What I Ate Wednesday #124: Valentine’s Feasting

Valentine’s Day might be one of my favorite holidays. We don’t do the bouquet of roses, sappy cards, get dressed up for dinner kind of thing. We learned that wasn’t necessary many years ago. Not to mention, who wants to pay $200 for a dinner that takes HOURS to come out after ordering while 100 other people wait around you? Personally, I’m a fan of a quiet night at home, cooking together and drinking some good wine.

We cheated a little bit this year and bought our main dish. Last year, we went all out and made a pistachio-crusted lamb which turned out wonderfully. This year, however, we went to the farmers’ market the week before Valentine’s Day and saw that Roli Roti has a new rotisserie duck l’orange. We already love their rotisserie chicken, brussels, and potatoes, so how could we say no? We woke up on Valentine’s Day and got to the market as soon as they opened to get our duck.

It was so nice to relax rather than having to work on the main dish. So we broke out a bottle of Black Zeppelin, a 2009 Syrah blend, that we got in 2012. We bought 2 bottles and had the first right away. This bottle was even better than we remembered!

It was also gone pretty quickly!

I also made a cheesy [ha.. in both senses of the word] plate to snack on while the side dish was in the oven. Thank you very much, Cabot!

And what goes better with cheese than prosecco? Only the finest bottle in our house..

The main event.. it was better than I could have imagined! Did I mention that this was my first time eating meat in 2 weeks? Nathan’s idea for the dippy egg over top of the rosemary garlic roasted potatoes and brussels was killer. I was absolutely in heaven!

And if that wasn’t enough, I made a “single serving” [which really turned out to be a double. So we nicely shared.] of Smitten Kitchen’s blueberry crumb bars. I’d only made them once before, a couple years ago, and Nathan has been talking about them ever since. I decided Valentine’s Day was the perfect day to break it out again. We also bought some Tahitian Vanilla gelato from our favorite place, Lush, right down the street. It was the perfect topping.

Dinner was fabulous, as always, and we were more than full. Or as we like to say, fat and happy.

Food for Thought

Did you do anything special for Valentine’s Day?

What I Ate Wednesday #121: Hell Week Eats

I love routine. I crave it. Some people are easily just go-with-the-flow kind of people. I’m not one of them. I guess you could say that’s something I miss about having a 9-5 job.. I could plan my workouts, plan my meal times.. even plan my spontaneity. I’m so fun, right?

This week is anything but routine. Will all of my jobs, today happens to be my latest start.. 7 a.m. Waking up at 3:45, 4:45, and 5:45 are totally throwing my eating schedule through a loop, not to mention, I have to work with when my breaks are scheduled at work. Monday was nuts; I worked one job from 6 a.m. – 1:45 p.m. and another from 4 – 6 p.m. I practically packed up my whole refrigerator to have the option to eat a meal or a snack, depending on my hunger, when I had a break. It was quite interesting.

[Breakfast #1]
I started with a scoop of Chocolate Peanut Butter TastyWHEY mixed with coffee. I even took a video 😉

I also noshed on a bar on my walk to work. These Santa Barbara bars are delicious and you should definitely get some if you can get your paws on ’em!

[Breakfast #2]

Luckily, my oatmeal packs up and reheats well. I’ve been making it the night before so I can eat it either before I leave, or during one of my breaks. And, of course, I have a jar of peanut butter with me at all times!

[Snack #1]
Trust me, I’m saving you by not snapping a picture of my cottage cheese. Ha! I did drizzle a little NuStevia Cocoa Syrup on top for a chocolatey treat.

[Lunch]

Balsamic vinegar, whole grain mustard, and a little EVOO is the best marinade for kale. I’m convinced the whole grain mustard helps with the massaging of the kale and gives it great flavor. I’ve been topping my salads this week with Beyond Beef Fiesty Crumbles and I have to say, it’s pretty darn tasty! It is a touch dry by itself, but I would absolutely use it in tacos, salads [obviously], etc. I’m also interested to try the Beyond Chicken now, too.

[Snack #2]
By the time I got home from job #1, I was super hungry [I don’t know how.. I’d been eating all day!] and feeling pretty snacky so I grabbed some cranberry almond bites from NatureBox and housed a bag of sugar snap peas.

[Dinner]

Thank goodness for easy, quick dinners. I had half of a roasted spaghetti squash and some chicken in the fridge. I tossed it together with some frozen beans, topped with lots of Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar and ketchup, and I was good to go!

[Snack #3]
I ended my night early with an apple and was in bed by 9:15.

At least it’s Wednesday and we’re almost to moving day. Just keep plugging along!

Food for Thought

Do you like to eat on a similar schedule everyday?