Thursday, December 31, 2009

My Heart is Blessed!

Wow, I didn't realize I'd taken so many pictures yesterday!

We had a great time at Bless Your Heart. It felt so good to get back! We started off with our self-made appetizer of wheat croutons with avocado dressing and Santa Fe dressing (from the salad bar - yes, we are THOSE people):

I ordered the Santa Fe chicken sandwich with a honey-wheat bun, grilled chicken breast, a slathering of guacamole, some pico de gallo, mozzerella cheese, and lettuce. I also added some salsa to it for extra flavor and extra tomatoes. They serve it with a side of pasta salad with lots of zucchini, cauliflower, and tomatoes:



Nate ordered a turkey and avocado sandwich. It's on their honey-wheat bread with turkey, avocado, lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Another view of mine:

AND THEN we had their fat free frozen yogurt!!!!! I wanted to get eggnog, but Nate isn't the biggest fan, so we "settled" for chocolate (which is actually not a bad thing to settle on since it's super rich and delicious!

I was one happy lady!

When I graduated from Texas Tech I never got the picture by the seal, so I figured yesterday was the day to do it. I'm on the left with my guns up!

Next, Nate and I stopped by Sugar Brown's coffee, which is an AMAZING coffee shop that's owned by our friend Justin Barnard, who incidentally is also the owner of West Crust pizza! We picked up a cup of coffee to split:

Sugar Brown's is a great venue to play live coffee shop music, or to go SEE live coffee shop music. It's a wonderfully eclectic setting, the ambiance is fantastic, and the coffee is great! If you're ever in Lubbock, I'd highly recommend visiting!

From there we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book, wandered around the mall for a bit, and then headed home. Upon getting back to the house, we found my mom cooking up an Italian feast! We started off with a salad of romaine, green onions, orange bell peppers, carrots, and tomatoes:

Followed that up with oven-fried chicken parmesan and bruschetta spaghetti:

If you're mouth isn't watering yet, we also had some good 'n' grainy bread with olive oil, herbs, and roasted garlic:

Nate and I opened this bottle of wine to try:

I've never been able to really get into wine, but after reading Jenna's blog, all I want to do is learn more and more about it! Without knowing anything about how to taste wine or what to look for, I can honestly say that this Merlot was very smooth and had a lot of dark berry notes to it...especially raspberries! Yum!

We finished up with a peach cobbler and a dollop of whipped cream:

We played Sorry! again tonight, but this time we did teams: men vs. women. Mom and I were down all game, and came back at the last second to win! We left those boys speechless, and we were SO excited :)

After watching some football bowl games, it was about time for bed. Nate and I walked back to our bedroom to see these two sleepy faces laying on the bed. Wasn't that sweet of them to warm up our bed for us?

Finally, this morning, for my last breakfast of 2009, I had another serving of Pumpkin Pie yogurt with apples and granola:

I used the same recipe as yesterday. I do want to say though, that if Greek yogurt is not for you, you can definitely make this same thing with regular plain yogurt, or even with vanilla yogurt (just don't add sweetening of any kind). I just really prefer the creamy thickness of Greek yogurt, and I like the tartness as well!

Plans for the day = going to see Invictus with my family, running, and helping my mom prepare our turkey dinner! I'm also going to blog later about my resolutions and hopefully add some great tips I've picked up along the way.

Question: What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

3 comments:

  1. What great pictures! Now I'm starving! I've seen Cupcake wines at the grocery store and always wanted to try them. I'm always fearful of spending a bunch of money on a wine I don't like... Will definitely have to try it now :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. hey heather! i'm so jealous you're going to see invictus. :) we're gonna hang out with neighbors and play games, eat, drink, and be merry! seems like you've had a really special time back home. can't wait to see y'all soon. we miss you! :) your mom's dinner looked superb!!! i see now where you get your enjoyment from cooking.
    maybe we can have a ladie's night wine tasting party soon. i've been to a couple of those where the hostess selects a country (or even continent!) and each person brings a bottle of wine and covered dish from that region. it's a wonderful night of vino and culture! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. fun to find a foodie from my home town! I will have to keep up with your blog! We tried West Crust during our Christmas trip home to Lubbock and loved it! I also discovered Home Cafe during our trip in October- a unique offering for Lubbock for sure. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete