Friday Night Dinner: Well Done Pizza

After a stressful week, never underestimate the healing powers of pizza.  I keep getting an upset tummy from the pepperoni, yet I keep ordering it.  Addict.

When this pizza reached me, it looked a little peaked.  I like my cheese brown, almost burnt, so I popped this baby in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.  The pepperoni was incinerated and the crust was a crouton, but it was freaking delicious!  Now I'm gonna have to do this every time I order pizza.  Addict.

 

Husband ordered chicken ravioli, and I added some broccoli.

 

I also made him a little spinach salad with marinated artichoke hearts.  Clearly, I'm a good wife.

Friday Late Night Food Adventure (Gross)

After dinner, I was hungry. I have no idea why; I had eaten the exact same amount of food I normally eat and am perfectly satisfied by. Not tonight.

I wanted to dive into some frozen wedding cake (I only had one bite at my wedding. Not one piece, one bite. I wasn't eating sugar then. Silly me.). Husband said we should eat the cake together, and he didn't feel like eating wedding cake, and I should wait. Fine. I made low fat ramen noodles instead. Why? I have no idea. They didn't even taste like food.



So after I'm done with my ramen, and now I guess I'm full but completely unsatisfied, husband says, let's go to McDonalds! I'm in (very) rare form, so I'm like, let's go! Here we are in line at the drive-thru. It's 11pm, we should be sleeping. Instead, we are having a second dinner, one that guarantees no nutritional value. This is high adventure for me.



The bag. I kind of felt like I used to feel when I snuck out as a teenager. Naughty, giddy and guilty.




My medium fries. Yeah, not worth it.


My hot fudge sundae. This WAS worth it. Yummy high fructose corn syrup. Thanks, Ronald! I was so self involved in my compulsive eating, I didn't take a picture of husband's quarter pounder with cheese, "chicken" mcnuggets, fries or large root beer. Yeah, we didn't eat until 5pm the next day.

Saturday Carb Extravaganza

Husband and I left the house at 5am today to take Austin to his very first triathlon in Santa Barbara. He did great, and the event was very well put together and organized.

By 10am, the salt air and all the running back and forth to see Austin swim and bike and run left husband and me famished. And Austin was hungry, too. So we stopped by a random Eggs 'n Things to have a big breakfast. Above is husband's strawberry banana stuffed french toast. I tried to warn him that it would be filled with puddingy weird stuff, but I didn't explain myself clearly and he was grossed out. But still ate most of it. Good man.



Austin's breakfast croissant. The croissant was more like a biscuit; he wasn't impressed.



My plain french toast. Not great. What I really wanted was Denny's french toast (which I'm pretty sure they deep fry-it's amazing). Boring. Eggs 'n Things sucks.



After we dropped an exhausted Austin off, we came home, napped, I did yoga and then we ordered an early dinner. This is husband's chicken ravioli, buffalo wings and chocolate cake. I guess our days of "no flour, no sugar" are loooong gone.



My small cheese pizza on whole wheat crust. Can't say I had much protein today, but I did eat exactly what I wanted.

Saturday workout: running around Santa Barbara cheering on Austin, and yoga with Jo.

Culinary School: Quick Breads

I learned today that quick bread basically means cake. Be still my beating heart. Literally. I ate more sugar today than I have since 2005 (the end of my binge/starve career). I feel like I've smoked crack (not that I've ever smoked crack, but I'm sure this is what it must feel like). I can't stop moving my legs and am talking too loud. Maybe I should go for a run...luckily I'm massaging my dear friend, Marnie. That should calm me down.

After our baking, we began our tasting with popovers (an anomaly and not a quick bread at all). Popovers are a very eggy batter that puff up with steam in the center, kind of like a souffle. Delish, I had one quarter with no jam. I knew what was coming.



Blueberry streusel muffins. Brown sugar in the batter as well as the topping. Amazing, slightly gooey from the fresh berries. I had two small bites, and few stray streusel clumps (that's the best part).


Buttermilk biscuits. Reyna and I made these. She had plain, and mine had thyme and Parmesan. They were alright, kinda heavy in my opinion, but I also had food poisoning on my honeymoon and the last thing I ate before it set in was a biscuit, so...



Baby scones. Money. Light, crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside with a touch of vanilla. It was like the best parts of a cookie and a biscuit rolled together and baked with love. I have one baby scone.



Corn bread. This has always been a "legal" treat for me, so although it was awesome, I was happy with two small bites.

"Raw" Cookies: A Mrs. Mandy First

I saw this recipe on Run, Eat, Repeat this morning and walked to the store, immediately, for cocoa powder. It could not be simpler:

1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup raw almond butter
1/3 cup agave nectar (or maple syrup)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of good quality salt (I used gray mineral salt)

Mix in a bowl, shape and refrigerate!




I wanted to eat the entire bowl of this stuff. It reminded me of raw brownie dough (we have quite a past). I was too freaked out to even taste it. These will be for husband.

Here's the caloric breakdown:

Total recipe: 1430 calories
Per serving (8 servings total): 179

Saturday workout: 3 mile run. Love to run early on a weekend, especially a holiday weekend. So peaceful.

Teaching Austin About Salty And Sweet

At the tail end of our third Food Vs. Food, Austin was complaining that the Wendy's Frosty was too, um, frosty. I suggested he dip one of the In-N-Out fries (they were not all gobbled up as they were markedly less tasty than Wendy's fries, apparently) into the Frosty to warm it up, plus the salty of the fry and the sweet of the Frosty would be, um, sweet.

I thought he would give me that very special and unique 13 year-old stare, but instead he immediately complied...


...and was instantly...


...smitten. Next up: bacon and chocolate.

This Site Is Kind Of Genius

Submit a photo if you dare, your naughty meal just might get you published!

Versailles for an achy husband (and me, too)

Husband played touch football with Jeff (big dad), Austin (little son), Grant (littler son of Jeff), and Gannon (littlest son of Jeff). Touch apparently turned into tackle and while we will not place blame...it was a little much. Husband was so sore the next day he had to take Motrin with his...

Versailles chicken! We went to a baby shower that I was too uncomfortable to eat at (this happens often) so we stopped to pick up our old addiction. It is so good and so not good for our health.

Bliss.

Benjamin Button and Popcorn Lunch

Husband and I and my parents went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I liked it. More for the way it made me feel than the actual movie itself. The tone and look of it is just beautiful. The homage to New Orleans is haunting and magical.

The popcorn needed salt. I didn't eat much, which was good considering we were about to get our feast on at Zingerman's Roadhouse.

Popcorn Lunch

Husband and I had the whole day to spend with Austin to celebrate Christmas early (we're leaving for Michigan on Monday). The plan was to do some last minute shopping, lunch, movie, board games, presents and dinner. Until we got trapped in the mall parking garage. We decided to re-park the car and walk a mile to the movies. Which meant lunch was-movie lunch! My favorite! I had a big old popcorn (which I forgot to photograph until the movie started, and the flash completely embarrassed Austin but hey, I'm dedicated), Austin had a big soft pretzel, and husband had a hotdog.

We saw Yes Man. The movie was alright, but Zooey Deschanel was completely adorable as Allison! The best romantic comedy female character since Meg Ryan played Sally.

Wine and Cheese Party

This was so much fun. My lovely Cori had a girly wine and food pairing party at her house. I must confess I am not a wine drinker. I like the taste for about 3 sips, and then I'm done. Until now. I had a moment with a mellow red and some Spanish cheese that simply changed my life. The wine was good, the cheese was good, but when they were put together in my mouth-hello, my name is flavor, what's yours? Completely smitten. It was like opening a present, over and over.

This is the only photo because, well, I also learned that the more wine you drink, the better it tastes. I commenced to talking louder and faster as the night progressed. And I felt VERY relaxed, even into the next day. I am the definition of a light weight.

Thanks, ladies! Merry Christmas

Popcorn lunch again again

Yep. Had that craving again. So bad, in fact, that I went to see W which was so not on the top of any of my lists. But the popcorn was calling, so off we go.

I was a bit curious to see Josh Brolin's performance, which was fine, but the movie was blech. And to add insult to carb injury, the popcorn sucked! I barely binged on it and left after an hour of the movie. Boo.

Cheese

I love cheese. I love it when it's melty and I love it when it's burnt into a crunchy, crackery burnt thing. I love powdered cheese and stick cheese and cream cheese. I don't like cottage cheese.

Husband had homemade chicken enchiladas with steamed veggies.

Here is my cheese. It is the topping for my "cheesy bread stuffing". It was extra good tonight. I also had broccoli and dried pineapple, but wanted to give you a close-up of the cheesiness. So good. Now I'm hungry again.

Popcorn Lunch Again

I took myself to the movies yesterday to:

1. get away from the stifling freaking heat in Santa freaking Monica on October freaking 1st

2. to celebrate landing a new writing gig (yippee)

Yes, I kind of go to the movies just to eat popcorn. The movie is an accessory to the popcorn. I saw Nights in Rodanthe and it was definitely a popcorn accessory movie only. The only thing fabulous about the movie was the beach house.

nightsinrodanthe.warnerbros.com