spontaneous chicken

So I'm pretty much in love with oatmeal. I have discovered the magic of brown sugar. Added a bit of that and some ground cinnamon to my Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal apple + cinnamon flavor. Sooooo good. Of course, orange juice! This was my lunch.

Back at my internship today. I brought with me yoplait light rasberry cheesecake yogurt (woo 100 calories!) but I noticed the sell-by date was October 1st... and you're supposed to consume it within 7 days.. and today is the 12th. I *think* it was okay... but I'm iffy with yogurt on the best of days. Not a fan of jiggly food. So I went with the super delicious Kashi cherry dark chocolate granola bar. I am officially out of these, so I must go buy more.

Due to sudden series of random events, I found myself at Applebee's with the fam. On a whim my mom ordered a white peach sangria to share. After a few sips, we both decided that sangria was not our kind of drink. So I didn't have much of it, but it looked pretty. For the record, I also had a sip of that pepsi there. I've actually gotten to the point where soda just doesn't taste good to me anymore- which is a good thing!

Mozzarella sticks appetizer! I snagged one of these.

And I realized as I was getting this post together that I completely forgot to take a picture of my dinner! I got the chicken finger basket and subbed out the fries for mixed veggies. I ate all but one chicken tender and all of the broccoli and carrots from the veggies, and then ate a bunch of fries from my mom's chicken finger basket. Augh fried food. It stopped tasting good after a few bites. Applebee's had some yummy looking pasta dishes on their menu, but I personally feel their quality has been declining for several years now, and didn't want to eat not so good pasta and the sauces that go with it and rack up calories. Calories are only [sometimes] worth it if the food is amazing.

pesto experiments

Foodings for 10/11/10 include....

breakfast as lunch! I woke up with a craving for Cherrios. All breakfast foods are accompanied by orange juice!

Then... dinner time! I was so surprised I wasn't hungry the six hours from lunch til dinner. Mom was late at work again, so I got the go ahead to actually cook. I made my dad hash (ground beef and potato pieces), but I can't stand the stuff, so after digging around in the cabinets I found a packet of pesto sauce mix! So off I went to making it.

It came out pretty good! I undercooked the noodles slightly, but other than that it was fine. I steamed some frozen broccoli and tossed it in with a little parmesian cheese and topped the whole thing off with some feta and a tiny bit of mozzarella (like, 10 little of those shreds worth. Nowhere near a handful.) The best part was the pesto was less than 15 calories! I believe it was Knorr brand. Experimental cooking = success.

Afterwards I splurged and ate a Ghiardelli milk chocolate + caramel square. Love this stuff.

My mom always has a bowl of candy around the house, and since it's fall we're stocked up on candy corn. it's next to impossible to not take a few pieces from it.. so this is about what I had late last night. 6 or 7 about.

snack attack

I wonder if it's going to be a habit to update this with the previous day's edibles... hmm. We will see.

Lunch: all beef hot dog with ketchup on a smushed bun. I don't have hot dogs very often.

As a snack later on I searched through the apples and found another relatively small one. It was a beautiful day outside, so I went outside to eat it.. and found box elder bugs and spiders everywhere. So after I took the picture I went back inside.. le sigh.

more snacks... I think I thought the hot dog would fill me up more than it did. Here we have some Ritz crackers with blackberry jam! I wanted to find some locally made jam, but I think I am past prime jam season now...

More snacks... eep. Dried mango! I love this stuff. It's a little sugary, but it's really hard to find dried fruit that isn't ridiculously oversugared. This kind isn't too bad. The only brand I have found that doesn't have tons of sugar are some of the Trader Joe ones. We don't have a Trader Joes near here, though. I have five or six pieces, which is about a serving.

I am trying so hard to not to snack like crazy but I was so hungry just a little while later... the Cheez-its make a comeback. I had five of these little guys.

Finally, dinner time has arrived. I went with some of my family to the pizza place down the street. They serve peanuts! The kind that you crack 'em open and toss the shells on the ground.

My brother ordered a "double decker" pizza that was half sausage, a quarter pepperoni, and a quarter cheese. A double decker pizza is pizza dough that has all the ingredients rolled up into it. It's a bit thicker than average pizza, and the dough is nice and soft. I am not one for hard, thin pizza, so this worked out great for me.

My piece! It didn't fit on the plate... the tip was tucked under. Whenever I eat pizza, I always take a few napkins and dab off all the grease. Cause grease is just gross. :( My favorite part about this was the doughy crust!

Later that evening I really wanted a dessert snack of some sort.. but we didn't have anything that I deemed worth the calories. I got the inclination to make hot chocolate, but right next to the hot chocolate was tea. So I opted to make cinnamon apple spice tea. Added a little bit of honey, sugar, and ground cinnamon, because I'm not a fan of straight tea. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. It was good! I want to go pick up some new teas at the store now.

october picnic

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday's eatings yet, so here they are today!

Breakfast is apple cinnamon oatmeal with a bit of OJ. I really enjoyed it the day before so I wanted to have it again. Yeah cinnamon!

Lunch consisted of the leftover chicken+bacon+apple+avocado sandwich! Even reheated it was still amazing. I put a teaspoon's worth of French dressing on the plate to dip it into, because it really makes the sandwich.

Two of my best friends who are away for school were both back in town for the weekend! We met up at our usual Starbucks haunt, where we caught up and had tasty coffee. My poison for the day was a tall pumpkin spice latte. Soooo good. I love fall flavors.

We roamed around town for awhile, and due to an epic game of musical cars (my phrase for when driving somewhere is randomly ridiculously long and/or unorthodox. There was a lot of back and forth.), we ended up at one friend's house and her parents generously invited us to have dinner. Since it was such a beautiful day (80s in October?), we had a mini picnic outside. Dinner was a grilled burger with a little mustard and more liberal amounts of Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce, tostada chips, carrot sticks, a bowl of peaches, and a glass of 7Up.

After bringing everything back outside, my friend's mom suprises us with an offer for cake! I love cake.
We continued "musical cars" until we all ended up back at my other friend's house, where we looked at engagement photos, watched music videos, and snacked on wheat thins while watching the Studio Ghibli film Ponyo. Good times.

yummy avocado

Breakfast.. wait, breakfast!? Yes. Instant Quaker Oats oatmeal, apple and cinnamon flavor! I sprinkled a little extra cinnamon on top. Mmm.

I met my mom for lunch at this wonderful local brunch cafe that opened up a few weeks ago. I'd tried a few of their breakfast selections, but I really wanted to try one of their sandwiches. This is the 'Brunch Chicken' sandwich. Grilled chicken, lettuce (the good kind, not iceberg), sliced apple, swiss cheese, avocado, and french dressing on a.. oh I forget the name of the bread. Something I hadn't heard of before. Tasty bread. They didn't have a light or fat free french, so I asked for it on the side. I subbed out the fries for fruit!

The sandwich was *amazing*. I ate juust over half of the sandwich and took the rest home. It was my first time eating straight avocado (as opposed to guacamole). The sandwich was so big! My mouth wasn't big enough.

I snacked on a few pieces of candy corn and I believe I ate the last gobstopper today. Then dinner arrived. Parental unit 1 (aka mom) had to be at work late and no one will eat my cooking unless I am specifically told to cook. It's not that I'm necessarily bad at it, it's just one of those weird family things. My family is also under some dietary restrictions, so there's not too much wiggle room for experimentation.

So I picked up dinner for parental unit 2 at the local pizza place down the street. I decided to try the chicken parmesian sandwich, subbing in grilled chicken and whole wheat bread instead of getting it fried. So I opened the box and find...

Those are a lot of french fries. I didn't realize it came with them. I'm trying super hard to limit fried foods. I usually do a pretty good job, though every so often if I'm at one of my favorite places I'll get some.

So below is a picture of what I actually ate. I cut off the corner of the sandwich, because there was no chicken in it. I also really wanted root beer, but we had none. I think I had maybe half a glass of apple cider instead.

I found Keebler chocolate covered graham cracker cookies in the fridge. They are so good, and so addicting. I realized after I took the picture there isn't really a scale for how big these are.. they're maybe an inch and a half long. I wound up having two.

I also had three Cheez-it crackers. Just for records sake.

layering

It's lunchtime. The all American staple: Peanut butter and jelly. Oh, and a little apple cider. The bread is 'whole wheat white' which is slightly healthier than white bread. I personally would prefer legit whole grain bread, but I would be the only person in my house eating it, so therefore it is not bought. Sigh. But do you see that jam? That is cherry jam from Canada's, which is based in... can you guess? Canada. Formerly known as Malkin's, Canada's is some amazing jam. My family goes up north every year and we stockpile on jam. If you ever see some, get it! So good. My all time favorite is cherry, because it was such a big part of my childhood, but I also love blackberry and blueberry. Other flavors include strawberry, apricot, saskatoon, and raspberry.

Snackage time... was reading most of the day, and the gobstoppers were near me. They are nearly gone now.

Dinner was an epic adventure. I made a lasagna! This is my mom's recipe, and this was my first time making it on my own. Also, I was actually making dinner. This never happens in my house. Ever.

Well, I say I made it on my own... my mom actually made the meat sauce the day prior and refrigerated it, but in my defense I actually know how to make that sauce. I love this sauce. No straight-out-of-a-jar sauces here. (My fiancé has not accepted this yet.)

Hello in process photo.

I cooked the noodles though! ...which, of course, was far more epic than need be. When I stuck them in the pot I realized I didn't have enough water, then I cooked them for 5 minutes longer than told and they were still undercooked (I was told later this was okay, since they bake in the oven), and then I'm not... 100% I was supposed to leave them in the strainer. OH WELL.

Here we are layering on tasty mozzarella cheese!

After all the layers are on! I think I put the layers on in the right order. I didn't think anyone was going to analyze it after it was baked.

Finished lasagna! I think it came out pretty well, and my nephew assured me it tasted good. If little kids will eat it, you know you did something right. (By the way, I nearly forgot to take a photo, so I already ate like a third of this... oops.)

Afterwards, the cookies my sister-in-law made yesterday were so good, I wanted a legit ice cream sandwich. so I got two chocolate chip cookies and stuck in a little cookies n cream ice cream. Sad thing is, this was terrible. The cookies were over a week old and the ice cream had been sitting in the freezer for a few months... ick. I wish I could undo eating this. My nephew told me he felt the same way after eating one of these cookies. Sigh.

Late night snack: Ritz cracker with a bit of sharp cheddar cheese on it. I love cheese, so when I have it I try not to eat too much of it. Hence.. one cracker.

can I cook yet?

Day three and I'm still here.

I was contemplating what to have with lunch and was sorely tempted by the leftover Chinese in our fridge... but I wanted to at least try to be a little healthy. I decided to make an egg sandwich, so I know I succeeded at least in the sodium department.

I have mentioned before I have very little cooking ability. I am working on it! But the scene below illustrates this nicely. I have to toast the english muffin, scramble an egg, and cut a piece of roast beef all at once?? I was legit slightly intimidated. I mean, those eggs cook fast. Also, somehow one half of the english muffin got wedged under the wire bread normally sits on, so it was nice and stuck.

But it all worked out in the end, and I was left with a tasty roast beef+egg+cheddar sandwich! And Simply Orange orange juice, because I can't have eggs without orange juice. I'm not sure what the roast beef was leftover from (I didn't know it was roast beef until my dad said so... I have much to learn.), but it was pretty good.

Of course, then the brownie. This is like, half a brownie. They're almost gone.

Later for dinner, I went to my brother's house. For starters there was iceberg lettuce, chopped carrots, a little cheddar cheese, and just a drizzle of light Italian dressing. Just enough to kind of make everything a little moist. Sorry about the poor quality of the next photos, I left my camera at home and only had my phone.

My sister-in-law made chicken alfredo! She makes a really great marinade for chicken, which my brother grills outside. No, it is not warm outside, but he will do it anyway. That's how he rolls.

Two pieces of grilled chicken, mostacholi noodles, alfredo sauce, and a piece of garlic bread. I only eat the insides of garlic bread. Not a fan of crispy things.

My sister-in-law always makes dessert for us. Today was triple chunk chocolate chip cookies. Ooooh my gosh. Halfway through my cookie she made an ice cream sandwich out of hers with vanilla bean ice cream, so I split another cookie with my mom just so I could make a mini sandwich with two quarter pieces. Sooo good.

Evening snack. Serving size of Cheez-it crackers are 27 crackers for a 150 calorie serving. I have 7. Go ahead and count 'em. I also had another half brownie... sigh. I love chocolate, what can I say.