January 2013

It’s funny how my blog post schedule works out most weeks. One minute, I’m thinking I can do three posts in one night. The next, I’ve been going non-stop since waking up and can’t force a midnight blogging session. Mostly, I had the latter this past week, which means lots of great things are happening, plus some will lead to fresh blog content ahead. I have some projects in the works, and plenty of fun recipes coming up soon: challah breakfast bread pudding, mom’s Filipino pork adobo, hot chocolate oatmeal, and other goodness.

In the meantime, I have some photos of some Eat in Month dinners from this past week:

Sunday

After spending the weekend with my family, I hurried back to prepare for a choreo session with my dance fitness company. And after that ended, I hurried back to my house to spend the last couple hours of the day clearing out my kitchen, dining room, and living room for some special guests (details coming soon). Since I knew I’d be frantically cleaning (throwing things into the guest room) most of the night, I needed something fast and easy for dinner. I turned to my mom’s pork chops with rice, plus steamed vegetables (orange cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli) and soy dipping sauce. I’ll have to share this recipe with you guys, too. We ate it all the time growing up, and I love it.

Monday

Hubby cooked dinner on Monday night – grilled Earthfare cheeseburgers, tater tots, and steamed vegetables (cabbage and broccoli).

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I ended up eating some lunchtime pizza the office ordered in to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday, another co-workers departure, and another co-workers return. I decided to partake in the celebrations and eat my sandwich as a snack later. Unfortunately, I ate the sandwich way-too-later, and I was still full by the time hubby wanted dinner. I ended up just sautéing some shrimp and spinach for something quick and light.

Wednesday

Hubby also cooked dinner on Wednesday while I was at Zumba. We had salads with balsamic vinegar with a mix of greens from the grocery store and from my family’s garden.

We also had spaghetti with whole wheat pasta.

And the highlight of the meal for me was this Heist Brewery 17-grain bread. Has anyone else in Charlotte tried this stuff yet? Heist Brewery is a new vendor at Atherton Mills. They make breads using the mash resulting from the beer brewing process. This bread is seriously good. I made a sandwich with it for a lunch, and I haven’t liked a sandwich that much in a long time. And the only thing I changed was the bread! The loaf was pretty pricey at $8, but for the flavor, it was worth the splurge as an occasional treat. We drizzled ours with a little olive oil and toasted it under the broiler. Next time, I’m hitting up the Saturday market to try their famous biscuits!

Thursday

Another thing I’m loving from Atherton Mills are the hot garlic pickles from Pickleville. I can’t stop eating these things. I mean that. But, considering pickles are pretty healthy in general and these are even probiotic pickles, I feel pretty good about my snack choice. (Psst – Charlotte friends, there’s a coupon on the pickle man’s web site if you want to get your own!)

I’ve been snacking on these with lunch all week. Yum!

I was just driving home from Zumba Thursday night, thinking about how it’s been surprisingly easy to do Eat in Month this year, when I got the call from hubby – our power was out. We’d already planned to make pizza, which I was really looking forward to, so we decided to try to wait it out. We made it to 9:30pm before calling off the wait. I considered eating a snack bar or a spoon of almond butter from the pantry, but I decided that I shouldn’t let EIM keep me from eating a real meal. I felt like power being out was pretty much out of my control, so we opted to get Chinese take-out. I know, it felt a little like a cheat, but it was that or almond butter. My pantry may be stocked, but we don’t have a lot of room temperature eats…especially since we’d pretty much finished the Heist Brewery bread by this time. Besides, I’ve kept up with Eat in Month when I didn’t have a working stove or kitchen sink (remember this post?)…but no microwave, no stove, no access to the fridge or freezer was just too much this time around.

Friday

And on Friday, we finally made the pizza we’d plan to make the previous night. Better late than never, right? If you’re going to make homemade pizza and you don’t feel like making the ingredients yourself (and you live in Charlotte), I have two words for you – Pasta & Provisions. The “&” doesn’t count as a word, right? It’s like a symbol, eh? I’ve tried many different at-home pizza options, and Pasta & Provisions has the tastiest winning ingredients. We like to stop by to get a ball of pizza dough, pizza sauce, and fresh-grated mozzarella (it melts SO well!). Then, I just use my pizza stone and some corn meal and we have a delicious dinner.

Reader question: Have you had any interesting eats lately?

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