Whew, my work project is finally over! It has been a long 4 days – I worked 14 hours over the weekend. No meal planning, no grocery shopping = not happy! And when that happens, the eating tends to lean towards fast food a bit too much! Hopefully I didn’t go too overboard!
So what happens is that I have to be creative with what I have on hand for meals. Saturday night, after finding out I had chicken breasts that needed to be used or frozen, I quickly decided on chicken tacos. I only had large burrito size flour tortillas (which Tony used) and I used the last three corn tortillas to make Pam fried tacos – only 1 tsp. of oil used! I think the wine was chardonnay that night! And while I love fresh jalapenos, I haven’t had pickled jalapenos in ages – its on the grocery list!
Each one of my tacos had an ounce of chicken, 1/2 ounce of cheese, then I loaded them with jalapenos, lettuce and taco sauce (and Tabasco!) at the table.
I went to work early Sunday and decided to get Panera’s “Power” Breakfast sandwich. I was completely underwhelmed. Whole grain bread, 1 egg, 1 small slice of ham and a small slice of cheese – for just under $4! Um, pretty sure my breakfast sammies are better if I do say so myself! 😀
On Sunday, after I dropped off a copy job at Staples, there is a Tropical Smoothie on the corner so I decided to hit that up for lunch. The sandwich I got was a hummus veggie sandwich on 9 – grain bread. Holy cow was this good! I couldn’t find the nutritional info online for this one, but it had a shmear of hummus on one side, a shmear of pesto on the other, field greens, banana peppers, cucumbers with a light balsamic dressing – totally need to recreate this one at home!
After coming home Sunday night, I quickly opened one of these – its the last one we had from the beginning of summer, but still oh so good!
Just pour it and watch the magic – the foam on top is the best!
I put Tony in charge of the meat and he picked up Cornish Hens! Tony had the best idea – to put sliced jalapenos under my skin! Brilliant! I put sliced lime in the bird, then put the jalapenos under the skin and topped it off with simple Taco seasoning – it was so good!
The lime helped steam the inside while it cooked and added a nice flavor. I just put Montreal seasoning on Tony’s. His and Hers Hens!
My sister is missing out – she can’t eat meat on the bones – are you like that? After about 45 minutes here’s how they look:
Don’t the jalapenos look amazing?!! Then after an hour and 15 minutes they were done.
I ended up squeezing the lime over my chicken – delicious! Thanks again for the idea Tony!
So to move on to my less than stellar eats. This morning:
This was pretty good! I added Tabasco of course, and since its cheaper to buy the meal (right!) I also had an un-photographed hash brown. 😀
Then before I knew it, it was 1:00 and I hadn’t eaten lunch, nor did I pack one! Quick email to the office and a Jimmy John’s delivery was placed. Quite possibly the best chips ever!
The above bags is TWO SERVINGS so I quickly took half out and put the other half away. I got the #5 Vito, no tomato or onions, but added banana peppers and sliced cucumbers. I planned only eating half of it, but later in the afternoon my blood sugar was dropping so I ended up eating the whole thing! 😀
I love how soft the bread is! Tony had marinated a flank steak, and by the time I got home from work it was dark! Grilling is tough enough, but add on top of that lack of light! So no pics of the grill – but it turned out really good! Perfect medium rare! Tony marinated it in dijon mustard, a little bit of olive oil and seasonings.
I had cheese ends to use up – I got a whole package of miscellaneous cheese ends at my grocery store – they sell them for $1.99 a pound. I bring them home and grind them up in my food processor for shredded cheese.
A few seconds later:
I decided to make twice baked potatoes on the side. I did the quick version, nuked the potatoes in the oven, then mixed the potatoes with skim milk, a splash of chicken broth, cracked pepper and salt. Then topped each half with an ounce of the cheese ends shredded cheese and smoked paprika.
A few minutes under the broiler:
Hannah was so happy! She was actually coming home right as I was pulling them out of the oven – these are one of her favorite side dishes and one she says “she’ll make when she has her own apartment!”
My plate was 1/2 potato, and 5 ounces of flank steak.
Do you see what’s missing in the above plate – VEGETABLES! I have the day off of work tomorrow, so in addition to getting my flu shot, tomorrow and I doing a menu plan and grocery shop – now that makes me happy! And I am planning on making a spicy Thai noodle soup 😀
So in these last four days I have barely counted a calorie or exercised so this weeks weigh in will be interesting! There is so much sodium in fast food, maybe I’ll just chug a lot of water before Wednesday’s weight in!
Alright, I have to catch up on my DVR while Tony watches Monday Night Football – still have to see last weeks episode of Glee! Looking forward to checking out your blogs too! 😀
And don’t forget – two more days to enter your cheese recipes for the $60 cheese basket from Cabot!
I’m so impressed how often you cook! I had to laugh at the “meal is cheaper” remark…how IS that? This is why Americans are fat!
Love the veggie sandwich!
Good luck with the flu shot, it hurts like a b*&^% this year.
Wow, your recent eats are making me hungry! I’m a pretty big fan of Tropical Smoothie myself….so that hummus sammie looks stellar!
Thanks for dropping by my blog!
yayyy You’re back. JEEZ 14 hours working over the weekend sounds like no fun at all. 🙁 But it definitely looks like you had yummy eats!! Look at that chicken on the grill??? It is slowly but surely getting WAY too chilly to BBQ. 🙁
By the way, I’m hosting a Zensoy giveaway, so stop by if you’re interested!!
oh the food, all of it mouthwatering! i love the way you did your hens, delicious!
i have a friend that can’t eat meat off the bone too, it has to be a chicken breast, cooked so well that it’s dry as sawdust! i love eating my chicken off the bone, we chew those things clean!
I love the potatoes! They look amazing!
I think I would try your cornish hen it looks so good!
Glad you are done with that project, I hated not being able to talk to you that much!
That hummus sandwich sounds *divine* and I’m bookmarking the Cornish hen technique, as the husband loves to experiment with roasted birds.
Sorry the Panera sandwich was bad but the Hummus Sammy from the Smoothie joint sounds out of this world! That’s the kind of sammy I like! Yum!!!!! BL tonight!! WOO HOO!
-A
I LOVE McDonald’s breakfast burritos!! It’s pretty much the only thing they make (other than McFlurries!) that I love.
The flank steak and twice baked potatoes are making my mouth water!
I think you did pretty awesome with your eats for being go go go all weekend!
OMG everything looks amazing! I’ve had one of panera’s breakfast sammie’s, i think it was just eggs and cheddar but it was delish but way overpriced!
Wow, that’s a lot of work and a lot of food!
The Tropical Smoothie sammie looks/sounds delicious! I’ve never been to one, but I’ll have to try it out!
I LOVE Tony’s idea to put jalepenos under the skin!!! Now that I’ve tackled whole chicken, I want to try and do something like that! I love dark meat – so I’m definitely not afraid of meat on the bone. It’s so juicy and flavorful – usually white meat is very blah and dry to me.
I loveee Jimmy John’s too! Such yummy bread, I’m glad they don’t toast it.
And last but not least, that flank steak looks so good right now, I could cry. hahaha
How you can be so busy and still end up with great-looking dinners is beyond me! Glad you are getting a day off to get things back to normal. Oh, and I’m glad to know another Gleek – I just love that show!
I don’t usualy eat meat with bones either. Your hens look really good but when it comes to actually eating the bones kind of freak me out!
Great to see you are back from your busy schedule. Enjoy the rest of your night.