Baltimore 100

When I was at the grocery store the other day, I saw some pretty interesting things in the produce aisle.  First of all, I saw that Wegmans was selling a rare truffle for $700 in a locked box (okay, $699.99 to be honest).  I also saw kumato tomatoes, which are sort of brown tomatoes.  These were much more in my price range and I thought that I could make fried green brown tomatoes with them.


Look how pretty they are!

So fried tomatoes it was.  I made some cheddar grits with them, but I didn't really like them too much.  I think I'll leave grits to the professionals and the deep southerners (Maryland is in the south, though, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise).

Dinner last night was homemade chicken noodle soup and french bread. 

Dinner this morning was some cinnamon raisin oatmeal with a little bit of coconut.  I've also been drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast after my workouts for a protein boost.

A couple of weeks ago I read the list of 100 things that Baltimore foodies must do in the Baltimore Sun.  To my surprise, I've already done a good amount of them (and I would like to mention, that not all of these things are "Baltimore".  Give the Eastern Shore some credit!).  Here are the things that I have already done:

1) Have a jumbo lump crab cake from Faidley’s on a Saltine.

5) Snack on a Berger’s cookie.
6) Put marshmallow on your snowball. (ALWAYS!)
12) Breakfast at Blue Moon Cafe down in Fells Point.
17) Thrasher’s french fries from the boardwalk in Ocean City. (See, that's not Baltimore.  That's Ocean City tourist from Baltimore).
19) Chow down on a pit beef sandwich at Boog’s during an O’s game.
21) Have a soft crab sandwich on white bread. (Love soft crabs!)
26) Fisher’s popcorn downy ocean, hon!
30) Eat a Wockenfuss caramel apple! Mmmmm.
47) Order any sandwich at Trinacria. (Yup!)
78) WOCKENFUSS CANDIES!!!!!!!!!!
89) Have Old Bay on things other than seafood. For instance, corn on the cob, potato salad, coleslaw. (I'll eat Old Bay on anything).
97) Eat the Berger cookie pie at Dangerously Delicious Pies in Federal Hill. A new tradition built on the old.
98) Mary Sue Easter Eggs.
So that's 14/100.  I have a lot ahead of me in the new year.  Make that a resolution :)

Speaking of resolutions, I want to do a post later on of the year in review and my resolutions for 2010.  We're having a yummy dinner tonight, but it's going to be pretty low-key since I'm still on-call.  What are your plans for ringing in the new year?

Pub Dog Pizza, Federal Hill

I have an amazingly long list of restaurants in the Baltimore area that I want to try.  One that has been on the list the longest was Pub Dog Pizza and Drafthouse in Federal Hill.  We walk by it all the time and the menu is a sight to see, so last week before traveling, we picked some up.

It's really nice inside and not at all what I was expecting.  Really homey and pretty typical Baltimore with all of the exposed brick and charm.  It even has a fireplace!  We started out with the garlic sticks which were really yummy.

I had the Wing Dog pizza, which has

Buffalo Wing Sauce, Mozzarella, Green Onion,
Smoked Gouda and Spicy Marinated Buffalo
Chicken

and ranch dressing on the side.

I've never had pizza where they've done the chicken in strips like that, and I liked it a lot.  I was expecting it to be a little more spicy, but it was still really good.  G got the Atomic dog, which is

Hot Sauce, Hot Cherry Peppers, Smoked
Gouda, Mozzarella, Smoked Bacon,
Pepperoni and Red Onion.

It was also really good. We spent the meal looking at the menu and trying to pick out all of the other pizzas that we want to try. We'll definitely be going back again.

Sick puppies and dinner parties.

Wow, yesterday just felt like a crazy busy day.  I had so many errands to run and I was running around all over the place.  On top of that, I'm on-call for work, so I'm constantly wondering if my pager is going to go off and I'll have to run to the hospital.  And worse, Ollie is sick.  He's just been really tired and lethargic and not eating too much.  We took him over to the vet and they said that he's probably just burnt out from traveling.  But there is nothing more sad than a sick puppy :(

In the morning, I had some Cheerios with cranberries.  That was about all we had in the house.

 Grocery shopping was definitely on the list of things I had to do yesterday.  While I was out, I had a cereal bar, some popcorn, and some apple slices with caramel.

After the vet's office, I had plans to go over to my friend Brian's house with some friends for a little dinner party.  I like that we have grown-up dinner parties now.  It's just really great to catch up with everyone and see where everyone is.  Why not revolve that around food?  Brian picked some Indian food from a restaurant nearby.  I've never really had Indian food, so they all tried to fill me in on everything.

It was all really good!  I didn't take any pictures of people because Brian had an amazing camera and I left that to him.  I made a chocolate pear cake and Brian had made some banana pudding for dessert.

We decided that I really need to host a dinner party soon.  And also combine it with a book club.  Ambitious?  We'll make it happen.

I just finished some comforting maple brown sugar oats.

I am in serious need of comfort food, with the cold weather and my poor baby puppy.  Any ideas on how to help him out would be appreciated.  I hope that everyone enjoys their Wednesday!

Trinacria, Downtown Baltimore

I had my heart set on visiting Trinacria for a while now.  First of all, it has amazing reviews online and everyone who I mention it to tells me that it's awesome.  It's also within walking distance of our apartment, so why shouldn't I go?  Plus, it's an Italian market.  That's enough of a reason right there.  So last week, when all of our food was dwindling down in preparation for our traveling home for the holidays, we headed over to Trinacria to see what the fuss was all about.


First we went over around 12:30 and the line was insanely long.  We couldn't even really figure out how to order.  It's funny because the place is in a really desolate part of downtown and there really isn't much going on, but as soon as you walk through the door there are a million people!  We decided to come back later and get a lunch/dinner to go.


We came back around 3:30 and it was still crowded, but we took a number and didn't have to wait too long.  Waiting was actually kind of nice because I got to explore the market.  They have tons of homemade food in the freezers to take, plus homemade breads, a deli, pastas, olives, you name it.  I ordered a fresh mozzarella sandwich and G got a meatball sub.  We also got a piece of Tiramisu.


And this is what we're working with:

The bread was so good and so was the pesto and the mozzarella.  I wasn't crazy about the shredded lettuce on the sandwich (and I don't think it was listed on the menu, either), but it didn't stop me from enjoying it.  G really liked his sub and it was huge!  We didn't even let the tiramisu thaw out, so that says how good that was.  G said he liked it because it didn't have liquor in it, but I kind of like that taste.  It was still very good with the espresso.

All in all, we will definitely be going back.  We're already planning on picking up lasagna and meatballs for New Year's. 

Phewww.

My apologies for being almost completely absent for, well, too long.  Even though the semester ended, I still feel really busy and we just did all of our holiday traveling.  I hope that your holidays were as nice as we were blessed to have.  We also had an AMAZING amount of snow.  Something like 18"?  Not my favorite, but you can see the pupster enjoyed it a lot.



We just got back from visiting the fams today and I tried to pull something together that would use up stuff we had in the fridge.  That ended up being some macaroni and cheese with broccoli.



I don't think I've ever mentioned how awesome supercook.com is, but let me say, it's really cool!  I recommend fiddling around with it when you get bored :)

I.O.U. a couple of restaurant reviews that I will hopefully get to tomorrow.  I also want to talk about EHAW.




Ollie is acting sick and I am on-call for work, so this evening hasn't been the most fun.  Hopefully all will be well tomorrow :)


Question-- what do you use to update your blogs?  Straight Blogger/Wordpress?  Picasa?  Some special program?  It seems like uploading photos takes so long!

Controlling the urges.

So, the meal plan continues for the week.  Day one went pretty well.  I didn't realize how much I had gotten into the habit of snacking, pretty mindlessly, throughout the day.  I do feel like I'm eating healthy!  Hopefully by the end of the week, I feel like I'm getting enough food and I can keep the urges to snack in check. 

In the afternoon, I had some plain nonfat yogurt with blackberries, honey, and almonds.  I also had 2 clementines.

Dinner was shrimp scampi.  This has always been a recipe that I really like.  I used egg noodles instead of the angel hair.  I'm actually making quite a few substitutions to the plan, just to keep it economical :)

Dessert was chocolate covered strawberries with almonds and milk.  I was surprised at how good these berries were!

I just finished eating the autumn oatmeal.  This isn't that much different from a typical breakfast for me.  So I liked it :)

I have my last final today at 2!  Then I still need to finish up a paper and I have a quiz on Wednesday, but I'll take it!  Where is everyone else in their finals?  I'm sure everyone is ready for a break just as much as I am!

Commenting is fixed!

Yikes, I just found out that my comments haven't been working!  They should be ok now, though!  Thanks for letting me know, Naomi!


Lunch was more EHAW.  I had a steak salad and the steak actually turned out pretty well.

My mom is probably crying at this photo.  She doesn't like it when I eat red meat.

I really, really need to buckle down and right a paper and study.  And then this week will be the end of the semester!!  Hummmm.

Hanukkah and Eat Healthy All Week

Crazy how I can just completely disappear for days, huh?  Aside from being super busy with school, I've also been trying to shop for the holidays and I had a nice first night of Hanukkah!  Happy Hannukah, by the way :)  I'm definitely not religious, but my family has some traditions that I like to uphold and incorporate into my new home.


Friday night was the first night and I decided to make matzo ball soup and latkes.

Definitely not the healthiest meal, but it's only once a year, right?  Last night I made a turkey and broccoli couscous skillet with raisins and almonds from RR magazine.

I really liked this, but G definitely didn't.  That's the thing that's hard about cooking for another person; you have to figure out the balance.

I have also decided to try the Self magazine Eat Healthy All Week plan, again.  I've done it twice before, but never all the way through and never while living with G.  He's doing it with me, but he's going to have to make some modifications.  It's only about 1800 calories a day, and that is no where near enough for him.  Hopefully he likes the food and we get a nice week-long healthy eating thing going on that will stick with us.

Day 1
Breakfast was a zucchini spice bran muffin and grapes.

I love these muffins and they're really good for you.  G ate his last night and had cereal for breakfast (see, he's totally going to deviate from my plan!).  Shopping for the week was a little more expensive, even with all of the ingredients we already have.  I guess because I had to double everything.  I still need to go pick up the steak.  I've never cooked steak, so I hope I don't suck at it.  All the other times I used Morningstar meat substitute and I know that G won't go for that.  So I hope this goes well!

What are some of your family traditions?  Have a great Sunday!

Laaaame.

I am so busy!  Hopefully after today (my research final) I'll have more time to post and do things that aren't school-related!  But for now, here's a lame pictorial post of the past 24 hours of food.  See you soon (hopefully)!

Ollie the other Reindeer.

Hello!  So, I've got one final down and two more to go.  Already I feel some weight lifted off my shoulders.  Plus no more annoyingly opinionated policy professors! 

For lunch today I had some leftovers from a couple nights ago.

I don't think I even got through 1/2 of this.  I really don't like leftovers.  Except for Thanksgiving of course.

So I had an apple with some PB.  Mmmm honeycrisp.

Before my class, we got some puppy photo shoot action going on.

Too cute?  Well that was the last time that'll hapen.  Those antlers got eaten up pretty fast :)

When I got home, I had a Kashi bar to get ready for the gym.

Gym was pretty good, I haven't been since we got the puppy so I'm pretty out of shape.  I had been planning on going, but I decided to really go for it when I saw this post about starting Couch to 5K on Four Fat Chicks.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm using a plan that seems better than the last one I used (and failed).

Dinner was chicken and vegetable soup (from scratch, mm hmm!) and grilled cheese.

I also made bread pudding!

It's really yummy!  I'm fighting the urge to go back for more.

I can't wait to finish out this week!  What's a good way of making time speed up?

Finals are upon us...

Good morning and good luck to my fellow students!  I know that a lot of people are going into finals or their last week of classes.  Personally, I have a final at 9am (aka SOON!).  I have a cheat sheet for it, so I'm not too worried. 


For breakfast, I had a bowl of oats with brown sugar, vanilla, raspberries, craisins, and walnuts.

Hopefully that's enough brain food to get me through the day!  I feel like I have a million little errands I need to get through before the end of the week.  I hope I can get the bulk done today!  Happy Monday!

Merry/happy Tuba Christmukkuh!

Just like everyone else in the east, we got a good little snow yesterday.  It's pretty, but I'm not too crazy about being in it.  At all.

For lunch yesterday, I made a salad with tuna on top and some caesar dressing.

Then we walked down to the inner harbor (in the snow) to see Tuba Christmas.  It's a neat tradition that they have.  I'm not crazy about Christmas music, but I like this kind.  Anything classic or instrumental is fine.  Since it was snowing it got moved inside.  This was my attempt at a photo.  There are tons of tubas back there, I swear. 

For dinner we ate in the pavillion.  I got a pit beef sandwich with macaroni and cheese and green beans.  It was really, really good, but I didn't want to take a photo because we were with people who don't know about the blog.  I'm a wimp :(


This morning I had an egg/egg white ww english muffin with a little bit of cheddar cheese.

Today was a big shopping day.  It felt like we went all over the place.  I needed a new 2010 planner and a new clicker for the pup.  Plus the normal grocery shopping.  We went to Wegmans.  I LOVE WEGMANS.  Seriously, it's the best.  We decided that we wanted to try the food bars that they have there.  I was thinking about sushi and G was looking at the pizza, but we decided to try the Asian Wokery hot bar.  Bad choice.  No pic, but it wasn't anything special.  Next time we'll definitely go for the other stuff!


Dinner was a standby: Buffalo Sloppy Joes.

I like these, but it's really G that asks for them.  Every week.

We got all of our Christmukkah decorating done!  Including buying the candles.  I just need to get some gelt (or not, that's one more thing I don't need!).

 

 

 

I had also wanted to get some Snow Cookie Sleigh Ride tea because I've seen so many other bloggers talk about it.  And of course Wegmans had an entire display of Celestial Seasonings seasonal teas (did I mention I LOVE Wegmans?).  I'm drinking it now, by the way, and it's really yummy!  I need to try milk in it tomorrow.

Good luck with the starting work week!  I have 2 finals this week, so wish me luck!  Anyone else have a final in the morning?