I read a blog post recently about New Year’s Resolutions. The post talked about how you should already be thinking about your New Year’s Resolutions.
What? No! I should live fancy free from Halloween until New Year’s Day. Well, maybe not.
The post suggested thinking about your New Year’s Resolution (or just one of them if you have multiple). Now think of several action items that can help you attain that goal. Decide on just one of those actions items and start focusing on it now. Theory being that it will slowly help you ease into the resolution instead of just having New Year’s Day be your D-Day.
So my New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. SHOCKING!! This is my goal (and so many people’s goal) every damn year. But maybe just maybe this will be the year!!
My one action item to start on now is to eat a salad every day. I know that eating more veggies is good for me, healthy, and will help me with my soon-to-be New Year’s Resolution.
Enter the hodge podge salad. A hodge podge salad is basically just throwing anything on a bed of lettuce. You can jazz it up or keep it super simple if you’re pressed for time. You can pretty much turn any previous night’s dinner into a salad the next day.
Here’s a few of my recent salads.
Arugula topped with sliced apple, walnuts, feta cheese & vinaigrette
Cobb salad that I grabbed while working from the office
I made Sloppy Joes for dinner recently. The leftovers became a fantastic Sloppy Joe salad!! Just throw the meat on top of lettuce and used mustard as the dressing.
My 2 ingredient slow cooker salsa chicken became a delicious salad. Versatile food like this is the best, especially for a single lady. I need to keep things interesting with so many leftovers.
Lettuce topped with carrots, celery, peas, tuna, and jalapeno ranch.
How often do you eat a salad? Have you decided on a New Year’s Resolution yet?
I love sandwiches.
Seriously.
Love.
You can pretty much call me Joey from Friends.
This sandwich is based off of my favorite sandwich from Il Vicino in Wichita.
Chicken & Pesto Panini
Ingredients:
2 slices of crusty bread
roasted chicken
slices of red onion
roasted red peppers
artichoke hearts
fresh mozzarella
pesto mayonnaise
Instructions:
Load up your ingredients and toast your sandwich on your panini press or in a skillet.
Enjoy!
Hello October. I’ve missed you!
To celebrate your return, I had my new favorite oatmeal combination for breakfast.
Maple & Brown Sugar oatmeal with almond milk, a dash of pumpkin pie pie and a spoonful of pumpkin.
Heat and add a spoonful of chunky peanut butter.
Love!
For lunch recently, I’ve been recreating my favorite sandwich from Jason’s Deli….the Turkey Reuben.
An open-faced sandwich on beer bread…that I made with the Pumpkin Wheat beer I recently bought. The beer bread is topped with mustard, deli shaved chicken (I didn’t have turkey), pepper jack cheese, and sauerkraut. Delicious!
The most important part of October 1st is being able to break out all of my Halloween decorations.
In going through my decorations, I found my black wig from last year.
I was Snookie from Jersey Shore. 
Some of my favorite Halloween decorations:
Beaded spider web coasters
Spider web cereal bowls
Pumpkin tumblers
Happy Halloween decorating!
I did it again.
I realize that I need more books to read like I need a hole in the head.
But come on, there’s only about a week left before Borders closes. And it’s 70-90% off now, people!! Fiction books are only $3-$5! I couldn’t pass up that deal.
I was hoping there would be more cookbooks left, but they were very picked over already. I did get this Foodista cookbook that looks really good though!
Four of the books that I bought have a food theme too. 
I would have bought more books, but I couldn’t carry anymore to the register! I put one book back because I started to think I already owned it. (Yes, I have a problem!) I checked when I got home and I don’t own the book, so maybe I’ll have to venture back this weekend and see if it’s still there. It was The Cookbook Collector if anyone has read it and wants to weigh in.
In the end, I got 13 books and spent $51.26. But I SAVED….
Hey…I also made lunch today too.
This pizza wrap was inspired by the Hungry Girl’s show on the Food Network.
You’ll need a:
tortilla
pepperoni
an individual portion of string cheese
diced tomatoes
I used about 5 big slices of pepperoni. Ignore the rogue brown rice on there too. I used some of my diced tomatoes from yesterday’s lunch.
Heat that wrap on your George Foreman grill for 5 minutes and then devour it!!!
It was SO good!!!!!!!!! And it was under 300 calories!! You can easily make this low-cal wrap any time. Just be aware of the ingredients. I used a low-carb, soft taco sized tortilla, organic pepperoni, and skim string cheese.
I’m leaving my George Foreman grill out on the counter because I KNOW I’ll be having this wrap again tomorrow.
I made this salad several weeks ago for my Dad’s birthday.
I wasn’t going to blog about it after my nephew asked why there were weeds on his plate. Ha!
He gets a free pass since he’s cute though.
(This was one of the few & far between moments that Haley will sit still when there are lots of people over at my Mom & Dad’s house.)
But then my brother asked if there was Feta in the salad. I said yes. He said OOOOhhh I love Feta!
I felt a little redeemed.
Summer + salads = great idea.
Strawberry Summer Feta Salad
Ingredients:
Romaine lettuce
strawberries
Feta cheese crumbles
pecans
chopped red onion
chopped celery
broccoli
You can really just eyeball it and use whatever salad ingredients you love! I used a light vinaigriette for the dressing. I made a different strawberry salad last month too. This salad with the Feta wins though!
Side note: I misspell “vinagriette” EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I try to type it out. When will I stop having to look up how to spell that darn word????
Is there a word that you always have trouble spelling??? Please don’t tell me you misuse your/you’re or their/there/they’re. I’ll have to call the grammar police on those mistakes!
Happy July!!! Where in the world did June go? It flew on by! I started July off great today with lunch and a movie.
I suggested to my parents and aunt and uncle that we have lunch at Il Vicino in Bradley Fair. I’ve eaten at the College Hill location, but it was years ago. None of my family had eaten there before. It’s always a bit nerve wracking when you suggest a restaurant. I would somehow feel responsible if they didn’t like their food.
There was no reason to worry today though! Everyone seemed to really like what they ate! Whew!!
Oddly enough, for Il Vicino being a wood oven pizza restaurant, none of us opted for pizza. With the 100+ degree heat, I was all about a sandwich and side salad instead.
I got the # 18 Panino Con Pollo E Pesto. It was a panini with roasted chicken, pesto mayo, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, onions, and mozzarella.
It was SO delicious!!! I knew immediately that I would love the sandwich. Hello….pesto, artichokes, and roasted red peppers. That’s a no brainer for me.
I know that my Mom & aunt both really loved their sandwiches too. They got the #22 Vespa…roasted chicken, sun-dried tomato mayo, fontina, tomatoes, spinach, and pesto. Their sandwiches were huge too. I’d recommend splitting a sandwich and side salad next time.
Most of all, I was really pleased with the service. At Il Vicino, you order at the counter and your food is brought to you. Often times, with the counter situation you rarely get drink refills. I must have drank 6 glasses of water at lunch though! Great service!!
After lunch, we were off to see Larry Crowne. My Mom & I were especially hyped to see this movie. We love everything Julia Roberts. And who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?? No one I want to be friends with, that’s who! The movie was adorable, just as I expected. It’s just a cute summer movie to see!
What are your favorite Julia Roberts’ and Tom Hanks’ movies?
Top 5 Julia Roberts movies:
1. Pretty Woman — this is probably my favorite movie ever!
2. Steel Magnolias – My colors are blush and bashful, Mama!!!
3. Notting Hill
4. My Best Friend’s Wedding
5. Mystic Pizza
Top 5 Tom Hanks movies:
1. Sleepless in Seattle
2. Splash
3. You’ve Got Mail
4. Big
5. A League of Their Own
Did you listen to NPR today? They did a story from Harvard about weight loss. Nuts & yogurt are the foods most closely related to weight loss. And potatoes are most closely related to weight gain. Darn you, potatoes!!!!
If you remember, I had a strawberry chicken salad from Biederman’s recently.
Today, I recreated and IMPROVED it at home for lunch.
The suspects: organic sweet baby lettuce, a Gardein chick’n scallopini breast, organic cauliflower, mushrooms, slices of yellow pepper, a sprinkle of Chia seeds, strawberries, and Maple Grove Farms of Vermont citrus vinaigrette.
This salad was great!!
The Garden chick’n scallopini was very good. It had been an impulse buy. A successful impulse buy, very tender and juicy!
I also love this dressing. It was much better than the poppyseed dressing from the restaurant version.
Do you like to recreate dinners from restaurant at home?
I recently made BBQ beef sandwiches for lunch when my family was coming over. I had to get up at 4:30 am to put everything in the crock pot. I must love my family. And luckily, they turned out well so it was worth it! And the 2 hour nap at 4 pm later in the day was heaven.
BBQ Beef Sandwiches
Recipe from Taste and Tell
Ingredients:
3 celery stalks celery, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup ketchup
1 cup BBQ sauce
1 tbl yellow mustard
2 tbl apple cider vinegar
2 tbl Worcestershire sauce
2 tbl dark brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
4 lbs beef chuck roast
For the sauce: Combine the chopped celery and chopped onion. Add the garlic, ketchup, BBQ sauce, yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, chili powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Stir until blended. You can use whatever BBQ sauce you desire! I used Sweet Baby Ray’s.
Place roast in a crock pot. Pour sauce over the roast. Cover and cook on high for 3 hours. After 3 hours, reduce heat to low and continue cooking 4 hours more.
About 30 minutes before serving, remove roast from crock pot and shred meat. Pour sauce into a medium sauce pan. Cook uncovered over medium heat and stir occasionally for about 20 minutes to thicken the sauce.
Put roast and sauce back in the crock pot and stir to combine. Keep warm in the crock pot.
Serve on your choice of buns. I used petite Kaiser rolls.
Serves about 12-16.
I call sandwiches sammies, sandoozles, or Adam Sandlers. –Tom (Aziz Ansari) on Parks & Recreation
I never met a sandwiches I didn’t like. Often times for lunch, wraps are my go-to choice. Quick, easy, and tasty! And it’s a fast way to sneak in more veggies.
This wrap was so yummo!!!
Tumaro’s Whole Wheat tortilla
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
Handful of Spring Mix salad
Cucumbers
Sprouts
Applegate Chicken Nuggets
I served mine with some baby carrots and an apple on the side.
What did you have for lunch??
I heart tortilla chips. But tri-colored tortilla chips….eh, not so much. I think the red and blue chips just taste a bit stale and off. So, I surprised myself by buying a bag of blue corn tortilla chips at the grocery store.
Best impulse buy ever!
These chips are so good!! And it was a perfect pairing with my favorite tomato soup. Amy’s chunky tomato bisque soup is delicious. The chunkiness of it reminds me a bit of tomato sauce. I doctored mine up with a little rotisierre chicken, hot sauce, salsa, cheese, and a dollop of sour cream.
