If you saw our very mature video post or read Erin’s Thanksgiving recap, then you could see that I ate a LOT this Thanksgiving weekend.
It was love at first sight when I saw you, Nutella cookies. I’ll always remember those days we shared at the beach and how good you tasted in my mouth.
That’s what she said.
When the holiday festivities ended, Chris and I headed back to Portland and continued eating like king and queen we think we are. Saturday was my Mother-in-Law’s birthday and we took her out to dinner at a restaurant near our house, The Country Cat. This place is known for their brunch, but we have only been there for dinner.
Chris and I shared a salad (not pictured) of butter lettuce, green goddess dressing and a soft boiled egg. They only had a couple of vegetarian dishes, and I settled on the potato lasagna with lemon ricotta.
So good! Although, there was a root vegetable I couldn’t identify that had a nasty taste (in my opinion) to it, so I just ate around those 
Dessert was equally as good:
Jonagold apple crisp with buttermilk cranberry ice cream. I had two cups of coffee after dessert and ended up staying up until 2 a.m. catching up on some of the blogs I missed over the past couple of days. My Reader is still 400+.
Sunday was kind of a low-key day. Chris and I did some furniture shopping – we’re looking for a sleeper sofa for our home office so that we can actually have guests spend the night. After visiting a couple of stores we stopped for lunch at Qdoba. I had never been to one before and was pleasantly surprised by my options.
I got a naked grilled veggie burrito w/guac – no cheese and no sour cream. I inhaled this plate in about three minutes. There were a ton of veggies and the salsa was really good. We went during their “Happy Hour” menu pricing and I was half tempted to get a $2 margarita. Next time.
After running a couple of more errands (i.e. going to Trader Joes and buying six bottles of wine) I came home and made these poop-like substances:
These are quite simply, da bomb.
Foodbuzz sent out an email last week about Safeway giving away the chance to win a $50 gift card to bloggers who recreate one of their Holiday Recipes. Since a $50 grocery gift card will go a long way in this house, I decided to give it a whirl. Of course, I was supposed to have completed the post by this morning, so I’m probably out of contention. Oh well – these Rocky Road Granola Clusters were so good that they are prize enough!
Of course, I had to tweak the recipe a bit for my tastes. First of all, I used REAL 72% dark chocolate – none of that candy coating chocolate crap. I also used pumpernickel pretzel sticks since they didn’t have any regular, more “natural” pretzels at the store. I omitted the caramels as it just seemed excessive and I couldn’t find the Brach’s bin of candy at the store – do they not have those anymore? Am I dating myself by knowing what that is?
I also tried to make them vegan. I did use vegan shortening, but the marshmallows had gelatin in them. I looked for vegan marshmallows at Whole Foods, but even the ones there had fish gelatin in them. I could have paid $4 for those or $.99 for the regular horse-hoof gelatin filled ones like I ended up buying. Since the recipe only calls for a cup of marshmallows, I decided to be three bucks richer.
I will try to get a better picture of them tomorrow – seriously, the above photo does not do them justice. I took them to Emily’s house last night as they invited us over for dinner. It ended up being perfect because we ate them around the fire pit.
Emily and Andy hosted a dinner with some of our close friends and we had such a great time. We decided to re-institute Sunday Dinner (we used to do it every week about a year and a half ago) – it’s such a great way to end the weekend and socialize before the start of the work week. I think I volunteered to host this Sunday – after three glasses of wine, things were kind of hazy by the end of the night!
Dinner was simple – manicotti from Costco! Emily had hosted Thanksgiving dinner at her house, so we definitely could not fault her for going “easy” on dinner last night. It was actually really good and Emily put her special touch on everything by setting a nice table and having classy munchies for us when we arrived – pickled asparagus and garlic (so good!) and bruschetta. Sorry, I forgot to snap a pic of those. I did get these…
I also wasn’t able to get a picture of the homemade Tiramisu that Lee made – he even got the lady fingers from an Italian deli downtown! I’m so glad my friends are into food and entertaining – it makes for a fun and delicious evenings!
This post is getting epic, so I’m going to stop now. Today’s eats were very much back to normal – bowl of cereal, Subway sandwich, and salad and brown rice. Although, I did try the new veggie patties that Subway is offering and it wasn’t too bad – I will definitely be getting it again as it kept me full until I was able to eat dinner tonight. Work kept me out late and I didn’t get home until almost 8 p.m.! I’m already ready to have some time off at Christmas!
and a bag of this:
While a cup of channa dal beans were simmering on the stove and the Vegetable Korma was in the microwave, I added some Tumeric Root & Garam Masala spice to my leftover mashed cauliflower. I usually roast cauliflower when I make these Indian packets, but I think I prefer it this way!
Our trip home was rejuvenating. Just what we needed. It was so good to see our family.
What we won’t do for beauty and peace of mind, right? Oh yeah, and health and longevity, blah blah.
