June 17, 2011- Luna Park Cafe

I planned on having left over barbecued chicken tonight, but it didn't sound good.  We continued to let carbs entice us by heading to Luna Park Cafe for dinner.  I had a bacon cheddar burger with fries.  Ben had chilli fries with a hot link in it.  Katie nibbled on a cheese quesadilla and had a couple fries.  We all shared an ice cream sundae for dessert.  Ben and I are sufficiently stuffed and satisfied. 

Friday, 4/22/2011

Tonight we drove to Spokane to spend Easter with my family.  Katie and I met Ben downtown for dinner before starting our drive.  In the past we have headed straight out only to have to stop for a meal an hour down the road.  It seemed, since we were not able to leave before 5pm, that having dinner first would be better for traffic and our stomachs.  We went to a Red Robin just a block away from Ben's office. 

Katie had chicken strips and fries with ranch dressing and chocolate milk.  Ben had buffalo wings and a side caesar salad.  I had a bacon cheese burger without the bun and a side salad.  I ordered the burger in a lettuce wrap.  Well, that was just way too much lettuce.  Yikes!  I ended up pulling the burger out and eating it on it's own.  I sure did miss having ketchup on it.  It is amazing how much sugar is in a tablespoon of ketchup.  Too much for maintaining a low-carb diet right now.  

Our dining and travel plans worked perfectly.  We only had one minor slow down on our way to Spokane and didn't have to stop.  We are looking forward to a lovely weekend with our family:)

Sunday, 4/17/2011

I made Buffalo Chicken Fries tonight without the carbs, and it turned out better than I expected.  I didn't dredge the chicken in flour; I stuck with just salt and pepper.  For the buffalo sauce, I left out the honey and just used the hot sauce and butter.  The sauce didn't stick to the chicken quite like it does when the chicken is coated in flour, but it stuck enough.  I poured some of the extra sauce into a bowl and used it to dip my chicken fries in.  By the way, this recipe makes far more sauce than you need for the amount of chicken it calls for.  You can easily half the sauce recipe or double the amount of chicken.

For a salad, I combined mixed greens and mushrooms with a chipotle ranch dressing.  I think I am starting to really like mushrooms in my salads.

Monday, 4/11/2011

Ben took today off to extend our vacation a bit.  Even though I had to work a couple hours this afternoon, it felt like an extra day of vacation with him home.  Tomorrow Ben and I are going to start an Atkins diet.  I'm addicted to carbs right now and need to cut back.  I can only seem to cut back when I follow a strict plan.  Since Atkins worked for me before, I know I can do it.  I am thankful that Ben is willing to try it with me.  It would be hard to follow it while making him foods I can't eat.  Since tomorrow we will have to cut out almost all carbs, we went out for the last carb-loaded meal we will have for a while.  

We finally had a meal at Jak's Grill.  We've heard nothing but great praise for this restaurant.  We got there just after 5:00pm and were seated right away.  Ben and I each had a burger.  I went with pesto mayo, bacon, and cheddar on my burger.  Ben stuck with the standard red pepper mayo and added bacon and blue cheese.  The burgers were outstanding.  The Seattle Metropolitan magazine ranked them in second place behind Zippy's Giant Burgers for the best burger in Seattle.  We do not agree.  Jak's should be #1.  There really is no comparison.  We both opted to upgrade from french fries to potato pancakes.  The pancakes were good, but I preferred the fries I swiped from Katie's plate.  Katie had chicken strips and fries for her dinner.  For dessert, Ben and I each got a chocolate mousse layered cake a la mode.  Yes, we could have shared, but I didn't want to.  Katie had a single scoop of vanilla ice cream.  

I am sufficiently STUFFED.  I think I will be ready to cut out carbs tomorrow:)

Wednesday, 3/30/2011

I got a coupon online to get a pretty good discount on a haircut at my favorite salon, Gene Juarez.  Since today was the last day to get the discount, I made an appointment.  Ben met me at the salon after work, and took Katie out for dinner while I had my appointment.  After I finished, I met them at Gordon Biersch for dinner.  They were already done eating.  Katie polished off her chicken strips and carrots with gusto.  She was ready to leave when I got there.  Ben had a pasta dish with shrimp in it.  He ordered me garlic fries and a Southwest chicken sandwich-- a grilled chicken breast, pepper jack cheese, roasted red peppers, and a chipotle mayo.  

Ben and I didn't communicate very well about the timing of dinner.  I asked him to text me when they decided on a restaurant.  Then it took me a while to reply to his text.  I asked ask him to order me something yummy.  He thought that I meant I was on my way.  I only replied because it was a good time to text during my haircut.  I figured it would take a while for the waiter to stop to take the order and that it wouldn't be out right away.  And, I was okay with knowing it might be a bit cold.  Well, the reality is that waiter stopped to take my order as soon as Ben got my text, and then the food was to the table in a couple minutes, way before I arrived.  They ended up putting my plate under a heat lamp for a while and eventually remade it. I felt really guilty about the waste of food.  But, the waitress was kind and said it gave them something to eat:)  What great service! 

Saturday, 2/5/2011

We spent today at Stevens Pass.  Ben, his brother Spencer, and our friends, Karen and Michel, skied most of the day.  Katie and I hung out in the snow-- walking around, throwing snowballs, and watching all the people come and go.  Spencer spent some time with us in the later afternoon since he had a headache and his feet were hurting.  We finished up around 4:30 and drove to Karen and Michel's house to change our clothes.  We tried to eat dinner at the Red Hook Brewery, but ended up at Red Robin when the wait at the brewery was 1.5 hours. 

I had the grilled chicken pesto pasta, which was really tasty.  Ben had three steak sliders.  Katie did a fair job eating her ketchup only burger with fries.  Red Robin is always pretty darn good.

Monday, 1/31/2011

We finished off the buffalo chicken fries for our dinner tonight.  I put together a small fruit salad of raspberries and bananas to go with the chicken.  I cooked up some chicken nuggets for Katie, since she wouldn't eat the chicken we were having. 

Sunday, 1/30/2011

Ben was in charge of preparing dinner tonight.  I was babysitting at a friend's house all afternoon and couldn't be much help to him.  He made buffalo chicken fries and served a wedge of iceberg lettuce on the side.  Katie was not at all interested in the chicken, but she did show a surprising interested in the lettuce.  

Ben altered the quantities for the hot sauce mixture ingredients to try to increase the heat and decrease the sweetness.  He used 1/3 of a cube of butter and only a 1/2 tablespoon of honey.  We plan on having this again tomorrow, so he cooked up two pounds of chicken.  He worried that there was not going to be enough sauce for the extra chicken, and so we doubled it.  I didn't know that he had halved the honey in the first batch of sauce.  So, I added a full tablespoon of honey to the second batch.  The result of these changes was a slight increase in heat and it was still too sweet.  In the end, we didn't need the second batch of sauce. 

Tuesday, 1/4/2011

At 3:30pm I got a call from my Aunt Mary.  She and my Uncle Greg were in town to see the Picasso exhibit at the SAM.  They wanted to know if we were free for dinner.  YES!!!  What a treat to get to see them:)  Katie and I stopped getting the ingredients together for the cookies we were about to make and got ready to go.  Thankfully, we had only measured out flour when we got Mary's call.  They wanted to meet at Ivar's on the waterfront.  What an easy place to meet them!  It is just a couple blocks away from Ben's office and the company parking spot was open for us to use:)  Our PEPS gathering was tonight too, so we only got an hour with them before we had to head back to West Seattle.  

For dinner, Ben had fried plump tiger prawns and a salad.  Katie ate french fries, oyster crackers, and a bite of cod.  She really only wanted to color on her menu.  I had a bowl of wild Alaskan smoked salmon chowder, which was fantastic, and some of Katie's uneaten fish.  Greg had a bowl of clam chowder and helped Mary finish off her fish and chips.  

At PEPS Ben and I limited ourselves to just a couple bits of baked macaroni and cheese each.  Oh...it was SOOO good.  Naomi said it was from a gourmet cook book which doesn't cut corners on getting the recipe right.  

It was a really great night!!!

Sunday, 12/12/2010

We had a caesar salad and made Buffalo Chicken "Fries" for dinner tonight.  We followed a new recipe that I found in a Cuisine at Home magazine.  Here's the recipe followed by a couple notes.

BUFFALO CHICKEN "FRIES"

Makes 4 servings (1 lb.)
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1/3 cup hot sauce (such as Frank's)
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbsp. honey
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide-strips, seasoned with salt and black pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided

Directions:
1.  Whisk together hot sauce, butter, and honey in a large bowl.
2.  Toss chicken strips with flour in a large resealable plastic bag until coated; shake off excess flour.
3.  Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large saute pan over medium-high; add half the chicken strips, saute until browned, about 2 minutes per side, then transfer to hot sauce mixture and toss to coat.  Repeat with remaining oil and chicken strips.

Notes:

1.  I used chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts.  They truly seem to be more tender and it took less time to cut up the pound of chicken.

2.  I didn't let the chicken brown quite enough.  I was worried about overcooking the chicken since the recipe said it would probably take only 2 minutes per side to brown.  

3.  The sauce was tasty, but not nearly hot enough to be called "buffalo".  I used the regular Frank's hot sauce.  Next time, I'll try the really hot variety to see if that makes a difference.  Ben thought the sauce tasted too much like honey and wanted more punch from the hot sauce.  

4.  I ended up eating the leftovers for lunch one day and dipped them into McDonald's buffalo sauce...yum!  Now, that's the flavor we were hoping for with the recipe. 

Saturday, 10/23/2010

Today was a good day, but nothing like we planned it would be.  We were going to go to a pumpkin patch with our PEPS group this afternoon.  When the weather looked like it would be unpleasant, we decided to cancel.  After Katie woke up from her nap at 3pm, Ben and I played a game of "I don't know...what do you want to do?"  We finally left the house at 4pm, heading to the mall to get him a new dress shirt.

After shopping, Katie got to run around in the mall's play area.  It was crazy and loud and crowded.  But, she ran right in there with all the kids and had fun.  I helped her climb up to slide down the leaf several times.  Here's a video of her doing it:)

At 5:30 we left the main mall in search of dinner.  I know it is silly, but we thought we might be able to get into the Olive Garden with only a small wait.  We did not.  It was going to be a 45 minute wait, so we decided to try someplace else.  We went to Joey, a pretty swanky restaurant.  Ben and I have been to the Bellevue location before, but never with Katie.  We were both a bit nervous that bringing a toddler in would be frowned upon.  We were pleasantly pleased that we were welcomed quite warmly. 

The hostess told us that we just "had" to have the macaroni and cheese.  She said she ate it all the time and loved it.  So, when we sat down we tried to find it on the menu.  It wasn't listed.  We asked our waitress for it and she said no problem, she'd have the kitchen make something up.  Hmmm....why would the hostess recommend something that wasn't on the menu?  The first dish brought to the table was chicken fettuccine alfredo that wasn't meant for us.  When Katie's dish did arrive, she wouldn't take one bite.    They used fettuccine noodles and then made up a creamy cheese sauce for it.  It was excellent for not being on the menu.  Ben and I both enjoyed some of it and ended up taking most of it home.  The best part was that they only charged us $1.99 for it:)

Ben ordered a Better Beef Dip-- thinly shaved beef, served with grainy mustard on an Italian bun with atomic horseradish served with red wine au jus and fries.  He said it was excellent.  I had an equally excellent chicken sandwich that included a grilled chicken breast, bacon, aged cheddar, and a spicy sauce.  I asked our waitress if it had anything else on it.  She said, "no."  Obviously, she doesn't know the dishes well, because it came with a tomato and greens on it.  Thankfully, they pulled off easily.  I just don't find that veggies add anything positive to a sandwich. 

The only things Katie would eat for dinner were our fries.  And, she was happy, quietly eating them while people watching.  It made for a pleasant meal for us.  Until...she choked on a fry.  She gagged and gagged and gagged some more.  We've started asking her to say "momma" or "daddy" when she gags, so that we know she has recovered.  This time she couldn't say anything.  It was noisy and dark in the restaurant, so we don't know how blue she got.  But, she ended up puking before she recovered.  It was quite scary for us.  Our waitress went above and beyond to help us clean everything up.  She ended up earning a nice tip.  Thanks waitress for not making us feel bad about our puky toddler.  Katie was wiped out by the ordeal, but stayed awake until we got home.  It was no surprise that she went to bed happy. 

Monday, 10/18/2010

Happy Birthday to ME!   

What a fantastic day I had!  It started with a trip to Downtown Seattle on the West Seattle Water Taxi.  Ben went in to work a little late this morning so that the three of us could eat breakfast at a Starbucks near his office.  Katie really enjoyed the boat rides:)  Here are a couple photos of us this morning.

Katie and me waiting for the water taxi.

Katie and me on the water taxi.

Katie and Ben after breakfast at Starbucks.

Our friend Sydney and Ben's brother Spencer joined us for a birthday dinner at Porterhouse.  This was our first time eating at this restaurant.  We were really pleased with it.  We shared the house fries as an appetizer.  We thought one plate was going to be enough, but they were so fantastic, we had to order more:)

House Fries w/ Parmesan-Truffle Salt and Curry Ketchup

Me & Sydney

Katie and I each ordered fish and chips, although, I substituted a caesar salad since I already had fries for an appetizer.  And, Katie substituted apple slices for her fries.  Ben and Spencer each had a steak sandwich with a side caesar.  Sydney had the tuna melt.  It was the first time I had seen a tuna melt with asparagus on it.  She said it was great! 

Steak Sandwich w/ Caesar Salad

For dessert, Ben and Spencer both had Porter Floats.  Ben said it was good and that he was glad he tried it.  But, it wasn't something he will order again.  I wonder if Ben ordered the float knowing that he wouldn't be forced to share it with Katie:)  I would definitely order my chocolate lava cake with chocolate ice cream again.  It was divine--just as a birthday cake should be.  Katie chanted "cake" in such a cute way, that I couldn't resist sharing with her.  

Chocolate Lava Cake w/ Chocolate Ice Cream

Wow, it was a truly wonderful day.  Thanks family & friends!!!

Sunday, 9/26/2010

It was nice to be home with Katie after a day away.  She had a great time with her grandma, but did not nap for her.  After lunch at home, we all went to our church's re-dedication.  The building just underwent its first significant renovation in 50 years.  It included the addition of an elevator, new office space layout, a new conference room, a large gathering space directly outside the sanctuary, and a large patio.  Here are a few photos Ben took of the new space last week.

The new patio off of the enlarged narthex.

The new entrance to the building which gives an immediate view of the church and YMCA offices.

The new narthex/gathering place. 

Katie almost made it through the entire dedication.  We ended up taking a five minute walk outside so that she could get some "too sleepy" energy out of her system.  Soon after the ribbon cutting took place, we went home and put Katie down for a nap.  Just an hour later, Ben and I took a nap too:)  The fridge didn't have much in it for dinner; so, we went to Luna Park Cafe for dinner.  

Katie chanted "burger" all the way to the restaurant.  When I gave her some of mine to eat, she wouldn't eat it.  This was not surprising.  She did eat a few of my french fries and drank some chocolate milkshake.  I had a bacon cheeseburger with pickles and ketchup.  Ben had chili cheese fries.  We ordered Katie her very own chocolate milkshake from the kid's menu.  We thought it would be smaller for kids.  Nope--it was exactly the same size as the small chocolate milkshakes we ordered for ourselves.  Don't worry--we didn't let her's go to waste:) The food at Luna Park Cafe is delicious; it is just hard not to eat too much. 

Saturday, 8/21/2010

A couple weeks ago our friend Laura forwarded us an email for a "Groupon" to Zippy's Giant Burgers.  I had never heard of a Groupon before receiving that email.  It is basically a daily email that is sent out, featuring something cool that you can purchase at a really cheap price.  So, for instance, the Zippy's Groupon allowed us to purchase $15 worth of food for $7.  Here, in Seattle, the link for Groupon is: http://www.groupon.com/seattle/.  I'm now signed up for the daily email and look forward to the next unbeatable deal. 

Tonight we used our Groupon for Zippy's Giant Burger.  How nice is it that "Seattle's Best Burger", as crowned by the Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, can be found only 3 blocks away from our house?  The answer: really nice!  We loaded Katie into the Ergo Baby backpack and took off on foot.  It looks like a local fast food joint, but it isn't.  Expect a wait for these delicious burgers--the shop is very small with only a few indoor seats. 

Ben had a Zip Burger with bacon and cheddar cheese, no veggies or sauce, but with mustard added.  I had a Zip burger with bacon, cheddar cheese, pickles, and their special sauce.  Katie had her very own Little Zip--a small burger with special sauce and pickles.  I ordered her burger plain, but she didn't seem to mind the special sauce:)  We shared an order of fries, and Ben and I had chocolate milkshakes.  We sat outside at a picnic table, and Katie sat on the bench next to Ben like a big girl.  I was sure she was going to sit in one of our laps.  She reached up for her burger and ate it just like we eat ours.  So fun!  Ben was kind enough to share some of his milkshake with her.  He didn't think she would be able to get enough suction on the straw to get much.  Boy was he wrong.  She really put a dent into his shake.  

Ah, what a super way to end a pleasant Summer Saturday in Seattle:)  

Friday, 7/30/2010

Whoo hoo...it's date night for the Ackers! My mom graciously agreed to take care of Katie this evening so that Ben and I could go out on a date. We went to SIP in downtown Seattle for dinner. When Katie was around 6 months old, we ate at the SIP in Gig Harbor. I'm glad we could enjoy it at our own pace this time:) For dinner, we shared a fantastic caesar salad, sweet roll sliders, and potato frites with sage and garlic. Yes, that is just a fancy way to say french fries. They were really good frites! With dinner, I enjoyed two glasses of Malbec, Ksana, Mendoza, Argentina, '06. Ben had a cab, which doesn't seem to be listed on their online wine menu. For dessert, we shared a crepe cake with hot fudge drizzle. It was literally a stack of thin, sweet crepes, cut into a wedge like a slice of cake. It was tasty for sure, but not something I would order again.

After dinner we watched Inception. It is a good movie that I don't need to see again. Ben, on the other hand, says he will definitely see it again. Thanks Mom for the date!

Saturday, 6/19/2010

Tonight I went out with a bunch of fun gals for Laura's bachelorette party. The party started in the blue room at The Capitol Club. It was a fun space for our group. I was the DD, so I only had two drinks throughout the evening. I started with a Lavendar Cocktail--Lavender Dry Soda and Bombay Sapphire served with a Lavender Sugar Rim. I appreciated the lavender flavor, but it was a pretty weak drink. For my second drink, I had a Blood Orange Margarita. It did have salt on the rim, but, strangely, the whole drink was more salty than sweet or sour.

We were there during happy hour, so I had a couple appetizers for dinner. I ordered pork skewers with fries. Unfortunately, they didn't use a very good cut of pork. It was not tender and required lots of chewing. The fries, however, were excellent. They were sprinkled with chili powder and were perfectly crispy. My second plate was ridiciously good and too rich to finish. It was peppercorn bacon, tempura battered and fried, with a chocolate chipotle dipping sauce. OMG...it was soo good and yet soo bad. It was literally too rich for me to eat more than one piece. I did taste some artichoke cheese dip and hummus that someone else ordered. Those were both delicious.

Ben tells me that Katie insisted on having a peanut butter and jam sandwich for dinner. You might be wondering "how does she insist?" Well, when you open up the refrigerator, she goes right to the jam jar in the door and then starts vigorously making the signs for peanut butter and bread. Ben had frozen grapes, almonds, and cheddar cheese. It was one of his staple meals as a bachelor.