Tag Archives: chicken

Highlights From OBX

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Hey there!  Long time no see!  It has been, and is going to be, a crazy summer.

Among other things, I went to the Outer Banks last week (whee!).

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My in-laws took Adam and me for a couple of days and we had a glorious time.  We beached,

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climbed the sand dunes,

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got a large chocolate-strawberry diet coke from Sonic that rocked my face off,

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and met a Flutter Pony.

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You don’t even want to know how excited I was about that damn horse statue.

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We went to climb the sand dunes in between my spotting the pony and taking my picture with it and I muttered to Adam about The Smooze the whole time.  <– if you got that reference I will kiss you on the mouth

I know I’m behind the times, but I want to post some of our trip eats highlights anyway, mostly so I have a record of them for the next time we visit OBX.  This was a trip where sharing meant caring; the only meals Adam and I didn’t split were dessert!

Lunch at Mulligan’s.

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Coastal Carolina She-Crab soup.

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This was basically a giant bowl of crab meat; ah-maze-ing!  We also swooned over the sherry floater.

California style fish tacos.

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Soft tortillas with local fried fish, cilantro-lime slaw, pico de gallo, and Cajun tartar sauce.  This was our first meal in NC and it set a great tone for the rest of the trip.

BBQ at Sooey’s.

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Pulled chicken platter with cole slaw, hush puppies, and fried okra.

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This stop was a repeat from my first OBX visit and I’m so glad we went back.  Those were the best fried okra I’ve ever had, I was shoving them into my mouth by the handful!

Breakfast at The Dunes Restaurant.

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We got the Greek omelet (spinach, tomato, and feta) with asparagus.  It came with hash-browns and a side and since we were splitting they let us do one hotcake and one biscuit.  Even with two of us eating we couldn’t finish that giant plate of food.

Froyo at The Surfin’ Spoon.

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Such good topping options! I got a little bit of yogurt with marshmallow fluff, peanut butter topping, bananas, and reese’s peanut butter cups.

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Like a fluffernutter in froyo form!

Also, froyo at Wild Berry.

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The yogurt flavors weren’t anything new, but the toppings bar boasted sweetened condensed milk!!!  I was definitely in heaven.

All in all, it was a tasty, terrific trip.

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.

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.

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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?

Break Begins

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Did you know that this was my last day before spring break begins?  Of course not, I didn’t tell you.  In fact, I was so tired this week that I kept forgetting about it, but then I was very happy every time I remembered.  We are doing something fun for break, but I’ll tell you more about that later because right now I want to get in bed.

I mixed things up and packed breakfast this morning.  Stonyfield Chocolate Greek Yogurt.

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I ate on the walk from my car to the hospital.

Lunch was salad leftovers.  When I made our dinners last night I went ahead and made four bowls at once – his & hers lunch and dinner.

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My maple vinaigrette dressing was so good.

I also packed a Cascadian Farm Oats & Honey Crunchy Granola Bar (a free sample).

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And I drank a coffee with creamer in the afternoon.

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I had some really interesting patients today; lots of tube feeds, which I love.

When I got home I snacked on some BBQ Smart Fries.

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Looking back I feel like I ate (more than) enough food today, but I was so flipping hungry this afternoon.  A friend and I had plans for dinner and I could not have been more excited when she called me to go.

First though, we walked our dogs and had a drink.

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The Honeycrisp Apple Shock Top is good, but not quite as good as I was expecting.

We headed out aimlessly down Elmwood and thankfully my friend thought of the “The Place” for dinner because I probably would have wandered down to Allentown!

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My foodie co-worker has been raving about The Place’s buffalo chicken mac and cheese for weeks and I knew what I was going to get before I even sat down.

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I was definitely hungry – I ate almost half of that skillet full of mac and cheese!

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I thought the dish was ok, not all that exciting, but Adam polished off my leftovers in a matter of minutes and declared that we have to go back immediately, so apparently it were a hit with him.

After dinner my friend and I walked back up Elmwood (it felt so nice to take a walk!) to meet the rest of our group for drinks at Mezza.  I am totally kicking myself that I didn’t get a photo of all of us, but I did manage a shot of my amaretto sour.

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I’m an embarrassment.  And I’m pretty sure the (cute) bartender thought I was special because I ordered a diet coke for my 2nd round and he refilled my glass free-of-charge at least three times.  I basically wanted to move in.

I stopped at Starbucks on the way home for something warm to drink while I wrote this post.

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Tall/toffee nut/black tea/skim latte.

Adam and his friends are in the middle of a poker game in the living room but I’ve got to fold… myself into bed.

My goodnight gift to you?  Shots of the dog chillaxing.

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Squee!