Coffee Crusted Filet Mignon and Pecan Cake

Last Thursday night was our nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.  Guess what?  I actually wore a skirt!  I know, crazeballs.  Sadly, no picture I took turned out so you’ll just have to trust me on that!  I did wear my hair down and put makeup on though!  I am really contemplating getting my hair cut chin length again – its really starting to get too long for my liking.

I met several of the girls in the hotel bar before dinner.  It was just so nice hanging out with such a great group of women.  I don’t do that often enough.  I started out with a glass of pinot grigio, knowing I would switch to Cabernet with my beef for dinner.  For those of you who saw that picture of wine on Instagram, you’ll know I shot that using my iPhone 4 – using the Camera+ app.  This is a “special” filter called “depth of field.”

We had our choice for dinner, and I am not going to lie, I almost contemplated getting the 28 ounce pork chop!  Tony isn’t a fan of pork much anymore, but in the end, I was in beef country, so I went with the coffee crusted filet mignon.

The sides were passed around family style.  Oh my word, was this filet good – I have coffee grounds my favorite beef marinade, but I think next time I do a steak, I’ll have to do a coffee bean crust.

And what would be on my plate next to my steak?  Only the best mushrooms I’ve ever had.  Tony and I think they must be baby portabella mushrooms – all I know is that they were still fairly firm and when I had a bit of the steak with a mushroom, it was the perfect bite.

I normally don’t get desserts, but when I saw pecan cake I thought “that is probably insulin worthy!”  Yep!

I sent that picture of the pecan cake to Tony and his response was “I’d knock you over to get to that.”  It was super sweet, but I managed to eat 1/3 of it!   It was a lovely dinner and I was happy to hit the hay around 11:00 that night – my bed was so comfy and quite possibly the best pillows I’ve slept on.

The view in the mornings weren’t bad either!

Just one more recap tomorrow and then I will be done with my Texas experience.  Thanks for reading along this week!

I ended up making granola bars the night before last.  Um, guess who likes my granola now??  Tony!  He eats it with his fruit and yogurt in the morning.  I knew I was going to have half a granola bar for breakfast, and decided to make a quick egg white omelet with Everything Cabot Cheese.  If you can find this cheese, buy it – love the poppy seeds in it!

I had legs on tap for strength training.  I am following Bite Sized Fitness (you can find her on Facebook here)   One of the exercises was called Good Mornings – what?  I looked it up and its for your lower back, glutes and hamstrings – Most of the seven exercises were 10-15 reps for 3-5 sets.  Yowza!  I am feeling it this morning.  Then I finished up with 2 miles on the treadmill for cardio.

Lunch was leftover grilled shrimp from the other night with brown rice and chopped asparagus.  There wasn’t much asparagus left, so I accessorized my lunch and bought a small container of Szechwan green beans to go with it.  So good!

Even though I microwaved the shrimp, they were still so good, not rubbery at all.

While I was changing after my workout, the t.v. in the women’s locker room was on Extra, and I heard that they released the trailer for Dumb and Dumber To.  Tony LOVES the first one – its so stupid it’s funny.  The new movie comes out in November, so I know we will definitely see that in the movie theater.   I give you another episode of Texting with Tony!

Luckily the rain had stopped and I was able to grill out.  We bought some marinated steak at the grocery store – it’s usually really flavorful, but this time it wasn’t for some reason.  I wouldn’t know though since I put all kinds of hot sauce on mine!   Since we are watching Tony’s sodium intake, I made a batch of stovetop refried beans, except this time made two batches – Tony’s didn’t have any added salt or hot stuff, mine was exactly as I wrote the recipe.   Each of my tostadas had:  1 tablespoon of the stovetop refried beans, 1 ounce of the grilled steak, lettuce, red cabbage, Garlic and Herb Cabot cheese and hot sauce.  Here’s the recipe for the stovetop refried beans – so good and cheap to make!

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While I was taking my pictures, um, someone wanted to join me!  Although this is not Kyle or Lyle!

This squirrel would just gingerly pick up a peanut and then jump off the table and run down the deck stairs.

Luckily he left my dinner alone!

So another one of the women I met at the Texas event lives in the town I grew up in River Forest.  Her oldest goes to the same Junior High that I graduated from way back in 1982!  Again, small world!  I had the pleasure of getting to know her at the dinner Thursday night.  She has 4 kids, and I can tell when we were traveling back home together that she’s traveled quite a bit in her lifetime, not the once a year like me!  She was born in France but moved to the United States when she was 12.  I think she’s lived in France, London, Canada and now in the Chicagoland area.

Meet Vanessa from Chef Druck!

A few of the dishes that I need to make asap:

• Her fire roasted tomato soup.  I am a soup whore and can eat it anytime of year
• Asian steak tacos.  Duh – I loves me some Mexican food!
• Milk chocolate pudding.  Tony loves pudding so I may have to make this over the weekend.

Hope you have a chance to check Vanessa out – it was nice meeting you Vanessa!

Alright, I have to get my gym clothes out of the dryer, put my food together and take a shower and get out of the house in 25 minutes – no problem!  Make it a great day!

Disclaimer: This trip was provided to me free from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to review for the blog. All opinions are my own.