Ahh and we're back. Clean, cleansed, and brand new.
I had a thoroughly relaxing weekend if you can't tell. Valentine's Day was actually very very enjoyable and fun for me. I went all the way to Seattle to get fresh produce from Pike Place Market and came home to make my fab VDay meal. I made shrimp cocktail, pasta with orangey/lemon cream sauce, garlice roasted asparagus, chicken roasted with fennel, and a very rich chocolate cake for dessert. The chicken with fennel was something that I had attempted after reading several other recipes. I hadn't had fennel before. It's kind of good actually and I think if I would have prepared it "correctly" I would have liked it even more. It has a slight licorice-y taste to it...very unique. The pasta was ok. The sauce was good, but slightly bitter I think due my overcooking of it...nobody's perfect. The asparagus was really good. I hadn't cooked it before and was very pleased with the way it turned out. The hands down fave of the day though was the shrimp cocktail and the sauce I made with it. Oh yeah...let's not forget the uber chocolatey rich decadent chocolate cake I made...YUM! It was very very good...worth making again for sure.
I don't think I could have asked for a better day, unless of course I had a 'special someone' there with me...but I can't have everything exactly the way I want it, now can i.
Sunday was my daughter's birthday. I picked her up and we came back to open gifts and eat some more cake (did I mention how good the cake was? hehe) She has wanted crab legs for I don't know how long so I told her for her birthday we would be sure to go to Red Lobster to get her some. We got there...my parents included...waited about 45 minutes to get a table, another 10 minutes for the waitress to take our order, only to find out that Red Lobster, arguably the biggest seafood chain restaurant in the US, had run out of snow crab legs....talk about one disappointed little girl... I felt really bad. Fortunately (for us) they did still have king crab legs...for $28 a plate. I talked the waitress into giving us a half plate, which included exactly 1 and a half king crab legs in the end, and a side of applesauce which she did no problem. At least they have nice people at Red Lobster...can't say much for the people in charge of ordering the crab legs...
So in the end she was a happy bunny and even got a slice of not-as-good-as-mine chocolate birthday cake and a candle. We sang to her and she was happy with everything so that's what counts. Ahhh to be 10 again...