Day #36

Tonight I had my parents over for dinner.

I made Braised Balsamic Chicken, and served it with whole wheat egg noodles, French baguette, and a garden salad. Everyone seemed to enjoy it :) 

I found the recipe on allrecipes.com, and it is one I would definitely make again!

My mom brought over some apple berry pie for dessert. It was a nice sweet ending to this meal.

Day #35

Tonight's dinner was inspired by the Monte Carlo sandwich I ate for my birthday dinner at Square One Brewery.....and the lonely can of cranberry sauce I found while cleaning my pantry cabinet.

I made a grilled cheese sandwich with whole grain bread, romano cheese, sliced ham, and a spread of whole berry cranberry sauce.

I also took a little of the cranberry sauce and used it as a topping on my vanilla frozen yogurt for dessert.

Day #34

I'm going to a trivia night tonight, and I know there will be lots of food. So I figured I should have a dinner that was high-protein to fill me up so I wouldn't nibble as much.

I made a 2-egg omelet stuffed with ham, onion, green pepper, apple, and shredded cheddar cheese.

Day #33

After a long week of work, I like quick & easy dinners.  Something I can throw together without much thought or involvement.  In my pre-blog days, this usually meant frozen pizzas or microwave chicken strips.  But now I think more carefully about what I am eating, knowing that it will be photographed and documented for the whole world to see.   And I mean the WHOLE world..... the stats tracker here on Blogger shows me that I have viewers from the United States, Canada, Chile, South Africa, U.S. Virgin Islands, Australia, Luxembourg, and the Philippines.   All of the continents are represented....except Antarctica.   :-) 

Okay....here is the food for today:

Fresh pasta  is great because it cooks so quickly!!   This was Buitoni brand Chicken & Prosciutto Tortelloni.  I cooked the pasta, then tossed with with a little pesto and balsamic vinegar.

Did you know that yesterday, February 3rd, was National Carrot Cake Day?   Ever since I discovered that "holiday" on Punchbowl, I had a craving for carrot cake.  Nice, moist carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  So tonight when I was at the grocery store, I bought a single piece from the bakery.   This picture only shows half of the piece.  I was trying to be good and not eat the whole piece.....  but between the time I took the picture and the time I am posting this blog, I ate the 2nd half too :)   It was too too delicious to stay in the fridge!

Day #32

Tonight's dinner was my attempt to start using up some of the leftovers and produce from my refrigerator before they go bad.  

I still had some of the cooked Beef Smoked Sausage from last Friday, so I decided to make that into a sandwich with some toasted wheat bread, a slice of Pepperjack cheese, and a little spread of ketchup. 

To go with my sandwich, I figured I needed some greens, so I made a little Caesar salad with romaine lettuce, mixed field greens (which were getting ready to lose their freshness), Caesar dressing, shaved Romano cheese, some jumbo croutons, and cracked black pepper.


I also decided to pull out my real camera tonight instead of using my cell phone camera, so I took a few minutes and practiced my close-up food photography.  So here is a bonus photo for you to enjoy:

Day #31

I can't believe I've kept up with this blog for a month!   One down, 11 to go.  :-)

Tonight I made a big burger for dinner. I took the ground beef and mixed in some sea salt, black pepper, dried garlic powder, and a little red pepper oil (from Vom Fass). I divided this mixture in half, and pressed both halves into large thin patties. I put a little Gorgonzola cheese in the middle of one patty, put the other on top, and pressed the sides together to seal.  I cooked this in my small skillet pan until the juices ran clear and I didn't see pink. 

Instead of using a plain hamburger bun, I used a toasted whole grain sandwich round. I put some field greens on the bottom of the bun, put the burger on top, added some extra Gorgonzola cheese (since my burger sprung a leak and lost some of the cheese, as you can see in the picture), topped it with a little more greens, some spicy brown mustard, and the top bun.
It was delicious!!



*note: I only used between 1/4 - 1/3 pound of ground beef. The rest of the package of ground beef was browned on its own and put in the fridge for later use.  So the burger might look bigger than it really was!

Day #30

Chicken Stir-Fry.

The other night when I made the Pesto chicken, I went ahead and cooked 3 extra chicken breasts.... because it's easier and faster to use pre-cooked chicken over raw chicken.  I took 2 off those chicken breasts and chopped them into cubes.  I added then to my large skillet, which had preheated with a little vegetable oil. Also to the skillet I added a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies, and seasoned everything with a little ground black pepper, soy sauce, and toasted sesame oil (from Vom Fass).

While that was sauteing together, I made some rice. I found a box of Hamburger Helper beef fried rice in my pantry, so used that.... without the beef. After the rice cooked, I scrambled 2 eggs in the microwave and added it to the rice/sauce.

Took a large spoonful of the fried rice mix, topped it with a generous helping of chicken & veggies, and a light sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Voila, chicken stir fry.

Now if only I had some ice cream or sorbet for dessert to counteract all the salty & savory flavors....

But I don't.   I didn't stock up on ice cream or sorbet when I went shopping prior to the "snow storm" that was forecasted for St. Louis today.   So I'll have to settle for this instead:

A "parfait" made from layering frozen mixed berries and Greek yogurt (sprinkled with a little Splenda and almond extract ).    A sweet fruity ending to a delicious meal!