Move over, peanut butter.

I had been holding off on trying cashew butter for two reasons:

1. I don't like almond butter, and didn't know if I would like nut butters other than peanut.

2. It's very expensive, and I didn't want to waste the money if I didn't like it.

Anyway, I decided to bite the bullet and went to EarthFare yesterday. I was pleased to find a half size jar of MaraNatha:




My review: Oh my. OHHHH MY. This has to be one of the most delicious things I have eaten. Ever. In my whole life, all 28 years of it.

I tasted it alone first, then decided the best delivery method was 1/2 mini whole wheat bagel:

I quickly went back for the second half. It's official - I'm in food love.

Parents' Visit Day 1

I started out today with another new flavor of Clif Z bar: Apple Cinnamon. I was not a fan, but that's not surprising because I typically don't like this flavor of bars/muffins/yogurts/whatever. You would think I had it figured out by now, but I keep hoping the next apple cinnamon item will be better than the last. I think I don't like them because there is such a fake buttery taste in the background.




My parents arrived right before lunchtime. Usually we do a lot of shopping and eating out, but I decided to cook for all of the weekend. We started out with lunch, which consisted of barbecue chicken sandwiches, a huge salad, and homemade potato wedges. Sorry there is no picture, but I can assure you a good time was had by all.

For dinner, I made one of my mother's favorite dishes, which so happens to be a recipe I learned a couple years ago in my short cooking class and one of the richest chicken recipes I have ever prepared. It is Sun-dried Tomato Crusted Chicken with Feta Couscous.

Since I didn't create or adapt this recipe, I won't post it, but I will gladly share if you send an email address. I will tell you it involves lots of fun tasks like making your own breadcrumbs out of fresh bakery bread and mixing up a wine and butter sauce. YUM. I ate about 2/3 piece of chicken, 1/2 c. couscous, and a big serving of steamed broccoli which will hopefully soak up some of the butter from my system.

Tomorrow will feature another mini quiche recipe and a huge steak and blue cheese salad for lunch.

Then, when my parents leave for home, I think I'll check myself into food rehab.

Mmm...sodium

I had plans to eat out at a Japanese steak house tonight with some friends from school, so I wanted to keep my other meals small and light today. I also wanted to get my dairy in early, so I had a big cup of milk and a Clif Z Blueberry bar for breakfast:




I was really looking forward to trying this bar. The honey graham is still my favorite, but blueberry solidly earns the #2 spot. Or, in the spirit of the Olympics, you could say it gets a silver.

Around midday, I felt horrible. I was extremely nauseous and almost canceled my plans, then suddenly I was starving. I needed something immediately, so I microwaved a Lean Cuisine five cheese lasagna. It's not that great in terms of sodium, but it was hot and cheesy. I'm going to say I felt bad because I didn't sleep enough last night and didn't drink enough water yesterday so it caught up with me today. Hopefully I'm not getting a bug!

Dinner tonight was a lot of fun. I was disappointed, though, because the sushi bar was closed for the week for remodeling. I was looking forward to a Tiger roll! Instead I ordered chicken and shrimp, which came with mushroom soup, salad, and rice. There was a ton of food and I brought around half the chicken and most of the rice home. I didn't eat my salad (I know, BAD), but it was just a bowl of iceberg lettuce and that is my least favorite. I did eat all of my zucchini, onions, broccoli, and mushrooms.

Sorry there is no picture, I was too busy talking and completely forgot! I'm sure you'll get the idea since it was standard hibachi fare.

I should probably start chugging some water to flush out all that soy sauce.

Tomorrow I am making a batch of crockpot barbecue. My parents are coming to visit this weekend, and I have to prove to my father that it is actually good. He is an avid griller and smoker, so he is pretty serious about his barbecue. Unfortunately I don't have that option since I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex, and I'm sure the management would frown upon flames and excessive smoke. I might make some new friends if I tried it, though! I love the smell of a hot grill.

See you tomorrow!

We're always out of something.

Last night I really wanted a glass of chocolate milk for a snack. It seems like I'm always out of either milk or chocolate mix and last night I was out of milk. So, I had a yogurt instead:





I liked the consistency of this yogurt, but overall it doesn't compare to Greek yogurt at all. I have also tried to cut out most products that contain high fructose corn syrup (which is hard because it's in almost everything). I swear I also tasted a chemical flavor, but maybe that was in my mind because I wanted Chobani yogurt. I have one container of this left, but after that I probably won't buy any more.

Dinner

Last week, my boyfriend and I went to a new Hibachi Express restaurant. I was satisfied with the food, but the BF was disappointed in the amount of food/quality of the food for the price. I decided to try making it at home tonight, except with A LOT more veggies. I started with 1/2 onion, baby bella mushrooms, 1 zucchini, and a small broccoli crown, which I stir-fried on high heat with 1 T. oil and salt and pepper:





I also made some fried rice with some diced carrot, diced onion, leftover brown rice, and low sodium soy sauce. For the chicken, I tried to find some kind of sauce that was low calorie and low sodium (since we already had a little soy sauce in the rice). I found the perfect sauce:




Per tablespoon, this garlic sauce has 15 calories and less than half the sodium of light soy sauce. Also, the flavor is really strong, so I only used 2 T. for a little over half a pound of chicken. It got really thick and stuck to the chicken nicely as it heated. I highly recommend it (I found it at Lowe's Foods). Plus, it's organic!

The BF also requested the sweet carrots that they serve at the hibachi restaurant. I was a little short on time, so I used the Green Giant microwaveable honey carrots. They tasted good but had too much butter in the sauce. If anyone has a good recipe for sweet/glazed/honeyed carrots, please send it my way! I plan to make this meal again and would like to make my own carrots next time.

My plate (on a small salad plate):





I ate approximately 1/2 c. rice, 1/4 c. each chicken and carrots, and LOTS of veggies.

By the way, before we ate, the BF said "If this is good, we're never going back to the restaurant." His final verdict: "Better than the restaurant!"

I'll take that.