Mac N' Cheese N' A Movie Please

This morning is kind of overcast and I need a little eye opener. I got to bed a little later than usual, but not much later. I woke up about 3am and couldn't get back to sleep immediately.

Yesterday my eye opener was a gingerbread bagel with honey almond butter and the last of my sliced peaches.

 

I'd planned on having cream cheese with my bagel, but someone had beaten me to it, so I chose the honey almond butter. You really need some fruit or something with almond butter. It's very good, but can seem a little dry, luckily I had some canned peaches left.

Lunch was a salmon salad again. The first one was so good I'd decided to have it again.

 

 

Iceberg lettuce with peppers, canned salmon and Italian dressing. I also had a few crackers on the side. I had 6, but 4 was plenty. I saved the other 2 for later.

 

My afternoon snack was tea w/ honey and a small slice of apple cake.

 

It was the last of my Mandarin Orange Green Tea. I'm really liking the green tea. I picked up a new flavor, which I tell you about tomorrow. Love it or hate it? What's your favorite?

We had to run some errands, so dinner was a little late. It also took a little longer than expected. I had a piece of garlic bread while I was waiting for dinner. I also had a few off camera carrots sticks with hummus and my 2 crackers from lunch.

 

Finally dinner. I baked a pan of Stouffer's mac & cheese, which for some reason took forever. I'd planned on having some broccoli along with my mac & cheese, but since it had taken so long and I'd been munching, by the time it had finished, I wasn't all that hungry.

I had a small bowl of the mac & cheese sprinkled with a little paprika.

  

There was actually more than there appears to be. In the deep little bowl, it doesn't look like much, huh?

 

We also watched a movie yesterday. It was called "Limitless", with Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro. It did have a bit of gore which I can do without, but other than that I thought it was pretty good. I also couldn't wait for Bradley Cooper to get cleaned up. He is so nice looking, it irritated me to see him look so homeless. I just love his eyes. The movie wasn't exactly what I expected, but I still enjoyed it. We gave it 4 stars.

Ooo, Saturday already. It doesn't really feel like Saturday to me for some reason. Guess I be checking out the weather to see if we'll be walking. Yesterday was classes for Lucas and errands, so we were hoping to walk today. What are your plans for the day? Seen any good movies lately?

Unexpected Mini Vacation

Well, I'm back. I'm so confused now, I'm not even sure how behind I am. This is Thursday's post which I normally do Thursday night. Unfortunately Blogger was down yesterday. I'm not sure how long. I just barely got Wednesday posted and Blogger went down for maintenance. I was cleaning all day Thursday and didn't even get on to check the blog until I was ready to do Thursday's post and realized they'd either gone down again or were still down, anyway, no post. I had planned to get everything posted this morning. Blogger was still down and at 1pm they were still down. Mom and my Aunt Lynda called and invited me to go shopping with them. Since there was nothing I could do with on the blog, I went. I've been gone all day and didn't get home until late, so here I sit at a quarter after 12am, trying to get caught up. I've got Thursday's pictures ready so, I'll do them now and get Friday's up tomorrow, if everything goes well. Sorry about the delay.

This was breakfast. A sort of milky yogurt fruit & cereal bowl.

 

What's in the bowl

Fresh Strawberries

Maybe a tablespoon of vanilla yogurt that I had left in the container.

About a quarter cup of milk mix into the yogurt.

Multigrain flakes cereal

Cheerios

A dab of Kellogg's Fiber Plus Berry Yogurt Crunch which is really sweet and the flakes are hard, not my favorite.

Chopped Walnuts

 

I was really missing my yogurt and this was the best I could do, but it wasn't too bad.

 

I got started cleaning immediately after breakfast and found myself doing a thorough cleaning in my living room. I'd decide to mop the living room and kept finding things I needed do first. Before you know it, I had the whole room torn apart and wasn't sure I could get it back together before time to go to Zumba. 

I had some dry roasted Edamame, while I was cleaning. I got sidetracked and never finished them.

I fixed a quick lunch, so that I could try to put everything back together. I had thawed some Salmon patties out, I'd had in the freezer. I meant to eat one Wednesday and forgot. I cut up some carrot, cucumber and broccoli to go with it and a little of the Fiesta Ranch dip on the side.

I've really been craving cucumbers lately. I picked up some really nice ones at Patterson's Market. 

After, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, washing and furniture moving. I nearly had everything back in place, so it was safe to take a break with a piece of 5 flavor pound cake, covered with the last of my Delmonte Very Cherry fruit cocktail. It was pretty good.

We went to Zumba and from there Friday the 13th started to kick in, lol. I had taken my yoga mat because, I'd found out we'd be doing some ab exercises afterwards if we wanted and I'd planned to take advantage of it. Right after we got started, we had technical difficulties (the ipod messed up). Fortunately the instructor offer to do some exercises using weights and resistance band instead. Someone else had an ipod, so we were able to listen to music, just not Zumba music. We got a great workout anyway and I've really got to get me a resistance band. It was great and fun to work with.

When I got home, I had my other salmon patty. I also had an egg roll and some stir fried veggies with garlic, ginger, lite soy sauce and sesame oil, very yummy.

It wasn't until after I'd gotten home and had had dinner, that things really went wrong. I was all prepared to load my photos and go to bloggin', but then I realized Blogger still had everything shut down. Uugghh!!! I was very frustrated. I waited a while and it looked as though it was going to be a while. I thought about going to be early, but decide to play a short online game, which I rarely get to do. The next thing I knew, it was way passed my bedtime. Oops! Well, I'd had my mini vacation and used it playing an online game and I suppose that's how things went. I'm still confused writing yesterday's post today, tonight, whatever. I'm also not going to spell check or anything tonight. I hopefully straighten things out tomorrow. My main goal was getting one post done tonight. That's all for now. If you're not already you can follow me on Twitter for updates on the blog. I usually try to let everyone know via Twitter if they'll be a delay, etc. I also tweet new posts, so if it doesn't make it to your inbox or rss feed for some reason, you'll know there's a new post. Night y'all! Happy Saturday!!

A Gray Day With Colorful Food

Another day starts and so does the rain. Well it wasn't raining when I got up, but it was cloudy and dreary, not my kinda day. Even though I kept waking up all night long, I didn't plan breakfast, so I had no idea what I wanted this morning. I sat around for a little bit trying to decide. I settled on a bowl of vanilla yogurt again, but with a half a diced pink lady apple, cornflakes, cheerios, walnuts, and dried cranberries. It was very colorful.

I also fixed a slice of cinnamon toast to go with it. Cheap store bought bread is terrible for cinnamon toast. It's thin and mostly air so it winds up more of a cinnamon cracker. I guess if I want good toast, I need to make some bread. I have to work up to that. I haven't been in much of a baking mood lately.

It took me a while to get going this morning. I have really had a case of the blah's today. Nothing exciting about the day. I needed some excitement. When I fixed lunch, I decided to add a little more color with some marinated veggies. I was having the other half of my leftover rosemary baked ziti from Romano's. I cut up some broccoli, carrots and celery and marinated them in some Italian dressing.

Lunch was good, but I have to say the ziti was better the first day, because the sauce was creamier. Reheating it sort of caused it to separate, so it was a little oily, but not bad. I also would have preferred the onions to have been cooked a little more.

After lunch I had a few of the peanut butter pretzel nuggets we got at Kmart. I could easily sit down and eat the whole jar, but I have been restraining myself and let me just say, "It ain't easy!". 

Before dinner I was craving a Starbucks peppermint latte. I wasn't going to get one, so I fixed myself a cup of peppermint cocoa. I had part of a pack of mint cocoa left from yesterday and I used part of a pack of vanilla cocoa with a little baking cocoa and a Hershey's peppermint kiss.

I completely forgot about Lucas' leftover Kung Pao noodles when I was deciding on dinner. I fixed brown rice with spinach and tomato, orange and yellow carrots, with green beans and red peppers and a leftover salmon patty from the freezer. The carrots, green beans and peppers really perk up this plate. It was a pretty good meal. The rice was my favorite part though. I love the slight chewiness of brown rice. 

It may have been a gray day looking up, but looking down there was lots of color. What's your favorite way to brighten a gray day?

Salads And Dressing Recipes

I slept pretty good last night. What a difference a good night's sleep makes. I wish every night were like that and I hope tonight is as good. I got up earlier than usual, not a lot earlier, but earlier. I already had breakfast planned. I planned to finish up yesterday's egg salad, but I decided to have it on half a poppy seed bagel instead of the pumpernickel, like yesterday. I was hoping the poppy seed bagel would be better with the egg salad. I wasn't particularly thrilled with it either. I love the poppy seeds on the everything bagels and I love the poppy seed crackers, I've eaten, but the bagel just didn't wow me.

I had a snack later. I wasn't sure what I wanted and it took me a minute to decide, but I finally settled on having the last piece of apple cinnamon baked oatmeal. It definitely ranked right up there with the Cranberry Orange Pecan baked oatmeal, which was awesome.

I did a lot of mopping today. I mopped the kennel dining room and the living room before having lunch. All the nasty weather we've been having has created lots of muddy paw foot prints. I've been spot mopping daily, but it really needed a more thorough cleaning, of course, you won't be able to tell it tomorrow, but I will. I really hate mud, however, I love salad. Yesterday's salad started something. 

For lunch I had another salad.

Asian Salmon Salad

mixed baby greens
spinachcarrots
broccoli
red onion
Asian salmon patties  (sorry, a work in progress, I haven't gotten the recipe refined enough to post yet)
chow mein noodles
red pepper flakes
Asian salad dressing

The dressing is one that I threw together, which was a little different from the Oriental Salad dressing, I'd made a while back. The salad and dressing were very good. I'm not sure which dressing, I liked better though, the Oriental or the Asian, but the Asian was definitely good, even though it was very simple.

Simple Asian Salad Dressing

1 Tbsp. Lite Soy Sauce
2 tsp. Sesame Oil
2 tsp. Seasoned Rice Vinegar

Combine in a jar/bottle/etc and shake vigorously before adding to salad.

Note: The dressing is sort of a single serving recipe. It made a little more than I needed, but maybe not enough for another salad.

My evening snack was very kid friendly. Do you remember "ants on a log"? I don't remember eating it as a child, but as an adult, I love it. I don't think either of my kids eat it either. Who says adults can't have fun snacks? I used the raisins from my dried mixed fruit, which I had already robbed of cranberries and apples for 3 minute oatmeal cookies.

 

My evening meal was also a salad, a delicious fruity salad with a sweet tangy dressing. Salads with fruit are truly yummy.

 

Apple Cinnamon Salad

Spinach
Fuji Apple
red onion
carrot
raisins
pecans

Apple Cinnamon Salad Dressing

1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Combine in a jar/bottle/etc. Shake vigorously until sugar and salt are dissolved and before adding to salad.

Note: This dressing makes several servings. I'm not sure exactly how many, but I had quite a bit leftover.

I've missed my salads more than I've realized apparently. Another good thing about today, I received my free sample of Dove Hair Care Daily Moisture daily treatment/conditioner and a $1 coupon for any 1 Dove Hair Care product. With the dry heat, I have really been needing a good conditioner. I guess this is a reminder to look for more free samples. Have you gotten any free samples and/or coupons lately? Cya tomorrow.

Lots Of Chocolate And A Really Good Salad

I have photos of all the food I've eaten since my last post. It doesn't start with breakfast. It starts with my late night meal and dessert. After last night's post I ate one of my leftover Asian salmon patties with a little of the Sesame Mayo Dressing and leftover rice.

After my salmon and rice, I had half of a Krispy Kreme dark chocolate filled donut. I wasn't impressed. It was just a donut with chocolate (not dark) icing on the instead and the outside. I would have rather had the regular cream filled donut or the donut that's rolled in granulated sugar, those are my two favorites from Krispy Kreme.

I was late getting to bed, I didn't sleep well, as usual, but I did sleep some. I had decided to have a pumpernickel bagel for breakfast with egg salad. I love grilled egg salad sandwiches on pumpernickel bread, so I decide I would do the same with the bagel. I toasted it and spread egg salad on half. It was quite filling, but the pumpernickel bagel was a little sweeter than the bread I normally get. I think I would have preferred having a different topping for the bagel, but you really should try a grilled egg salad on pumpernickel. It's tricky though, cause it's hard to tell when it's browned.

Later I had a bit of "Da Bomb", as we call it or the Coffee Brownie Trifle. It is absolutely yummy and it's a good thing I don't have more or my pants would be splitting at the seams; they've already stretched and far as they can, which means I need to be backing off the sweets. I really want to, I'm just terrible at saying no.

I had a late lunch because I never got around to it and I had to go to the store to pick up a few things, so by the time we got back it was really late for lunch. I was starving by then. Luckily I had Sunday leftovers, which I only had to reheat. I had a little of the Black Bean Tortilla Bake, broccoli, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and a roll. My roll got a little soggy, so it wasn't so good, every thing else was just the same as the day it was fixed.

Now, since lunch was late, that means dinner would be late, my post would be late and I will be late getting to bed. It's a vicious cycle. Dinner was late, but it was worth the wait. I had a nice big yummy salad of baby greens, broccoli, onion, carrots, walnuts dried cranberries, and chow mein noodles with a French type dressing and some added balsamic vinegar to cut the sweetness a little. It was such a good salad. I don't think I've had a really good salad, since I got to go to Ruby Tuesday's. I need to make more of an effort to eat more salads. I love salads, but I have been sort of lazy with food prep lately and I really love elaborate salads.

I took a few shots of the salad before decided to add chow mein noodles. I needed some crunch.

You can tell, I liked the salad, right:?

Now I'm going to get ready for bed, since it's way late and I'm way sleepy, until my head hits the pillow, right? Well hopefully, I'm exhausted enough, I'll just pass out for several hours. What time are you reading this? Just wondering.