A Night Out

I always love weekends.  Sleeping in is a happy occurrence in my life.  I slept until 9:45 this morning.  I grabbed two frozen banana bites and then walked over to the fitness room to workout.  I did 35 minutes on the reclined bike and then headed back home.  I was going to do Jillian Michaels 6-week 6-pack right away but instead I started to make apple butter since I remembered it had to cook for over 10 hours.  I peeled and diced the apples, coated them in some brown sugar, sucanat, and Stevia along with cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.

The crockpot ran on low for 10 hours and then I pureed the mixture and it went back into the pot for another hour and a half on high uncovered to thicken the mixture.

Seriously, the place smelled delicious the whole time.  The smell is one of the best parts of doing a crockpot recipe.  When it was all done cooking I scooped the thickened, spiced apple mixture into a jar and set it in the fridge.  I can’t wait to spread it all over toast!

Anyways, after I did my apple butter prep I met with Ms. Michaels for a sweat session.  I may be crazy but I feel like some of the exercises have gotten easier.  I guess I’m getting stronger.  Once I was finished with my abdominal workout, I headed back to the kitchen and whipped up chocolate protein waffles which I topped with peanut butter, bananas, maple syrup, chia seeds, and wheat germ.

Just what I needed to refuel before my shower.  Once I was clean, I headed out for some errands.  First up, Dollar Tree.  Basically this is the only place to get roasted red peppers at a decent price so I picked up some of those as well as new body wash.  Second up, Walmart.  I grabbed some candy molds as well as a refill on my dark cocoa and another $5 bin find: The Island.  Seriously, Walmart’s crazy DVD sales haven’t let me down yet!  If you’re wondering why I got candy mold it’s because I’m experimenting with making my own chocolates.

As best I can tell, they need some work.  I modified the recipe by using powdered stevia instead of liquid and so the coconut oil separated a bit.  Hmm, next time I’m try maple syrup and a bit of coarse sea salt.

My third stop was Payless Shoes.  I needed new dress flats for clinic visits and new sleek black shoes for when I wear skinny jeans.  Thankfully I found both of what I was looking for and the store had a BOGO event going on so I got one of the pairs for half off.  Yay!!  Finally when I arrived back at my apartment I unloaded the groceries that needed to be refrigerated (yogurt and butter, that sort of thing) and then made up a bowl of pears, blackberries, coconut, chia, and the last of my yogurt out of the old container.

I was hungry!  This hit the spot though and kept me going until Mary and I went out for dinner at 7 o’clock.  We drove over and ended up waiting for about 15 minutes and then got seated at the bar.  The restaurant, Sahm’s Tavern, was a bit smaller than we anticipated so the bar was really the only place for us at that moment.  We went with the idea of doing the 2 for $30 deal going on and chose the “shrimp cigar” appetizer to start.  They were kind of like mini egg rolls made from wonton wraps filled with herb cream cheese, mire poix and gulf shrimp.  The sauce was a teriyaki sesame one and complimented the flavor in the roll really well.

For entrees I ordered the herb stuffed chicken which was a rolled breast around an herbed cream cheese.  The outside was coated in panko and oven-broiled.  It had a lemon caper sauce all over.

Mary got the salmon topped with roasted corn and avocado salsa and the cilantro cream on the side.

We were both supposed to get steamed broccoli as well but apparently they ran out of green veggies and the other choice was steamed carrots.  Please, both Mary and I decided we could totally make those at home for ourselves so we asked for other options and ended up getting wedge salads.  I had the house cranberry poppyseed dressing and it was the best part of the whole thing.

For dessert we were torn between the Tollhouse cookie pie and the bread pudding with bourbon cream.  When we asked the bartender which he would recommend and he wasn’t much help at all.  Then I figured I could make the cookie pie and I have already so we chose the bread pudding and boy the sauce was scrumptious!

So, on the whole, the food was good though the service of the night was pretty awful.  Mary and I had to be very proactive in getting orders placed and it took quite a while to get any food.  When we were trying to pay, it took forever!  Mary remarked that we probably could have walked out and no one would have noticed.  I completely agreed.  We didn’t though, we finally flagged someone to split the check and run our credit cards.  Oh well, the best part was getting to know her.  Making friends one night out at a time.  We’re planning on hitting up BRU next time.  Can’t wait to go back since I loved the first time so much!

Now I’m off to bed to get some shut eye before waking up and making breakfast at church tomorrow.  I haven’t done it for a while, what with being gone over Christmas break and all, so I look forward to seeing everyone again and getting my hands dirty in the parish kitchen.  Hope you all are enjoying your weekends!

Questions: Do you like bread pudding?
Have you ever made your own chocolate?