Panera for the win!

Hello everyone! I have been crazy busy lately applying for jobs and staying on top of my coursework as May and graduation approach. I do want to share a recent meal I had at Panera though. I had the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad. It was delicious! 

I've been making some other good meals lately as well but always forget to take pictures until after the food has been eaten. Perhaps if I made a habit of it I would be better...

I have been taking some beautiful pictures outside though! Spring has sprung and the flowers are blooming in Illinois. See for yourself!

May Flowers

It's May!  I can hardly believe it, but I'm very excited for summer!  I have just two weeks of class left.  I am planning on doing a lot of biking and running around the Champaign-Urbana area.  I'll probably need to do that in the early mornings or late evenings if this summer is as hot as I heard last summer was.  Ah well, I can be flexible.

I have some flower pictures to share with you today.  These aren't all ordinary flowers though... see if you can spot the 'special' ones ;-).

Did you notice anything odd about the middle two pictures?  Those are actually fake flowers!  Yes, I didn't realize that fact until after I'd already taken a few pictures.  I was drawn to the flowers because of the beautiful rain drops on the greenery surrounding them.  When I finally took a closer look at the flowers themselves I noticed they weren't real.  I had myself a good laugh after that - haha!

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March Showers Brought April Flowers

Hello all!  I'm thrilled by all of the blooming flowers everywhere.  I especially love the Magnolia Trees.  Their blooms are gorgeous, and they smell heavenly.  I thought I'd share some pics I've taken in the past week.  That's all I've got time for right now since I'm spending most of my time working on final papers.  The end of the semester is fast approaching! 

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YouShake Review and one of my favorite combos!

One of my favorite combos is:

Banana and peanut butter :-)

Now for my YouShake review.  Here's a little info. about YouShake:

With You Shake's easy Make-a-Shake page:

• You choose high quality ingredients such as freeze-dried fruit
• You choose the individual portion size.
• Your shakes are made fresh-to-order and shipped to your door with a satisfaction guarantee. If you don't love your shakes, you'll get a new box free of charge.
• Your customized nutrition facts and your chosen shake name are printed on each shake package.
• Friendly telephone customer support is available to answers questions and provide helpful recommendations.

You can mix the YouShake with water, milk, or juice.  You can also use it in smoothies, yogurt, oatmeal, or anything else you feel like adding it to.  I was sent 3 flavors to sample and review, and I chose to use them with oatmeal and Malt-O-Meal since I'm always looking for new ways to add flavor to my breakfast grains!

Breakfast Shake

8.5 of 10.  I'm not including the picture of this one because I mixed it with dry oatmeal and water in a hotel room and didn't have a microwave... so it didn't mix up extremely well (which wasn't too surprising!).  I was still able to enjoy the nice, mellow chocolate flavor.  I was happy to find that it didn't taste "high protein" like some shake mixes can. 

Vanilla Dream

8 of 10.  Great vanilla aroma, but the flavor itself wasn't as strong as I would have liked.  It mixed in well with the Malt-O-Meal that I was able to cook in a microwave :-).

Blended Bliss

9.5 of 10.  Fabulous strawberry banana flavor!  I really enjoyed the little bits of strawberries, especially since I wasn't really expecting them :-).  It worked wonderfully in my Malt-O-Meal.

Overall, the YouShakes were decent except for the Blended Bliss that blew me away.  Therefore, while some of their flavors may not be that exceptional, you should be able to make one that you like.  Besides, they offer a satisfaction guarantee, so you can't really go wrong even if you do get a flavor that you don't enjoy.

I'm also pretty sure that you can all still receive a 5% discount on an order through YouBar if you use my discount code “FoodFotos”.

And.... the flowers are blooming on campus at Iowa State!  I was so excited that I took a couple pictures for you.

I hope you all have a great Easter if you celebrate it, and if not, have a wonderful first weekend of April!

Here's an Easter giveaway you can check out too! http://theactorsdiet.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/lynn-happy-easter-giveaway/

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