Friday, January 15, 2010

before and after

Today my pally and I made one of our occasional jaunts to one of the most magical places on earth.

Supp:

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It’s good that we have to drive like 45 minutes to get there. Otherwise I’d probably be morbidly obese.

“Breakfast” before:

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Cuppa T (my best friend’s rap alter ego, am I right Lydia?). And also my best friend’s favorite tea. This is GOOD TEA, peeps.

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Adorably tiny tangerine. I got a bag of like 12 of these bad boys for $1 at HMart and they ROCK MY LITTLE BRAINS OUT.

This is the first time they had a ROARING FIRE going at Cracker Barrel!

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A waiter kept periodically throwing on kindling. Awesome.

Continuing with the coziness theme, I had some adorable comforting tea:

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I ordered the amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing Maine blueberry pancakes. Before:

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Aaaaand after:

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I knew I’d need a pancake-dominating strategy or I’d never finish them, so I focused on the blueberry-y parts. Oh and got rid of that huge glob of butter, much as I’d love to have a heart attack when I’m 25.

It came with Maine blueberry syrup! I brought the leftover home it was sofa king good.

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Then, speaking of heart attacks, as is now apparently our new tradition because it is just so stupid delicious, we once again got the baked apple dumplin. NO WORDS.

Before:

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Aaaaaand after. That streusel (PECAN STREUSEL, PEOPLE!) is like an inch thick, no joke. Ahhh.

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The ensuing dinner was a rather austere, plantlike affair.

Before this was leftover pasta.

After:

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Leftover eggplant and tomato sauced pasta from the other night+ sauteed more eggplant peppers and mushrooms+ tapenade topped with (I was going for deconstructed lasagna reminiscent) tofu mashed with the last of the hot feta dip and some goat cheese from the party. MARVY!

More leftovers:

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Before: Lauren’s grits from lunch.

After: “polenta”, which I topped with mustard greens sauteed with garlic in olive oil deglazed with a bit of balsamic and some toasted pine nuts.

Finally, just a good recipe:

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Chow chow bok choy. I halved it (we had three heads of baby bok choy) and only used like 1 tsp of peanut oil cause puhlease.

Enjoyed with rice and another great pork chop courtesy of brining! Seriously, I am over unbrined meat. I used some of our extra turkey brine on some bone in pork chops. Brined 6 hours, broiled 6 minutes per side. BAM. MOIST MEAT.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh God I need some blueberry pancakes.

Taylor

MelindaRD said...

Gotta love cracker barrel. We used to go to the one in St. George when driving that way from Vegas.

Penny said...

I don't know which one looks better. The apple dessert or your bok choy. :-)

Fresh Local and Best said...

It looks like you had a fab dinner! The apple ice cream dessert was wonderfully decadent!

Anonymous said...

Bok choy has been on my list of foods to experiment with forever - and after your pictures I think that has to become much sooner. Looks delish!