Dinner, Delivered

It’s Friday! :)

I’m SO happy it’s the weekend – we don’t have any big plans, but I’m ready for a break from work. It’s so hard going back to the office after a vacation, and this week was really tough for me.

Nick and I had a fun little lunch date in my office today!

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I packed the last of our 3-layer hummus, along with some celery, broccoli, and Olive Food Should Taste Good chips.

And since we didn’t have enough leftovers for lunches, I whipped up some egg salad last night.

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I don’t know why I don’t make egg salad more often – it’s so good and so easy.

I made a batch for both of us last night with 4 eggs, 1 Tbsp olive oil mayo, 1 Tbsp greek yogurt, smoked paprika, a squirt of dijon, and a spoonful of relish.

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I had mine on some of my homemade honey wheat bread with some lettuce, and Nick had his on some of the sourdough from his dad.

We watched this week’s episode of White Collar while we were eating :) Nick slept through it on Tuesday night, so we got him all caught up. Love that show!

And then I went to get some water and I had to face…

the office donuts.

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Almost every Friday, someone brings in donuts from the best local donut place, Carol Lee’s.

I love their donuts, but I also don’t need one every week.

Normally, all the donuts are gone by lunchtime, but when the box was still this full at 3:30 today, I was seriously tempted to take one of the chocolate cake donuts (my favorite!). But I know that eating donuts is like eating sugary air – they never fill me up! And all that sugar would just make me crash an hour later.

So, go me! I had this granola bar instead. I’d call that an NSV :)

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Have you ever heard the term NSV?

It’s something I learned in Weight Watchers – a non-scale victory.

I love the idea of celebrating the things that go well or that we do right instead of focusing on all the negatives.

Those little daily victories add up!

Dinner tonight came together in my head on the way home.

I actually had 2 ideas in mind, and both of those went out the window when I found the package on my porch!

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Thanks to Foodbuzz, their Tastemaker Program, and Bertolli, we had an awesome Friday night meal.

I had 2 spicy chicken sausages I needed to use, so I decided to make a pasta using the Arrabbiata Bertolli sauce for an extra spicy kick ;)

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I browned the sausages in a little oil and added in some chopped onion and green pepper before adding the sauce.

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And I used a cool pasta tip I learned a while back:

Instead of keeping the pasta boiling, just bring your water to a boil –

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Drop in your pasta, some salt, and stir it around –

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Then take the pot off the heat, put the lid on, and let it sit 8-10 minutes until the pasta is cooked (I usually stir it once or twice, too).

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This makes it SO much easier to cook the other part of the meal.

Our electric stove only has one “big” burner, and the smaller ones take way too long to boil water in our big pot, so this lets me cook the pasta and work on the sauce in the big pan.

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Once the pasta was cooked, I just drained it and added it to the sauce.

Between the spicy sauce and sausages, this meal was kickin’! It actually cleared up my head for a minute. I guess I need to stick to spicy meals while I have this cold ;)

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Maggie’s in the playing mood, so I’m about to practice her tricks with her and then get ready for What Not to Wear.

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Happy Friday!

What’s your NSV for today?

 

15 comments

  1. Those sauces look amazing! I opted in to receive them but don’t think I was chosen.
    Your puppy is sooooo cute!

  2. I love chocolate cake donuts. They are so hard for me to resist. So avoiding them would be a total NSV for me too. I hear that term all the time. (I go to WW currently.)

    My NSV for today was avoiding Starbucks and getting regular coffee instead.

  3. So… we never have donuts at work and there were some today and I had two! Yikes! I’m pretty sure that all I’ve eaten all day is fat lol. Oh well.

    Your egg salad looks delish! Have a good weekend Brandi!

  4. ummm i love that green plastic fork. please tell me you actually eat with it!!

    and my nsv would be banging out all of my assignments and handing them in ON TIME despite always feeling like i’m running late, which is how i’ve been feeling all darn week

  5. That is a great pasta tip! thanks! :)

    I love NSV’s – one of mine today was avoid the cookies at school – they smelt so good!

  6. I love NSV’s! Today I split one of my muffins with Hunni instead of eating the whole thing by myself so I could still have the taste but not all the points.

  7. i am HANKERING for some egg salad!

  8. Those doughnuts sure are pretty! But I definitely understand your reasoning, I would rather eat filling snacks too.

  9. Go you for resisting the donut!!! that’s hard girl… donuts are one of my weaknesses.
    Your dinner sounds awesome! I love Bertolli :D

  10. Wow, I loved the way Bertolli packaged their products…very stylish and high-class!
    I’m not a fan of donuts anymore…for some reason they taste bitter to me!

  11. WOW that egg salad looks great-and the italian style dinner.. love it!!
    hmm im dying to try holey donuts .. BUT you cant beat a hot, krispy kreme nut!

  12. That sauce looks great! And go you for not having the donut if you didn’t really want it!

  13. Oo those sauces look good!! Those donuts are so pretty :)

  14. Great willpower, passing up those donuts!

    That is a great pasta tip, I’ll have to keep that in mind.

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