Painting our kitchen/family room has basically taken over my life, so there has not been too many other activities going on.

We celebrated Fat Tuesday today with apple pancakes and chicken mango sausage for dinner.

I must admit, this picture does not look too appetizing, but n finished his entire dinner. That doesn’t happen too often around these parts.

At Trader Joe’s today, I triumphantly found the elusive Speculoos Cookie Butter!

I was looking for it around the holidays, but they had run out. We tried it on toast and the kids like it. It is probably the closest our peanut-free household has come to peanut butter (still need to try sunflower seed butter).

On Thursday k and I picked up two of my friends from high school and we went to Taste of Seal Beach at McGaugh Elementary, my alma mater. I thought I might see someone from my past, but instead we ran into k’s pediatrician. I guess he has a son that goes there. That was random. The tickets were $10, and various local restaurants had samples to taste:
320 Main
Beachwood BBQ
Blackboard Bistro
Bogart’s Coffee
Cold Stone Creamery
El Burrito Junior
Finbars
Hennessey’s
Islands
Jamba Juice
Mahé Restaurant
Marie Callender’s
McDonald’s
Naples Ribs
O’Malley’s
Patti Bakes
Panda Palace
Pick Up Stix
Rubio’s
Starbucks
Taco Surf
Tropical Juice
Walt’s Wharf
Woody’s Diner
Yucatan Grill
Z Pizza

The standouts to me were Yucatan Grill (I think it was chicken?, rice and plantains) and Beachwood BBQ (mini pulled pork sandwiches). It seemed like too many restaurants did regular mini sandwiches, which weren’t too memorable. My friends really liked the clam chowder from Walt’s Wharf, but I’m not a clam chowder person. It was also weird that O’Malley’s had a really spicy chili (just like the Irish do it?) k liked the cheese pizza from Z Pizza and the pasta from Finbar’s.

Sorry this doesn’t look too appetizing. This is half way through our first plate of food. We went for one more round of “main” course tastings plus a little dessert.

The one complaint I have is that you had to get all of your food before leaving the gym. Since the plates were on the small side, I wanted to do two rounds, but there was nowhere to sit inside! So we had to awkwardly stand and eat. Then, when we went outside for the coffee/dessert, it had been raining, so all of the tables were wet. I guess that wasn’t their fault, but still…it seems like there could have been a better set-up.

The gym seemed smaller than I remembered:

This was the tree where I was punished for not picking up two pieces of trash before going to recess. I don’t remember the exact details, but I remember there was some sort of miscommunication and that I did not purposely break the rule. I was so embarrassed, because only the “bad” kids had to sit there. One of the teacher’s aides was surprised to see me there and asked what happened–I think she felt sorry for me. Oh, the trauma.

It’s not easy coming up with what to have for dinner every night. One of my “go-to” dinners is tofu stir-fry, which I made up by myself. D actually really likes it, and its healthy and easy.

Directions: Heat up a few glugs of olive oil over medium. Add a couple cloves of chopped garlic, half an onion, and whatever vegetables you have on hand, fresh or frozen. Stir-fry until the vegetables are just tender. Push the vegetables to the side of the pan, and add cut-up extra-firm or firm tofu (drained). Stir the tofu so it is heated through, and then mix everything together. Here’s what it looks like at this stage:

Add a couple tablespoons each of soy sauce and mirin. Serve with a squirt of rooster sauce or chili sauce. Serve with rice.

While k was waiting for dinner, she was filing her nails. Notice that her hair has reached a cross-roads: bangs or no bangs? I’m still hesitating to use barrettes since I don’t want her to eat them. We might have to do a little trimming.