Gourmet Comfort Food, Wine, and Produce Share!

Let me just start by saying - WOW - Katie from GoodThingsCatered is so generous, sweet and an AMAZING cook. She piled me down with so much food to take over to my parents house! I still feel so overwhelmed by her kindness. I forgot my camera, but know that my pictures wouldnt do the food justice, so I will leave it to her! Here is the run down of all the eats with links to recipes and photos:

• Ale Braised Sausage and Peppers served over
• Mashed Garlic Red Potatoes
• Chicken Braised in White Wine
• John's Famous Rigatoni
• Cranberry and Orange Muffins
• Blueberry Struesel Muffins

I would categorize everything listed above as the ultimate gourmet comfort food. Of course, when I got to my parents, I wanted to try a little of EVERYTHING.

Before sitting down to eat, I went out for a 3 mile run. It felt good although my right hamstring was feeling pretty tight and maybe even a slight twinge of pain in there. I think I am going to take today completely off and not do anything except walk my dog, and then try to get an hour run in on saturday or sunday AM.

Ok, back to the food! As I was saying...I wanted to try everything, well I did! I couldnt resist! The ale braised sausage had the best flavor and the sauce went perfectly over the mashed potatoes! The chicken braised in white wine was extremely moist and cooked perfectly with red potatoes, mushrooms, and onions in the wine sauce! The rigatoni had a flavorful bolognese sauce that seriously tasted like something from a restaurant. Even though I was STUFFED, I had to try one of the cranberry orange muffins. They were light, moist and so tasty. I cant express enough how AMAZING everything was! Thank you SO much Katie! (and let me just say that there was SO much food! My sister and her family were also over and even after we all tried everything - there is still a TON leftover!)

While over at my parent's house, I was excited to see that the wine we had ordered came in! My mom had been given a wine of the month club membership for a year and then continued to receive notifications about purchasing California wines at discounted prices. So, my sister, mom and I each ordered 4 bottles. I want to try and get more into red wines, so I ordered 2 syrahs and then a chardonnay and viognier. We cracked open a bottle of one of the Syrahs with dinner and it was amazing - so smooth. It was a Daniel Gehrs Syrah that I would highly recommend! Here is a picture of my 3 other bottles that I cant wait to try. I love having a good wine supply!

I also got some goods from the produce share that my sister and mom do each week. I got a few small pears, carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, and a green pepper.

Check out this cute little pear that fits in the palm of my hand.

And the carrots with the greens still on the top. They are very "Bugs Bunny-esque"! ;)

Does anyone know if the carrot top greens are supposed to/can be used for anything?

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Produce Share!

Before I get to all the cool stuff I got from the produce share - here is a run down of today's eats!

Breakfast:

I was motivated and had some fruit about to go bad, so I whipped up a smoothie using 1 banana, 1/2 blueberries, a few spoonfuls of TJ blueberry greek yogurt, and a splash of unsweetened green/white tea from TJs. I know the tea sounds weird, but I was out of milk and juice, and needed something to make it more smoothie-like. It didnt really hurt or help the taste - i couldnt even tell.
I also packed a PB(reduced-fat) and fig jam sandwich on whole wheat soft bread for the road since I was late for another early meeting!My meeting went for over 2 hours, so by the time I was headed back to my building - i decided to stop and grab lunch sicne I hadnt brought anything. I grabbed a chicken caesar wrap from Buon Giorno - these things are awesome and I realized today that you can get it on a whole wheat wrap! They grill their wraps, which is why it is so good. I hate cold tortillas that break - ughh - that is the worse thing. (sorry - no picture)

After eating the wrap - I was still hungry, so decided to have my PB cookie larabar for dessert!Later that afternoon, I ate my carrots with almond butter. I also realized that i had some form of PB 3 times already today - umm - that probably isnt good. need to watch that!After work, I stopped by my sister's house to pick up the produce (plus a few other things) and was excited to find all these stuff!!
The items included:

kale
lettuce
corn
peaches
pears
apples
tomatoes
onions
red pepper
1/2 dozen eggs
1/2 blueberry/peach bread

I cant wait to use/eat some of this stuff! I definitely want to make KathEats kale chips!

While I was hanging out at their house, my mom brought some of her homemade salsa with chips over and I had to have a few chips and salsa. This stuff is spicy and fresh - made with veggies from her garden! Dinner tonight was outstanding. Not sure if everyone out there knows about Let's Dish? I feel like I am doing a cool science experiment when I go. They have all the ingredients prepped for you so all you have to do is put the meals together and then package them to be frozen. I went about a month or two ago and split a few dishes with my mom. I pulled out the thai-marinated flank steak that I had put together during our session to thaw this morning.

I wanted to do steak fajitas, so I sauteed up some red and yellow peppers and onion to go with everything. Meanwhile, the flank steak was broiling in the oven. I was also heating up some corn tortillas in a pan. we had put together a yogurt chili lime sauce to put on the steak and this was perfect to spread on the corn tortilla before layering up the steak, peppers and onions, cheese, and some hot sauce. Here is my dinner plate before digging in. Had to have a corona to go with this one! :) (yes, that is my camera strap - i was so hungry - had to take a very quick picture)Tomorrow is friday - yay! I have lunch plans with an old co-worker/friend of mine and we are meeting at this awesome Indian place, so I cant wait for that!!

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