Hang Loose, Bro!!

Market = Breakfast Burrito.

Lunch = more prunes!

Snack = more peach rings.

After a good day at the Market, we had a Caramel Pretzel Brownie left. Being a rare leftover, we took full advantage!

Sidney and I split it while we were on the way to my parents' house.

Once there, my mom and I did some tax free shopping. I got some shoes. Then we went back to our favorite place - Sprouts. There, we got some dark chocolate covered pecans and blueberries. When we got home, I wasted no time digging in.

I started with a single pecan and blueberry. I ended up with probably 3 blueberries and 4 pecans. So, so good.

For dinner, I suggested that we return to Longboards, which is a southern California-inspired restaurant serving wraps and bowls.

Upon glancing at the menu, you know it's going to be a good day when you see something called the "OG Menu." I among fellow bros!

Of the OG wraps listed, I opted for the 619 (San Diego area code) but without the olives. Also, OG wraps are bigger than the "regular" grilled wraps. By how much? Take a look...

Sidney and my mom ordered regular grilled wraps, but I'm OG so I ordered an OG.

As far as the grilled wrap goes...again, take a look.

The combination of steak, shrimp, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, pico de gallo with lots and lots of cilantro, guacamole, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle ranch were incredible. Look at this wonderfulness:

I've known for a while that this place is really good. I mean, I've eaten here several times before. I took Andrew here a while ago and he really liked it. I was still really impressed with it tonight, and it was even better than I remembered it to be. I officially want to eat here like every week now.

Fortunately for me and unfortunately for my long dead detox, Sidney couldn't quite finish her wrap. She deemed it not enough to save, so she generously gifted the remnants to me.

She had ordered the Cabo Chicken, which is essentially some chicken, chipotle ranch, and in this case mozzarella cheese, among a few other things. It was good, but it couldn't compare to my amazing combination of broteins and gains!

Detox? What Detox?

How's detoxing going, you ask? Quite well, actually! Take a look:

For breakfast I had a brotein bar, and for lunch I went back to Sprouts and got some more of these:

I got a little more than 2 pounds, which is way more than prunes. I was admittedly a bit surprised to learn that only 5 prunes was 100 calories, but on second thought I realized that this means that 10 prunes have about the same caloric content as my brotein bars. Wanting to mix it up a little while boosting my detox, I decided to eat 10 prunes for lunch. They're actually quite tasty.

It was then off to finish our baking for the Market. Today we still needed to bake our muffins and brownies. I was in charge of mixing up the brownies, and as such there was this:

You can rest assured that I licked the spatula clean. A little while later I found myself in a staring contest with an open bag of chocolate chips. I decided to eat some to assert my dominance over the chocolate chips.

I also found these interestingly shaped Danish Butter Cookies.

Of course, I tried the most interesting shape. I could only assume that the different shapes tasted differently, but I only had this one cookie.

For dinner, our hosts (Sidney's parents) decided to cook up a couple steaks that were older than Sidney and I's relationship (over 2.5 years). Surprisingly, they weren't the least bit freezer burnt. They were also excellently seasoned and grilled to perfection. To complement the wonderfully aged steaks were some breakfast style potatoes. They were very addictive.

Sidney had to literally put the potatoes away to keep me from eating them.

When we got back home, I indulged in a snack that I had not tasted in years and years and years.

I used to eat these things all the time. But look, I turned out fine. We made this occasion special by pairing them with some milk.

Ahhhh, just look like I remember. It's crazy that a taste that I haven't tasted in so long could seem so familiar. The second I tasted it it seemed like I had just tasted it yesterday.

Needless to say, these things haven't gotten worse over the years. Or if they have gotten worse, my standards have declined in proportion.

Then, Sidney and I broke into her Sprouts peach rings. Like other things from Sprouts, these were just like the run of the mill gas station peach rings but better. They were super soft, they had great flavor, and we ate like half this box.

Oh well, at least we didn't eat the whole thing. So much for my detox, though.

Perpetual Mind Blow

I had a couple more brotein bars today, for breakfast and lunch, in my yet ongoing attempt to detox. 

And since the cake turned out to be so good, Sidney and I kept our leftovers all to ourselves. While this wouldn't normally be a problem at all, she had already promised her sister a piece. To remedy this situation, we went to Billy Vanilly and got her a strawberry cupcake.

While we were there, Sidney couldn't pass up on getting a cupcake herself. She decided to try the wedding cake cupcake. She so graciously let me have a couple bites.

It was really good, and exactly how I remember classic wedding cake tasting. I now want to attempt to make my own version of a wedding cake. It was really good!

Later, we got to baking cookies for the Market, and it was getting late and I still had not eaten dinner, so I had a pick me up.

I also had our Frankencookie to look forward to.

This week, it was mostly Devil's Chocolate. I'm not complaining!

I also found a wayward fortune cookie, so I had that too, because cookie.

It was a actually a really deep "fortune" this time!

When I finally got back home, we still had lasagna leftovers!! Yay!!!!!!!! We also had some chicken thighs leftover from who knows when.

I got some ranch for the chicken thighs.

But enough about those chicken thighs. This lasagna though! It was so good that I went back and got a little more (yes, there was more!). I also got some leftover garlic bread and naan because why not.

I piled a piece of lasagna with a big piece of Italian sausage and generous portions of ricotta and mozzarella on top of a piece of garlic bread.

Okay, now I'm officially convinced. This is the best thing that we have ever made. Seriously. I am fully confident and comfortable saying that. At least nothing I have ever made has ever been this good. It's been days, and I still can't believe how good this is. Every time I taste it my mind is reblown. Why can't everything I make be this good?! I guess I can blame it on my quest for brotein! When in doubt, blame the cut!

Back to Reality

Unfortunately, I didn't bring any brotein bars with me to my parents' house, and not wanting to buy any more I made do with this granola bar. 

It was surprisingly good. It was actually better than my brotein bars. It doesn't have 20 grams of brotein though, so it's not worth it.

But it was worth it today!

I then did my parents a favor by mowing the lawn.

I even edged everything! Look at me go!

When my mom got home, we decided to attempt to make sugar free frosting by using powdered erythritol instead of powdered sugar.

It tasted very much like regular chocolate frosting, but there was something slightly different about it. It had some sort of tangy, cooling taste that is very hard to describe. It also may have had a slight aftertaste, but this was minor. We came to the conclusion that it could very well be used in place of tradition frosting, but that it would be very expensive to do so! Erythritol is not cheap, and this takes a lot of it!

For lunch, I had another one of those usually not worth it but today totally worth it granola bars.

Still on the high and over inflated confidence from the lasagna and cake, I decided to attempt to make butter chicken for dinner tonight. It was coming together really well, and we even had some rice and naan to go with it.

Admittedly, the naan was prepackaged. But that's okay.

The rice was brown basmati.

Everything came together nicely...

...especially with some fresh cilantro for a nice littler garnish.

I poured some butter chicken out onto a comfy bed of rice and dug in.

Was I just as blown away with this butter chicken as I had been with the lasagna and cake? Quite simply, no. When all the vegetables had been cooking with all the spices, it smelled so good and so much like butter chicken smells on the buffet of a good Indian restaurant. But when I tasted it, all I tasted was an almost overwhelming taste of ginger. You see, this is most likely my mistake as I elected to use ground ginger instead of fresh grated ginger, but even so that really rich butter chicken flavor was simply lacking. I could almost taste it. It was right there, trying so hard to come out, but it just wouldn't. It wasn't bad by any means, but it wasn't as good as my now likely unreasonably high expectations wanted it to be. I'll try again, maybe with a different recipe, but I'm not giving up. If I could make a really good butter chicken at home, I would be so happy. It's one of my favorite foods after all!!

Also, this garlic naan was really good with butter.

But what isn't good with butter???