Monthly Archives: January 2011

A Double Serving of Entendre

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I liked the cock.

Adam thought the cock was ok, but found it a little salty.

I’m speaking, of course, of this soup package we had for dinner this evening.

We spotted it at Wegman’s a few months ago and had to buy it, because we’re six.  Sorry, Mom and Nana, you know I can’t resist a good (dirty) pun!

We decided to finally use the package tonight, incorporating it into a nice Caribbean dinner.

Cock soup.

No, I have no idea why it’s called that, and yes, it was a little too salty.

Rice and beans.

Minute brown rice mixed with a can of reduced sodium black beans.

And fried plantains.

We bought some frozen from Goya, and revived them with a quick saute.

Adam and I also split a cheddar cheese bialey.

Sooooooooo doughy and chewy!  We picked up the bialey while we were at Wegman’s buying cookie dough.  Cookies are in the oven (Adam’s request) and all is right with the world.  You can assume I’ll eat two, but since we are moving from the blogging portion of the evening to the watching X-Files portion, no pictures are occurring.

Does it seem like we are eating down the fridge slash searching for all the dairy we can get our mouths on?  Well we are!  You’ll see why tomorrow 😀

How To: Order a Salad at the Cheesecake Factory

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The Cheesecake Factory is the husband’s and my favorite chain restaurant.  CF is the food of the Gods, but the portions are also God-like.  I know that no matter what I order there, including a salad, my meal will end up being at least two servings.

If you have the control not to devour the whole plate, two meals in one are great – instant lunch!  But what if you like to order salads, invariably soggy by the next day?  Here’s what I do –

  1. Order your salad with dressing on the side.
  2. Request a take-out box as soon as your meal comes.
  3. Portion half of your salad into the take-out box, set aside.
  4. Top remaining salad with desired amount of dressing and dig in.
  5. Enjoy a delicious, crisp salad at tomorrow’s lunch.

I added a little Newman’s Own Asian Sesame dressing from home for lunch today.

Extra-credit?

– No matter what salad I order at CF, the dressing I request on the side is always spicy peanut cilantro vinaigrette.  It is ridiculous good, I would lick it off the floor.

– My favorite salad is the Fresh Vegetable Salad (from the appetizer menu but still a solid two servings).  The toppings are all fun, but not in a bacon-ranch-crouton-I-just-gained-20pounds-from-a-salad kind of way.  Asparagus, Green Beans, Tomato, Cucumber, Roasted Beets, Apple, Edamame, Radicchio, Romaine and White Cheddar.

Cracked Up

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My breakfast this morning wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; when I opened the carton, both of our last two eggs were cracked!

I forged ahead and heated up this package of Allergaroo Spyglass Noodles instead.

Topped with the 50% reduced white cheddar and chives that we supposed to go in my scrambled eggs.

It ended up being pretty tasty, if not all that breakfast-y.

My glass of skim milk with a chocolate milk straw helped.

I went to the gym this morning, so after classes (and my first big quiz!) the day is mine!  Adam dropped me off at the gym around 8, and I took my notecards on the elliptical for 30minutes at random, level 6.

What is your back-up plan if your breakfast falls through?

Matching Meals

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There was no Saturday post because I just couldn’t figure out the logistics of it.  Two things were happening yesterday – I was starving and my teeth were killing me.  This meant I started 80 different food items, then gummed at them pathetically before moving on.  I just didn’t know how to blog it without saying “I ate two bites of this, and three bites of that..” a million times.

But today, today was definitely worth blogging.  The husband and I ate matching meals all day!  That’s not to say he didn’t eat several things that I didn’t (or that he was particularly excited about this) but for the most part our meals were twins.

We started our day with hot chocolate.

Made stove-top style with skim milk, sugar, and Green and Black cocoa powder.

I’ve been loving the cocoa lately, and this homemade version might have been my best cup yet.

We also had yogurts.

I ate the Liberte, 0% Strawberry.

The Liberte yogurts are sooooo rich and creamy but they generally have a lot of saturated fat so I was thrilled to find this 0% one.

Then we had matching lunch plates.

Leftover mini cheesy meatloafs with roasted sweet potato fries.

This meatloaf was good the first day, but it definitely got better after sitting in the fridge.

We watched some “X-Files” while we ate, then headed to my campus to get some schoolwork done.  I hit up the gym while we were there. A quick treadmill work out – warm up + run 1mile (9.10) + incline walking – 2.5miles and 35minutes. Followed by a quick stretch and a few planks.

For dinner we went to Cheesecake Factory to use up the last of our Christmas gift certificates.

We shared an order of avocado egg rolls.

If by shared you mean split 1-5 and include Adam growling at me while I ate my one.

Our dinner plates weren’t exactly identical, but we did share many bites.  I ordered my favorite, the fresh vegetable appetizer salad,

and Adam got the spicy cashew chicken.

We had a lot of fun sharing, and we’ve both got lunch leftovers for tomorrow!

Plus we split a cookie dough cheesecake for dessert!

Would you ever be interested in seeing a day of Adam’s meals?

I Hate Eggs Almost As Much As I Love Them

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It’s Friday, Friday, Friday!  The completion of my first week back at school means that weekends mean something once again.

Typical Friday lazies be damned though, I banged out a ton of work after class this afternoon.  That’s what going to the gym in the morning will do…  A classmate and I sat at a coffee shop and studied from 12 until almost 4.

I had to go to Talking Leaves (a local, independent book store) to buy my music textbook, so we sat at the attached cafe and had lunch.

Chicken pesto panini.

This bad boy – I ate 3/4 – wasn’t even the whole sandwich, I shared the other half with Janessa!

Plus a coffee with skim milk.

Adam picked me up and I came home and kept the productivity ball rolling; all of my (many!) assignments for the semester have been entered into Todoist.

Plus I made another gourmet dinner.

Walnut-Breadcrumb Pasta with a Soft Egg, from Cooking Light.  We only made two servings so we basically eyeballed all of the measurements, and we used panko breadcrumbs, but other than that we followed the recipe for a change.  The end results were worth a little obedience.

The soft eggs were perfectly thick and drippy.  They were also a pain in the butt.  We had an impossible time getting them peeled, and all I can say is that it’s a good thing we made a few extra!  We “buy” (I won a year’s worth of free eggs) Eggland’s Best vegetarian-fed eggs and my mother-in-law says the chicken’s low protein diet is what makes our egg shells so hard to peel.

With two perfect clementines for dessert.

These are just so dang good!  (thanks Katie)

Have you found the secret to easy peel eggs?  Please share!

When Do You Work Out?

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I liked yesterday’s early workout so much that I had Adam drop me off at the gym again this morning.

I did a treadmill workout – warm up + 1 mile run (9:17) + incline walking – 2.25miles and 30minutes, followed by a quick stretch and some abs moves.

I haven’t 100% come to a decision yet, but I think I’m going to move towards morning workouts from now on (vs. going at the end of the day after classes) –

cons of morning workouts

  • it adds a 3rd walking trip to my day (Adam drops me at the gym, I walk home to shower, I walk back for class, I walk home again)
  • I won’t have time to eat breakfast before my workout
  • it’s hard for me to wake up before 8

pros of morning workouts

  • my workout is out of the way for the day
  • not having to work out after class makes me much more likely to study before dinner
  • I can wear one thing from class through the end of the evening; I hate feeling like I “wasted” a cute outfit because I have to change into gym clothes at the end of class
  • I won’t have to stuff the aforementioned change of outfit into my purse to get it home from the gym

After a quick shower, I made myself a nice little breakfast.

A mug of cocoa,

half a Sandwich Thin with chunky peanut butter and honey,

and a juicy clementine.

The mix of flavors here was so satisfying.  I am super psyched that clementines are back in season, we’ve got a crate in our fridge!

I have one class on Fridays (biochem) and then my plan is to hole up in a coffee shop somewhere and power through some homework.

When do you prefer to work out?

Gourmet for a Thursday

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Dinner tonight was pretty gourmet for a Thursday.  Actually, it was pretty darn gourmet in general!

We started with a salad course.

I had a romaine base with chopped pear, soy nuts, and low-fat poppy-seed dressing.

Super yummy.  This has been my favorite salad dressing for years, but I think this is the first time I’ve bought it since we moved from Miami in 2003.

For the main course I made Cheesy Meat Loaf Minis from Cooking Light.

Actually, I put all the ingredients in a bowl; Adam technically made it since he’s the one who had his hands all up in the raw meat.

We thought the recipe was pretty good (7/10), here are the changes we made –

  • 98% lean turkey subbed for sirloin, with an extra 1/4 pound of meat
  • no onions and no oregano (just because we were out, they would have improved the dish)
  • panko bread crumbs
  • an extra ounce of white cheddar subbed for parmesan
  • and horseradish mustard subbed in for horseradish and dijon

On the side we made a batch of Waffle Fries from Alexia.

I got this product for free using a coupon from the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program.  To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have bought this with my own money, but I’m so glad I got the change to try it because I would totally spring for it again!  The fries were perfectly crispy and seasoned but not soggy at all.

All in all it was a very satisfying dinner.

We’ve been watching The X-Files (via Netflix instant watch) and I can’t get over how cheesy the first season was!  Did you watch the X-Files?

I Got Curried Away

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My friends over at Tandoor Chef asked me to let you guys know about their Get Curried Away with Tandoor Chef campaign.  Their products are all ridiculous good, so why wouldn’t I?  All you have to do is enter the contest before January 31st and you can be entered to win a years worth of products!  I entered, and so should you.

Even if I don’t win, I should be thanking them, because the contest title inspired this tasty lunch.

Actually first it inspired a Marco Polo-esque trek for the necessary provisions,

then came lunch.

Curried tuna salad!

I mixed up half a can of tuna, some Miracle Whip, 3 Tbsp of raisins, and a healthy shake of sweet curry powder.

With half a Sandwich Thin (toasted with Smart Balance Light),

and carrots roasted with honey and balsamic vinegar.

For dessert I ate this candy bar I picked up along the spice route.

Mr. Big was actually deceptively not that big (it wasn’t small, but it wasn’t as large as it look is my point), it was filled with this great airy wafer candy.

I’ve got a class at 4 and then the only plan for the evening is dinner.  See ya!