Friday Favorites

by Emily

Here are the things that rocked my face off this week…

1: Easy, giant, veggie-laden pasta bowls.

Hearty and healthy is always a good combination – pasta / zucchini roasted with truffle salt / 2 pints of browned mushrooms / ground turkey sautéed with spices and chopped green peppers / red sauce

I could not even believe how buttery the roasted squash ended up tasting. Zucchini may just be my new favorite pasta addition, after soft-boiled eggs, of course.

2: Roasted Red Pepper Falafel and Moroccan Red Lentil Cakes from Veggie Patch.

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

I had not tried VP products prior to their media team reaching out to me, but now I am looking forward to buying more on my own. Both products had about 7 grams of protein per ~200 calorie serving and were nice and filling as the “meat” to a meal. We thought that red pepper was a zippy take on falafel and we very impressed with the texture of the red lentil cakes – the carrots studded throughout were neither soggy nor crunchy and they provided a nice note of sweetness.

Fittingly, we ate the goodies on top of Greek salads two days in a row.

All Veggie Patch products are free of GMOs and trans fats.

3: Pumpkin Yoghurt from Noosa.

OMG!! I know, I know, Pumpkin Month is still 7 weeks away, but this flavor is a Target-exclusive and I could not run the risk of it disappearing. p.s. if any New Yorkers spot the new coconut flavor, please tell me immediately so I can go buy it.

The ingredients list includes cream cheese and cinnamon, which is probably why this tastes like flipping cheesecake.

4: 4-Ingredient Strawberry Biscoff Sour Cream Gelato.

Gah! I made Lady and Pups’ Self-Made Sour Cream Gelato and swirled in cooked strawberries and Crunchy Biscoff before putting it in the freezer.

There’s no going back. This stuff is too easy; the base is literally just sour cream and sweetened condensed milk that you stir together. FYI – I used low-fat sour cream and fat-free SCM and encountered zero textural issues.

5: Blue Moon Cinnamon Horchata Ale.

Just, are you kidding me?! Add this to the list of short beers that I can happily finish a full bottle of myself. It was the perfect balance of cinnamon sweet to, you know, beer. And when I went to the website to link I discovered that they have a Caramel Apple variety and my heart actually skipped a beat. How do I get my hands on that???

Food for My Brain Bonus: Streaming the old seasons of the American version of “The Office” on Netflix. I realize that I am several years late, but now I’m obsessed. I started watching last weekend and I’m up to season 5, if that tells you anything! It is horrifically awkward – I suffer from severe secondhand embarrassment and had to watch the entire first season with squinched eyes, through my fingertips – but also incredibly funny and sweet.

How much do I envy you – have you gotten your hands on a caramel apple beer yet?

1Aug2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Greek Week

by Emily

“Greek Week” because half of the eats in this post are Greek yogurt and the other half are dinners infused with Greek flavors. It was a repetitious, but quite tasty, week.

No weekend post because I did all of my birthday excitement a week ahead of schedule. Adam had a giant, two-day test this week so we’ve been keeping things low-key. Unfortunately, I’ve also been feeling a bit under the weather. I actually stayed home from work on Monday with a migraine.

This week I kept my meals a bit smaller and planned in more snacks. This schedule worked well for me and is one I will probably continue next week too. The random snacks mostly came from my UrthBox {UB}, another new thing that I’m a fan of.

Minus many, many unpictured troughs of coffee or popcorn, here are most of my bites for the past week…

breakfasts/lunches

Coffee and cherries.

Coffee, Strawberry/Blueberry/Banana SMOOCH {UB}, and a Don’t Go Nuts Gorilla Power Bar.

The bar was insane, it tasted like freaking coffee cake!

Chobani 4% plain with maple syrup and chopped red plum and dapple plucot.

I tried the yogurt because it was a limited edition but I think I’m definitely a 0 – 2% girl; fuller fat dairy always tastes a little sour to me.

Fairway soursop yogurt with blueberries and roasted coconut and a Jax soursop coconut water.

Another new item, Chobani Banana Maple with Steel Cut Oats plus blueberries.

Not a fan. I was expecting everything to be blended into a homogenous product but this was (strangely thin) yogurt with random clumps of soggy oats.

At least pink grapefruit – with more plum and plucot – is always delicious.

On the only non-yogurt day, I made myself a “taco salad” from the cafeteria. Romaine with black olives, red peppers, cheddar and pepperjack cheese cubes, avocado, and tons of salsa.

Yeah, no. The avocado was frozen (why on earth would you ever freeze avocado??!) and what I assumed to be salsa was actually roasted red pepper. Yuck city.

snacks

Chameleon Cold Brew is (briefly) back in our life! We carted a bottle home from Whole Foods in Philadelphia.

Served iced with chocolate and skim milk.

CCB is my favorite cold brew ever. <– I looked up the website to link toin this post and saw that they now make mocha and vanilla varieties and I’m basically dying

Thai coconut curry popcorn {UB}.

Crème Brulee hard candies from Chinatown.

So good. They have a roasty, coffee-like flavor that is wonderful.

TJ’s turkey jerky with Mary’s Gone Crackers Everything Pretzels.

Those pretzels are downright addictive, perfectly salty with great crunch.

dinners

Easy, vegan pasta bowls.

Whole-wheat rotini with broccoli, roasted zucchini, and tons of marinara sauce.

Greek nachos! I baked pita chips topped with three-cheese blend, crumbled fat-free feta, tomato, red, onion, and chickpeas that I tossed with lemon juice, evoo, and oregano.

This meal was easy but super fun.

And we took the leftovers on a picnic to Corona Park the next day.

We tossed together the leftover red onion, tomato, chickpeas, and cheese with TJ’s Greek dressing, capers, cucumber, and spinach to make a tasty Greek salad.

Everything was yummy and we had a wonderful time on our picnic, but we did totally end up going to Panera for food later that evening!

Spicy shrimp pasta bowls.

This recipe was one of my favorites growing up, but I don’t think mine tasted as good as my mom’s does.

***Whoops! If anyone decides to try this recipe – I meant to write 4 SERVINGS not cups of pasta.

You just toss everything together in a baking dish, cook, and serve on top of noodles with a little parmesan. I also tossed a bunch of chopped spinach in with our bowls.

Adam loved it, thanks, Mom!

When was the last time you went on a picnic?

22Jul2014

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

by Emily

I’ve been pretty busy and I’m running a bit behind, but I ate some really yummy things last week so I didn’t want to skip the post. Here are some faves from last Monday through Friday…

break the fast

A purple smoothie.

Frozen blueberries and strawberries with maple syrup and vanilla almond milk.

Bar/fruit/coffee day 1.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Balance Bar, a Pink Lady apple, and iced coffee from Starbucks. I poured a splash of half and half into my coffee by accident last week and it ended up tasting so yummy that now it’s turned into a bad habit!

Day 2.

Caramel Almond & Sea Salt KIND Bar {former freebie}, a very juicy nectarine, and cafeteria coffee with skim milk and a splash of half and half.

ladies who lunch

Cafeteria meal.

Salad with broccoli, black-eyed peas, cheddar, balsamic, and a scoop of egg salad. Plus fries dipped in honey mustard on the side.

Sandwich.

Leftover bbq chicken on a Bagel Thin. With bread and butter pickles, chips, and cherries.

Yogurt.

Chobani 2% Pink Grapefruit Greek Yogurt with KIND Raspberry Clusters with Chia Seeds {former freebie} and cherries on the side. The yogurt was a limited edition that needs to become part of the permanent line-up. It was freaking incredible, sweet and tangy with little pieces of citrus spread throughout. I must find the watermelon variety.

snack attack

Chocolate-covered pretzels from Wegman’s.

I brought Adam some back from my Buffalo trip and made the mistake of tasting “just one.” Those things are addictive! It’s a good thing I didn’t do a taste-test in the store or I would have brought home pounds of them.

Trader Joe’s makes the best turkey jerky I’ve ever tasted.

I don’t know how the keep the texture sooooo soft.

Chocolate covered strawberry floats! Chocolate frozen yogurt in strawberry Crush.

We thought we were so clever with these.

Campfire milkshake from Ralph’s Ice.

It was insane how much this tasted like a toasted marshmallow. It was pretty intense though, there is no way I could have finished more than half of this.

Baby spinach salad.

With sweet and spicy pecans, dried blueberries, shredded carrot, evoo, honey, and lavender salt. My best salad combo to date.

dining on dinner

Salad atop salad.

The base was baby spinach with dried blueberries, sweet and spicy pecans, evoo, honey, and truffle salt.

Topped with pulled bbq chicken (and a pile of salt and vinegar chips in the back). Just boneless, skinless breasts cooked in the crockpot, shredded, and tossed with TJ’s Carolina Gold BBQ Sauce.

The sauce was wonderful, very sweet and a little spicy.

Pasta that was simple but good.

Whole-wheat rotini with browned mushrooms, ground turkey (sautéed with tons of garlic and dried oregano), frozen spinach, low-fat sour cream, and a can of tomato sauce.

This was one of those meals that seemed like it would need more flavor but then you kept eating until you were furiously scraping the bottom of the bowl.

National Thai with a girlfriend. I got spicy noodles with veggies. They were super chewy, had a good variety of vegetables, and were actually spicy; I’m pretty sure National has become my favorite Thai spot in the city.

Afterwards we went out in search of mojitos.

We ended up finding passable mango mojitos at a tiny Mexican spot in Park Slope. Their menu also mentioned watermelon daiquiris, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back again this Friday.

what’s happening

I was getting into such a great groove with my workouts, but then I got excited and upped the length of my runs too quickly. My right knee was horrifically swollen and the husband told me to stay out of the gym until the inflammation went down. Boo!!! I took a week completely off from exercise (minus a few long walks this weekend) and popped anti-inflammatories and iced like crazy. I’m going to start back in with short, easy workouts this week and continue to ice regularly. I’m going a little stir-crazy so please cross your fingers for me!

On a more positive note, I just finished reading Fault Lines by Nancy Huston and I’m recommending it to pretty much everyone.

It’s a story about a family and each section of the book is told from the perspective of a different generation. Huston did a great job of building the story in layers. The parts of the story that were told through the lens of childhood were wonderfully done.

It is my 29th birthday this Thursday. We can’t fit in any celebrating this week so Adam and I took a quick trip to Philadelphia this past weekend. I gave that its own post because this one was getting too long, but we had a wonderful time.

Have you spotted the new Chobani varieties in your area yet? Has anyone tasted watermelon??

15Jul2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; Driving Me Crazy

by Emily

This weekend was a bit of a whirlwind; I had a orthodontic emergency that sent me back to Buffalo at the last-minute. That trip ate up a fair amount of time – I spent more hours in the car roundtrip than I actually did in Buffalo! – so I don’t have a ton to share. My time in Long Island was pretty low-key.

Here are some of the highlights…

I am a big fan of Lindt’s “Hello My Name Is” line and Adam and I both loved this salted caramel bar.

We got Chinese take-out for dinner that was only so-so. My steamed broccoli with brown garlic sauce (and white rice) was delicious,

but the soup that was supposed to turn that into a full meal was basically dirty water with raw veggies floating in it. You win some, you lose some.

A much more amazing meal came out of our own kitchen.

Sautéed cabbage and turnip greens. I just cooked the veggies in some evoo and salt and they were delicious!

Plus onion-packed eggs.

Eggs scrambled with tons sautéed sweet onion and spring onions, sliced turkey, and cheese.

On Saturday we went into Brooklyn for Coney Island on Tap.

There weren’t a ton of beers I cared about (minus two watermelon brews!) so I mostly stuck with ciders.

Though I managed to drink just enough to later get into a hilariously intense fight with the husband over who would get to pee first! Afterwards we had frozen yogurt,

and Bareburger for dinner.

I couldn’t get a very good picture but I had a turkey burger (no bun) with pepperjack, turkey bacon, sweet apple grilled onions, red piquante peppers, avocado, and smoked paprika mayo. It’s my birthday next Thursday and I’ve already decided that I’m going to celebrate with Bareburger.

My road trip was a little ridiculous, like I said, I spent more time in the car than I did in Buffalo. I basically mainlined candy and coffee for two days.

But my orthodontist hooked me up, and even with gas and tolls I saved more than $1,000 by making the trip. And I got to stay with newlywed friends and see their gorgeous new house.

And we went to Thai Orchid, which I had been severely missing. My girlfriend and I both started with the soup special, broth with noodles, bok choy, tons of crabmeat, and great shrimp wontons.

I went with my old favorite for dinner, Pad See Ew with extra veggies.

It was fantastic, totally worth the whirlwind visit! 😉

4Jul2014

Three Day Week Wrap-Up

by Emily

Today is the Fourth of July, and I took Monday off to play with my parents, so this work-week was only three days long for me; woot! Only three days and it still took an embarrassing amount of coffee – with an even more embarrassing amount of sugar – to get me through.

I didn’t do the best job of documenting, but I do have photos of every single lunch and dinner. And I won’t post details, but I do want to check in and mention that I’ve been consistent with my workouts ever since last week’s plea to hold me accountable. Crossing my fingers that I keep my momentum going!

My lunches this week all included free samples from LÄRABAR.

Please note, the RENOLA was sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

They sent me a box to introduce their new RENOLA – grain free granola made with non-GMO fruits, nuts, and seeds.

I think calling this “granola” may be a bit disingenuous, but it is a quite fabulous fruit, nut, and seed blend. The texture is very pleasing; fantastically crunchy. It did taste absolutely delicious on yogurt and in cereal though, so if you are turned off by your oats getting soggy in milk then this product would definitely be a good fit for you. The pouches are nice and filling, thanks to 2 -3 grams of fiber and 5 – 8 grams of protein for 200 calories.

Tuesday, I had Cinnamon Nut with Cheerios and skim milk.

Wednesday, I had Berry with Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt, Meyer lemon curd, and blueberries.

And Thursday, I had Cocoa Coconut with vanilla bean Greek yogurt, roasted coconut, and blueberries.

The coconut-heavy bowl was my favorite lunch of the week.

Snacks worth noting were all in the chocolate family. A Lindt Dark Chocolate Cookie Bar.

And a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.

I didn’t have the candy and the stout at the same time but I totally should have. I could not believe how yummy the beer was; it is rare that I finish a whole beer but this one I happily slurped down.

I think four days straight of all meals out with my parents helped get me in the kitchen mood because I managed to make an actual meal every night this week.

Tuesday was more on the semi-homemade side, we ate gussied up bowls of my leftovers from Sunday.

I beefed up my leftover shredded Brussels sprouts with chopped baby spinach, dried blueberries, sweet and spicy pecans, and a dressing blend of evoo, honey, and truffle salt.

With a scoop of lobster mac and cheese on top.

Just so good. And it’s a testament to the “dressing” that I enjoyed the salad bites even more than the lobster mac.

Wednesday we had very monochromatic pasta bowls.

Orecchiette with tons of artichokes – frozen from TJ’s that I sautéed in evoo with lemon juice – and lemon zest, browned butter, and toasted hazelnuts.

I snuck my green into my appetizer.

Nachos! BBQ chips baked with chopped spinach and three cheese blend.

Last night I made a very loosely inspired version of chana masala.

Chickpeas cooked with chopped onion, diced green pepper, garlic, tomato paste, and super spicy tamarind chutney.

Served on brown rice with a scoop of plain Greek yogurt on top. This meal was wicked good! I went back for another bowl of just the veggie mixture because I couldn’t stop thinking about how tasty it was. Go me.

P.S. Happy Independence Day to my American readers!

2Jul2014

Weekend Wrap-Up; We Loved – {fill in the blank}

by Emily

I’m behind on my posts because I’ve been playing hostess for my parents. We were quite sad to see them go Tuesday morning, but we did manage to fit a TON into their five-night visit. We made it to SoHo, Tribeca, Park Slope, Williamsburg, Huntington, and Port Jefferson, among other places. And we ate and ate and ate. Rather than a full recap, I want to share some of the things we loved this weekend…

(1) – Cheeeeese

The four of us were very impressed with this cheese plate from C’est Cheese.

The Taleggio and Comte were the group favorites.

We went to Luigi’s – to celebrate my parents’ last night and Adam’s last day as an intern! – and I ordered eggplant parmesan and the three of them ordered chicken parm.

My sautéed spinach totally beat their house-made spaghetti, in my opinion.

(2) – Ice Cream

Every single day, at least one of us had ice cream. <– the perfect way to vacation

Grasshopper frozen yogurt from Emack and Bolios.

Ample Hills knocked everyone’s socks off because it is the best ice cream in the city.

I got Peppermint Patty and Snap, Mallow, Pop. {thank you, Jenna, for letting me know that those two flavors would work wonderfully together}

(3) – Ethnic Food

We did lunch at Katz’s Deli on Friday.

Broccoli knish and with pickles for me.

The counter system and Katz’s gives me serious anxiety, but the food is totally worth it in the end. My parents loved their matzo ball soups.

Lunch at Smorgasburg on Saturday.

You cannot go wrong with the duck bun – with sweet and spicy chili sauce – from Bite Size Kitchen.

They are my very favorite thing from Smorgasburg.

The Halo Halo from Lumpia Shack is a close second though.

What???

Pip Snack kettle corn / ube foam / leche flan / shaved ice / ube (purple yam) / green market strawberries / coconut jelly / coconut strips / palm seeds / sweet bananas.

It was just so ridiculous and wonderful. Apparently palm seeds are delicious.

(4) – Seafood

We were pretty pleased with Schafer’s in Port Jeff.

I had fantabulous lobster mac and cheese.

My big chunks of fresh lobster were in a brie and mozzarella sauce, so this one probably could get filled under “Cheeeeese” too. With shaved Brussels sprouts.

The sprouts were raw, served with dried cranberries, green apple, candied walnuts, crumbled blue cheese, and lemon vinaigrette.

That meal was great, but it could barely compete with Luke’s Lobster.

Ahhh!

Extra vinegary cole slaw,

and a 1/2 crab roll, lobster roll, and shrimp roll for each of us.

We were all swooning over the lobster. Do you see that claw?!

(5) – How Flipping Awesome My City Is

I ❤ New York!

20Jun2014

Long Week Wrap-Up; Something Blue

by Emily

My first post since last Thursday, since the week/end flew by. Really the whole month of June feels like it’s flying by!

In spite of being busy, I did manage to photograph every single thing I ate Monday – Thursday, minus one cup of iced coffee. <– go me! That’s in sharp contrast to Saturday and Sunday, when I took exactly two photos:

Baked brie that I shared with a girlfriend at C’est Cheese. It was delicious, obviously. We were in Northern Long Island on a Saturday because our friends Kim and Dan were getting married!

Kim is seriously the classiest person I know so their wedding was, of course, amazing. I felt too weird to take a picture of my plate at the table of college friends we didn’t know, but the food was delicious.

I spent Sunday lazing around the house, eating potato chips. But come Monday, I got myself together. Here’s the recap…

breakfasts

The food stand at my LIRR station sells iced coffee now! This would be more exciting/a bigger bummer for my wallet except that they only have coffee creamer, no skim milk, so I doubt I’ll get it that often.

I had a 2nd coffee (with chocolate milk) when I got to work. <– the only food item that escaped my camera this week

Breakfast at my desk.

Coffee, a peanut butter & strawberry KIND bar, and a red pear that I gave up on after two bites because it was just too drippy with juice to manage at my desk.

Smoothie time. Frozen raspberries, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and a big scoop of Cacao Bliss.

The coconut butter froze into delicious little balls embedded throughout the smoothie. Kind of like the old Orbitz drinks!

Chocolate malted coffee.

I stirred a scoop of malt powder into chocolate milk before mixing it into my cold brewed coffee. This was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

lunches

A winning yogurt bowl.

Plain Greek yogurt with 2 Tbsp of Meyer lemon curd and 1/2 a pint of fresh blueberries.

Cafeteria salad.

Greens topped with balsamic dressing, pickled veggies, tons of pickles, and big scoop of chicken salad.

Vita Coco coconut water latte plus homemade “instant” oats.

Just rolled oats, freeze-dried strawberries, cinnamon maple sugar, and a Tbsp of malted milk powder that I covered with hot water from the cafeteria.

Thursday was insanely busy and my lunch plans went out the window. When I finished my final gestational diabetes education I did eat cereal at my desk at 3pm.

That Special K was pretty good. And now I have my packed lunch ready and waiting for me tomorrow.

That yogurt bowl is going to be goo-ood.

snacks

Last week I bitched about my insane afternoon hunger so this week I leaned into the problem and packed smaller lunches to accommodate many (many, many) snacks when I got home. Though these jelly beans were actually eaten at work.

The 2nd half of a package of TJ’s Inner Peas.

Cinnamon pita chips with TJ’s honey goat’s milk gouda. <– ridiculous

Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.

Lemon pie milkshake, aka my best idea ever (rivaled only by the malted coffee!).

We blended vanilla bean ice cream, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, Meyer lemon curd, and Cascadian Farm Graham Crunch cereal and it was flipping fantastic.

dinners

This frozen entrée of white fish with zucchini and pesto was quite lovely.

The fish didn’t do much for me, but the squash/sauce bites were delish.

Plus, how great is this ingredient list?

The 2nd half of that dinner had a decidedly less short ingredient list.

But my Lean Cuisine stuffed pretzels were tasty nonetheless.

More homemade Pad Thai.

This time with shiitake mushroom, broccoli and tofu.

The tofu was Nasoya Sprouted Tofu Plus that I topped with a mixture of Sriracha, smoked brown sugar, and rice vinegar before baking.

Gardein Mandarin Crispy Chick’n that we bulked up with roasted broccoli.

Plus frozen kale cooked with peanut sauce and crushed peanuts.

All together this was nice.

Adding vegetables to frozen meals is a good compromise between my desire to eat a healthy dinner and my desire to come home and sit on the couch without pants.

I hate to end this post on a blah note, but Adam worked Thursday night and my single lady dinner was pretty lame. The last serving of broccoli and chick’n,

with popcorn,

and this embarrassing little bowl of melted coconut oil with Dutch cocoa powder and sugar.

Mom, Adam has leftover Pad Thai so I did not leave him stranded for “dinner” when he gets home in the morning!

Were you a fan of the Orbitz soda? I would totally buy it now if it was still available.

14Jun2014

Weekly Wrap-Up; Snack Monster

by Emily

O. M. G. I was so flipping hungry all week, it was annoying. I was basically starving. <– if you haven’t seen CK Louis’ SNL intro monologue yet, go watch it immediately.

Stream of consciousness style, here is a sampling of some of this week’s insane snack consumption…

Other bars for breakfasts came courtesy of this sweet samples package from KIND.

I’ve flirted with loving different brands bars off and on, but throughout the years KIND products have remained some of my very favorites, so I was thrilled to try some of their new products. The two newest bar flavors are ridiculous good. They are all low in sugar – 5 grams of sugar or less and they don’t use artificial sweeteners – and are a good source of fiber and protein. Adam and I were both impressed by the Caramel Almond & Sea Salt.

And Dark Chocolate Mocha Almond knocked my socks off. New all-time favorite! This is what I always wish mocha would taste like.

Their Grain Clusters, basically granola, are a unique blend of gluten-free oats, millet, quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat; each 50g serving provides more than one full serving of whole grains. The Fruit and Nut Clusters made great yogurt bowls for lunches this week.

With blackberry lime Greek yogurt and blueberries plus a sour sop coconut water on the side.

And with sour sop yogurt(!!!) with blueberries and Cacao Bliss.

On Tuesday I did a salad from the cafeteria. Topped with pickled vegetables and a big scoop of chicken salad.

On Wednesday Adam had the day off so we met up for a lunch date!

Our meals cost only $10 each for huge plates of noodles and an appetizer.

And on Friday I packed Fage with passion fruit and clementine, nectarines, and TJ’s freeze-dried apples.

The apples were insanely good and I want more immediately. I planned on supplementing my smaller lunch with food from the cafeteria but it was a coworker’s last day so I had cake instead.

In spite of my copious snacking, I was too hungry to properly deal with dinner during the first half of the week.

My Bare Burger turkey burger – with smoked mozzarella, fried onions, all of the pickles, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and ketchup – was amazing and I ended up ordering one two days in a row!

When I finally did get around to making my own dinners like an adult, I had an assist from Pirate’s Booty.

They just introduced a line of macaroni and cheese and they sent me some samples to try out. The price, flavor, and texture were very comparable to other boxed mac and cheese options, but Pirate’s Booty uses organic pasta and contains no artificial colors or flavors.

We ended up with two very fancy feeling semi-homemade dinners.

Night one, I stirred roasted mini heirloom tomatoes in to the mild cheddar macaroni.

On top of spinach salads – baby spinach topped with chopped pecans, crumbled blue cheese, 1 tsp each honey and evoo, and a sprinkle of truffle salt.

Night two was another side-by-side bowl of greens and ‘cheese.

My veggie side was a simplified take on Jenna’s baked beans.

I just baked chopped kale with a can of beans, cup of whiskey maple bbq sauce, a scoop of Bone Suckin’ Mustard, and a ton of chopped garlic.

My pasta was aged white cheddar shells with TJ’s frozen mushroom medley and some sweet cheddar.

Delicious! I plan on buying both the shells and the mushrooms this weekend so I can make this meal again.

What is your family’s favorite way to gussy up boxed macaroni and cheese?

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: pasta

Friday Favorites

Please note – these products were sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Weekly Wrap-Up; Greek Week

breakfasts/lunches

snacks

dinners

Last Week’s Late Wrap-Up

break the fast

ladies who lunch

snack attack

dining on dinner

what’s happening

Weekend Wrap-Up; Driving Me Crazy

Three Day Week Wrap-Up

Please note, the RENOLA was sent to me free of charge to review. I was not provided with further compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Weekend Wrap-Up; We Loved – {fill in the blank}

(1) – Cheeeeese

(2) – Ice Cream

(3) – Ethnic Food

(4) – Seafood

(5) – How Flipping Awesome My City Is

Long Week Wrap-Up; Something Blue

breakfasts

lunches

snacks

dinners

Weekly Wrap-Up; Snack Monster