices of the chocolate in these reviews.)

It is excellent! I like the very slight tang that the cranberries give it, among the hints of cherry and vanilla and mainly exceptionally smooth chocolate! And all of Dagoba's chocolate comes from organic sustainably grown cacao beans, which I can definitely support!

I can't wait to try their other chocolate bars! Also, I have two more kinds of chocolate to do reviews on, but for now I should get to the gym and then practice, before teaching, so I must end here. More posts coming soon though! :)

What is your favorite brand of chocolate? Any recommendations for me?

My big, fat, Greek wedding!

OK, in regards to the title. It's not mine, I just played a wedding today (cocktail hour only) and it was a Greek family with a large number of people in attendance. It was beautiful, but it definitely reminded me of the movie!! :) What's the coolest wedding you've ever been to? Were you in the wedding party or just a guest? What made it so memorable? Being a professional musician, I've probably played well over 100 weddings. I was the maid of honor at my sister's and that was definitely the most personal for me. But I always enjoy playing for weddings. It never gets boring for me, because I remind myself that even if I've played "Pachelbel's Canon" and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" 926,459 times, the bride and groom want to have them played for their special day and I try to give every single bride and groom the respect that they deserve! And knowing that they are trusting me with the music for their wedding, makes every event unique and thrilling. I really do love interacting with people, and I try to make the bride feel super comfortable around me. Basically, I give every event 100% of my focus, my effort and my cheerful attitude!

Wow, that turned out to be pretty long. Well, onto my eats from the last few days.

Here's a weird, boring breakfast: (don't worry--that's the last of my Boca sausages and homemade banana bread for now. I hear you rejoicing and thinking "maybe she'll actually have something interesting for breakfast for a change!")

Yes, that is, once again, broccoli with spinach and feta hummus, a Boca link, and banana bread with PB. In a moment of daring boldness I added some carob chips! Woo! Haha, I'm all about the adventure!

And here's the coffee I've been enjoying for almost all of my recent breakfast posts! There is something ridiculously comforting about it! In fact, I'm already looking forward to drinking it tomorrow morning!


My exciting purchase of the week (geez, I need to go shopping more often!) is a new sports bra from TJ Maxx. I love that store! And I promise that the color is a much prettier blue in real life than it is in this picture! The lighting in my room is weird.



Back to food...and drink!

I've been enjoying this bottle of goodness all week. (Resveratrol anyone?)

I went to Whole Foods, pretty much my favorite place ever, and bought a bunch of good things including crack, I mean almond butter!

There are technically 11 servings in this jar, but it's not going to last me anywhere near that long! :)

And then I got in a cooking mood (and no one else was home, so I had the whole kitchen to myself!) so I went on a cooking spree.

I cooked a huge pan of veggies, mainly an organic purple cabbage, tofu, a red pepper and 3/4 of a purple onion. In EVOO with soy sauce and added Sriracha.


So good and I have a HUGE tupperware now full of delicious cooked veggies!


I also cooked up a spaghetti squash that I bought.

When it's done, the inside will shred into "noodles", hence giving it its name. Like this:

(I have a huge tupperware of that in my fridge now, too!)

Just for fun I decided to cook up some brown rice...I need to eat up all this cooked food before it goes bad!

And then I topped some of the eggplant slices I made earlier with a new kind of vegan "lunch meat" that I found at Whole Foods. This is SOOO good, by the way! :)

(There were many more slices of eggplant and lunch meat eaten!)

Today I started off with a lovely omelet filled with the veggie mixture I made and a little provolone cheese, and topped with salsa. (Hallelujah! She actually ate something more interesting for breakfast!)

I was definitely still hungry so I had a piece of toast with almond butter.

I may have had a second piece as well! You'll be seeing a lot more almond butter in the next few days! This stuff is one of the best things I've ever eaten!

And I had a busy day today, so I packed this ridiculously delicious sandwich: AB and sliced peaches!

And yes, I spread a li'l AB on the other piece of bread, too. It's OK, you can be jealous. Yeah, I'm jealous that I got to eat something so delicious!

And I ate the rest of peach, too.


I also packed a Luna bar and some almonds, but I didn't need the almonds.

And after a very long day, I came home and made myself a delicious dinner to sit down to and read with:

It's more eggplant with two kinds of lunch meat, some spaghetti squash, some veggies and a glass of red wine! So very good! Good enough for seconds!


And don't forget about dessert:


That might or might not be topped with more almond butter! Augh--this stuff is so addicting. But trust me; it's a very happy addiction. :)

And I have two more random pictures on my camera. First, my breakfast yesterday was a delicious bowl of oat bran with AB, grapes and cottage cheese.

And what post of mine would be complete without some chocolate? Right, that's what I thought!

Gotta get those antioxidants in! :)

Here are some awesome giveaways!

-NiftyEats is giving away Dr. Kracker products!
-Prior Fat Girl is giving away some of her favorite things.
-Justine is giving away a coupon for a free Kombucha...that most delicious fizzy fermented drink! Yum!
-Missy is giving away Zevia diet sodas! I've wanted to try these for so long but I can't find them near me!

It's now after midnight here and I have to get up early to play violin at my church in the morning. And I have a big show tomorrow afternoon with a rock band, so I better get some sleep! Good night!

Recital success!

I know I haven't posted for a few days, but they've been a good few days. I've definitely kept busy! The most exciting thing that happened was my first ever studio recital on Sunday! Fourteen of my students performed a solo piece and I also played at the end. We had a very full house, with about 75 parents, relatives and friends in attendance! I had typed up and printed programs on fancy paper, but we quickly ran out of the 35 I had made. We even had to borrow chairs from the Subway sandwich shop next door! And my boyfriend recorded the whole recital on his laptop so I can even send a CD to my own parents, who live 2,400 miles away. Woohoo! I heard only positive feedback from the parents; they all thought it was a lovely event and thanked me for working hard to organize it! It was incredibly exciting! I can't share pictures due to privacy, but I did get several very cute pictures with my students and two of them gave me these beautiful bouquets.



Then on Tuesday I had a concert, for which the dress rehearsal was on Monday night. I was only playing one short piece, but it was still a lot of time of getting to the rehearsal and sitting around. The annoying part of it is that I had to reschedule my normal Tuesday night students, but most of the families are very understanding.

Anyway, here are some of my eats. I've really been trying to cut back on most sugars and I really feel much better. I've found that I'm really not wanting a lot of sugar anyway. I've even lost a couple of pounds, but that's not my primary focus.

Breakfast today:

2 Boca sausage links w. organic ketchup
sweet potatoes with PB
organic broccoli with hummus (you'll probably see this again!)
1/2 slice healthy homemade nanner bread w. PB
{there was coffee too, of course}

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A random snack yesterday (and eaten again today, but would be exactly the same picture) is pepper jack cheese on Kashi crackers. One of the most delicious things! {And I have a HUGE bag of leftover cheese from the recital! I got to take home sooooo much free food!}


And yes--you guessed it. The carrots and dip are also from the recital! :) I've been eating tons of carrots with three different kinds of hummus, in addition to that dip you see. I sill have lots of hummus and I am not complaining.

And how's this for a low-sugar breakfast?

2 Boca links
sweet potatoes
broccoli with PB {yes, I know I'm weird. PB goes on everything. Don't knock it 'til you try it!}

And wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I have so many breakfasts on my camera! Breakfast is always my biggest meal and then I pretty much graze throughout the day. And breakfast is always the easiest to take a picture of. So here's two more for you:


2 eggs, zucchini sauteed in EVOO, 1 slice nanner bread with PB.

As above, except with a peach instead of the banana bread. YUM! Note to self--buy more zucchini! Zucchini ranks up there with my favorite veggies, along with broccoli, snap peas, red bell peppers and carrots! What are your favorite veggies? What are your favorite raw ones versus cooked?


That loaf of banana bread fed me well all week! This was just another random snack...

...so was this! (The ever self-explanatory carrots and PB, my go-to snack!)


And a quick WF stop. (OK, there might have been a couple of these! GAH--I need to stop doing this! But I usually keep it to about $7 and that's really no more than I'd spend at Quizno's and less than for Chinese takeout. I'd prefer this healthy AMAZING stuff, any day! And sometimes, you're just hungry while you're out and about!) Anyway, this was garlicky greens, sweet potatoes, and a couple different kinds of tofu! Delicious!


Here's my last of those chocolate covered cherries my BF got me. Yes, they're pretty much just the best thing I've ever tasted!

Last, but certainly not least, I've been enjoying this delicious snack mix that I bought while I was at Target anyway. It's honestly not THAT unhealthy, and I've been preferring that it's higher in fat, lower in sugar and still very chocolatey! Of course, it's still more of a moderation food, but I've been pretty good about sticking to one serving at a time. {Because fat fills me up and keeps me full --and not wanting food-- for a long time!}


Well, I'm off to read in bed. I'll definitely comment in the morning. I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on!

It's 09/09/09

Woohoo! We only have three more times like this (10/10/10 next year, 11 and 12) before such dates are gone for a very long time. I'm such a nerd--why do I find this cool? ;-)

My days have been busy getting for my first ever studio recital which is coming up this Sunday! I'm so excited to have 15 of my own students performing and we're having a reception afterward that many of the parents were eager to help out with. It should be a great event!

I know it's been a few days since I've posted, but I've had some lovely eats recently.

Two of my very similar breakfasts. I eat a lot of cereal in the summer months. I usually mix high fiber cereal with a little granola, fruit and milk. Plus coffee. :) And yes, the meals are eaten in front of my computer with messy papers all around. Sorry! I get so jealous of all the bloggers that have such amazing clean and beautiful houses and computer desks!


This salad was a highlight! (I had another one just like it the next day!)

This had:

-spinach
-tomato
-avocado
-sauteed cabbage/onion
-tofu
-turkey lunch meat
-a little dressing


A random snack. I've been figuring out that --for me--eating a higher fat and lower sugar diet is really working! I've even been cutting way back on fresh fruit, in addition to most processed stuff. (For meals at least. Chocolate is the exception to this rule.) I feel so much better ordering sandwiches with cheese and sauces with fat in them (think like Subway with Chipotle dressing, rather than their fat free honey mustard--which I also like, but I'm just thinking in terms of how it makes me feel). I really relate to a lot of what Heather says and I love the way she eats. In fact, I kind of admire her and I would love to adopt more of her nutritional habits!

And for an amazing superfood-filled breakfast I present to you:

-2 eggs, scrambled with broccoli
-sweet potatoes
-frozen strawberries

And for the highlight of my week, my boyfriend bought me dark chocolate covered cherries "just because." Yeah, that's right--be jealous. ;-)


I might or might not have consumed more than a single two-piece serving size! They are seriously one of the best things I've ever tasted. I believe the term "Mouthgasm" is VERY appropriate to use here! :)

*drools*

*contented sigh*

OK, I'm off to do some errands:

-Bank
-Grocery store
-Gym (?!)
-Post my first ever Operation Beautiful notes

Then teaching for an hour and playing a church service tonight.

Hope everyone's having an awesome 09/09/09!