Weekly Wrap-Up; My Apartment Is Packed But I’m Still Here

I know this is a short “week,” but my laptop has been out sick since last Friday and I’m excited to have her back.

The days since I last posted have been crazy; moving requires a lot of work!  And since we had to pack up so early I’ve been living out of a duffle bag in my own apartment.  The food situation has been pretty ridiculous.  Also, I said a lot of goodbyes this week and they all involved alcohol.  The dog has been judging me.

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Breakfasts

Cinnamon Pecan Special K with skim milk.

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I’m glad that cereal is so tasty, because it was one of the only foods left in the house.

The day I tried to go without cereal (and use up some odds and ends) I ended up with…  skim milk, ~2 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk, and malted milk powder.

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It wasn’t bad, but I won’t be making it a regular breakfast either.

(Non-alcoholic) Drinks

Not so good, was the Honeysuckle Pear Drink Chia.

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The flavor combo had such potential, but I would not have purchased it if I had noticed that it contained stevia and monk fruit extract.  You know what is already sweet?  Honeysuckle and pear juice.  Why not just leave the ingredients at that rather than adding (the terrible flavor of) sugar-free sweeteners?

Very good, was the Honest Fizz Orange Pop.

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I realize there is stevia in this one that I’m not complaining about, but this was delicious.  The flavor was a perfect match to Crush Orange Soda, just a tiny bit less sicky-sweet.  I will definitely look for it again.

Flipping amazing, was the Cucumber Melon Polar Seltzer.

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If you see this – buy it!  It smelled so much like a watermelon!  My co-worker tasted it and we both agreed that it was the best seltzer we’d ever had.

Lunches and Dinners

Like I said, pickings were slim, so dinner was either brinner – aka breakfast for dinner –  or food from a restaurant.

The last slice of Finish the Fridge Frittata with a white nectarine.

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I was loving nectarines earlier this summer but lately I haven’t had much luck getting one that isn’t squishy.

The best “yogurt” bowl I’ve ever made.  Frozen blackberries microwaved with a little sugar on the bottom, Chobani 2% Banana Greek Yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese in the middle, and granola on top.

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I was heartbroken when I realized I couldn’t make another one of these bowls until after we finish moving.

On Monday, a friend and I drove up to visit to friends who relocated to Rochester after graduation.  We had a really nice day, including lunch at Aladdin’s.

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My spread was the vegetarian combo.  I chose Dolmades, Babaganoush, and Spanikopita.

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The food was amazing and we got to sit right along the canal, so the view was too.

On Tuesday, my sweet coworkers took me out for an early goodbye dinner.  We started the evening at Cantina Loco.  I didn’t really enjoy my first experience at Cantina Loco but I am very glad that my coworker knew enough to drag me back.  Everything was delicious, especially the pitchers of margaritas.

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And the Nachos Locos.

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They were covered in pork but I was a trooper and picked it off because the nachos were just that good.

For dinner I ordered the California Fish Taco – Crisp Fried Fish, Cabbage Slaw,
Pickled Onion, Spicy Sauce.

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Delicious!

We went to Founding Fathers afterwards and I am kicking myself for not going sooner.  Great bartender, great drinks, and apparently great free popcorn that I somehow didn’t notice.  Among other things, we had a shot that was basically a liquified snickerdoodle!

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The bartender asked trivia questions all night, which I loved.  I even gave him two new questions to add to his rotation.  What do you call this “?!” punctuation mark?  [Answer at the end of this post]

One night I got a spicy cajun quesadilla from The Spot.

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The prices are a little high, but the Spot’s food is quite good.

Last night’s dinner was my final slice of Zetti’s.

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My white broccoli pizza was delicious, a good way to finish out my Zetti’s addiction!

See you next week!

Answer – an interrobang

Weekly Wrap-Up

I’ve stopped doing daily posts for the time being, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped eating – and occasionally photographing – delicious things.  Once we’ve moved and things have settled down I’ll try to post more regularly, but for now I want to at least do a weekly wrap-up of some of the more scrumptious things I’ve eaten.  I’m going to borrow the style of Kath’s Lately posts for these.

A lot is missing, I don’t have any lunches and several slices of pizza went uncaptured, but here are some of the highlights from last week…

Breakfasts

I bought an amazing container of fresh blackberries early in the week and enjoyed them greatly.  They started getting soft so I put the last few servings in the freezer and I’m very much looking forward to reheating them.  First up, Dannon Oikos Café Latte Greek Yogurt with blackberries and a blend of peanut and coconut butter.

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Cinnamon Pecan Special K with Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and more blackberries.

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This cereal is so tasty; it’s got a granola-like texture but with far less calories.

A Dr. McDougall’s Peach and Hemp Oatmeal, eaten at work with a packet of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

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This oatmeal couldn’t hold a candle to my beloved Quaker cups.  It was quite gummy and strange, though I did eat all of the bites with hazelnut butter on them 😉

Snacks

I finally got a chance to try some of my shipment of the Larabar ALT lineLemon Pound Cake and Peanut Butter Cookie.

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The verdict was – I’m a fan; though I’ll admit to being less excited to try the other two flavors.  The texture was gritty sand, but in a great way, and the flavors were spot on.  I shared the lemon bar with a coworker and she said to tell y’all she liked it a lot.

On Monday, Adam, a friend, and I drove over to Williamsville to check out one of our new froyo spots – Red Mango.

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I did plain tart with tons of popping boba.  They had kiwi boba, a new experience for me.  Confession time though: I couldn’t finish that whole cup!  Who am I??

Dinners

Also on Monday, we spent the evening with another group of friends, saying goodbye to a doctor who was heading off to California.  As Adam and his friends all head off to their residencies we are having to say a lot of goodbyes.  We ate dinner at Mezza.

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A Shish Tawouk wrap – cubed marinated chicken breast, garlic spread, sweet coleslaw, and French fries, all wrapped together and grilled – with a Feta Fattouch salad.  My food was delicious, as was the diet coke with strawberry vodka I sipped from the bar.

We drank at Blue Monk before heading to dinner and I tried my first taste of mussels.

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I’ve always been wimpy about shelled seafood, but they were fantastic!  It helped that they were cooked with Ommegang Witte, lemon, leeks, garlic, parsley and cream.

We also ate dinner out last night.  I’ve wanted to try 99 Fast Food for years and Sunday after work it was finally my time.  Unfortunately all of the pho was made with beef broth so I couldn’t partake, but I did have a nice meal of tofu broccoli ginger stir-fry.

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We tried a Vietnamese Pudding for dessert.

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It was more of a drink than a pudding, red bean with sweetened coconut milk.

On Friday night I hurried home from work so we could get a little gussied.

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My bosses generously gave me their tickets to the Mash Bash, an army-themed fundraiser.

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I was literally the only person in the room not in green, so embarrassing!

There wasn’t a ton of food there that I could eat, but each ticket came with two drinks and Adam ate my share of pulled pork sandwich.

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Most of my home-cooked meals flopped this week, but I did have one success with a little help from Coleman’s Mustard.

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The company sent me a tin of powder to try {free sample, please note!}, along with a recipe for dressing –

Colman’s Chili Vinaigrette

  • 4 tbs. olive oil

  • 1 tbs. white wine vinegar

  • 1 tsp. Colman’s Original Powdered Mustard

  • 4 “splashes” mild green Tabasco sauce

  • ½ cup lemon juice

  • 2 tsp. honey

I whipped up a batch for salads; a spring lettuce based topped with English Cotswold cheese, buckwheat groats, and roasted asparagus.

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It was a good week!

Bloody {Mary} Sunday

My big plans of knocking off some school work didn’t come to fruition, but I did manage to do some day drinking.  That’s a better use of time really, isn’t it?

I started the morning with this bowl of absolute incredibleness.

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Dannon Oikos Cafe Latte Greek Yogurt, 1/2 serving Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola, fresh blackberries, 1 tsp honey, 2 Tbsp coconut butter.

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Oh my goodness, you guys, the coconut butter.  I have been reading Kath talk about coconut butter acting as a magic shell for years but I never quite knew what she meant.  It was amazing.

I also snacked on (approximately 2 servings each) BBQ Pop Chips with reduced-fat french onion dip.

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If I had known I was going to have chips with dinner I might have done a veggie-based snack instead, but at that point I planned on having soup!  Sidenote – did you know that Pop Chips has a new ketchup flavor?!  I’m pretty sure that sounds terrible.

I spent my afternoon at work.  The weather has finally gotten the memo that it’s Spring so lots of people were out and about.

At the end of my shift some friends stopped by to invite me to Blue Monk.  They were having a Bloody Mary special, with celery, hot sauce, tomato, etc infused vodkas.

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A girl from our program sweetly got us a 2nd round so I ended up having two.

Bloody Marys make me crave stick-to-your-ribs food so instead of soup I ended up with Moe’s for dinner.  A rice bowl – rice / black beans/ sautéed onion / mushroom / green pepper / cheese / sour cream / guacamole / corn salsa.

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Plus chips with queso.

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Apparently there’s always room for chips.

Do ketchup flavored chips sound good to you?

Almost Spring And Almost Celebrating

Today has been just fantastic, one of those days that reminds me how happy I am with my life.  I felt totally blessed.

First, lunch.  I was too busy for breakfast but I did have a nice noon-time meal.  Dannon Oikos Cafe Latte Greek Yogurt.  So smooth and creamy, and the flavor was better than any other coffee yogurt I’ve ever had.

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Cascadian Farm Crunchy Oats & Honey Granola Bar.

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GoGo Squeez Cinnamon Applesauce.

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’twas a good lunch.

But the news I got just before lunch was even better – Adam is going to be a surgeon!  Ok, so it wasn’t surprising news, but it was good to have things confirmed.  Today is the first half of Match Day and on Friday we’ll learn where (and if) we’re going to move.  So exciting!  I opened the e-mail and burst into tears, right there on the Neuro floor.  Apparently I’ve been a little bit stressed.  But I can’t stress enough, how proud I am of my husband!!!

I got home before him this afternoon so I got him a few congratulation gifts.

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I may have stolen a few bites.  2 dumplings,

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and 2 big bites of frosting.

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Yum!

And I got more good news this evening – my night class was canceled!  This meant I had free time to celebrate the real news with Adam.  The past two days have basically been Spring so we took a long walk up Elmwood, in sandals natch.

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My taste buds are even more ready for Spring than my feet.  We wanted to get take-out so we could go home and watch “The Nanny” and I had the hardest time choosing food because I had to have something fresh.  I couldn’t stand the thought of cheddar, popcorn or runny eggs, my usual favorites!

I ended up getting a green juice for our walk.

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And bringing a salad from Ashker’s home.

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I added banana peppers, tomatoes, and kalmata olives to the Roasted Turkey, Apple, Walnut Salad; which also came with spring mix, feta, craisins, and Vidalia onion dressing.  It was exactly what I’d been craving.

Dessert was something amazing.

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I’ve been stalking local freezers for weeks and I squealed with joy when I finally spotted Ben and Jerry’s Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt last night.

Three things you should know:

  1. I adore both lemon and lavender in dessert
  2. I have a legit problem with Ben and Jerry’s ice creams
  3. I recently decided that Liz Lemon is my spirit tv character

I had 1.5 servings and loved every bite.

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Buffalo people – I found my pint at the Elmwood Tops.

Have a great night!

2nd Friday

I did manage to pack breakfast today – eating before I leave the house is never gonna happen – but I got so into my patients that I totally forgot to eat it.  The services I’m currently on are fascinating: Neurology Step-Down and the Surgical ICU.

At least lunch looked a lot like breakfast.  A Quaker Apple Walnut Oatmeal

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topped with Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

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That combo is out of this world.

I ended up staying almost an hour late this afternoon because I took on another patient at the last minute.  Thankfully I was able to head out for fun as soon as I got home.  By the by, I know I mentioned working out today, but my right foot issue has flared up badly and if I’m honest with myself it’s probably at least another week or two before I’ll be back on a treadmill.  Boo!

Yes, it is the first Friday of this rotation, but during the second Friday of every month the art gallery on my campus hosts a free event for the public.  There is art – well, some art and lots of “art” – and nibbles.

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I’m not sure what that red sauce was but it sure was tasty, my veggies were even better than my cheese.

I ate this piece of Easter candy before I headed out for the evening.

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I met up with some friends for drinks before we headed to the gallery.

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Couldn’t resist getting another McKenzie’s cider.

After the museum, a friend and I headed to Blue Fin to get some sushi specials for dinner.

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An asparagus roll and a spicy crunchy crab roll, all for $10 including tip and tax!

What’s the best deal on sushi in your town?

Poor Puppy

I had a few silly things to complain about, but the dog had another seizure today so that kind of all pales in comparison.  He’s doing ok now but we are going to have to meet with the vet soon and possibly rethink our strategy.

Regardless, it’s been a long day and just want to go to bed.  Keeping this quick…

Kit’s Organic Chocolate Almond Coconut Bar.

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Pear.

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Honey wheat Sandwich Thin with white bean truffle spread and tempeh.  (I ate the tempeh raw and I am officially never doing that again – I am still sooooo bloated and sick.)

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1/2 serving Green and Black 70% Dark Chocolate.

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Dannon Oikos Cafe Latte Greek Yogurt with Cascadian Farm Dark Chocolate Almond Granola.  Both are heavenly and the combo was fantastic.

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Leftover stir-fry.  The last 2 servings each of roasted broccoli, white basmati rice, and copycat CF spicy cashew chicken went into a skillet with 1 tsp sesame oil and 2 large eggs.

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Ridiculous cookie.

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Please go give your pets a big smooch for me.

And We’re Off!

Today was officially my first day off (from both school and work) since January 20th!  42 days straight!!!  I didn’t even work full shifts for most of those days but it was still nice to have 24 hours all to myself for a change.

We didn’t do anything all that exciting with our newfound free-time but it still felt pretty damn nice.  We did a major grocery trip, started watching Battlestar Galactica (please tell me that the episodes are faster paced than the movie?!), and Adam currently has the guys over for poker.

Breakfast was a bowl of peanut butter and bananas, squared.

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2% Banana Chobani Greek Yogurt topped with a sliced banana, 1 tsp of melted peanut butter and 1 crumbled Cascadian Farm Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bar.

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So flipping good.

Lunch was even better.

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I took enough Pho home last night for Adam and I to both have lunch with the leftovers.  I beefed mine up with some roasted broccoli and a soft-boiled egg.  Plus more Sriracha, of course.

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The entire bowl was delicious and the egg yolk melting into the broth was so amazing that it almost made me cry.

For dessert we shared this plate of samples.

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Oh Nuts! offered to send me their Passover Cake & Cookie Sampler and I happily accepted.

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Neither of us liked the brownie piece (too dry) but we thought that the jam in the sandwich cookie and raspberry jelly roll was nice.  By the by, everything was gluten-free and kosher.

I also had an Adora calcium disk.

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I am going to try to remember to take one every day for the next while, but I probably won’t blog about it again.

Dinner ended up being a (giant!) container of hot bar.

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A little bit of mac and cheese and brussels sprouts and a bunch of chicken.  Apparently I was in the mood for protein.

I made the poker players some Mac and Three Cheese Cups but they were gone before I could snag one.  That’s a good sign!

What’s your longest run without a day off?

Kool And The Gang

Q: Do you know what these two things have in common?

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A: I used the Kool Aid to (re)dye my hair!

I never captured it in a photo, but over the last week or so I lost 90% of my purple and was left with a lot of white/grey streaks.  Since I don’t have an appointment to go back to brown for another two weeks, this wasn’t exactly a good thing.  So last night the husband helped me sit with my head in a bowl of concentrated Kool Aid.

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It was windy today!

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I’ve still got some white but overall it looks much better.  We’ll have to see how long the color lasts.  I used to dye my highlights with Kool Aid in high school and I remember getting at least a couple of weeks out of it.

The hair photos were taken on my way to work.  I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather; I had a fever and I was super achy all over.  Adam fed me an aspirin and I stayed in bed until the last possible second.  I’m feeling much better now {knock on wood}.  And thankfully I was only working a partial shift.

I skipped breakfast for bed and was very excited about food when I got home this afternoon.

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1/3 cup of Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola with Naked Vanilla Oat Milk and tons of chopped dapple plum and nectarine.

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Plus lots of tea.  A cup of Revolution Tea Lavender Earl Grey,

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and a cup of chai with 1 tsp honey an hour or so later.

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I carried the lavender theme over to my snack as well.

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My mom got these floral candies from a student whose parents are from Japan.

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My dad says they all taste like peach, but I swear the ones I tried had subtle differences.

We spent a long-ish time on errands this evening and I got a small plate of hot bar to keep from getting too cranky.

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Maple cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes plus sautéed veggies and 3 pieces of General Tso tofu.  It’s been ages since we’ve roasted sweet potato fries and we definitely need to make them again soon.

Dinner didn’t take very long to prepare once we got home, but it sure was good.

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I had 1.5 servings of Wegman’s Don’t Be a Chicken Meatless Nuggets dipped in honey.

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They were great, far more enjoyable than I ever find chicken nuggets to be.

I made use a hot spinach salad for our veggie component.

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(recipe to follow) We loved it.  The spinach was super creamy and there was such a good mix of textures.

Dinner didn’t really fill me up though, and I ate some Smart Fries while I wrote this post.

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Much better.

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Hot Spinach Salad, serves 2

  • 1 Tbsp Earth Balance vegan butter
  • 1 pint white mushrooms, roughly chopped
  • 2 pinches salt
  • 3 heaping cups raw baby spinach
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup smoked almonds
  • 1 Tbsp evoo
  • 2 heaping Tbsp vegan sour cream
  1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown mushrooms with butter and salt.
  2. Add spinach to mushrooms, tossing until greens are completely wilted.
  3. Add remaining ingredients to pan and cook 1 more minute, stirring regularly.

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I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Have you ever dyed your hair with Kool Aid?