What did you eat today?
Breakfast: Forgot
Morning snack: Red Cheese.
Lunch: Chipotle
Afternoon snack: Frappuccino. I love these things. I try to eat them only while traveling, but technically, I was an hour from home, so maybe it counts?
Dinner: Open face beef brisket sandwich at Palo Alto Creamery. Plus a chocolate shake. Fantastic on both counts.
Dessert: Dear god, man! I had a Frappuccino and chocolate shake! What do you take me for?
Breakfast: Grapenuts with cranberry juice
Lunch: Don’t recall, actually
Dinner: Ate at Elevation 66, a nearby brewpub. The food here is really good. We shared the flatiron steak and a salad. Also tried the burger and the Mac & Cheese. The Mac, was good, although the noodles were a little overcooked. The beer was tasty, too. Only downside is that this place can be really noisy.
Dessert: Apple pie. Eliza announced she wanted to make one this morning.
Breakfast (I): Grapenuts with cranberry juice.
Breakfast (II): A cold doughnut from Doughnut Dolly. I don’t really know how this happened, I just walked into work and said “Here” and handed me a soft little white bag. Normally, of course, leftover doughnuts are just lame, but Doughnut Dolly are such great pastries that they don’t turn into a rigid mess after a day.
Lunch: Turkey sandwich.
Afternoon snack: Just a couple of Hershy’s kisses. And maybe a York or two. Coke Zero.
Dinner: A delicious spaghetti bolognaise that Suzanne invented. Really sweet with lots of carrots along with the beef and sausage.
Dessert: Leftover homemade vanilla ice cream. With some hot fudge. Um… after the kids went to bed because there really wasn’t enough for more than two servings. I feel slightly guilty about this.
Breakfast: Shredded Wheat and grapefruit juice.
Morning snack: Yogurt and raspberries.
Lunch: Leftover Zachary’s Pizza.
Afternoon snack: Apple. Girl scout cookies.
Dinner: It’s still super hot. Fortunately grilling brie-stuffed burgers and corn on the cob keeps the kitchen cool. Moose even cooked the bacon that topped our burgers on the grill.
I’m kind of obsessed with stuffed burgers. Mostly, it’s because I like to taste the cheese and most kinds just slide off the patty if they’re on top. Usually I put gorgonzolla in, but we were all out. There was a decent hunk of brie in the fridge, so I decided to give it a shot. It was a great flavor, and the texture actually worked out better than with blue cheese that is clumpy. There were lots of good, cheesy bites.
Dessert: Homemade vanilla ice cream from Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipes. This is an OK vanilla ice cream, but far from my favorite… like many with a custard base, I just find this one too eggy-tasting. I’ve tried a couple of Philadelphia-style recipes with no egg, but they are usually kind of icy. Still looking for the ideal. There’s also the problem of knowing when to stop churning. I usually overdo it, and end up with a hint of butter flavor. Next time, set an alarm for 18-20 minutes and pull it off to harden.
Breakfast: Shredded Wheat and grapefruit juice.
Morning snack: I couldn’t wait for lunch, so I had some leftover Zachary’s Pizza at about 10:30. Let’s call it second breakfast.
Lunch: More leftover Zachary’s Pizza. I could eat it three meals a day.
Afternoon snack: An entire box of popsicles. It was really hot. Did I mention that I shared it with my kids?
Dinner: Way too hot to cook. Turned leftover filling from our southwestern steak tacos with chopped charred summer vegetables into taco salad.
Breakfast: Grapenuts with cranberry juice
Lunch: Leftover Zachary’s Pizza. I seriously can’t decide whether it is better warm or cold. What do you think?
Dinner: Southwestern steak tacos with chopped charred summer vegetables. This was out of Sarah Foster’s Casual Cooking. The steak was supposed to be grilled, but it seems that the BBQ was out of gas… you know how it goes. Pan fried steak makes a good taco, too. The spicy Cilantro-lime sour cream (recipe in Casual Cooking) was awesome.
Dessert: Blond brownies.
When I looked for some kind of vegetable to serve with our leftover pork the other day, all I found was a bag of carrots. I don’t usually think about cooking carrots, but since I didn’t have anything else, they had to do. I wanted to make something fast and easy, so I reached for Cook’s Illustrated Quick Recipe Cookbook. To my delight, this recipe produces tender carrots with a sweet, bright flavor. I used yellow, orange and red carrots, so they looked impressive as well.
I now see carrots in a new light. Of course I’ll be making glazed carrots again soon, but now I’m on a mission to find new ways to prepare carrots. Please share your favorite recipes.
Breakfast: Donuts. From All Star Donuts in El Cerrito. Of all the donut shops in the area, this one is my favorite. The donuts are pretty good, but the staff is so nice that it just feels good to stop in. Today was Mother’s Day, so what better way to celebrate than by getting the kids out of the house.
Lunch: Mother’s Day brunch with three generations of mothers. Chicken saltimbocca with asparagus and rice. Plus pavlova for dessert.
Dinner: Zachary’s Pizza. We had Alison, Jason, and Sam over, and it was just too much to make it back from lunch and cook dinner. Besides, Zachary’s is just awesome. Ordered large ones, so there will be leftovers for lunch all week. First dinner with friends at the new picnic table.
Dessert: Blond brownies.
Breakfast: Forgot
Mid-morning snack: Birthday cake at another kid’s party. It was pretty good, but three different birthday treats right before lunch did put the whole stomach schedule out of whack!
Lunch: Leftover pork tenderloin sandwich. With Jarlsberg cheese and a some jalapeno/cilantro hummus. Frankly, three great tastes better kept separate, but I was so damn hungry I thought I was on to something.
Afternoon snack: Nothing. Well, there was one See’s candy, but that was just a free sample, so it didn’t really count.
Dinner: More leftover roasted maple-glazed pork tenderloin. This time with glazed carrots. We’d thrown out the sauce for the pork, but the glaze from the carrots was so sweet, it worked perfectly. Over rice, which was a bit dry, but would have been perfect with more carrot glaze.
Dessert: Root beer floats. We didn’t mean to have dessert tonight, but Eliza had a friend over who had never had a root beer float… can you imagine? Then we ran out of vanilla ice cream and all we had was Caramel Peanut-butter-cup swirl. I decided that root beer floats with peanut butter ice cream is about as anti-European as it is possible to get. Frankly, they might have a point on this one. The actual peanut butter and root beer flavor was OK, but the chocolate shell of the peanut butter cup mixed with root beer was just flat-out weird.
Breakfast: Shredded Wheat and grapefruit juice.
Lunch: Ham & cheese sandwich with arugula and spicy mustard, apple.
Afternoon snack: Carrot sticks, dried cherries.
Dinner: Roasted maple-glazed pork tenderloin, broccoli, rice, green salad, which we got to eat outside at our new picnic table!
Dessert: Coffee ice cream and chocolate covered caramels.