Tony and I woke up yesterday morning at 7:30.  I decided that was WAY too early to get up on a Saturday, so I turned over and went back to sleep, only to wake up at 9:00 – and I still needed to blog and get out the door at 10:00 to meet my Mom!  But being the low maintenance gal that I am, I was ready!  But as I was leaving the house I thought “I didn’t eat breakfast!”

I think I got this bar from Michelle at our blogger meet up at Christina’s – way back in October!

200 calories and 23 carbs for this bar

I actually liked it!!  It was really chewy:

I picked up my Mom and we headed to lunch – but it wasn’t opened yet, so we went across the street to an antique store.  I thought Mel and J would appreciate this picture!

We walked around for about 10 minutes, then headed back the restaurant – it just opened a few weeks ago, and it’s on Madison Street in Forest Park.

We thought we had plenty of time since she didn’t have to be at her volunteer job until 1:00.  We both ordered brown rice with our meals, but first started with shrimp rolls – we both thought they were a tad overdone, but the dipping sauce was really good!

Then we waited, and waited, checked our watch because we were on a tight schedule at this point.  The server came up to us and said that they were just waiting for the brown rice to cook.  What? You wouldn’t have started the brown rice at ten in the morning?  So we quickly changed to white rice and had about 10 minutes to eat 🙁

I had about 1/2 cup of rice

I ordered the hot and spicy basil dish with tofu – this was so flavorful!!

We actually asked for our bill when our lunch was served to save  a little time!   I would go back though, it was that good – lunch for us only came in at $23 – nice! 😀

My mom volunteers at a place called the Economy Shop in Oak Park.  It’s a big Victorian house, that has different items in every room – one room may have electronics, another housewares, yet another books and magazines.  You could literally spend HOURS in this place!

Look at all the magazines!!!  No, I didn’t buy any, but cookbooks were 50% off, so I may have bought 5 cookbooks.  Shh….don’t tell Tony!

Check out these green stamps!  Raise your hand if you remember green stamps!

I remember we had a drawer in our kitchen dedicated to green stamps in books – Mom, what did you ever end up getting with the stamps – I don’t remember!

Guess who met me at the Economy Shop??  My twin sister!   I am on the right – can you see my beautiful eyebrows?!

When I got back home, I had a package from Karena – my BSI win for tofu!

She gave me this cute tote too!

Of all the loot she gave me, I am especially excited to try this – I love mustard!

While I was out, Tony got stuff to make dinner.  He is an amazing cook! I just hog the kitchen most of the time!  What’s great about Tony’s cooking is that he just puts stuff together – no measuring, no recipe.  On the menu last night?  Pork!  He seared a pork tenderloin on top of the stove, added a little chicken broth, water, green peppers, garlic and red wine and cooked it low and slow at 250 degrees.

this is how it looked after 4 hours of cooking

It was so tender it almost fell apart! So tender!

Then he reduced the sauce in the pan, added some flour and used the stick blender for a sauce to be put over egg noodles.  It was delicious!

I woke up this morning and realized I hadn’t done anything for the BSI this week – cocoa powder!  I had pancakes on the brain, so I decided to make Pumpkin Chocolate Pancakes.

Pumpkin Chocolate Pancakes

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 tablespoons Splenda brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
  • 3/4 teaspooon cinnamon
  • 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 – 12 ounce can of fat free evaporated milk
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in another.  Mix until well combined.

Each pancake comes in at 116 calories, 4 fat, 16 carbs, 1.4 fiber and 3.9 protein.

I am ignoring the fact that this expired on October of 2009!

because these pancakes are so thick, you have to cook them at a low temperature so the inside gets cooked

A perfect way to start a Sunday morning!

While at my Mom’s house yesterday, I grabbed some of my Dad’s artwork.  You can see my tribute post to my Dad here.  Back in 1985 he decided to come up with a comic strip – one of his artist idols was Charles Shultz.  It was a comic strip about a chef and all the wacky antics that can happen in a kitchen.  He even went so far as to submit the strip to a publisher in Florida.  He worked hundreds of hours on this project.  He shipped it off, got a dink letter, then put everything in a giant envelope and never talked or looked at it again!

I hadn’t seen it in years, but my Mom let me take it home – I am still going through all the materials, so I’ll leave you with this – and plan on showing off more of my Dad’s artwork in the coming weeks.

I am sure I got my love of food and cooking from my Dad – and if he were alive, he would have been the best food blogger – he was also an accomplished photographer!

Plans for the Day:

  • menu plan
  • grocery shop
  • maybe lunch out with Tony?
  • laundry!
  • cry about the 8 – 12 inches of snow that’s predicted overnight tonight! 🙁