Eating Disney

After breakfast this morning we have been eating snacks and meals in the Magic Kingdom.
Right now having drinks at the Polynesian. One Lapu Lapu, one habenero margarita and one Shirley Temple. Hello! Mama like.

Lunch was hot dogs at Casey's. I may save my full rant on Casey's until another post. Let's just say I have issues with recent changes to the hot dogs and the menu. What used to be one of my favorite meals ( dog with mustard and kraut) is now just meh. Thanks a lot. Hubs got a BBQ dog (recent menu change) which looked gross. It's a dog topped with pulled pork and coleslaw. I will say the pulled pork was good. Since the dogs suck now maybe I'll just start eating the pork off the BBQ dog.

And of course we had a Mickey ears ice cream bar. Always solid.

Right now noshing on crisp bread and beef satay. Mmmmmm. Beef on satay could use some seasoning but it's tender and I like the chimichurri sauce it comes with. I can predict we will have popcorn later too. The only question there is if it's too salty or not. You will be the first to know.

Florida

The Fam has moved from OBX to Florida for a few days. Yes, I know those places are no where near each other. We kind of go crazy on car trips.

From yesterday we have a waffle spear from Legoland. And today it's Mickey waffles at DisneyWorld.

Waffle spear was ok. Too dry and the kids kept flipping it over to take a bite so we all wound up covered in powdered sugar. Mickey waffles are consistently yummy. Realized that photo is on Hubs's phone so will add that later. I had the breakfast sandwich at the Contemporary hotel. HUGE sandwich. Very tasty. It was like a ham and cheese omelet on a roll.

OK. It's now 10 in the morning and I'm on a park bench dripping sweat. Gonna b a good day!


Note: aforementioned waffle added

On the Road Again . . .

So I've just finished up a 5 day stint in Duck, NC. In the car now speeding towards St. Augustine , FL and then Disney World. I can't say that I have eaten much too healthy the last few days. I don't expect that to change before I get back home either.
Here's a sampling of what has been going on:
Night 1 High Cotton BBQ. Traditional North Carolina sauce. Nice and tangy, not sweet with some kick. Green beans lacked seasoning which was ok in contrast to the spicy sauce on meat, but salt would have been good. Hush puppies were a little dense for my taste but fried up nice and crisp.

Morning One was Duck Donuts. Pretty Damn Good. The end. These are homemade cake donuts made fresh to order with a choice of glazes. Vanilla was my favorite although the maple was close second. Warm melt in your mouth goodness. Anyone who says these are overrated is an asshole and should not be believed. Yes, they are that good. If you don't think these donuts are great you probably also do not like Christmas or puppies and I do not want to know you.

Day Two the Hubs and I snuck out for burgers at Baldies. Everyone in our house was making sandwiches for lunch and we don't really do that. I should say Hubs doesn't really do that. Baldies has big sides of thin cut homemade fries and homemade beer battered onion rings. Both were good. Burger was your standard fried patty. No seasoning but it was tasty. Buns were fresh which counts for a lot. Shakes were made with the soft serve machine vs the hand dipped ice cream which kind of sucked but whatever.

Night Two was takeout from Cravings. I forgot to take a photo. I had fried oysters which tasted fresh. Also has bites of a crab cake and one crab leg. Both delicious. Crab cake had lots of lump meat and was light on breading. Good. I hate that. Nothing ruins a crab cake like too much breading Crab legs were nice and fresh tasting Hubs had lobster fettucini that he said was fantastic until he puked it all up at 2 a.m. Maybe that wasn't great as a takeout item?

Morning Three I was supposed to do a 5k and our friends would watch the kids. Mission was aborted when my daughter popped up at 6:30. There was no way she was going to let me leave the house without her so the runners went without me to avoid a nuclear meltdown I headed for Tullios bakery for a fresh homemade bagel. Yum.
Texas is not known for its bagels so it had been a while since I had a really good one. This was awesome. Chewy with crunchy outside fixed toasted with butter. Espresso was also really good. I took a shot to go with my bagel and more or less made my day right there.

Night Three cooked in.

Night Four we took all 8 kids and walked to the boardwalk. After some intense debate we decided to stop and feed kids pizza and grown ups would get takeout from Fishbones. Mostly bc it's too hard to get a table for 14 without a reservation. Kids ate at Wave Pizza Cafe. Cafe is a bit of an overstatement. Small interior with picnic tables on the patio. Pizza was serviceable. Not special. Good craft beer selection of some non standard choices (crafty rabbit was one). Hummus and pita chips was lame. The chips were prepackaged and served in a single serving bag. Too few for the hummus you got and not enough to share. Seems you could at least make the effort to take the chips out of the bag. As a premade appetizer it was totally a superfluous menu item to me. A waste of time if you aren't making the hummus or the chips.

The kids liked it and the pizza though so I guess that is what counts. Patio is right on the sound so hard to beat the location.

The Fishbones takeout was equally unimpressive. I had crab legs based on the good one from 2 nights before. Forgot to do picture before I ate and only have an "after". I ate the crab legs but they were not half as good as the ones from Cravings. Taste was too salty and slightly brackish. A couple guys got the paella which was reported As marginal. I don't recall hearing anyone in our group raving about His dish come to think of it.

And finally, Thursday meals were all repeats. more Duck Donuts, more Baldies, although this time I had a fish sandwich which was lovely, and more High Cotton BBQ. On BBQ this time I had chopped brisket that I really liked Coleslaw is a bit too mayonnaisey for me but still tasty and sweet.

If you are still reading this, kudos to you and thank you for not falling asleep. I've been posting in the car while Hubs drives and I think he is getting irritated at how long this is taking. Meanwhile the toddler is throwing her Chik fil a fries at me enraged at my audacity in asking if she wants them. Big brother pigged out on Lays and is now in a food coma in the way back seat. The babymeister is chilling so all in all we are cool.

Housekeeping

Did I mention I'm on vacation this week? Some non diet vacation goodness coming your way tomorrow if I'm not drunk by noon.

Just kidding. I have kids. I wait at least until 3.

It's a Two fer Part Deux . . .

This posting now is my actual lunch from today.  Lean Cuisine Chicken with Almonds

 really? do you have to make it so difficult to orient pictures?  this is starting to piss me off big time.

This meal is another one of my go tos.  It's in the rotation quite a bit.  I like the green beans (I guess it has broccoli too) and the rice, and overall flavor is good.

 yes, that is upside down.  I can't win today.

OMG you guys, this dinner has exactly 5 pieces of chicken in it, say wha?!?!?!?  To mix it up I cut them in half so I had 10.  Ha!  Something you might consider yourselves good people at LC.  Throw me a bone, make me feel like you gave me something extra now and then, ok?  There are also actual almonds.  I think you can see about 4 in the photo above if you look really hard.  More would be nice but not critical.

Usually I have to eat this on a day when I have a big breakfast or eat breakfast late or something.  This one weighs in at 250 calories which is cool, but I always end up kind of hungry again after I eat it.   It can feel kind of skimpy some days.  Not really sure why.  My team of research assistants is working on that now to try to find an answer.  When they have one, I will let you know.  [yeah, i don't really have any research assistants.  just an intern but somehow i think he would be confused if i gave him work related to my blog.  or not.  he also might be so scared of me he would do it anyway]

So, while I do like this one a lot--oh by the way, chicken has a brown sauce, slightly sweet but not as sweet as the Roasted Honey Chicken-- I don't think I can honestly give it more than a 4 out of 5 because its not very filling and I wind up having to have a snack or eat super late so then I am on to dinner before I get hungry again (like at 3.  I ate about 2 today and I'm already trying to talk myself out of going down to get a candy bar and wondering if the gal down the hall has any more pretzel M&Ms).  But I will give it a RECOMMENDED.  It has good flavor and I eat it pretty often. 


Writing two of these back to back has really taxed me so I have to go get a coke now.


Tomorrow working from home and may not get anything posted.  Have a great weekend!

It's a Two fer . . . or at Least It Was

Unprecedented.  Two ratings in ONE blog post.  What is the world coming to?  I'll tell you.  Was going to do two ratings together but I got so amped about this first one it ended up longer than I thought it would.  Instead of a Two-fer It's just two consecutive blog posts.  I hate scrolling too much so don't want to make other people do it either.   I meant to post this morning and then never got around to it before I had to start getting on back to back conference calls.  So now, I've eaten lunch and will just do both of them together.  Is one of the posts about the Panini?  Why, yes it is.  And let me just throw this out there:  I ate it for breakfast.  I know, a little wild.  But I was starving and as earlier noted, I am lazy.  Too lazy to take an elevator 26 floors to the deli for a breakfast taco.  Besides lazy I am also CHEAP and did not want to pay for said breakfast taco.  I eat waffles for dinner so why not panini for breakfast?  And there you go.

So, this morning Lean Cuisine Spinach Artichoke Chicken Panini it is.  And very tasty I might add.  I'd say this is more of a grilled sandwich rather than your traditional panini.  its not squished together and the bread tastes and looks like it was grilled on a griddle vs a panini maker.  End result is tasty though, so who cares?

I have to admit all previous times I have eaten this I have eaten it open faced the way it comes out of the box like so:

Not sure if it occurred to me before to put it together and eat it like a sandwich.  No idea why.  Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.  For whatever reason I did put it together this time after I got it out of the microwave.

Seriously, that looks pretty good right?  In no way does this resemble something that came out of a box and was previously frozen.  It has actual recognizable bits of artichoke and chicken and spinach.  Flavor is good, has a nice sort of creamy cheesy thing going on.  Don't laugh, but this is every bit as good as a panini from Panera if you ask me.  Not kidding.  Bread is crunchy, slices are thick and good texture, filling is adequate.  Best of all this sandwich is only 320 calories and not a gajillion like Panera.  Panera probably doesn't even have bread that is 320 calories.  I'm not knocking you Panera.  We had some good years together when I lived in the great state of Virginia, but let's be honest, you and your sandwich cafe brethren are not exactly known for having light food.

Back to the appearance, just look at those grill marks.  They are a thing of beauty coming from any diner/restaurant let alone from a box.  That chicken thing I had on my flight last week should be totally embarrassed, humiliated actually.  Lean Cuisine should get a Nobel Peace Prize for microwave technology.  Oh, they don't have that category?  Well, whatever.  This is why I am so confused as to why LC doesn't have breakfast food.  Can you imagine, this bread with egg and cheese? Or with ham and cheddar?  LC would be unstoppable.  UNSTOPPABLE.  Do you hear what I am saying people?

I guess unless you experience it it's not all that exciting.

You can probably guess where I'm going with this now; 

Spinach Artichoke Chicken Panini gets 5 microwaves and a RECOMMENDED from me today.

I agree, I could just be punch drunk from lack of sleep.  Had to spend most of the night last night juggling 3 kids and packing for epic 10-day road trip, but I am pretty confident I will agree with myself on another day that involves more coffee and more sleep.

Mmmm coffee . . .

Dumplings! ! !

In all fairness to myself I did bring a panini from Lean Cuisine yesterday.  Just keep getting lunch invites that are too hard to turn down.  Today was dumplings.  My intent yesterday was to get soup out then come back and heat up the panini.  Best laid plans and all that . . . and as an example of my forgetfulness as noted in Monday's post, I left my dish from lunch Monday soaking in the kitchen sink at work until just this morning.  So, apologies co-peeps for not cleaning that up sooner.  It was sitting just where I left it still full of soapy water.

Better luck tomorrow!  Preparing for vaca which starts on Friday.  Who knows what I will eat but I will surely post some of it here.  Our family of 5 is meeting another family of 5, a family of 4 and then for just a couple days another family of 4 at the beach in North Carolina.  Antics will ensue.  And yes, photos will be posted here.

No.  I did not eat all those.  I ate half and other people shared.  Why those people don't just get two orders I don't know.

Until tomorrow . . .

Monday Lunch

I don't know if it's because it's a Monday or b/c I didn't get much sleep last night but I am cranky today people.  Hubs can confirm.  I think I yelled at him in the car in response to questions for no reason at all.  The crankiness may effect my ratings.  When I pulled my LC out of the microwave just now I looked at it and immediately got PISSED OFF.  Have since calmed down so can discuss more rationally now I hope.

Why irritated?  a) didn't see much chicken in my Chicken Margherita b) and thought there was intense overuse of red peppers.  Upon closer examination turns out most of the red I saw is tomato so, cool.  But still has red peppers which I find completely gratuitous.  For one, I hate the red bell pepper.  and Two, I just don't find that it adds much if anything so why bother?

On the chicken front, ok so there was a bit more than I initially though but I'm noticing a pattern here.  Obviously LC has mandated you get no more than 5 chunks of chicken no matter what meal.  This one was one of the bag ones so psychologically seems bigger and should therefore have at least a couple more chunks of chicken.  Particularly when your meal is called "Chicken Something".  Ok- here are some pics so you can see what I am talking about (RANT: god forbid this stupid Google+ nonsense ever actually "instantly" uploads my photos.  I either have to sit here for 30 minutes reloading or just mail them to myself and attach which is a pain but vastly faster.  Work on that Google instead of screwing around with trying to make a phone or a tablet.  You've already lost that battle.)

Photo does not really do justice to all the red bits in my lunch.  Anyway--here you can see about 3 big chunks of chicken.  there were 2 more small ones hiding in the noodles, but come on.  You can't give me more than 5 on occasion?  Especially would have liked it today because I am really hungry.  I went running last night and have been starving ever since.  Now have to do my best not to go down to the deli in our building and freak out on the candy bars.  Lucky for me I am lazy which is usually enough to stop me from getting up and going down there.

You can also see that this meal is in a steamer bag, not the nice little box with food tray.  When I do eat these it's usually for dinner and not lunch.  No real reason for it other than these seem to be more of a dinner-y thing to me b/c of the bag.  I think the real reason is the bag meals require you to cook then pour into a bowl or plate.  Work= no dishes.  At home I have dishes.  No sweat.  Bag at lunch means I have to remember to BRING a dish with me.  Happy to say I did manage that today and brought a storage container to use.  However, as I sit here eating I also realize now I have to wash said container before I take it home.  So bag is marginally more of a pain in the ass than the meals that come in the ready to eat tray.  And there you have it.

The convenience factor I think has to affect the rating so instead of a 4 I will give it a 3.5 out of 5 microwaves. But I will also give it a RECOMMENDED

ok, will work out the alignment issues later.  This is a work in progress and I don't have time to tinker with coding and format generally b/c I am on my lunch hour after all. 

I know there are some people who keep a dish at work and why don't I just do that?  a) I refuse to keep it in the kitchen b/c I don't want someone else to use it/touch it.  b) would forget if I had it in my office c) you have not seen my office and, d) I don't use the steamer bags that much.  Plus I would still have to wash my dish.  Like I said, I'm lazy.  My memory is also about the size of a kernel of corn.  I recently left a mug soaking in the sink for 4 days while I was on a long weekend.

Big excitement tomorrow:  I think I will bring in the LC Panini in my freezer.  OOOooohhh.

PS-- this was 310 calories.  If you have not noticed I try to keep my meals at 350 or less so I have room each day for other goodies and don't go over about 1350 calories a day (most days it's around 1200.  "Hey, that's not very much.  So why aren't you skinnier?"  GOOD QUESTION).

a bientot. . . .

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That . . .

Just got back from Calgary so was not eating LC and today I won't be either b/c we have a work lunch thing that I may mention later depending on what we ordered. 

So, airline food was ok not great but certainly better than nothing or having to pay $10 to get something to eat on the plane.  Trip out was a nice mushroom soup that was actually really good, along with the de rigeur fruit and a chicken wrap with fake grill marks.  Hello- you are feeding me on an airplane.  The grill marks cannot make me believe that you are in the kitchenette grilling me something or making a panini.  Nice try.

On the way back to Texas we were served some weird grilled chicken with pasta salad.  This meal was a cold dish, which was fine and I did like the chicken (which means it was prob pumped full of preservatives and salt) but the pasta salad didn't do much for me. However the vodka tonic made up for it.

Dinner the first night was a pan seared Halibut with mussels in a nice vinaigrette.  So simply prepared and fresh tasting and all around excellent which is not easy for fish if you ask me.  Most places put too much junk on it and ruin it.

and my dinner companion had a nice hen with fresh beets . . . reports on this were also good.

On my trip back I was stuck in the airport for an extra 4 hours (yay me!) so I had some lunch at one of the airport restaurants.  Beer was good, hamburger, not so much.  It was actually kind of gross so I only ate about half.  The fried looking thing under the cheese is some fried Canadian bacon.  The way that this was described on the menu did not communicate to me that was what I was getting (it was something like pebbled bacon?).  I thought I was getting crumbled bacon.  What do Canadians call Canadian bacon anyway?

Oh almost forgot- the last night of my trip I had a nice Bento box from room service at the Fairmont.  Fruit, smoked salmon, banana bread, mango sauce and a bagel.  I'm a sucker for smoked salmon.  A light dinner was just what I wanted.  That, and to go to bed insanely early which I also did, and then slept so late the next morning I missed breakfast in the dining room.  Oh well.  I suppose I should mention my dessert.  I had a cinnamon creme brulee.  It could have been great except it wasn't chilled real well and parts of it were kind of runny and not a nice custard consistency.  Bad consistency on creme brulee pretty much kills it for me.

Possibly will have a post on lunch later.  If not I shall return next week to regale you all with more details of Lean Cuisine meals.  Until then, enjoy!

Back at it . . .

Ok- so I FINALLY got back to eating LCs again today with my lunch (btw, Lean Cuisine, I would be game for some breakfast items.  Maybe a croissant sandwich or breakfast panini?  hmmm?)

Today I had another one of the meals branded as the "spa collection" whatever that means.  Roasted Honey Chicken with 300 calories is the topic today.

You know, not bad.  Nice sweet flavor with some pepper.  A little mushy.  It has whole wheat orzo pasta which was not al dente by any means.  Didn't bother me but I know some people would be picky about that.  The sugar snap peas were also pretty mushy although the flavor was good.  It had what I thought was quinoa in it too but the box tells me that it is wheat berry.  Whatever, some nice grains in there is what I am getting at.  Same white meat chicken chunks as the other meals. But again, it seems like real chicken made from whole meat, and I dig that. 

Update 7/10: so I posted this w/o being finished with I realized. so here is the wrap up:

I did like the meal despite the mushiness. Good flavor. I'd give this one a 4 out of 5 microwaves and a Recommended.

I'm off to Calgary today for work. No LC for the next three days. Maybe I'll rate my airline meal. I get to eat on the plane. Got an upgrade, that's how I roll.

4th run down

Oh my gawd you guys, I didn't have any Lean Cuisine's at all last week.  I didn't have much that was real great to be honest.  I hit the dumplings twice and had a My Fit Foods breakfast one morning.  It was good but jeezus H was it spicy.  I had the -- oh man. forgot what it was called.  It was turkey sausage with rice and bits of egg white and spicy as hell.  The rice and egg part was great but the sausage was so overwhelming my mouth was on fire after a few bites so I couldn't even eat like half of it. Granted, it was a huge portion.  Suggestion to MFF:  less sausage, more rice and egg and more tomato.  The  tomato makes it and there just wasn't enough.  Oh and less spicy.  Seriously.  I like your overall turkey sausage flavor- it is prob the best out of all the prepared meals I have had, but for realz, WAY too spicy.

I'll give it a 3 out of 5 microwaves b/c of the spicy factor.  If you are a mild only or no spice person, do not get this.  It will burn a hole in your stomach.  The end.

Other stuff I had over the holiday and weekend: I grilled some burgers made with organic grass fed beef.  delish!  There were no leftovers though b/c Hubs left the burgers outside over night.  Total bummer.

In San Antonio I partook of a turkey leg.  Always awesome. Not sure you can screw those up.  Reminds me, I have a smoked turkey in the fridge to eat. . .  and I had some BBQ that was a waste of my time.  The sausage was ok but my 2 yr old ate most of that.  She is a fiend for bar-b-que.  Rounding out the bad diet were some margaritas, and Beaver Nuggets from Bucees.  Don't knock it if you've never had them or don't know what Bucees is.  To call it a convenience store does it a great disservice.  More on that another time--or I might post about it in my other blog:  Yodi's Big Move

 Time for lunch now.  Laters.

Monday Dinner Edition

Ok, Monday lunch had a department thing so no LC. We had Greek catered in. My lunch was one steak kabob, half a pita and 2 tablespoons of hummus. All solid but for the pita. Seriously, don't waste my time with store bought pitas. They suck. You really can't make your own or at least get something that looks a little homemade?

Dinner was a Perfect Fit Havana Chicken. 100% meh. Meal was a cumin coated chicken breast with rice and black beans and some haricot verts. I did cave and salt the sh*t out of this. It was pretty blah although I did like the beans and rice. Chicken was very dry. It's hard for me to overlook the dry chicken because (admission coming) . . . I really don't like white meat. I pretty much only eat it when I cook it myself.  Generally, I'm not a huge chicken fan anyway so I'm kind of picky when I'm not eating chicken in a nondescript form, like a nugget.

On the plus side, the portion was generous and I think only 270 calories (nope, I stand corrected, see below--260 calories). I didn't even finish the meal.

I think on Havana Chicken I have to go with a 1.5 out of 5 microwaves due to the utter blandness of the meal and how dry the chicken was. Accordingly I can't recommend it on being "good" only "good for you".