One Large Extra Value Meal - An Ode

"Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!"

Sigh.

The words simply don't do you justice, oh saucy, cheesy one. Paired with a large order of french fries, you weigh in at 1040 calories and 54 grams of delicious, yummy fat. Nutritionally, you have about zero redeeming qualities, what with your processed, frozen cheese, scant amount of iceberg lettuce, and dehydrated onions.

What you lack in nutrition, you make up for in flavor.

I "save up" to buy you. Not my money, thankfully, but my calories. My workouts. I work my ass off, literally, so that I can, on rare occasion, indulge in your $5.93 value meal goodness.

I try to eat healthy. I work out. Mostly a lot. I plan meals and cook and eat soups and salads. And if I want a slice of pizza or cake or a Big Mac? Well, let's just say I choose to not have one daily. But I do reward myself with junk food. :)

Yesterday was an indulgence day. It was also P90X day 2 for the third time.

At approximately 11:34 AM, I got up from my desk, walked to my car, drove through the McDonald's drive through, ordered a "Number 1, large, with a Diet Coke," paid my $5.93, took the bag, burned my mouth on the french fry I ate before driving away, made it back to the office with most of the fries left, sat at my desk, laid out that meal, opened up my instant messenger, and IM'd my friend, "Guess what is sitting in front of me." I then gobbled the entire meal in about 15 (okay 10) minutes.

I enjoyed every cheesy, saucy, processed, dehydrated, bready bite! The only problem? Not that I felt "gross" after eating such a monstrosity after eating and living healthy (as Bob and Jillian on The Biggest Loser would have you believe), but that I almost instantly wanted another one. A second Big Mac.

And in a huge effort of willpower and restraint, I did not return to the McDonald's drive through for it.

And for dinner? Baked chicken with spring vegetables and brown rice.

Point of this post? Not much. I just haven't posted in a while. And I really enjoy Big Macs. :)

Breaking In The IPhone

I think one of my favorite features on my new phone is the halfway decent camera it has. I've been used to the 1.2 megapixel camera in my old Razr, so the 2 megapixel camera is like a breath of fresh air!

I've told you all about my anniversary day, but I did not say it with pictures, so I thought I'd recap. We realized early on in the day that we'd forgotten our regular camera, but luckily, I had my phone.

Last Saturday (March 1), Dr Pop and I spent the afternoon out, playing, shopping, and celebrating our 5th year of marriage.

Our first stop was our local high end retail center because they had an Apple store. Dr Pop had waited patiently for two whole days and it was time to get him an iPhone, too. Before we did that, though, we went to lunch at this incredible place called Kona Grill, an Asian/Hawaiian joint. Dr Pop had sushi and I had this macadamia crusted chicken taco thing. Delish!

After we ate, we picked up his phone, did some window shopping, walked the entire length of the shopping center, then left. I had some new shoes to pick up.

Finally, we headed back to the car and were in the same food dilemma we'd been in all day. Where do we eat dinner?

I mean, do we go to the place where we had our first date? Or do we eat Mexican food (you know, in celebration of the actual location of our wedding)? In the end, we decided it was early enough to go to our first date spot and eat crab even though we were decidedly scummy-looking. Hey, it's Austin. No one really cares.

Of course, we didn't have our camera, but we caught a few images. And one of the coolest parts about the day was remembering how much we used to enjoy the restaurant!

And after doing what our mothers always told us not to do (i.e. play with our food), we stuffed ourselves silly with crab and vowed to go back again very soon.

Fortunately for us (unfortunately for Florida's stone crabs), "soon" turned out to be yesterday. Monday nights at Truluck's are "all you can eat stone crab claw night." We decided over the weekend that we definitely needed to take advantage of the deal, so yesterday after work we loaded Boy Pop* and ourselves into the car and headed downtown...

Boy Pop was less than impressed by the crab meat. So he had chicken while Dr P and I pigged out (he ate 17 and I ate 11 claws). And while we were finishing up our food, we found yet another great use for our phone!

Dr Pop had brilliantly thought to load a movie onto his phone. It just so happened that this particular one is one of Boy Pop's faves.

*Some people have a rule about bringing children to restaurants, and to tell the truth, I do, too. My rule is that children must behave. I watch the eyes of restaurant staff widen in horror occasionally when they see my little four-year-old walking in with us. What they don't know is that should my little one act up, I'm committed to leaving. Pretty much solves most problems.

I'd say that the phone is now effectively broken-in.

Hunter Style Chicken

I think I'll make this for dinner tonight. Seriously? This is simply delicious and only takes half an hour total to make.

I made it last year and it was a success. This time, I'm trying it without the orange zest as Dr Pop is not a fan.

I'll post the complete recipe on the recipe blog.

Happy Monday!

Wow!

If you do a search for www.marthastewart.com/radio, my blog pops up! Holy cow! I haven’t been a search result since I posted regularly on a now-defunct Texas Longhorn message board.

I mentioned the website because I listen to Everyday Food every now and then on Martha’s Sirius station (Channel 112) and heard a great recipe.

I love to cook, but I’m not one for bunches of steps, bowls, pans, or cleanup. My motto is that the easier the cleanup, the better the meal. Plus, I have always been slightly prejudiced against anything that is endorsed by Martha as “easy” or “simple” because my GOD! That woman is good at EVERYTHING! But I heard a recipe for a chicken dish and just had to try it. The result? Absolutely amazing! It was easy and quick. People, you cook it in the freaking MICROWAVE! I served it over brown rice and we ate every bite.

Y’all, I’m getting so into trying out recipes and baking and all this stuff. Last weekend, as I was waiting at Half Price Books for an offer on three boxes of books I'd brought in ($13.25, for all of them, by the way. Not good at all, but I took it because I didn't want to load them back into my car), I was searching the cookbook section for something new and interesting. I pretty much ignored my usual aisles. That is so unlike me!