food brain

we went to our 5280 dinner at the restaurant kevin taylor on sunday night with our small group - so fun!  the portions were a little on the small side (which is par for the course at a fancy restaurant), but oh so tasty.  i got the asparagus and gnocchi in a truffle parmesan sauce for my appetizer, lamb loin and ravioli with artichoke and gouda for my entree, and for dessert a cookies and cream semifreddo (which is basically like a chilled cookies and cream mousse with an oreo crust on the bottom).  yummm.  i'm hungry just typing that out.  the guys were all a little disappointed that the food didn't come in greater quantity and threatened to make us go to outback steakhouse (where you get four huge courses plus beverage) for 5280 dinner next year.  it's entirely possible that they were just spoiled by rodizio's all you can eat meat last year, though.  (personally, i'd rather take advantage of eating at amazing fancy restaurants that i would never go to normally when i have an opportunity like 5280 - dinner for two for $52.80 from a pre fixed menu.  i think scott's of the same opinion, so we'll have to work on the rest of them.)

on a much less fancy-food note, i made my favorite cooking light baked potato soup last night and it was sooo good.  if you haven't made it yet, please do so tonight - you will love it.  i bake my potatoes in the microwave because it's way quicker than the oven, use the baggied 'real bacon' bits from the grocery so that my house doesn't smell like bacon for the next week, and skim milk because that's what we have - it is so quick and so easy.  heat flour and milk, dump in potato, cheese, sour cream, seasoning, and green onion, and serve.  mmm.  i'm a little bit jealous because we had leftovers and i had scott take them for lunch today.  yes, my job buys my lunch so i don't have to bring leftovers, but it's just that good.  i basically keep sour cream and bacon bits in the fridge solely for the purpose of this soup.

let me see - non-food related things going on in my life ...  i sent the check off to our mortgage company last week to have it endorsed and returned, but they just called and said that our adjuster stopped filling out the amount of the check midway through, so they have to send it back to us, have it finished, and then return it to them.  sweet.  it's fine, though, we're really not in any imminent rush on the roof thing - it's not like we have any leaks in the house.  the gutter guy is coming out to revise his estimate on thursday (apparently the gutter industry is hard up for work - as soon as we mentioned getting a comparison bid, the gutter guy said he could drop his price for us).  we'd rather use this guy since they work with our roofing company on a normal basis so we think communication would be easier, but we also want to make sure we're getting a good price.  i feel guilty sometimes when people drop their prices for me because i know that they need the profit to make a living, but i have to be a wise consumer and trust that they're being a wise business person.  if i only had unlimited cash, i'd happily be fleeced by every home repair person in the metro.  oh, and we're having a house painter come out to give us an estimate on doing our trim on thursday.  we really need to figure out colors.

and, unrelated to both food and my roof, i have a sore throat today.  it's been building since sunday, but has definitely progressed to full on sore for today.  i woke up a few times last night with a cramp in my forehead muscles because i was furrowing my brow so tightly because it hurt to swallow in my sleep.  i took some advil and scott dug out the chloroseptic strips for me, and i'm pretty sure i'll survive.  95% chance, at least.  hmm, maybe if i complain about my sore throat enough, scott will leave the baked potato soup for me and my achy throat to enjoy!  mm, except that i had already planned to make this bacon and mushroom pasta for dinner tonight ... and, well, mushrooms and bacon and pasta just sounds so tasty.

(for the record, no, i do not cook like this all the time.  last week on the menu: papa john's heart pizza, tuna casserole, smashburger/mcdonald's, and three nights where i assume we must have eaten leftovers because i cooked nothing.)