Pantry Scrounging Dinner

Tonight’s dinner was created from staples I always have on hand:

• frozen veggies
• soup
• bread
• cheese

I knew I wanted to use the box of V8 butternut squash soup that has been haunting me everytime I open my cubbard.

Box of Soup

As indicated by the severely torn box of soup in the above picture, I’ve  clearly never opened a box of soup before. I felt quite ravenous hacking away at the box. Just gimme my soup already! I let Sadie lick it clean and tear it up for good measure when I was done. Who’s the boss now, huh soup box!?

Butternut Squash Soup

Thank you to the readers who gave me suggestions as to what to do to transform my butternut squash soup craving into a meal. I followed your suggestions and decided to pair the soup with the old stand by: a grilled cheese sandwich.

Grilled Cheese

I made mine on a whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin and Ryan’s on Publix light wheat bread. His and hers grilled cheeses. 😉

We also split a box of Green Giant Healthy Vision frozen veggies.

Green Giant Healthy Vision Veggies

Grilled Cheese and Veggies

At the dinner table Ryan and  I concluded our dinner was fit for a five year old. 🙂 We loved every last bite. The soup in particular was really, really good. I’m a fan!

Low Calorie Christmas Cookies

Ryan affectionately calls me his little cookie monster because I’ve been known to polish off an embarrassing amount of freshly baked cookies on more than one occasion. They’re just too darn delicious!

I love baking Christmas cookies for Santa (and myself 😉 ). Nerd alert: My sister and I always bake cookies to ‘NSync’s Christmas CD. It’s amazing. There’s just something about that song “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” that makes me wanna sing and dance!

Were you a Backstreet Boys fan or an ‘NSync fan… or just a hater? I definitely preferred ‘NSync. I love my Justin Timberlake (though J.C. was my fav at the time…  I had a soft-spot for Joey, too!) .

Annnyway, in my latest Examiner article, I’ve compiled a list of low calorie Christmas cookie recipes. Click here to check it out!

Dippy Eggs

How do I like my eggs? Dippy!

Apparently “over easy” is the proper term for my favorite kind of eggs, but I was grew up in a household with two parents who were born and raised in Pennsylvania, so we call eggs with a runny middle dippy.

I think this term makes a lot more sense than “over easy” anyway. What’s the point of a runny yolk? To DIP toast in it, of course.

Breakfast for Dinner

I love eggs but rarely crave them for breakfast. Yummy, salty eggs are a fantastically easy and satisfying dinner.

Tonight I fried two dippy eggs and a slice of Canadian bacon on the griddle and popped a whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin in the toaster.

Breakfast for Dinner

Buttered Toast

Can dinner get much easier?

This dinner may also be the cheapest dinner in the world. Eggs are very inexpensive and at $3 for a pack of six Arnold’s sandwich thins, my toast was only 50 cents! I think my breakfast for dinner meal was under $1.50. Cha-ching! Money in the bank (that will be spent on the wedding… ;)).

Speaking of weddings, tonight I popped in this movie to entertain me while I pack for my trip to Arizona tomorrow.

Best Movie Everrr!

My whole family is obsessed with this movie. The father and mother remind me so much of my parents. 🙂

Tonight I will spend the majority of my evening packing for my trip to Arizona to see some friends from high school. I’m so excited!!! My best friend Michaela is flying to Phoenix from Indiana and we’re both arriving in the early evening (I’m working a half-day tomorrow) and staying with two of our friends who live in Scottsdale.

Even though I’m excited to see my friends, I’ll definitely miss Ryan and my little puppers.

I’m getting some quality time with Miss Sadie tonight because she likes to help me pack (and by help me I mean she likes to sit on top of my duffle and jump on each new item of clothing I add to the bag). Ryan is playing in a soccer game tonight so he’s not here to keep me company.

I made sure to snap a picture of Ryan with a wonderful award he won at work before he headed out to the fields. Yay Ryan!

My Award Winner

He then turned the camera on me as I was pouting since he was leaving me for the night. 😦

Boooo

I’m off to pack. It’s Friday tomorrow!!!!

Pizza Burger!

Today’s lunch was as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Arnold’s whole wheat sandwich thin

2. MorningStar Farms tomato and basil pizza burger

3. Fresh spinach

Pizza Burger

This Italian burger was a veggie delight! Full of flavor and lots of vegetables.

I love veggie burgers and this is one of my favorites. Mozzarella cheese is found throughout the patty and the seasonings are fragrant and tasty. Not bad for a break room lunch!

Thanksgiving Potluck

Today we received an office email about the annual Thanksgiving potluck. This year it’s taking place on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Since I wasn’t here last year, I am quite excited to taste the goodies and make a delicious dessert to bring. I signed up to bring a turtle pumpkin pie.

(Picture from WomensDay.com)

I found the recipe last month in a magazine and tore it out, thinking I’d make it for a holiday gathering. This seems like the perfect opportunity!

What do you typically make for holiday potlucks?

Pre-Dinner Milkshake

What better way to kick off the weekend than with a McDonald’s triple thick pumpkin milkshake? How have I never tried this shake before???

Pumpkin Milkshake

Ryan and I split this shake after taking Sadie on a nice long walk. Since it’s ridiculously hot in Florida right now, a milkshake sounded perfect! Oh-my-gosh-this-was-too-tasty! We both fell instantly in love. It almost made me forget how yummy McD’s shamrock shakes are… almost.

After our lil’ treat, we cooked up a slightly more nutritious dinner.

I chopped come brussels sprouts and tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper before roasting them in the oven at 400 degrees for 12 minutes on one side before flipping them and roasting them for another 5 minutes on the other side.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

While the lil’ brussels were roasting, I tossed a salmon burger and some onion slices on the griddle and toasted a whole wheat Arnold’s sandwich thin. I topped the bread with light mayo, dijon mustard and dill and slices plum tomatoes.

Dinnah!

Dinner was quite yummy (but the milkshake was yummier). 🙂

Now Ryan and I are having quite the hot Friday night full of laundry, cleaning and packing! As one of my gifts to Ryan for his birthday, I booked us a weekend stay in Ft. Lauderdale and we’re leaving early in the in the morning. I can’t wait! We’re staying in a boutique hotel right near the beach. It’s our first vacation as an engaged couple. Woop, woop!

Our Hotel

I’m bringing my camera and computer along in hopes of making a blog post over the weekend, but I make no promises! 🙂 Happy Weekend!