Tag Archives: cheese

Mexican x Dos

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A few things need to be said to preface this post –

  1. Today was carbtastic!
  2. You are not seeing double; my lunch and dinner pretty much were identical.  In retrospect, I think I was just so excited about dinner that my fried brian jumped the gun at lunch.
  3. I just finished taking a midterm and I have tests in Anatomy and Orgo on Friday.
  4. I promise this blog will stop sucking (or will at least suck less) when said tests are finished.

Breakfast (1), Cliff Spooky ‘Smores Z-Bar.

This was my first time with this flavor and I thought it was pretty great.  The flavor was marshmellow-y without being too sweet.  Not very filling though, which leads to (2) – a cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

I also bought an iced tea.  The vat of coconut cocoa iced tea had been tempting me for days so I finally caved.

Whoops! Where do I think I am, Brooklyn?!  Of course this was pre-sweetened!  Sometimes I forget that BSC is the mecca of all things unhealthy, and also making things that should be healthy into things that are unhealthy.  You guys know that I love all foods sugar laden, but tea is one of the few things that I think should not be sweet.  I took a sip and then dumped it in the trash.

Something that should be sweet is candy!  Like candy corn.

During the 2hour anatomy review session I also snacked on this cucumber.

I went straight from class, to class, to a review session and by the time I was heading home at 1 I figured I should just buy lunch on the way so I could focus on my midterm.  Enter nachos.

I stopped at a ‘fresh fast food’ Mexican place that we don’t usually frequent on the way home and I figured I should try an old favorite.  I was pretty impressed – these were cheesey without being too cheesey (ahem, the jalapeno nachos from my year on the couch!), and packed with beans.  I felt healthy(ish!) rather than sick after eating them.

Special K Red Berries with skim milk.

Picture a small vegan pecan pumpkin blondie here too; I couldn’t take a photo because I ate it during my timed online midterm.

Dinner came courtesy of Foodbuzz, as well as my recent crock pot obsession.  Let me explain.  As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program I was sent a sample of this Pace Picante Sauce.

We’ve been loving stewed chicken in the crock pot lately, so why not salsa stewed chicken?!  Soooo simple – 1lb of chicken in the crock pot, a jar of salsa dumped on top, 8hours on low, shred with 2 forks.  Note – the spice level (for a medium) in this sauce is perfect, and I like the level of chunkiness.  Two thumbs up.

Easy peasy, and in a few more short steps we had a fabulous dinner.

Oven roasted butternut squash and broccoli,

sautéed chopped green peppers and onions,

shredded sharp cheddar,

salsa stewed chicken,

dollop of Daisy store-brand reduced fat sour cream.

Fabulous.  Made even more fabulous when finished with the addition of Terra Blues Chips.

Fabulous x 10.

What’s your go-to order for American-Mexican food?  Burritos, enchilladas, or do nachos feed your soul?

Facts of Fall

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There is nothing pumpkin can’t do.

The weather in Buffalo today was beautiful!  In lieu of a formal workout, Adam and I took a long walk to soak it in.

Today included too much snacking and not enough studying.

The words in this post are lacking (just wrote “snacking,” whoops!), but I will at least show you everything I ate today; plus some “Fall” photos for funsies.

Arnold’s WW Sandwich Thin, Laughing Cow Blue Cheese, 3 slices of turkey.

Mini Vanilla Tootsie Roll, x2.

Baby carrots and ranch.

Small slice of pizza from the school food court where we were studying.

Leftover Loaded Potato Soup (make it, seriously!).

Waffle fries (more potatoes?!) doused in salt and vinegar.

Allie’s Vegan Pumpkin Pecan Blondies.  Note – I halved the oil, substituted the spices (little bit of pumpkin pie spice, lotta bit cinnamon and nutmeg), and used light brown sugar and these still came out fabulously!

What signs of fall are popping up in your area?  What’s been your favorite pumpkin goodie so far this season?

Alternative Night

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It’s been a strange sort of day ’round these parts.  Very glad it’s almost Friday!

Things started off quite well, with a shockingly good bowl of oats for breakfast.

Cooked: 1/3 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup each skim milk and water, 1 medium banana, ~1/3 cup canned pumpkin, and a pinch of salt.

Topped: 1 Tbsp each chunky peanut butter and butterscotch chips.

This was ah-MAZE-ing!  I don’t know if it’s the stove top cooking, the banana, the extended cooking time, or what, but my recent attempts at oatmeal have been my best yet.

The texture of this bowl reminded me of tapioca pudding (creamy with bits of chew) and the banana turned into banana clouds of awesomeness.

Awesome as it was, I could not finish this bowl.  Even with only 1/3 of a cup of oats, the banana, and the pumpkin, plus the decadent toppings were just too much.  I ended up leaving a couple of bites behind.

You can be sure I picked all of the banana clouds out first though 😀

And from breakfast things went downhill…..  My Anatomy quiz went ok, and lab was no more frustrating than usual, but halfway through class I was unbelievably nauseous.  I felt like I was going to throw up and I was light-headed and queasy.  The sick feeling continued all throughout the day, at one point in my food lab I actually had to go sit down.

I’m not sure what exactly caused it, because I’m feeling ok now.  Too much sugar for breakfast?  Hunger?  Residual effects from my flu shot?

Call my crazy, but in spite of my quease-factor I pushed through between classes and made a visit to the gym.  What?!  I went to school dressed in gym clothes and I wasn’t about to “waste” a day without a cute outfit!  I did 30 (difficult) minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  Those 30minutes were the best I felt all day!

I did feel significantly worse once the gym-high wore off though.  Extra bad news for me, a group in food lab made cheesecake today and I was too sick to eat it 😦  I did have to take a few bites of my group’s experiments, but nothing photoworthy – 3 bites of grilled cheese with different processed cheeses and small bites of puddings made from a mix and whole/2%/1%/skim milk.

I dragged myself home after lab and parked myself on the couch.  Sidenote – I have a deeply ingrained habit of rocking myself back and forth when I’m sick I and it drives the husband crazy!  Around 5, when he was fully ready to throttle me, I redeemed myself by pulling out a coupon for this –

ColdStone has debuted fall flavors!  I got a “small” cup of cookie batter and caramel apple ice cream (swoon!) with some caramel Ghirardelli mixed in.

I know it sounds insane but I felt so much better after I ate this!  I think my nausea at that point was just hunger.

Revived, I decided to do an “alternative” sandwich for tonight’s dinner.

The Wafflewich!

I used a serving of Van’s Berry Boost Waffles as my base, and sandwiched chicken salad (stewed chicken from Tuesday, mayo, pickle relish), a slice of melty Colby cheese, and a drizzle of maple syrup in between.

The waffles got a bit mushy when I microwaved them to melt the cheese, but other than that this was delicious.

Tomorrow?  The final night of Sandwich Week, a ton of school work to make up in the early morning, and some vegetables!

What “alternative” sandwiches have you created?

Why Don’t I Accomplish Things on Sunday?!

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I’m going to set a blogging speed record today because it’s bedtime.  Especially with the amount of school work I did today (cough, cough, none, cough), I want to be well rested for tomorrow.

As we went to get in bed last night the husband and I both realized that we were starving.  It was a bit ridiculous.  We ended up getting staying up, getting pizza, and watching the Simpsons’ Halloween special.

Breakfast = beautiful.

Plain fat-free Dannon with canned pumpkin, homemade pb, 1/4 cup gingerbread granola, and a bit of honey.

2nd breakfast (my hunger from last night didn’t wane all day), was more yogurt.

Low fat coffee topped with peanuts and honey.

Lunch was a sandwich from Lean Cuisine, Sun-Dried Tomato Basil Chicken.

Dinner was looking at me!

That fried egg is sitting atop a bed of sweet potato and kale. 

I precooked both veggies in the microwave to cut time, then cooked them in a bit of butter with salt, pepper, and paprika.

More pumpkin?  Dessert was a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Square.

Con leche.

Goodnight!

Life As I Know It

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It’s been a rather fun day, especially for a Thursday!  We’ve managed to pack in a lot of good times.  Plus, look at the sun rise I woke up to today:

Not quite as impressive foodwise; I’m not sure how I managed to get so completely out of food!  We actually made a special banana stop this evening so I could make myself oatmeal (a real breakfast) tomorrow!

I did the best I could with breakfast today though.

I knew I didn’t have time for lunch between classes so I tried to make a bowl that would hold me over for the long run.  0% Plain Oikos, maple syrup, homemade pb, peanuts, shredded coconut, and craisins.

Filling, and actually a very tasty combo of flavors.

I got some good news in Anatomy, an A+ on last week’s practical exam!  And in between classes I finished all of my work for tomorrow, which meant I had time to play later on.

Food lab today was all about veggies.  My group experimented with the effects of cooking techniques.  Did you know – if you want your broccoli to look extra green and appetizing you should use cooking water that’s a bit alkali (baking soda).  If you cook it in an acidic medium (with vinegar) you’ll end up with a very unappetizing olive-green shade.  I didn’t sample any of our experiments, but I did take some tastes of the dishes the other groups made.

Adam came to pick me up from school because of the rain, and we took a spontaneous trip to the movies!  You know we split a medium popcorn 😉

We saw “Life as You Know it,” which I’ve been jazzed about for months.  Normally I hate chick flicks but something about Katherine Hiegel makes me unable to resist!  The movie was adorable, very touching but with a lot of funny moments as well.  I give it two thumbs up!

Our apartment is seriously foodless, so when we picked up my banana we also swung by Moe’s for a quesadilla.

I ate my fair share of chips too.

And a honey vanilla caramel apple.

Have you made these yet?  Do it!

Now we are watching “Nightmare Before Christmas.”  Adam’s been trying to get me to see if for years and I’m actually totally loving it.  Hope you all have *sweet* dreams!

A Few Highlights

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Between a dying camera battery and an unshakable bad mood I couldn’t quite get it together to blog today.  I’ll just share some highlights….

For breakfast I tried out the Zone Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough bar.

It wasn’t as good as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (because really what is?) but it held its own.  The texture was pure cookie dough and the inclusion of raisins was a lot of fun.  The flavor wasn’t too sweet and this didn’t have any sort of chemical taste at all.  Plus, this variety is a bit lighter at 170calories and 1.5grams of saturated fat.

Lunch was a sad-sack of a Buffalo chicken sandwich.

Highlight of the day was a honey vanilla caramel apple.

I linked to the recipe yesterday, but I’m going to do it again (click me!) because it’s so crucial that you make this.  Seriously.

 What is your prefered color of highlighter?  I’m a purple girl myself.

Rye Sense of Humor

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This is a late lunch post because I ate a late lunch – my oatmeal held me over until 3pm!

I had forgotten to take my planned leftovers down from the freezer, so I settled on a nice sandwich plate instead.

That’s a slice of toasted rye, topped with Miracle Whip and pickle relish, stacked with 3 thin slices of turkey and 2 slices of 2% colby cheese, stuck under the broiler for 5minutes.

I kept it open-faced because I want to really taste the cheese and not just a bunch of bread.  I will say though, I definitely enjoyed having the rye (with carraway seeds!).  When I was growing we always had rye in the fridge; I never even tasted white bread until I was in college!  Maybe that’s why I have such a wry sense of humor….. 😀

Some baby carrots on the side for crunch.

This was the perfect one-handed meal to eat while I worked on my laptop.  I crunched and munched my way through part of a group project.

The plan tonight is an easy dinner, a fun dessert, and hopefully switching out our winter and summer wardrobes.  Oh, and some more school work!

What kind of bread was in your childhood fridge?

An In and Out Post

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Can I do 100 words or less?

We had a late dinner party to attend yesterday so I did some random snacking to tide me over until 9pm.

Two of our Russian friends provided a traditional ethnic feast.  My plate included potatoes with mushrooms, salad, and bellinis with caviar (omg, the caviar!).

The table also had liver and onions and tongue!!!

We didn’t get home until after 2am – I was the only non-drinker in the room – and even abstaining from alcohol couldn’t keep me feeling peppy today.  Let’s sum Sunday up with more random snacking.

Also picture and unphotographed glass of chocolate milk and several extra handfuls of peanuts.

Word Count – 111