Mmm gooey melted cheese on top of a runny egg. Best breakfast sandwich ever! I usually don’t eat cheese often, but bought a pack of 2% Kraft singles to satisfy this craving.

This was consumed after an hour long toning class at the gym this morning. Totally hit the spot =D

My brunch today… I woke up super late at 2pm and was famished! Two runny eggs and slices of honey ham steak, yum!

But now I’m well rested and full =)

Ughhh I caved tonight and went off my “plan.” It was just not a good eating day overall. Started off good, but worsened as the day progressed. My sleep deprivation caught up with me and I was feeling very weak (physically & mentally). When I got home, I passed out in bed and slept for a few hours. When I woke up, I just wanted to eat anything…and well…bowl of instant noodles was the fastest.

^ Nissin chicken flavored bowl. I didn’t like it much at all. If anything, I prefer the other ramen packets from the Asian grocery store. They taste at least more ramen-y. What a waste of calories…

Tomorrow starts a new day though!

My parents bought Chinese take-out for dinner tonight… okay I am supposed to be on my diet but I couldn’t resist a few bites of the calimari. I know, I cheated =( I ate it plain though — no rice! I love this dish. The slight chewiness of the calimari always tempts me to have just one more.

There were also very colorful shrimp chips included in the take-out. I was good and did not try any of these. But took a photo because I loved the colors =)

Finally, I remembered to take the turkey cutlets out of the freezer this morning! It was nicely thawed out by the time I arrived home from work. This was a very basic dinner. I sprinkled salt & pepper on the cutlets, then sauteed them in a pan with EVOO. Also added a few squirts of lemon juice a minute before turning the heat off.

Yeah I know, the turkey looks like brain matter. =p

Paired the cutlets with a side of beans mixed with sriracha sauce. HOT…but a nice combination. This was a very hearty dinner!

Ack, I once again forgot to take out the turkey cutlets from the freezer! I was going to just panfry the remaining slice of ham steak for dinner, but after I got back from the gym… the stove was already occupied by Mom. What’s a hungry girl to do…

Luckily, right out of the oven was a tray of baked salmon! And a bowl of steamed broccoli was sitting out on the table already….

Voila, instant dinner and I didn’t have to do a single thing! =D

I forgot to take out turkey cutlets from the freezer this morning (before leaving for work), so I had to improvise for dinner. Decided to panfry a ham steak that I had bought at the grocery store — don’t worry, I didn’t buy a whole ham… just a pack of 2 individually wrapped ham steaks! Hehe, last month I had baked a whole ham and was stuck eating it for 2 weeks and grew soooo sick of ham. But I figured I would give it another chance, given that it’s pretty lean and considered core on WW.

I don’t know if it was because I was starving… but gosh, this ham steak tasted sooooo much better than the whole ham I baked last month!!! It was not as salty and just tasted great pan-fried.

No starch tonight, as I had my whole wheat pasta for lunch. So the sides are just a salad and some simmered carrots. Day#2 back on eating right! Hurray!

Today starts off a brand new me! For the past 2 months, I’ve been trying to get back into exercising and eating right but have been rather unsuccessful. I would only be “good” for 2-3 days and then fall back into a slump again. It was a terrible cycle …but with warmer weather just right around the corner now, I need to stop procrastinating and put real effort into making myself look and feel the best I can.

This week, I will follow Weight Watchers core eating plan. I just need to get into the rhythm of eating wholesome clean foods again and not worry too much about calories/points yet.

Tonight’s dinner is a mish mosh I put together because it was easy and would also give me a week’s worth of food to pack for work. It’s basically whole wheat pasta tossed with 93% ground beef, mushrooms, crushed Italian tomatoes, ff ricotta cheese, and various spices. I then paired it with a simple salad with diced cherry tomatoes and Waldenfarm’s 0 calorie blue cheese dressing. (The taste is still a little off to me, but I’m getting used to it).

Very filling and yummy! Here’s to eating healthy!

I was supersupersupersuper lazy to go grocery shopping today (and much of anything else really) and so dinner was a quick pickup at a local Hale & Hearty. I got 1/2 a grilled chicken club sandwich and cup of New England clam chowder. It was just enough to fill me up…

The grilled chicken club was served with Bacon and Avocado on an onion square.

I got a slice of 7 grain bread along with my soup. Perfect for dipping!

Last week, I was on a crepe craze and bought a jar of Nutella and Dark Chocolate Dreams. The latter is a mixture of dark chocolate & peanut butter…mmm, so good. While Nutella is awesome in its own right, I wanted to vary my spreads.

Breakfast this morning.. I was lazy and didn’t want to cook anything. Decided to make toast with the PB spread and bananas.

The jar and banana:

I used Arnold’s light bread, so very calorie friendly (to combat against the PB spread).

Upclose shot!

Had I known it was going to be such a long + busy day, I probably would have eaten a much heartier breakfast. Instead I wound up with a lost cat and was so occupied with taking care of it that my next meal did not come until 11pm!

Over the holidays, my sister-in-law (Hi Mimi!) made Pioneer Woman’s Best Lasagna for lunch one afternoon. Firstly, it was super nice having someone else cook! Food always tastes so much better when you’re not the one slaving over it. The lasagna itself was quite yummy. Not sure if it’s ‘the best’ …(as PW tends to title her recipes) but definitely tasty.

I really liked the hearty layer of cheese (the recipe said Parmesan but my SIL accidentally picked up Romano) on top. The Romano tasted just fine though.

A view of the layers. Once cut, the lasagna pieces didn’t stand well on its own… we think because there were only 2 thick layers so it just spread out on the dish once served.

My plate…okay I confess, I had 2 servings that day!

I’ll have to try this recipe another time on my own. It’s a keeper!

Despite feeling very downtrodden, I attended my coworker M.’s wedding on December 26th. That night in itself was quite interesting as I was set up with a blind ‘date’ (not really a date-date persay) to accompany me. It was um, a very interesting experience…. and that’s all I’ll have to publicly say on the matter!

The starter course… I don’t remember all the fancy wording, but it’s basically a mesculin salad with a poached pear filled with gorgonzola cheese. The pear was delicious! Loved the subtle sweetness coupled with the cheese. It was a wonderful dish to start off dinner.

Main course… I decided to be un-adventurous and get the usual, Filet Mignon. It was pretty standard fare. Wish the side was not fried onions though. It seemed a bit too greasy-ish for a wedding meal. There was also mashed potatoes, asparagus and a red wine reduction underneath the steak.

For unknown reasons, they never served our table dessert (or the wedding cake) at all. I was a little miffed about that because I wanted to take a photo! Oh well.

There was also a lot of delicious looking food provided during cocktail hour, but my appetite was still pretty shot during this period. (It still is, just not as bad) Despite my ‘interesting’ blind-date experience, the wedding itself was quite beautiful. It was difficult at times to see the celebration of love while I felt my own heart crumbling, but it would be selfish on my part to not honor the love that M&E wanted to celebrate that night.

Sushi is one of my fav foods but I normally only eat it via take-out or at restaurants. I have only attempted to make it at home once or twice in the past, and that was years ago. Just never had the motivation even though I often would get cravings! Finally got a new opportunity Christmas night in Brooklyn! My brother, his girlfriend, and I walked down to the local Asian grocery store and picked up all the goods.

We made three different type of rolls: crab & mayo, eel, and lobster spread.

Rolling out the sushi…yes, without a bamboo mat! I don’t think it really made much of a difference anyway because we are not quite sushi masters (yet).

Shredded crab sticks mixed with Japanese mayo. The mayo made such a difference in the taste!

Cutting up the rolls. The pieces don’t look fancy (oh we were missing avocado!) or very cleanly cut, but the overall taste was very yummy. Fresh and flavorful. Home made sushi at its best!

Plus, aside from enjoying our hard work, the process of making it with others was quite fun. Lot of laughter as we tried to figure out how to make it all work. That was the best part of it all.

I’m not sure how to continue this blog… even though I started it out of my passion for food & photography, it also became an archive of the foods that Chris and I had explored and eaten together, whether cooked in our own kitchens or consumed in our quests for new & interesting culinary expeditions. So along with the pictures, there is a history of our relationship too. We are no longer together…and it’s difficult trying to figure out how to transition certain things (like this website) forward by myself without erasing the archives.

For now, I will let the archives remain. Not sure what the future holds yet, but I will try to continue posting because this site was something I enjoyed tremendously updating in my spare time. The only way that I found myself able to come back here was to use a new template (tweaked a bit) to sort of “start afresh.”

To end this post, I leave you with a picture of a gummy hamburger that my brother’s girlfriend, Sue, bought for me at her local Asian grocery store. I was feeling very down and it was a little gesture that cheered me up.

Very cute, no?

And I would recommend taking the burger apart to chew each section. Unlike me, who popped the whole thing in my mouth and tried to chew it entirely. Not a good idea.

After the last cheesecake post, this is another one….. I swear, I don’t eat cheesecake everyday!

It was my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday this past weekend and for her birthday cake, he picked up a red velvet cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

The cake had layers of cheesecake and actual red velvet cake, which was a nice touch because the overwhelming rich cheesecake flavor was not too much. The white chocolate shavings on the outside were also very yummy! I love white chocolate!!!

Chris and I split this piece because I know that a big slice of these Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes often run 1000 calories a slice!!!!!!!!!!! That’s just nuts…