Carbalicious

My diet is a bit more balanced than this blog would indicate, I assure you, but the only pictures I've managed to snap lately have been home-cooked and carb-heavy.

Last week, we found ourselves with a huge bunch of water spinach from the Asian grocery store, and rather than do the usual saute, Mike suggested a pesto with sunflower seeds (the only nut we had at home besides almonds) and a little basil from our herb garden.

I loved using our spinach that way, even though it wasn't the best pesto I've ever had.

(And, no, those aren't the largest sunflower seeds on Earth; we used mini farfalle pasta.)

The next day, we had a bunch of pesto left that I couldn't let go to waste, but I didn't want the same dish twice. (I have a problem with this. I'll gladly eat dinner leftovers for lunch, but I don't like to eat the same dinner twice when it's so easy to 'repurpose' the same foods.) So, what to do with that pesto?

I was reading "Blood, Bones & Butter" for one of my book clubs, and I must have seen the word ravioli among the pages, because I stopped for ricotta on the way home from work and asked Mike to make pasta dough. Ta-da! Spinach-ricotta ravioli.

And last night, after wrapping up an Austin weekend for the books -- checking out a new(ish) spinoff of our favorite Chinese restaurant, a movie we could both agree on, a new water sport, my first bike ride in a decade, a Saturday afternoon BBQ, dim sum brunch on Sunday with friends, a return to a new neighborhood spot with more friends, and a trip to Barton Springs for a book club gathering -- I was craving carbs. Again. Specifically, I was craving pizza. (Even though I didn't swim, my appetite grew exponentially in two short hours at Barton Springs.)

We were dropping off friends who'd joined us at the Springs and who live dangerously close to House Pizzeria. House is definitely in my Top 3 for Austin pizza. We were tempted, but Mike pointed out we had plenty of veggies at home and I knew we'd be able to find an easy, no-rise dough recipe on the interwebs. (My dad's crust is my latest go-to, but we were hungry and just didn't have the patience to wait on rising dough.)

Motivated by hunger (and happy to be saving the $20 while using up some of the veggies in our fridge), we turned out a roasted eggplant and zucchini pizza on thin crust in under an hour. He sauteed, I kneaded. It was a really good call.


I'm planning to break this carb kick with Hebrew National dogs (Saturday BBQ leftovers) and asparagrus on the grill tonight, a fajita potluck tomorrow and short ribs with our lovely friends (and conveniently close neighbors) on Thursday.

And then there will be Friday.

Friday, we have reservations for Austin's only five-star restaurant. It's the one-year anniversary of the day Mike proposed and the eve of my 38th birthday.

If I could only schedule my workouts the way I schedule meals.