Tag Archives: cheese

Breaks and Body Farms

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Today has been chock-full of excitement!  Well, nerdy excitement; I’m feeling pretty jazzed.

First off, did you know that my spring break starts tomorrow?  Of course you didn’t, I’ve been so busy being sick that I haven’t had time to get excited about it.  Well I’m excited now!  Here are some of the fun happenings –

  • March 26th – April 3rd: Adam and I both are on spring break
  • March 28th – 30th: we are heading to Ohio to visit my grandparents, and my mommy will be there too!
  • March 30th – April 2nd: my mom will be spending her spring break in Buffalo with us
  • also, on April 9th we are heading to VA to visit my in-laws

I have a lot of school work to do over break (being sick for three weeks will do that), but it’s going to be great!

I wasn’t hungry again this morning, but I was starving as soon as I got to campus so I think breakfast might be back.  As soon as lab was over I dove into lunch, including a killer sandwich combination. 

An Arnold’s Sandwich Thin with sliced turkey, maple jelly, and…

Queso Fresco and Chipotle Laughing Cow Light.  The spicy and sweet made for a fantasmic combination.

With baby carrots on the side.

I ate with a group of friends and then we spent the rest of the afternoon banging out a bunch of pre-break work.  I took an online midterm, finished 2 weeks worth of lab work, and started studying for an upcoming nutrition exam.

I was hanging out on campus waiting for piece of excitement #2 – attending a forensic anthropology speaker series.  I spent 4:30 – 6:00pm  Listening to Rebecca Taylor from University of Tennessee’s “Body Farm” talk about their studies in human decomposition.  Eeeeeeee!  We learned about adipocere, and skin slippage, and animal scavenging.

I love anthropology, particularly forensic anthropology.  Did you know that if I wasn’t invested with having kids with the husband I’d probably be off pursuing a degree in Anthropology?!  I’m fascinated by the subject and would love to help work on applying our knowledge of osteology to crime scenes (think Brennan from “Bones”).

I continued the glee when I got home, with Smarties!

Adam and I split the box.

And then I got started on an exciting new dinner creation –

Ravioli Lasagna, serves 4 (loosely inspired by something I spotted in Everyday with Rachael Ray) –

  • 10-12 oz package refrigerated ravioli (we used a spinach and three cheese variety)
  • 4 cups (packed) fresh baby arugula
  • 2 cup marinara sauce
  • 1 cup reduced fat shredded mozzarella cheese
  1. Preheat the oven to 350*.  Lightly grease an 8x8inch casserole dish with cooking spray.
  2. Place half of the ravioli in a neat, even layer in the bottom of your casserole dish.  Top ravioli with 2 cups arugula.  Top arugula with 1 cup marinara sauce, spreading evenly with a spoon.
  3. Repeat layers once more.  Top with mozzarella cheese.
  4. Bake for 45minutes, until browned and bubbly.

I’m not actually that huge of a lasagna fan, so it’s too time-intensive for me to ever want to prepare.  Plus, it’s expensive, the one I made for the husband’s 21st surprise party cost an arm and a leg.

This new lasagna was quick and cheap, but still cheesy!

Three questions for Thursday –

  1. What subject, that is not related to your career, thrills you?
  2. Smarties or M&M’s, pick your poison?
  3. Are you a lasagna fan?  Do you cook it often?

Measure It Monday

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It’s hard to measure where I am in my sickness because my symptoms keep changing.  I feel much more perky but my congestion and seal-cough continue.  I would say I’m 2-3 days from well?  Hopefully!

One vestige of deathly sickness that remains is my complete and total lack of interest in breakfast.  As a future RD I know the morning meal is important, but I just can’t make myself eat it right now.  I did get a big coffee when I got to campus though.

Grande nonfat latte with 1 pump of Irish Cream syrup, delicious.

As foretold, lunch was dinner’s twin.  A serving of Newman’s Own 4 Cheese Pizza,

and roasted green beans.

Plus some fruit snacks my mom sent during the break between classes.

We’re learning about breast-feeding in my Nutrition Throughout the Life-cycle class and it is so interesting!  The benefits of breast vs. bottle are immeasurable, even more vast than I had previously thought.  Plus we are exploring (just a bit) the socioeconomic factors that come into play.  Fascinating!

Random sidenote – I walked to and from school today in jeans and Adam’s sweatshirt, no coat!  Boo-yah.  The temperature is set to drop again tomorrow but I’m getting very excited about spring.

While prepping dinner I snacked on (an exact) serving of Popcorners.

Do you measure out things like chips, or just eat from the bag?  I only put my hand in a bag of chips if I’m planning on eating the entire thing, which I sometimes do!  Otherwise I always use my food scale to measure out a serving.  When it comes to snack foods like chips, the difference between 1-2 servings in satiety and satisfaction is nill, but the caloric difference can be huge.

Dinner was quick and easy but so tasty and wonderful.

Only 4 ingredients and no measuring required.

Goat cheese tortellini, butter toffee almonds, cubed butternut squash, and balsamic vinegar.

Cook the pasta as directed.

Roast the squash.  Actually, roast the squash, get nowhere, and finish it off in pan with a bit of butter.

Reduce the vinegar.

Combine everything (plus nuts) and fall in love.

This was perfect; a little savory and a little sweet.  Plus, you really can’t go wrong with goat cheese.

I made myself a broiled grapefruit for dessert.

But then I discovered that I hate grapefruit.  Oh well, at least I know.

Instead I had a cupcake.

Not just a cupcake though.  I just took the picture to show you guys how cute and perfect it was.

Instead I crumbled it over a Stonyfield 0% Chocolate Underground Yogurt,

for a much less cute, much more delicious treat.

Say it with me – “Mmmmmn!”

What sort of foods do you measure?  Do you use cups/spoons or a food scale?  I measure cheese, snack items, cereal, peanut butter and maple syrup.  Plus a few other things I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Sweet Sore First Day of Spring Sunday

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Can I tell you guys how sore my legs are?!  Moving around involves lots of lurching and waddling.  My longest runs before I got sick were about 2miles so the 5k was long comparatively.  Speaking of tired things, I kept us up past 3am the last few nights with my coughing, so we’ve both been a little tired.  The cure for that was a nice long, college-style sleep-in until noon.

When we did get up we had some errands to run that took us towards Wegman’s hot bar.

I got a nice mix of veggies,

and a few pieces of sweet and sour chicken.

I also snacked on a Crunchie Bar for dessert.

More candy from England (via Canada), this honey sponge candy is so crunchy and good!

Dinner was easy-peasy, and cheesey.

4-cheesey!  Newman’s Own Four Cheese Pizza.

I was sent a free coupon for the pizza through the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program.

The cheese mix was tasty, but the crust was a little bit squishy.

I ate my serving with some roasted green beans.

It ended up being a tasty meal,

which is good, because I’ve packed the exact thing for lunch tomorrow!

In sweet Sunday spirit, we also made cupcakes.

Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Topping.  The recipe came from Shape magazine.

I followed the recipe exactly for a change, except that I made 16 cupcakes instead of throwing some of the batter out.  <– Seriously the stupidest instruction I’ve ever read; why on earth would you instruct readers to throw out part of the batter?  Just say the recipe makes 16 servings instead of 12.  And even with “extra” cupcakes we still had frosting left over, making it even stupider!

Stupid recipe or not, it was a stupendous recipe.  The frosting tasted exactly like marshmallow topping!

I enjoyed one cupcake for dessert.  I was going to have another, but chocolate cupcakes don’t really throw me, so instead I ate a pinch bowl of icing.

Perfection.

What did you do to celebrate the first day of spring (today)?

Dumb or Determined

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When I got up this morning I had a dilemma – in spite of not eating much yesterday I still wasn’t hungry.  BUT, I was about to do something really dumb that would require energy.  What’s a food I’ll eat even when I’m not hungry?  Oh yeah, cheese!

I made an epic grilled cheese sandwich.  Rye bread with Thousand Island dressing, 1 oz of extra sharp cheddar, and 1 oz of 2% shredded mozzarella.  I started out with two pieces of bread, but when I burned the daylights out of one side I ended up scraping off the cheese and folding the other piece in half.

It was epic, eaten on the walk to my really dumb idea.

Where were we walking to?  The Bengal 5k race at my school!

Let me explain – when the club I’m in mentioned the race a few weeks ago, it was supposed to fall during my half marathon training.  The entry fee was a pricy $25 (which is really steep when you factor in Adam wanting to run it too), but it went towards a scholarship fund and the nice, flat race course looked fun.  But then as I passed the two-week mark of being sick, I wasn’t sure what to do.

Here’s the thing you have to understand (pardon my S-words); no matter how Sick I am, I will always be more Stubborn and Stupid.  Stubborn enough that I’m not going to skip a $25 race, and stupid enough that I’ll decide to run instead walk once I get there.

So it wasn’t easy, but I ran the entire 3.1miles without stopping.  And I might be more of a dumb-ass than a bad-ass, but I’m pretty proud of myself for not giving up.

We crossed the finish line at 35minutes on the nose (Adam ran/crawled with me like a saint).  I was crazy slow, but I ran the entire time, and when an annoying old man joked about passing me at the end I even managed to sprint the last .1!  Sidenote – my sprint at the end was actually the fastest I’ve ever crossed a finish line; there is definitely something to the whole pacing yourself business.

We’ve got strange but fun plans for lunch and dinner, I hope everyone is having a good Saturday!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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I hope all my readers are out enjoying green beer and Irish car bombs!  No booze for me at the moment.  Anyone who really knows me can tell I’m sick just by looking at me today –

It’s a holiday with a theme color and my nails aren’t painted?!?!

Sickness be damned though, it’s a freaking holiday, I kept 90% of what I ate today green!  Well sort of, I didn’t eat breakfast and I didn’t pack lunch so this non-green tuna packet was kind of a necessity for lunch.

I have no taste buds at the moment, but I’ve had the spicy thai chili variety before and it’s quite tasty.

I sipped on a Green Superfood packet from Amazing Grass after lunch.

And ate a GoGo Squeez applesauce during my break.  <– fruit in a pouch rocks my socks

In the hours between my two classes I totally completed a huge assignment that’s not due for another few weeks; whoop, whoop!

During my late class I snacked on some green jelly beans,

and dried kiwi.

Yuuuuuum.  If you ever see dried kiwi at your stores, buy it!  The chew is perfect and the little seeds pop with the best crunch.

Dinner was tasty and on theme.

We stirred turnip greens into a box of mac and cheese.

Then topped them with poached hard-boiled eggs.

CSN Stores gave me this microwave egg poacher to try,

we haven’t gotten the method quite down yet, but the eggs were tasty and quick at least.

To combat my dead taste-buds I added 1oz of extra sharp cheddar and some sprinkles of Sriracha to my bowl.

Delicious!

How did you celebrate St. Patty’s day this year?

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall

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The healthiness level of my food consumption today mirrors the level of health I felt all day.  That is to say, not very healthy at all.  I feel rough.  It’s rough being sick for 16 days straight.  It’s rough finding out that I have a C average in two of my main classes because I’ve had so many tests fall in those 16 days.  It’s rough having a music exam that I literally only had 1 feasible hour to study for.  Long Wednesdays are always rough.  You get the picture.

Breakfast started out well with a big Granny Smith apple dipped in a serving of natural honey peanut butter.

But as I got closer to leaving my sore throat was begging for a cookie dough ice-cream sandwich.

I guess it’s a good thing the treat we’re obsessed with only has 160 calories?

I totally couldn’t get it together to pack lunch and ended up at Taco Bell on campus of all places.  Once there, I proceeded to drive the workers crazy by knowing only that I wanted a chicken burrito and asking the ingredients in all the varieties.  I believe what I ended up with was a chicken grilled stuft burrito.

Question – why the heck do we have to go with “stuft,” stuffed is literally one letter more?  Also, why was this so monsterous?  I nibbled away for a solid 45minutes (I knew dinner would be iffy so I wanted to make sure I was very fueled) and I still conceded defeat to the final quarter.

Dinner was in fact the definition of iffy. 

Buffalo wing and blue cheese chips.  They confirmed both that my cold has killed my taste buds and that I’m a terrible healthy living blogger when I’m sick.

Did I mention that I’m sick?

What do you like to eat when you’re sick?  Other than really disliking salads, I don’t have any “sick foods.”  It seems like I should be eating normally because my sickness is in my chest/head and not my stomach, but in fact I’ve coughed so hard that I’ve made myself throw up every day of the last 16 days.  It’s been fun around here.

Also

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I forgot to mention this morning that my fancy new breakfast bowl came courtesy of CSN Stores.

Adam and I both love the square shape of it.

Adam and I both also love these –

Like a lot.  I ate one shortly after what I deemed an acceptable amount of time after breakfast.

Also lunch.

Tasty, tasty lunch.  All this grilled cheese does is win.

On two slices of rye I skillet cooked thousand island dressing, 1.5 ounces of extra sharp cheddar, the last of the sauerkraut, and 2 slices of 2% swiss cheese.  It was epic.

Also baby carrots dipped in blue cheese.

Also from CSN Stores.

Also, would someone cross their fingers that my sinus headache goes away so I can study?

Stuffy – Shake – Salmon

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Did you miss me?  I hope not; no one should be sorry I took a blog break this weekend!  I did not have funny stories to tell.  I did not have great workouts to recap.  I did not create new inventive recipes.  I did not eat anything resembling healthy.  I did however, throw up, and cough, and continue to be sick.  Ugh!

I’m still sick today, but I’m definitely (finally!) on the upswing.  My cold’s moved to my head which means I’m driving everyone crazy honking like a goose, but I can sort of talk again.  And I made it to all three of my classes today.

When I got to campus this morning I stopped by the yogurt place for a chocolate milkshake, made with skim milk.

It was a strange breakfast, but the flavor/texture was exactly what I was craving and felt great on my throat!

Lunch was leftover roasted green beans, which are still delicious even when served cold,

and a nice crisp Fuji apple.

I ate so slowly that I ended up finishing my apple to class and it was pretty darn thrilling not to have to deal with retainers for the time being.

I know I’m getting better because while walking home at 4:30 I realized I was starving.  I haven’t been hungry in two weeks!  I swung by the pizza place near our apartment for a buffalo chicken slice with blue cheese.

I had them cut it in half (the picture shows both halves) and my mini slice was perfect to tide me over until dinner.

Dinner was an old favorite, Shallotta Salmon Burgers.

Eaten on a bed of salad.

Greens lightly dressed with Newman’s Own Light Raspberry Walnut Dressing, buttermilk blue cheese crumbles, and some roasted golden beets.

I didn’t actually manage to eat very much of that, but it was fun to sit down to a nice plate of food!  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go blow my nose!

What’s your go to milkshake order?  There’s a place back home that mixes booze into their milkshakes and they can’t be beat!  I always always request skim milk in my shake though, wherever I am.