Food – Page 31 – Not Content to Crawl

Staycation – Day 1 – Friday

Posted onJuly 18, 2014July 22, 20143 Comments

I’m on a staycation for the next 11 days, woot!

Day 1 started out with a trip the eye doctor, and then after coming home to eat breakfast, I headed to the library to relax and read some magazines for two hours which just flew by. I borrowed some magazines, books, DVDs, and even a game called Catchphrase that I’m looking forward to trying. On the way home I stopped at another library to pick up a book that was on hold.

When I got home I cleaned the rats’ cages and let Milo and Marshmallow run around a bit on the bed together. They’ve been introduced in the tub twice before and while Marshmallow can be a little rough when he’s playing, they aren’t trying to kill one another which is a good sign. Marshmallow keeps licking Milo’s genitals, though, which was freaking me out. But after a little internet research this is apparently a way rats sometimes assert their dominance. It’s just weird because I’ve never seen other rats do it before.

My brother stopped by after work and we went to Aldis to pick up some food. Then we ordered a couple of pizzas from Dominos since they were offering 50% off when you order online. I almost freaked out when the total came to $30 before realizing the coupon hadn’t been applied. When I fixed that it was a more reasonable $16.76 which is still not cheap for two medium pizzas, but a lot better than $30. How they think two 12″ pizzas are worth $30 is beyond me. Both were pretty good. We got the Honolulu Hawaiian and the Wisconsin 6 cheese with pepperoni on one half.

After dinner we played bags. Joe decided to make his own boards and had been working on them for the last month. We’ve wanted some for quite awhile but weren’t willing to shell out $200+ for them.

I think they came out great and it ended up costing us $110 so we paid nearly half. We had purchased decals for them but returned them because the shade of orange didn’t match the paint on the boards so they would have looked stupid.

We ordered the bean bags from Etsy in case anyone is interested in buying their own.

Pizza, Lilacs, and Tulips

Posted onMay 21, 2014

Friday we decided to use a gift certificate to get a yummy large deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s. I thought I had good pizza in college when I discovered Gino’s East. Wrong. Then in my early twenties I thought Giordano’s had the deep dish pizza of my dreams. Wrong again. It turns out Lou Malnati’s deep dish is sent straight from heaven. And during the holidays they offer incentives to purchase a gift card as they give you free money. Delicious pizza is great but delicious free pizza is even better. We bought a $100 gift card and in exchange got a free $25 gift certificate good until the end of June. But it’s gone, gone, gone because while their deep dish pizza is awesome, it’s not cheap. A large deep dish pizza with half sausage and butter crust is around $20 plus some because we order an extra helping of their delicious chunky tomato sauce on the side. This would very likely be my preferred last meal if I had to choose one. But I digress. If you’ve never had Lou’s, what the heck are you waiting for?

On Saturday we took E to see Godzilla. Loved it! I especially enjoyed the twist on how Godzilla was portrayed. I’ll say no more so as not to spoil it for anyone. We also watched two other movies over the weekend – Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit (2 stars) and Robocop (4 stars).

On Sunday we went a little nuts at Target and spent $113.25 on groceries. Well, that’s the value of the groceries we bought. See, they had a spend $50 get $10 off deal going so we strategized and split our purchases up so we could use two coupons. With all the other coupons, Cartwheel discounts, and deals (including the $15 in free gift cards we received), our true out of pocket expense was more like $65. Now our freezer and pantry is full full full, just the way I like it (mostly; sometimes all the stuff makes me a bit anxious). We loaded up on Skinny Cow ice cream since it was a steal and makes for a nice portion-controlled snack (see: fewer calories than a bowl of ice cream).

After dropping off all our goodies at home and putting away the perishables, we packed a lunch and set out for Lilacia Park in Lombard. This time of year is the only time we visit, and for good reason – it is chuck full of sweet-smelling lilac trees and bushes. It was crowded to say the least. It was a beautiful day to enjoy nature and the intoxicating smells of the lilacs. And while that is what the park is known for, I was more excited by the various tulips on display. I’ve never seen so many and so many different shapes and colors. It was an awesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The rest of the weekend consisted of cleaning the house and cooking good food including this stuffed shells recipe I plan on adding to our regular rotation. I also baked some pumpkin bars that my SIL gave me when she moved out and was clearing out her pantry with the intention of pawning them off on my coworkers since I’m not a fan of pumpkin stuff. I ended up making homemade cream cheese frosting for them that came out amazing. Joe and I loved the combo so there will be no sharing after all, haha!

Omaha Steaks

Posted onMay 17, 2014

The weekend before last when E was over we decided to take our Omaha Steaks gift cards over to a store and cash them in. With a coupon in hand, plus a buy one get two free deal for new customers, we made out! We spent $90 (we had $110 worth of gift cards so nothing was out of pocket) and came home with:

27 burgers
8 jumbo hot dogs
4 polish sausages
4 twice baked potatos
2 filet minons
2 new york strip steaks
20 chicken cordon bleu bites
4 boneless chicken breasts

So far we’ve only eaten 4 hot dogs and 2 hamburgers; we’ll be eating good for a few months! I would have never even considered buying from Omaha Steaks if it wasn’t for the gift cards, but now I’m going to be bummed that we won’t be able to afford them in the near future.

Zoos

Posted onApril 20, 2014

Last Saturday, the 12th, was a beautiful day in Chicagoland. Joe’s son was playing in a band competition so we started off the morning trying a new restaurant called Stacked near his high school. After much deliberation, I decided to order the banana bread french toast which was amazing. Seriously, it was so rich and filling that I couldn’t finish it and took a whole slice (the dish comes with three) home. It came topped with fresh bananas and a side of some seriously mouthwatering honey cream cheese. It was the perfect fuel to get through sitting in the high school for two hours.

Later that afternoon we stopped at Cosley Zoo to check out the new lamb(s) and renew our membership. We don’t necessarily visit the zoo enough in one year to recoup the membership cost but that’s where their reciprocal agreement comes in. This year we plan to visit Des Moines’ Blank Park Zoo where we’ll get free admission (a $22 savings) and Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo (a $15 savings) so after paying $59 we’ve already recouped $37. We only have to visit Cosley Zoo three times in a year (@ $3 per person) to fully recoup the cost of membership and that’s if we don’t end up visiting one of the zoos in Wisconsin at all since one trip to Milwaukee County Zoo would save us $28.50 and one trip to Racine Zoo would save us $8.00 (it’s a very small zoo). Honestly, if you live in the Chicago burbs and like visiting zoos you should really buy a membership from Cosley instead of the one from Brookfield Zoo (unless, of course, you prefer visting Brookfield but I’ve been going there since I was a toddler so it’s not that exciting anymore).

Blackhawks

Posted onDecember 13, 2013December 25, 2013

Hubby and I had the opportunity to attend a Blackhawks game this past Sunday in a penthouse suite thanks to my employer, and boy was it sweet! I absolutely loved the view and actually got really into following the game. It’s too bad regular seats/tv doesn’t give you the same birds-eye view of all the action because it’s seriously awesome. If I had one of those suites I’d probably become a hardcore hockey fan.

Plus the food in the suite was delicious. I had some sort of chicken with fancy cheese (brie I think) sandwich that was out of this world. And look at this brownie. LOOK AT IT! Seriously, it was 3 inches thick, moist, rich, and covered in the best caramel (which I usually do not care for). Between the two of us we could barely finish it. Best brownie EVER!

It got me thinking about how the United Center is home to both the Bulls (basketball) and the Blackhawks and how they have to switch the flooring regularly to accommodate both teams. Pretty cool stuff!

Unfortunately the night flew by and I am now forever spoiled by the penthouse suite experience.