Tomorrow includes the last quiz of this semester. Quick, how many mg of cholesterol in 3 oz of dark meat turkey?
A: 72 mg.
P.S. Alter Ego makes the best flipping chocolate, the Dark Coconut Toffee bar blew my mind.
Author Archives: Emily
Buffalo Chicken Mac And Cheese
When I made this dish last weekend I was not planning on sharing the recipe, I just really wanted Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese.
But then I took my first bite and fell head-over-heels in love. Several of you requested the recipe on the blog and Instagram, and who am I to say no? This recipe is not, I repeat not healthy. But it is tasty, yummy, cheesy, spicy, decadent, comforting, and delicious.
And it gets even better leftover. Particularly when you steal cold bites from the casserole dish the next morning.
Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese, serves 4
- 4 oz uncooked miniature shell pasta
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 Tbsp canola oil
- 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast; cubed
- 8 oz 1/3-reduced-fat cream cheese
- 1/3 cup reduced-fat ranch dressing
- 3/4 cup medium-strength Buffalo sauce
- 8 oz extra-sharp cheddar, shredded
- 3 oz blue cheese crumbles
- 2 green onions, sliced
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Prepare a 8×8 inch baking pan with cooking spray.
- Prepare pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Melt butter and oil in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat . Add chicken cubes to skillet, cover and cook 3-4 minutes on each side.
- Remove cooked chicken from pan and reduce heat to medium. Place cream cheese, ranch dressing, and Buffalo sauce in skillet and cook, stirring frequently, until combined. Add all but a handful of the cheddar and stir until melted.
- Remove skillet from heat and stir in cooked chicken and pasta.
- Pour mixture into baking pan. Top with blue cheese, remaining cheddar, and green onions.
- Bake 30 minutes.
What’s your favorite comfort food? Mine clearly all involve cheese!
Choco-Cherry Love
I’ve been skipping breakfast on most of the early mornings of my internship without incident, but today I ran into issues. After a week of eating breakfast – giant, glorious, egg studded breakfasts – my body rebelled at today’s sudden fast. I spent the first hour of my morning light-headed and nauseous, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t pass out while reading charts. Yuck.
All that is to say, I drank a regular sugar Pepsi for breakfast (I felt better almost immediately!), after breaking out in a very embarrassing cold sweat while talking with a doctor. No photo because I was in a hurry to get back to work.
Lunch was nutritionally lame as well; I ran out of time to pack food this morning.
At least the hospital cafeteria has good pizza.
When I got home this afternoon I made myself a Choco-Cherry Smoothie.
1 heaping cup frozen sweet dark cherries // 1.5 heaping Tbsp Navita’s chocolate Protein Smoothie Mixer // 1 Tbsp U-Bet chocolate syrup // ~1 cup Silk Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk.
It had so much potential but sadly my smoothie had absolutely no flavor. It was basically ice water! I’m not sure where I went wrong, but I drank the whole thing any way to get in the nutrients.
I spent my afternoon working on my thesis for the history class I’m taking this semester. I am not enjoying having to write an actual paper; it’s been awhile! I am hoping to plug away over the next two weeks though and get it done a little bit early so I can get it off of my mind.
I ate baby carrots with blue cheese while I worked.
The perfect snack.
I spent the evening in night class. We talked about the Holocaust today, which felt like a throw-back to my first time in college. Did you know – when I thought about getting my Masters in English I planned on writing my thesis on Holocaust literature?
Then I hurried home to squeeze in a few episodes of “Battlestar Galactica.” I enjoyed a sliced banana with peanut butter while I wrote this post.
I’ve decided I’d rather paint my nails – a gorgeous, sparkly pink! – than eat a grown-up dinner, so that’s all she wrote.
Can you skip meals or does it make you too queasy?
Easter Brunch
I hope everyone had a hoppy Easter! Our day was quite nice; tasty food, nice weather, and tons of tv.
Adam’s parents sent us $ in lieu of an Easter basket so I got to go to brunch with my handsome husband.
He took me to Left Bank, a spot he’s been to with friends (working weekends means I usually have to skip brunch, boo!) and was dying to share.
The space was gorgeous and the menu had lots of offer. Plus, they brought yummy lemon poppy-seed bread.
Adam ordered a mimosa while I went with an extra-spicy bloody mary,
but we were on the same page when it came to food.
We both ordered the Seafood Benedict,
crab cakes topped with poached eggs and [citrus] hollandaise. <– I asked for regular hollandaise, served on the side please!
The dish came with sides of fruit and hash browns and was quite good.
I saved one of my crab cakes for Adam but devoured my eggs.
Meals where you soak up yolks are my very favorite!
The rest of our day was gloriously low-key. We knew we were going to hunker down on the couch, so we made sure to take the dog on a quick walk first. I got an iced, non-fat, caramel macchiato on the way home.
Why yes, I did ask for extra caramel – it was Easter dammit and no one bought me any candy!
Minus a few hours spent on a take-home exam, we spent the rest of the day screaming at the characters on “Battlestar Galactica.” My food totally fit the tv marathon vibe… Chips.
Leftover buffalo chicken mac and cheese. (recipe’s coming this week, promise!)
And no-bake brownie batter. (recipe’s coming as soon as I work out the kinks!)
Readers who grew up with the whole bunny thing; do you still get an Easter basket?
Break’s Up
Can you believe my last day of spring break is tomorrow? I certainly can’t! My days have gone by way too fast, and I’ve done the very minimum that a person can do with their days. Since I last blogged, I – watched Seinfeld, read two murder mysteries, made a single-serving 7-layer bar, and spent an entire day in bed. That’s it! Well, except for what I did today; but I’ll share that now.
Today I… Went to work.
Took two long walks with the husband.
Shared a tall, nonfat hazelnut macchiato.
Ate a plum.
Made buffalo chicken mac and cheese. <–mmmmmmn!
Ate hot-bar veggies (sautéed Asian vegetables, roasted butternut squash, and ambrosia!).
Made a great dessert of Ben and Jerry’s Liz Lemon Froyo, fresh blackberries, and a white chocolate chip macadamia cookie.
Enjoyed the heck out of the dog.
What’d you do today?
Wordless Wednesday
Who has time for words when they’ve got a warm puppy newly home from boarding school?
Note – I’ve made chocolate-dipped potato chips and now there’s no going back.
Two Meals At One
Our last day in Charleston was our best day yet! Technically we’ve got tomorrow morning as well, but we head for the airport before 6 am so I don’t have high expectations. It was our best day of vacation, but I can’t give this post the love it deserves because I still have to pack! Keeping it quick…
Workout – 25 minutes on the stationary bike.
Breakfast – Virginia’s on King.
My plate.
2 sunny side up eggs.
Hash browns.
Grits.
Homemade biscuit (with butter and jam).
I basically licked my plate clean!
Fun 1 – Middleton Place.
Fun 2 – A stop at Sonic for a big Coke Zero with strawberries.
Fun 3 – We explored some more downtown and stopped at a coffee shop to warm up. While we were hanging out we just might have designed some Easter eggs.
Dinner – Breakfast was so good that we headed back to Virginia’s for a 2nd meal! Our instincts weren’t wrong, they brought us tasty cornbread (studded with broccoli!) with butter.
We also shared an order of pimento cheese with flat bread.
I went full-on Southern for my final meal.
Fried catfish.
Sweet potato fries.
And baked mac and cheese.
When in Rome. Everyone shared bites and agreed that my plate was amazing.
See you in Buffalo!
Charleston, Day 1 And 2
Hello from the South! I’m blogging in a spring-ish 50-something degrees (it’s better than Buffalo!). Actually, I’m blogging from Adam’s computer this trip, so I’ve got to keep things quick. We are having a terrific, delicious time.
Breakfast day 1 – brunch at the famous Hominy Grill.
I got a(n extra spicy) bloody mary.
And a bowl of she crab soup.
Charleston is famous for its she crab soup; this bowl was super creamy and loaded with pieces of crab. I adore anything with sherry.
We ordered a piece of buttermilk pie for the table.
But it was much drier and less custard-y than we were hoping so we all just took a small taste.
It was a rainy first day so we did lots of inside and driving activities. We got in some good sight-seeing and scoped out a few spots to hit up during the rest of our trip.
One of our stops was Whole Foods for stocking up on goodies. <– chocolate coconut butter packets, it’s good to have you back in my life!
There was froyo next door.
I didn’t really love any of the flavor offerings so I got a small cup of cheesecake yogurt with tons of popping boba.
Can’t go wrong with boba.
We went to Hyman’s Seafood for dinner and they brought us complimentary hush puppies.
Best hush puppies ever; they had the perfect amount of sweetness.
We also started with fried pickles.
Lots of fried food in that dinner. I got french fries as my side,
with steamed shrimp.
Every component of my meal ended up smothered in tartar and cocktail sauce. I’m a girl who loves her condiments.
I was exhausted by the end of the day and crashed into bed hard. Let’s pretend it was the 20 minute stationary bike ride I started the day with, and not the heavy dinner!
Day 2 we skipped the gym and slept in. Instead I made it a healthy morning by starting my day with an apple.
Then we headed to Bakehouse for breakfast.
The offerings were as delicious as the space was adorable. The cookies and bars looks amazing but the closest we came to them was splitting a caramel marshmallow.
I also did a toasted marshmallow cappuccino.
Adam and I shared breakfast.
We had a mixed berry scone.
And a piece of Greek turkey strata.
It was a great breakfast.
We spent our second day exploring on foot. King Street and Meeting Street provided lots to look at.
We even got to see dolphins!
I couldn’t get a picture to save my life, but we saw lots of waving flippers and even a mama/baby combo.
Tastes from the day included…. Praline,
a drop of the spiciest hot sauce available (I stuck a toothpick in it and touched it to my tongue; I honestly didn’t think it was that hot!),
honey,
an Earl Grey macaron (<– squeeee!),
a KIND bar,
and some watermelon Zots from one of the many old-time candy stores.
All good, but I am definitely a lunch eater; when we got back to the hotel to change for dinner I was starving. Enter the perfect snack –
Diet coke and Cacao Bliss? Yes please!
But I sure was glad I saved room for dinner. We had an incredible Southern meal at Magnolias.
Bread with ridiculous cream cheese herb butter came when we sat down.
And we ordered a pimento cheese plate to start.
Sadly, the cheese wasn’t quite as sharp as I was hoping for, but everyone else at the table loved it. Pimento cheese was at the top of my to-do list for the Southern vacation though, so I hope to try again tomorrow.
I ordered a Bellini to drink (champagne/peach nectar/and a touch of grenadine),
but ended up swapping with Adam halfway through for his vodka/creme de cassis/pineapple juice martini.
For dinner I went with the “Fresh, Local, and Vegetarian.” You can’t go wrong with a name like that!
Sautéed spinach, fresh corn salad, roasted carrots, fried green tomatoes with jalopeño pimento cheese, and mashed potatoes.
We were too stuffed for dessert, though the menu listed a cream cheese pecan brownie with white chocolate ice cream that I’ll probably be dreaming about!
In fact, I’d like to be dreaming now; goodnight!
Have you ever been to Charleston? Is there anything we just can’t miss on our last day?
