Fear the Gelatin . . .

Monday conference luncheon at TheFour  Seasons Houston. Standard salad greens with a grilled chicken breast, some bok choy and rice. Not bad. Having somewhat gone paleo a little while back (after a 3 mo vegan stint) no rice for me. Pretty nice pan Asian sauce on the chicken. Although forgettable since 5 days later I can't tell you if it was coconut, curry or both.  

Now, also on the tables at each place was a mystery bowl with something yellow in it. Initially I thought it was a chilled soup but then the servers never gave it to us, and it looked like it had cream in it. Dairy is non paleo (and non vegan) so it's not like I was gonna eat it anyway. 

Did I say the conference was an oil and gas infrastructure conference? Lots of dudes. Handful of women. 

Back to the yellow bowls. Turns out it is dessert. The dudes looked super suspicious about eating it. Waiter says its pineapple panna cotta. I ask for bowl of fruit. Otherwise I'd be down with panna cotta. Once planet man saw me ask for fruit as well as my vegan coworker no one was touching dessert. The guy next to me asked what it was. Panna cotta not answering his question I said "custard". It didn't encourage him at all. Looking at the other tables it was clear the yellow panna cotta was not tempting anyone.  Watching the reactions to it however, excellent. As conference food is usually lowest common denominator of food the thinking behind panna cotta for dessert was clearly misguided. Four Seasons, surely you know you can't get all creative with a room full of oil and gas business guys and lawyers. Come on. You should've just done freaking soft serve.  

For conference food is say this was not bad. For Foir Seasons not impressive at all. Solidly mediocre. Overall I'd give it a 3   

On the conference front though, really well done and interesting.  

Can't wait to see what they serve next year! 

Return of the Mighty Wing.

I have to admit when Twist told me McDs  was putting Mighty Wings back out I was pretty excited. That's right suckers. The Mighty Wing is not new.  I fondly recall noshing on these at a McD in Switzerland   Let me tell you they were GOOD. No lie. Twist was a baby the first go round so he's been chomping at the bit to try these but hasn't found a McD near him yet that has them. I promised to cruise the one by my house and see if they were in. They were!!

Behold 

Spicy. Bold. Delicious. 

That says it all. Even better, it is accurate. They were spicy. A little too much for me but not fatal. Crispy and juicy.  Delicious? Yes. Yes they were. I'm not sure what sauce these come with but ranch would be good.  I was in the drive thru and didn't feel like quizzing the order dude on it and he didn't offer anything helpful.  Plus I got cheated out of the fries with my meal.  Booo. 

If you don't like spice I wouldn't bother with these. I'd also only order these during peak meal times. Lots of potential for these to be dried out and nasty if not made fresh and just sitting around waiting to get served. 

Lunch Squared . . .

Yesterday-Monday had last minute lunch hook up with Awesome Co-Worker.  She happened to be going to Whole Foods to run errands and I opted to go with.  We did food bar for lunch and ate on the nice little patio at the Whole Foods.  In Alexandria, Whole Foods was a massive part of our existence.  I'd say one of the saddest things about moving to Texas is the lack of Whole Foods in general and especially in The Woodlands.  Point being- I have missed you mightily Whole Foods.  Especially your big ass food bar!  I didn't see any of the strawberry shortcake like you used to make in Alexandria though.  Probably a good thing I didn't get to eat any though.  Hubs has asked me twice now in as many days if I am putting some weight back on.  WTF? Answer, not that it is any of your business: NO I AM NOT.  Back to the food bar:

Followed my nose to some Indian food and got a potato samosa, chicken tikka and chana masala and some naan.  Samosa was pretty good.  Not as good as the ones I pick up from the farmers market, but it did the trick.  Chicken Tikka was pretty substandard. Not much taste in the sauce or the chicken. Edible though so I ate it.  You know me. . . . chana was awe-some!  i just stirred it all together and mopped it up with the naan and was a happy camper.  As I said to ACW, "curry makes me happy."  Maybe a little too happy, but who cares.  Curry made Baby Awesome happy too so there you go.  Countdown has more or less begun for maternity leave for ACW.  Yay for her, boo for me.

Chana hiding under the naan.

Food bar I'll give a 3.5 due to the weakness of the chicken tikka, but it is recommended.  Whole Foods rarely does any of its food poorly in my experience.


On to today, Tuesday.  Ninfa Express bean and cheese burrito with guacamole and tomatoes and fresh tortillas!  when I say fresh I mean they took them right off the griddle thingy then boom! Made my food.  Sides of Mexican rice and some spicy ranchero beans.  $4.99 for all that too.  Can't eat that a lot though b/c that will for sure make me fat.  Reminds me-have to sign up for new session of the boot camp aqua torture class.  Did I mention I signed up to run a full marathon next year?  SO stupid.  I am fairly certain I will live to regret it.  Right now I am totally not into it at all.  Oh well.  I have until January.  And I will still be saying that in November.

"Hot sauccccce?"

Ninfa's burrito I'm wavering on.  It's not quite a 4, but it's better than a 3.5.  Well, whatever it is it's recommended.  Hasta luego beet-chez!

More leftovers . . .

The parade of leftovers continues.  Last night for dinner I had a curry chicken tender.  Marinade going on was very paste-like but I'll tell you what, makes for a good moist meat post grill.

Today for lunch I am having leftover pulled pork from my sliders and broccoli salad.  Most people make broccoli salad with raw broc.  I am not so much a fan of the broccoli raw so I do a flash steam first then chop it and add cheese, bacon (duh), grapes, tomato and red onion.  Dressing is a mayo, vinegar, sugar combo thing.  Very tasty.  Even 3 days later it still is pretty crisp even with the dressing on it.

I used a filter on this.  The food really wasn't so faded.  On the paper plate it just made me think of a church potluck. I think my forte is making church potluck comfort food type stuff.  And, it's just what I like anyway.  Cookie was not part of the leftovers, but we will get to that in a  minute. 

The pulled pork is super tender and has retained good flavor sitting around in the fridge in fat and juices.  However, and I can't believe I am about to say this, it is a tad on the salty side.  A little too salty even for me, a salt whore.  Roll is King's Hawaiian.  Nothing to say about this.  It's one of the best things on the planet period.  I'd like to thank my mother for introducing this to me as a child and ruining my life forever.  King's is sold in abundance here in Texas.  It was hard to find back east so I didn't eat them often which was cool.  Now that they are everywhere I buy them all the time for my kids and end up eating more of them than I should.  #1 Son likes to make turkey sandwiches with them. Specifically, open face turkey sandwiches.  I get the what-for if I put the turkey on the roll like a regular sandwich and send it to school that way. It's the little things.

Cookie was free in the kitchen from Frank's Pizza.  Why Frank's makes cookies I've no idea.  But it was there and it's oatmeal raisin so I took it.  It's a big cookie so doubt I will eat it all.  Overall not bad.  tastes like Otis Spunkmeyer dough, so I'm putting my money down that is in fact what it is.  Otis has his place.  It's not awful, but I prefer something else.  Clearly not as good as homemade or Au Bon Pain even.

I'll have to give myself a 3.5 or even a 3 on this meal.  it's kind of heavy to do more than once in a week.  Although if you come to my house and I've made it fresh for you I'd give it a 4 and def recommend it.  I sent some pork home with people so will have to do an informal poll.

Tomorrow I might bring in the chicken and potato salad.  We shall see.  I also have a ton of crackers, Boursin cheese (OMG how good is that stuff?) and olives.  Hubs says I need to stop with the olives and cheese and crackers b/c I am the only one who ever eats them.  Prob. so.  I also have a jar of cornichons from Trader Joe's.  They are heavy on the vinegar and light on the dill and garlic so not sure if I will be able to finish them.  Granddad may have to come in as Closer on that one.

Lunch Round Up . . .

I have been remiss in my postings this week and am getting behind.  Here is a brief recap of what has been going on with lunch and the menu for today:

Monday:  Called to duty as lunch companion again.  And went for dumplings, again.  Pork chicken combo with spicy sauce instead of mild.  The spicy is only marginally so compared to the mild so I'll be getting it from now on.  Dumplings were good.  Wrappers not too doughy which is always a plus for me.

And while we are at it, let's check on the quality of lime garnish Starbucks is putting into its Refreshers.  You may recall the last one I got was pretty gross.  Here is the most recent lime slice:

Eh, not much better.  Not sure why this Starbucks repeatedly has old yucky looking limes.

Tuesday some of us piled in the car and took a field trip to Arby's.    As I was on the heels of the Trader Joe's burrito fiasco I wasn't that hungry and had a salad with Diet Mountain Dew.

That was not a typo.  I did indeed have a Diet Dew fountain drink at the Arby's.  I know you're jealous.  The fountain Diet Dew is hard to come by.  It was heaven.  Salad was good too.  Very fresh.  First salad I have ever had at the Arby's.  My usual fare is the junior roast beef, potato cakes and jamoca shake.  To mix it up I will have a french dip.  Since I didn't get my usual I took a picture of my friend's food.

You see here he got curly fries in lieu of potato cakes.  While I do like the Arby's curly fries, as a lifelong potato cake person I cannot personally advocate for the curly fries, but will not hold it against you if you get them.  Our other co-worker had ordered a chocolate shake before I could stop him.  After extolling the virtues of the jamoca shake he went back and changed his order then concurred that it was indeed a fine shake.  While we ate, known Arby's fanatic, Favorite Lunch Buddy 1/Ducky Momo regaled us all with tales of living in NYC and trekking far distances to the only known Arby's on the island and singlehandedly educating the franchise about the appropriateness of serving potato cakes all day vs. just at breakfast.  And I have to agree, who doesn't know that? That is just criminal to deprive people of potato cakes after 10.  Oh that's right, it was an Arby's in New York City.  Combined with a Cinnabon.  Down in the West Village.  So many reasons why they would be completely clueless as to Arby's tradition.  Reasons, but not excuses.  There is no excuse for running an Arby's that way!  Anyway, Arby's was a pleasure as always, and we all left happy.  Do I even need to rate it for you?  Fine then.  A 5 with a RECOMMENDED.

Indeed!

Which brings us to today, Wednesday and leftover Trader Joe's chicken enchiladas.

They are not quite that color, I used an Instagram filter b/c they came out kind of dark and I wanted to show some details.  Details of an enchilada are kind of impossible though.  Especially leftover enchiladas.  So these came in a pack of 4--clearly 2 servings thank you very much Trader Joe's.   Hubs got these for dinner Monday night.  He ate most of it and thought they were just ok.  I tried them then too and will say I thought they could use more ranchero sauce and the chicken was dry.  What a difference a day and a half makes.  Leftover these are fabulous!  I could still use a little more ranchero sauce on them but overall very nice.  Great melding of flavors.  Chicken is nice and tender now and moist.  Not too much cilantro.  Not a big fan. People over use and it drives me crazy.  This is just right.  Ranchero is nearly 100% the way I prefer it.  Little bit of a beef stock undertone and not too much of a just plain tomato flavor.  Good hint of garlic.  Reminds me of my favorite place back home.

 

Here is the unfiltered shot after I have eaten about half of it.  Please excuse my dirty utensils!  Just overall feeling very pleased about this lunch.  From a calorie standpoint, it's 590 for both enchiladas.  If I'm being honest I should have only eaten one.  That started out my intent but I got carried away but my enjoyment of them.  No bundt cake for me later.  Which reminds me, we just got a Nothing Bundt Cake next door to the Trader Joe's which makes it all to easy to go buy cake.  And they are f'ing good.  I need to check on those calories.  I'm sure they are just short of catastrophic.  So far we have had cinnamon swirl, white chocolate (that I had none of b/c Hubs and Little Dude ate the whole thing before I could say Boo), white choc with raspberry and chocolate chocolate chip.  No one liked cinnamon but me, but it was really nice.  All the flavors are great.  Not too heavy which unfortch makes it easy to eat the whole thing.  And by whole thing I mean the small 4 inch cakes, the Bundtinis.  And yes, you do feel ridiculous ordering a Bundtini.  I just ask "for the small one there".

Oh, ratings.  Cake and enchiladas I would actually give 5s to and recommended.   

Now we are all caught up.  Tomorrow I will more than likely be having my leftover Trader Joe's Chicken Tikka Masala.  Stay tuned.  I know how thrilling that sounds.