Lunch!

For lunch today, I went to Publix. I got a half-pound of Boars Head Jerk Turkey Breast and made roll-ups. I also had a tasting slice in the supermarket. Publix also has fruit salad at Buy one, Get one free, so I got some of those too.

We're going to Fogo de Chao later (all-you-can-eat wonderful beef), so I may be downing some more fruit salads later, just as a defensive measure.

BREAKING NEWS: Watermelon

Well, well, well... it turns out that watermelon doesn't originally come in plastic containers. It actually grows somewhere. Who knew?

Yes. You buy this thing called a watermelon. You cut it open, and there's watermelon in it. Look:

In its natural state

This is what happens when you cut it open. All you need is a knife.

Then you hack it up and cut it into pieces. It looks just like what they sell you at Albertsons.

The whole thing was $2. I can't believe that nobody knows about this. They should put it in the newspaper.

Hard Rock Cafe

Reba was in town for shows this weekend, and there I was, going to the concert with Cherie.

We met Pennie and Phyllis at the Hard Rock and went to the Cafe for dinner before the show.

I had a 10" Vegetable and Goat Cheese pizza. Yes, I ate every bite.

The girls shared Hard Rock's greasy assortment. They call it something else, but it featured chicken fingers, onion rings, chicken wings, potato skins and southwest egg rolls. They also ordered a plate of bruschetta. You can see it in the rear of the photo.

They decided that the wings were too hot, so I was obligated to finish the last three.

When I got home later, In had some watermelon and some grapes.

The concert? No comment.

Tomorrow is going to be, umm, too much.

Fruit Salad

Someone in the office had a fruit salad. They are Buy one; Get one at Publix this week.

I had one piece each of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and a half a strawberry.

Sorry, no photo.

Salad Creations

It turns out that I was still hungry. I drove to Subway, but there was a Salad Creations next door. I figured that I would give it a try.

I Made My Own Salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, jalapenos, cucumber, broccoli, red peppers, green peppers, mushrooms, mild peppers, purple cabbage and probably some other stuff. No cheese, no beans, no avocado. I chose the fat-free raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and the Salad Guy chopped it all up for me.

 

I'm not sure that this is worth $8.47, nor am I sure that I won't be hungry after, but we will see.

Squash

I had some yellow squash in the refrigerator at the office, and I was hungry.

I cut up the squash and sprinkled some spicy seasoning on it.

Nuked it for 12 minutes in a very low-watt microwave, and it gets all soft and delicious.

Then I ate them all. And now... I'm not hungry.

Pizza!

I had pizza today. Without having to eat an entire one!

We brought in a truck load of Papa John's pizzas today to the office. We used the HEATWIN code to get half off... 21 pizzas for $115!!!

There's only 17 here... the other four were late.

One of the choices was thin crust vegetable pizza, so I bullied my way to the front of the line and grabbed two slices.

The missing two slices... that was me.

Just two. No more.

Went I went back, they were all gone.

Wednesday - All Food; One Post

I started the day with some raw string beans.

 

Morning snack: Watermelon.

Then... lunchtime. Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine. This is surprisingly better than it has a right to be for the $2.50 that I paid for it.

Some (OK, a lot of) frozen grapes when I got home from work. No photo, but you know what they look like.

For dinner, I combined a package of fresh mushrooms, a can of Zucchini in tomato sauce and a can of Tomatoes & Okra, tossed in a little hot sauce, and nuked the whole thing for five minutes. It came out delicious, healthy, and filling.

That should be it, unless I do some more grapes. But you still know what they look like.

Tijuana Flats

I went with some friends out to Tijuana Flats, all the way west in Cooper City. They were excited; it was $5 taco night.

It turns out the deal is two tacos and a drink for $5, and I don't drink the stuff they have there, so I went classic and ordered a vegetable burrito on a wheat wrap. I had them use the low-fat cheese and sour cream, and I really couldn't taste a difference.

 

It was a fine dinner. I didn't eat the chips that came with it.

Cabo Blanco

Tuesday.

Watermelon.
Grapes.

Sergio and I went to Cabo Blanco for lunch today. We had a restaurant.com certificate ($15 off of $22.50). I had the parihuela... my favorite Peruvian dish. Mixed Seafood Soup! Very good, as always.

American limes have no juice.

Sergio had the Tallarin Saltado con Pollo. This is a chicken stir-fry, mixed with spaghetti rather than the classic french fries and rice. He ate every bite.

Then later, more watermelon.

Spanx BBQ

Lonnise and I went to Spanx BBQ and watched the first half of the Heat game.

As I suspected on a previous visit, they fry their Smoked Wings to heat them up just before serving. I discussed this issue with the waiter, who was doubling as the chef, and he offered to put them on the grill instead. He wanted to test it out first, so I absolved him of all future blame, and ordered sixteen of those babies. I was torn over whether to do their standard dry rub, or jerk seasoning, and he offered to do half and half.

Jerk left... Dry Rub, right. It looks less gluttonous when all 16 are in one basket.

They were very good. The Jerk seasoning was borderline too hot, but I would order them again. The dry rub was as good as I remembered from my first visit.

Lonnise ordered a bucket of ten ribs. She played right into my hand, and I ate one of her ribs.

Lonnise and the bucket.

We ate our food; we watched the basketball game; the other TV discussed the horror in Boston today. The two goods did not outweigh the bad. I hope that the injured people pull through. I hope that this was a domestic coward, and we catch the bastard. I would hate to think that we can't feel safe at things like marathons, street festivals and football games. I couldn't start to express how much that would suck.

I had some watermelon when I got home later.

Ceviche by the Sea

Johanna and I went to Ceviche by the Sea tonight. My mother had read a favorable review about the place, and sent me there to do some reconnaissance work.

Well, Loretta will be happy to know that we had an excellent meal.

We each started with one of mom's favorite Peruvian dishes: Chupe de Camarones. This is a shrimp and vegetable soup, with the soup made from a shrimp stock. It was slightly different than its Peruvian namesake, mostly in the selection of vegetables. For me, the fact that there were habas missing from the soup made it better, but I am not sure that purists will agree. But the purists weren't at our table; Johanna and I were. We both loved it.

 

Rather than order main dishes, we shared three different appetizers. The first was the Pique Parrillero, which was a grilled hot sampler. This featured three items: Grilled Pulpo (octopus), Anticuchos de Corazon (beef hearts on a stick) and Scallops Parmesan. The octopus was excellent, the beef hearts good, but were lacking the traditional anticucho sauce, and the scallops were OK. I always compare the ones I get here to the far superior scallops available in Lima, and maybe that's an unfair comparison.

Our next dish was Causas de Cangrejo. Causas are mashed potatoes used as a food delivery device. These were topped with what we would call crab salad. They were very good.

Our last dish was Ceviche Nikkei. This was small chunks of raw tuna marinaded in a soy/sesame seed mixture, rather than the traditional lime juice. I'm a big tuna fan and have had this many times in Lima. It was OK for me, although I thought that the chef went a little overboard with the marinade; I could hardly taste the tuna. Johanna had a hard time getting fully around the concept of raw tuna. She ate some of it, but her heart wasn't really into it, much less her very full stomach.

I wound up eating my entire bowl of soup, exactly half of the sampler, only one of the causas, and about two-thirds of the tuna.

I don't allow myself desserts here at home (or pretty much anywhere, for that matter), but I extolled the merits of trying Picarones to Johanna, so she did. Picarones are basically donuts, except instead of the donut batter most of us are accustomed to, these are made out of a mix of sweet potatoes and squash. She was only able to eat one of them, and took the other three home with her. Here she is with her Picarones:

Loretta will be pleased to know that we can add another Peruvian restaurant to our repertoire.

Aside from that, I had some frozen grapes in the late afternoon, and some more tonight when I got home.

Tilapia Sunday!

I was hungry. Basketball is on. Plans to go out and atch the game somewhere fell through.

I was NOT buying a pizza today, so I rummaged through the refrigerator and found tilapia. I dug some more and came up with fresh mushrooms, diced jalapenos, pearl onions and pepper rings.

It all went in a frying pan. I used the juice from the peppers and pearl onions to steam everything.

I let it sit just a few minutes... and ready!

 

Not quite the hedonistic eating experience that downing a pizza is, but it was quick, delicious, and healthy. I can always eat a pizza tomorrow.

Saturday Wrap-Up

I went to the Miami Hurricanes Spring Game with Jeff today.

Our pre-game ritual is to stop on  the way and get a sub sandwich, and we saw no reason to change that today.

I ordered a 12" whole-wheat turkey sub. I had her hollow out the bread, and load it up with mustard, lettuce, all kinds of peppers, tomato, onion, pickles, hot sauce, and salt & pepper. And turkey. No mayo, no cheese.

It was pretty wonderful. I'm not sure if it was wonderful because I haven't had one in a while, or because it was wonderful. Either way, it was wonderful.

I had some (OK< a lot) grapes when I got home. And that's it for Saturday... fruit, sub, more fruit.

Saturday day

Nothing much to report so far.

Stole and ate four string beans while shopping at Albertsons.

Watermelon.

More watermelon.

Frozen grapes.

Ale House

Lonnise, Rob and I went to the Ale House to watch the second half of the Heat beatdown of the Celtics.

I ordered the Aluminum Foil Fish. They call it something else, but they take a piece of Mahi Mahi, throw on some marinade, and top it with zucchini, tomatoes, onions, broccoli and some potatoes. They wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil and bake it.

I use the same method to cook fish at home. It steams it, softens the vegetables, and there is nothing to clean.

It's food -- and it's shiny!

I polished the whole thing off while Rob ate his steak and Lonnise had her shrimp.

When I got home, I had some frozen grapes.

Friday!

Watermelon.
Watermelon.

And, on the way to get my bumper fixed: a spicy beef patty from Charlie's Pastries!

Eduardo de San Angel

Restaurant.com sometimes has some ridiculously good deals on their coupons. Yesterday, $25 certificates were only $4, and I picked up a few. The minimum purchase to use the coupon at Eduardo de San Angel is $38, but at that place, there's no problem hitting that number all by myself.

Officially, Eduardo de San Angel is a Mexican Restaurant. But that's like saying that Frank Sinatra could sing a little.

I started with the daily soup special: Cilantro Soup. This was a zucchini-based soup, heavily flavored with cilantro and garlic, two of my favorites. It was good, but not off-the-wall great.

You know I love soup.

What was crazy wonderful, however, was my appetizer. It was a Roasted Poblano Pepper, filled with Florida Bluecrab and served over stewed sweet onions. It was big, and every bite was delicious. And it was baked in parchment paper to boot -- so I got to watch the glory of having my dish cut open in front of me.

This does not look one-tenth as wonderful as it tasted.

For my main course, I kept it simple and ordered the Snapper filet. It was peppercorn dusted, and served with a side of rice and refried beans. The fish was cooked perfectly and it was delicious.

The only thing wrong with the snapper was that it wasn't a second stuffed Poblano pepper.

I could have lived without dropping $15 on the soup, even though it was pretty good, and I love soup. But I had the coupon, so I lived it up a little. The Stuffed Pepper and Snapper were more than enough for dinner.

I forgot to post this earlier, but I had some frozen grapes at around 4:00 pm.

Boston Market - Soup Time!

Two hard-boiled eggs this morning. Then, Fiorella at work made some Kale Chips. I had two.

For lunch, Larry and I went to Boston Market to take advantage of their Free Refill special on Chicken Noodle Soup. It's delicious, and at $4 for three bowls, a real bargain!

Larry only had the one bowl. But he liked it!

Tatu - Hard Rock

We had tickets for the John Legend concert at the Hard Rock tonight, so we decided to eat there before the show.

Shauna picked Tatu based on two criteria: First, she liked Asian-type food and second, it was close to the theater and she had very high heels.

We split two appetizers: Spring Rolls, and the Crispy Calamari Salad. The Spring Rolls were kind of average, but the Calamari Salad was delicious. Whatever dressing they used on the greens was just wonderful.

For our main courses, Shauna ordered the Hong Kong Noodles, stir fried with chicken, shrimp and vegetables. It smelled great, tasted great (she said), and was enough for three people. She took most of it home.

I ordered the Sea Bass with bok choy and mushrooms in black bean sauce. They gave you a niv=ce portion of fish, and it was well-prepared. The vegetables were good, and the black bean sauce had a sweet kick to it. That was a little different.

We passed on dessert, but they brought a pile of cotton candy with the check. Speaking of the check, the four dishes and a blue drink for Shauna came to $99... a little pricey, especially when you factor in the abominable service we suffered.

This is the second time I've been to Tatu. I'm not sure I'm going back. I would see John Legend again; he was pretty great.

Also, I had some watermelon when I got home.