Weekend Excursion

Last weekend I went on a little trip to Gulfport/Biloxi with the Akeys. It was Sara's mom's birthday and she had some comped rooms at Island View and Hard Rock so Mr. & Mrs. Akey stayed in Biloxi and Sara and I stayed in Gulfport. It was nice to relax in a hotel room for a few days! We did a little bit of gambling, but neither of us lost more than $20...no high roller status in our futures! Haha! On Saturday night we enjoyed an extremely rich and filling meal at Ruth's Chris Steak House that Curtis was able to join us for. 

Island View hotel at night

Casino floors are busy! The whole environment is overwhelming. Lots of lights and colors and people and sounds and movement. Whew!

 A little Hermit Crab in the sand

 Looking west down shore | South to the gulf in the evening

View from inside the Akey's hotel room

 Taken from in the hotel looking west | On the beach looking back at the hotel

The beaches really weren't very crowded. I would go back and relax in the sand when the heat dies down a bit in a couple of weeks. 

No Menu Tuesdays

Quite a few Tuesdays back at this point, Sara and I dined at Coquette on Magazine Street for their "no menu Tuesdays". We knew we would have a five course meal, but were not told before the dishes were presented to us what they would be. This is not for picky eaters or people who like to be in control of every aspect of their lives. There has to be trust and faith that the folks in the kitchen know what they're doing! Being Bastille Day (French Revolution), our dinner was French themed! We did not opt to do the wine pairing that was offered.

I kicked off the meal with a flight of Four Roses Bourbon that came with a handy card describing the nuances of each batch. Yum! 

A two bite, moist, financier cake with brown butter, paired with pork rillette and olive praline.

I like rillette a lot. Hell, I like most meat in any form a lot. Delicious!

Next up was a slice of chicken galantine with Rainier cherry vinaigrette, arugula and balsamic.

A nice chilled poultry dish with both white and dark meat. Tasty!

An absolutely gorgeous ratatouille with garlic aioli and charred scallion dust was presented next.

This was awesome! Lots of squash and eggplant going on. Light but super flavorful. My first spin with ratatouille was great!

Blanquette de Veau (veal) with pearl onions, chanterelles and cream sauce came after the veggie course. 

Oh man. So tender. I am not sure that I have ever had veal before so this was a great first experience.

Soupe de Poisson (fish soup) consisting of amberjack and mussels with olive oil and garlic served and a side of crostini and Gruyere cheese.

Another first for me: mussels! Not bad. Not much to them. The fish was delicious, as was the broth they were served in. Gruyere is not my favorite.

Finally dessert...baba au rhum: a rum soaked bite of cake with a dollop of whipped cream. 

A lovely, sweet finish to our French meal!

And after the check, as a final finale, a bite sized Paris-brest filled with a Chantilly cream for each of us!

Man, that was a good meal. Everything was sooo flavorful. There were various styles: cool, creamy, tender, warm, etc. Everything came out with perfect timing, the staff was very knowledgeable of each plate and did a great job of explaining all of the components. My understanding is that Coquette will continue the "no menu Tuesday" concept for the foreseeable future. I would absolutely go back again!

Tenting Turned Staycation

Looks like the circus came to town and set up shop at our house. Yes, that is my residence under there: being rid of termites via fumigation. From the number of times I have seen other houses tented in the area, this seems to be a fairly common thing down here. For seemingly obvious reasons humans, nor any other living or ingestible thing, is allowed to remain inside the home while they pump toxic gasses through every crevice, drawer, and closet. We were given a few weeks notice of the impending evacuation so I packed up what I needed to in the kitchen, and took the opportunity to conduct a much needed purge of the fridge and pantry. I left all of the edibles at work for the weekend and checked myself into The Hotel Modern for a little staycation!

stay·ca·tion: /stāˈkāSHn/ noun: a vacation spent in one's home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.

After work on Friday I crashed on my personal king size bed, flipped on the cable and proceeded to zone out in the best way possible! | There was a bright and cheerful purple accent wall with a colorful Parisian scene.

I did a lot of napping, a lot of reading, and a lot of movie watching (Little Giants featured below), barely leaving my hotel room for more than sustenance. | My view from the bed!

I was careful to remember to pack bath salts and a face mask for my relaxing tub time. It was quite convenient to prop my laptop on top of the toilet and lie back in the warm water while watching Mind of a Chef on Netflix :) 

I will say the room was lacking for views. These were the shots from outside the bathroom window. Good thing I already know what the surrounding area looks like!

Sara came by and kept me company on Saturday. We walked a few blocks away to dinner at Peche where I had the best seafood salad ever! Shrimp, raw tuna, avocado, house-made crackers...really hit the spot! 

(photo courtesy of Peche's website)

After our tasty seafood dinner we headed back to my room where we landed the cheapest front row tickets to the (second) best Garth Brooks concert in all of New Orleans! Since the legend himself was actually playing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR shows at the Smoothie King Center in three days, I can only say with good conscious that our YouTube supplied show was the second best performance occurring in the area assuming live always beats screen. We had so much fun singing along with all of the hits: Callin' Baton Rouge, The Dance, Standing Outside the Fire, etc. The joy of DJing your own concert is you get to choose the next song and furthermore, artist. Our show morphed from Garth to Tim McGraw to the Dixie Chicks, to The Fugees! What a night!

As all vacations must come to an end, so do staycations. We were permitted back into the house on Monday after the plumber had re-lit all of the pilots. Hopefully this exercise in proving to be, once again, the dominant species will be effective in keeping the pesky winged termites away!

What the Heck?!

Jared the Subway guy?

Bill Cosby (again/still)?

Paula/Bobby Deen?

What the heck is wrong with people?!

Got me over here just shaking my head. Tisk tisk.

Clean Eating Challenge: Days 12, 13 & 14

Day 12

Breakfast: Roasted Pepper, Cheddar Cheese & Spinach Egg Muffins with Blueberries

Snack: Chocolate Avocado Pudding

Lunch: Shaved Pork and Cheddar Sandwich on a Portobello “Bun”

Dinner: Steamed Salmon with Snap Peas, Garlic & Quinoa

Snack: Mango Sorbet with Pistachios

I ate about ⅓ of my dinner last night and didn’t eat the popsicle. They just don’t appeal to me. So my stomach was starting to growl for breakfast pretty early on. The egg muffins are fine and blueberries are fine. It was all just fine. (Somehow I deleted the photo I took of this, but imagine a pile of blueberries beside two little egg muffins from the other day.)

Guys. I couldn’t do it. I tried. I ate a bite of the “sandwich” but it was so much mushroom. Then I tried making it an open-faced and that didn’t work either. I resorted to just picking out the good stuff in the middle.

I knew when I made the avocado chocolate pudding that it was not going to be as tasty as the picture on Buzzfeed would lead you to believe. Bleh. It was very strong on the avocado front. I like avocados, but not with cocoa powder mixed in. A lunch and snack fail had me asking “when is dinner??”

I was very excited to be having salmon for dinner again! The quinoa and snap peas came together quickly. Yum!

I have clearly gotten into the habit of not eating the last snack of the day. I did not eat the mango sorbet. It is still in the freezer. Maybe I’ll break into it next week. It just wasn’t calling to me.

Thoughts: Portobello mushrooms are just never going to make it onto my plate in massive chunks again. Fact. Avocados are delicious. Chocolate is delicious. Together they are disgusting. Noted.

Day 13

Breakfast: Soft Scrambled Eggs with Kale & Parmesan

Snack: Cherry Tomato, Chickpea, Parsley Salad

Lunch: Salmon Salad with Grapefruit, Pistachios & Infused Lemon Vinaigrette

Dinner: Quinoa & Zucchini Salad with Scallions, Mint & Crushed Almonds

Snack: Dark Chocolate

Breakfast was fine. I’m over the scrambled eggs and kale is not my favorite green. It sufficed though.

Lunch was great! The arugula and vinaigrette were on the sour side but the orange segments balanced that out with their sweetness. (I substituted orange instead of grapefruit for variety, but I think grapefruit would have been fine too.) I would make this again.

Cherry tomatoes and chickpeas was one of the heartier snacks I've had. It was quite satisfying. 

The quinoa and zucchini "salad" was really good. It is not something that I would have thought to mix together but I liked it. It came together very quickly since the quinoa was already made.

Thoughts: Overall a good day as far as the menu goes. I like that this challenge has everything mapped out for you, from the grocery list to every step of every recipe. But I at the same time I am getting tired of eating on a schedule. It is kind of a toss up for me. No guess work, but also no freedom. I need a better balance.

Day 14 (the FINAL day!)

Breakfast: Strawberry, Kale, Avocado Smoothie

Snack: Grapefruit & Almonds

Lunch: "Fried" Quinoa with Green Beans & Red Peppers

Dinner: Tuna Melt-Stuffed Tomatoes

Snack: Banana, Chocolate & Coconut Popsicle

You guessed it, I did not wake up early enough to even attempt to make that smoothie. It was straight to lunch for me! Again, because the quinoa was in the fridge ready to go, the kitchen time was relatively minimal. I liked this dish a lot. I'll add it to my pinterest board for future reference.

I ate my snack later on in the afternoon. I had half of the orange left over from lunch yesterday and only five almonds still in my stash. It was enough though to hold me over until dinner. 

It seems like the recipes are getting faster to make. The tuna salad concoction that gets stuffed in the tomatoes was very simple. It called for dijon mustard and I went with it, though I really don't like the taste of that stuff. I think I would prefer yellow mustard even. These weren't bad. Warmed up tomato is not my favorite way to eat these summer delights, but I ate it anyway. With some minor modifications I would make this again.

I didn't mess with that popsicle. Just don't care to eat them.

Final thoughts: I am greatly looking forward to eating chicken tenders/nuggets tomorrow. I have been craving them for days now! Also, I want something rich and chocolately, preferably on the fudgy side. Then I think I will be good. Hahaha! Overall I am very glad that I did this challenge. I discovered a lot of healthy dishes that I will make again. The measuring and counting helped me visually see portions differently since I typically just eyeball things. I still need to focus on the eating slower part. Since everything was portion controlled there really wasn't much chance of over eating, but this goes back to the better understanding of serving sizes I have learned. Buzzfeed has another two week challenge from last year...maybe I'll check it out and give it a go soon. Or at the very least try some of their recipes. 

Best & Worst 4th

Traditionally I don't do much for Independence Day since living in New Orleans. I have never felt the urge to fight the crowds and parking nightmare that would be going downtown to see the fireworks. Nothing about that is appealing. This year's adventure provided both my best and my worst experience thus far. Let's start with the worst shall we...

In an effort to see the explosions but avoid the headache, Sara and I thought that maybe going up on the levy near her house would be a good idea. Her brother and sister-in-law were to meet us there where we could watch from a crowd-free, peaceful area. Well, the crowd-free part was right, there was no one there, perhaps indicating that this was not a desirable place to see anything. As we walked along the trail closer to where we thought we would have a better vantage point we were suddenly swarmed with mosquitoes. SWARMED. In our hair, all over us, one went in my mouth for goodness sake! We quickly made our way back towards the starting point of the trail that had not had so many of these devil bugs, swatting the whole way. Curtis and Jackie showed up as we were making our way back to my car where we hopped inside and proceed to smack and squish as many blood suckers as possible. Sara called Curtis, who was now parked beside us and probably thought we were being idiots, and explained the situation. Thank God I put bug spray on before leaving the house! I definitely received my fair share of bites, but I can only imagine how much worse it could have been. Geez!!! 

Now for the best part: We ended up running from my car to his, only bringing half a dozen mosquitoes with us, with the brilliant plan to drive to a parking garage on Tulane's campus. The dueling barge light show that occurs on the river downtown started a few minutes before we made it to the top, but we finally got there and stood amongst a small crowd of mainly college students to watch. From up top you could see other sets of fireworks going off around the area, out by the lake, over in Metairie, etc. I saw more fireworks from up there than I have seen in my five years in NOLA combined. Not too crowded, parking was easy, there was a breeze by being up above most everything else; it was very nice!

So there you have it, my best and worst 4th of July to date. Attacked by hundreds of mosquitoes before making it to a spot where we could see dozens of fireworks shows around the city!

Clean Eating Challenge: Days 9, 10, & 11

Day 9

Breakfast: Roasted Pepper, Cheddar Cheese & Spinach Egg Muffins with Strawberries

Snack: Cucumber & Hummus

Lunch: Kale Salad with White Beans, Butternut Squash & Vinaigrette

Dinner: Chicken Thighs with Asparagus & Red Peppers

Snack: Broiled Grapefruit with Shredded Coconut

I think I put more spinach into the egg muffins than I was supposed to but they turned out tasty. Strawberries are one of my favorites. So breakfast was a success today!

Kale is so bitter. I know that seems to be my buzz word for this challenge, but so many of the items on the menu are just that-bitter! The honey in the vinaigrette helped cut that a little, but not enough. I was telling a coworker about this challenge last week so each day I show her what I have. She is El Salvadorian and speaks Spanish so I went to her and said “Tengo comida de conejos!” (“I have rabbit food!”) hahahaha! Then we had a chat about butternut squash with the help of google translate. I continued to pick at my rabbit food for a good hour. It was a really big bunch of Kale.   

I failed to purchase a cucumber this week. Well, I almost did, but the cashier at Whole Foods pointed out that one end of the cuc I picked up was squishy/rotten so I did not buy it. Oh, my grocery bill this week was lower, $85 at Whole Foods ($13 of that being a large bag of chia seeds to continue using beyond this challenge), and $25 at Hollygrove because I wanted to get as much of the produce as possible from local farmers. Any way, I finally ate the dates with pistachios and coconut!! That was my substitute snack.

By the time I got home from work my hangry side was starting to kick in. I whipped up the asparagus, red pepper, chicken thigh dish quickly and devoured it! Those chicken thighs were heaven sent. Yum!!!

As this entire challenge has been a lesson in adaptability for me, I have learned how to eat a grapefruit without it nearly killing me. On my salad the other night I had pieces of grapefruit that I had carefully removed all of the white membranes from, the fleshy part is less bitter than the white stuff, and it was actually tolerable. I employed this method again with my night snack and opted out of the broiling stage. So, grapefruit segments, drizzle of honey and sprinkling of shredded coconut. Much better than my first round with this recipe!

Thoughts: You win some. You lose some. You adapt to suit your tastes!

Day 10

Breakfast: Strawberry, Almond Milk Smoothie

Snack: Avocado

Lunch: Pork Loin, Asparagus & Cauliflower “Rice” Bowl

Dinner: Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash & Spinach

Snack: Cheese & Dates

NO WAY was I making that smoothie again after last weeks debacle. I am still traumatized from that memory. Instead I made the strawberry, almond chia pudding and it was great! I really am a fan of this chia pudding stuff!

Lunch was also very satisfying today. Hearty and yummy. Can’t go wrong with that! With a filling breakfast and lunch I held off on the avocado until late afternoon before I left work.

Once again I modified dinner’s cooking instructions to suite my tastes better and made a scramble of everything instead of baking things. I am getting a little tired of all of the eggs but I’m dealing with it.

I felt like a little mousy nibbling on my chunk of cheese! A fig and some cheese wouldn’t be normal go-to snack, but it was filling. I’m really noting portion control with this challenge.


Thoughts: Still loving the cauliflower "rice". Getting tired of eggs so frequently.

Day 11

Breakfast: Chia Pudding with Pineapple, Mint and Coconut

Snack: Roasted Pepper, Cheddar Cheese & Spinach Egg Muffin

Lunch: Chicken & Avocado Romaine Cups

Dinner: Roasted Chickpeas with Kale on Cheesy Portobello Mushroom Caps

Snack: Banana, Chocolate, Coconut Popsicle

Chia Pudding = the best! Leaving the pineapple chunks in the mixture overnight really sweetened it all up!

The chicken & avocado salad if you will was nice and light. I made a few lettuce boats but in the end just used a fork to eat the rest of the salad. I would make this again. You could easily toss in some extra veggies like onions or peppers to add more volume and flavor.

Egg Muffin snack was fine. Again, a lot of egg action going on in this menu. I suppose it is a healthy, cheap form of protein (I say that, but egg prices are higher right now due to the outbreak of bird flu resulting in a lot of euthanized egg layers).

I dreaded dinner. That is soooo much mushroom. I like tiny bits of mushrooms, not massive hunks. The textures were all over the place. Chewy, rubbery mushroom. Crispy kale. Crunchy chickpeas. It didn't kill me, but I did not enjoy it.

I haven't eaten the popsicle dessert. Not sure that I will. They don't taste too bad but I don't care for the banana and chocolate combo. 

Thoughts: I am honestly surprised at my lack of full on cheating with this challenge. I have tried everything that they have presented, maybe with a few tweaks, but no major changes to the nutritional aspect of the recipe, and stepped outside my comfort zone of cuisine. Trying to hold strong. The cravings for junk are starting to kick in though.

Three more days of the regime. I can make it!