Very Busy Weekend

We had a whirlwind of a weekend. There was so much going on though I am not complaining since most of it was very good. :-)

Friday:

Dan called me late morning and said that he would like to have dinner on the patio since the weather was nice. NO, you aren’t going to make me eat Ian’s food again? LOL, you believe that right? ;-) Of course I wanted to go out to dinner. I send Jenn a message online and asked her to save us a seat in her section. What, you don’t ask for specific servers when you go to dinner?

We got to the restaurant early and the weather was gorgeous. It wasn’t too hot or too cold it was literally perfect. I left Dan at the table with Jenn and Janine and went to the kitchen to hug Ian and let him know we were there since I had not warned him that we were coming in for dinner. After the hug the first question he asked was “when are you coming in for dinner?” To which I replied “now”. He reminded me that I hadn’t told him we were coming in but I said it wasn’t a problem because we would wing it together which we did.

While I was chatting with Ian Dan was ordering a pot of tea and catching up with the ladies. My husband loves pretty ladies. ;-) When I got to the table they were having a great time. *shakes head* Good thing I am not the jealous type.

Dan decided to start with his favorite appetizer on the menu which is Ian’s version of a samosa. We both really enjoy this but Dan loves it.

I did manage to get one bite of the samosa before it vanished before my eyes. LOL

Here is Dan goofing off when I tried to take his picture.

For our next dish we talked to Jenn about what was being served under the fish special that night. I know from experience that what is under the fish is frequently interesting and easy to make vegan for us. Since Ian also has tofu in the kitchen now I knew we could replace the fish with tofu and that is what we did.

This dish includes: corn, snow peas, cabbage, green apple, red peppers, and herbs in a charred tomato vinaigrette. The vegetables were phenomenal under the crispy tofu. I love the way Ian includes savory and sweet together. The green apple was the perfect addition to this dish.

Needless to say Dan was still hungry so I made up a pizza for our final meal. This one included a base of the cilantro-lime sauce (that Ian serves with the samosa), glazed pineapple, pomegranate roasted tomatoes, snow peas, jalapenos, cubed sweet potatoes, and red onion. After the pizza came out of the oven it was topped with fresh spinach and sliced almonds. Also I asked for fresh lime wedges so we could squeeze the fresh juice over the top. Did we miss the cheese or meat? With all that flavor how could anyone possibly miss the cheese?

We hung out for a while and chatted with Jenn, Janine and Jonathan. Jenn grew up on the water like I did so she is looking forward to the boat and I am looking forward to teaching her how to sail. Janine and I are trying to coordinate lunch this week. Like I always tell you we are customers here, but not. ;-)

The one down side of the evening is that I seem to have a cyber stalker which freaked me out a little. At least I was “on my own turf” so I felt reasonably safe. Thank goodness I knew that everyone there would make sure I was safe. But still people need to learn that physically following people is not cool. If this continues I will be dropping out of Foursquare for safety reasons. Have any of you had problems like this on Foursquare?

Saturday:

We spent time at home doing a lot of what I call “life administration” which just means the things that need to happen at home. We had a somewhat productive day and then met our friend Louis for dinner at our usual place.

Dan and I intentionally got to the restaurant a little early so we had time to chat with Aimee before Louis got there. Aimee has been so busy this summer that we haven’t had as much time to see her as we would like. We still need to coordinate going to the DC before her last semester of college before the pharmacy program.

Like always I went immediately into the kitchen to hug Ian and Aimee. While I chatted with Ian Aimee and Michael were outside talking to Dan. Ian told me about the vegetarian special he had made with us in mind. He designed a vegan and vegetarian option because he knew we were coming in. Isn’t he sweet? :-)

I asked him about courses besides the entrée and he asked about saffron potatoes and veggies and I said that sounded delicious. He said he would do something with saffron potatoes for us as an appetizer.

Not long after I came out of the kitchen Louis showed up with a bag from Disney for me and announced he had “Disney crap” for me. LOL, only a guy would say that. Louis knows how much I like Italy so he picked me up a cute little stuffed Mickey in a gondoliers outfit. It is adorable, isn’t it?

Needless to say our friend Louis is not vegan, though he is eating a lot less meat these days which makes me very happy. I am going to show his dishes as well since I know many of you aren’t vegan either.

Here is our appetizer of saffron potatoes, green beans, Swiss chard, golden raisins, carrots, hot pepper flakes and green onions. Did you notice the sweet component in this dish, the golden raisins? Ian does this all the time and it really makes a difference in the overall composition of the dish. I always thought that savory and sweet foods should be separate until Ian taught me how much combining them added to a dish.

Louis ordered the special rockfish and salmon ceviche. Ian makes wonderful ceviche though I haven’t had it in a long time I still remember it very fondly. I always loved the acidity of the ceviche against the butteriness of the avocado and the crunch of the chips. Ian’s ceviche is one of the dishes that I miss the most about being vegan.

This is our dish of wine braised beets with lentils, shitakes, and finished with green apples, parsley and truffle oil. No exaggeration this may have been the best beets I ever ate. I know that I say this all the time but it amazing that I ever cook at home when I have food like this just a quick walk away. Ian really is extremely talented.

Louis ordered the watermelon and feta salad for his dinner. If you wanted to do something similar that was vegan you can add almond feta, or olives for the salty punch instead.

We also ordered a samosa, which Dan ate so quickly I didn’t even get a bite. He really loves them that much.

There were also some truffle and soy marinated mushrooms.

It was definitely a lovely dinner on the patio Saturday night.

Ian joined us at the table for a while before he headed out for the evening. I was glad that he took time to sit down since he was limping earlier in the evening. I suspect his IT band is too tight and asked if he had tried a foam roller which he had not. Needless to say I offered to drop one off for him to try which he said he would. Since Ian is all guy I knew he wasn’t likely to buy a foam roller on his own which is why I offered to bring him one.

Sunday:

We got up early for our usual trip to the farmers’ market and brought home a lot of food like always. I was really missing fresh peaches so we bought an entire basket of those along with eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, kale, ginger, oyster mushrooms, bell peppers, watermelon, corn and a new flavor of hummus.

On a sour note my cyber stalker also turned up at the farmers’ market. Seriously this is quickly becoming extremely annoying. What is wrong with people?

The version of hummus we brought home this time was Asian fire which is nice and spicy. If you are local and have time to get to the farmers’ market under the JFX please do and check out the hummus stand. This guy has a wonderful imagination. We have enjoyed each of the flavors which we have tried so far.

Next we stopped at the restaurant to drop off a foam roller for Ian. I hope he will give it a try since I think it might help him. *fingers crossed*

After the market and restaurant we went home and had smoothies for breakfast. My smoothie included: kale, frozen banana, homemade reduce-fat peanut butter, chia seeds, water/ice and a tiny bit of stevia.

Lunch was a very simple dish of cooked quinoa which I tossed with cilantro, dried cherries, diced zucchini and sliced almonds. I topped this with roasted portabellas which I marinated with balsamic and grainy Dijon mustard.

Dinner has completely slipped my mind already. Since I didn’t take a picture I have no idea what I made. Wow, getting old stinks. LOL

Happy thoughts:

There are days when I write this section of the blog and realize how fortunate I am. However I am not talking about my life so much as my attitude about my life. Sure I could whine and complain about life but that really doesn’t do anyone any good now does it? Here is what I am grateful for today:

• We had a very nice leisurely dinner out Friday night. It seems that Friday night is becoming date night for us. Perfect weather, good company and wonderful food. What more could you ask for?

• Saturday it was wonderful to see Louis for dinner. It is always great when you can spend time with a good friend isn’t it?

• We also got a few more things crossed off our to-do list this weekend which was very nice.

• Later this week we have another jazz concert coming up. *woo hoo* This is the summer of jazz for us in case you hadn’t noticed. There really is nothing like live jazz.

• Monday I had lunch with our friend Will. We went to Jesse Wong’s in Hunt Valley where I got Hunan “faux duck” and Will got sushi. Since Will hadn’t been to Jesse Wong’s I thought it would be a good idea and he seemed to enjoy it. We hadn’t seen Will since he left the restaurant so it was very nice to catch up with him.

Signing Out:

I hope you had a great weekend. I will talk to you again soon. :-)