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.

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.

english muffins are tasty

Today we start out with an english muffin, apple butter, and orange juice. This was more of a brunch, at about 11am, before heading out to my internship. I hated english muffins as a kid, but now I think they are great. The apple butter I got at the local apple orchard that I talked about in my previous post. Soooo much apple in my life right now. And I love it.

Mid-afternoon snack at my internship. I'm normally not too terribly thrilled with granola bars, as they usually taste bland to me, but Kashi Dark Chocolate Cherry chewy granola is amaaaazing. I love it.

The woman I intern for was selling candy for a fundraiser for her son, so I bought Gobstoppers. I like hard candy because I don't down it as fast as I would chewy candy. I got really hungry near the end of my day, about 4pm, so I had a few. They're addicting...

Dinner was Chinese take-out. I resisted the temptation to get BBQ lo mein and went with 'Chicken Cashew Nut.' It has really tasty chicken, carrots, celery, snap peas, some kind of crunchy mystery vegetable, and of course the cashews. This was paired with some beef fried rice and white rice. I'm sure there was far too much sodium in this... and yes I know white rice is bad... but it's really good. And I got to use my Japanese dishes! Just because I could.

Augh, the brownie strikes again. Just one. (The others are in that container calling to me... I will resist! For today.)

I can't tell, is this a lot of food? I know it's not super healthy, but it's not super bad for you either. I believe in moderation.