Chocolate Straws and Muffin Bars

by Emily

This morning I had Adam drop me off at my school on the way to his, so I could finally get those to-do’s done. It was nice to be out of the house, and up before 9, for a change.

Plus it felt good to check things off the list. I picked up my recommendation letter, and delivered it to the application desk, and I printed off a few things. Then I went to the registrar’s office….no, wait, I didn’t. I walked halfway home and then I remembered that I had one final to-do! I trekked back and was informed that my music class does indeed cover two requirements, which means I can’t drop it, no matter how god-awful it sounds.

I wasn’t expecting to make that extra half trip, but I’m glad I came prepared with breakfast in my purse.

LaraBar sent me their newest flavor to sample, Blueberry Muffin. I’ve heard mixed reviews in the blog world so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I loved it! I don’t know how they managed to approximate a baked good so well using dates. There was this great crumbly muffininess to it.

When I finally did make it home from tromping about in the cold, I was parched. Enter a big glass of skim milk with a chocolate milk straw.

I don’t drink a lot of milk (I prefer to get my dairy in yogurt form), but when I do I love it. The straws are pretty neat too, they just barely flavor the milk with cocoa. I tried to find a link and came up short, but I did discover that the Got Milk? site is totally amazing. You should check it out.

Two Questions for Hump Day:

What is your favorite way to eat dairy?
What is your favorite LaraBar flavor?

18Jan2011

Representative, REPRESENTATIVE!

by Emily

Woo-whee, today has been a frustrating day! This morning I lost two hours of my life to customer representatives, two hours I’ll never get back. Can I just say – I hate automated phone systems!

I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store until much later than planned, so most of the day’s eats were random things from my almost bare fridge. 1.5Tbsp of cheese spread with Mary’s Gone Crackers.

A mug of hot cocoa with mini marshmallows.

And the last of the Plain Siggi’s. I introduced Siggi’s to Adam this week and he totally fell in love, I’m so proud!

I drizzled the last serving with honey and a serving of chunky pb.

Divine.

We couldn’t get to the store until after 7pm, so we ended up picking up dinner at Moe’s while we were out.

Chips, queso dip, and a buffalo chicken burrito.

For dessert I munched on the random grab bag of candy I picked up from the bulk bins.

And we watched Futurama while we ate, it was the perfect evening to counteract my annoying morning!

17Jan2011

Pizza for Breakfast and Presents for Dinner

by Emily

I’ve got to cover breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, so hang in for a longish post. Thank goodness I don’t do things like work out or leave the house, there’d just be too much to say!

Breakfast (late breakfast) was one of my favorites, Pizza Eggs.

Eggland’s Best scrambled up with turkey pepperoni, sharp cheddar, and marinara sauce. To die for.

Making it even better, I’ve discovered the best way ever to scramble – leave the yolks set (almost like you are making fried eggs) and scramble just the whites. Then, at the last minute, scramble in the yolks. Allowing the components to cook apart for a while takes eggs to a whole ‘nother level!

Lunch covered another favorite technique, my new favorite for tuna salad.

I call this “Last Date Tuna Salad;” my regular recipe – canned tuna, miracle whip, and tons of pickle relish – taken over the edge with the addition of lots and lots of chopped red onion. Try it, you’ll thank me, just don’t kiss anyone right after lunch!

Aside my salad was a piece of ciabatta bread, toasted and buttered.

It was a ~~smelly~~ tasty lunch.

I had to eat a peppermint stick to slay my breath before the husband came home!

I also nibbled through the last two cookies this afternoon.

Remind me how I haven’t made every last one of Jenna’s recipes yet?

Then came dinner.

My generous parents know we’re too poor for healthy seafood (and I’m too much of a girl for sardines), so they gifted us with “charge some salmon to the credit card one night, and marinade it in the maple dill dressing from your stocking” for Christmas. <– Yes, this was a stocking gift; and yes, they’re a little crazy.

Alongside we roasted up some asparagus,

and mini yellow potatoes.

And then there was snack. For dessert we sampled a new flavor of Pop Chips.

Think early bedtime thoughts for me please; tomorrow I’m going to try to get up and be a real girl, maybe I’ll even leave the ~~couch~~ house!

17Jan2011

MLK Day

by Emily

I had a dream (I’m not being cute here) last night that just wouldn’t quit! The same tense dream all night long that woke me up at least six times. I blame watching Tru Calling with the husband just before bed.

When I finally did get myself out of bed this morning, I started my day with a big mug of cocoa.

Mini marshmallows totally cancel out bad dreams.

16Jan2011

Arrrrrr, It’s Not Just For Pirates

by Emily

I’ve tried four times to upload the same photo. Four times, same photo; arrrrrrr. Since doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, I’m giving up. I’m giving the internet the night off and watching Tru Calling (on dvd) with the husband.

Want to know what you missed? Lunch = a slice of buffalo chicken pizza; dinner = a bowl of popcorn. So clearly, you’ve missed a lot 😉 Oh yeah, also a caramel filled Cadbury egg. Every year I wait until it’s actually Easter to go for the egg candy and every year the stores are back to Christmas by that point. Opportunity jumped on.

What kind of Cadbury egg are you, caramel or cream?

15Jan2011

The 24 Hour Post

by Emily

In order to tell today’s tale I have to start with last night’s. Adam went out to play poker with the boys until all hours of the night and I stayed at home and watched the first half of several tv shows (seriously, how can “Chuck” be so bad?!?). I sent him with cookies and everyone raved about them, by the way.

Around 1 o’clock in the morning I sidled up to another bowl of pasta, with some chopped up sharp cheddar and turkey pepperoni added into the mix.

Delicious, and serendipitous because we woke up too late for breakfast. A middle of the night meal can count as the morning’s breakfast, can it not?

Today, in the day time, I did make myself an orange julius, but other than that I wasn’t quite able to get a handle on at home food.

Tangy and creamy all at once makes me a happy sipper.

Around 3 we headed to the mall on a whim, and took in a showing of “The Dilemma.” Not ground-breaking, but certainly a cute movie. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more jazzed about my movie snack than the actual picture though.

A glorious mix of gummi cola bottles, sour gummi cola bottles, and cherry sour gummi cola bottles. The gummi cola bottle genre is my very favorite kind of candy; probably why I was able to take down a 1/2 pound’s worth 😉

While we were out we called some friends on another whim, and ended up with a big group dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was great to catch up with people, particularly since I haven’t really been leaving the house the last week!

I had a slice of sourdough. (Why is CF always so darn dark?)

And my favorite salad of all time for dinner.

The fresh vegetable salad – asparagus, green beans, tomato, cucumber, roasted beets, apple, edamame, radicchio, romaine, and white cheddar – with a side of spicy peanut vinaigrette.

It’s insane to me that this monster is an appetizer salad, I’ve got more than half of it left, sitting in the fridge for tomorrow! I did help myself to many (unphotographed) bites of the husbands spicy cashew chicken as well.

Ok movie, good food, great friends; what more could a girl want?

Updated to add – yeah, I totally finished off that salad!

14Jan2011

Success x2

by Emily

So my baking project this afternoon was Jenna’s recipe for perfect chocolate chip cookies.

You know, the one with a whopping 14 Tablespoons of (browned!) butter. No big.

I actually wasn’t sure I did everything right at first, because the dough was very strange and sticky. I was so worried about them that I made a few less cookies than the recipe called for and tried my hand at some cookie muffins instead.

The cookies turned out ~~fine~~ fantastic, but the “muffins” were still a damn good idea.

I found the smallest muffin and cookie in the batch, and scarfed one of each before dinner.

Queasy tummy, happy tummy. Adam says they’re the best chocolate chip cookies he’s ever had.

Rounding out my fun-to-do’s from yesterday, I also made a banging dinner.

Dinner’s inspiration was these snowman pasta my aunt sent us for Hanukkah.

I cooked the pasta, following package directions, stirring in ~1cup of frozen peas towards the end of cooking time. I also sautéed some chopped baby mushrooms in 1T of butter. <– Best taste ever! Finally, I whipped up a batch of this Lemon Cream Sauce from Cooking Light. (Note – I only made the sauce, not the rest of the recipe, and I substituted in light cream.) The end result was fantastic.

I loved how firm the pasta stayed and the sauce added a great fresh flavor without being too heavy.

We also ate some roasted green beans on the side.

Sort of a perfect dinner.

And now I’m about to tuck in to the perfect dessert; a final cookie with a glass of skim milk. Good night!

14Jan2011

Some More Than Others

by Emily

Some parts of this afternoon were more successful than others. For example, I did not realize that the gym was already closed for MLK weekend. And since I wasn’t gyming it, I had a hard time convincing myself to go to school just for my errands. Tuesday? Seriously though, I know that not working out the last two weeks was a terrible idea, and my goal for the weekend is to jump back into strength-training.

Lunch was neutral, leaning toward successful.