Tag Archives: cheese

Just Call Me Mrs. Peno

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This evening was not at what I was expecting (but still good!).  Adam came home this afternoon and we made a pile*.  For hours.  Fabulous 🙂  *If you don’t know what I’m talking about watch the movie Where the Wild Things Are.

Prior to the pile Adam made a bagel that he was randomly super nice and shared with me.

It was 9:30 before we thought about dinner so we ended up redoing our weekly meal plan and heading to Subway.

I got a 6inch honey wheat with chicken breast, buffalo sauce, ranch, pepperjack, lettuce, tomato, and lots of jalopenos.

It was super spicy, but not that filling.  Which is why I also ended up eating most of this –

I’m having a love affair with jalopenos.

And Bones was fantabulous.  I didn’t get a gym trip in but I am planning on doing arm exercises when I do my pt.

As far as the race tomorrow we have decided to walk it – LAME.  It’s a 5k and we are less than thrilled, but it is just too stupid for me to risk running it when my doctor told me not to.  Such is life.

What is the best thing you’ve ever eaten jalopenos in?  In nyc I used to get jalopeno and cheddar cream cheese on bagels and it was socks rocking.

Kitchen Warfare

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I didn’t get enough any studying done before class, but not because I was making an amazing dinner. 

I started  making an amazing dinner.  I even cut my own *onions!  *The husband has no sense of smell so he doesn’t cry when he cuts onions, therefore it is always his job.  Sadly, once my beautifully cut onions were sauteing the red pepper flakes killed their container to bring some guerilla warfare to onionville.

It rained fire and brimstone on the tear-makers and my kitchen filled up with smoke that could rival any tear gas.  My lungs felt like they were on fire and dinner was unsalvagable.

Once I was able to go in the kitchen again I knew it was time for a drink.  Bring on the stout! …….Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese with Irish Stout that is.

I tried some Kerrygold products at Foodbuzz and I am so glad to have the opportunity to try more, yum.

One ounce of the cheese,

with turkey pepperoni,

and a granny smith apple

made a tasty tasting plate.

Now I can head to class.  I am going to the gym after Chemistry so I’m sure there will be more food pics to post by the end of the day.  I have pt at 7:30am tomorrow (which means I have to wake up before 6:30) so feel free to post and tell me to get my butt to bed on time!

When was the last time you went through war in your kitchen?

Road Tripped

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We are in Ohio!  My grandmother’s internet isn’t the best and it’s been a long day so I won’t be able to be as detailed as I would like.  It’s been a good day though 🙂

We got up at 6:30 this morning and were out the door before 7am.  The trip was 400+ miles so we had to get an early start.  I packed up food for the road, a la Thanksgiving Challenge, threw on a sweatshirt and split.

I had some am amazing grass – 1banana, 1scoop grass, big pour skim milk, 8 ice cubes, blender.

I was so proud of the husband for drinking some too!

A few hours later I ate a yummy leftovers sandwich.

1.5 buffalo blue bean patties on toasted bread with honey and jack daniels mustard.

We split the driving fairly evenly – 2hours Adam, 2hours me, 2hours Adam.  The switches were a nice excuse for pee and diet soda breaks!

When we got in to Piqua my grandparents had a great lunch ready for us.

Carrot and dill soup was delicious.

And the two-cheese grilled cheese were so nice and gooey.

There were also spicy bread and butter pickles and sunchips on the table.

I ate more chips throughout the day than was a good idea!

To drink I had half of Adam’s holiday Coke,

and I split a lime beer with my grandmother.

For dessert I had a cherry cordial from the box of candy we brought as our hostess gift.

We had a great time hanging out with my grandparents.  We played Euchre and my grandpa bought us all fun lotto cards!

I didn’t win, but it was nice to dream.

My aunt and uncle drove up this evening and we all had a great dinner together (more soup and sandwiches!).

The soup was white chicken chili,

and the sandwiches were pulled chicken – I think we are done with chicken for a bit!

I also had one delicious deviled egg.

Dessert was homemade old fashioned cream pie.

It was awesome, but the crust was store-bought so I just scraped out the filling.

Plus coffee with 2% milk.

Look at their adorable sugar bowl!

Now it’s almost 10 and I would love to get in bed!  Overall it’s been a fabulous (filling) day!  My grandmother is such a good cook and it’s so great to be with family.

What do you usually pack for road trips?

Microwaved Miracles

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Hello, hello!  I slept in until 10:30 today, but I’ve been telling myself it’s so I’ll be fully over my cold before we drive up to Ohio tomorrow to visit my grandparents.

When I did get up I made the most amazing breakfast!  Microwave eggs might be the best thing ever.

You just combine all of your ingredients in a smallish microwave safe bowl (2 eggs, s&p, the last 1.5T of gorgonzola), stir, microwave on high for 1minute, stir again, and finish with another minute in the microwave.  The fabulously fluffy eggs slide right out of a bowl and onto a sandwich!

This sandwich was topped with Jack Daniels mustard and some clover honey from Foodbuzz!

Mmmn!  It was the perfect combo of savory and sweet.

Breakfast lunch perfection!

In just a bit I am driving to pick up Adam at school so we can go to my doctor’s appointment.  I am getting my leg imaged to make sure I don’t have a blood clot, and hopefully finding out more information in general.

Tonight we are going to a dinner we’ve been planning for months, and tomorrow I’m driving up to my grandparents’ for Thanksgiving!  Just to warn you in advance, I’m not sure what the posting sitch will be this weekend, they may need to be a large recap.

What miraculous things have you done with your microwave?

Liver Spots

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There were all sorts of goods and bads today but I’ll try to focus on the goods.  Like, for example, the fact that it’s Turkey Day week!

I went ’80’s style when I got dressed today, all I needed was my old Doc Martin boots!

Now that I live in Buffalo I wear sandals every day, but when I was growing up in the Caribbean I went through an intense Doc Martin phase.  I guess I like anything that’s out of season!

I was in desperate need of greens/fruits so I made a smoothie for the road.

1C frozen blackberries, a scoop of Chocolate Amazing Grass, and some skim milk.  I loved how purple it got!

I arrived at school really early so I walked around with Adam for a bit before heading to my appointment.

Fun fact #1 – my leg hurts like crazy.  Fun fact # 2 – according to the RN at the health center I have a varicose vein!  It’s not a terrible one, and at this stage my insurance won’t cover removal.  They are hereditary and my teaching career (on my feet nonstop from 7-5) is a big factor, as well as my years as a waitress. She said I need to wear support hose and supportive shoes, but wouldn’t give me information about how long that would need to happen.  If a month or so will ‘fix’ me then I’m all for it, but if it’s a rest of my life thing I’d rather keep with my sandals and just have the surgery when it gets worse.  I have an imaging appointment tomorrow to make sure I don’t have a blood clot and I’ll get more information then.

I’m not going to lie, it’s a good thing Adam drove me to class because I bawled all the way there.  I’m able to put up with a lot of pain, but having a yucky old lady problem pisses me off!  I don’t want to wear support hose!  I sort of lost it.  I think things will be better once I get more information tomorrow.

The good news is that physical activity can’t make it worse.  I try to be very careful of injury (that’s why I took time off when the leg pain started) because I would never want to permanently side-line myself.  However, I am ridiculously stubborn and am pretty good with putting up with pain.  I decided last week that I would always stop running if I would cause permanent injury by not taking a break, but that if I could safely run through the pain I would do so.  Therefore, 7 out of 10 leg pain be damned, half marathon training is back on!!

I recomposed myself once I got to campus, but definitely bought this bag of Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos to ease my sorrows.

($1, Challenge Balance – $79.24 ) I ate about half the bag – go me for not just downing the whole thing.

At 6 I got more good news when Caroline showed up with her laptop, class was cancelled!  Adam was already at the gym with a friend so she offered to take me home.  We made a pit-stop at the mall (shopping for her bf) so that was fun.

Dinner was more good news.  Delicious, all around!  The first course was Dr. McDougall’s Soup.

Adam had Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato and I had Chunky Tomato.

I almost never eat ‘mater soup but I love it.

The second/main course was my newest creation.

Buffalo Blue Bean Patties, serves 4

  • 2 15.5oz cans black beans we use low sodium
  • 1/2 cup, plus 2T buffalo wing sauce we used the sauce from Anchor Bar, the birthplace of Buffalo wings
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 3/4 cup gorgonzola cheese crumbles
  • salt and pepper, to season
  1. Preheat the oven to 450*.  Foil and spray a baking sheet.
  2. Empty bean cans into a colander and rinse thoroughly – this is a heart healthy step, reduce your sodium intake.
  3. Pour beans and 2 cups wing sauce into a blender and puree.  If you have a rickety blender you may want to do this in two batches.
  4. Empty blender into a large mixing bowl.  Add rest of wing sauce and eggs, stir.  Add bread crumbs, stir.  Add cheese and fork to combine.
  5. Using your hands, form 12 patties out of the bean mixture.
  6. Put patties on prepared sheet and bake for 20minutes, it is not necessary to flip them during baking.

I ate mine with the sad remains of our ketchup (that’s a small plate).

Man they were good!  I don’t want to toot my own horn, but this was such a good idea!  They were also very filling, I ended up only eating 2.5.

You what what else is a good idea?  The big bowl of popcorn I’m about to make!  Yes, I used up the big bag of ‘corn my in-laws brought me just last month!

Have a good night folks!

What makes you feel old?  I’m 24, I’m not cool with the idea of support hose!  Teenage entertainment makes me feel old too, shows like “Gossip Girl” just make me uncomfortable!

Sunshine

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Now that I unpacked yesterday, we got up at 9:30 today and went straight to the laundromat to deal with our 4+ loads of dirty laundry!  I packed a Cinnamon Apple Prana Bar to eat in the car.

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Mmmn.

On the way home we stopped at the store to buy some cereal ($2.99; Challenge Balance – $61.15) and I picked up lunch, free.

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Several readers recommended Sunshine Burgers to me but I wasn’t sure about them and didn’t want to make the $5 commitment.  So I e-mailed the company about some coupons and they happily complied. 

I decided to try the South West variety today.  Verdict?  Super-duper impressive, I totally see what the fuss was about.

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I ate two patties, topped with low fat mozzarella, and a heaping side of guacamole and hot salsa.

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So good!  I was full, but I almost went back for a third patty just because I didn’t want to lose the taste in my mouth!  I did however, gobble the last T of cheese while I was making lunch.

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Thankfully, I got some distracting excitement –

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My Foodbuzz box is here!  I can pretty much promise I’ll be eating some sampler cookies for dessert.

Now I’ve got to tackle my loads of schoolwork.  Adam and I are actually going to a semi-formal with his school tonight so it’ll be a late recap.  Happy Saturdaying everyone!

Dreams of Root Vegetables

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Whew, Tuesday is almost over!  My meeting went well, I still have no idea which career path I’ll choose but it is exciting to learn about the options.  After my meeting I swung by the house to pick up the husband, who graciously offered to go along on my printing/mailing resume errands.

True Story – while we were driving he got annoyed that I don’t know what I want to do and said – “You’ll never know what you want to do.  Next thing I’ll know you’ll want to be a turnip!  Do you need to go back to school to be a turnip!?!”  And now he has called me Turnip for the rest of the day.  Holy cow I love my funny husband!

On our way home – resumes successfully mailed, hopefully I will be substituting at some point – we stopped in The Spot for coffee.

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I got a small  Chaider; steamed apple cider and chai tea.  Mmn, fall!  I actually think I’m going to head back to the Spot to work tomorrow, I haven’t been getting much done at home 😦

I was feeling sick with hunger when we got home so I got a snack while I worked on my lab (which I can not do without help, boo!).

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A bumped log,

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with Granny Smith slices with cinnamon caramel apple dip.

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I had a coupon for the dip and you know I’m a sucker for all foods fall.

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After struggling with Chemistry for forever I moved on to making dinner.  On the meal plan was a recipe from the November “Everyday with Rachael Ray” ‘lightened up’ moussaka.

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I can’t share the recipe but if you bought the magazine and are planning to try it here are the changes I made:

  • used 99% lean ground turkey instead of beef
  • skipped the food processor and used low fat whipped cottage cheese
  • used half graffiti eggplants
  • add 1/2 pint mushrooms

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We actually got busy and didn’t even eat dinner so I’ll have to review the recipe tomorrow!  I have a busy day planned tomorrow – no room for headaches! – so don’t be surprised if I don’t post until dinner.  Night!

Don’t forget to enter my Zevia giveaway!

Ice Ice Baby

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It’s been a busy, but random.  I had plans of getting up early but the husband felt like studying until 1am last night which totally threw me off.  When we were in the city and my job was crazy he was always mad at me for staying up until 4am while he tried to sleep (especially difficult in our one room apartment!).  Here, where he is in medical school and I do nothing am not, the situation is reversed.  We have multiple rooms now but I’ve found I have a hard time falling asleep without him around – cheesy relationship moment alert!!!

When I did get up at 10 this morning I went straight to the phone for the next 3 hours!  I don’t know if I actually accomplished that much, but at least I got the ball rolling!  My hunger was totally off and I ended up eating the last serving of pretzels for breakfast!

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Unhealthiness aside, here is a healthy tip: buy a food scale!  I’m not saying you need to be obsessive and measure everything you put in your mouth, but things like pretzel nuggets add up faster than you think – a serving of those bad boys is ONE ounce.  Once you are eating pretzels straight out of the bag for breakfast, there is no way you are going to pull out a measuring cup.  But plopping the bag on the food scale?  Easy.  (P.S. My scale read 1 and 1/4 oz, so with the weight of the bag I had a perfect serving left)

At 1pm – once I had at very least left a message with every single number on my list – I set out for the gym sat on the couch and kissed Adam and stole some slices of his turkey pepperoni.  I ended up pushing the gym back to the end of the evening in favor of going to the post-office and being dropped off at the Spot.  I worked on Chemistry by myself for a while before Caroline met me for some group studying.  By myself I got a late lunch.

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A big diet coke and a turkey cajun  wrap (turkey, lettuce, tomato, pepperjack cheese, cajun sauce, ww wrap).

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The salad looked over-dressed so I didn’t even taste it, but I demolished the sandwich.

During my social studying I also had a medium pumpkin pie latte (pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon; 1pump syrup, skim milk).

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Yums.

Caroline dropped me off at home at 9 and after so very brief glancing at the magazines I got in the mail we set out for the gym.  It was about time too, I’d been rocking this look since 10am!

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I always work out in baggy t-shirts but I went ahead and bought some running tank tops last weekend.  Somehow I feel more “official,” not that I look too fine in that picture!!  I’ll show you all of my new finds as I wear them; this one was $4 at Target.

On the treadmill I did 10minute warm up – 20minute run – 5 minute cool down.  In the end the totals were 3.25miles and 361 calories.  My legs are still crazy bothering me (my knees, hips, ankles often hurt but lately it is an intense pain in my calves!).  I did a lot of stretching when I got home and now I am trying icing them.

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We’ll see how it goes.

I can’t believe I’m doing such a late recap post but considering that dinner just kind of never happened I guess it’s not that surprising!  I got a lot done today, but tomorrow is still going to be jam-packed.  We just found out our in-laws are visiting this weekend which makes this week even busier.  I’ve got to go deal with my ice bags and take a shower, see you in the am!

Do you ice?  Any tips for me?