Chubby Chased 5

Round Table Pizza has a "Gourmet" Veggie pizza on their menu. Description of the pizza, copied from their site: Artichoke hearts, zucchini, spinach, white mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, red & green onions, Italian herb seasoning, and lots of chopped garlic. Baked with a blend of 3 cheeses on our Creamy Garlic Sauce. I put gourmet in quotes cuz I'm guessing they consider it gourmet just because of artichoke hearts, zucchini & spinach?

Don't get me wrong, it's a good tasting pizza, it's just that Round Table is a bit skimpy with the ingredients. Sometimes I add more artichoke hearts & zucchini when I get home. Also, wait til you get a coupon. The coupon price is much easier to swallow.

So...once when I went to pick up my large Gourmet Veggie, an extra large Mexican guy walked in ahead of me. Unfortunately, the Round Table employee wasn't behind the counter so Chubby Chaser took the opportunity to talk to me.

Chubby Chaser: (makes no effort to hide that he's checking me out) Hey.

Fat Girl: (look in his general direction, but make no eye contact) Hi.

Chubby Chaser: How are you?

Fat Girl: Fine. Thanks.

Chubby Chaser: They're kinda slow.

Fat Girl: Hm? Oh. Ya.

Chubby Chaser: So, are you eating here?

Fat Girl: Nope. Picking up.

Chubby Chaser: Too bad. I coulda used some company.

Fat Girl: (blank stare. as if I would keep him company)

Thankfully, Round Table employee finally appeared behind the counter & took Chubby Chaser's order. I was doubly thankful that he quickly said, "Next customer, please."

I presented my coupon & Round Table employee said he could take two more dollars off the coupon price. Score! That was karma paying me back for putting up with Chubby Chaser.

If I got a discount every time I went to Round Table, I may not be opposed to being Chubby Chased. I know, I'm such a pizza whore.

Trader Joe's Treasures

Zucchini is one of my favorite veggies and Trader Joe's sells a two pound pack for $2.79. A pretty good deal compared to other grocery stores. I've been grilling them this summer but they keep falling through the grate, even when I use my expandable grill basket. I feel a great sense of loss whenever a nice chunck of zucchini falls down to the flame. So now I just soften them in the pan with some olive oil and it's just as good, and I don't have to worry about losing any of my zucchini.

The store bought ranch dressings aren't very satisfying with my zucchini so I decided to make my own. I came across a ranch dressing recipe on Food Network's site & tweaked it a bit. It was a hit. Here's my tweaked recipe, if you care to make some:

1 clove garlic
1 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons minced dill

1 shallot, trimmed and finely chopped

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

Mash the garlic to a paste with the side of a chef's knife. In a medium bowl, whisk together the garlic, mayonnaise, buttermilk, dill, shallot and vinegar. If the sauce is very thick, thin the dressing with a couple tablespoons more of the buttermilk. Use immediately or store covered, in the refrigerator, for up to 3 days.

Not only does Trader Joe's have great food deals, it also has great beauty deals. If you like sugar scrubs, Trader Joe's has a great Tangerine Sugar Scrub that beats all those expensive brand names out there. You get a nice 18 oz tub for just $5.99!

Going Bananas

Sigh. In the middle of another two weeks of no carb hell. The first few days were difficult since I've been eating whatever my piggy tummy desired. I craved carbs so much that I was eating mac & cheese in my dream. I had little resolve after I woke up from that dream.

I was going to be in the Glendale area that day and I remembered a little Peruvian place Brother took me to a while ago. It was perfect. I haven't had Peruvian in a while and I can get my carb fix with them yummy plantains!

Mamita did not disappoint. I ordered the saltado de pollo con vegetales, except I forgot to say "con vegetales". If I had, it woulda been stir fried chunks of chicken, zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes. But I got the regular saltado de pollo, which was also good, except that it was more carbs than I planned on. Saltado de pollo is stir fried chunks of chicken, tomatoes, red onion & fries. I don't care for soggy fries, but since these fries soak up the delicious sauce I had to eat them. Most of them. And of course there's the fluffy rice that comes with the dish.

The plantains, were soft and nicely caramelized on the outside. They give you a decent amount for $4. Half of them were gone by the time I got back to the office. It was a sad moment when I came to the last piece. Well, at least I made a good choice when I decided to cheat on my no carb diet. I'm already planning on going back to get two orders of plantains when I'm off the diet.

Must Un-do Pants

LA Fonda Antioquena is not a place I can go to everyday, even if I wish I could. As a belated birthday treat, the Tequila Sisters and Salsa Queen took me there. It's one of those places you'd never know about unless somebody told you.

Salsa Queen made some recommendations on entrees and ordered appetizers. They know Salsa Queen so perhaps our servings were slightly larger than usual. heehee

Blood sausage - I tried a tiny piece. Not bad, but also not great. Unexpectedly, it doesn't taste like blood, as the Chinese pig's blood soup does.
Chicharron - This isn't the thin crispy pieces of fried pig skin, although I love that too. This chicharron had all the fat & some meat attached, and the skin is still crispy. One order comes on two plates!

Empanadas - Good. Tasty. They also came with pasteles de yucca.

All of the above came with arepas. They're like little thick pancakes made of cornmeal. I didn't care for the arepas cuz they were tasteless. Salsa Queen said the arepas from her region of Colombia are made with cheese. Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Salsa Queen ordered Postobon's Manzana, apple flavored soda. Taiwan has probably an identical tasting soda & drinking it really brought back Taiwan memories.

I ordered churrasco, grilled NY steak with plantains, rice, avacado. It was great. If you like your steak medium, order it medium rare.

DrinkYourDrink ordered the whole fried tilapia. It was fresh and great. We helped her eat most of it.

JustOneShot was the brave one and ordered lengua. I tried a tiny little piece. Yes, it was tender and kinda melted in my mouth, but that little piece was all the cow tongue I want to eat. The flavor of the stew it came with was terrific.

Salsa Queen and her niece decided to eat like birds and ordered a menudo type soup. sigh

We ordered more plantains cuz they're too good to only have two pieces. It was a lot of food and there was a lot of pigging out. Another great way to spend a Sunday!

Piggy Confessions

So, uh, Costso sells a dozen fresh baked butter croissants for $5.49. Great deal, right? I was able to resist for six months. Then last weekend I caved.

The butter croissant monster will not be denied. She thought about sharing them for a fraction of a millisecond but decided she must have all 12.

I ate four within 20 minutes of getting home. Lightly toasted in the toaster oven or microwaved for 10 seconds. Washed them down with lactose free milk. All was good with this piggy's stomach.

All 12 were devoured by the next day.

Yes, I realize that's an enormous amount of calories. Which is why I didn't eat much else those two days...except when we went to the Colombian restaurant. That's a story for tomorrow. Right now I've gotta work off the extra back fat from them butter croissants.

PS - Thanks to Naughty Blonde for the Piggy Confessions idea.

Soy Mocha Frapp Management

As I hit the garage door opener this morning I said to myself: Today is the day I get into a car accident.

It's weird, but sometimes I just get a feeling about things.

Lo and behold, I was getting on the freeway and some stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV clipped me. She was to my left. The two lanes we were in are suppose to head straight to the on-ramp. But no, stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV decided she didn't want to get on the freeway at the last minute. Stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV wanted to cross over to my lane and then over to the next lane, without regard to anyone else.

She got my driver side bumper.

The horn was honked.

Stupid Bitch! and some other words were yelled.

Brakes were slammed.

I was already on the on-ramp. I looked over my right shoulder. Stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV was driving away.

Surprisingly, I was not as angry as I thought I would be. If you know me, you know I woulda backed up from the on-ramp and chased down that stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV, all the while calling her all sorts of degrading names.

Maybe because I didn't hear the loud sound of metal crunching.

Maybe because I was forewarned as I stood in the garage this morning.

Maybe because I'm not on the no carb diet & I was looking forward to a soy mocha frapp at the coffee bar at work. That soy mocha frapp really is some yummy goodness. It's much like the Mocha Blast at Baskin Robbins. It soothes my soul.

After I parked at work, I surveyed the damage. It was actually slight. One scratch & the rest is paint that can be rubbed off. So I settled for cursing the stupid woman in a black Mercedes SUV with a slow and painful death & let it go cuz I was about to go have me some yummy soy mocha frapp.

Maybe I don't need to go to anger management classes after all...

Bobby Q

No, Bobby Q is not my cousin. Bobby Q is how Mama Piggy and millions of other Chinese pronouces bar b cue. Come on, you know I'm right. heehee

Never have I BBQed on my own, but since I inherited a propane grill, I figured I should take advantage of it. So Road Scholar and I made plans for a BBQ dinner. She was suppose to come over on a Friday but plans changed & we re-scheduled for the next day. It was a good thing.

After Road Scholar called to re-schedule I thought I could grill some salmon myself that night. To my dismay, after an hour of cleaning and fiddling around, I realize that there's no propane left in the tank. Sarah Michelle Gellar! What does this piggy have to do to get some grilled salmon??

It was pan fried salmon that night. sigh

First thing in the morning I go to Home Cheapo to swap out my propane tank. I rush home, hook up the tank & am ready to grill drumsticks for lunch. After five fildding around minutes, I realize the ignition button is broken. No problem. Just throw a match in. Of course it didn't dawn on me that the gas had been building up inside the grill.

Woosh! I turned my head to the left, as if that alone would save me from the flame. Luckily, my hair was in a ponytail, but still...there was the unmistakable smell of singed hair. I had to cut off a big section of crispy hair on the right side. My hair dresser is not going to be happy about this. Guess I could tell her I got Bobby Q-ed...

Like I said, it was a good thing Road Scholar re-scheduled. I learned valuable lessons about the propane grill in time to prevent our dinner of rib eye, sausage & veggie skewers and salad from going up in flames.