Friday, March 14, 2014

Formaggio Friday!

Hello all!

Welcome to the first installment of Formaggio Friday!

As you can tell from the title of this blog...I love cheese.  Goat cheese, feta cheese, cheddar cheese, american cheese, mozzarella, parmesan...I have yet to meet a cheese I don't like.  It is my favorite food and I usually eat it in some form every day.

Every Friday I will feature a new cheese.  Today is Red Dragon's Mustard Cheese.
I picked this up at Whole Foods the other week.  Have you ever been to their cheese department?  Yes they have a whole department just for cheese!

After browsing the counter, I decided upon this Welsh cheddar cheese with mustard seeds and Welsh ale and I can tell you that it was indeed a wise choice.  It is smooth, creamy and buttery with a pop of spicy mustard.


Growing up I was never a huge fan of mustard.  I was always one to just use ketchup and skip the mustard.  This cheese was quite delicious though.  Nate and I just ate it by itself but we immediately thought how good it would be on a grilled cheese.  It is soft enough that it would probably melt really well and the buttery taste would be great on grilled bread.  Throw in some deli ham and you would have one hell of a sandwich.  In fact, I think that is exactly what I will be doing when I pick up some more of the cheese (which I certainly will be doing.)

That's all for today...Happy Pi Day!

Monday, March 10, 2014

It's the start of a new week!

Hello hello...

It's Monday and that means its the start of a new week.  Last week I didn't post but I definitely worked my butt off earning activity points.  I got 42 for the week.  42!  I haven't ever earned that many in one week and guess what...It paid off.  I was down 2lbs at my weigh-in tonight!  I am officially in the 160's again.

At the meeting tonight we committed to one activity goal for the month of March and joined a group with others that have the same goal.  My goal is to stay on track with my 5K training.  I signed up for two 5Ks recently.  The first is at the end of April and the second at the end of May.  I have never run a 5K before and am hoping I can make it to the end still running.  We shall see.  I am currently doing the couch to 5K (C25K) program now.  Anyway, our group will check-in with each other and keep each other on track and accountable.

On to today's eats and activity...

The morning started off with a sausage and stuffing brunch bake curtesy of emilybites, blackberries, and a cup of coffee.  I made a few modifications due to lacking some ingredients but it was delicious still.
A bit after breakfast it was time to head to spin.  I go to The Handle Bar in South Boston.  Its a great studio and I am glad I found it.  I had signed up for the 12pm class and when I got there I found out Jess was subbing for Rachel (who normally does the class.)  I haven't taken one of Jess' classes in awhile.  The music, energy, and choreography was great and I burned a good amount of calories.
After spin, I headed to Planet Fitness to knock out week 3 day 1 of C25K.
Not a bad amount of calories burned for the day huh?

When I got home I had some chocolate milk and chicken pot pie soup (courtesy of skinnytaste.com.)
At my meeting they were giving samples of the Weight Watchers Ranch Pretzel crisps.  They were pretty good for a snack in a pinch but I wouldn't eat them all the time.

Dinner was another emilybites recipe, Zucchini Chicken Pasta in Tomato Parmesan Sauce.  It was pretty good.  I would definitely make it again.  For a side, we had collard greens.  Nate picked them up at the farmer's market on Saturday.  I am not sure I have ever eaten them before and wanted to make them a little more healthy than cooking them with a ham hock or bacon.  I stumbled across this article from Men's Health and thought it was not only hilarious but sounded pretty good also.  We were out of white wine so we just added extra veggie broth.  They came out pretty good and I would try them again (with the wine next time.)


I then rounded off dinner with the last two Tagalongs (best Girl Scout cookies...ok maybe they tie with Thin Mints.)

Hope you all had a great day!