A Restaurant Dinner at Home

I had every intention of being a lazy person yesterday because its my one day of the week that I don’t have to be anywhere.  Tony made me brunch – spicy scrambled eggs, hash browns made out of frozen french fries and toast with jalapeno jelly.  The battery of my DSLR is being charged – underneath my desk at work.  I plugged it in Friday and completely forgot it.  I’ll be picking it up on my way to the restaurant tonight, but my iPhone had to do all the work yesterday!

While Tony was watching football, I watched Biggest Loser that I had on the DVR.  As soon as the show was over, I got my workout clothes on and got Insane!  I did a 40 minute plyo cardio routine – its been a while since I did any cardio and I thought I would die, but surprisingly, I did the whole routine without stopping.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still hard, but it goes to show that strength training really helps – probably more than cardio!

I put on my Healthy for the Holidays page on Facebook that my goal for 2014 is to fine tune my nutrition.  The problem is getting hungry after I work at the restaurant.  For example – Saturday we ate brunch around 11, so by the time I was ready to leave for work at 3:45, I wasn’t hungry.   I ended up eating a cup of soup around 5:30 and by the time I was heading home around 10, I was hungry!  I ended up fixing a hot dog and chips for “dinner.”  I need to plan meals for that time of night too.  Blog reader Peggy had some good ideas – making my own homemade “frozen” dinners so I can just heat up when I get home.  Bonnie suggested salad with lean protein – takes a long time to eat and its filling.  Lynne suggested something eggy, like an omelet.  And my sister suggested Mason Jar Meals ala Big Red Kitchen.  Thanks for the ideas ladies!

For Tony’s football food, I made him one of his favorites – steak tartar.  Ew.  I wouldn’t even try it.  It’s ground sirloin mixed with anchovy paste, one egg yolk, salt and pepper.  That’s it.   He spreads it over party rye bread and it couldn’t make him happier.

For our anniversary dinner, we decided to make steak, crab cakes and asparagus and edamame risotto.  Our store sells canned crab meat for $9.99 for a 16 ounce can.  It had some pretty big pieces of crab in there!

I ended up using half the can for 4 crab cakes – I used this recipe from Food Network.  There was hardly any binder at all so these were really good.  We ended up buying one steak – well, it was 16 ounces – for less than $9 dollars.  We spent under $20 for this meal that would have easily cost us $60 in a restaurant.

I made the crab cakes earlier in the day and kept them in the fridge so they wouldn’t fall apart when I cooked them.  Look at all that crab meat!

Because our steak was so thick, I ended up cooking it 3x3x3x3 – and then 2 minutes on each side.  Perfect mid-rare!  And I am very proud of my grill marks.

I made a butter sauce with fresh rosemary and garlic to pour over the steak.  So good!

I wish the picture was better, but this plate of food was delicious.  Best part though?  We ate at the dining room table!  Helen and I talk about our distain of eating dinner in front of the t.v. every single night.  We only use our dining table when we have company over, which isn’t that often.  So Tony, thank you for spending 45 minutes at the dinner table last night – best Anniversary gift ever!  I love you!

I am taking a blog break until Thursday.  I have to work tonight at the restaurant.  My brother and his family are in town too.

Long time readers will remember that in January of 2011, Tony was diagnosed with colon cancer.  We knew he had to have another colonoscopy and back in October I made an appointment for him – the next available time wasn’t until January!  Well, he’s having some symptoms again, and they were able to squeeze us in tomorrow morning.  So on Christmas Eve we’ll be at the hospital.   Please send all your good thoughts our way that it’s anything but cancer again.  Not sure Tony could handle that again.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family, friends and good food!  Hugs from My Bizzy Kitchen!!