Tag Archives: sauce

Shaken, Not Stirred

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I didn’t get as much done this morning as I could have hoped, but it was certainly an improvement on my track-record of late.  I have my final Chemistry quiz (and lab!) tomorrow, for which I began studying making up reading for at the oh-so-responsible hour of 10:00 this morning.

My breakfast wasn’t really big enough so I did some snacking while I studied.  Half a package of chocolate covered espresso beans; I can’t believe how long I’ve had these sitting in my cabinet.  [My camera ate the photo, but if you click the link there is an original picture of them there]

As well as some homemade trail mix;

1/2 cup Kashi H2H, 1/6cup dried cranberries, 1T cinnamon chips.  I liked this combination a lot.  I always make my own trail mixes because they tend to be healthier than store-bought, but I end up putting so many healthy items in that the serving size becomes unhealthy.  Today’s mix had ~200calories and still managed to interest my taste buds.  Sometimes simplicity is better.

I worked on my lab-work all morning then threw some veggies in the oven while I took a much needed shower.  I emerged much cleaner, and quite excited about my roasted veggie salad lunch.

Romaine lettuce base topped with roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and yellow squash.

I roasted extra veggies so I could put some pre-made in the fridge for the rest of the week.

I ‘made’ extra of my salad dressing as well.  I was in the mood for blue cheese but I’m not one of those bloggers who like my lettuce dry; I knew I would need to spread my dressing further in order to get enough of it.  So for two servings (today and tomorrow) I shook together 2T blue cheese dressing with 2T vinegar.

Whenever Adam and I finish a jar, canister, or what-have-you we always wash it out and save it to be reused.  It is a convenient way to be green, and save some $.

Speaking of saving money, I can tell this is going to be a snacky day so I thought ahead this time and threw some snacks into my purse already.  I’m heading to campus to pick up the husband before Anthropology and Chemistry, I’ll let you know what I ended up snacking on when I get back for dinner.

Does your family reuse containers or do you just trash them?

Fancy Friday

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It’s officially the weekend!  My laptop recycling went well, they even gave me back the hard drive which I thought was pretty cool.

I had a coupon to Aunt Annie’s so while we were at the mall we enjoyed some pretzels.

I had 2/3, with mustard.

When we got home we got right now work on dinner which ended up being a pretty fancy affair.

Salad with homemade dressing and oven “fried” brie.

And the husband made salmon patties.

It all came together to make quite the meal.

Oven “Fried” Brie

  • President Brie Logs
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
  1. Cut brie log into 1/2inch slices.
  2. Dip slices in egg and then dredge in bread crumbs.
  3. Place breaded brie on a foiled, sprayed cooking sheet and bake at 450* for 10minutes.

The dressing was inspired by our “finished” container of Jack Daniels mustard.

To the remains of the mustard I added 2t clementine oil, 2t red wine vinegar and shook.  I also pulled out the last of the 1000island dressing from last week for salmon patty dipping.

Adam and I are watching the latest episode of “Bones” and then the plan is to be in bed before 10:30.  Tomorrow is a busy day.

Do you ever make your own salad dressing.  Any combos you’d like to recommend.

Blizzard Provisions

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I haven’t accomplished much since breakfast.  But really I can’t blame myself for being distracted – it is practically blizzarding outside!  Maybe not a blizzard to you Northerners, but the snow is coming down sideways and that’s enough for an island girl like me!

I wasn’t sure what I wanted for lunch, but when I saw a yam on the counter I knew there wasn’t really a choice.

Even more exciting that sweet potato fries is the fact that my oven is glowing purple like that for the picture.  I chopped up a small sweet potato, sprayed and sprinkled liberally with evoo and salt, and put it in a 475* oven for 30minutes or so.

It took longer than I expected and I ended up having a few snacks.  First, I tried this new cheese.

Kerrygold Aged Cheddar.

I only had a small square, but I know this will go perfectly in a grilled cheese sandwich sometime later this week.

Post-cheese, I was admiring the holiday tea set my m-i-l gave me,

when I remembered something very seasonal I had forgotten in the cabinet:

Rice Nog!  I’m not gonna lie, I bought this in October and squirreled it away for the proper season.  Be warned, this is good, but not even close to Silk’s Soy Nog.  I had 1 cup, which I heated for a minute in the microwave before topping with nutmeg.

I ate it by the window, but I didn’t need a warm to drink to remind me why I’m glad to be inside today –

Eeek.  Sweet potato oven fries were the perfect warm meal.

I made some – better tasting than looking – Thousand Island Dressing for dipping purposes.  2T sweet pickle relish, 1T lite Miracle Whip, 1T ketchup.  There ended up being way too much, you could probably cut those measurements down to teaspoons.

If you’re wondering why I squeezed the taters onto that small plate, it’s because I was reusing my apple plate for this morning.  I’m into dish conservation!

I’ve got lots of cleaning and a little bit of class work to do before I have to run some errands.  Thank goodness Adam is driving me tonight, there is no way I’d be going out alone!  I probably would choose to not go out at all but tonight is my final lab (yay!) and I have to check out in person or face a $100 fine.

Are you stocked up on “in case of emergency” provisions?  What items does your family stock?  We are not stocked, a fact we need to rectify this weekend.  There’s really no excuse, my dad has called to remind me at least 10 times since November!

Read Head

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It was an interesting if not entirely productive morning.  My computer had an incredibly annoying virus which I dealt with, but which took forever.  I was freezing – in spite of the heat being on and my turtleneck – so I curled up on the couch with a comforter and a book.  So cozy!  I fell asleep for a bit and was woken up by UPS –

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Yay!  And then I finished my book!  I have always loved to read, I devour books, but it’s been forever since I’ve been able to just curl up with one for hours.  I read Madness, Marya Hornbacher’s (second) memoir.  It was good; very sad, but interesting.  I read her first memoir, Wasted, when I was in middle school and it seriously changed the way I thought about literature.  Hornbacher is such a beautiful writer, her style is all off the place and full of vivid descriptions, it’s perfect for me.

The rest of the afternoon, unfortunately, was completely killed by a migraine 😦  I’ve grown out of them for the most part, and now they are pretty responsive to Ecedrin Migraine, but they still eat up a few hours.  When Adam got home around 5 I realized that part of the problem was having not eaten since breakfast so we split a Granny Smith apple.

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I spread my portion witha 100calorie pack of Justin’s Organic Honey Peanut Butter.  I love pb on tart apples.

Our main fun for the evening was a trip to the grocery store so we made a weekly meal plan and off we went.  I love doing errands with my husband so much!!!  The grocery store is one of my favorite places, especially because they gave me several free samples today 🙂

Dinner was eaten in a strange series of courses, all of which were quite good.  I was at the stove, so I ate most of them there, which was actually sort of cathartic.  Btw, I was at the stove because I was making Adam a Wholly Wholesome Pumpkin Pie.

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The husband is a crazy-face; he is obsessed with pumpkin (“punkin” he says) pie but won’t let me make it from scratch because apparently that would be gross?!

First dinner course, 2 celery stalks with 1t light chunky blue cheese dressing.

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My huge package this afternoon came from Dr. McDougall’s.  I had never heard of their soups before, but when they sent me a description and asked me if I wanted some samples I happy obliged.  I tried veggie today.

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The company was quite sweet, and sent me this pretty place setting from Crate & Barrel.  So fall-ish!

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I liked the nutritional stats on the soup, and almost never eat one portion when it comes to soup, so I ate the whole box.

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It was quite good.

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Third course, and the other reason I was at the stove, was bbq cabbage.

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I didn’t measure anything but I’ll give you the basic steps/ingredients.  Heat Smart Balance Light in a pan over medium-high heat.  Add 1/2 head chopped napa cabbage.  Cook for 2-3minutes before adding 1/2 – 1 cup of water and covering.  After sufficient steaming time, douse with worchestire sauce, hot sauce, honey, ketchup, and apple cider vinegar.  Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 7-10 more minutes.  Delish, it ended up being like I imagine Kim Chi would taste.

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Finally, I ate 1.5 servings of Synder’s Buffalo Wing pretzels while Adam and I watched the new episode of Bones.

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The perfect date evening!

It’s too bad I spent most of my day asleep, because now I have more to do this weekend, but I do feel well-rested.  We have a lot planned for tomorrow, all of which I’m pretty excited for.  Happy weekending everyone!

Who is your favorite author? As I mentioned, I have a reading obsession, but Hornbacher is definitely one of my favorites.  I am also a big fan of C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Gregory Maguire, and Kurt Vonegut.

Eat Up the Fridge

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I was very productive on the business-front (although registration for classes does not look promising) but my split study schedule might have been a bad idea.  By the time I got back to Starbucks in the afternoon it was packed.  I roamed all the coffee bars in the area and it took me until 4:45 to find one that wasn’t sardined with Park Slope stay-at-home-mommies.

I drank a Fizzy Lizzy Tangerine while I worked and did manage to get some good studying in until Adam came to meet me at 6.

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This drink was real juice with fizzy water and had 100% daily dose of vitamin C for 100calories.

Our fun plan was to hit up a beer tasting at a place on 5th Avenue but that fell through.  When we got there we learned that 1. the tasting was an hour later than listed online, and 2. they don’t have a full liquor license so we couldn’t sit and drink beers while we waited.  Our make-up plans were much better though 🙂

We took the looong walk (3miles total) to 7-11 for my version of heaven.

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I got a Big Gulp of diet coke and it made me smile the whole walk home.  And, we stopped in at a local playground so I could do what I’ve been dreaming of for the past two years…

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…climb the mini rock wall!  It was everything I had hoped for.  We also tried to do the monkey bars but I was way too weak, children’s game are good workouts.

I was very hungry by the time we got home so I ate 5 of Adam’s Saltines,

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and another kiwi bowl.

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Dinner was a ‘use up the fridge’ effort that ended up being amazing.

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My plate had –

  • 1/3C cooked wheatberries
  • ~2/3C sauteed peas and artichoke hearts
  • 1/2 can of tuna
  • the last jalopeno chicken sausage
  • and tasty sauce (for 2 servings I shook together 2T red wine vinegar, 1T lemon juice, 1T evoo, 1shake oregano and paprika)

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This was so yummy!  It was a great mix of textures and the flavors blended together really nicely.

Tonight I would like to do a mini workout (seriously mini, like 20 sit-ups) and I will probably have a small snack/dessert if fullness doesn’t kick in after 20minutes.  I am also determined to go to bed early!

Have you had any recent ‘eat up the fridge’ successes?

Saturday Evening – Monday Afternoon

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Hello, hello, hello!  Merry Monday to everyone who is working.  I’m loving vacation but I actually am looking forward to having a “work” schedule again; not that I know where/if I’ll be working next year.

As predicted, Saturday night’s dinner was awesome.  The view from my seat was this –

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Even better, they sent out a complimentary amuse bouche.
This was a crostada with chutney and chicken if I remember correctly.

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Similarly, Adam ordered mushroom brushetta, which I ate a slice of, for his appetizer.

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I didn’t do an appetizer because I knew my dinner was going to be pretty rich.  I ordered the Blackened Mahi sauteed spinach, garlic mashed potatoes, chipotle red pepper lobster cream sauce, avocado crab salad.

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This was so good.  I gave the husband the avocado crab salad because he loves that sort of thing but I devoured the rest.

For dessert we split a plate of homemade truffles.

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Doing some knife gymnastics we got each candy cut into four pieces so we all could try everything.

Intense torrential downpour canceled all of our bar plans, but we did manage to have another great evening playing games.  I had another iced coffee with skim milk,

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and a big bowl of air-popped corn that I didn’t snap a picture of.

Sunday – no sun day

The rain continued but we didn’t let it get us down!  My mom made beer bread so I ate both end pieces for breakfast with a slice of swiss cheese.

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Beer bread is so tasty, I think it might be time for me to get the frickin’ recipe from her!

Next Adam and I accompanied my parents on a trip to the grocery store.  We were pretty impressed by the variety of produce at The Fruit Bowl.  When I grew up here as a kid there were not a whole lot of choices.  To this day when I go to gas stations in the states I stand in front of the drink fridge and just stare at all the choices.

For lunch my mom semi-homade’d some super tasty pizza.  She sauteed onion, spinach, green olives and red pepper and then put them on top of frozen cheese pizza before she baked it.

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This was so yummy I ended up going back for a 2nd, unphotographed, slice.  I also had some juicy watermelon.

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And more iced coffee.

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I enjoyed my coffee but I immensely enjoyed tucking into a stack of Archies in the middle of the day.  Mid-afternoon we headed out to the movies to see “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”  Terrible.  It was too teenagey for us, which is fine, clearly we were not the intended age group, but I was disgusted by the fact that they made it “cool” to drive like a maniac.  I’ve known way too many people who’ve gotten killed or seriously injured in a car accident so I don’t think it’s ever funny to be a bad driver.  In fact, my new favorite PSA is the one where a game show host pops into the back seat and reminds a kid to tell his friend to slow down.  My movie snack did not suck at least, I only ever eat Jordan Almonds from the movie theatre in St. Thomas.

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After more relaxation it was time for dinner.  My mom cooked Adam and my dad chicken and dumplings, which I hate, so I rustled up dinner on my own.

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I think I ended up with a pretty good spread!  Beer bread,

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ants on a log,

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and a salad – iceberg, Parmesan, cashews, red pepper, cucumber.

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I semi-homemade’d myself some dressing by shaking together these two things:

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The evening fun was, you guessed it, more games.  And I’m not going to say I didn’t eat 1 or 2 unphotographed chocolate chip cookies.

Monday

I woke up this morning in a total funk.  I was hot, hungry, and just plain aggravated.  I think a lot of it is that I’m getting nervous about our upcoming move and going (or especially Not going) back to school.  My cold shower helped and so did stopping at Subway on the way to my mom’s library.

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6″ tuna subs are good but I was especially cheered up by the two cookies.

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I played BattleShipwith the husband for a bit and after I am done with this post we are going to do some online consumer report comparing for my birthday gift.  He surprised me the other day by insisting that I get a heart rate moniter for my b-day; I’ve wanted one forever but haven’t been able to justify spending the money on myself.  We agreed to look for cheapish one and my parents offered to pay 1/2 as my birthday gift from them so I’m pretty excited.

P.S. don’t forget to enter this sweet Soap & Chocolate giveaway.