Day 26 Continued, 27, and 28

After my boyfriend picked me up from the airport on Sunday, he told me he wanted to stop in Fort Collins and get some Chinese food (unfortunately, Laramie has some very mediocre Chinese food...). He already had a place picked out, too - China Wok, which has an 88% rating on Urbanspoon.

We both ordered a ton of Sesame Chicken, which happened to come with broccoli. And the boyfriend absolutely loved it. Of course, he ate around the broccoli...but nevertheless, the whole time we spent driving away from that place, he kept talking all about how awesome it was and hot satisfied he was. And for $20, we ended up with enough food for leftovers. I ate some on Sunday, yesterday, and today. Actually, the only other thing I've actually eaten was a bowl of broccoli cheedar soup from McAllister's, after my boyfriend complained yesterday of being sooo hungry and really wanted McAllister's (even though he'd eaten it twice while I was gone).

Day 15: Eggnoodles With Butter and Cajun Seasoning, Cornbread, More Broccoli and Cheddar Soup.

So on Tuesday, I booked a flight for next week through Spirit to visit my best friend down in Phoenix. It was a pretty cheap flight, but when I looked at my bank account, I realized I had less money than I thought I did. Whoops! So, I'll have to be fairly careful with how I spend my money, so the next month could be pretty boring food-wise (except for next week's trip, because I made sure to allocate money for that).

That said, my boyfriend did buy me lunch (he wanted either subway or McAllister's again, so I picked McAllister's so I could get some more broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl), and I did cook up some egg noodles last night with butter that ended up being pretty tasty. I also finally ate the last piece of cornbread. Yay!

Day 7: Bagel, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich, Leftover Soup, French Fries, and Snacks

I sort of forgot to take a picture of my bagel, egg, and cheese sandwich - so here's a photo of one I found online. Except my eggs were scrambled and looked better than that.

Side note: This is pretty much the one way I can actually eat eggs - scrambled, and on a sandwich. Eggs in pretty much any way, shape, or form taste nasty to me, which is really unfortunate, given that they're a cheap source of protein. It's one of the few foods I have difficulty eating.

I also finally ate some leftover chicken and gnocchi soup. To be honest, the gnocchi didn't save all that well, and since my boyfriend didn't care for the soup, I probably won't be making it again. I also won't post another picture for the sake of repetitiveness, though the original post can be found  here,

I also ate a few fries with creole seasoning (I've already taken photos of fries) and some peanut butter and saltines. 

Day 6: Banana Bread, Leftovers, Brocolli Cheddar Soup, and Snacks

Since I've already posted pictures of these things in the past, today I just ate my leftovers from the other night at Chili's and some more banana bread. I'll probably end up eating something else, but to be honest, I haven't had much of an appetite today, or yesterday for that manner.

Later, I did end up eating some more brocolli cheddar soup, this time with a bread bowl. Boyfriend and I went to McAllister's.

And for a snack, I had some saltines and peanut butter.

Day 3: Chicken and Gnocchi Soup in the Crockpot

This is an attempt at something I'd sort of wanted to try, but was nervous about. Well, we had some leftover chicken breasts in the fridge that really needed to be cooked, as well as some carrots and celery - so I finally attempted recreating Olive Garden's Chicken and Gnocchi Soup...and it wasn't bad! (Though there is room for improvement).

Most recipes for this soup were done on the stovetop, which is fine, but the cooktimes required were pretty low, and I wanted to get as close to that soft meat you tend to get in soups as possible. And seeing as I hadn't even cooked the chicken yet, I thought I would try adapting this for the crockpot in an attempt to get that softer chicken.

Recipe Used:

• 3 chicken breasts
• 1/2 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 3 stalks of celery
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups half and half
• 1 tablespoon Thyme
•  1 16-oz package of gnocchi
• 1.5 cups spinach
• Salt and pepper to taste

Vegetables were added into the crockpot first.

 Then the chicken breasts.

The broth was actually some homemade broth I'd made a few months ago and frozen. It was mostly thawed before I put it all in the crockpot.

This mixture was then cooked on low for about 6.5 hours. Then the gnocchi, half and half, and spinach was added. This is before I added the spinach.

Boyfriend had requested some without spinach, so I ended up having to divide it before I added the spinach.

Overall, this soup was very heavy on the chicken. If I was going to try and get closer to the Olive Garden version, I'd probably cut it down to one, maybe two chicken breasts. There were also more carrots than normal, and I was fairly generous with the spinach, but I tend to prefer soups with a lot more vegetables. The amount of gnocchi was about right, though, as was most everything else.

I didn't add any salt at the beginning, because when I initially made this broth, it turned out to be pretty salty, and I didn't want to over-salt the soup. However, after the addition of half and half, I definitely needed more salt, and ended up adding close to a tablespoon.

I also regret not grabbing any kind of Parmesan for this at the store.

Also, I didn't make any breadsticks - rather, I combined restaurants and ended up making cheddar biscuits with this recipe.

The butter may have had just little too much parsley. :)

Day 1 Continued: Hangover Food

I was planning on eating some leftover tacos, but while I was on the phone with my best friend, another call came in from a girlfriend of mine. So I told him, "Hang on one second - somebody else is calling" and picked up. She told me she was still hungover from last night's New Years Eve celebrations and asked me to go to McAllister's and get her "hangover cure" for her (by the way, she called me at 7:00pm) and buy me dinner in exchange. I didn't want to get greedy, but I did grab a bowl of broccoli cheddar. (Sorry about the photo quality - I took this over at her house, where she still had the lights down low.) 

I was still a bit hungry later, so I ended up eating a bit of the guacamole that was still leftover from last night. While making the guacamole, I tried something new and added fresh cilantro to the guacamole. I also added about half of an onion, two Roma tomatoes (both diced), lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper. Since I was making it for others, I had my friends taste-test it, and they approved of the flavor, though I would have added more lemon juice and cayenne pepper if I had been making it for myself. The guacamole goes well with the chicken tacos.

 I also made spicy banana bread yesterday, using this basic recipe. My family had a recipe they used to follow, though I found it pretty dry, so I started experimenting with other recipes. So far, this one's my favorite. I also added a bit of allspice, ginger, and nutmeg in addition to the cinnamon. Unfortunately, I left it in the oven for about five minutes longer than I should have, so the bread is a little drier than usual.