Today's Eats - Barely Anything

Today I had my doctor's appointment, you know, the one where I was considering dressing my hoo-hoo in a costume? Well I chickened out of that but I had a good appointment nonetheless. I didn't want to eat beforehand on account of I like that weight to be as low as possible! I was 192. It's official, the three pounds I lost have been found. Darn it! After my appointment I went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch because I'm a self-medicator and I felt that was going to make me happy. It was tasty but I felt so guilty later for eating it. Here's what I had:



With a sweet tea no less.

The rest of the day was spent carving a pumpkin and taking the kids to my mom's for a visit. By the time we got home we were in Halloween preparation mode so I didn't eat dinner. Well, I had a few packs of Halloween candy, but that certainly didn't satisfy me! Now I'm really hungry but there's no point in eating this late.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow because we have nowhere to go, Ryan has a playdate away from home in the afternoon, and the day after, I'm off to Disney World! yay!!

Hope you all had a great day and a happy, safe Halloween!

Today's Eats - Don't Faint

Yes, friends. Your eyes do not deceive you this really is a post, current, about what I ate today. Nothing glamourous, mind you. Pretty standard fare. Anyway, here we go.

For breakfast this morning, Iain wanted scrambled eggs, so I had some, too. Along with a piece of buttered toast.



Lunch was leftover Creamy Artichoke Soup:



I think I posted a link to the recipe in an earlier post.

For dinner I made gumbo and tomorrow I'm going to post more pictures and the recipe because everyone should know how to make gumbo. It's a great one pot meal that can feed a lot of people. I ended up not eating "dinner" because I snacked on the gumbo while it cooked (and some tortilla chips and salsa, and some skittles, and asmall box of Dots!) but here is Sean's bowl:



It was quite good and I am excited to share the recipe with you tomorrow!

Hey, in the morning, I'm going for my annual pap exam (tmi?) and I got all cracked up because my sister and I were joking about how I should dress "it" up for Halloween. Have mercy, we came up with some doozies! Let your mind marinate on that...

See you tomorrow!

Where have I been??

Good grief! Almost a week since my last post, now that's ri-damn-diculous! I'll tell you it's been hard to get back into the saddle since taking that time off, friends, but I'm going to attempt to recap what I've eaten since last week. It won't be pretty, it won't be descriptive but hey, I've got some catching up to do so let's go!

Thursday

B - Chicken Club biscuit (fried chicken, cheese, lett, tom, pickle on a biscuit. uh-oh)

L - in the car Fish Filet Combo from McDonalds. Double Uh-oh

D - in Charlottesville, at a local Mexican Restaurant. A taco salad topped with a spicy ranch dressing and steak. I ate about half. Not so bad! WAIT! Oh no! Churros?? Aye caramba! Fried dough covered in cinnamon sugar? uh-oh again.

Friday

B - two chocolate doughnuts from the free breakfast at our hotel.

L- McRib? They have the McRib!!! On the road...mcrib combo from mcdonalds. What is wrong with me??

D- a small bowl of she-crab soup. It was pretty gross.

Saturday

B - no breakfast
L - hot dog on a bun with mustard
D- shrimp and grits and peach maple crisp Now, THAT was good!

Sunday
B - scrambled eggs and natural bacon
L - ice cream from cold stone
D - leftover shrimp and grits and peach maple crisp

Monday

B - 2 eggs fried in a touch of butter and a piece of whole grain toast
L - frozen Totino's party Pizza (uh-oh, not again)
D - Pork Chops and Brussel Sprouts Lardons a la Barefoot Contessa


I promise that today I'm back, really. I've been taking pictures since yesterday and am ready today to get going. Now, keep in mind that Friday - Sunday I will be AWOL because my sister and I are taking a girls only trip to Disney World. I haven't decided if I'm taking my camera or not yet but I will recap all of our glorious eats while we're there and record here on Sunday night or Monday.

Whomever is still with me, thanks for sticking around!

Today's Eats

Today is Sean's birthday and I had much to do in preparation for his dinner tonight. This morning when I woke up, one of the first things I did was - no, not eat breakfast - make his birthday cake. Nigella Lawson has a recipe in her book, Feast, for a Chocolate Guinness Cake. One of the ingredients is Guinness beer. Yes, you read that right, the cake is made with beer! Here is what it looked like when it came out of the oven:



Doesn't that look good?

Once the cake had been baked, I fixed myself something to eat - leftover Zucchini Gratin. It was the last of it and it was quite tasty.



After lunch, the boys and I had to run some errands and during that time, I struggled to decide what to fix Sean for dinner. On the one hand, I had no idea what time he would be home so that caused me some concern. I wanted to fix Shrimp and Grits but we're having company over for dinner on Saturday and I plan to fix that for them. I settled on London Broil, which turned out all right.

The frosting for the cake was a Cream Cheese frosting, which was intended to emulate the frothy, creamy head of a Guinness beer. I mixed mine up and frosted the cake and, while mine was a tad bit lumpy it tasted just fine!



This is what the cake looked like in all its frosted glory!

Well, usually when I cook London Broil the preferred method is on the grill. I like being able to see it and touch it to check for doneness. As luck would have it, our grill is on the fritz and the last time I cooked London Broil, it didn't cook well. Tonight I decided to cook it under the broiler in my oven with, unfortunately similar results to the broken grill. Sean was a trooper and ate it but I was disappointed.

Here is my plate from dinner:



London Broil is best when thrown on a hot grill and cooked for 6-7 mins per side. My oven took way too long to cook it which makes the meat tougher. Oh well, the cake was good and I think Sean enjoyed it. He's taking the rest to work tomorrow because we're going out of town for a couple of days and won't be here to eat it.

I feel like I'm getting back on track which is good because, according to the scale I've put on the 3 lbs I had recently lost! Argh! I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I will focus that energy on staying on course. We'll be on the road tomorrow so I'm not sure how I'll update but hopefully the hotel will have internet access and I can post something tomorrow night.

Recent Eats

Well yesterday and today have been hectic so I don't have any photos to share but I am going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly of what I've eaten over the last couple of days.

On Monday we got up and out the door early to go visit our friend Marin in Raleigh so for breakfast I had a package of chocolate covered donuts and some potato chips. Mmmm. Doesn't that sound healthy?! Wait, it gets better! On the way home we stopped at Burger King and, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I ordered a Big Fish sandwich combo. It was horrible, thank god, so I couldn't eat it. Dinner was decent at least. Leftover Zucchini Gratin and a small caesar salad. That was good! The recipe is as follows, adapted from a Barefoot Contessa recipe:

2 zucchini (sliced)
2 yellow squash (sliced)
one small onion (chopped)
1 cup half and half (HOT)
salt and pepper, nutmeg
1/2 cup fresh or panko bread crumbs mixed with 1/2 cup grated swiss cheese
1/2 -3/4 stick of butter
2 Tbs flour

Melt the butter in a large saute pan. when melted, saute the onions over medium heat until translucent, 15-20 minutes. Watch them because you don't want them to brown. Once they're ready, add the zucchini and yellow squash and cook that for 5-10 mins, or until soft. Add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes and then add the hot half and half. Add salt and pepper to taste along with a couple of sprinkles of nutmeg and cook until the sauce thickens. Once the sauce has thickened, pour the mixture into a small casserole dish and top with the bread crumb cheese mixture. If the mixture doesn't cover the top, add more. Dot the top with a few small pieces of butter and then place in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or until brown and bubbly.

It is delicious!! I tried to wrap things up with a gorgeous espresso that I saw Giada de Laurentis make which consisted of freshly made espresso, heavy cream, and chocolate liqueur, topped with sweetened whipped cream. Doesn't that sound divine? I tried it and YUCK. I'm just not grown up enough to enjoy the bitter drink. My husband loved it though so if you're a fan of espresso then give it a try!

Today, we went out to get some things for Sean's birthday which is tomorrow. I'm having a hard time planning for it because we may be going out of town for a couple of days. I won't know for sure until later! At any rate, after skipping breakfast this morning, we went out to eat at a local restaurant and I got a cheeseburger and some chips. It was good, not exactly healthy, but good. I ate about 3/4 of it.

I'm not sure what I'm fixing dinner tonight but tentatively, I'm planning to fix another Giada recipe, Artichoke and Leek Soup. You can find the recipe here.

I will update tonight, hopefully with a photo!

UPDATE:

Argh. No photo but I did make the soup with the following changes. Giada called for marsacapone (sp) cheese and I didn't have any so I just used half and half instead. Also, I added some thyme leaves to it because nothing cozies up a meal like thyme. Other than that I followed her recipe and it was good, people. Warm, thick, rich. Mmmmm. Like curling up in front of a fire with your honey, that's how cozy it was. I also served a bratwurst with it because, as filling as soup can be, I need something to chew on as well. It was a very satisfying meal.

It looks like we're not going out of town tomorrow so I will post pictures of the cake I make for Sean's birthday. I think I'm going to make Shrimp and Grits for him for dinner because I'm not sure what time he'll be home and that is a meal I can have ready in 30 minutes which is about how long it takes him to get home from work, give or take a few minutes. Also, the kids and I don't have anywhere to go tomorrow and I'm looking forward to hanging out in my PJ's, eating some yummy food, taking some glorious photos, and posting it all on here for you guys.

Thanks for sticking with me!

She's baaaaaack

Sorry about the break, folks but I really, really needed it! There were so many things I wanted to do, NEEDED to do, and I was feeling challenged by the need to keep up with the photos here on this blog. Also, it was getting a little overwhelming to come up with something pretty to eat every meal of the day. I'm over that now because I'm getting back to my idea of just capturing what I eat. If it's gorgeous, great. If it's ordinary, great. It is what it is. I know you guys aren't sitting out there expecting me to fix some fantabulous meal 3x a day!

Anyway, I took some pictures of dinner last night, which was fabulous and I'm here today to share with you the beauty of a tapas dinner. If you are unfamilar with the concept of tapas, it's a Spanish term referring to tastes of different dishes. If you went to a tapas restaurant you would order several different dishes to share with folks at your table. It's a great way to eat because it's hard to eat too much. It's like having a dinner of appetizers. Well, my sister and I had gotten together eariler in the day and had decided to cook something but we weren't sure what. IN fact, when we went to the store yesterday afternoon, we had a completely different idea about dinner and we changed our mind as we were collecting ingredients. Here is our menu from last night:

Steak Crostini, with Italian flat-leaf parsley, a sour cream mustard with horseradish, topped with shaved parmesan

Caprese Salad which is toasted bread topped with sliced tomato, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil leaf, olive oil, and salt and pepper

Mini Ciliantro Crabcakes made with (gasp) canned white crabmeat, chopped fresh cilantro, roasted red pepper, red onion, coriander, nutmeg, and chinese five spice powder. Along with egg, mayo and panko bread cumbs as the binders.

Hoisin Haricot Verts, french green beans blanched then cooked in a saute pan with Hoisin Sauce and sesame seeds.

Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas, my sister's own recipe so I'm not sure what's in it besides chicken, chili powder, cumin, sour cream, cheese, green chilies, sandwiched in 2 tortillas then fried in a saute pan. Yum-O

My sister also made these divine Mini Chocolate Cream Pies which are made up of chocolate pudding to which she added coffee and Godiva chocolate liquer. Holy. Crap. They were good.

Here are pics from dinner:



Steak Crostini



Caprese Salad



Mini Crabcakes



Haricot Verts



Chicken Quesadilla





Chocolate Cream pies before whipped Cream and after.

This dinner was so delicious, both to the eye and the palate which only increases the pleasure of the meal. I highly encourage you to try a snacky dinner at least once a week. It's a lot of fun!

Taking a few days off

Don't worry if you don't see any posts from me for a few days. I've been neglecting some things around the house and need to spend a few days getting things in order.

By Monday I will be back to posting as usual!

Thanks for your patience!

Evie