avocado chicken egg salad

For some reason, a turkey sandwich makes me want to puke. I don’t know when I got so tired of them. I wasn’t even a sack lunch kid. It’s funny because you always envy what you don’t have. I envied my classmates and friends that had homemade lunches. And they probably envied me – they probably thought I was the rich kid that bought lunch every day. The reality though is that my parents just didn’t really do sack lunches. I guess it was easier for them to reload the lunch card than creatively make and pack a lunch.

I get it now. I don’t even like having to pack my own lunch.

But I do because I just don’t understand how someone spends [on average] $7-$9 for lunch everyday.

Leftovers use to be my “go-to” lunch but that was back when I was making dinner most nights and had a microwave at work to reheat it. My days don’t look like that anymore. I rarely have time to make dinner on any night of the week, let alone most nights. This results in minimal leftovers. Not to mention my school campus lacks a microwave. Hence, the turkey sandwich dilemma!

To avoid the turkey sandwich, I desperately search around for other types of cold sandwiches, wraps, salads, etc. The husband and I have established quite a repertoire, but my taste buds can’t handle too much repetition. I needed something new so here’s the arrival of the Avocado Chicken Egg Salad. It’s delightfully good! If you need a new lunch idea, try this!

RECIPE:

Ingredients

• 1 avocado, chopped (almost mashed)
• 5 hard boiled eggs, chopped (I used mostly only the whites)
• 2 tsp. coarse ground dijon mustard
• 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. dill weed
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• dash of pepper
• 1/4 tsp. parsley
• 1 Tbsp. greek nonfat yogurt
• 1 can white chicken
• 1 stalk celery, chopped thinly
• sun-dried tomato wraps, bread, or bowl - up to you!

Combine all ingredients and enjoy! This recipe probably provided 4 sandwiches worth for the husband and me so feel free to double or halve as necessary.

craft night - love it or hate it?

What do you do when you invite 20+ high school girls over to “hang out”? My idea was a craft night. Despite my love for crafting now, I wasn’t always that way. In fact, when I was a high school girl, I’m pretty sure I despised crafty stuff. I was too much of a perfectionist back then to be satisfied with my attempted craft. So if these 20(ish) girls I invited were anything like me in high school, we were in a world of hurt. I had to create an idea that was easy enough for everyone to enjoy and affordable. Not an easy task.

With the help of the massive blog world and pinterest, I found a number of websites featuring different projects you can do with an old t-shirt, scissors, and a hot glue gun.

Here are some of the resources I used:

DIY Accessories From A T-Shirt over at Tripping Over Joy

Tshirt Crafts and Headband Tutorials over at Sugar Bee Crafts

Explaining how to do these projects to 20+ giggling and talkative high school girls was not an easy feat. My type A, perfectionist self, quickly had to let go and let the girls have fun. The projects weren’t glamorous but the night was perfect. 

apple cider baked chicken

I am obsessed with pumpkin. I am also obsessed with fall. But Colorado just recently had the arrival of true fall. The temperatures were still a little too high for me to bust out all the fall-ish treats. I also don’t want to overdo it too soon. I don’t want to ruin my love for pumpkin or for fall. But, like many, I was craving it. I was SO ready for fall to be here. I had to resort to other “fall” things to get my fix without prematurely jumping on the pumpkin bandwagon. Instead of pumpkin bread, I made banana muffins. Instead of pumpkin soup, I made Apple Cider Baked Chicken. Apple Cider recipes scream fall too so I successfully postponed my pumpkin while still getting my fall fix.

I absolutely loved this meal. In fact, it may just make it into the “staples” category for meals. Please try this. Quite easy and amazingly tasty.

RECIPE: (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
• 1/2 large onion, cut into large chunks
• 1 red bell paper, cut into large chunks
• 1 lemon, cut into thin rounds
• 2 cups apple cider
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. dried thyme (fresh would be better - put in about 1/4 cup if you use fresh)
• 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp. coarse ground dijon mustard
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1 large apple, sliced 
• 1/2 lb small red or yukon potatoes, cut into large chunks

Place all ingredients except the apple and potatoes into a large ziploc bag, shaking and combining well. Allow to marinate in fridge overnight or at least 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour entire bag of ingredients (including liquid marinade) into a roasting pan -- I used my iron skillet and it worked great. Cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes and stir halfway through. I like my potatoes on the softer side so I had to cook those for an additional 10 minutes or so. 

Now that Colorado has had the first two snows of the year and halloween is in a few short days, I'm beyond ready to bust out the pumpkin! Thanks to pinterest, here are a few recipes I want to try out.

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Buns

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Better Than... Cake

Pumpkin Poppers

Pumpkin Coffee Cake w/ Brown Sugar Glaze

Or my friend, Mackenzie, posted this great little treat

Pumpkin Cheesecake Squares

Oh, did I say a few? I guess I meant a lot. I told you that I can easily get carried away with pumpkin!

Do you have a favorite pumpkin recipe that I should try out? Or what about apple cider recipes? Let's bring on fall!

unexpected benefits

Believe it or not, there are some perks to being a med school wife. A couple months back, the husband and I had a conversation that went a little something like this:

Husband: “I have a med school conference that I have to go.”

Me: “Ohhh…” (while busily and distractedly doing something else)

Pause…

Me: “When is it?” (attempting to be interested)

Husband: (starting to conceal a grin) “First weekend of October”

Me: “Oh cool – where is it?”

Husband: “San Diego…” (not holding the grin in so well anymore)

Note: San Diego is where my best friend, Betsy, lives.

Me: (excitedly) “Wait, what?!?!? Is your school paying for you to go?”

Husband: “Yep…” (still grinning)

Me: “So do I get to go???”

Husband: “I figured I couldn’t go to San Diego without taking you with me!”

So there it is – the perk of being a med school wife. I got to go to San Diego for a brief, 36-hour, mini-vacation to visit my best friend and her hubby. To top things off, friends of ours from Seattle were visiting San Diego that same weekend.

The 36-hour trip included a visit to the local street market, lounging on the beach, watching Husky football, eating delicious food, having photo shoots, going on a coastline hike, and strolling the streets of downtown San Diego. Oh, and a med school conference for the husband.

Warning: Pictures Galore!

No big deal, just hanging out on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean!

 

Husky Football & Photo shoot fun!

Meet Dodger... :)

Best Friends! I love you Betsy! 

We saw dolphins.

And went "hiking" (San Diego style)

Bad lighting but don't we look like the modern day "Friends"? 

The beautiful red head in the photos is my sweet friend, Erika, from rouge + whimsy and she posted about our fun San Diego trip here. Check out her amazing blog too!

p.s. thanks for so patiently waiting for me to blog again. keep checking back because there's more to come this week!