Moving...we are moving...this blog has moved!!

Good Afternoon !
I have moved this blog to continue it at a new address!
the new address isssss:
www.adventures-in-the-kitchen.blogspot.com

see you there!!

Meatless Monday!

So, Jeremy and I have started following the mantra that is "Meatless Mondays." We were entirely successful last night! We had the littlest pants join us for a delectable meal of Falafel Salad, and let me tell you, it was glorious.

Is there really anything better than three-four falafels laying on a bed of lettuce with cucumbers, tomatoes, and banana peppers surrounding them? Not on meatless Monday there's not.

Jeremy whipped up the falafel, while my sister (the littlest pants) and I prepared smoothies for dessert, and spun the romaine lettuce, and diced tomatoes and cucumbers. A great effort by all!
Falafel is delicious and if you haven't had any get yourself to a Mediterranean restaurant and try some real falafel, mmm so yummy.
With the falafel we prepared hummus (same recipe that was listed earlier)
and used Delicious raw tahini dressing...mmmm
all in all it was glorious!

After dinner we enjoyed a round of mini-sized smoothies, a great night.

Until Next time! Keep Keepin it healthy, and eat some falafel!

"Welcome to Dunkin Donuts, are you interested in trying one of our new egg white flatbread sandwiches?"

Right, Imagine asking that question for 8-10 hours a day, from 5am to 3pm or so. I know what you're thinking, who, honestly, who would choose that life? I didn't choose, but my bills sure chose, things like rent, auto, renters, and health insurance, credit card payments, and bank accounts. THAT is who chose, if it were left up to me, I would start my own business and clean my house a lot. I spend days at home experimenting making new juices and smoothies for my future smoothie/juice bar I plan to open on Park Ave. Everyone who had a birthday would receive a card in the mail from me, friends who live in far away lands wouldn't have to wait so long before I could call them again...unfortunately none of those things (at least not right away) allow for any of those bills to get paid.





Anyways, I no longer am a slave to dunkin donuts, instead I work in insurance, and spend time helping people, or calling people telling them they are late on their payments, when I myself haven't quite found the time to pay my own auto insurance. I work 50+ hours a week, and only get paid for 40, and my boss is most often inn appropriate, and even more often obviously sexist. But I fight those battles every day so that I don't have to work at dunkin donuts.

I told you I would find some time to tell you all about my adventures in the dunkin donuts world.


Working in Dunkin Donuts, despite what many may have heard is certainly no picnic. In order for them to be qualified in any realm of sanitation in any way at all there had to be rules. I mean, there were rules, and making rules. There were unflattering terrible uniforms, with even more uncomfortable headsets (for the drive thru) and if all of that wasn't bad enough...there were "up selling phrases" everyone was "required" to say. Personally I didn't take part in that, not because I'm a bad employee, but rather because I knew what I was selling could be partially blamed for the death of certain people, of that much I was sure and certain.

There is mopping that occurs 2-3 times a day

There is re-stocking

The "sandwich" egg/meat are refreshed every 10 minutes (so only the freshest most processed foods are ingested)

There are specific orders in which the coffee, sugar and cream/skim milk/2% milk are to be added to the cup.

You MUST write the order on the cup.

As for the severe health downsides...

Here's one or two things to think about:

One Large Iced Dunkin Donuts Coffee / Latte = 32 ounces. That is far too much for anyone to consume, and incredible unhealthy.

The Delicious coffee cake muffins, amongst a few other muffins, have 400+ calories in them.

in ONE muffin folks...ONE muffin.

All of Dunkin's health info can be found conveniently at their website, but certainly not in store. They also are sure to keep the health information from their employees, and should any find out, we were instructed fiercly not to report our findings, or what we knew, we were instructed to instead, refer customers and consumers to the website for specific ingredients.

That would have been fine with me except that there was the slight issue involving ingredients for less than just health purposes, for food allergy. We had to appear dumbfounded and useless when asked questions regarding ingredients in order to protect the Dunkin name.

Here are a few other fun tips:

All the donuts in the greater Rochester area come from ONE donut shop in Buffalo. At said shop the donuts are all prepared at 3am, at which point they are driven to Rochester for store openings at 5:30am. By the time those of you who enjoy these "treats" or "death sentences" depending on which side of the fence you sit on, by the time they reach you, or your mouth, they've already been shelved for almost 12 hours. How about that one to think about?

Just a few notes on my experience at working at dunkin donuts, it is only opinion, and while i appreciate the job, so that all those bills could be paid, I'm not sure how i ever worked there.

So then after working there, i officially loved the D&D medium iced coffee, with 2.5 pumps of Carmel...This was until just recently really, I've been off DD for about a month now, but it swear they put something in their coffee to keep you coming back. Folks there is nothing cool about DD...find a cafe, if you're a real coffee drinker places like Starbucks and DD can't be pleasing because (and i was a Barista at a few real cafes for some time) they don't make half the drinks the right way.

Well, another post later, on the most delicious round of smoothies Jeremy and I have come up with, our latest on meatless Mondays, and how we're surviving life without meat, a posting of a "Day in the life, Raw food lifestyle at 50-50 for now"

Until next time....keep keepin it healthy, have you tried a new fruit yet today?

Dunkin Donuts The Evil Empire

PS. Just a quick note about Dunkin Donuts and Their Evil Empire...

Salmonella Poisoning in all their powdered drinks...
I used to work there, more on that later, however,
All you super trendy cool chai-tea drinkers from dunkin donuts, or ice tea drinkers, just a heads up...ALL of those drinks are powdered drinks at Dunkin...Don't get poisoned! steer clear of D&D!

Hum..Hum...Hummus!

Gooood Morning all my health food gurus!,
As I eat my 11:00 snack I wanted to share the creation of this snack with everyone.
Is there anything better/healthier/tastier than hummus as a snack? The answer is no, there is not. Hummus is one of my absolute favorite snacks!

So, since Jeremy and I are such "do-it-yourselfers" we of course decided to have a mediterranian meal last night, which of course hummus is a staple of. So, we made our very own Hummus
Here's how we did it:
The Ingredients:
2 Cans of chick peas drained, washed and dried
Juice of three bright yellow, freshly squeezed Lemons
A small cup of water
3-4 tablespoons of Tahini (we buy ours raw from the co op)
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
4 Cloves of Garlic

Drop the Garlic into the food processer first, with just a handful of the chickpeas, grind that up, when that is ground add 4 tablespoons of the lemon juice, and another two handfuls of chickpeas. When that is starting to look smooth add the rest of the chick peas, the olive oil and a little water to achieve the consistency that you want. Grind again, as you're grinding notice the consistency, and add more lemon and juice to get that nice smooth consistency.
when you reach the consistency that you desire, pour it out of the food processor, and into a beautiful dish and put in the refridgerator. (the colder the better!)
Dice up some veggies, my favorite are cucumbers, and tomatoes, and kalamata olives, grab some gluten free crackers, and snack away!

Just a quick post for those of you attempting to be more "do it yourselfers" too!


Peace, Love, and Hummus!


Until next time, keep keepin it healthy!

My Superfood Smoothie Recipe

Good Morning (I believe it still counts as morning since it doesn't actually say 12:00 on my computer clock)

Today, I'm going to talk about my favorite concoction of smoothie that I have invented. I call it my superfood smoothie. I really enjoy it when i get back from a really rigorous work out, or I'm feeling sluggish and tired. It has lots of replenishing and cramp-preventing fruit, and the flavor is amazing!

I make it two different ways depending on funds, and resources.
Here is the first way:
1 Ripe Banana (diced)
1 Sweet Pear (it can be any pear you like that has a sweet flavor) Diced
7-10 HOME grown strawberries* sliced
5-10 ice cubes (depending on your size of the ice cube, and what consistency you're looking for)
blend it, pour it, drink it! feel replenished!

Here is way # 2
1 Ripe Banana diced
1 Sweet pear cored and diced
7-10 HOME grown strawberries*
5-10 ice cubes
1/2 of the bottle of Odwalla's "original superfoods" fruit / vegetable juice ( i know it looks gross, but it is SO good for you, and the flavor is Delicious) since its expensive i pour only half the bottle in per smoothie (the small 12 oz bottle)
blend, and enjoy

both of these smoothie recipes usually yield two smoothies, in my case i share the other half with my love, Jeremy. But you could always just put it in the fridge for after another work out, the next morning etc. Its a great smoothie and i love it!


I hope you try it at home, let me know what you think or your variations of it.
or YOUR favorite smoothie recipe.



** In regards to strawberries. I just wanted to make a quick note here it is best to use home grown strawberries for this recipe because homegrown strawberries have a sweeter taste naturally. Store bought strawberries (which are just fine in the winter...but cmon is strawberry season!) are meant to last for days on shelves in stores in order to be profitable. Homegrown strawberries, while they don't last long, not any more than 5 days in the refridgerator, have great flavor and are full of sweet juices. As a result of this it is best reccomended to go to your local farmers market and get yourself some of those home grown strawberries!


Until next time...keep keepin it healthy!