sugar rush

Holy cow. I decided to *finally* hit up the grocery store this weekend* and picked up a box of these so I wouldn't be tempted to eat cupcakes. Well, okay, snacking on this + being tempted to eat cupcakes are not exactly related -- but you know what I mean.

But holy cow, that thing is total sugar. And for me, that chocolate-y cookie + white-chocolate-like coating is *perfect.* Hooray, healthy me! Okay, sorta healthy.

And, here's a little polyvore-tasticism, inspired by this delight! (I was a little indecisive about shoes, oops.)

Fudge Shoppe

* A little sadly, the checker was asking me what fun plans I had for the night, since I was ringing through at almost 10p on Saturday night. And all I had was, "Oh, you know -- chopping up all that lettuce you just rang up." (Sigh) I never was a cool kid, but man, having to admit that I was going to chop up lettuce on a Saturday night ... rock. But hey, choosing between (a) going out on the town and (b) saving about $40 by prepping lunch/dinner for me & the hubs this week? You bet cheap is going to win out right now! Ten more days till the family reunion river trip, and 3 weeks till my 10-year reunion, which I am still debating attending. Grr. I know, what magic can I work by eating loads of veggies + 100 calorie snack packs? Who knows! At least I finished that crazy answer I was working on last week!

Yums

{LeanCuisine.com}

I couldn't bring myself to actually review my lean cuisines on a regular basis. but holy cow, today's was seriously good. I mean Good. That just seems wrong. The pasta was a bit mushy, but when do you *actually* expect a frozen dinner to be tasty? And make you feel good about yourself for gettin in some veggies? Rock.

This one
Was just okay. Same mushy factor I ran into before, with the chicken; the veggies were pretty darn creamy & made me feel a little guilty. Shouldn't that be a good thing? I dunno, definitely filling.

PS: did anybody actually realize Lean Cuisine has 6 different lines? I mean really, is that necessary? Holy cow, I've got variety ahead of me, whoo!

Lunching In, Part 1

So. I heart food. And I heart writing. So man, writing about food is totally up there on my list. I try to review elsewhere other than here -- but I'm trying a new venture: frozen entrees! I know, glamourous. But between supporting my habit (these AMAZING DELICIOUS sandwiches:

{source}
at

I just couldn't justify the expense (amazingly cheap @ $4 in comparison to other downtown ventures, but still, that's $20 a week!) or, more importantly, the artery-clogging factor of the goodness that is cheese + bacon (okay, + mayo).

And so I tried to break the habit with grocery trips to buy ingredients to cook my lunch/leftovers. Nope, that didn't work.

So, enter the ultimate ease:

{Wegman's}

I know, sodium levels are atrocious. But I tell myself -- hmm, 21% sodium? If I balance that with low sodium elsewhere (I do decent breakfasts + hmm on the dinners), hopefully not too bad?

But as I was munching my way through the above (yep, Lemon Herb Chicken Piccata!), I found myself thinking in reviewer mode -- and I thought, "Why not?" Since if I like some of these, I'll want to remember -- and since I'm just starting on this trend (growing up, we didn't do these tv dinners, so I've avoided this for as much as possible), there's tons for me to go through.

So -- my thoughts? Sauce was delicious. Lemony, almost reminiscent of a Chinese entree in thickness + flavor, so that's bonus points in my book! The chicken itself was... soft. I should say "tender," but ... tender sounds like a good thing. And it wasn't "mushy," cuz that's clearly bad. It was like sitting in the shade of tender, rather than being bad (mush) or good (tender). (And I'll just hope this makes sense to me later.) The rice -- wow. I mean, the actual rice grains were what I'd expect frozen rice to taste like: plain, a bit wet but still separate. But the green beans (almost julienned in style? a little thinner?) and slices of carrots -- totally had me thinking I was *so* much better off with this than my paltry lettuce on the above heaven-on-earth-sandwich pictured above.

Of course, tiny portion, but -- that's a good thing. I remember my sister talking about the portions of fast food from American McD's versus those in the Philippines -- and how in the PH, the portions really do satisfy you. But here, it's like giganti-sized (without any supersizing at all) -- just b/c we're used to "value" for our money. When maybe if we'd thought of health, and could scale down $ (or be happy that we're satisfying our hunger, rather than going over that), then we'd probably be better off.

Anyway. I'm excited about pasta dishes, hee, so I got this one of the way. But this could definitely re-enter the rotation. Not uber-excited about it, but really enjoyed it all the same. 'Ray.