Tag Archives: cottage cheese

Mac And Three Cheese Muffins

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I don’t recall my parents ever making mac and cheese at home, but when I was growing up baked mac and cheese from the grocery store was my favorite comfort food.  West Indian mac and cheese is different from what you are usually served stateside.  Back home it is always baked in a casserole (with a thick layer of cheese on top!); you would never serve West Indian mac and cheese with a spoon.  Most of the mac and cheese recipes I’ve created have the same sturdiness to them, though I have cut back a bit on the cheese.  This rendition is lighter (but definitely not light) and served in muffin form.

They were fun to eat and I found them to be nice and filling.  I went with a trio of cheeses – sharp cheddar, parmesan, and low-fat cottage cheese.  The cottage cheese gave a great flavor while upping the protein and lowering the fat; a three muffin serving has less than 500 calories.

I shared a bite with Webster the other day and I’ve been calling him “The Mac Doggy” ever since.  Divorce would be imminent if Adam didn’t think these muffins were so darn tasty.

Mac and Three Cheese Muffins, serves 4 – 6

  • 2 cups dry macaroni noodles
  • 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
  • 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
  • 4 oz sharp cheddar, shredded
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.  Lightly spray a 12-cup muffin tin with baking spray.
  2. In a large pot, cook macaroni al dente according to package directions.  Then drain and return to pot.  It is best to rinse out the pot with cool water first so that the cooked pasta doesn’t stick.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients to the cooked macaroni and stir well to combine.
  4. Portion macaroni mixture evenly into the 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Mungry

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I don’t know what my deal is but lately I’ve been so freaking hungry.  Yesterday I was uncomfortable with hunger all day long.  And I wasn’t in a dessert mood at all but we don’t have much food in the house and I ended up eating sweets all afternoon.  Ugh.

I did do my best to make a healthy, filling lunch.

I sautéed ~ 1 cup of sliced okra in 1/2 Tbsp butter and a pinch of salt.  Meanwhile I whisked together 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese, and 2 oz of Cabot’s 50% reduced-fat sharp cheddar.  Then I scrambled my mixture in with the okra.

I didn’t know how the cottage cheese would turn out in the eggs but I ended up loving it.  The end result wasn’t watery at all, just super creamy and cheesy.  I now know that cottage cheese is a tasty way to add more volume and protein to my eggs.

But sadly my filling lunch wasn’t filling at all.  Nothing is filling when your stomach is being a beast.  I also had …

A spoonful of cookie butter, x2.

A packet of Gushers.

A Magnum Double Caramel Ice Cream Bar.

And the last ~1/2 serving of Butterfingers Bites.

Not gonna lie, I was still hungry after all that too.  It was funny because I watched “Kitchen Nightmares” all afternoon and that show is a total appetite killer!

I ended up not even eating dinner because I left the house on a last-minute invite and didn’t get home until past Adam’s bedtime.  A classmate’s restaurant was running a booth at a local wine event and I volunteered to help out.

I got to chat with all sorts of people and it was a lot of fun.  Plus, I got a small plate of cookies and two tastes of wine out of the deal.

And my friend and I got our picture on a big local website.

I need to make some uglier friends!

My plans for today do include lunch with Holly this afternoon, should include cleaning, and must include catching up on the “Grey’s” and “Private Practice” finales.

Do you ever have insatiable bouts of hunger?  And more importantly – do you say “hungry mungry?”

Networking and Notworking

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I wasn’t quite the productivity machine I was hoping to be, but I did take off that gross brown nail polish.  Baby steps.

I didn’t eat definitive meals today, more like equally spaced random snacks.  Bowl o’ berries.

2% cottage cheese and Siggi’s 2% Coconut Skyr Yogurt topped with blueberries and maple syrup.

The syrup was supposed to be a light drizzle but with my newly opened bottle it ended up being more of a drenching.

Kettle corn.

Magnum Double Caramel Ice Cream Bar.

Tuna salad.

Adam and I split a can’s worth of tuna with Miracle Whip and pickle relish.

I had an everything matzoh on the side for crunch.

My final snack was a glass of Low-fat Birthday Cake Kefir.

I showed a picture of the bottle yesterday and promised to share more.  The Kefir is from Lifeway and it is flipping delicious.

The flavor isn’t exactly cake but it is pleasant.  Every flavor of Kefir I’ve tried from Lifeway has been the perfect balance of sweet over sour but not so sweet that it hurts your throat.  There are 170 calories per 8 oz and it is definitely more filling and satisfying than a glass of milk.

My evening was spent at the Buffalo Centre for the Treatment of Eating Disorders for an informational session put on by the local dietetics association.  I toured the center last summer on my own but it was good to see some familiar faces from my outpatient rotations.  I’m not sure whether or not we’ll stay in the area after graduation but it’s always good to do some networking.

How important is networking in your profession?

Toasted Marshmallow Cheesecake Oatmeal (For Dinner)

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My book and beers were great last night but I woke up in a funk.  Adam and I both just didn’t want to get out of bed.  I snoozed for so long that suddenly there wasn’t enough time to both go to the gym and make the fun breakfast I was looking forward to.  I knew I had to get it together before my bad mood ruined the whole day so I tried to pinpoint what was making me cranky – I was cold, I was tired, I was hungry.

Time to problem-solve!  I decided I would make a mug of hot chocolate (calories, warmth, caffeine), go to the gym (endorphins), and eat my fun breakfast for dinner (anticipation).

The cocoa was pretty weak but my workout felt rewarding.  10 minutes on the treadmill (1 mile) and 20 minutes at level 6 random on the stationary bike (7 miles).

I had to hurry, but somehow my hair air-dried perfectly today!

Often one side curls under while the other flips up so this felt very fortuitous since I had to look nice for clinic.

For breakfast I cashed in the last of my Ashker’s smoothie Groupon on the walk to school.

I got a Lemon Zinger sans ginger; aka a carrot, peach, mango, and lemon smoothie.  It was great!

Lunch included more carrots so it’s a good thing I’m a fan.

Also a Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Thin with two slices of Applegate Farm’s Smoked Turkey and a wedge of Light French Onion Laughing Cow.

And a 120-calorie pack of Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters.

These were on super-sale so I took a chance and I ended up quite liking them.  The serving was small but the caramel was nice and I liked the bit of crunch.

But I probably should have packed an additional item for lunch because I was inhaling this 100-calorie bag of kettle corn the minute I walked in the door at the end of the day.

My clinical hours today were at a Diabetic Education Course.  The RD let me teach the portion on reading nutrition labels.  She said I seemed knowledgable and confident which is awesome because on the inside I was screaming my head off!  I’m considering becoming a certified diabetes educator (cde) some day so it was neat to get a taste of the experience.

I had to get through night class and then I finally had my much-anticipated breakfast dinner.  What combination was I so excited about?

Toasted Marshmallow Cheesecake Oats!

So flipping good.

cooked: 3/4 cup skim milk, pinch salt, 1/4 cup oats

stirred in: 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese (cheesecake), 4 toasted marshmallows (marshmallow!)

topped: 1 Tbsp melted Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter (crust)

The toasted marshmallows stirred into the mix and the bowl was like a giant, toasty, marshmallow!

When I originally planned this meal for breakfast I wanted to make sure it was nutritionally ready to get me through the day so I plugged the ingredients into an online calculator –

Not bad, not bad at all; especially for something that tasted like dessert.

What is your favorite decadent breakfast?

Sugar Saturday

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Today’s been sweet, literally.  And it’s not over yet; I’m having a bowl of ice cream the minute I publish this post!

Breakfast was another fabulous yogurt-cottage cheese mix.  A Liberte Coconut Yogurt served over the 1+ serving of 1% large curd cottage cheese.  Plus a sprinkle of toasted coconut.

I don’t really enjoy cottage cheese by its lonesome, but mixed into yogurt or oatmeal it’s the bee’s knees.

We ran errands for what felt like forever today (3 stores for groceries?!!) and for lunch I introduced Adam to Manhattan Bagel.

I had a toasted jalopeño cheddar bagel with lox cream cheese.  The bagels were great, nice and chewy, but the service was so bad I doubt we’d ever go back to that location [the Delaware location for any reading locals].

A frozen iced coffee was split at Wegmans.

Plus 4 pieces of salt water taffy from the bulk bins for dessert.

Watermelon was a favorite but I also enjoyed cherry cola and cookie dough.

For dinner we cashed in a Living Social deal for Thai House.  We tried a lot and overall it was good but not great.  Our appetizer was little fried cups with crab meat.

Meh.  I only ate two but Adam did finish the rest.

Our meals came with soup so we both ordered Tom Yum.

Yum indeed; (jeez that was corny!) the soup was perfectly sour.

Another plus was the 2-1 deal on “thai-iced” beverages.

The husband did coffee and I did tea.

Delicious.

And for my meal I ordered the House Noodles, extra spicy.

Broad rice noodles with brocoli, boy choy, peppers, and egg.  The extra spicy was actually spicy, a major plus over other local Thai places.  But the noodles didn’t have the amazing “marshmallow” quality that I look for in good broad rice noodles.

Now we are home enjoying Cokes with lime.

And ice cream soon!  Tomorrow brings lots of studying for Monday’s exam and a visit to the theatre for The Hunger Games!!!

What I’ve Been Up To

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Hi there! It hasn’t been the best week but it certainly could have been worse. Here is some of what I’ve been up to –

My trip to Ohio was sad but good. It was great to see my cousins and meet some babies.

I’m not sick anymore (yay!) but allergies are going to be rough this season. On Tuesday I did get the most carsick I’ve ever been. I moaned and cried the whole way home from Ohio and it was ridiculous.

The dog is still sick. He is having a severe allergic reaction and if his eyes aren’t better by Friday he has to go to a doggie dermatologist (yes, that is a real thing). He’s wearing a cone so he won’t scratch and it’s beyond pitiful.

My Wednesday test was pushed back to Monday because I stumbled into class in Adam’s sweatshirt (that I’d worn for the past 24 straight hours) and my teacher took pity on me and sent me home. I took my statistics test today and I think it went well.

I didn’t feel right taking photos the last fee days so no recap. But here is what I ate today –

Breakfast.

Reduced fat cottage cheese topped with a caramel Oikos and some toasted coconut.

The cottage cheese/yogurt mix rocks my socks, particularly with coconut.

Late lunch.  A slice of naan with cheese (leftover from Indian for dinner on Wednesday).

And a plate of roasted green beans.

I bought a family size bag of green beans before we left for Ohio last week so expect to see a lot more of these.

In class snack.  Cara cara orange.

Cara caras are so flipping good!  They almost never have seeds and they’re pink.

Dinner was not well-planned.  We desperately need to go to the grocery store and when I got home from class at 8 we wandered up and down Elmwood in search of food.  I ended up with a 2-2-2 from Panos.

It was insanely dark but it was 2 buttermilk pancakes, two sunny side up eggs, and home fries; smothered in butter and syrup.  I piled everything into a huge mound and tried to get a little of each part in every bite.

Dessert.  A sliced green apple with 2 Tbsp of caramel sauce.

The caramel sauce basically turned into a solid, impenetrable ball, but the apple was good.

Question – how do you order your eggs to get them made without excess fat?  I tried to order them “dry,” like toast but that gave the impression that I wanted my yolks well-done.  I finally just said “without excess oil” but I feel like there must be short-hand for this.

Biscoff Jar Bounty

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Adam had to stay up late again last night to register for something online and I’m just as tired as ever.  It’s possible I didn’t get up until after 9:30 am and only then because Adam called and needed me to do something on his computer.  But then I got up and went for a run.

My goal was to run at least 20 minutes without stopping.  I did it; slowly.  2.4 miles in 24 minutes 30 seconds.  Towards the end I would have been moving more quickly if I was walking, but I kept running.  My workout was basically someone else’s warm-up and it was hard!  There were certainly no negative splits; I did two loops and the second time around took 30 seconds longer than the first.  But I’m glad I did it.  And now my goal for Wednesday is to do it again in 30 seconds less.

Before and after my run I took a few swigs of this Strawberry Powerade Zero.

For breakfast I fueled with something much more exciting.

Another round of oats in a jar, this time hot oatmeal with cottage cheese in a Biscoff Crunchy jar.

In the microwave, I cooked 1/2 cup oats with a pinch of salt and  1/2 cup skim milk and 1/2 cup water.  Then I pulled out half of the cooked oatmeal for tomorrow’s breakfast and stirred 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese into the remaining serving.  Then into the jar it went, along with the last 2-3 Tbsp or so of Crunchy Biscoff.

It was great!  If I’d done stovetop oats with a stirred in banana it would have been even better but I was short on time and I didn’t want banana in tomorrow’s serving anyway.

The rest of my day brings a walk to campus, class, a meeting, and a shift at work until 9pm.

Do you do OIAJ?  What is your favorite kind?

Strawberries And Cream, Squared

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Adam stayed up later than planned last night which meant I stayed up later than planned last night.  At least it meant I got to catch the dog building a cave.

That is one of the very cutest things that he does!

I also ended up having a snack.  A small but amazing cookie,

and a big pile of grapes.

I may not be a med student, but I did manage to wake up with the husband this morning too.  By 6:30 am we were in our cars and I was heading to the gym.  45 minutes on the elliptical, level 6 random.

I left my car on campus so I could drive home this afternoon, and hurried home on foot for breakfast.

This bowl puts my last attempt at Berries and Cream Oatmeal to shame.

  • 1/2 cup each skim milk and water
  • ~ 1/3 cup (frozen, defrosted) strawberries
  • 1/4 cup oats
  • ~ 1 cup 1% large curd cottage cheese
  • ~ 2 Tbsp strawberry cream cheese

The strawberry cream cheese really helped put a bow on the berries and cream theme.

Have a great start of the work week!