Tag Archives: cheese

A Food Log Food Blog

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So there’s thing 1 and thing 2. Thing 1 – we just got home after our second 9+ hour car trip in two days and I’m too tired to be clever. Thing 2 – due to inclement weather (nearby tornadoes!) we spent much of the weekend without power and my pictures are pretty dark and awful. But, here’s the thing – part of the reason I write this blog is as a food diary (accountability). Sometimes I feel so silly when I’m writing a post that isn’t funny or chockfull of useful ideas or amazing recipes, but I have to remember that I do this for me too. So, feel free to skip this weekend’s recap, or settle in for a food log post.

Friday

I made Adam and myself a huge iced coffee to split on the road.

Coffee + Silk Vanilla Almond Milk + maple syrup.

I also packed a sandwich for breakfast.

Sandwich Thin + Applegate Farms organic sliced chicken + a Light Laughing Cow.

I was randomly starving five minutes later and spent the rest of the day complaining about how hungry I was. Enter an early lunch from Sheetz. Cole slaw,

and a turkey sandwich, with cheddar, honey mustard, lettuce, and tomato, on a pretzel bun.

Bletch x2! Normally I’m really impressed by Sheetz, but this time not so much.

However, Adam and I did split some Reeses Minister that were freaking life changing!

When we saw them again at another gas station we even bought some to bring home.

When we got to Virginia, before a tornado(!!) knocked out the power, there was dinner waiting for us.

Salad,

chips,

and grapes.

Then we spent the night playing cards in the dark.

Saturday

I skipped breakfast in lieu of cuddling up to my books, but made time for a last lunch.

More salad,

a small slice of cheese pizza,

three shrimp with cocktail sauce,

and strawberries and melon.

I also had a cinnamon brownie (we baked them Thursday night to bring down) and some Ruffled for dessert.

I ate my fair share of junk on Saturday unfortunately. I don’t mind digging into desserts or snacks at all, but I prefer to nosh only on unhealthy things that I love, and I feel like I sort of just grazed.

In the afternoon we did get to go out for a short but nice walk with my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and niece.

I even ran several sprints with my niece, it’s so much fun getting little kids to be active.

We went out to dinner, where multiple peanuts we cracked.

Sagebrush is a steakhouse, but fortunately there was some chicken on the menu as well.

I started with a cheddar biscuit,

and a side salad with peanut vinaigrette.

Dinner was grilled chicken,

with bbq sauce,

and broccoli.

We stopped for gas on the way home and I grabbed a (half sweetened) coffee.

I also snacked on some Easter candy,

and this plate of chips x2.

Sunday

My in-laws whipped up breakfast before we had to hit the road.

Scrambled eggs, strawberries, and half a bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

I also ate an apple with cheese in the car,

and a medium plain coffee.

We sang along with the radio, listened to recordings of Adam’s lectures, and reviewed my music reading all afternoon. Then, according to plan we pulled into Grove City at 4:45 and grabbed a late lunch/ early dinner at Primanti Brother’s.

Adam grew up eating there and I’ve seen it on the Food Network so we were pretty excited.

I ordered the turkey and provolone cheese sandwich, which came piled with Cole slaw and French fries!

The bread was boring (and abandoned halfway through), but the slaw and fries were perfectly vinegary. I’d probably never want one again, but it was fun to try.

But the fun was just beginning. There was an outlet mall across the street so Adam suggested we take advantage of the great weather (75*) and walk around a bit. First, I love to walk with the husband. Second, we snagged a Silpat on sale.

And then I literally started hyperventilating with excitement… we spotted a self-serve froyo place!!!

You guys, I can’t even tell you! I got original tart and sugar-free praline, topped with hot fudge, marshmallow, butterfinger, strawberries, and a cherry.

This is the kind of “junk” I feel 100% good about eating.

I’m pretty sure I swooped the whole rest of the drive home.

We stopped for a mini grocery run at Wegmans, and also grabbed some Chinese food (which I’m just not going to blog); our early dinner was a bit too early 😉

If you have a blog, how much of its purpose is food log vs. fun?

Cheese and Bread

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I was sooo hungry all afternoon, it was a total I-would-gnaw-my-own-arm-off-if-I-could situation.  I guess cookies don’t make good lunches??  Nah!!!  But still, my hunger was so ridiculous that it totally distracted my from my work and now I really don’t know what to do tomorrow to fix it.  Cheese and bread!*

*”Cheese and bread” is a common exclamation in St. Thomas, where I grew up.  It can express any strong emotion, frustration or surprise for example.  I guess it’s sort of analogous to the Midwestern “golly gee whiz!”

Cheese and bread is also what I ate as a snack this afternoon.

That mess that looks like a smashed turtle (eww!) is actually a Sandwich Thin with 2oz of Cabot’s 50% reduced extra sharp cheddar melted on it.

It was tasty, but clearly not enough as I attacked this gigantic spoon of peanut butter next.

Thankfully Adam got home earlier than expected and I could start prepping dinner at 5:30.

I roasted up some broccoli,

and threw this Trader Joe’s purchase into the oven as well.

The Mandarin Orange Chicken did not disappoint.

The flavor and texture were spot on for (good) Chinese take out, and each serving had only 190 calories and 1.5 grams of saturated fat (I ate ~1.5 servings).

Overall it was a satisfying dinner.  But can you ever be too satisfied for dessert?

Even when you ate dessert for lunch, the answer to that question is still no!  Especially when it’s the best candy bar on earth.  These Cadbury Crunchie bars might be my new favorite thing.

I’m not sure how tomorrow is going to play out, but we are heading to VA at some point in the morning; we’ll be down there all weekend visiting my in-laws.  Unfortunately there is no internet available to me, so I’ll probably have to do a recap when we get back.  Maybe a short phone post or two for fun?

What’s a strange but fun expression from where you grew up?

Scarlet In The Face

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Boy was I red in the face about skipping a post last night!  Nah, not really 🙂  Actually we got home close to midnight and I knew I had an early morning so I made the healthy living decision to get to bed.  Sometimes I forget to prioritize sleep, which I’m sure relates to the fact that it’s a month later and I’m still coughing.

Back to yesterday.  My test went well.  Not as well as I would have liked, but at least this one I’m sure I passed!  Plus a test meant getting done with class early – I’m a super fast exam taker – which meant I had time to switch my music class to pass/fail (whew!) and get home to visit the husband (yay!).

I had just enough time for a bowl of freshly chopped pineapple before I had to head back to class.

My music class still feels long (at 6-8:40 it is long!), but now that I’m not terrified of what it’s doing to my GPA it feels a little less tedious.

We had to run to Walgreens across town, and I can pull up our Groupons on my phone, so we ended up going out to dinner at 9pm on a whim!

We headed to Scarlet, a cozy little spot that is actually right down the street from our old apartment.

The inside looks fun and inviting, and we always kicked ourselves for not walking over there last year, but after tasting the food it appears we didn’t miss out on much.  The meal wasn’t terrible, and there were highlights, but overall it was disappointing.  Buffalo restaurants all seem to have menus that read like New York hot spots and food that tastes like TGIFriday’s.  But it was fun to have a Wednesday night date with the husband regardless.

Before we realized everything on the menu was fried, we decided to split 4 appetizers.

Adam and I always just eat off of the same plate, so I’m not even going to attempt to show you portion sizes this post.

We started with complimentary bread with flavored butters (tomato, garlic, and honey).

Then Three Cheese Fondue,

Buffalo Shrimp,

Tempura Chicken Tikka,

and Artichoke Francaise.

The buffalo shrimp were a low-point.

The breading was thick and spongy, the sauce spicy in an overpowering way, and if you’re going to go ahead and serve these deep-fried then you might as well use blue cheese dip rather than haphazardly tossing on blue cheese like someone’s eating these with a fork.  We left the shrimp basically untouched and if all the food had been like this we probably would have left, but thankfully other things were a little better.

The chicken – the one thing we knew would be fried – was pretty good.

The peanut sauce had a nice back spice to it.

The artichokes came in a fabulously lemony butter sauce,

but again, we were expecting something that wasn’t fried.  I enjoyed the big, meaty pieces of flesh, but Adam – who usually adores artichokes – wasn’t a fan.

The high point of the meal was the fondue.

We never could identify what the three cheeses were, but this had great texture (no graininess) and paired well with the apple slices.  Adam scooped into the actual bread bowl a bit and declared it nice and doughy.

So overall not the best (or healthiest) meal, but still fun!

This morning I had to be up early to register for my Fall 2011 classes.  I got everything I wanted, yay!  Actually, I should say I got everything I needed; what I really wanted was a forensic psychology class, but it didn’t fit in my schedule.  If I had my druthers I would be able to take forensic psych and forensic anthropology, in addition to my other courses.

Life for the rest of 2011 planned out, I made a nice fruit salad for breakfast.

This was a mix of pineapple, Cara Cara orange, banana, honey, unsweetened shredded coconut, and a few honey peanuts.

The combination of flavors was great.  I almost never eat my fruit with a fork but it’s actually really satisfying.

What classes did you take just for fun in college? 

My first time around in undergrad I switched majors (communication –> education) after a year of taking almost all communication classes so I took the maximum number of credits each semester just to graduate on time.  Back then I was sad I didn’t get to take more English courses (my 2nd major).  Now that I’m back in school I took an Anthropology course just for fun, and plan on doing one again whenever it fits in my schedule.

Keep on Truckin’

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Another morning, another run in with a truck, or at least that’s what it felt like!  Even though I have a huge test tomorrow, and a meeting scheduled with my department head, the snooze button was definitely pressed!  Adam caught my cold and was too sick to go to his first class so thankfully(?!) he was able to drive me to campus for my meeting later.

I’m not sure what my mega-exhaustion is about, but since I’ve got a slew of important tests between now and next Friday I’m not going to push it.  Returning to the gym would be nice, but after more than a month off, another week really doesn’t make a difference.  Instead I’ve decided to make this week all about strength and stretch moves.  A decision that led me to meet with my department head dressed like this –

I’ve always got the time/energy for at least 10minutes total a day!  Here’s what I accomplished throughout this afternoon (reps) –

After coffee, of course.

Yesterday I grabbed a cup of (unsweetened) butter toffee flavored coffee from the gas station, and this morning I mixed it with Silk Vanilla Almond Milk and maple syrup over ice.

After my housekeeping trip to campus – my schedule next semester looks crazy!  I register on Thursday so please keep your fingers crossed for me – I baked up a plate of green bean fries.

Baked green beans are where it’s at!

You’ll never believe me if you don’t try for yourself, but they’re better than french fries.

I also had a yogurt bowl.

The base was Target brand Archer Farms Fat Free Honey Almond Yogurt.

The Thick and Creamy line is just like Greek, but I wish I’d tasted before I went ahead and bought two, fake-sugar taste city.

Thankfully my toppings made up for it.

A sliced banana, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and some honey roasted peanuts.

Honey roasted peanuts are basically addictive.

I had several handfuls straight from the bag.

Those handfuls didn’t stop my ever-growing hunger though.  Usually we don’t eat dinner before 8pm, but tonight I was ready at 5!  We started with salads –

Studies show that eating a salad before dinner can help you to eat less overall.

This salad was dressed delectably, in a mix of the last of the Stubbs BBQ sauce shaken with a splash of buttermilk.

Other toppings – on a baby arugula base – included dried cranberries and buttermilk blue cheese crumbles.

I think a bbq sauce salad will have to be a repeat in this week’s meal plan.

The main meal was a pretty fantastic idea as well.

Making pressed sandwiches on our George Foreman grill has been our “thing” this year, and this one included roasted asparagus!

Also 1000 island dressing, 99% lean sliced turkey, and 2oz of 50% reduced extra-sharp cheddar.

On cranberry poppy seed bread from a loaf my grandma bought us at The Bakehouse last week.

It was a pretty fantastic sandwich.

But it still didn’t quite squelch my hunger.  Enter 1/2 an Arnold’s Sandwich Thin, topped with pb, marshmallow topping, and chocolate chips for dessert.

Squelched!

And, um, I should probably be sleeping instead of blogging, so – see ya!

What is your favorite type of peanut?  (honey roasted, candied, red skin…)

Seeing What Buffalo Has to Offer

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Another late post for another long day, yesterday that is 😉  My mom is in town until Saturday so we’ve been exploring all Buffalo has to offer.

We started our morning with a trip to Sweet_ness 7 Cafe,

a creperie.

It was our first trip, but we were totally impressed by the adorable details, comfy setting, and exciting menu.

I was pretty jazzed to see hibiscus lemonade available.

This was barely sour, and even less sweet, a near perfect lemonade by my standards. 

For breakfast the three of us split two crepes, one sweet and one savory.

The Irish Blessing, which came with a side salad, was caramelized fresh apples with brie.

The apples were literally caramelized, so sweet and chewy!

The Celtic Love Spell had Nutella and fresh whipped cream, with bananas.

Melty Nutella is pretty much the pinnacle of happiness.

The fillings were fun (obviously!), but the crepes themselves were delicious!  I don’t know much about crepes, but from what I’ve read these were perfectly made.  They had the best eggy smell!

Afterward we headed to another new (to us) and fun location – The Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

ABG has a lot of older pieces, but it is actually a gallery based around collecting contemporary work, not a museum.  It was really interesting to see the “created by” and “purchased by” dates side-by-side, many of which were less than a year apart.

There were bunches of works that I loved, but I didn’t take any pictures out of respect.  I did purchase postcards of two of my favorites from the gift shop,

and we snagged a free print that an artist was giving away to help promote his work.

I can’t wait to get that up on the wall and give this place a little class!

For lunch we went back to an old favorite, JP Bullfeathers, and were greeted with the good news of Restaurant Week.

Unfortunately we won’t be able to make it anywhere else (we tried many spots, but reservations for dinner were impossible), but Adam and I did take advantage of this menu.

I went with the Cajun Haddock Caesar Salad, with balsamic on the side subbed for the dressing.

This was my first time trying Haddock and I think I’m a fan, it’s a nice flakey white-fish without a lot of strong fishy flavor.

The specialty portions were super generous too, I could only eat half of my meal and now Adam has a nice lunch for later this week.

I did have room to try a Valomilk for dessert.

There’s an old-fashioned candy store on Elmwood and it’s sort of irresistable.

I also snacked on a Wallaby Caramel Apple Yogurt while we figured out a dinner plan.

Ultimately we decided low-key was the way to go, and headed to Moes.

I got a kids’ quesadilla with corn salsa,

and chips with queso.

My mom got a kick out of eating something I blog all the time; I think we’ll probably hit up the hot bar tomorrow too!

The rest of the evening was spent on this dorky/awesome venture, which I’ll blog more about in a few weeks.

Have a great night morning!

Is there an art museum and/or gallery in your town?  Do you prefer modern or classic art?  I’m all about modern; there was a series made with ink and soap bubbles on display today that could have held my attention all afternoon.

Status Updates

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Location: Back in Buffalo. It was an all day affair getting here from Ohio though. Between late starts, terrible weather, bad conditions, and detour to see the town that the husband grew up in, we’ve been in the car all day.

Puppy Cuteness:  100%. 

My grandparents’ dog is named Cocoa because she looks like a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows on her feet!

Health: 98% better, but still sick. I’m a bit congested and still have my cough, and I’m still not quite feeling like myself.

Growth: the adorable Easter egg planters sprouted another couple of inches overnight!

Food Rations: Poor.

Things started off well. We had breakfast with my grandparents before we hit the road.

My grandma made quesadillas with scrambled eggs, salsa, and turkey sausage.

We also had leftover fruit salad.

Then, bodies and car fueled, it was time to start our journey.

Our first detour was to Trader Joes. We picked up a few fun items, including this yogurt honey peanut Balance Bar I snacked on while on the road.

Flavor favorite, second only to cookie dough.

My stomach never felt up to a road food lunch, but I did steal a few bites of this Choco Taco.

Plus I bought a coffee (half regular half sweet English toffee cappuccino).

Several hours later I was starving, and so glad to find the perfectly crisp apple my grandma gave me.

Crunch!

The plan at that point was clearing to get dinner, but somehow it kept getting later and later and no food was available. When we rolled into Buffalo after midnight we knew it was better just to skip it. Speaking of which, I should get in bed!!!

How late does it have to be for you to decide just to skip dinner?

In the Nutritional Know

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Hello, hello. I want to tell you guys that I’ve got to hurry because of family time, but really I need to go finish making notecards! Don’t worry, we got plenty of fun time in as well.

Our vacation theme of mini mishaps continued – we wanted to work out on the great path behind my grandparents’ house, but Adam left our bag of running gear at home!  In keeping with my pessimistic optimism, I’m going to assume that means that I’m still too sick to run and it’s good that I couldn’t.

I wasn’t hungry for breakfast, but I did snag a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

The whole family (grandparents, mom, husband, me) piled in the car for lunch at a neat spot in Troy.

The Bakehouse was right up my alley; adorable, lots of offerings, and freshly baked bread!

I went with a half soup/sandwich combo for lunch.

A cup of turkey corn chowder,

with half a sandwich of turkey, aged swiss, cole slaw, and thousand island dressing on pumpernickel.

I only ate about half of the soup, because it was a little creamy for me, but the sandwich was perfection!  The reuben – sauerkraut + cole slaw is my absolute favorite.

Actually, my absolute favorite used to be the English toffee bars sold at Starbucks.  They were removed from the menu a while back and I’ve been in mourning ever since.  The Bakehouse had the exact replica –

Split four ways.

OMG!  I love love love this bar, crunchy toffee inside a chewy blondie!

I cleansed my palate with some Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape.

We’re fancy like that.

We did some antiquing (Zzzz), and also made it to a matinée of “The Lincoln Lawyer.”  I feel like the opening wasn’t given a lot of fanfare (I only heard about the movie because I’m obsessed with Michaela Conlin), but the movie was so good!  The perfect mix of funny, touching, and tense.  I highly recommend.

We headed to Applebees afterward for dinner.  Chain restaurants aren’t exactly my speed, so I ordered using the nutritional info as my guide.  Looking for entres 500 calories or less led me to the Teriyaki Shrimp Pasta (440 calories).

This was actually very good!  Whole wheat pasta, teriyaki sauce, and grilled shrimp with broccoli, red bell pepper, water chestnuts, carrots, bok choy, mushrooms, and sugar snap peas.

I pretty much ignored the pasta, but I devoured my shrimp and veggies.

I tried to keep dinner light because I knew we were heading to George’s (<– Dairy Queen without the franchising) after dinner.

I ended up with a small snow storm (blizzard) with butterfingers and reeses cups.

I planned on sharing with Adam, but um, yeah…

We’re headed back to Buffalo tomorrow, with a few fun stops along the way.

If a restaurant offers nutritional info do you utilize it?  How much does the info affect your ordering?

You and Me Baby Ain’t Nothing But Mammals

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We head to Ohio tomorrow, and my mom comes to visit on Wednesday, so we woke up early to deal with our squalor.  Actually, Adam woke up early to clean the house.  I woke up at 9 to Adam’s amazement that I could sleep through the vacuum cleaner!

Once I did welcome morning, I started my morning with some fantabuous iced coffee.

Yesterday afternoon I bought a cup of caramel flavored coffee from a gas station, and brought it home to the fridge.  This morning I mixed it with 1tsp maple syrup, Silk Vanilla Almond Milk, and ice.

Delicious!  The almond milk has the best texture for iced coffee, it makes it so thick!  When I’m back to retainers in a few weeks I won’t be able to have coffee ever, so I’m trying to enjoy it was much as I can.

The food part of breakfast was pretty fun too –

A Pink Lady apple dipped in the last of the marshmallow icing.

Holy yum this was a good idea!

Our next idea wasn’t necessarily good, but it was necessary… a trip to the zoo!

I bought a Groupon months ago (thinking that by April it’d be, ya know, Spring) that was set to expire so we bundled up and headed out.  There wasn’t a lot to see because of the weather, but I did spend 20minutes or so mooning at the polar bears.

Awwww!  My nickname for Adam is ice bear (German for polar bear).

On the way out we spotted a neat crepe place – we’re coming back next week with my mom! – and Mustachios.

Apparently Adam has been excited about taking me to Mustachios?!?  We ended up coming home with two slices of cheese pizza.

We also hit up the hot bar to get in some veggies.

I got steamed broccoli, glazed mushrooms and carrots, sesame kale, white beans and escarole, and scooped a bunch of veggies and cashews from the cashew chicken.

It was a random but good lunch.

After my month of illness (I’m still coughing by the way), any meal with veggies is a good one.

Later in the afternoon I snacked on matzah with melted extra sharp cheddar.

I also did a bunch of nibbling, raw pasta, marshmallow topping, butter toffee almonds…  No photographs, just informing you guys that my appetite is back 🙂

Dinner was quick and tasty.

I boiled up the last of the spinach and three cheese ravioli, adding a few big handfuls of arugula to the pot at the last minute.  I topped my bowl with buttermilk blue cheese crumbles and a drizzle of honey.

Then we had single-serve ice cream for dessert.

We each at half and then switched flavors halfway through.  Those single-serves are the best idea ever, the texture is so creamy!

I’ve still got to shower, pack, and do some school work… better hop to it!

What’s your favorite zoo animal?  The cutest thing we saw today was the Egyptian Dabb Lizard.  I pretty much love any creature with a big belly; Seth Rogan crush anyone?!