Whole Foods Udon Noodle Bowl

I re-joined Weight Watchers a few weeks ago, and suffice it to say, progress has been slow. I'm down 3 pounds in 4 weeks. Not terrible, but I know I can do better.

One of the ways that'll happen is by eating healthy meals that don't taste or look or feel like diet foods.

This hot udon noodle bowl - fish broth, noodles, spinach and scallions - is one shining example. I haven't checked, but my guess is this is a three- to four-point lunch. And only $6. Not bad at all, considering I got it at Whole Paycheck.

I suspect this bowl and I will become good friends in the weeks and months to come.

Ideal Meal

I'd had protein for lunch, as had Mike. So we decided on a Meatless Meal with this very filling, fast and easy bowl of goodness for dinner a couple of weeks ago.

Roasted cauliflower and potatoes in the same pan @ 400 degrees (about 20 minutes for the potatoes, solo, then throw in the cauliflower for another 20 minutes). Paired with wilted local spinach sauteed with olive oil, garlic and salt.

What I want right now

Perfectly pink tuna and the spicy scallop from Imperia.

Pasta shells and arugula

All week, I've been craving this meal I used to make all the time. A simple spaghetti, tossed in nothing but olive oil, lemon, garlic and some crushed red pepper flakes.

But we didn't have spaghetti; we had pasta shells. Turns out, they're about the same size as arugula, which I bought on a random trip to our Wednesday afternoon farmer's market. It was an unexpectedly lovely pairing.

I sprinkled the arugula with some fresh parmesan in one bowl, and then I drained the pasta and put it back in the pot with Mike's olive-oil-red-pepper-lemon concoction.

Once the pasta was thoroughly coated, I spooned it directly onto the arugula and parmesan. When I combined the two, the arugula wilted perfectly and the parmesan got just a bit melty. Delicious, fast and somewhat Weight Watchers friendly. (Olive oil is good for you, right?)

Easy Peasy Zuchinni-easy

Fastest. Dinner. Ever.

I saw this on a food blog not very long ago, only it was done in a skillet. Possibly a cast iron.

But I wanted to make sure this got a nice brown, bubbly broil on the cheese topping, so I went the oven route.

I am pretty sure there is no recipe required for this three-ingredient masterpiece. The photos below should be enough to walk anyone through this. Just be sure to cook the zuchinni on its own for a bit (I did about 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees on a very lightly olive-oil coated cookie sheet*), then add the tomatoes and cheese and broil on low.

Voila!

*I really do have nicer cookie sheets but I keep this one around for the messy jobs.

Pork Cracklins - Louisiana Kryptonite

I thought Valentine's Day was the perfect day to share this guest post from my husband and first-time blogger to AAFB. Here's his take on two variations of a Louisiana treat - pork cracklins.

Let's face it, the modern middle-class American is a superhero. By using our super powers of international currency exchange, low transportation costs, and instant global communication, I can get anything I want. Superman had to fly around the world to get gifts for Lois Lane. Who's got that kind of time? I just use the Amazon app on my phone and all the world's goods appear at my door. Who needs X-ray vision when I can see everything simultaneously on cable news? Super strength? I've got great credit. I am more powerful than Superman. Suck it Kal-El! Of course, with great power comes inevitable boredom. Once I have it all, who wants it anymore?

But even for a jaded foodie, the world is still full of surprises. My kryptonite is the lip-smacking, finger-licking, artery-clogging treat of fried pork skin.

The billboards start soon after you cross the Sabine River. Smiling cartoon pigs entice you at each exit. At a gas station I picked up a pre-packaged plastic bag of locally made cracklins. As a fan of pork rinds, I was more than ready to give them a try. They were just like pork rinds I can get in Austin, but with a little bit more fat attached. Served at room temperature, the extra fat had a buttery mouth feel on top of the crunchy of the skin. They were fine, but they did taste like I bought them at a gas station. This was clearly not the real thing.

After discovering that mufaletta's are hard to find on Sunday, I needed one more culinary adventure before I drove out of the Sportsman's Paradise. Some Chowhound and Yelp research led me to the town of Scott, Louisiana, just west of Lafayette.


Don's Specialty Meats has the biggest billboards and is right on the interstate. Best Stop Supermarket is one mile north of Interstate 10. Both are good, but Best Stop is worth the extra mile.The pork cracklins are ordered by the pound. Your cardiologist will recommend that you order by the fraction of a pound. They are placed in a paper bag, which quickly becomes translucent from the grease. Each cracklin is a different experience. Some are pure crunch with a little meat attached. Some have an interior core of luxurious fat which melts on your tongue. All are delicious.

When you have two sets of pork cracklins within ten minutes it is hard not to compare them. It is also hard to not have a heart attack. I'll give it to Best Stop because the cracklins were larger and some were less fried and still had a molten core. Don's were slightly spicier, however. What really charmed me about Best Stop was that it was a Louisiana meat market at opposed to Don's tourist gift shop. Not only was service was infinitely friendlier at Best Stop, but they have balls. They have the balls to proudly offer stuffed pork stomach (chaudin), but they also sell fried balls of boudin sausage.

Now just like Superman I know the limits of my super powers. For some things, you have to get into a car and go there. The internet won't give you the thrill of an unexpected discovery. Also, just like Superman, I know what is going to eventually kill me. Fried pork-induced heart disease.

Willie Mae's Scotch House

Our official honeymoon won't take place until the summer, so we drove to New Orleans for a decadent 'mini-moon' courtesy of my American Express hotel points and NOLA's relatively close driving distance from Austin. My head is still spinning (along with my stomach) from the massive quantities of delicious food we consumed in just three days and three nights.

We dined at John Besh's Restaurant August on the first night of our mini-moon (no photos as it was simply too dark and too hoity-toity for snapping pics), we chowed down on one shared order of beignets (and sadly didn't have the time to go back again ... and again), we tried upscale beignets served with pot de creme and salted caramel at a Magazine Street bistro of adorable proportions called Coquette ... and the list goes on.

Every meal was memorable. They each deserve their own post (and a few might get one), but Willie Mae's Scotch House is competing for the top slot in my book because of both its food and its story.

The restaurant that serves up the best fried chicken in America - and the best I've ever had - is now run by Willie Mae Seaton's great-granddaughter, who took over the kitchen when the Scotch House reopened in 2007 following an extensive post-Katrina repair job. Besh and countless others from the community pitched in to bring Willie Mae's back to life, even while the neighborhood around it remains in need of much repair.

Take this picture of the front entrance sign. Look closely at the structure across the street.

That's the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School. Or at least it once was.

Mike pointed out that the school across the street from Willie Mae's was considered a bit of an architectural landmark, a structure built on posts that protected it from flood damage but one that remains sorely neglected nonetheless -- a casualty among many in a city may be associated for years to come with the word 'rebuild.'

The school reminded me of an episode of The Walking Dead, abandoned and threatened by demolition, yet somehow remarkable. The more I looked at it, the more nostalgic I became for something I hadn't even heard about until that moment.

Articles in my quick bit of research on the school describe the neglect -- rat and bat infestations -- while others quote former teachers who favor the demolition. Yet others are fighting to keep it standing, to preserve another piece of NOLA history:

Efforts to preserve and reuse Phillis Wheatley Elementary constitute what is arguably one of the most pressing preservation issues facing New Orleans today. Designed in 1954 by Charles Colbert, FAIA, it is a groundbreaking work of modern engineering and design. Though its cantilevered classroom wing avoided the ravages of flooding after Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD) is pushing for FEMA funds to demolish the National Register-eligible building.

I'd like to believe that if the community could save the best fried chicken joint in America, a school like Phillis Wheatley Elementary isn't far behind. But maybe I'm just projecting. After all, I would have loved going to school next to Willie Mae's.