Tag Archives: goat cheese

STT; Thursday Afternoon – Saturday Morning

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It’s a busy day (the day before Christmas!) but I just couldn’t bear not sharing (pictures of all, descriptions of few) what I’ve been up to!

Thursday

Thursday afternoon, my mom treated me to lunch at Pesce, a newish Italian spot. We split the two things that sounded best. A spinach salad with craisins, candied pecans and goat cheese,

and a (fried) bbq chicken flat bread.

The husband has been calling about missing me and asking for pictures, so – Hi, husband!

Do you like my new top?

For dinner my parents and I headed to Victor’s Hideout for some good local cuisine.

Our plates came with plantains, fungi, sweet potato, rice and beans, and salad.

Plus I ate a roll with butter.

Here, my dad and I split two plates.  He got the fried shrimp,

And I got ole wife, a local whitefish.

Head on, scrape the meat off the bones… It was intense but tasty.

That evening I headed over to the apartment (bachelor pad) of two high school friends who just moved in together. 4 of us from a regular group were there together and it was fun to do some reminiscing. Adrien served me a tasty vodka-soda-lemon thing at some point.

But I stuck to one drink because I was driving (on the left … in the rain … without traffic signals because half the island didn’t have power). My mom did text around 1:30 to see if I was dead, which I thought was sweet.

Friday

Friday morning I may have overslept. I missed my gym window too, which was annoying. But I got up in time for breakfast.

That bowl was 1 egg, 2 whites, ~3 oz leftover spicy chicken, a handful of shredded cabbage, 1 Tbsp butter, and 2 Tbsp cocktail sauce. I’m not even going to attempt to describe it.

Brunch was Christmas in a convenience package.

A gingerbread Clif bar that I took one bite of and then trashed in horror.

And an eggnog Nutrament that I swooned over.

Plus I got a chaispresso (chai, espresso, 2% milk) during afternoon errands.

Friday night my parents hosted a Hanukkah party!

It was great getting to see everyone, and it was extra great that my uncle made his (best ever) latkes.

I took many appetizers bites. I actually did take a photo of every single one, so I’m going to consolidate them grid style –

My cousin made matzoh ball soup.

Here is my dinner plate –

Salad, noodle kugel, and a tiny bit of salmon.

And my mom made “Crack Pie” (of Momofuku fame) for dessert.

Tiny slices because it was basically a pie of caramel in an oatmeal cookie crust.

Saturday

This morning I had my mom drive me to school so I could run some laps on the field.  I have no idea of distance, but I jogged 20 minutes straight; plus a quick, walking warm up and cool down.  I am not in running shape at all so it was interesting to see a workout out in the wind!

And I’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas tomorrow to all of my readers who celebrate!

Christmas In October

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My day took a sharp left turn mid-morning, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

When you have a lazy day Sunday and a test on Wednesday that makes for a busy Monday.  I got up with the husband and was showered and sitting with notecards by 5:30am.  I took a breakfast break around 6 because if I’m going to study before dawn I’m going to eat a nice meal, dammit.

And boy was this a nice meal.

I reheated some chopped, roasted zucchini in a skillet with a bit of black truffle oil, then scrambled in some garlic dill double cream chevre and 2 large eggs.

These eggs practically blew my mind!  Adam is the one who’s obsessed with truffle oil but I am absolutely loving it in scrambled eggs.

Plus two Republic of Tea Red Velvet Chocolate tea bags were steeped in some skim milk.

I actually find this tea to be pretty tasteless and sad (outside of the pink color!) but doubling up and using milk instead of water seemed to help.  My mom bought me the tea as an expensive gift last time she visited and I’m not going to waste it.

I drove to school in the rain and was feeling pretty glum about the upcoming week, especially when I remembered that we had a quiz in class #2.  But then our first class started and suddenly the clouds parted with all sorts of good news –

  • our Wednesday test was moved to Friday
  • our professor had to call in sick so both of my afternoon classes for today were cancelled

Bam; total mood turn around!  I swear you guys, I was so giddy it felt like Christmas morning.

I couldn’t even begin to take a photograph that captures how happy I am to be at home right now.  Though I will memorialize my final thin t-shirt with sandals look; it’s supposed to be snow weather on Thursday.

With my found time I’m going to try to make two nice meals for today and get caught up with my work for this week.  I’ll see y’all in a bit for a lunch at home!

Quick Trip To Canada

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I went to Canada today!

We didn’t really do any exciting abroad things, but we did snap pictures as we drove past the falls.  We were just making a quick trip up to the International Marathon Expo.  I offered to drive up so that blog friends Katy and Holly could pick up their packets.

I actually was planning on running the half marathon with them until not too long ago, but that’s another story for another time.

Prior to our drive, Adam and I hit up the farmers’ market in search of eggplants.  We had success.  We also found breakfast.

The husband and I split this locally made cheddar-rosemary scone.

It was crumbly and delicious.  I need to put “make scones” on my life to-do list.

Then after Canada we headed to the grocery store.  Adam and I both got totally sucked in by this register line purchase.

We split the box 60:40 (his favor), but both took at least a nibble of all four flavors.

When we got home I made myself a plate of grilled cheese epicness for lunch.

2 mini sandwiches (that’s a small plate) of sourdough bread with cheddar, 2% mozzarella, and pickled jalapeno slices.

I cooked the sandwiches in a skillet with another smaller skillet pressed on top and they turned out so crispy. 

Plus melty, cheesy, and spicy.

With a cookie for dessert.

We had dinner planned but Adam was absolutely desperate to get back to India Gate.  We compromised by eating some veggies at home first.  In the form of salads.

This was an amazing salad too.  A Romaine lettuce base topped with groats, roasted zucchini, goat cheese, and champagne dressing.

The cheese was more of the world’s best goat cheese from First Light Farm and Creamery.

This time a double cream chevre with garlic and dill.

And the dressing was a Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program sample from Marzetti’s Simply Dressed Line.

Nutrition –

From the accompanying literature – “Marzetti Simply Dressed is made with a minimal number of all-natural ingredients, such as extra virgin olive oil, canola oil (a source of Omega-3 ALA) and sea salt, and does not contain any preservatives, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, or artificial flavors or colors.”

After all that it’s ironic, but my only complaint was with one of the ingredients!  The dressing contained xantham gum (which I’m not opposed to in principle and do use occasionally in smoothies) and it made it way to viscous.  The thick, goopy, snotty (sorry) texture is not what I’m looking for in a dressing.  But the flavor was nice without being overpowering.  And I only needed 1.5 Tbsp (less than 80 calories) to feel like my whole salad was properly dressed.

‘Twas good all together.

But we hung out a bit too long between our salad course and the rest of our meal because we definitely had room for dessert, drink, and appetizer!

We started with Paneer Pakora, hhome-made cheese dipped in chickpea batter and deep-fried.

This was like the Indian spin on fried mozzarella sticks.  Here’s my serving –

We also ordered a fig lassi.

It was creamy with nice back hints of fig and these great little pieces of chewiness at the bottom.

We meant to share this 50:50 but I took a much larger portion because my meal was hot-hot-hot.

It’s not on the menu, but they were happy to hook me up with Tofu Vindaloo.

Vindaloo is a spicy, tomato based sauce that I’ve been dying to try because it’s notorious for melting your face off.  I ordered mine “hot” hot and while this was spicy it still wasn’t quite the heat level I was hoping for.  I’ve found outside of Thai food other types of heat just feel a little flat to me.

Adam repeated his order from last time, Chicken Makhani, boneless skinless tandori chicken breast prepared in tomato, butter, cream sauce and garnished with cashews and raisins.

My meals have all been good but I think there is really no way to beat this dish!  The cashews and raisins are little bits of chew embedded in every bite.

The bits of chew theme continued with fantastic rice.

I told Adam during this meal that chewiness is my favorite texture sensation.

Here was plate number 1 –

Rice, tofu, plus a taste of the Makhani sauce.  I ended up also topping my vindaloo liberally with raita to help cool things down.

For plate number 2 I ended up just layering all of the components into a pile.

It was a great combination of flavors.  And we came home with leftovers so we’ll have happy taste buds for lunch tomorrow too.

We didn’t want to kill the date-night vibe so we ended with dessert.

Gulab Jamun, deep-fried milk balls in a sweet syrup.

These were like little donuts with the slightest flavor of milk, like tres leches light.  The syrup had some sort of spice in it and lent another nice layer of flavor.  It was a fun end to a fun meal.

Which Indian dish should I check out next?

Eating By Smells

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My latte oats were tasty, but sooo filling.  I ended up leaving behind more than half of my bowl.

I swear that having this candle going increased my satiety too.

Smelling pumpkin caramel latte was almost as good as tasting it!

We didn’t really do a grocery trip this week and finding lunch that sounded good from the fridge was a bit of a challenge. 

In the end I tossed a big handful of spinach,

into a pan with a sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of black truffle oil.

Sautéed until wilted then tossed in paprika,

and scrambled in two eggs and the last 1oz of the amazing goat cheese.  The combination of smells while this was cooking was out of this world!

And the end product was better than any meal I could have planned.  A bit on the small side though.  I’m hoping to squeeze in a little grocery trip this afternoon and I plan on getting some fancy coffee to round out lunch.

So far today I’ve spent not enough time studying and too much time with this guy –

I’ve got to get my nose in a book if I’m going to make it through two tests and a paper in one week alive!  Especially because I’ve spent time on things like replacing this week’s planner pages that got “ruined” by an ink bomb.

Obsessive compulsive much?

Today Was The Day

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Hello, hello!  I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning, or rather I traveled to school the right way today.  By walking!

I’ll be glad to have my car and parking permit when the weather gets a bit more blustery, but for now I think I’ll try to hoof it more often.  The weather was crisp and cool, and the 20 minutes of travel gave me time to clear my head.  Plus, it’s better for both my body and Mother Earth’s.

I ended up not really packing breakfast or lunch, but doing a brunch-type meal during my first class.  Roasted green beans are delicious, even leftover and cold, but they did feel a little gaggy at 8am.

I pushed through, because I knew something better was coming.

I know that cinnamon raisin Bagel Thin looks unassuming, anything but!

I toasted him and spread one side with the most amazing goat cheese and the other with reduced fat pumpkin cream cheese.  The combination was out of this world.

Confession – I bought the cream cheese in early September while we were visiting my grandparents in Ohio.

I brought it back home to Buffalo and squirreled it away until Pumpkin Month.  It was still good.  And it was good.

Finally I packed a crunchy Sweet Tango apple,

which I ate during the 3-hour break.  We have a tough test coming on Friday so I crunched while I studied.

It’s possible my friends and I didn’t spend the entire three hours with our noses in books.  Gossip, Grey’s Anatomy, and Biscoff Spread discussion might have filled some time as well.  Especially when we realized that we made plans to get cupcakes more than a month ago and they still hadn’t come to fruition.  We decided today was the day.

First we had to get through 2 more classes.  Class #1 answered some really interesting questions I’ve always had about starvation mode and weight loss, and class #2 handed back last week’s exam that I scored a 96% on.  Something to celebrate!

As soon as we were dismissed a group of us hit the Elmwood strip and walked down to Zillycakes.

I can’t believe that I’ve lived in Buffalo for three years and hadn’t gone in here yet; the inside was adorable.

Janessa and I decided to split to maximize our flavor sampling potential.

2 minis and full, which ended up being the perfect serving of cupcake when shared.

We had 1) a mini vegan pumpkin with vegan brown sugar and spice icing.

I ate this first because I was expecting the least of it, but this flavor actually ended up being my favorite.  The icing was perfectly spiced and crunchy in a really pleasing way.

2) A mini caramel apple cupcake with salted caramel buttercream and toffee bits.

This was my least favorite, but it was still delicious.  There were pieces of dried apple in the cake which we both loved.

3) A full-sized mudd cupcake with dark chocolate ganache.

The cake was studded with Oreo crumbles, just like dirt pudding!  I liked the icing but it wasn’t at all what I was expecting.  It was like a dark chocolate pudding but I always thought that ganache was supposed to have a more thick, stiff texture?  Either way, it was delicious.

Wednesday’s class doesn’t get out until 4:30 so after cupcaking and taking a long walk with the husband and dog it was time for dinner.

We cooked up a box of mac and cheese with ~ 2/3 cup each frozen edamame and frozen veggie blend (carrots, peas, corn, green beans, lima beans).  We got 2.5 servings out of a 2 serving box so beefing vegging things up certainly helps to spread your dollars and calories.  I topped my serving with a dollop of sour cream and a liberal sprinkling of Sriracha.

Mmmmmmn.  I ran several sprints with the dog though (he was unusually energetic today) and my smallish serving was not enough.  I ended up going back to the kitchen for the last slice of GH sourdough spread with Smart Balance Light.

Now I’m perfectly satisfied.

Have you ever had ganache?  What’s it like?

Goats In The Grass

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So that turtle sundae was about as amazing as an afternoon snack gets.  My finger scooped several more tastes of the coffee caramel throughout the afternoon!

Thankfully I was looking forward to dinner, in large part due to my most recent co-op discoveries.

First, a maple yogurt from Maple Hill Creamery, made with organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

I so wanted to love this.  This was my first time trying any dairy product sourced from 100% grass-fed cows.  To give you some short background info, grass-feed cows provide different nutrient content (via meat and milk) than their “traditionally” fed counterparts.  Eating polyunsaturated fatty acids (such as omega-3 and omega-6) is essential for a healthy diet, but the ratio of those PUFAs is important as well.  The typical Western diet has a greater ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s and does not fall within the healthy range of the 1:1 – 1:4 ratios.  Milk from grass-fed cows provides a healthier 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.  Plus, Maple Hills Creamery is a NY company with great business practices that I’d love to support. 

However, I just didn’t enjoy this!  I want to try MHC again and I definitely want to try 100% grass-fed dairy again, but I just don’t enjoy flavored non-Greek yogurt that much.  The flavor of this was way to sour for me, no sweetness or maple flavor at all.

Once I realized that I couldn’t eat more than a bite of my yogurt – and more than a bite of 50% of my dinner calories – I ended up stealing from Adam’s packed lunches.

I know that doesn’t look very fancy but I promise it was good.  The husband threw chicken breast, carrots, and sweet potatoes into the crock pot and cooked until delicious.  Then topped the final dish with a healthy dose of A-1 Steak Sauce.

I ended up going back after a few bites for a dollop of sour cream to balance out the A-1, but overall I loved this.  The melded flavors of the sweet potato and chicken were amazing.

The second half of dinner was the real winner though.  Cue my new favorite salad.

A romaine base, topped with 1 Tbsp of Catalina dressing, craisins, groats, and goat cheese.

Can we talk about the goat cheese?  This was the co-op purchase that panned out.

A Double Cream Chevre from First Light Farm and Creamery.  A local business with sustainable business practices, and the producers of the best flipping goat cheese I’ve ever eaten!  I was dying eating my salad.

This was so creamy and rich!  Locals – buy some asap!

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.

I Hate Eggs Almost As Much As I Love Them

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It’s Friday, Friday, Friday!  The completion of my first week back at school means that weekends mean something once again.

Typical Friday lazies be damned though, I banged out a ton of work after class this afternoon.  That’s what going to the gym in the morning will do…  A classmate and I sat at a coffee shop and studied from 12 until almost 4.

I had to go to Talking Leaves (a local, independent book store) to buy my music textbook, so we sat at the attached cafe and had lunch.

Chicken pesto panini.

This bad boy – I ate 3/4 – wasn’t even the whole sandwich, I shared the other half with Janessa!

Plus a coffee with skim milk.

Adam picked me up and I came home and kept the productivity ball rolling; all of my (many!) assignments for the semester have been entered into Todoist.

Plus I made another gourmet dinner.

Walnut-Breadcrumb Pasta with a Soft Egg, from Cooking Light.  We only made two servings so we basically eyeballed all of the measurements, and we used panko breadcrumbs, but other than that we followed the recipe for a change.  The end results were worth a little obedience.

The soft eggs were perfectly thick and drippy.  They were also a pain in the butt.  We had an impossible time getting them peeled, and all I can say is that it’s a good thing we made a few extra!  We “buy” (I won a year’s worth of free eggs) Eggland’s Best vegetarian-fed eggs and my mother-in-law says the chicken’s low protein diet is what makes our egg shells so hard to peel.

With two perfect clementines for dessert.

These are just so dang good!  (thanks Katie)

Have you found the secret to easy peel eggs?  Please share!