Year 3, Day 58: Eggs for Snacks

While I continue to try and break the breakfast rut, I am experimenting with a slightly larger portion of bread for breakfast. It looks like two slices (3 oz) are about 150 calories, so even with 4 tablespoons of super chunky peanut butter, I would still be at about 550 calories, probably less than the Kashi-Berries-Soy Milk breakfast at 600. Since I make all the eggs for Magnolia in the morning (and she doesn't necessarily want to eat them all) I am experimenting with having them for snack. At 70 calories each, they're not bad and they're filling, but since 40 of those calories are from fat you have to lump them in with peanut butter—they're diet busters if you don't watch it.

Breakfast
2 Slices (3 oz.) Iggy's 7-Grain Bread
Super Chunky Peanut Butter
2 oz 50% Jalapeno Cheddar
Coffee

Snack
2 Hard Boiled Eggs
4 Sticks Beef Jerky
1 Cameo Apple

Lunch: Chan Shin Yuan
Chicken with Spinach
Scallops with Asparagus
Chun King Pork
Beef with Cabbage

Dinner:
Turkey Crumble with lettuce & Cabbage
Boneless Spare Ribs

16 Chocolate Chips
2 Squares Dark Chocolate with Almonds
Handfuls of Nuts

Look, I can't explain it, just sometimes we have chocolate in the house. That leads to the examination of chocolate, sometimes the smelling of chocolate, followed by the eating of chocolate, followed by the eating of more chocolate, and then, who knows, a handful of nuts. I'm not proud, but I'm honest. So I'm telling you. This is just what happens sometimes. Then we move on.

Year 3, Day 40: Taxes and Chocolate Chips

We went for a fast walk today. The gang wanted to try a new place so at the half way mark we split up and I walked the rest of the way by myself. While I don't love walking by myself, I do love having walked. It's definitely something I'd like to keep up for as long as I can.

Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean!
Heritage Flakes
Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Unsweetened Soy Milk
Coffee

Lunch: Crown Kitchen
The final disappointment. No feta on the chicken & feta salad.
Harumph.

Snack
2 oz 50% Jalapeno Cheddar
4 Sticks Beef Jerky
1.5 oz Boston Lite Popcorn

Dinner
Turkey Crumble in Lettuce Leaves
Bok Choy a la Em

Dessert
33 Chocolate Chips

Today I got my package from the accountant. It, plus a little bit of chocolate bunny ear from the kids, drove me into a chocolate chip frenzy. They taste so good, until you drink a lot of cold water. Then for some unknown reason, they taste like wax. Not sure why that is but I'm glad because it kept me from over-overdoing it.

Year 3, Day 24: What's in This Coffee!!!

A slow start to the day, and Emily, for the first time, made the coffee. But she used the wrong proportions and it was very weak and denied our usual caffeine dose, we both went crawling into the day like cave dwellers treat their reemergence to the surface. I took Ruby to the carnival (overheard heard to be 'the poorest carnival ever' by one father). It was a pretty small-potatoes affair, but for Ruby, who was recovering from a small bout of not feeling well the night before, it was just right. Because she wasn't feeling well, she skipped the normal temptations of popcorn, cookies and the like, and we focused on making bracelets, knocking over milk jugs and spinning wheels.

Breakfast
1 slice balthazar bread
2.5 hard boiled eggs
coffee (weak)

Lunch
Sliced Breast of Turkey
Salad, Romaine, Cabbage, Feta, Balsamic

Snack
1 Very Large PInk Lady Apple

Dinner
Turkey Crumble
Lettuce Leaves
1 hand full of popcorn
1 pistachio that got loose as I was transferring it to another bag

From www.slashfood.com

Guittard takes top honors in chocolate chip tasting

In advance of Valentine's Day the good folks at the San Diego Union Tribune's food section conducted a tasting of chocolate chips earlier this week. Not being much of a baker, I'd opt for champagne truffles as way to express affection through chocolate rather than chocolate chips.

But let's get back to the paper's survey. The eight panelists sampled the chips in cookies and out of hand, one of my favorite ways to, ahem, "test" chocolate chips.

The chocolatey morsels were evaluated for flavor, texture and performance in a cookie. And the winner for best performance in a cookie (and overall winner) was Guittard Real Semisweet Chocolate Chips. I've never heard of Guittard but a quick Google search revealed that the E. Guittard is a purveyor of some mighty fine sounding gourmet chocolate bars, including Venezuelan Sur de Lago.

The runner-up in the tasting was an old-school classic: Nestle Toll House Semisweet Chocolate Morsels.