Monday is NOT a Fun Day...Looks like I peed and a Blackberry seizure

Mondays make me want to cry. Mondays also make me want to exaggerate. This morning I was sitting on the floor (this is normal) discussing oat bran with Victoria when an extremely unsexy thing happened. My child, excuse me, my Camelbak spewed on me.  SPEWED/SQUIRTED MILK in a very inappropriate area to be spewed/squirted on. My coocoo area. I quickly learned that milk doesn't dry clear. Ugh. And like the true hot mess that I am, I did NOT go home and change.

I'm so glad Victoria jumped on the oat bran train because I had run out! She was nice enough to share with me!

In the oh-so-lovely paper bowl from work:

1/3 cup oats

1/3 cup skim milk

1/3 cup hawt water

apples

cinnamon

nutmeg overkill

For lunch, I attemped to eat leftover bucatini, but blah, I'm not a fan of re-heated pasta. Thank god I store Fiber One bars in my car, purse, office, house, Brandon's house...I dug a caramel bar out of my purse. It was a little smushed but my colon didn't care. Heeheeee...TMI and you love it.

Since I was a little perturbed with my Camelbak, I threw it in my purse...WHY???  OH, just for it to LEAK ON MY BLACKBERRY. Cammie, why are you failing meeeeeeeeeeee? Needless to say my phone was out of comission. And so was I. I made it through the rest of the work day okay--just a little agitated. But on the drive to B's house I was a MESS. Not a hot mess. A shaky, nervous, pathetic mess. Withdrawal signs? Possibly. I just didn't know what to do with myself. It was just my ipod and me. Not like I could talk to the other drivers on I-26, right? That wouldn't be safe. So, in panic-mode, I put on classical music to see if it would calm me. I know this sounds borderline pyschotic but my BB is my baby. He came into my life July 8, 2008 and I don't know how I'd handle his sudden death...I remembered reading that if you get your phone wet, you can stick it in a bowl of uncooked rice and it will suck the moisture out. It worked. Around 9 pm, my phone was alive and my nerves were calmed. Calm nerves may have been from the glass of Reisling I downed but whatever, on to dinner.

So I know we're all from the United States and we really can't be claiming the nationalities of our great-great-great-grandparents, but when I cook Italian food I'm secretly like YEAAAAAAH I'm Italian, and what! FYI, Orso = bear in Italian. I must admit that if we're talking pie charts and percentages, I'm more, um...Irish.

Tonight I was Italian Christina and made Chicken Marsala. This is one of Grammy's classic dishes. Grammy that was born Meredith Herd (Scottish?) and married a douchie Italian man.

Brandon cut three chicken breasts into cutlets and sauteed them in olive oil over medium-high heat. Usually I dredge them in flour first, but after that glass of wine, I forgot.

When they were done, I removed them from the pan and sauteed minced garlic and mushrooms for a minute or so. (Orso, there I am again! Ha!)

Next, I added about two cups of Marsala cooking wine to the pan and cooked it to a glaze. Typical recipes only call for 1/2 cup of wine and broth, but we like things extra saucy. After that, I added a can of chicken broth, plus thyme and oregano. I let the sauce reduce to half the amount, then added the chicken to simmer for a few minutes. We put it on top of leftover Bucatini.

After dinner, Brandon read a thousand pages for school and I hung out with the Golden Girls. Four episodes later, I was craving hot cocoa. Random.

Recipe stolen from the side of the Hershey's cocoa box (three servings):

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar (I used less)
  
• 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• Dash salt
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 4 cups milk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Miniature marshmallows or sweetened whipped cream(optional)

Directions:

1. Stir together sugar, cocoa and salt in medium saucepan; stir in water.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Boil and stir 2 minutes.

Add milk; stirring constantly, heat to serving temperature. Do Not Boil.

2 Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary beater or whisk until foamy. Serve topped with marshmallows or whipped cream, if desired. Five 8-oz. servings.

Hot cocoa made a crazy, rainy day wonderful!

Dreaming of Rome...

I didn't do much cooking this weekend, and I regret it! :( I just didn't seem to have much inspiration. Odd. Earlier in the week, my lovely coworker, Anne, brought me a bag of Bucatini that she bought in Florida. Bucatini is a really thick spaghetti with a hole down the center like a straw.

I decided to try the traditional Italian dish, Bucatini all'Amatriciana. Amatriciana style sauce originated from the town of Amatrice, in the Lazio region of Italy. Traditional amatriciana contains pork meat (guanciale if you can find it -- I used pancetta), crushed red pepper, tomatoes, and garlic. Variations include onion and white wine.

I used the following ingredients:

• 6 ounces pancetta, diced
• 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• pinch crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes, plus 1 medium tomato, chopped
• s&p
  

 First, cook the pancetta in a pan over medium-high heat for about 5-7 minutes. Add the onions and coook for an additional 5 minutes. Next, add the pepper flakes and garlic and cook for a minute. Finally, add the tomatoes and season.

Turn heat down to low. While the sauce is thickening, cook the pasta as directed.

Drain pasta when finished. Spoon the amatrician over the pasta and enjoy!

We added some grated Paranno on top.

When we finished eating, Brandon pulled out some cookies & cream ice cream. It was a little freezer burnt. Okay, severely freezer burnt to the point where there were miniature icicles on the lid...NOT NORMAL.

But of course he dug in anyway!

There's an Egg in My Oats!

Call me crazy, but I really wanted to combine my two new faves: oat bran & a fried egg. Don't scrunch your nose up just yet...

In the bowl:
1/4 cup oat bran
1/2 cup water
1/8 cup cheese
1 fried egg
s&p

As the oats were thickening, I fried the egg. I plopped that baby right on top and added some cheese:


I put the lid on the old Oikos container, stuffed it in my purse, and headed to work. Three minutes later (yes I work that close), the steam had melted the cheese! Yum!


I ended up adding ketchup for more flavor. I secretly want to add ketchup to eeeeeeverything.

After work I went to my aunt's house to visit. Before eating dinner, my cousin Gabby and I squeezed in some exercise. I ran two miles, then walked one, then we rode bikes for another two together. She is so cute! I forgot to take a picture of her on her bike though.

I borrowed Kelly's sweet ride. I can't be trusted with a real baby on a bike.

For dinner, Kelly roasted a chicken with rosemary, lemon, and garlic.


She also roasted potatoes, carrots, turnips, and onions. The turnips were SO good -- definitely a new fave.

In addition to the roasted vegetables, she made a spinach souffle.


My plate:


Baby grabbing the camera:


Now I'm home impatiently waiting for my girls to come on tv...Golden Girls that is. I'm actually watching that oooold movie, Ghost, right now. Whoopi Goldberg makes me smile. And Patrick Swayze, well, he really is a Ghost now, haha. Okay, okay, an angel. :)

A smorgasbord!

Nuts? Check.
Fruit? Check, check.
Cheese? Check, check, check.

Since we became wine connoisseurs, I've thought about doing a fruit/nut/cheese plate. Haha, just kidding. I'm no wine snob, I just like to drink. Brandon on the other hand, well, he is snooty. We are members at Wine Styles and they have wine tastings a few times a week. Occasionally I will see other members ordering cheese and nut plates, and it has been making me jealous. We decided to go to Whole Foods to pick some fun stuff up.

After trying six different kinds of cheese with the cheese man (aka our new best friend at WF), we chose the following to take home:
1. Parrano -cow's milk cheese, firm, smooth, nutty, salty & sweet
2. Midnight Moon - goat's milk cheese, nutty, brown-buttery, hints of caramel
3. Fromage D'Affinois - cow's milk cheese, buttery, rich, silky. This tastes more like butter than cheese. Kind of odd.

For fruit we bought:
1. Bosc pear - crisp, spicy, nutty
2. Bartlett pear - smooth, sweet, juicy
3. Gala Apple - sweet, firm, juicy

I cut the cheese (HA HA HA ) and fruit, and plated them with a few almonds. Everything tasted so good! My favorite cheese is still the Parrano, but Brandon preferred the Midnight Moon. They are very similar.


In other news, I was finally found the Chobani pineapple yogurt!! The pomegranate flavor needs to hurry up and come to SC!

Welcome to my life, fried eggs...and a curry dish!

Fried eggs are the new oats, IMO. I've only made scrambled eggs before, but today Brandon taught me how to make a fried egg. Don't laugh -- I had never tried it! They look gross...all raw and runny and ewww... Back in the winter he made me a sandwich that almost made me cry it was so tasty. It was a fried egg on whole wheat bread with spinach, goat cheese, and blueberry jelly. Odd combination? Yes. Delicious? YES. So master Brandon taught me how to make a fried egg -- so easy btw -- and we put it in an English muffin with a slice of ham and cheese. YUMMY!


Dinner was a simple chicken curry dish. We cooked chicken with garlic and set that aside. In a separate dish I mixed a can of lite coconut milk with 1 1/2 tbsp of red curry paste, 1 tsp low sodium soy sauce, lime juice, and basil leaves. After that warmed, we poured it over the chicken and added sliced red pepper, carrots, and peas, and lemon grass. It simmered for a few minutes, and then we poured it over jasmine rice. It was pretty good, but I thought the flavor was so one-dimensional. It needed more lemon grass or maybe even ginger. We ended up adding some sweet chile sauce for extra flavor.

Oh, Saturday...

I love waking up on Saturdays knowing that I can cook anything I want for breakfast and not feel rushed. Somehow I was feeling tired of oats, so we pulled out waffles. I ended up putting the same toppings on my waffle as I put on my oats -- almond butter, blueberry jelly, bananas, and honey. Ew to the honey though. I realized I don't like honey unless it's mixed into something.


For lunch I met with a girl that I may be living with when my lease is up. She was really nice, and it looks like things will work out. We had lunch at Five Loaves, which is just a few minutes away from where she lives. I failed to take a picture, but I had a tomato tarragon soup with a pesto chicken sandwich. Both were pretty good.

I recently read about almond crusted chicken on Meghann's blog. As much as we are obsessed with almonds, I don't know why I never thought of this genius idea before! Guess I've been too busy dreaming about things I can put in my oat bran...This is so easy to do. You just need three things -- almonds, chicken tenderloins, and an egg white! I threw 1/2 cup of whole almonds into the blender and chopped them up. Then I dipped the tenderloins in the egg white wash, then rolled them in the almond meal. They were so cute! They baked at 350* for about 15 minutes. I turned them once, just in case, but I'm not sure that was necessary. We put them on top of wilted spinach with a raspberry soy glaze.

For the raspberry soy glaze, we pureed fresh raspberries, a bit of whole grain mustard, a bit of soy sauce, then reduced it over high heat until it thickened.


The almond crusted chicken was awesome! It is definitely a new favorite! We're off to meet auntie Kelly & her friend Sarah downtown for drinks...I need wine, stat.

Feeling better already...!

Day 3 of Operation Goddess complete! Woohoo! I swear I feel better already, haha.

Here's what I ate throughout the day:

Breakfast: 1/3 cup oat bran + 1/3 cup milk + 1/3 cup water + 1/2 banana, topped with a couple cranberries, walnuts and pumpkin seeds and green tea
Snack: 1/2 banana
Lunch: 1/2 pita pocket with rosemary ham, cheese, dijon mustard. Small bowl of spinach with raspberry balsamic dressing
Snack: apple
Before working out: couple bites of last night's food bc my stomach was growling

After I worked out, Brandon came over. We threw together yummy salads that consisted of spinach, chicken, sliced peaches, cranberries, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, and raspberry balsamic vinaigrette. Yummy!


I will try to do a better job of taking pics of everything I eat. It's so much more fun than reading text. Night guys!

Chicken, Carrot, and Broccoli Stir Fry

I was craving a noodle dish all weekend, and since we were too afraid to try any of the Thai restaurants in Greenville and they were closed on Sunday in Atlanta, we made our own Monday night.

Brandon chopped up broccoli and carrots and let them simmer in a pan with a little water and soy sauce. He also cooked a chicken breast with garlic. Meanwhile, we boiled soba noodles.


I made a sauce that consisted of the following:
- 1/4 c. (or less) soy sauce
- 1/2 c. water
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
-1 tbsp orange juice

Once the chicken and veggies were done, we combined them and added with the sauce. It simmered for a few minutes and then we added the cooked noodles. For extra flavor, Brandon added sweet chile sauce to his.


I added a bit of almond butter and lime juice.

This dish was fairly easy to make. If we make it again, we'll add more ginger and a red pepper.

I spy Trader Joe's, The Fresh Market, and Fresh2Order!

This weekend we went up to Greenville to see our aweeeeeeesome friend, Cory! Here, say hi to Cory:


We stayed there Friday night and then headed to Atlanta on Saturday for the Journey concert. When we got to Atlanta, Brandon's friend Adam told me there was a Fresh Market right by his apartments. I was so excited and ran off to explore. I was in there for 45 minutes (only to get food for lunch) because I didn't want to leave. It was fun! I picked up our lunch (a turkey & cranberry sandwich for him and blueberry yogurt, banana, apple, and pasta salad for me) and a bag of chocolate goodies. I got dark chocolate covered toffee (omg yum) and dark chocolate covered pretzels. Everything was yummy but I was so tired that I forgot to take pictures. The concert was pretty cool. We went with a big group, which was fun, but we got rained out!

Before heading home on Sunday we were hunting around for a place to eat lunch and I spied a Trader Joe's! Ah! We don't have those in Charleston either, so I was very excited. I picked up 2 jars of their almond butter for only $4.99 each! That is so much cheaper than the Maranatha AB from Whole Foods ($9.99). I also picked up a Honey Greek yogurt, of course.

Their Greek yogurt was sooooo creamy! It wasn't tangy at all, but I didn't get much of a honey taste. I liked it a lot, but am staying faithful to Oikos.

We chose a little place called Fresh2Order for lunch. They had lots of yummy salads, soups, and sandwiches.
I got the Spinach salad. It came with strawberries, golden raisins, slivered almonds, feta and a raspberry vinaigrette. I added almond & rosemary crusted chicken skewers.

Brandon got the Asian Salad. It was a mix of baby greens, candied walnuts, tomatoes, sesame seeds, avocado, pickled ginger, crispy noodles, mandarin oranges, mixed nuts, and a dijon vinaigrette. He added grilled chicken.
On the way home, I pulled out this MASSIVE apple! It was a honeycrisp apple that I picked up from The Fresh Market. It was so juicy!

Greek Chicken & Potatoes

MMM PITA!

A few months ago, I found a pork souvlaki recipe on Serious Eats. I made the tzatziki sauce and it was really tasty. I omitted the olive oil because I didn't find it necessary, and it was still really yummy. You really taste the garlic and lemon in the sauce.

Here's the recipe I used:
1 cup Oikos plain Greek yougrt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup grated cucumber

Mix all ingredients together and marinade for at least an hour.

We cooked a chicken breast in olive oil and added a Greek seasoning that consisted of oregano, rosemary, and a couple other herbs. Then we stuffed toasted pitas with the chicken, spinach leaves, and the tzatziki sauce.

For the potatoes, I used olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper. I baked them in the oven for about 45 minutes on 450*, turning halfway through.

Everything turned out great!