Weekend Wrap-up

The weather outside was perfect for doing nothing, and the pretty much the only things that got done inside involved food. 

Saturday's lunch with fresh greens and bread from the City Market.

Saturday's dinner: rigatoni with zucchini, tomato and sausage.

Sunday's breakfast: blueberry pancakes topped with greek yogurt, maple syrup and pecans.

Sunday afternoon's project:  Banana Crumb Muffins.

What a mess.

But worth it.  Breakfast for the week!!

Sunday dinner: Swiss chard from City Market.

Nearly a vegetarian version of last night's dinner, using different veggies and with bread instead of pasta.

And I am nearly ready for it to be Monday again; it must have been a good weekend ;-)

Meals of March

Well, selected meals from the crazy month of March.  Note the two place settings!

Welcome to Charlottesville, VA, a medium sized town with enough restaurants to seat the entire population at once! Let's stay in and eat some chili...

with some gorgeous corn muffins on the side!

Keizo and I ate a lot of kale chips while he was here.  Wash kale, tear from stems, place on baking sheet, drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil, coarse salt and pepper.  Bake/broil for about 10 minutes, mixing once until saku saku (light and crispy).

Homemade pizza on no-rise whole wheat dough.  This stuff sticks to your ribs.

Banana/coconut/PB chip pancakes.  Difficult to flip over, unbelievably easy to eat.

Teriyaki fish, buttered rice, leftover pasta and spinach salad with yogurt-y dressing, broccoli, nectarine and Craisins.

Poorly photographed fried egg sandwich, one of several that were consumed.  One of the Saturdays I had to be at school, Keizo and my housemate drove out to Polyface Farm and returned with eggs and breakfast sausages.  The eggs did seem "firmer" than the ones from the grocery store, but were the same pale yellow color.  Taste also seemed about the same.

*****

Since he was in C-ville for goodness sakes, we did have to eat out occasionally.

The gelato sampler at Splendora's.  I will have to show immense restraint not to order this just for myself the next time I go there.  Clockwise from top: mint, coconut, mango, tiramisu, and hazelnut, with a scoop of Guiness in the middle (it was St. Patrick's Day after all!)

Blue Mountain Brewery's nine beer sampler, enjoyed on the patio at sunset after an afternoon of hiking.  It was as amazing as it sounds.  I hope to repeat several times this summer.

Historic Michie Tavern's endless Southern buffet!  The stewed tomatoes were my favorite part, although that isn't to say didn't also get seconds of the BBQ pork and buttery biscuits.  If you go, I highly recommend fasting both before and after.

Short Stack

Pumpkin Berry Pancakes on a frigid Sunday morning.

Unlike AZ, spring in VA doesn't start in February :-(

On the Road Again

Our second and final morning in Zion found us back in the dinning room for another breakfast. While I enjoyed the omelette the day before, I really wanted to try their pancakes, since they looked really good on other diner's tables the day before.

First, some more delicious coffee.

And now the star of breakfast, the pancakes! Light and fluffy, Keizo and I could only manage one each. So the rest got boxed up and added to our picnic stash.

The reason we could only eat one each was that we were also working on some French toast. It was good, but not as yummy as the pancakes.

Lunch was a brief stop at Subway outside of Bryce Canyon National Park followed by a drive through viewing of the red rock spires. Then it was back on the road to Page, AZ where we would spend the night.

We arrived in Page around dinner time, and after a quick scan around town for a place to eat, we settled on a Mexican restaurant that advertised the best margaritas in town.

They also had delicious veggie fajitas (probably cooked in animal lard, but whatever, they were really good!)

Keizo ordered the mole enchiladas. He knew of mole from the TV show Ugly Betty, which we have watched together, and was excited to try it. The enchiladas were also very good.

And what trip to the restaurant with the best margaritas in town would be complete without a margarita? I ordered one, and when it came out, it was about half the size of my head! They were not listed on the menu, and I thought they could probably charge about $14 for it if they wanted. But when the bill came, it only cost half of that. We're not in Vegas anymore, Toto! It's also a good thing there are no locations of this restaurant closer to Scottsdale...I might become a regular.

Following dinner, we bedded down for the night at a Best Western where the friendly clerk gave us the AARP discount rate for the room. Fabulous!