A Night Out in San Antonio

My 25th birthday is later this week so we headed down to San Antonio and spent a night on the Riverwalk as an early birthday present. We stayed at the Hyatt Place Riverwalk, which was affordable and nice. My only complaint was that although it is on the river, it's a bit of a walk to all of the action.

When we got there we walked around a bit and enjoyed some delicious happy hour cocktails and tapas at The Cork Bar, which is located in the Hotel Contessa.

Then we walked back to the hotel and changed for dinner:


Dinner was at Boudros Texas Bistro on the Riverwalk. It's a good thing we had reservations because it was PACKED! The atmosphere of the restaurant was good, but super dark and a little on the crowded side. Unfortunately, we also had yet another bad waiter experience...our waiter was completely void of any personality and basically acted like he didn't care at all about us during our meal.

We started off with cocktails and I had their signature Prickly Pear Margarita:

It was really good but didn't taste much different than your average fruit margarita to me. I didn't really taste the prickly pear. Also, it was too small. A margarita should not be served in a martini glass!

For our appetizer we ordered the Pan Seared Rare Tuna, which had a black pepper crust, ginger soy vinaigarette and was served on spinach and chives. This is a photo of it after I had transferred half of it to my plate...it wasn't presented this way:

It was SOOOOOOO good, but we are big rare tuna fans. The sauce was just perfect and complimented the tuna so well.


For my entree I ordered the Blackened Gulf Fish Fillet, which was served with roasted vegetables and rosemary potatoes, beurre blanc sauce and lemon spinach.
It was tasty, but not exactly mind blowing. Everything was cooked well though and the lemon spinach was TO DIE FOR.

Alex got the Mesquite Grilled Texas Quail, which was stuffed with wild mushrooms, roasted corn, dried apricot, apples and poblanos served on nest of vegetables with roasted potatoes.
He said it was really good and he finished every last bite {except for the squash...he doesn't like squash}.

We were so full after all this food that we decided to pass on dessert. All in all, it was a nice dinner but possibly a little overpriced. I don't really have an urge to go back again anytime soon, but we enjoyed it.

After dinner we had grand plans to go out to a couple of bars on the Riverwalk, but unfortunately my body had different plans. I had some stomach issues {not attributed to the food we had just eaten} and we ended up going back to the hotel early so I could rest. Bummer but we plan on going back to San Antonio in a couple months to try again!

It was a fun little excursion and early birthday present. :)

Jillian Michaels Kicks My Butt

Recently I had fallen into a fitness rut. There are a lot of reasons for this, one of the major ones being that making it to the gym with any regularity had become seriously difficult. I've been working later in the evenings lately and by the time I leave and fight traffic I'm just exhausted and ready to go home and eat dinner.

I also noticed that anytime I did make it to the gym I was half-assing it. Getting on an elliptical for 30 minutes and barely breaking a sweat wasn't making me feel very accomplished.

I knew I needed to find something that worked for me and fast since the weight was creeping on and bikini season was fast approaching. I'd heard a lot of raves about Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD so I decided to invest the $10 and see what it's all about.



Turns out, I LOVE IT!!! It's a brief 20 minute circuit workout that TOTALLY kicks my ass. I've done it five times now and I'm still huffing and puffing by the end of it each day. Here are a few things that I love about it:

1. I can do it at home, which means I don't have to worry about looking like a fool when I do it.
2. It's only 20 minutes.
3. All it requires for equipment is a pair of hand weights and a yoga mat.
4. It's an ass-kicker. {Did I already mention that?}

But my favorite reason is...
5. I've been doing it for less than a week and MY CLOTHES ARE ALREADY GETTING A LITTLE LOOSE.

Granted, I have also been making a conscious effort to eat healthier {so perhaps it's not all due to the 30DS}, but still! I already feel stronger and more fit.

I highly recommend this DVD to anyone who is short on time and needs to get fit.

Do you have any favorite workout DVDs? Now that I've discovered how nice it is to workout at home, I'm in the market for more! :)

Better Than in a Restaurant

What's for Dinner? 5/9/2010

-Chicken Piccata
-Whole Wheat Spaghetti Noodles
-Salad

When I was trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight, Chicken Piccata popped into my brain as something that I hadn't made in a very long time. I immediately went to my old faithful recipe website, Cooking Light, and plugged it in the search box. Sure enough, a great looking recipe came up and I just happened to have everything I needed on hand to make it.

It was super delicious! Alex even went so far as to say that this dinner may have been better than the pricey dinner we had last night in San Antonio. Guess that goes to show us not to spend good money on going out to dinner when we can make healthier and better things at home!

I made a couple of minor substitutions to make it even healthier than the original. My edits are in green.


Chicken Piccata with Capers
Source: Cooking Light

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 breast half, 1 cup spaghetti, 2 tablespoons sauce, and 1 1/2 teaspoons parsley)


4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (We just used 2 GINORMOUS chicken breasts)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (I subbed whole wheat flour)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons capers
2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 cups hot cooked spaghetti (about 8 ounces uncooked) (Subbed whole wheat spaghetti)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Place each breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to 1/2-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Place flour in a shallow dish, and dredge chicken in flour.

Heat butter and oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, and cook for 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm. Add white wine, 1/4 cup lemon juice, capers, and garlic to pan; scrape pan to loosen browned bits. Cook for 2 minutes or until slightly thick. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve chicken over pasta. Top with sauce; sprinkle with parsley.


CALORIES 519 (21% from fat); FAT 12g (sat 3.7g,mono 4.9g,poly 1.8g); IRON 4mg; CHOLESTEROL 116mg; CALCIUM 40mg; CARBOHYDRATE 51g; SODIUM 396mg; PROTEIN 48.1g; FIBER 2.3g

Cooking Light, SEPTEMBER 2006

Adventures in Bad Waiterland

Last night we went out to dinner with some friends and had yet another bad experience with a waiter. We have a running joke in our group of friends that we must be like kryptonite to a waiter because we seem to almost ALWAYS have terrible waiters.


Now, I get that when we have 15-20 people in our party that task can be a bit daunting and confusing. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when we have that many people. But last night we only had 9 people...I feel like that's a manageable amount of people.

Our waitress last night was extremely slow at getting anything to us {my friend actually had to get up and get our silverware for us after we got our food}, got 3 of our orders completely wrong and then basically tried to blame it on us saying that we actually ordered them wrong. Uhhhh no. And where in waiter training did they tell you that "The customer is actually always WRONG." ??? I've been through extensive customer service training before and I don't recall that ever being the mantra that they drill into your brain.

Luckily last night the manager of the restaurant stepped in, comped a round of drinks for all of us, and comped the meals of those of us who had our orders screwed up. The manager seemed legitimately embarrassed by her waitstaff and did a great job of making us happy again after a bad situation.

However, in the past we have had many other bad waiter experiences and the manager doesn't always step in. It's just baffling to me that so many waiters can be so BAD and so many managers can be so nonchalant about their staff.

I've never been a waiter before so I'm hesitant to make too many judgments about the difficulty of the job, but I definitely don't feel that it's acceptable to not own up to your mistakes once they've been made. And I'd really like it if waiters in my area could start taking some extensive training on handling large groups. Is that too much to ask??

Stubb's Chicken

What's for Dinner? 5/6/2010

-Marinated Grilled Chicken
-Roasted Broccoli
-Buttered Toast



We are big, big fans of the Stubb's Chicken Marinade. I've written about it before, but here's a picture so you can look for it in stores.

It's the BEST!!! The chicken turns out so juicy and flavorful. Definitely buy this if you can find it.

Capturing Memories

Confession: I have a terrible memory. I mean, really bad. It really doesn't contain itself to only short term or long term...it's everything. Until I've met you a handful of times, I probably don't actually remember your name {I'm just faking it by saying "Hey you!" or something along those lines}. Oh or ask me to recall a book or movie premise...you can forget about that. Even my "favorite" books and movies are usually somewhat foggy.

At least I come by it honestly though, since both my parents struggle with their memory. I can certainly blame this on the two of them. My dad claims that his loss of memory didn't set in until recently, which might be true. My mom, on the other hand, well let's just say I take after my mom in the memory department.

Today I was thinking about memories and how sad it makes me that I'm already losing a lot of them from my life. I'm young...I shouldn't be forgetting things that happened in my life already!!

Thinking about memories led me to think about something that helps spark memories: photographs. I thought, "Hey well I like to take photos...so I'll have lots to help me remember things someday." But the problem that led me to was how I store those photos. I always just load my photos onto the computer and then just leave them there for all of eternity. Unorganized, unlabeled, and unsafe. The computer hard drive could crash at any moment and I would lose a significant amount of my photos. {I know, I know I should "back them up"}

My next thought was: I need to start scrapbooking. It will force me to actually get the photos printed, as well as organize and label them in an album.

Now, if you know anything about me, you know that I get these grand ideas to start new hobbies and then eventually they fade off until the hobby is just a distant {foggy} memory. Like that sewing machine I bought and promised I would start using....uhhh yeah {Although I still stand by the fact that every girl should have a sewing machine, whether she uses it or not}.

Because I know myself, I'm hesitant to go out and spend a lot of money on a new "hobby" if it means it will probably go to waste. But when I stepped into the scrapbooking aisles at Hobby Lobby today, I was faced with complete scrapbook overload. And that sh*t's expensive too!

These are some of the things that went through my mind as I shopped: "I need a paper cutter to scrapbook...that's basic." "Oh a star-shaped hole punch....that's completely necessary." "Three value packs of scrapbook paper that each contain 300 sheets isn't too much because you never know when you'll need a certain type, color or design of paper!"

Soon I realized that this was crazy and was able to reign myself in. I only ended up buying a simple album and one value pack of cardstock. I figured I'd start simple with my first album, and if it's something that I think I can maintain, maybe I'll go for more decoration and supplies in the future.

Wish me luck!

And if there are any "scrappers" out there {Danielle I know you do!}: How do you keep from going broke? What are the essential scrapbooking tools for a beginner? Fill me with your scrapping wisdom!

Shrimpo de Mayo

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

We decided to celebrate with shrimp tacos and margaritas. Aye caramba!

This was another "Superfast" Cooking Light recipe that I found and it was another success! You use pre-cooked shrimp and there is no actual cooking involved in it, which means it's great for a hot summer day. {FYI It hit 95 degrees here today.}



Basically the filling for the tacos is ceviche, which is a cold shrimp dish. Traditionally, the shrimp is "cooked" in the lime juice but in this case the shrimp is pre-cooked and just soaked in the lime juice for a short period of time.

I forgot to buy avocados {doh!} so we subbed mango chunks for the avocado. It worked out surprisingly well that way.

Here's the recipe for Ceviche-Style Shrimp & Avocado Tacos {click the link}. Enjoy!