Pizza for Breakfast and Presents for Dinner

I’ve got to cover breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, so hang in for a longish post.  Thank goodness I don’t do things like work out or leave the house, there’d just be too much to say!

Breakfast (late breakfast) was one of my favorites, Pizza Eggs.

Eggland’s Best scrambled up with turkey pepperoni, sharp cheddar, and marinara sauce.  To die for.

Making it even better, I’ve discovered the best way ever to scramble – leave the yolks set (almost like you are making fried eggs) and scramble just the whites.  Then, at the last minute, scramble in the yolks.  Allowing the components to cook apart for a while takes eggs to a whole ‘nother level!

Lunch covered another favorite technique, my new favorite for tuna salad.

I call this “Last Date Tuna Salad;” my regular recipe – canned tuna, miracle whip, and tons of pickle relish – taken over the edge with the addition of lots and lots of chopped red onion.  Try it, you’ll thank me, just don’t kiss anyone right after lunch!

Aside my salad was a piece of ciabatta bread, toasted and buttered.

It was a smelly tasty lunch.

I had to eat a peppermint stick to slay my breath before the husband came home!

I also nibbled through the last two cookies this afternoon.

Remind me how I haven’t made every last one of Jenna’s recipes yet?

Then came dinner.

My generous parents know we’re too poor for healthy seafood (and I’m too much of a girl for sardines), so they gifted us with “charge some salmon to the credit card one night, and marinade it in the maple dill dressing from your stocking” for Christmas. <– Yes, this was a stocking gift; and yes, they’re a little crazy.

Alongside we roasted up some asparagus,

and mini yellow potatoes.

And then there was snack.  For dessert we sampled a new flavor of Pop Chips.

Think early bedtime thoughts for me please; tomorrow I’m going to try to get up and be a real girl, maybe I’ll even leave the couch house!

Three Out Of Five

Let’s go back and look at that agenda.

Stack of magazines, cookbook reading, crafting, home cooked dinner, baking.

Check, check, check.  Three out of five isn’t so bad.

Now the highlights.

My whilst-cookbook-reading snack was pretty great.

I toasted up a serving of Van’s Mini Waffles, topped with marinara, 50% reduced sharp cheddar, and turkey pepperoni, then baked at 400* until melty and crunchy.

My reading was pretty great too.

Baked is a fantasmic shop in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  The first time we trekked there was right after I finished reading Black, White, and Jewish, and the whole trip felt magical.  My mom gave me the cookbook for Christmas and I can’t wait to recreate the Baked brownies.

Dinner was not so great.  We should have stuck with the plan.  Instead we strayed from the agenda and had big heaping plates of Screaming At Each Other Like Crazy People.  Too spicy and wholly unsatisfying.

Three out of five isn’t so bad.

P.S. We’ve since made up.  And the husband delivered me a glass of skim milk with a chocolate milk straw.

Just the Facts

This needs to be a quick post, just the facts.  Adam and I got hooked (way hooked!) on Firefly today and the sooner I post the sooner I watch  🙂

This morning = Sabrina the Teenage Witch and a huge bowl of popcorn.

Bringing ‘corn back into this house was a bad idea, and that’s a fact.

Plus real lunch.

Sandwich Thin with cheese spread and turkey,

Bartlett pear.

Dinner a la mother-in-law; turkey quesadilla casserole.

End.

STT; Merry Christmas – Sunday Afternoon

I hope everyone had happy holidays!  Adam and I have been feeling extremely blessed.  I’m also feeling busy, I hate how brief I have to make these recaps!

Ok, back to Friday afternoon.  Since we had already paid the daily admission fee, Adam and I headed back to Magen’s beach.  He swam, I read a magazine, and we both clapped in delight over these signs –

On the way back, we had to hit up an island institution.

Going to St. Thomas without making a stop at the dairy is practically criminal!  Adam and I split a Bailey’s Delight, made with rum raisin ice cream, egg nog, and brandy.

Then it was time for the final prep for our big Christmas Eve party.  A family friend who knows we usually just have to scrounge on the 24th brought over turkey chilli with kidney beans for dinner.

The rest of the evening’s eats were indeed party food.  I have no pictures from the actual party, but you can assume I ate at least one of everything, and that it was all delicious!

My hot pepper peach cheese ball.

Baked spinach and artichoke dip.

Baked brie topped with cranberries and walnuts.

Dippers.

Pinwheels.

Fixings for mini turkey sandwiches.

Mini bagels with cream cheese and lox.

Frosted shortbread.

Snowballs, macaroons, and 7-layer bars.

We were also fully stocked with booze.  I spent most of my evening carrying around a tray of tequilla shots – it’s a Christmas tradition!  And while I did manage to skip that particular tradition, I got so wasted on orange juice with Goldshlager (don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it!) that Adam had to pour me into bed.

Christmas morning began the best possible way – with a light workout!  Adam and I ran for about a mile near the beach, then hiked the mile home.  It was a short workout, but considering that we had double hangovers and presents to open, I’m pretty proud of us.

A small glass of egg nog was consumed during stockings,

and then a lovely breakfast before presents.

Sidenote – our family does stockings, breakfast, then presents.  Always.  What was your Christmas morning tradition?

Gingerbread coffee with 2% milk,

a small plate of eggs with red and green pepper and Applegate Farms turkey bacon,

and a 0% Plain Chobani with a slice of coffee cake.

I should have given myself a bigger serving of eggs, I gave away most of my bacon/yogurt/cake.  In spite of our refreshing run, I think my nighttime imbibing had made me a little picky.

Not too picky, however, to turn down a big handful of maple sugar cotton candy(!!).

After present opening (which was plentiful – thank’s mom and dad!) there was lunch.

Apple slices and baby carrots,

and crackers with leftover hot pepper peach and spinach dip.

Plus dessert.

Dinner was consumed at my aunt’s house, with a large group of family and friends.

Plus a slice of garlic bread,

and a slice of delicious yellow cake with blueberry jam and vanilla buttercream.

I helped with the frosting, pulling a recipe from Eat, Live, Run that was to die for.

This morning started with another light workout.  Adam and I walked up and down the beach for 45minutes, then hiked the mill uphill homeward.  I wore my heart rate monitor and was pleasantly surprised that our 1hour, 11minute workout killed 290calories.  It’s nice to know that our sand trudging burned up more than the back of my leg muscles.

Lunch was leftovers. 

Turkey chilli,

 and macaroni and cheese made with swiss cheese, chives, and white truffle flavored oil.

Sidenote – my cousin made the mac and cheese for Christmas dinner and the husband liked it so much he went back for thirds!

I also ate the final serving of Junior Mints,

which helped fuel me up for…. a long nap!

We are at school now, and rest of the day’s agenda is movies, dinner, maybe drinks with friends.  See you soon!

St. Thomas; Thursday Afternoon – Friday Afternoon

It’s Christmas Eve! I can hardly believe that 2010 has flown so quickly. My family throws a big Christmas party this evening, so Thursday afternoon was spent on errands and party prep. Lunch was eaten on the fly. Slice of cheese pizza with baby carrots.

Followed by the last of the gingerbread granola, with skim milk, a few hours later.

With one serving of Junior Mint Peppermint Crunch for dessert.

For dinner, Adam and I headed to the Caribbean Saloon. Generally the Saloon isn’t much to write home about, but their buffalo chicken sub is to die for!

I left most of my sub roll and half of my fries, but gobbled up that extra spicy chicken (dipped in blue cheese!).

Later, Adam and I drank some of this strawberry lemonade while watching “Ernest Saves Christmas.”

It was a surprisingly good movie for getting us in the holiday spirit. We’ve got “Scrooged” on Netflix too.

This morning we got up bright and early to get in some activity. If you have a light exercise day, what better place to spend it than this???

We spent an hour walking up and down the beach. The uneven, squishy sand is the equivalent of cranking up the resistance on the elliptical. Disclaimer, we did spend some time taking pictures too –

After an hour of walking, the final leg if our workout was the walk home. We were only a mile away (this distance we could measure with the car), but steep is greater than length. We had to defeat two major hills.

Thank goodness there were things to distract us.

Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to indicate?!??

And then we were home.

We’ve spent the day on party set up (and naps) so I mostly grabbed bites where I could.

Though I decided to be sensible and grab an actual sandwich (mini, turkey breast, with cucumber, pickles, red onion, and bbq sauce) from Subway before I went overboard on the cookies and dips.

Going overboard on cookies and dips is a party activity 😉

If you celebrate, I hope you have a merry Christmas tomorrow!

St. Thomas; Tuesday Morning – Thursday Morning

We’re here. We’re here, we’re here, we’re here!  We’re also busy; this will be a quick recap post.

Tuesday morning at the airport, Adam and I did a good job putting together breakfast from our packed snacks.  We split the Orange Cranberry Cliff Bar,

and shared sharp cheddar, baby carrots, and a gingergold apple throughout the morning.

Our flights went well, and on our layover I found a Salsarita’s for lunch.

(Delicious) chips with spicy salsa,

and a chicken burrito with black beans, a little bit of rice, corn salsa, red onions, medium salsa, and shredded cheese.

So tasty and fresh, especially for a plane meal!  I ate about half of everything.

Before we knew it we were in my childhood home.  Being handed homemade toffee,

and finding gifts on our pillows.

I could get used to this!  The husband and I did some wrapping of our own too.

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner.

Spicy chicken with whole-wheat linguine,

mushrooms and broccoli with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds,

and mandarin oranges.

We ate all squished together in a clump, because someone decided to start a puzzle at the table 😉

For dessert my dad and I opened up these Klick Halva Truffles.

Adam went out (late!) with some of our guy friends from high school, but I stayed home rereading All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein and laughing at the notes I wrote in the margins while writing a 15page final paper on it.

Wednesday morning was all about dinner leftovers for breakfast.

And 10minutes of strength and stretch moves.  My goal for vacation is to (at minimum) get in a good stretch every day.

For lunch, we headed to Barefoot Buddha, my favorite restaurant.

I split a passionfruit smoothie with the husband,

and a bagel sandwich with my mother.

Yuuuuuuuum.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on errands, including finding a gloriously huge pile of Achie comics (donated to my mom’s library),

and getting all of our wedding rings polished.

Plus testing saved maple sugar cookies from Thanksgiving.

Out of the freezer, still good!

For dinner we headed to Island Time Pub with my aunt and cousins (2sets, one local, one visiting). The lighting was awful, but the dark did mean we got to enjoy these sailboat sail “trees.”

Adam and I split a Caesar salad, with green peppers and mushrooms added.

And a buffalo chicken pizza.

I had these two slices plus a third.

I also had two black and cokes with dinner.

After that I was the designated driver, so even though we were out with friend until almost 1, I stuck to diet coke.

This morning began with a workout. A good workout 🙂 St. Thomas isn’t exactly map-my-run-able and I don’t have a Garmin, so we are focusing on time instead of distance. We had my mom drive us down to the nearby beach so we could run (not that we ran I’m the sand, just near the beach). In the end we ran for 20minutes and walked for 18minutes. Then we slowly walked up the HUGE hill home; I’ll have to take a picture tomorrow. All total, 60monutes of activity, which felt great.

Breakfast was Greek Gods honey Greek yogurt, topped with some blueberries and banana.

I’ve spent the morning running errands with my mom, including a trip to school so I could write this post.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, what?!?

What’s the best airplane food you’ve ever had? The worst?

A Pre-(Impromptu)Party Post

Ooof!  So far we have packed this winter vacation full of fun.  I’ve been AWOP (<–away without posting) so I’d love to give you guys a full recap, but frankly, we’ve got a party to throw!  Yes, the party is tonight, and yes, it was planned, um, today.

Yesterday evening we took my in-laws out to dinner at Pearl Street.  (No you didn’t miss a lunch post, I just didn’t eat lunch.)  I ordered a turkey reuben.

There isn’t actually a turkey reuben on the menu, but PS is fabulous so when I asked to sub turkey for corned beef they happily complied.

With cole slaw on the side.

We had some time to kill so we headed to Starbucks where I ordered a short, skim, salted caramel hot chocolate.

Then we headed to see….. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra!

No photography was allowed during the show, but I promise you it was as aesthetically pleasing as it was easy on the ear.  I didn’t recognize all of the music but the show closed with scores from “The Nutcracker” and “Messiah” and everything was wonderful.

During intermission, the husband and I split a cranberry juice with champagne.

Fast-forward to a morning that came way too quickly, and the husband and I were out the door to see his parents off.

We were out and about too early for Target, so while we waited for paper plates and napkins to become available we stopped into Bagel Jays to split a rye bagel with lox spread.

Delish!  The rye bagel was a pretty exciting concept.

During the fray I did take time to cash in a Groupon for a mani/pedicure.

And to grab lunch from the Wegman’s hot bar.

But then it was back to work!

We’ve got things mostly done now, so I took a break for blogging and dinner.

The other half of my turkey reuben was delicious.

But this microwaved frozen okra was not.

Even spicy paprika couldn’t save it.  I forced down half to get in my greens, but this was slime city.

And now I’m looking forward to seasonal beer, mint chocolate cake balls, and hot pepper peach cheese-ball!

And the Camera Ran Away with the Hairbrush

There was no day post today because my camera battery needed to charge.  Really I think suicide was a last-ditch effort on the battery’s part to avoid involvement in my train wreck.  It’s probably a good thing the earlier half of the day went without photographs.

I ate chips for breakfast – embarrassing.

I met Katie for lunch at Moe’s – repetitive.

And I did it all still in my clothing from the day before – why am I allowed to leave the house?

Thankfully the husband’s parents came into town for a belated birthday celebration and that got me to pull my act together.  I even took a shower.

Because if cake’s not worth clean hair, then what is?

First though, was dinner.  We needed quick wait, accessible parking, and good food – Jack Astor’s.  With lobster and crab dip to start.

I ate this plate x2.

And then I proceeded to terrorize the wait-staff.  Diet Roy Rodgers, please.

Once we got that figured out (diet soda, grenadine, cherry on top) I cobbled together a meal using pieces from three different menu items.

The end result was delicious.  A turkey burger with white cheddar, jalapeno zucchini relish, and fig jam.

I ate all of my turkey/toppings, half of my bun, and half of my fries.  Truth be told, I did not need the fries, but malt vinegar was available and I feel the end tummy ache was worth it.

After dinner we did a driving tour of Christmas lights. 

I couldn’t get pictures from the moving car, but the trees on Elmwood are just gorgeous!

Then we headed back to the hotel room for cake.  Actually, Chocolate Decadence to be exact.  “4 layers of chocolate sponge cake filled with whipped ganache, frosted in chocolate butter cream. Garnished with chocolate buttons and drizzled chocolate.”

I only ate a few bites of my piece (I wasn’t kidding about that tummy ache!) but it was pretty divine.

We spent a long time talking to my in-laws, hence the midnight post.  It’s been a fun day, and if I want tomorrow to be fun as well I’ve got to get to bed!