Best dinner ever! February 16, 2009

Let’s get right to the point, people:  dinner at Typhoon on Valentine’s Day was probably the best dinner I’ve ever had in my life.  I’m struggling to think of anything that continued to amaze me like the 15 items we ate Saturday.  Oh, and the endless supply of great wine.  I’ll give you all the details I can remember in a minute…

Saturday started with my headache being horrible and me feeling quite icky from it.  I got up thinking I may go to pilates, but just didn’t feel well enough by the time 9:30 rolled around.  I made coffee, and ate my traditional oats; this was the last of the Barney Butter. 

I was feelin’ better after breakfast, but still not quite right.  I slept a little on the couch; felt so good 🙂

Lunch was two eggs scrambled (accidentally dropped in the 2nd yolk!) in a whole wheat tortilla with a wedge of LCL.  I also had my apple from Friday that I never ate.  Damn pithy Jonagolds got the best of me last week.

The afternoon rolled around and Chris and I mosied to the gym.  The basketball backboard wasn’t quite fixed yet, but they opened up the court and guys were playing half court games.  They got booted at 3pm, tho, for the boot camp class, no pun intended.  😦  That cut my cardio shorter than I’d hoped. 

After getting home I pampered myself a little by painting my toenails.  Sounds rather ordinary, but I haven’t done this in MONTHS.  Last time my little piggies were painted was in September if you can believe it!

Now comes the exciting part…after getting all gussied up Chris and I arrived at Typhoon around 7 for our special group dinner, and so the ecstasy began!  Wine abounded–no corkage fee and lots of people in the wine industry equals tons of great wine!  We brought Kim Crawford 2007 Sauvingnon Blanc, and we also consumed Willakenzie 2007 Pinot Gris, Vidon 2007 Pinot Noir (excellent for such a young wine!!), and some Mumm Napa sparkling white. 

First dish was some sort of mini roll served in a wine glass with a sweet sauce.  No idea what was in here, but it was yummy and hot!

Next came spinach wraps, and vegetable spring rolls.  Mmmmmm!  The wraps had freeze dried shrimp, sliced hot peppers, jicama, peanuts, fried rice noodles (?), and sweet chili sauce to put inside as we pleased.  The rolls were perfectly yummy.

Here we paused for a little gift bag and drawing from our lovely hosts, Eric and Bennie.  We got a bag of Hershey kisses, and some of us got a number for drawing prizes.  Chris and I got to choose between wine, a gift card to Red Robin, and a gift card back to Typhoon…Chris chose Typhoon!  Perfect for me any day!

Next was where the mind was blown!!  Bo Kline’s clam chowder with lemongrass.  Holy. Moley. I know it sounds odd, but if you ever get a chance to visit a Typhoon you MUST try this soup.  Even if you don’t like chowder or lemongrass, somehow I think you will like love this.  I really had to resist eating more than a cup of it.

Up next was a cascading delivery of incredibly yumminess in the form of like 8 dinner entrees and sides. Forgive me I do not know the names of them all! Flaming fish, pineapple curry, green beans, beef with heavenly sauce and peanuts, drunken noodles, fried rice, crab pad thai, and another I can’t remember at this point!  Everything was soooooooooo gooooooood.  This really was heaven on a plate.  I had a little more of the curry since that’s my 2nd love…

I ate plenty, and was full, but thankfully not gut-bustingly-uncomfortably full.  Dessert was really unexciting if you ask me, probably a good thing since dinner was so fabulous.  It was sticky rice and a custard; I had a few bites, but no need to post the pic since it wasn’t so pretty.

After dinner we went to a little bar called Friends in Beaverton, and proceeded to listen to and do some karaoke and drinking.  I didn’t do either, but had fun.  We left around 1am, and I didn’t end up getting in bed until about 1:45.  :sleepy:

Sunday

I was dead tired in the morning, but still got up for yoga 🙂  My breakfast was a cereal mess…inspired by all you fabu bloggers out there who display these frequently.  Barbara’s Shredded Oats, Fred Meyer Shredded Wheat, and chai spice cereal I can’t remember the name of now.  It was tasty!

Yoga was great today, and since I knew I was heading back to the gym later with Chris I didn’t do anything else after class.  In between gym sessions I did a little cleaning and ate lunch.  A rather boring experience… one scrambled egg on a toast butt with 1/2 a wedge LCL, and 1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese.  Sorely lacking in fresh fruit or veg, right?

Sometime afterward we went to the gym around 3, and I started off with cardio so I could get in my full 45 minutes to an hour.  I did 35 minutes of fast intervals on the stair mill, and then about 10 minutes on the elliptical.  Chris got booted from the basketball court again, but for volleyball this time.  He was kind enough to let me do an ab workout before leaving, though.  This time I did the fitnessmagazine.com Your Flat-Abs Handbook, and it was great!  Lots of stuff for the obliques, and it seemed to be quite effective.

Once home I had a choc. protein shake, and we did some yard work.  I raked around the barkdust to prevent Lily’s footsies from being so messy when she plays catch.  She has done a number on the lawn, too, so I staked & twined off an area in the hopes that it will recover a bit.

You won’t believe it, but we went to Mexican for dinner again. That is like 6 nights in a row we ate out 😦  Bad bad bad bad bad!  I tried to control myself and didn’t have a Casuela, and only had one chicken taco and chips & salsa.  I watched Chris eat a cheeseburger with a fried egg jalapenos, and fries on the side; I almost asked him for a taste at one point it looked so good.

After dinner came shopping at PetSmart and Fred Meyer.  Nothing too exciting here.  Lily had fun sniffing around at PetSmart, and nearly pulled me over she’s so strong!

Once home I unpacked everything and dove into the work recyling.  It took me over an hour to sort out, wash, and put away all the stuff!  That was two weeks’ worth of recycling, and really wasn’t too bad to deal with.

Afterward I rewarded myself with some tasty fruit:  a beautiful Fuji, eaten European style with a knife.  Mmmmmm….. I’m so glad to have crisp, yummy apples again 🙂

Chris later attacked my Maranatha with some Ritz, and I couldn’t forego that a.b. action, so I had one cracker with probably 1/2 a tbsp of a.b.  Very good indeed!

I was going to post this last night (Sunday), but Chris and I kind of got into a tiff and I had to hold off.  Thanks for checking back and reading, though!  I’ll be posting about today (Monday) shortly…. stay tuned.

Busy bee! December 28, 2008

Wow, the last Sunday of nearly two weeks off of work.  Like Andrea, I’m not sure how it is going to feel to be at work tomorrow!  I just spoke with Erin and she, Andrea, and I are going to dinner tomorrow night.  Yippeeeee!  I’m so excited!

Today was a very busy day; I felt like I was going non-stop from 9 to 9, but in a good way.  My oatmeal this morning was nummy; it consisted of:  1/4 cup steel cut oats, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup almond milk, 1 tbsp raisins, big dash of cinnamon, and a few tsp of Barney Butter.  Tasty goodness!

I headed to the gym for yoga, and was dismayed at how dirty and ugly everything looks outside now that all the snow is gone.  It made me want to live in a snowier area several times today.

Yoga was great, I sweated a lot, and I’m glad I went.  I felt so good, in fact, that I headed to Target afterward to get crew socks and check out the grocery section.  The grocery area is pretty expansive now, and the prices seem really good on some items.  It could be dangerous, though, if I go there more often and end up shopping in other areas! I love Target. 

Once home I made a quick lunch that was very tasty indeed:  sundried tomato flatout with one egg white, 4 slices of warmed turkey, a little parmesan cheese, spinach, a few small slices of Fuji, a dash of red wine vinegar, and ground pepper.  Mmmm!  I also had the rest of the Fuji and about 1/2 cup of lf/ff cottage cheese.  A perfect lunch 🙂

Love the detail of the parmesan rind!

I think I got online for a few minutes, watched TV for a few, and then started my cleaning fest:  unloaded, loaded, and ran the dishwasher; put away snow clothes; cleaned kitchen counters; swept floors; washed wine glasses; put away Christmas wrap and decor (tree is still up, tho!); reorganized recycling in garage; put wine glasses to donate in boxes; did Lily’s laundry; played with Lily; organized Lily’s food and the birdseed….  Eventually I made the grocery list and went to the store.  I even returned bottles/cans and took back a boatload of plastic bags (I hardly ever do those two things, hence the pile that had grown in the garage).

Dinner was easy to make, and turned out yummy.  We had roasted chicken breasts with carrots and onions, and mashed potatoes.  Amidst the storm craziness the only chicken I could get at the store the other day was split chicken breasts with skin and bones on, but they were great for roasting.

After dinner the cleaning fest continued:  loaded stuff into d/w; did handwash; did my laundry; prepped oatmeal; prepped lunch items; made to-do list for work and personal items for Monday; put Lily’s biscuits away (I transfer them from the box into a reusable tub to stay fresh); organized receipts…

I’m so glad I got all that stuff done today, you don’t even know!  I hate coming home to a dirty house during the work week.  Nothing like dirty dishes (or a clean d/w that I need to unload), dirty floors, and shit stacked up to ruin my mood.  How ’bout you?

I had a new snack tonight that I’ve seen all around blog world:  a banana with nut butter (specifically BB).  This was really tasty, and I think will be even better when the nana is a litte more ripe. 

Well, the day is winding down and I think I’ll head to bed.  I know it will be tough to get up, no matter how much sleep I get. 

I hope you all had a great weekend 🙂  Toodle-oo!