Weekend Eats

 My Boneless Wing Predilection

I've mentioned before that it is almost impossible for me to pass up boneless wings. Early in the week I was at Vons and they were giving out samples of boneless wings in an Asian-style sauce. I said I would take some; the girl behind the counter told me that they are for sale in the cold case.

"They're $8.99," she said, "but actually there is a one-day sale on Friday when they're going to be five dollars."

I appreciated her giving me the heads up, and since I wasn't actually going to eat them that night - well, I wasn't going to eat more than one or two that night - I decided to just come back on Friday. When I did show up on Friday, I was surprised: I had thought that maybe the five dollar deal would be a small container of the boneless wings. It was two pounds of chicken.

I'm not going to say this was great, but it was certainly tasty. I snacked on chicken pieces all weekend. And I still have more than half left.  

An 80 Degree Afternoon

It was a very nice day. We wanted to eat lunch outside. No surprisingly, other people had the same idea. We went to two places but both were packed. I suggested Porta Via. It too was very crowded, but we were able to snag a table on the patio.

I did not have the camera with me so I used the phone camera. Elizabeth had the turkey dip and I had the meatball & Provolone. The former (I got to eat about a quarter of it) was as delicious as ever. Other than a Zankou chicken tarna wrap, this might be my favorite sandwich in Pasadena at the moment. Juicy turkey, sweet caramelized onions, and spicy mustard, all on a roll with just the right amount of crunch to it.

My meatball sandwich was good, don't get me wrong. It just wasn't as good as that turkey dip.

 A Ginormous Gummi Bear

I won a gift certificate to Fair Oaks Pharmacy & Soda Fountain almost two years ago, a $100 card that I got at a charity event in April of 2010. But you can't actually use the certificate for anything from the pharmacy section of the shop (otherwise I would have used it up pretty quickly); you can only use it at the soda fountain. And I really don't think much of their food, so every few months I would duck in and buy some candy from their ample selection. It's pretty hard to buy $100 worth of candy, even at their prices, which is why it took me almost two years to use the certificate up.

But I just used the last of it, and I picked up this "ginormous" gummi bear because I thought it looked cool.


Here it is next to a DVD to give some perspective.

The serving size is 1/4 of the bear. Apparently that means there are four servings. 

It was pretty terrible. I don't know how old this was but it was all crusty at the edges, rock-hard in some places. I thought it would be fun to chew the bear's face off like Hannibal Lecter, but even that proved to be a hollow thrill. 

Even More Karma Than I Thought

Remember when I wrote about Papa John's a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that karma had rewarded me for a good deed by allowing me to win three Papa John's pizzas? It turns out I won five pizzas. I only noticed that after I had ordered those three pizzas. Saturday night, after having a few beers with Elizabeth and Tracie, we decided to order those other two pizzas: one with pepperoni, one with banana peppers.

I decided to add the freebies of Parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper and pepperoncini to one of my slices. They did not improve the slice.

Last time, I accidentally threw away one of the garlic sauces. Elizabeth was not pleased. So to make up for it, I ordered an additional three of them for her. So we had five in total.

Empanadas

Those Vons frozen empanadas that I have written about several times really do make a nice snack. Yesterday I baked some for lunch, drizzling them with a vinaigrette I like to make consisting of olive oil, vinegar, mustard, green onion and cracked black pepper. These were as good as always.

Sunday Dinner

The last time Elizabeth's dad visited, he made a huge amount of his (famous in certain circles) lasagna, including a pan for us to eat at a later date. Our freezer wasn't big enough to store it, though, so we kept it in Tracie's freezer. On Sunday, we decided to break it out for dinner. Tracie, Tim and Murph joined us.

It took three hours in the oven to reheat, but it was another beautiful day and we were able to relax on the patio while the dish cooked.

I thought garlic bread sounded good, too.

With a simple salad. This was a great dinner.

As usual, Tim provided the perfect wine(s): bottles of 2000 and 2001 Capezzana Ghiaie Della Furba, a Tuscan red wine that complemented dinner wonderfully.