Addiction...

I feel like if you have an addiction, or if you have the idea that you might have an addiction, you are at least semi-conscious of it, yes?  Here are things I would assume I could possibly be addicted to:

• Anything made from a potato (tots, fries, mashed, baked, with thyme, latkas.... I feel like Bubba Blue)
• Bacon
• Books
• StoryPeople
• Tervis Tumblers
• Auburn University!!!!!!!
• Teaching

Most people that know me would probably tell me to add wine to that list, but I feel I have a relationship with wine rather than addiction to it :)

Back to addiction - apparently I have an addiction.  It's pretty serious.  See for yourself:

And I might mention... after I took this picture, I found another flavor of Laughing Cow lurking in the cheese drawer.  INSANITY!  What is your unknown addiction?

Oh, and as an aside, I also had cheese tortellini in there.  So.much.cheese.

First is the worst, second is the BEST!

Well, first may not be the worst, but it's definitely in second place!  This week I headed back to work, which meant time for a new weekly sandwich.  The first sandwich wasn't bad, it just wasn't memorable.  This week's sandwich is delicious, and I look forward to making it each night before work!  Apologies in advance for the plethora of pictures, but I truly loved every bit of making this sandwich!  It will definitely become part of my rotation.

Sandwich of the week: Roast beef, Gouda and apple, courtesy of Real Simple

I made a sad little sandwich on Monday during my running around for the MLK holiday - the roads were clear in Georgia and I was well enough to be in public - but not well enough to visit my friend Abby and her precious new little Baby Luke.  I had to occupy my time - which consisted of a very concisely planned day of stopping by Kiehl's, Bobbi Brown, the Container Store, home for a quick bite, the spa, and then off to visit some friends to watch the Bachelor (trash) and eat pizza (eat trash and watch trash!).  My sad little sandwich squeezed in was good - ham, a little mayo, and bread.  Great, typical, not exciting in the least.  This, however, is something to be excited about.  I'm not going to hate on my Nature's Own Honey Wheat, but much like the Vivienne Westwood dress in the first Sex and the City movie, this challah bread "kicked my sweet little suit's ass."

 

Check out how gorgeous this bread is! It's incredible what beautiful bread will do to you! I don't know if I can ever go back to "plain" bread - that ol' sliced stuff. Whoever came up with "that's the best thing since sliced bread!" obviously never had this amazing carbfest!

In addition to incredible bread, everything that goes on the sandwich needs to be top notch.  I have never liked yellow mustard, but give me whole grain dijon and I will gladly eat it.  It's so nice to see food how it is supposed to look, instead of over-processed junk.  This mustard... is beautiful.

    

I think my love for whole grain mustard might stem back to the parable from the Bible about the mustard seed.  My mom always told me the story, and in college she gave me a necklace with a mustard seed in it and the verse inscribed on the back.  Matthew 17:20 if you are interested.

Next came the layer of the roast beef, some Gouda cheese, then 1/4 of an apple... which was harder to slice than I'd like to admit...

   

The last step AND the last ingredient I could find in the grocery store was the addition of watercress.  I don't know about you, but I had no clue what this stuff looked like.  I initially looked in the canned veggies section, but realize those were in fact water chestnuts and not water cress.  I headed to the produce aisle not having a clue where water cress might be, and started searching - well, scouring the varied things I have never purchased.

After several minutes of standing, feeling stupid, perusing the sale circular to pass time, a failed phone call and a few texts to my mom, I started to get antsy.  Mom's advice: it might be near the parsley (people buy that???) and it's green.  Let me tell you - LOTS of things are green.  Lots of leafy things near parsley are green.

Up in the very top of the greens section, I see something sad and squished and slightly resembling cilantro - with NO LABEL.  Thanks Kroger.  I love your deals, but your labeling skills sorta stink.  Why label red onions and blueberries but not water cress?  Is this an every day staple in the American home that I have never been made aware of?  For those of you like me, THIS is water cress:

   

According to my mom (knower of all things, or at least a fabulous researcher.  Hey Mom - you could totally work at Foy!) water cress doesn't last very long - 1 or 2 days.  It has hollow stems and loves water, and sometimes comes in a bag or is stored in water.  In order to help preserve my water cress to last the week, I soaked a paper towel, wrapped the water cress in it, and am currently storing it all in gladware.  So far, so good!

And to be random... for those of you that don't know about Foy, get the number in your phone!  I learned to remember the number this way (3-3-foy, 8-foy-foy, foy-2-foy-foy - OR 334-844-4244)

Enough of that tangent and back to this magnificent sandwich!  Behold!

My coworker came in and saw me eating this Tuesday.  She said "Oh wow, that looks great!  Where did you get it?"  My gleeful response: "I made it!"

And here's everything that went into it.  You MUST make this.  MUST.

 

Do you have a fabulous sandwich to recommend?  Please share!  Made this?  What was your reaction?

Oh a fortune cookie! Wait... what?

That's right.  I opened up my fortune cookie after lunch Sunday and this is what I saw:

 That's right.  Empty.  As in "Hello, you have NO FORTUNE!"

I refused to eat the cookie, as it is my firm belief that you must eat the cookie in order for your fortune to be realized.  Unfortunately, with the January I have had (full of lots of small unpleasant events that added together are slightly overwhelming), I'm starting to believe my no-fortune fortune cookie.

The good news is, I had the most fabulous lunch that was big enough to serve as dinner as well.  I love Pad Thai, but this time I went with Pad See Ewe, in honor of Babe the pig... you know... bah-ram-ewe?

I had to take a picture of the cute cup they served my green tea in!

If any of this looks good, check out ricebowlatlanta.com - I found it to be delish (but warning, they DON'T take Scoutmob.... it's only the Decatur location).

Where is your favorite Chinese place?  I LOVE Asiain cuisine.  Share!

That's knit! I mean, neat!

After being stuck inside (and on the couch and sick) for a week, when my cousins invited me over to watch the Falcons game - which they ultimately lost - and have dinner, I was really excited.  Jami - my cousin - has cooking in her blood.  Her mom is famous for pretty much everything, but especially her greens on New Year's Day... at least in my book :)

Jami, for some silly reason, is watching her weight and made a FABULOUS Weight Watchers chili.  It was delicious and had a definite kick.  So much of a kick that it totally kicked through my cold!  Pardon the pictures in this post, but I only had my BlackBerry with me!

Jami also happens to be pretty crafty.  She knits and has her own etsy shop!  We were talking earlier in the day about my recent inspiration to become both bloggy and crafty, so she took the time to pass her craft on to me!  I learned how to knit - starting with a dish cloth.  There is still plenty to do... but here's what I have so far!

With my cute ball of yarn, called a skein.  This is what it looks like to "cast on"

So cute!  I love the loops!

Jami being awesome and teaching me what to do (notice the Falcons game is still on... shortly after the channel was changed to watch "Extreme Couponers" followed by "I have a strange addiction"

My progress by the time I left... a little sloppy, but definitely progress!

Blog love!

If you are reading (and liking what you read), please comment and follow my blog!  It gives me inspiration to keep up what I'm doing :-D  And tell your friends!  Thanks!

 

[source]

semi-homemade...

and it didn't work out too well.  I was so excited about this meal because my meals this week's food hasn't exactly been... gourmet.  In case you haven't heard, Atlanta has COMPLETELY shut down since Sunday night.  That's a week that ice has literally crippled Atlanta.  Crippled to the point where ALL metro schools were closed the ENTIRE week.  So insane.  And as a teacher, I have to say I am really excited to make up all those days.  I know my county is already adding days to the end of the year.

That said, I can't really complain.  I have had plenty to eat and pretty much everything I need (minus company) and I have also been sick this week, so it has been really wonderful to have the time to recover at home on the couch with NOTHING else to do... and not take sick days!  So, I'll definitely look at the silver lining of that cloud.

Back to my dinner.  I am pretty souped out, and I'm basically out of butter so that totally nixes my standby baked potato.  I opened the pantry to see a box of gnocchi.  Yum.  I love gnocchi.  When done properly, it as hands down my favorite Italian dish.  I move some things around and find a jar of alfredo sauce.  Perfection.  When I lived in New York and worked at a hedge fund, we got a daily $15 stipend for lunch.  One of my favorite things to order was gnocchi in alfredo sauce with shrimp.  Calorie-fest, but so worth it.

At this point, I have grandiose visions of the meal and I build it up.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well.  Maybe it's because I'm sick and my taster is off (as verified by a piece of ghiradelli peppermint bark that was awkward and waxy - not how that stuff tastes), or maybe I didn't do something right... but this is a pretty simple heat-and-serve meal...

Directions:
For the gnocchi - empty packet into 4 quarts of boiling water.  Boil 3-4 min or until the float.
Sauce - simmer and serve.

I did both of these things, but my gnocchi is chewy and has sort of a plastic taste, and the sauce is way too cheesy.  Fail.  Sad.  At least I'm not that hungry

Cabin fever?

This is what I have been eating....

 

 and this is the result...

 all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy... (only kidding)

A week in review...

And what a week it has been! I noticed that this blog was becoming the PERFECT procrastination tool for me to NOT do my dreaded gifted course work. I'll put it this way... it was all due Saturday (Jan 8) at midnight. As of Tuesday, I had at least 5 weeks of work to do. I had to cut myself off. BUT, now it's time to catch up...

Last we spoke, I made some alterations to that avocado sandwich. The flavor was fine, but it needed something - something to really give it a flavor. Avocado, sprouts, radishes and snow peas are all tasty, but none have a really defining flavor. I now see the purpose of the onion. Also, 3/4 of an avocado was WAY too much and made the bread slightly soggy by 1PM, thus making it difficult to eat. Live and learn, though!

Wednesday night was Blake's turn to cook. Here is Blake:

Blake spent the last 15-ish months being awesome and living life to the fullest. He sold off his stuff and moved to New Zealand for a year. Following that, he spent about 3 months traveling around Asia. He picked up some AWESOME recipes and has started a dinner club so he can share his love of cooking and exotic cuisine.

All day Wednesday I was looking forward to dinner at Blake's. He had been talking about cooking for me [and others, too] since before he left the Eastern Hemisphere. I ended up stuck at work (and now, I don't remember what I was doing, but it was something that really stressed me out) and I didn't arrive to the party until just after 8pm. Start time was 7:30. Luckily, I arrived while the cooking was in full swing, and my fabulous girlfriends (Rachel and Carlen) take a look at me and both said "Honey, you need a drink!" and shoved a glass of wine into my hand.

 Rachel

 Carlen

The dinner did NOT disappoint! Here's what Blake made:

Jasmine rice
topped with butter paneer masala (curry-like with fermented cheese)
cucumber raita - think along the lines of tzatziki sauce (the white stuff on gyros)
butter chapati (bread made in the skillet)

followed up with chai masala

Everything was so great. The raita really mellowed the spice of the butter paneer masala. It was the most filling, satisfying vegetarian dish I have ever had. I am ready to let Blake cook any time he wants if results are similar to those of last Wednesday. I HATE that I forgot to take pictures. Next time I definitely will.

My meals for the rest of the week are a blur. Nothing significant. Thursday lunch: a turkey/pimento cheese sandwich on deli select bread (highly recommend). Thursday night dinner was something to talk about!

Hometown Barbeque on Hwy 29 (Lawrenceville). My parents consider themselves to be something of barbeque connoisseurs. George - owner of Hometown - has really hit the nail on the head with A-MAZING bbq. This is bbq so fab that it has caused quite the stir in my family. George's ribs caused us to be late to my cousin Jami's wedding. The same ribs convinced my cousin Jimmy to visit George's for TWO meals on his Memorial day WEEKEND visit. I'm telling you - the food there is legendary. Thursday night was pretty cold and my lunch didn't do much for me, so I started with Brunswick stew. Incredible. Mom, Dad and I split a thing of potato salad - not as good as my Nanny's, but good all the same. I was still craving something, so I finished it all off with a chili-slaw dog with onions. YUM.

Friday consisted of a can of Progresso New England clam chowder followed by a dinner from Chick-fil-A. All fine, but nothing to write home about.

Saturday I stayed in to finish up that dreaded gifted work. I completed the majority by 4:30, where I took a break to shop for Snowpocalypse 2011. I stopped at Target to stock up on essentials (well, wine and board games) only to find out that the Target in Edgewood doesn't sell wine. WHAT?!?!?!?! Here's how that convo went:

Me: Do you have wine cubes?
Girl: Huh?
Me: Wine cubes. Do you have wine cubes here?
Girl to boy: Do you know what she is talking about?
Boy to me: What are you looking for?
Me: Wine cubes. You know, boxed wine... but in a cube. Target sells it in a cube.
Boy: Oh, I don't drink... (WHAT?????), but no, we don't have our liquor license.
Me: horrified/disgusted/confused look on my face
Boy: We're.... In DeKalb county....

What a terrible experience.  I did come out of the mix with several snacks and two board games, so it wasn't a completely negative experience... I then had to brave Kroger at Edgewood, which was surprisingly easy to access.  Easier than normal.  I went straight for the wine aisle and learned that there was NO shortage of necessities... Wine is a necessity during a blizzard.  Why do people stock up on milk when they are worried the power will go out?  THE MILK IS GOING TO SPOIL, FOLKS!

On my way home I called in an order to Pure - my favorite neighborhood Mexican joint.  If you have never been, go.  GO NOW.  Order the fish tacos (on flour tortillas) and the black beans.  If you're a fan of margs, get one.  Delicious.  The tacos come traditionally on corn tortillas, but after several taste tests, my dad and I agree that the flavor of the corn tortillas overpower the fish.  I LOVE THESE TACOS.

Sunday wasn't much to speak of, but I'll recap.  I had oatmeal - Quaker Oats Instant maple and brown sugar - and I drank coffee on the way to pick up Liz for church.  This is Liz:

Liz and me at my housewarming party

I have to share the food related joke our pastor told in church because it REALLY cracked me up.

KFC Manager: Pastor, business is bad.  I'll give you $10 million if you change it from "give us this day our daily bread" to "give us this day our daily chicken"
Pastor: I'm sorry, I can't change the word of God.
KFC: Ok, how about I give you $25 million to make it "daily chicken"
Pastor:  I really don't think you understand,  I can't change the word of God.
KFC: This is my final offer.  I'll give you $50 million to change it from "daily bread" to "daily chicken."

Pastor to bishops: I have good news and bad news.  The good news is, we have $50 million to do the works of God.  The bad news is, we lost the Panera Bread account.

CRACKED ME UP!  Nothing like a good [food related] joke to kick start your Sunday morning!

After church, Liz and I scurried around to attempt to get to the Dali exhibit before it closed.  We both had microwave sensations.  I had a can of soup - chicken corn chowder with bacon a la Progresso.  SUPER YUM.  We got to the High - after laps of searching for free parking (for two cars!  ha!) - and trekked through the Atlanta wind.  At least it wasn't Chicago wind.  Anyway, we were freezing and found ourselves staring at an insanely long line, so we turned around and came back to my place.

Dinner was at Parish.  Everyone in Inman Park raves about Parish.  I think it's highly overrated.  I had a mushroom appetizer... the mushrooms were overwhelming (not in a good way) and rubbery.  Ick.  For dinner I had the trout.  The trout was over-peppered but still good.  I wasn't exactly pumped about it being served skin-on.  The trout was served over Brussels sprouts.  They were fine but not fabulous.  Served in some sort of lemon-y sauce, they also had a hint of wasabi.  I didn't finish it.  I finished with the chocolate tart.  Dense, not too sweet, yummy chocolate.  Best part of the meal by far.

THEN the snow started.  IT actually started before I left Parish.  While out on the terrace taking pictures of the snow, my neighbor Teresa invited me over for prosecco.  We had a fabulous time, even if my iPod touch slipped out of my glove while taking pictures... and shattered.  I was devastated.

 Parish is in the top-center of this photo.

Monday I woke up sick as a dog - I am slowly recovering (I think...) - but only with the help of some really awful yet wonderful food:  powdered donuts and tex mex trail mix.

For the BCS Championship bowl game last night, my neighbors Seth, Teresa and I got together to watch the game.  Seth convinced me to leave with him to go pick up our pizza from Savage Pizza (L5P) since they were pretty much the ONLY place open close by.  Seth convinced me that his car would handle the ice.  I made a big stink and refused to leave in fear of missing the Auburn game (set to start in 2 hours).  He pulled out his fancy new iPad with wifi and off we went.  After delivering food to his wife, Niki who was on call at AMC that night (Niki is a surgical resident at Atlanta Medical just up the street), we made it safely back.

SAVAGE PIZZA IS DELICIOUS!  And cheap!  Anddddd FRESH!.  All good things.  No more Papa John's for me.  Sorry Papa.  They were heavy on the toppings and you could really tell that the sauce was fresh.  and $12 for a large ain't bad!

After waking up in an even worse state today, being gourmet hasn't exactly been on my mind.  I've made baked potatoes for lunch the past two days, but decided to kick it up tonight (a hair).  Tomato soup and a grilled cheese.  Here's how it went:

Campbell's Tomato Soup (made with 1c milk to be creamier than water!)
Gruyere cheese on wheat bread
grilled to buttery perfection on my new Cuisinart Griddler.  Thanks, Santa!

The cheese was purely because it was in my fridge.  My only other cheese options were laughing cow or shredded cheddar.  Slicing up the Gruyere was the best decision for sure.  Until I can get back on the roads, I can't promise much more exciting meals... but my creativity will definitely increase!  Stay tuned, stay warm, and enjoy these snow days!

50 uses for a garlic press...

Or really, just two. I bet you can guest the first use... pressing garlic! The second use isn't quite as logical unless your logic is like mine: there's a story here, obvi. When I was smashing up the avocado Sunday night for round 1 of avocado-snow pea-radish etc. sandwich, it wasn't as ripe as I would like... Sunday grocery store food isn't top quality - it's left over... picked over... bottom of the barrel. SO, my avocados weren't in top quality. Speaking of - is it normal for the second avocado I bought to be turning a reddish color? I'm frightened and am not sure I can handle what's inside.

(too scary to post a photo of this!)

Anyway, the 3/4 of an avocado left over after the first making of the recipe kept very nicely in the fridge in gladware. I swear by that stuff - and I just invested in press-n-seal a few months ago... where has it been all my life? Incredible. Back to the garlic press story: I was searching around my kitchen for a "good smusher" - better than a fork. The slightly hard avocado slipped around Sunday and I was displeased with the ease of my smushing experience in that, well, it wasn't easy. I open a catch-all gadget drawer that I am yet to truly organize (hey, I only moved in August 2nd...) and I saw it --> THE GARLIC PRESS! I thought, "hey, it smushes garlic; I bet it can smush avocado quite nicely." As cousin Eddie would say - BINGO! Any Christmas Vacation fans out there? I apologize for the digression - pretty sure I have undiagnosed adult ADD. So convinced that I am seriously considering talking to the special ed coordinator at my school about testing for adults. Again, back to my story... (hey - is that something shiny?)


The avocado smushed so well that I decided to use the rest of it for tomorrow's sandy. Hold on, reverse that. I decided before smushing, but I just lucked out with my newfound technique. This time I nixed the onions (ogre breath!) and added sprouts. People seem to have mixed feelings on sprouts, but they make my sandwiches at Jimmy John's (try the Turkey Tom to be plan or the Club Lulu if you love bacon and avocado like me!) sublime.

So, here's the sandwich (from top to bottom for all you visual folks):

• wheat bread -- going with fancier bread next week i hope
• brocco sprouts (best non-manager's special buy this week)
• 10 snow peas

• random placement of goat cheese
• 2 sliced radishes

Native Georgians should get this: You know the Monster Plantation ride at Six Flags? Or for those outside of GA, how about the Norway ride in Epcot at Disney World? To me, that's how radishes taste... crisp with a hint of must and pepper.

• 3/4 avocado, garlic-press style
• wheat bread

While I was at it, I remember this adorable lunch caddy I bought at the Container Store (<3 href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNz2hapTOcYk4Y3O3RMVM9lIsaGhyphenhyphenDZpSIWqGZgzBqLmnLTtLcWe77uvEuIHeAEn0P_Xhmg5T3Xl6HD3PUldo08t0gooRmpQ77NJa-NZptCgErRLwSBYLIS9kKGXbF10t2HgCyuTxlRg/s1600/IMG_0043.JPG">



Can't wait to report back.

FAIL!

Last night I was so lazy. The roast put me into some sort of "I can't accomplish anything other than play Angry Birds" trance. I was up until 2am and my biggest accomplishment of the night was polishing off two bowls of that roast. When I pulled it out of the fridge to reheat tonight, I was rudely greeted by the nasty layer of congealed fat floating on top of the juices. Luckily, it was just a thin layer on top... at first glance I thought my roast was lodged in a solid block of nasty.

notice the white/fat/nasty trying to engulf the super-yummy roast!

Because I got nothing done, I didn't pack a lunch, think about breakfast for today, or get a good bit of the roast frozen for later. That means lots of roast this week. Yay (semi-sarcastic here.... but semi excited).

Today's menu:
Breakfast... Umm - scratch that. I grabbed a vanilla cup of Activia and some DELICIOUS pecan maple granola (I believe the brand is Bare Naked? Something like that?) with good intentions... but it was shoved into my mini-fridge upon arriving at school and there it is now. As in I'm home from work, my yogurt is not.

Lunch... well, in order to make it to work early to plan what I failed to plan last night for our first post-winter holiday (dare I say Christmas) break, I put on my makeup in the car, gave up on curling my hair, and threw the fixin's for a sandwich in a bag and thought to make it at school. I briefly considered adding a paring knife to slice of up radishes, but I quickly gave up the idea of perfecting that sandwich. Nothing about a science classroom - scratch that... a middle school classroom - is sanitary for food preparation beyond very minimal stirring of a can of soup or possibly some spreading action to create a PB&J. I left my ideas of radishes and sprouts and grabbed the following:

• deli select bread round things (tiny round things that pretend to be bread... but low-cal!) - did I mention they were stale? had no idea.
• possibly-questionable-in-age pimento cheese - how long does that stuff keep?
• mesquite roasted turkey. DELISH

Using a fork to spread my PC - because they don't give knives to anyone in a K-12 institution to my knowledge - I slathered the PC onto the bread, added 4 or so slices of turkey (they are tiny, ok?) and ran to a meeting. Not gourmet, but that combo has failed to disappoint me!

Tomorrow night I am forgoing my own cooking to savor that of a friend. Indian cuisine is on the menu.... I will absolutely report back!

Starbucks-shmarbucks!

$5.00 for a cup of coffee? Really? Make your own at home - the way you like it and MUCH less expensive :)

Mr. Coffee is my BFF. My secret? For about half a pot of coffee, I'll fill water up to the "6" and use 4.5 tbsp of my coffee of choice... and not to mention, an unbleached filter.

A delicious, simple pot roast

I sure don't need a 3 pound pot roast for dinner, but the recipe was so simple - and fit my time line perfectly - so I went for it. I can freeze what I don't eat and have later with even LESS effort! Thanks to Fix it and Forget it Lightly and a woman with a similar name to mine (replaced the v with two fs), I have an incredible dinner. So incredible, I just finished eating it and am already blogging about it. Here's what to do:

3 lb roast
1 c beef broth - low sodium
1 pkg onion soup mix - I used this instead of the book's suggestion for salt, pepper, and Mrs. Dash. I didn't know Mrs. Dash made it past 1992.
4 carrots
4 potatoes
2 onions



In a slow cooker, place your roast. Peel and chop the carrots into roughly 2 inch pieces and place around the roast, touching the bottom. Quarter 4 potatoes (if they are really large, cut into 6 pieces), quarter 2 onions, and add to the pot. Mix the onion soup mix with the broth, pour over the top over the roast. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours.



Viola! Super-awesome meal.

Breakfast: Pizza Luau

Several months ago I was perusing the book isle at Sam's Club - as I frequently do - and ran across a cookbook called "Hungry Girl 1-2-3" --> don't hate me for using quotes here, grammarians... I can't figure out how to underline in this thing.

Anyway, Hungry Girl (ahh, I remembered about the rules of italics...) is all about yummy, guilt-free cooking for small parties - as in as small as 1 or 2! FINALLY! A cookbook that doesn't punish me for a. not being married and/or b. not having at least four children or 2 other couples to share my culinary craft with. The entire first chapter is about meals for O-N-E! Seriously ecstatic here.

Pizza luau is a snacky-type of meal, but it plain said IN THE RECIPE to not discount it as a breakfast item. So there ya go, my latest breakfast concoction. Pretty good for a chick that tends to skip breakfast on week days... Here it is:

1 english muffin (light) cut into halves
2 tbsp low fat (I used regular... couldn't find low fat at Kroger) marinara sauce
1 stick string cheese, strung into pieces and then chopped
2 pieces shaved deli ham (I used honey ham. Yum!)
1 ring of pineapple, diced
1 tpsp red onion, diced

I started off by putting 1 tbsp of marinara on each half of the English muffin, then added the cheese. I rolled the ham much like you would leaves and sliced it up. I have no clue what the style is called, but they do it on cooking shows a lot. Makes for skinny little pieces - very good for bites. I cut the pineapple ring in half and allotted one half per muffin half. Each slice made 6 small chunks.

After combining all of this, I sprayed the little tray that goes in the toaster oven with veggie oil (lightly, of course) and put the mini-pizzas in there at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Don't forget to preheat.

8 minutes later, my timer went off, I finished making my bed, and headed back to the kitchen, only to remember I plum forgot about the onions. I threw them on top. I wasn't able to eat this until I got to school (a good hour later), but it was actually tasty. Definitely a specific flavor, but yummy. Doesn't pair well with coffee... but hey, I needed my caffeine jolt. I will be making these again tomorrow and looking forward to them... but to me, at least, they are more of an afternoon snack than breakfast.

Pre-toasting:
Post-toasting (and after I remembered to add the onion):