Category Archives: Eat

summer of salads

So there are two things that most influenced the summer of salads: 1. A new cookbook. 2. A Rachael Ray magazine that I stole (not maliciously) from work. I am really exploring outside the normal tomato/cucumber/green pepper standard. Getting more creative with my lettuce every day.

There was the orange, radish, and jicama, with ginger dressing.salad3

Green apple, cheddar, and dried cranberries.salad2

Tomato, bacon, and avocado. (Always a yum combo)salad1

Strawberries, blueberries, almonds, and goat cheese.salad5

Peaches, steak, red pepper, and goat cheese. (super cool work lunch at my desk)salad4

Let me know if you have a fav combo that I need to try!

cake with chocolate frosting

I think since cakes are mostly for special occasions, we don’t get a whole lot of chances to practice making them. Just a birthday every so often. Cakes are unlike cookies in this way, since you can make cookies just because you don’t have any. Cake is not a ever-replenishing resource.

This cake was all the way homemade, and the special occasion was that I was at home and we were almost out of pie. It is a peanut butter cake, with a thick chocolate cream filling, with a generous heaping of chocolate butter frosting on top. Betty Crocker does not mess around with chocolate frosting. I am not a huge frosting person, but I could eat that stuff right off the spatula.

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walnut raisin cookies

It is tradition that my ma and I bake cookies before I have to get on a plane to come back to Austin. Our way of making sure to take a little bit of home back with me. These cookies are hearty, and good at surviving in one piece, despite being shoved in a backpack, through an xray machine, and under a seat. Good little travel companions that smell like Christmas.

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Roadtrip BBQ

Last week on a trip to Raleigh, NC for work we went to a really great BBQ place located right by the NCSU campus called The Pit. I love BBQ so I was pretty excited when I found out that was where we were headed for dinner. If you don’t know, the girl and I usually try and eat some type of BBQ once a week and typically we end up at Rudy’s because you can’t really go wrong with them. 

Anyways, The Pit specializes in authentic whole-hog, pit-cooked barbecue and I was told that I had to try the Carolina ribs so that is what I got. Long story short, the team and I enjoyed more than our fair share of great food and I did not have to eat again until dinner time the next day. 

Lobster on a Saturday

This past Saturday we went and got dinner with Ross, but it wasn’t just any dinner. It was a lobster dinner at Quality Seafood to take advantage of their Saturday special and it was quite delicious. We got there right before the crowd so were lucky enough to not wait long and grab a table to eat our lobster and fried okra. We will definitely be going back because how many places do you get to go where you get to play with your food before you eat it? If you want a lobster close-up, check out the girl’s lobster saying hello!

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My lobster.

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A very excited Ross to be reunited with his Maine lobster.

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second week of fresh 20

Last week we went with one of the spring menus from Fresh 20. A lot of the summer menus want use of a grill, so we went with a do-able spring menu instead. Although, we could probably just cook our food out on the front sidewalk in the burning evening sun, am I right? We were able to make all 5 dinners, since there were no business trips for the guy, yay!

Dinner one- pretty simple. Porkchops, farro, and kale. I have never had farro before, but I really liked it. Also, just learned that farro is a confusing grain.fresh20 2.1

Dinner two- predictable meat, grain, and veggie combo. Salmon, couscous, and asparagus. We got crazy and made watermelon balls! Cookbook can’t hold us back.fresh20 2.2

Dinner three- steak and kale salad with couscous. I was a little worried about the raw kale, but after the lemon juice and salt, I kind of roughed it up with a spoon, and it softened up pretty good. I had leftovers for lunch the next day that were also very satisfactory.fresh20 2.3

Dinner four- its 100+ degrees outside, but we still made some soup and quesadillas with leftover porkchops. We may have been sweating in the kitchen a bit, but it was worth it.fresh20 2.4

Dinner five- spinach strata with crumbled bread and goat cheese on top. We paired it with some sliced veggies, and even more melon balls! Also, my newest creation, apple sticks (apple slices cut into long skinny pieces). I think they will be all the rage soon. We had the leftover strata for breakfast the next morning, and it was still pretty tasty for being reheated eggs.fresh20 2.5

So week two went well! It is fun to try all the new types of foods, and it is definitely good to know what is yummy or quick to make for the future. We are also learning more about what flavors go better with different things, which is something I have never really put a lot of thought into. On to the next week!

banana cake with white butter frosting

One of our wedding cakes was a banana cake. Now, it may have tasted like the best cake ever simply because we shared a piece on our wedding day. But I tried to recreate it anyway!

There was shortening galore in the cake and frosting, because the outcome of this cake was serious business. I preformed a feat of magic in cutting a 13×9 cake in half, adding a layer of frosting and sliced bananas, and then successfully putting it back together.

SOOO GOOD! Not quite wedding cake, but I guess we can make do with this for now (in very small helpings).

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#SuBruNo: Brunch @ Torchy’s Tacos

Ok, so it’s not really a “brunch” spot but the girl and I had a craving for Torchy’s breakfast tacos so that’s where we went this past weekend for our “Bru” of our traditional #SubruNo activities (Sunday – Brunch – Nothing). You really can’t go wrong with a breakfast taco or two to kick-start your Sunday!

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first week of fresh 20

Last week, we used one of the weekly menus from the Fresh 20 cookbook. We tried out one of the summer weeks, since we are in the middle of summer obvi.

Everything we made was pretty tasty. We generally eat fairly low carb and higher protein, so we made a couple modifications. We also only made 4 of the meals, since the guy was out of town one evening, and I just ate leftovers.

Dinner number one- turkey, salami, and cheese pita sandwich, with cut up veggies. Simple and classic, and super fast.

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Dinner two- pizza with polenta crust. This was a new experiment for me, and I think it turned out pretty good. I added some leftover salami to the pizza to add a little something extra.fresh20.2

Dinner three- salmon salad pita sandwiches and some berries. This was super yummy, and surprisingly little work. I bet this would be pretty good cold for lunch the next day too.fresh20.3

Our fourth dinner was stuffed turkey burgers, but we used lean beef instead, and omitted the bread. I failed to take a picture, probably because I was extra hungry that day.

We missed out on what looks like a deconstructed spring roll recipe, but we will try it next time, and probably add shrimp to it.

All in all, we enjoyed it very much! I sometimes worry about trying new recipes on weeknights, because they always seem to take longer than planned. But these were all actually pretty quick and easy. We are trying one of the spring menus this week. We’ll see how that goes!