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End of the week eats

Thanks so much for everyone that had nice things to say about my new haircut. I didn’t mean to be negative, but sometimes it just feels so good to whine! :) I’m sure you know what i’m talking about. I’m glad that I let my emotions about it out so that now I can really move on. (BTW, I’ve had the chance to style it myself a few times now and while I still don’t love it, I can deal with it until it grows out.)

Yesterday I had a very green lunch. Another salad, this time with creamy avocado, and a side of yet more avocado smashed on sprouted toast with seaweed flake. It occurred to me recently that maybe not everyone is sprinkling seaweed flake on everything like I do, so I think soon I’ll need to do a post on this stuff to extol its virtues, cuz it really is a wonderful and delicious thang.

Salad and avocado toast with seaweed

Last night’s dinner was incredible.

I made a spicy pineapple pork dish over jasmine rice. This was kind of half-way between sweet and sour pork and some sort of Hawaiian dish. Jeff and I both swoon for hot pineapple, so this was much enjoyed by both parties.

Spicy pineapple pork

I made it by first adding some sesame oil and red pepper flakes to a wok (pan is fine) and then sauteing the red peppers in the spicy oil. When those were half-way cooked, I added the pork pieces and let them brown on both sides. Then, in went the pineapple cubes and chopped scallions. To make it a little bit saucy, I crushed some of the hot pineapple pieces with the back of a spoon, then added a swish or two of fish sauce and rice vinegar. The whole thing got a small sprinkle of salt and black pepper and was done!

It takes more time for the rice cooker to finish making fluffy rice than it does to make that dish. Super easy.

This morning, I thought that I would be really clever and make green tea and blueberry pancakes for breakfast…

Green tea pancake batter

Pan of green tea pancakes

I wanted so badly to draw a smiley face on this one, but I restrained…

Green tea pancake close-up

As usual though, any time that I think I’m being really clever with a recipe it kind of fails. While these were totally delicious and filling, I couldn’t really taste the green tea at all. I’ll try ’em again sometime and up the matcha addition quite a bit.

This afternoon was gorgeous out. 85 degrees but breezy, can’t argue with that! We took the open morning to start house-hunting in the area. We are not on track to buy for at least another year, but we’d like for our next rental to either be a single-family home all to ourselves or a nice condo really close to or in downtown Decatur, so that we can enjoy this town to it’s fullest.

After an hour or so of driving around and writing down numbers to call for rentals, we parked the car at home and walked into town for a relaxing afternoon beer break.

Wild Heaven Ode to Mercy at Leon's

(Love that thermos!) We parked ourselves at the bar in Leon’s and spent some time drinking good beer and talking about the next few things we need to do to make RipeTrack better. SO much work left to do, but all worth it.

This weekend has felt long, and for that I can’t complain.

This next week is going to be tremendously busy. My brother-in-law’s wedding is Saturday so I’ll be baking and decorating the wedding cake for he and his fiance from Tuesday on. Yeah, it takes several days to put a wedding cake together, yeesh. I cannot wait to show you guys my mad cake-baking skillz!

What do you have mad skillz at? :)

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Before and after

Do you wanna hear the good news or the bad news first?

I wanna end on a good note, so let’s get the unpleasantries out of the way, shall we?

I got my hair cut yesterday for the first time in a year.  Before……….

Hair beforeWink kiss

My hair was just past the bra strap. I am not quite 5’2″, so when my hair is that long it drags me down and makes me look even shorter. Not only was it getting hard to manage but now that the temps are getting warmer out I needed to lighten it up a bit.

Fun fact: When I was in high school my hair was long enough for me to sit on, and it was curly, so you can imagine how much longer it would have been if it were straight! (I have no way of scanning photos right now or I’d show you, it really was ridiculous.)

So anyway, I got it cut yesterday and I’m really disappointed. The girl who cut my hair seemed like she had never cut bangs before, I was really kind of confused watching her cut it. Well…here’s the after…..

Hair after

This is what I asked for, I even brought this picture with me….

The haircut I wanted

Yeah…um…not even close. It’s fine though, I’m gonna let it grow out a bit and try again.

Ok, let’s talk about good news!

So do you remember that Jeff got in an accident a few weeks ago? His car is out of the shop!

Here’s the before…

Jeff's wrecked car

And after!

Car after, yay!

Ahhh! It looks brand new! 😀

I was all upset about my haircut and then I heard the news that Jeff’s car was all better and that snapped me right out of it!

Hair will grow back, but a car is harder to replace. All it took was a little perspective to make me feel better. Now, on to the weekend!

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Salad season

First of all, THANK YOU, to everyone that checked out RipeTrack and left such wonderful feedback!

This project has been on my mind for a long time now and it feels so good to finally get to share it with everyone. Based on comments, it seems like we’re going in the right direction with how to take this site to the next level.

And it’s just in time too. Spring has sprung and so many fruits and vegetables are coming into season right now. Lettuces, avocados, and even pineapple are all on my radar for the end of this month.

And right now, all I can think about are salads! Normally, I’m not a big salad person, but for some reason nothing else will do right now.

I had this amazing Thai salad with marinated tofu at Raging Burrito over the weekend…

Thai salad at Raging Burrito

And yeah, maybe a margarita or two was involved. 😉

Yesterday I made a salad of mixed lettuces, broccoli, dulse, pistachios, Annie’s roasted red pepper dressing, and sesame seeds. Served it up with some Pacific creamy tomato soup.

Tomato soup and salad

And today I wanted that same salad, but I jazzed it up with some dried cranberries and had a sliced asian pear with cinnamon on the side.

Salad and asian pear

I’ll probably want another tomorrow, I gobbled all those up like they were brownies.

So now that fresh spring produce is bountiful, I’ll be sure to fill my plate with it and keep using RipeTrack to anticipate all the new and delicious fruits and vegetables as they come into season.

Know how else you can tell spring is here?

Lucas sheds his winter coat

Gross! I think we lost half a cat on that one!