What a great weekend we had!  While hot, we were able to survive without turning on the central air – even though most of the weekend I walked around the house with boob sweaty shirts. 😀  How’s that for a Monday morning visual!

The last couple days of work were so hectic.  By Friday night I was ready to just relax.  Tony and I sat outside for a couple hours and had some wine before I even attempted to make dinner – so nice!  And if you are wondering, that tiny whisk is a charm on my keychain. 😀

Saturday we headed out to Chinese before hitting up the grocery store.  I had kung pao shrimp – a delicious 10 Point lunch (sans the egg roll and just 1/2 a cup of brown rice).

I got a couple steals at the store – first being boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.28 a pound!  And these were not small people – each half of a breast weighed in between 10 and 14 ounces. 

We have a cheap Food Saver, but I love it.  No need for bells and whistles, this one cost under $20 a few years ago.  I just buy the vacuum rolls at Menard’s for $4 a roll – you can cut the bags to any size you want.  Let’s just say I have enough chicken breasts to last a few weeks! 

Here is a picture of my deep freeze – yep, its huge!  That bag of ice is a 20 pound bag and it almosts gets lost in the freezer.  And I got it for free at freecycle.org – you should check it out if its available in your neighborhood – everything is free!

Another thing Tony and I both love are those Terra chips – the vegetable chips?  But they are never on sale and I just can’t justify spending $4.99 on a bag, so I decided to make some root veggie chips.  My store had yucca roots on sale for $.49 a pound, so I got two for $1.

The skin is almost waxy, but was really easy to peel with a vegetable peeler, then I just sliced them really thin while my deep fryer got to 350 temperature.

The secret to getting crunchy chips is to fry them twice.  The first round, you just want to cooke them until they are slightly brown around the edges – you don’t want to cook it all at once, because the outside will get too crunchy and the inside will be raw.  I did these in three batches to pre-cook, about 3-4 minutes each batch.  Then threw them all in the pool for about 2-3 more minutes.  Salt immediately after draining on paper towels.

After they were done, I brought these into the living room to have Tony taste.  I don’t think I even told him “hey, do you want to try some yucca root chips?” because I think he would have thrown up in his mouth a bit.  I just said “want some chips?”  I left them with him while I went to get ready to go to the gym.  I came back upstairs and he was like “get these away from me.”  I thought for sure that meant he hated them, but he said he could have eaten the whole bowl – yippee!  I have no idea how to count the points for these – I mean, the yucca root is zero points, and maybe 1 teaspoon of oil is absorbed in the whole batch?  I am counting them as 2 pounds for a big handful! 😀

Sunday we went to our towns farmers market – the very first one!  I was hooked as soon as I saw that they were going to have a cheese vendor.  We got there around 11:00 (it was open until 1) and when we got to the cheese vendor, all she had left was samples – she was completely sold out!

These cheese was amazing – buttery and she said that it melts great – I am going to be there at 9:00 a.m. next Sunday morning!

And we saw a vendor who sold pickled everything – I stopped in my tracks when I just saw “jalapeno pickles” and after I ate one, holy shizz, they are worth the $8 a jar.  Crunchy, spicy and flavorful.  I am thinking up all different kinds of ways I can use them for marinades – yum!  (Tony did roll his eyes a bit at the price tag!)

Then last night Tony was the chef!  While I was doing chores inside, he manned the smoker.  He decided to use the water tray that comes with our smoker.  It worked for a while, but he couldn’t keep the temperatures up as high, so removed it about half way through.  All I know is that we had a juicy, delicious mesquite smoked pork roast!  Thanks Tony, its was delicious!

While at the store Tony found some new hot sauces for me.  He shows me both of them and was like “which one do you want to get?”  Um, both!  I’ve tried the lime one and it’s really delicious.  There is no such thing as too much hot sauce! 😀

And if you made it down this far, I’ll end with a cool picture of the moon – I used my telephoto lens for this one.

I am off to the gym before work.  In case I have to work through lunch again like I did a couple days last week, at least I’ll be able to get my exercise in. 😀  And I have a food plan. 😀  On today’s menu, blueberry pancakes and grilled chicken salad with dried cherries.  You’ll have to come back tomorrow for the recipes. 😀

Hannah and I are having dinner with my Mom tonight after she spent the last 10 days with my brother Charlie’s family celebrating my nieces 15th birthday and my other nieces high school graduation – I don’t think I’ve seen my Mom for a month!  We are going to Seasons 52 in Schaumburg – check out the menu.  What would you get?

Make it a great day!