Food Recap Collages

It's been a while since my last real post, unless you count the chocolate pie recipe post. I did a few collages of the food I've enjoyed this past week which included a couple of food splurges. I sort of played around making the collages trying to see what looks the best so please excuse me, if they aren't so great.

I've enjoyed lots of salads and sandwiches lately. We went to Casa Grande for dinner one night. I got the taco salad, which isn't really one of their vegetarian options, but I was hoping for something lighter. I always ask them to replace the meat with refried beans & rice. I also ask them to hold the guacamole, but they didn't get that part right unfortunately. I don't hate it, so I just took what I could off. For me their taco salad is hit or miss. This time it was a miss, but not so bad, just not as light as I'd hoped. It was mostly beans, cheese, & rice and very little salad.

I also did my own slightly lighter version of a taco salad at home. My salads lately have included, fresh mushrooms, iceberg, spinach, carrots, tomato, green pepper, cucumber, and onion. My taco salad was topped with a few crushed Doritos, nacho cheese sauce, light sour cream, and taco sauce.

Another salad I enjoyed with vegetable egg rolls, was a broccoli salad mix with Makoto Ginger Dressing. I could drink the dressing it is so good. It's also great on rice, but it's a little more expensive than my regular salad dressing, so it's a splurge for me.

Here are some of the sandwiches I've had, two on slices of everything bread and one on an onion roll. They all included veggie burgers and spinach. I think the one with mushroom and white cheddar was the best.

Another splurge was for a jar of JIF Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut Spread. This is the stuff. It's really not much more expensive than a jar of regular JIF peanut butter, but these days, buying name brand anything is expensive. I do love that it comes in a glass jar. I like collecting wide mouth food jars for food storage. The peanut butter and salsa jars make great storage for trail mix, dried fruits, nuts, etc. and look great on open shelves, which I hope to have some day.

Well, this was my week in food. I hope you see something you like. Today I plan to catch up on cleaning and take advantage of our slightly cooler temperature for the day, although I'm not looking forward to the heatwave predicted to follow. Have a great week and if it's hot where you are, stay cool!!

Zesty Catalina Dressing Review

I didn't sleep very well last night. Some nights are better than others, but I think I've been getting a little more sleep than I had been lately. I'm not completely exhausted all the time. I also got more B12 which I'd ran out of. I think that helps as well. 

I slept a little longer than I'd expected. The dogs thought it was still raining and were in no hurry to out. I had a bagel with peanut butter & raisin and a big cup of lemon ginseng tea with honey for breakfast. I flipped my placemat to show the smaller pattern on the back that I mentioned yesterday.

Since I was late getting up, it sort of threw my whole day off. Late breakfast, late lunch and too avoid a late dinner, I went with a smaller choice for lunch. I just had 2 of the Gimme Lean sausages on a biscuit with peach preserves.

It was pretty good. The sausages had more of a mushy texture straight out of the frig, but after they were reheated (30 sec. in the microwave), their springiness(?) returned. This was possibly even better than with the egg.

Late afternoon, I was feeling a little sluggish. I decided to go for another cup of tea and a snack. A nice juicy orange with a few vanilla wafers. The orange was the best part.

I had a salad for dinner. I used shredded iceberg (should have added some spinach), onion, green pepper, broccoli, carrot, shredded taco cheese, boiled egg, imitation bacon bits, a few saltines, and Kraft Zesty Catalina Dressing. I think the zest is black pepper. I'm pretty sure they had light, but Lucas picked this one.

I love Catalina or French on my boiled egg salads and the saltines are a must for this combo. I do think I like the Zesty Catalina better than regular, but if regular is all you have, just add some black pepper, of course this way, you don't have to worry about adding too much. It was good, but it didn't "Wow" me, so I'm just giving it 4 stars. Personally I think it needed more, but, I do like things spicy.

Now, it's not really late and I don't have to be up really early, but I am going to go to bed because, I don't always sleep really well. Have a great night/day!!!

Kraft Creamy Poppyseed Dressing Review

Since I didn't get Sunday's post up last night and I didn't have a chance to work on it today, I'm just now getting to it. Yesterday's breakfast was half a pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and a big cup of mostly decaf. Sleep was not great, but more than I've had lately, so I was feeling fairly refreshed.

We had dinner at Mom's. I manage to miss a few photos as usual. This time it was the barbecued chicken and the crab cakes. I did get a photo of the baked chicken.

There was also beef brisket.

Broccoli Casserole

Mashed Potatoes

Corn on the Cob

A mini salad bar, lol, with Romaine, Onion, Mandarin oranges, strawberries, mini sweet pepper slices, cucumber, radishes, sunflower seeds, chopped pecans, and Kraft Creamy Poppyseed Dressing. It wasn't all meant to go together and I'm pretty sure there were some other dressings involved. The poppyseed dressing was actually suppose to go with the fruit, nuts, and Romaine. It was inspired by a recipe I saw online, but not exactly the same. I hope to actually try the recipe eventually.

The Kraft Creamy Poppyseed dressing was pretty good. It has sour cream in it, but reminds me more of mayo. It also has a hint of mustard. It is a sort of sweet dressing. I really didn't notice the flavor of the poppyseeds so much. It was not bad with the fruit. I would be interested in making the dressing from the recipe to compare, but I would eat this again. I'm going to give it 4 stars.

We also had rolls, which I totally forgot and didn't get the any of them. I brought a few home, but they quickly disappeared before I could get one.

Here on my plate there was the salad without the dressing, because I almost forgot about it until I sat down to eat. I used the Romaine, onions, strawberries, oranges, peppers, and pecans in mine. I also had a huge corn on the cob, a couple of the crab cakes, which I didn't get a picture of before hand, and some of the broccoli casserole.

Lynda made a delicious peanut butter cake, which reminded me of the cake my Grandma brought home from the school where she worked, when I was little. I had looked for a recipe many times to duplicate it, but had never tried to make it. It may not have been the same exactly, but it was close enough to bring back good memories.

I had my slice with a big cup of decaf coffee. This was really good.

I Pinned the recipe on Pinterest.

We sat after we ate and watched (the 4th) Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise. It is definitely action packed, so we really had to keep an eye on the screen, no cruising the internet while watching this one. I really liked it, probably as well as the others I've seen. It's been a while, but I do remember that I liked them a lot. The movie is also getting 4 stars.

I won't be staying up late enough to get today's photos posted, but I will try to get them out tomorrow, earlier, so that I can post tomorrow's as well. Have a great night/day!!!

Pancake Breakfast

It's been a pretty quiet Sunday. I woke up to the sound of rain and Dolly squealing (it's her way of letting me know she needs to go out). She use to bark, now she just squeals. I like barking better. I needed coffee this morning, but still made mostly decaf. I also made pancakes. It's not often I get up in the mood to cook, especially when I haven't had a lot of sleep. Coffee & pancakes, it was a miracle.

I had peanut butter and lite syrup on my pancakes, great with coffee.

Just a little peanut butter and not much syrup, but I did have another small pancake after these two, then I regretted it soon after eating it. I also had another cup of coffee. DH & Lucas helped eat some of the pancakes. I made quite a few.

I had leftover mac & cheese with tomatoes for lunch. I added extra cheese plus a little milk to the macaroni to kick it up a little. It was a good lunch, but I should have drained the tomatoes some.

I found a way of eating the Philadelphia Dark Chocolate Indulgence that was really good. I had it with the strawberries from the garden on vanilla wafers. I also had a couple more wafers with just the chocolate. It's better with strawberries. 

I had a delicious mess for dinner, a nacho grande salad of shredded iceberg, chopped green pepper & onion, rice seasoned with cumin, chili powder, & paprika, spicy Doritos, vegetarian refried beans, cheese sauce, sour cream and salsa. I used Doritos because when Lucas & Dale went out for the stuff to make nachos, they forgot to get tortilla chips. Luckily we had a few chips left, plus some flour tortillas, and a small bag of Doritos. I chose the Doritos. I also need to mix up some more taco seasoning.

The boys picked up more raisins for me. I didn't realize until I got this big container that raisins are suppose to be kept in the fridge. 25 years, I've kept them in a jar or container in the cabinet. Mine don't last long enough to spoil, I guess, but I'll keep them in the fridge from now on. Who knew?

I've stayed up long enough, even if I did have a nap this evening before dinner. I'm thinking I have an early day tomorrow. Have a great night/day!!!

Out And About

I'm managed to cram all the food for the day into just four photo. Visually it doesn't seem like a lot. but physically, I'm still miserably full. 

I started the day off with a large cup of half caf and an apple danish. I got an early and unexpected invitation to go shopping, a GDO with Mom & Lynda. Well, you know I'm in.

We hit the Good Wills in the area. No shortage of those here. Love that. I got a new 2 me pair of jeans; so comfortable, perfect fit. Unfortunately, I've gone up a size, which is sort of depressing. We went to Ruby Tuesday's to eat lunch after hitting the GW's

I had a delicious salad of spring mix, green peppers, red onion, edamame, broccoli, tomato, mushroom, jalapeno, cheddar cheese, light ranch, and brown bread croutons. I also had a couple of their complementary cheddar biscuits.

I got a Saratoga water to drink and some of their apple salad, which I didn't eat but a few bites of. The apples tasted like they been frozen or something and it had a weird flavor with reminded me of beer.  Normally I love their apple salad. I'm not sure if it was the salad or me, but I wasn't taking any chances.

After lunch, we also went to Kohl's and Walmart. We attempted to go to the Habitat's Restore, but was too late, they were closing. We stopped of and picked up dinner at Long John Silvers. I ate everything, but the slaw. which was still too much. I was miserable afterwards. I should have known better.

I fooled around too long on the internet doing absolutely nothing and now I am up, way too late, still filling miserably full. I don't have to be up early tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I'll get to sleep late. The pups will see to that. I'm outta here. Have a great night/day!!!

Shiitake Mushroom Soup

It was a really nice day today. I woke up without being rushed. I made myself a banana pudding smoothie. I still haven't managed to use up all the instant pudding mix, so I also added a tsp. to the smoothie. It just added to the whole pudding theme. 

For lunch I had a salad with a Veggie Patch chik'n cutlet over butter lettuce, red & green bell pepper, & onion with light ranch dressing. 

I cut the cutlet into strips after heating it in the toaster oven until it was crispy on the outside. It was a nice salad. I originally wanted honey mustard dressing, but went with the ranch. I think both are good for this salad. I also considered a french dressing.

After my salad I was feeling a little sleepy, so I had a cup of lemon ginseng green tea, actually half mangosteen and peach. I had a few shortbread cookies with my tea.

Apparently the salad wasn't sticking with me. I just kept wanting to munch all afternoon. I went outside for a bit and cut my Liriope grass back. I do this because it will usually die off in the winter and start sprouting up again in the spring. It did look bad, but wasn't completely dead. I cut it back anyway.  When I came back inside, I was still feeling the munchies. I wanted something salty. I had some tortilla chips with salsa. These chips were Food Lion brand and they were definitely salty, too salty really. They did cure my salt craving. 

I made a stew/soup for dinner, using a potato, a carrot, half an onion, half a green pepper, some shiitake mushrooms, a tablespoon of soy sauce, water, vegetable sea salt, garlic, and a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch to thicken the broth. 

A brief summary of how it all came together..... I boiled the potato and carrot in the water and sauteed the onion, pepper, & mushrooms, seasoning them with the vegetable sea salt. I added them to the pot of carrots & potatoes. I mixed the cornstarch with the soy sauce and a tbsp of water and added it to the pot along with everything else letting it boil for a few minutes until the broth thickened a little. 

I toasted a piece of bread and broke it over my bowl of soup. I added another ladle or two to the bowl after eating about half. It was yummy. BTW, the mushrooms came from our friend John Herron, who raises gourmet mushrooms. You can find his site here or on Facebook. Thanks John!

After dinner I munched some more, having a handful of raisins and another handful of dry roasted peanuts. Sweet & salty, I can't help it. Have a great night/day!!!

Pepper Jack Mac And Cheese

After having slept better last night, I decided to keep with the decaf theme of yesterday. I did have coffee this morning though. Technically I had 6 cups, 1 scoop of coffee per cup. Five of the scoops were decaf, 1 scoop regular. It was actually just 2 large cups of coffee. I just couldn't go totally decaf with morning coffee. I also had half a cinnamon raisin bagel and half a gala apple.

I put extra cinnamon plus brown sugar and chopped walnuts on my bagel. I nearly over did it on the toasting. It was still really good, but the cinnamon roll version was better. 

More tweaking at lunch time. I had a MSF griller patty, peas and macaroni & cheese. The macaroni got the tweaking.

I added 2 slices of pepper jack cheese plus extra milk to plain ordinary boxed mac & cheese prepared as directed.  It was yummy and the peas went very well with it. 

I had one of the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Cups for dessert. Now I'm thinking of other ways to tweak instant pudding. Any suggestions?

I had a cup of decaf Blackberry Pomegranate Green Tea before dinner. I've always liked hot tea, but lately I really been wanting it more, especially the green teas. 

I went with a salad for dinner. My salad was made up of iceberg lettuce, spinach, cucumber, carrot, bell pepper, muenster cheese, potato chips, and spicy ranch dressing.  

This salad was sort of suppose to conquer my potato chip craving, but unfortunately it didn't work and I had to have a couple of handfuls afterwards. It was the saltiness that left me wanting more. It was a really good salad. 

After babying my back all day, it's feeling a little better this evening. The extra sleep didn't hurt either. Now I'm going to work on getting some more. Have a great night/day!!!