Power eating

So, at our football party over the weekend, there was some major power eating.

We had a veritable schmorgasbord of appetizer type food. Balsamic carmelized onion dip. Beer cheese dip. Hot bacon dip. Let's see...what else what else? Rice Krispy treats, both regular and chocolate peanut butter. Brownies, lovingly decorated by my brother and future sister-in-law. WEENIES! Made by Miss L. And the lovely pumpkin dip with gingersnaps and vanilla wafers, also from Miss L. Chips/salsa. Pretzels. I think that about does it...oh wait, I can't forget a newcomer to the party, BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP which was FREAKIN' AMAZING. It may, I'm big enough to admit, have eclipsed the hot bacon dip. Twas amazing. And only four ingredients - 1 c wing sauce, 1 c chunky blue cheese dressing, 1 8z package cream cheese, and 2 c+ shredded chicken. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 min, serve. We served with crudite and Tostitos Gold chips (and random bread rounds) and it was delish. DELISH. Thanks Miss M!

Main course was beer. Haha. Also, burgers, hotdogs (from Buffalo, thanks again Miss M), hash brown casserole, baked beans...your football favorites.

It was a good time...sigh...now it is over. Till next year!

Superfruit

I keep hearing all this press about superfruit. And I've been intrigued by the granddaddy of superfruit, the pomegranate, ever since my Irish roommate (the noncrazy one) would eat them frequently when I lived over there. Miss Elle got me one on a recent trip to the sto' and I finally attempted to eat it last night. It is kind of a PIA. You eat the little jeweled pips. Which are tasty, tart, but tasty. They have a little crunchy bit in the middle. It was kind of fun to pop them out, for a while. It's a dieter's dream of a fruit - it would take forever to eat one. Until you dig too deeply and it squirts out at you, making your hand, arm, shirt, whatever look like a crime scene. I would not be opposed to eating it again - but I may just stick to using the juice!

Mr. R's Magical Birthday Celebration

Mr. R finally reached the ripe ol' age of 28 alongside me over the weekend.


We celebrated with the always lovely rigatoni with steak sauce and some vino. Thanks again Giada, for your fab recipe.




For dessert, a humongous square German chocolate cake. German chocolate is ok, but R prefers canned icing, and the canned icing smelled like a tanning bed. Or something equally skanky. Not that this has stopped me from eating it or anything so drastic as that mind you...

Meatball sandwich....

Sung in the manner of Adam Sandler in "Lunchlady Land." I had ground beef that I was intending to make into a soup, but I couldn't face soup on Monday evening. Miss L threw out the idea of meatball subs, and I said, hmmmmm....sounds interesting. We had ciabatta rolls in the freezer, and I knew I had pretty much everything else one needs to make meatballs (save breadcrumbs, remedied by a quick store run) so I whipped some up and then made these little pizza like creations under the broiler. Yum.

I've got a scone in my oven...heh heh

Thanks to Ms. S for the inspirational title...I needed to make my own breakfasts this week, and neither bagels, nor oatmeal were doing much for me. So I bucked up and baked some scones. I flipped through my Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and found a recipe for Maple Oatmeal scones in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. It called for whole wheat flour, which I didn't have. It also called for a half cup of maple syrup which, in my mind, is a little too much syrup. A little maple flavor goes a long way in my book. So, I improvised. I, obviously, kept the required pound of butter. I only put in about 2 or 3 tbsp of syrup. I added a little brown sugar. And cinnamon. And pecans. And a LOT more oatmeal. The original recipe wanted 3 1/2 c white flour, 1 c wheat, and 1 c oats. I put in about 4 c white flour and 2 1/2 c oats. They are pretty tasty. Again, I don't really need the mapley-ness. In the future, I'll just use a bit of brown sugar and that will be it. But they'll get me through the week!