Tag Archives: pasta

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!

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?

Two Meals At One

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Our last day in Charleston was our best day yet!  Technically we’ve got tomorrow morning as well, but we head for the airport before 6 am so I don’t have high expectations.  It was our best day of vacation, but I can’t give this post the love it deserves because I still have to pack!  Keeping it quick…

Workout – 25 minutes on the stationary bike.

Breakfast – Virginia’s on King.

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My plate.

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2 sunny side up eggs.

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Hash browns.

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Grits.

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Homemade biscuit (with butter and jam).

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I basically licked my plate clean!

Fun 1 – Middleton Place.

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Fun 2 – A stop at Sonic for a big Coke Zero with strawberries.

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Fun 3 – We explored some more downtown and stopped at a coffee shop to warm up.  While we were hanging out we just might have designed some Easter eggs.

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Dinner – Breakfast was so good that we headed back to Virginia’s for a 2nd meal!  Our instincts weren’t wrong, they brought us tasty cornbread (studded with broccoli!) with butter.

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We also shared an order of pimento cheese with flat bread.

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I went full-on Southern for my final meal.

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Fried catfish.

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Sweet potato fries.

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And baked mac and cheese.

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When in Rome.  Everyone shared bites and agreed that my plate was amazing.

See you in Buffalo!

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!

I Forgot A Title Again!

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It is problematically late, but tomorrow’s exhaustion will definitely be worth it.  I spent the first half of the day cuddling in bed with husband.  Literally, the first half.  It was fabulous.  Then we went to lunch and ran a few errands, and I spent the remainder of my day working on a giant project for my internship.  I am 100% finished with it, wahoo!

Brunch from Pano’s.

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Chicken slavaki wrap,

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with french fries.

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I ate half of each.  I’d been craving french fries like crazy but the sandwich wasn’t as exciting.  Not bad, but I’m just not that into chicken; the feta made it.

Iced coffee with Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and sugar.

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The coffee was salted caramel flavored from Wegmans and it was yummy.  I have a little bit of my cup left and I’m looking forward to it for breakfast.

A giant bowl of Lays’ Chicken and Waffle Chips.

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This finalist flavor was pretty good; the flavor was definitely “chicken.”  Embarrassing sidenote – I was talking with Adam about the dog and I heard “I usually just shake my bag of chips at him,” come out of my mouth.  The juxtaposition of usually with my bag of chips may have been my come-to-Jesus moment about how fat I’m getting.

At least nibbling does help me focus on work; I am 80% more productive with food next to my laptop.  Final snack plate.

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Honeycrisp apple,

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with ~1/2 serving of Alter Ego Quinoa Dark Chocolate.

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The chocolate was fun.  I’m excited to have Adam try some because he adores quinoa.

Dinner was a bit of a failure.  I sautéed frozen carrots and Wegman’s Japanese Stir Fry mix with a packet of Naysoya Shirataki Fettuccine in canola oil, then tossed in a serving of my peanut sauce and let it get nice and crispy.

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Sauce was great.  Veggies were great.  “Noodles” were slimy and terrible.  I ate ~half then gave a bite to Adam who promptly spit his chewed-up mouthful back in my bowl.

It was bedtime two hours ago is time for bed!

Me Eat Food

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We are 36ish hours away from finding out where we are going to live for the next 5ish years, so clearly I can’t think about anything else.  I’m not even going to try to make this coherent.  Food good.  Me eat food.

I skipped breakfast and packed too light of a lunch and my poor planning for the first half of the day left me starving for the 2nd half.  Whoops.  At least my protein-light mid-day meal was tasty.  Leftover turkey egg cup filling (sautéed mushrooms with green onion and shredded cheese),

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which I topped with some sweet seaweed snack.

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It was a good combination.  Plus 70% dark chocolate.

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On a positive note – I aced my quiz.  101%!

I show you dinner first, since most of my food consumption was in snack form.

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Cheese tortellini (about 1.5 servings) with green pepper, Kerrygold Skellig cheese (a sweet cheddar), and Tarragon vinaigrette.

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Before dinner I had… A pear.

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Jalopeño poppers and bread and butter pickles,

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a handful of chips x2,

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and a slice of turkey.

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And after dinner I had more chips and cheese.

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I was going to have a cookie too but then I got distracted looking at apartments …. in 5 different cities.

And We’re Off!

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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?