Tag Archives: cheese

Love Factually

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Facts:

Dark chocolate and I have been having a moment lately.

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Whenever I rock one of Adam’s t-shirts I always double up on eye makeup to try to compensate.

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Kim and I spent five straight hours at Panera on Friday and I still am utterly confused by our final projects for this portion of the semester.

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Adam and I were supposed to go to Toronto for pat bing soo this afternoon but the weather froze us out so we went to Gin Gin for red bean bubble tea instead.

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The new grocery store in Orchard Park is amazing; Wegmans and Whole Foods wrapped up all in one.

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This is the closest I’ll come to an egg cream while we live in Buffalo.

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Classed up mac and cheese is super easy and tasty {boxed mac and cheese / peas / smoked kippered herring / capers / parmesan / panko / red pepper flakes}.

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Watching “Buffy” with Adam is even better the 2nd time around.

On The Run

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This morning Adam, Webster, and I headed to the park.  They went frolicking and I went running.  I started the Couch-to-10k plan, again.  I refuse to go back to week one (I’ve started the plan four times in as many months, it’s embarrassing at this point) so I did the first day of week two – intervals of 4 minutes walking / 1 minute running, x 8.  Plus 5 minutes of straight running at the end as I hurried to find a dog and husband who are bad at following directions!  I was great to be outside.

The rest of the day included schoolwork, a shift at work, and an evening of tv.  In fact, we are mid-Bones right now so I’m keeping this short.

Here’s what I ate…  An Alter Ego Mini Dark Velvet chocolate bar.

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This stuff was amazing, the perfect blend of milk and dark chocolate.  It had dark’s tang with the creaminess of milk.  Total love.

Soft pretzel.

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Vegan chicken nuggets with some sharp cheddar.

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A Salty Peanut Awesome Bar.

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This would have been awesome, but the whole flax seeds kind of ruined it for me.  Nonetheless, this Yumvelope (the source of the bar and the candy) was a good one.

Hot bar (two of the wontons were Adam’s).

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Two kinds of sautéed veggies plus a piece of sweet and sour chicken.

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.15 lb of gummi candy.

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A giant slice of Buffalo chicken pizza with blue cheese for dipping.

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I am, in a word, stuffed.

Today

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Some of the things I thought today –

Man, it has been a looooong time since I last blogged.

I made the right decision.  Part of the reason I’ve been blogging AWOL is because I was making a giant, life-changing decision and I’m pretty sure positive I made the right one.

The end of this semester is going to be insane.  We have two business plans to create in the next month and we were told to expect 40 plus hours of work each week on top of our clinical hours.

Some of the things I did today – 

Went to my first day of clinical practice in long-term care.

Took a glorious, 70* walk on Elmwood with my husband.

Attended night class.  With the curve I scored a 100% on the first exam!

What I ate today – 

A mealy apple.

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A packet of Artisana Cacao Bliss.

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Chocolate Almond Coconut Clif Mojo Bar.

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A low-fat strawberry milk.

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A (salted caramel chocolate nougat) candy from the latest Yumvelope.

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Veggies from Globe Market, ~.25 lb each.

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Thai carrot salad,

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and Greek vegetable salad.

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Lays Chicken and Waffles potato chips.

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Dinner.

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Amy’s Alphabet Soup,

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and a soft pretzel with yellow mustard.

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I also thought a lot about the tragedies at the Boston Marathon today.  If you or anyone you are close to were effected, please know that you are in my thoughts.

Bloody {Mary} Sunday

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My big plans of knocking off some school work didn’t come to fruition, but I did manage to do some day drinking.  That’s a better use of time really, isn’t it?

I started the morning with this bowl of absolute incredibleness.

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Dannon Oikos Cafe Latte Greek Yogurt, 1/2 serving Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola, fresh blackberries, 1 tsp honey, 2 Tbsp coconut butter.

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Oh my goodness, you guys, the coconut butter.  I have been reading Kath talk about coconut butter acting as a magic shell for years but I never quite knew what she meant.  It was amazing.

I also snacked on (approximately 2 servings each) BBQ Pop Chips with reduced-fat french onion dip.

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If I had known I was going to have chips with dinner I might have done a veggie-based snack instead, but at that point I planned on having soup!  Sidenote – did you know that Pop Chips has a new ketchup flavor?!  I’m pretty sure that sounds terrible.

I spent my afternoon at work.  The weather has finally gotten the memo that it’s Spring so lots of people were out and about.

At the end of my shift some friends stopped by to invite me to Blue Monk.  They were having a Bloody Mary special, with celery, hot sauce, tomato, etc infused vodkas.

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A girl from our program sweetly got us a 2nd round so I ended up having two.

Bloody Marys make me crave stick-to-your-ribs food so instead of soup I ended up with Moe’s for dinner.  A rice bowl – rice / black beans/ sautéed onion / mushroom / green pepper / cheese / sour cream / guacamole / corn salsa.

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Plus chips with queso.

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Apparently there’s always room for chips.

Do ketchup flavored chips sound good to you?

Buffalo Chicken Mac And Cheese

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When I made this dish last weekend I was not planning on sharing the recipe, I just really wanted Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese.

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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.

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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
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.  Prepare a 8×8 inch baking pan with cooking spray.
  2. Prepare pasta according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Remove skillet from heat and stir in cooked chicken and pasta.
  6. Pour mixture into baking pan.  Top with blue cheese, remaining cheddar, and green onions.
  7. Bake 30 minutes.

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What’s your favorite comfort food?  Mine clearly all involve cheese!

Choco-Cherry Love

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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.

pizza pizza

At least the hospital cafeteria has good pizza.

When I got home this afternoon I made myself a Choco-Cherry Smoothie.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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The space was gorgeous and the menu had lots of offer.  Plus, they brought yummy lemon poppy-seed bread.

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Adam ordered a mimosa while I went with an extra-spicy bloody mary,

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but we were on the same page when it came to food.

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We both ordered the Seafood Benedict,

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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.

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I saved one of my crab cakes for Adam but devoured my eggs.

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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.

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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.

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Leftover buffalo chicken mac and cheese.  (recipe’s coming this week, promise!)

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And no-bake brownie batter.  (recipe’s coming as soon as I work out the kinks!)

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Readers who grew up with the whole bunny thing; do you still get an Easter basket?