Fast Food Makeover: Nachos Appetizer - 240 calories, 5 PointsPlus

If you saw my last post here, you will recognize the following pictures:

Applebee's nacho appetizer

Hooter's nacho appetizer

My boyfriend & I went to Applebee's on Thursday, Hooter's on Friday, and on Saturday I was still craving nachos!!  So I decided to be innovative and come up with my own healthier version of the delicious appetizers we had.

How I Spent My Day Off...

How do you adequately celebrate the end of 17 years as a slave student?  With a day off - and I mean a day off from EVERYTHING.  A day off from school, a  day off from work, a day off from stress, a day off from drama, and a day off from counting calories.  Yes, a day without worrying about what you're eating at all.  Yes, I'll admit it - I spent a WHOLE DAY without worrying about a single nutrition label!!  And you know what - IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!

Observe:

Nonfat Chai Latte from "Starbucks" in Barnes & Noble - and a coffee crumb cake with a gooey cinnamon-ey filling.

Apple Walnut Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing

My boyfriend & I absolutely love going to Dave & Buster's to play the games, but we've never really eaten there.  It's hard for me because they don't have their nutrition information on their website OR their menu.  They do have an "Under 600 Calories" section, but that doesn't impress me much.  The other day I decided to search online for the nutrition information, and I found promising results.  They have a "Sweet Apple Pecan Salad with Grilled Chicken" that I believe was around 350 calories.  Since I don't eat meat I got their smaller "Sweet Apple Pecan Salad" for under 200 calories.  This is how they describe it: "Baby greens, crisp apple slices, candied pecans and crumbled Bleu Cheese, tossed with Raspberry Vinaigrette."  I don't really consider myself much of a nut person, and I never thought I liked bleu cheese, but this salad was A-MAZE-ING!!  So I decided to make my own version that I could have at home.

Their version of the salad with a side of seasonal vegetables.

Random Recipe Roundup

A lot of times when I'm trying to decide what to cook on any given day, I ask my family and/or boyfriend if there's anything they're craving, and then I look for a recipe to satisfy that craving.  Sometimes these dishes don't have any common theme or ingredient, so I have a hard time making a post out of them.  Now I'm going to take this opportunity to just sum up the past few months of cooking and share some recipes my family and I have enjoyed.

Danica's Five Ingredient Vegetarian Pasta Skillet - 5 PointsPlus for 1/6 of this skillet.

My family requested that instead of putting the tortillas in the skillet, I leave them out, and we would pile the goodness onto the tortilla.  This was absolutely delicious and extremely satisfying!!