My O MY!

Hey all, for a second there I almost forgot about blogging. Yikes! Thanks for the comments the other day...I think I definitely needed a break to pull things together a bit. I've got things under control for now and this random and AMAZING weather, plus temporary big windows at work are doing wonders for me. Back to regularly scheduled blogging!

Hm, where did I leave off last...Whole Foods adventure on Sunday? I paid another visit to Whole Foods since I needed to grab another pound of that Chicken Andouille sausage I love so much for this weekend's Post Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner (more on that in a bit) and I figured, eh, While I'm here I might as well find some fun new things to test out!

I grabbed a bottle of this fun dressing
to go with this massive container of baby romaine
Note: I got this big tub for a few reasons 1) I was curious about baby romaine and it was the only size they had it in 2) I go through the smaller containers like water 3) it's f-ing salad greens. I love them. 4) I needed ruffage post-Thanksgiving and pre-PTT Dinner and 5) it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I also grabbed some fruit and other goodies I might not be able to find at my Giant...o god, I think I'm reverting to my 'I visit 2 grocery stores a week' phase. Not good!!

While perusing the refrigerated section, I stumbled upon a package of smoked tofu.
It looked harmless and potentially tasty so in the basket it went...along with a package of baked Teriyaki tofu. I figured these could either be salad toppings or a fun add in for stir fry (because I have no patience to wait for stuff to defrost/I always forget to take it out of the freezer before work). Not bad...I think I might pick up another package of this!

Big day for me in terms of experimenting :)

I picked up cheaper/generic items at the Gigante like some artichoke hearts, avocado, hearts of palm, corn, and pickled beets - my preferred salad toppings. Dinner post-shopping adventure was a LARGE salad with some leftover mini crabcakes, roasted chickpeas and random asparagus spears.
Not too shabby for a last minute pull together. Exactly what my belly ordered after the Thanksgiving festivities!

There were a lot of salads this week so I won't bore you with the details. I did allow myself one eat out lunch on Friday only because it was a pretty stressful week AND because I went out drinking with some old coworkers Thursday night...there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity for sushi after all that.
That's right...sushi post-drinking...LOVE IT. ;p I met up with everyone at our standby sushi lunch spot, Kaz Sushi Bistro and went with a DC Roll (eel, avocado, egg, cucumber), salmon avocado roll and spicy scallop roll. Happiest belly EVER. :)

After lunch, I put in a few hours of work at both jobs, finished up Post Thanksgiving Thanksgiving (PTT) dinner shopping and got to work on cleaning the apartment (sans Red Bull this time haha). What is this Post Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner I keep mentioning? Well, it started 3 years ago when Jamie and I had some friends over for a belated Thanksgiving feast. Since then, the list of attendees has grown significantly and so has the menu. We usually get together on a Saturday in December for good food, good wine and good company. I look forward to it every year since I get to cook a ton for friends and it's also a great chance to catch up with friends I may not get to see all the time :)

This was my first year attacking dinner on my own so I asked some people to bring some side dishes. On my to do list: turkey, vegetarian stuffing, bread stuffing, and appetizers galore. Stay tuned for the full report!