Back to Reality

Well peeps, vacation has officially come to a close. After stops in the historic burgs of Fredricksburg, Jamestown, Williamsburg and Norfolk, we hit the Outer Banks and did a significant amount of beaching and family-ing (YES, I know that is not an official word, but it is in my world). And now we're back home.

My mood re: vacation being over matches this song. Plus I tend to dress in black.

Some quick notes for you re: the vacation. I heart Fredricksburg and Williamsburg. Way different than I expected - lots of shopping and super quaint. In Norfolk, we hit two spots from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: Get Fresh Cafe at the Five Points Community Farm Market for dinner and Doumar's to taste ice cream from the place that originated the ice cream cone. The kid is mildly obsessed with "Triple D" and has decided to email the show to suggest Guy visit the amazing Duck Donuts.

On to the recipes. Whilst on vacation, I volunteered to make dinner two of the nights. I like to cook, so this really wasn't a problem or burden, and, as I've mentioned, my family is always over-enthusiastic about my cooking abilities, so who wouldn't like that little ego boost? To keep things simple, I selected the recipes in advance, and made No-Boil Lasagna and Turkey Enchiladas, both from "500 Low-Sodium Recipes" by Dick Logue. I also made Oreo & Fudge Ice Cream Cake from Kraft Food & Family (Summer 2007). All of the recipes required few ingredients and all received standing ovations from the crowd (I kid, I kid).

As we are just returning from vacation, I felt like our meals needed a clean kick-start this week, since we did some minor indulging (although I did manage to squeeze in a few morning walks and runs!). So tonight we had Chicken Rotini from The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook, by Tosca Reno. I don't feel like typing in all of the ingredients, but let's just say that it involved fresh chopped tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, basil, sweet potato, and more.

Reviews:
The kid was not a fan. He liked the chicken (plain) and that's about it. The sauce "wasn't his thing." Despite all of the offending veggies, the hubs liked the meal, as did I. The hardest thing with this one was the chopping, but otherwise it was pretty easy. I feel cleaner already.

Ranking:
Three Forks