Vietnamese, Mexican, Italian…

Exactly how is is Sunday night already?

We actually had a pretty lazy, relaxing weekend. On Friday I met Brian for lunch at Green Papaya, a Vietnamese restaurant near his office. Brian has all of these great restaurants at his disposal- one of the perks of working in Uptown, I suppose. We started with the chicken spring rolls:

I’d read great things on Yelp about their peanut sauce. Let’s just say that much to Brian’s horror, I was still slurping it up with a spoon long after the rolls were gone.

For my entree, Bun Ga Nuong: Vermicelli noodles with chicken, lemongrass, pickled veggies, peanuts and fish sauce. I couldn’t decide between this and the pork version, so the waiter had the kitchen add pork as well. The chicken was just okay; the pork was delicious. It had a sweet, almost teriyaki flavor.

I grounded myself for the rest of the afternoon in order to get the house straightened up. We listed an armoire on Craig’s List late Thursday night and I was hoping we’d have some people stop in to check it out over the weekend. No such luck. Are there any real buyers on Craig’s List? We received tons of inquiries, only to be followed up with, “I’m on an offshore oil rig… buying the armoire for my auntie… will send a cashier’s check and have my mover come pick it up.” Seriously, this was one of the emails we received pretty much verbatim. Uh, no.

For dinner we need our weekly Mexican fix. Usually we would go to Matt’s in Lakewood, but one of our friends recently had a very sketchy, unfortunate experience there involving her credit card- and not to get into too much detail, but I have to say that I’m very disappointed in how the restaurant handled the situation and am a little too freaked out to eat there anytime soon. Anyway, Mariano’s it was… I had the Gringo Style Enchiladas (chicken enchiladas with ranchero, topped with grilled veggies):

People keep telling us that we need to take advantage of things like eating out and seeing movies (and sleeping, and showering…) before baby Jack gets here. We’ve been trying to take that to heart- Friday night we ended up going to see Funny People after dinner. I loved it! It was a good mix of comedy and drama. Love Judd Apatow. And Adam Sandler, of course.

On Saturday Brian was a badass and made us pancakes for breakfast. We threw some sliced almonds and ground flax into the batter, and I sauteed bananas for a topping. Really easy: just combine sliced bananas, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Then melt a Tbs or so of butter in a skillet and add bananas. Cook for a few minutes, tossing every few seconds until the sauce thickens and the bananas carmelize but don’t turn to mush. Oh, and we added a little vanilla extract at the end.

The rest of Saturday was lazy. We cleaned out the office and took yet another load to Goodwill. I finally saw the Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives featuring Twisted Root the other day and have been craving it ever since. Guy Fieri tried the Western Burger, and it looked really, really good- though nothing like what I usually order: hamburger (I ordered turkey) topped with pepperjack, bacon, fried onions and jalapenos… AKA, heartburn on a bun. Topped with their special BBQ sauce and mustard:

It was good, but honestly, I couldn’t taste many of the individual toppings. They all kind of melded together.

Brian had the genius idea of ordering the Fried Ride: fried pickles, sweet potato fries, onion strings, fried green beans and curly fries. NO ONE needs this much fried in their life. Ever.

The rest of Saturday night was boring. We rented The Great Buck Howard. It was cute but nothing I’d watch again.

Yesterday during the lazy-fest we watched an episode of Giada at Home featuring quick meals. For breakfast she made a parfait consisting of ricotta and greek yogurt, layered with jam and granola and topped with toasted almonds. By some miracle we actually had all of those ingredients in the fridge so I threw that together for breakfast this morning:

Cute, right?

Chloe got to lick the ricotta-yogurt bowl afterwards:

This afternoon we registered at Babies R Us. I hate that place. Buy Buy Baby has officially spoiled me with their clean store and amazing customer service.

My parents invited us for dinner at Angelo’s in Lakewood. I like this place, but damn is their food RICH. We all took home doggie bags. Started with the Greek salad:

Which was delicious. The caesar normally comes with entrees but this is much better. Like tiramisu, caesar salad is overrated.

I kind of created my own entree: angel hair with grilled chicken and vegetables.

Off to upload photos then bedtime. I just realized that I have a dentist appt tomorrow (yikes)… oh, and we have our big prenatal hospital tour tomorrow evening (double yikes)!

Before I forget, the 22 week bump photo. I completely forgot to take one last week.

So I’m going to get BIGGER?? How is this possible?

-SURVEY-

What do you think of when you hear “comfort food dessert”?

We have a book club meeting on Wednesday and the theme is “comfort foods”… I know that I want to make something sweet but am kind of at a loss as what exactly that should be. Help!