Wednesday night I sent a text to a friend, “Tomorrow is Friday!!!” completely unaware that it was definitely not Friday the next day until I was gently reminded. That’s a true friend.

We biked to dinner, taking advantage of the long daylight hours and the much more reasonable temperatures (80°F/26°C). The burger place we wanted to eat at was closed [again] so we went down to Bar Bar. They have mediocre burgers, decent beers, and a nice patio. The need for a burger was desperate, so there we sat on the patio. Long story short, they managed to mess up our order. Again. We won’t be back. We biked to Voodoo Doughnut to soothe the frustration. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with coconut because I certainly didn’t need an Old Dirty Bastard. They threw in a blueberry cake for free. Delicious.

The past two days I’ve had steamed sweet potato, kidney beans, and avocado covered in lime juice for lunch. While it was good, I’m definitely looking forward to Food Cart Friday with Andrew.

I spatchcocked my first chicken [more on that another day].

I’m joining the gym again. I’ve been going over the pro/con list for awhile now [thanks to those of you who had to endure my yammering about it], and it just makes sense. Costco makes it super cheap for me to hit up the 24 Hour Fitness a block away from my office. If I can spend $15 on a night out, I can spend $15 a month on the gym for some variety. Plus I’ll get 45-60 minutes more sleep. It’s starting to get darker in the mornings, which is a whole lot less motivation to go do burpees in the other room half asleep. I’ll have something to do at lunch again, that isn’t shopping, now that I don’t have homework to do. That doesn’t count evenings and weekends either. It’s safe to say working out is my hobby. Definitely going to try out this Level Up Workout.



I made more meatballs. We haven’t had meatballs since February. What happened to me? Did I lose my talent? Will I ever be good again [five points if you know what movie that’s from]? Having extra hot dog buns inspired this whole endeavor. That and Stonesoup’s easy five-ingredient recipe. I love the ones I made before, but they take way longer. This version about as easy as it can get without going to buy a sandwich. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t pulse the oats into a flour. I used whole ones. They were just fine, but it would have yielded a slightly better consistency with them pulsed. There is no frying involved. Mix your ingredients together. Put tomato on the base of the dish. Put the meatballs on top. Bake away. See? Easy.

Inspiration: Stonesoup

Ingredients

1 onion, minced

1/2lb ground beef

1/2lb ground pork

24oz can crushed tomatoes

1 cup rolled oats, ground into flour

2 tablespoons butter

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 400°F and get out an 11×7″ baking dish. Pour some olive oil into a large pan and heat the pan to medium-high. Saute the onion until it’s soft and golden, 5-7 minutes. Pour the tomatoes into the bottom of the baking dish. In a bowl, mix the ground meats, onion, and rolled oats. I used my hands. Form into ping pong sized meat balls. Place the finished balls into the tomato sauce, evenly spaced. Top each ball with a chunk of butter. Bake for 30-45 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and the meatballs are golden brown on top.