I am going to New York City!

By now, if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you know that my recipe was one of the top voted recipes in the Away From Home Cooking contest, so now I’ll face three other dishes for the cook-off in New York with Sunny Anderson!   I had to fill out paperwork, disclosures that I am not a professional chef (ha!) and I had to send a head shot for their announcement yesterday.  I had that photo shoot done back in October and I have actually been trying for a few months to get pictures once the article was published, but to no avail.  He finally came through after I told him “I am a finalist in a national cooking contest with Sunny Anderson of The Cooking Channel and Food Network” that suddenly he was able to send me some.  I couldn’t decide, so I ended up sending four and this is the one they picked:

The only thing I did was whitened my teeth with picmonkey.   If you haven’t used their photo editing, it’s super easy and most of the site is free.   So I’ll be making my first trip to New York in a couple weeks!  My cousin Sue and her husband live there (hi Sue!) so hopefully I will be able to hook up with them at some point. 

So my co-worker knew I was still looking for the watermelon Chobani, and she finally found it and got one for me.   I added about a tablespoon of my granola on top. The verdict?  VERY TANGY!  Like almost a bit too tangy, but the granola was a good compliment.  My vote is still for the grapefruit – I hope they make that a permanent flavor.

I had errands to run at lunch, so no walk or workout.  I had two slider ham sandwiches – I put the ham and cheese on the bun, then put it under the broiler to kind of crisp up the bun and melt the cheese – I ended up burning the tops of the buns, so I cut off the burnt part, flipped it upside down and ate them that way – it looks like ass, but it was a tasty lunch.  With sweet potato chips and black grapes.  And just a little bit of yellow mustard.  First bite and I had mustard all over my shirt – I am klassy like that!

Tony’s appetite is coming back with a vengeance and I could not be happier.  He had a taste for Lou Malnati’s pizza and pistachio gelato.  Done and Done.   We both think Lou Malnati’s is hands down the best deep dish pizza in Chicago – better than Gino’s East, Uno’s or Giordano’s.  If you don’t live in the Chicagoland area, you can have any pizza shipped across the U.S.  Or, you could make my copycat Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza.  A bit more effort, but totally worth it.

It was dark by the time we ate it, so no pics of the final product – but this is what it looks like – so fricken good!  The crust is flakey and buttery, you get a bit of sausage in every bite since it’s a layer of sausage, not just pieces of sausage here and there, all the mozzarella cheese and of course, an amazing tomato sauce topping.   We eat had one piece, and then split a second – so good!

And if you want good gelato – check out Talenti.  While sea salt caramel is still my favorite, this one was pretty amazing too – just one spoonful is all you need.  Or the whole jar – your choice!

We sat outside for a good two hours when I got home – such a better way to spend a Friday night than last week in the hospital – what a difference a week makes!

He looks a bit thinner than last year, no?

We’ve schedule his next appointment at Mayo at the end of September – it’s just a morning of tests so he’ll drive up on a Sunday, have the tests on Monday, and then head home.  I don’t have a whole lot of vacation days left, and I need to use up three for my trip to New York. 

I love three day weekends!  I just lit the Weber and am about to grill up some tomatoes and jalapenos for canning salsa today.  Last week I hit the jackpot on the dollar rack and bought six packages of tomatoes for $6 – I think I have about 50+ tomatoes!

I won’t be posting again until Tuesday – going to take a computer break for a couple days.  Hope you all have an awesome weekend!  Hugs!