Restaurant style date night

A few weeks ago, we had a great date night that started out with Happy Honeys. I just left out the brandy from the recipe as written, and they were fun, seasonal drinks. They didn't really go with our meal, so we enjoyed them first, as we sat and laughed about something (I can't remember exactly what...but I'm sure it included my 3 year old).

Later on that evening, we enjoyed one of my favorite restaurant treats, shrimp cocktel! It's Mexican shrimp cocktail, and it is oh so good. I eat mine with saltine crackers, and Mike eats his with tortilla chips. Either way is really good. I even served these up in my large iced tea glasses to be more restaurant like (sometimes we eat it in bowls, more like gazpacho).

I had read recently to give tiny shrimp a try. Something about the smaller the shrimp, the more likely that they would cook through before the outside gets tough. Anyway...the grocery store had these tiny guys on sale, so I tried out the theory. It proved true for us. They were really tender and sweet.

And another date night comes and goes. But, I can't wait until the next one!

Merry Christmas!

 

Meal Plan, um, Wednesday

Late is better than never. At least in my world.

Friday: frozen pot pies (it was one of those days)
Saturday: take out calzones
Sunday: shrimp cocktel
Monday: chimichangas
Tuesday: pan fried steaks, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach
Wednesday: white chicken chili
Thursday: boeuf bourguignon, french bread

Chimichangas

I've mentioned before that we don't eat out like we used to before children. We used to eat out a lot, and we enjoyed every single meal. Thank goodness for the memories. At 1 and 3, my boys can be difficult to entertain in a restaurant. When we do go out, it's usually for lunch, and it's at one of the places that we know delivers our food very quickly. Cause, really? Who wants to play tic tac toe with an uninterested toddler for 20 minutes while you wait on food? This is not my idea of fun.

All this to say....

Sometimes, you just want food that you normally get in restaurants. Even if it is supper time. And your kids had one of those days, and you don't even dare take them out of the house to pick up take out. What to do? What to do?

You learn to fry chimichangas, that's what you do!

These are beef and bean chimichangas.

Topped with lettuce, radishes, onions, salsa (homemade, but with canned tomatoes), and sour cream.

Mike and I proclaimed them better than our favorite Tex-Mex place! Definitely a winner. Perhaps not so good for the waistline, but very good for the fulfillment of a craving.

Where ya' been??

I'm back from my unintended, unexpectedly long blog vacation!!

Where have I been? Well.... I've been growing sweet baby number 3. We're expecting, June 24th of next year, and we're so excited. But, sometimes, the first trimester isn't the best time to think about food, take pictures of food, shoot, even cook food! So, there has been very little of that going on.

Thankfully, I'm near the end of the first trimester, and I'm feeling tiny bursts of second trimester energy. And my appetite is back! Hooray!!