Tag Archives: snacks

Prepping for Japan

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Eep! We’re leaving on Friday for Japan! It’s coming up so fast!

This year has been quite an eventful one so far – first we spent 3 weeks in the summer in Europe, and now we’re off to Japan for 2 weeks. I’m so blessed to be able to travel with loved ones and make memories along the way.

This week, MG and I have been prepping for our trip.

We got our shots on Monday (the travel nurse recommended Typhoid and Flu shots for the both of us). Ouch! Typhoid really hurts. We looked so silly coming out of the clinic with bandaids on each arm. Too bad at this age, you don’t get candy…

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FYI – if you travel overseas, get the typhoid shot 2 weeks prior to your trip. That’s when the vaccination actually kicks in. At least we’ll be covered the last half of our trip!

Since you don’t get candy anymore after shots, we treated ourselves at Target.

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We bought a bunch of munchies for our long plane ride. Those Outshine bars were obviously for a late night snack! My favorite snacks – Cheetos!

We even got haircuts for our trip! I was getting so sick of my long hair. No oomph anymore, and I just continually put it into a ponytail, blegh. So here’s to change! Short and sweet!

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I have to curl it in the morning now, but I’m liking the new texture! Also for those of your wondering, my skin is slowly healing. I still have acne, but it’s not as bad as before. Now I’m in the stage of whitening the dark spots. Any advice?

Of course a load of jeans also go into the washer, as we are finalizing the packing list. Always turn your jeans inside out when they go into the washer. Then hang dry all your jeans so that they do not shrink. Welcome to the jean sale…

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And the best part of prepping – MG did not want to bring his large laptop while traveling. Our iPad is first gen, and our secondary tablet does not have an attachable keyboard. So his biggest desire was a Microsoft Surface.

He made his desire known at 4pm on Tuesday. After picking up our dry-cleaning at 6:30pm, we headed over to a Microsoft store and dropped some money. Now MG has a new toy! When he first asked me and I said yes, he was shocked. He didn’t expect me to say yes to such a large purchase. But why not? Let’s be spontaneous today!

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It’s so pwetty! It’s going to be a great tool for when I need to design graphics. I can’t believe you can open Microsoft Office and all the Adobe Creative Suites with the Surface. It’s a computer but in tablet form; amazing. I’m a Mac user myself (I’m using one to type this post), but Microsoft is really stepping it up!

Come back for my packing list on my next post. I have some fun items that I recently purchase for our Japan trip!

What do you do to prep for a big trip?
Jay

My New Faves

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Perhaps you’ve been to my house. So then perhaps you know I love snacks. That perhaps leads to you knowing what I do on my free time, hoard snacks. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember. There’s sooooo many snacks lying around my house, but I promise you I don’t snack often. I have more of a mentality of trying a snack, maybe eating a few pieces, and then it just sits in my house until visitors eat them.

In college I did the same thing. I even had an intervention. Once a roommate ask me why I don’t finish my snacks before purchasing more. What a strange habit right? I had to promise my husband that I wouldn’t hoard snacks when we got married. I was doing so well up until recently. I discovered the chip aisle again (muahaha!).

To add to my hoarding woes, I stumbled upon this brilliant Indian site for snacks. There is everything I could ever ask for, right here on 24chakra. My snack hoarding habit has not known more joy!

I’m sharing two of my most recent finds with you. Snacks that I like so much, I’m actually eating the entire thing!

First thing’s first. Lay’s is hosting their “Do Us A Flavor” campaign again. Users submit flavors and the top voted ones get put into the stores. Then you vote on which one will stay.

OMG the wasabi ginger chips are amazing!!! Honestly, it’s sushi on a chip. Once you get over the texture, basically it’s a crispy piece of sushi in your mouth, the flavor is fricken awesome. Obviously you need to like sushi in order to enjoy this flavor. It’s a good combination of wasabi and ginger, not one overpowering the other. I literally have to put my chips on a plate in order to control my portions!

Chips

Chips portion

I haven’t tried the other flavors yet (Mango Salsa, Cappuccino, and Bacon Mac n Cheese). Have you? If so, which ones do you recommend? I’m kinda interesting in trying cappuccino!

And now drumroll please! I’ve discovered Cookie Butter Ice Cream from Trader Joe’s. Have you ever had cookie butter before? It’s a brand of speculoos, which is basically a creamy spread of gingerbread cookies. Think peanut butter but with gingerbread. OMG – I die! So good to the point I can’t even describe it. I typically buy speculoos for crepes or just eating a spoonful for dessert. But Cookie Butter ice cream? That’s beyond me! Who’s the genius that came up with this… I want to shake his/her hand.

Cookie Butter

Ice Cream

Look at those amazing specks of cookie butter!

Speculoos

Seriously, these snacks are probably not helping with my training for my half marathon. But that’s okay! Running means I’m losing calories, which means I can have a higher calorie intake now. That’s my motivation for running… tehehe!

What are some of your favorite snacks? This is a bad question because I’ll probably try your recos and then I’m back at snack hoarding!

Munch away,
Jay

Camping Prep

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I’m going camping this weekend at Henry Coe State Park!

My fellowship group decided to take a weekend trip together, and we chose the great outdoors. If you’ve been reading along you know I love camping! Can’t wait to get away from technology, snuggle into my sleeping bag, and read. Oh yup, you already know food is a big, hu-mun-go part of camping. As usual, I’m in charge of groceries. There’s going to be some good eats!

We’re going to be a group of 13. I love shopping for medium/large groups because there’s such a wide selection of things to choose from. It’s also fun for me to keep costs to a minimum when it comes to that many people. Challenge accepted. I love it!

I went shopping for snacks today at Target. Lots of goodies. It’s like a kid at a candy store!

Target

For drinks we got Anchor Steam, Pinot Noir, Gatorade, Water, and Dr. Pepper. I even made brownies for dessert for tomorrow night!

For snacks, check this out:

Snacks

Yes!

I forgot the beef jerky on purpose because I need the huge bag from Costco 😉

What are your favorite camping snacks? Am I missing anything good? Onto Costco tomorrow…

Fat kid at heart,
Jay

Healthy Banana Chip Bites

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My roommate and I have been obsessed with these little things!

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Fortunately for us they are super healthy snacks.

I’ve had bananas for over a week and wouldn’t you know it, they are extremely, extremely ripe. Extremely.

Bananas

I wanted to make banana muffins, but I need something healthy since I’m still doing this weight loss challenge with a group of friends. And I’m always in DIRE need of dessert after dinner, so these things are seriously perfect.

On Monday nights, you can find my roommate, Jess, and I watching The Following on FOX. We’re always munching on something while watching, perhaps the show is so stressful we’re calming ourselves with snacks! Whew, so glad I found a healthy option for watching this show. Every few minutes, I spy Jess going to the kitchen to grab these cookies. She LOVES them. She takes them to work and tries to hide them at her desk so she can save it for an afternoon snack, but I think that plan always fails.

4 ingredients & 3 steps. No sugar. No flour. Done in 15 minutes. Here we go!

Healthy Banana Chip Bites
makes 20 cookies

Ingredients:

  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 1 cup of old fashioned oats
  • 1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1.5 tablespoons of chia

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Mash up the ripe bananas in a bowl. Add oats, chocolate chips, and chia. Mix it all together until well blended.
3. Drop in tablespoons of mix on a cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes.

Can these be any easier? The sweetness comes primarily from the bananas. The chocolate chips are optional but also gives the cookie some sweetness. I love the crunch of the chia too! If you’re really craving something sweet, add some honey to the cookie.

Mix

Done

Bite-sized

What do you think? Is this something you can try?

With age comes eating healthier right? What are some of your favorite healthy, homemade snacks?

Muncha buncha cruncha muncha (this song is always stuck in my head),
Jay
—-
Adapted from Skinny Taste

Jack Link’s Beef Jerky

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Are you a savory or sweet type of person? At night what do you crave the most?

I’m always craving salty foods. My favorite snacks include Cheeto’s, fries, and chips. My all time favorite snack? Beef jerky. It’s what I want all the time! Obviously there are days where I crave sweets. But if I’m craving sweets, it needs to be SUPER sweet. I’m talking chocolate cake with chocolate chips topped with chocolate fudge and caramel. Why so specific? Cause I just ate that… No joke. I’ll probably have jerky after the sweets though.

For you savory people, I came across the best beef jerky ever, and I want to let you know about it too!

It’s Jack Link’s Prime Rib Seasoning Tender Cuts. I could eat these all day. For some reason they are really hard to find at the stores. You always see the regular, pepper, or teriyaki flavors, but you need to do some searching for the prime rib one. Because of this, I actually buy these in bulk, 5 packages every time. I feel crazy when I go and check out. The cashier always looks at each of the bags to see what’s the big deal.

Beef Jerky!Do I look a bit crazy here?

The two places that I’ve seen this specific jerky is Walmart and Target. Promise they are good. Go buy a bag and let me know what you think about these tasty little treats!

Have a great weekend,
Jay