A Florida Fourth

The last dinner from this week's grocery bounty was pretty spectacular.  We had a pretty solid week of good meals.  Last night was Zucchini "noodles" with Arrabiata Chickpeas.  Super super spicy but amazing flavor.  (I used this recipe)  I didn't measure any of the spices and I ended up adding the rest of our Chili Garlic sauce instead of just chili sauce.  More garlic is better right?  

We are sharing a condo with some friends and they feasted on other stuff I don't have to dwell on.  But my meal could have fed two if Matt hadn't been woo-ed by tilapia.  Poor little fishes.

  I almost crossed of three things off of my Summer Bucket list yesterday. 

-Fireworks on the beach
-Cigar City Brewery Tour
-Lutz 5K

Sadly, I decided that spinning would be the lesser of two evils for my back (please don't tell my mom) and went to the Independence Day ride bright and early instead.  I thought about driving North and registering last minute and just take it easy for the run but I was tired after four straight days of spin. 

Granted, 11:15am is not the perfect time for beer but we suffered through it.

If you don't have closed toe shoes on for the tour of the brewery, they give you these sweet ones. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mondays can be delightful.

My co worker told me last Friday she was riding an elevator up to our office and the crabbiest looking woman stepped on.  She said "It's Friday!" to try and warm her up and her response was, "Yes, but boy, do I hate Mondays." 

Goodness, please do not focus on Monday on Friday morning.  That would be the worst and put me in a bad mood too.  Monday wasn't even on my radar yet.

Super good things to remember on this perfectly okay Monday morning.

1.) Cigar City Brewery

  Friday night we went straight from picking up Matt at the airport to Cigar City Brewery.  Tampa residents are so fortunate to have this little gem in their city.


From left to right:  Chocolate Cherry Brown Ale, Hornsboggled on Nitro, Cucumber Saison, Pineapple Pale Ale

My favorites of the night were the Hornsboggled Nitro and the Pineapple Pale Ale.  So much so that I got a full pint of it.  That is rare.  I love variety.



Pinkies out.

2.)  Pineapple Pale Ale (at Cigar City Brewery).

Oh my goodness, it was so good.

3.)  Soho Cycling Gym

Another good thing about Tampa is the Soho Cycling gym.  All of their class packages were 20% off on Saturday which is such a good deal.  If I'm going to die while spinning, I want it to be a class I got for 20% off.  Perfect.  Perfectly torturous.  The teacher really wanted to kill us by spin bike.  But it was so good at the end.  You leave on some kind of adrenaline high.  That is helpful, so while you look like a sweaty mess, at least you have happiness going for you.

Liz and I on an adrenaline high.  I wouldn't go if it weren't for this girl.  I look over at her numerous times during class after hard songs to find someone to comiserate with and she is always laughing at me.  It is very motivating.

4.)  Amazing Baby Showers

I mean really, this was a baby shower that blew up every other baby shower with a nuclear weapon.

There were no weird baby shower games, and the food was incredible.  The hostesses were awesome and so creative.  They didn't just find cool stuff on Pinterest, they found the coolest stuff and actually made it look like it does on Pinterest.  That doesn't really ever happen to me.

Everyone brought a onesie that brought to mind some kind of memory with the new mom.  Then she had to guess who brought it.  My favorite was a tri-athlete who found a onesie that said "Best Swimmer" and pictured some sperm.  Another one was a woman that lived in her neighborhood who taught aerobics and found an Under Armor onesie with a little running skirt. 

Deviled eggs make me want to die a little but these were so funny.  She made her husband help out and attach the axles.  She said that in the picture that the baby was actually mind of a chisled little vienna sausage but she had to draw the line somewhere. 

Lots of champange was available for those of us that don't know what half the stuff she opened is even used for.

Some really talented ladies put this all together.  They are so fun.

I start to well up if I talk about this amazing friend.  She is the best.  And she'll be a great mom. 

5.)  The beach

We live about 30-40 minutes from the beach and NEVER go.  Color me delighted when at the last minute we decided we wanted to see the sunset with some friends and get out there.  Turns out we decided to get some drinks at a bar close to the beach and missed the sunset.    We did get to see the super moon though.  So there's that one.

Bonus Monday good thing:  beers that remind you of vacation. 

I only ever get to enjoy New Belgium beers when we go to Colorado and the only time we ever go to Colorado is when we go skiing (Snowmass actually has a New Belgium bar ON THE SLOPE--it was magical).  We picked up some while we were there last week and the taste just feels very snow bunny. 

So Mom, that's what I did this weekend and why I didn't call you back.  Love you!

An early celebration of a great Dad.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart my parents got me a case of my favorite beer which only comes in huge liter size bottles.  I happily consumed the case but it was annoying that I couldn't just have one bottle and HAD to drink the whole liter <--sacrifice, I know.  I have a special place in my heart for brown ales (and red ales, and pale ales, and IPAs, and stouts, and everything).

This is NOT a gimmicky flavored beer.  It is just a good beer.

At Gino's last night, they had these miniature, normal sized bottles which were perfect.  Where can I find these to buy Rogue??

Gino's has a pretty stellar happy hour.....all American craft beers (bottled, and they have a very extensive list and it includes some really high gravity beers if that's your thang) for $2.50 a bottle.  Since we are going to be away this weekend, we got to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad early and Gino's is his favorite place.
Happy Father's Day!

When we got home, the coconut oil fairy had stopped by our house.  Seriously, next time the coconut oil co-op orders you should get in on it.  Such a good deal for raw, cold pressed, organic, extra virgin, local (every buzz word in the foodie handbook and I made up the local part...does Tampa grow coconuts?) coconut oil.  I think my three jars were $15.   One jar of the good kind is around $8-12 at Whole Foods. 

The bonus is that burglars stay away because they think the jars are full of pee and no ones wants to rob a house that stocks mason jars full of urine.

And if you have never played Citadels, you are missing out on all the nerdy action going on.  Such a fun game.  Even more fun if you have friends that laugh at all of your jokes.  Then living is way more fun too.  And don't be fooled by the healthy sweet snacks going on.  There were lollipops fresh from Valentine's Day passed around as well. 

Best Beer in the world is 8 miles from my house.

I was strangely excited all day for making falafel.  I am clearly a person who leads a very exciting life.

After work I needed to run to Whole Foods for some dairy free yogurt for the tzatziki sauce and drop off some mason jars for a coconut oil co-op I joined (speaking of which, this story about how it has been healing Alzheimer's is crazy, drink up) and then got stuck in a two hour traffic jam at 2pm on 275 because of an accident.  Yowsa.  I had lots of time to think about falafel.

I was inspired by this recipe from Vegan Stoner....Falafel Pie.  That just looks so delicious to me.

Source:  http://theveganstoner.blogspot.com/2012/03/falafel-pie.html

I had all of the other ingredients but the stuff to make the tzatziki sauce so in comes Whole Foods for soy yogurt but there is some shortage on soy yogurt and I ended up with coconut yogurt which was really "So Delicious" (it doesn't taste like coconut).  <--that sentence was a crazy run on but I laughed re reading it so I left it.

I didn't have falafel mix and didn't want to buy any because I figured I couldn't make some with stuff I already had and it would be even better.  And boy, it was good. 

I found this recipe online and substituted some stuff for what we had/like:

-15 ounces of garbanzo beans
-4 cloves of garlic
-one small onion
-one tsp of cumin
-one tsp of coriander
-quarter cup of oatmeal
-squeeze of a lemon (around 2 tsp)
-one tsp of red pepper flakes
-one tsp of baking powder
-handful of fresh parsley
-handful of fresh cilantro
-salt to taste

Put everything in food processor for a minute.  Press into a pie plate and bake for 20 minutes at 375.  We did not let ours cool very much but we probably should have, especially if you want to serve in slices like a pie.  It holds together very well after cooling some.

The original inspiration has hummus filling the "pie" but I didn't feel like that was needed with all of the fresh veggies I'd bought to fill it.  The protein was already there in the falafel and too many beans can lead to some weird body stuff so I didn't feel bad leaving it out.

I sliced some super red ripe tomatoes and used them as my base layer.  I then added some chopped kale (I massaged with some lemon juice and garlic powder), red pepper, red onion, and kalamata olives.  Matt kind of HATES cucumbers so while that would have made this more impressive with another layer, I just ate mine on the side. 

For the tzatziki sauce I processed my cup of coconut plain yogurt, one peeled cucumber, two garlic cloves, the rest of the lemon juice from my half of lemon for the falafel, and salt to taste.  It was so so so good as a dressing for the whole pie. 

I mixed a spoonful of the dairy free tzatziki sauce with two parts sour cream for Matt. 

I cooked the garbanzos in the slow cooker the night before and this entire dish came together in 30 minutes.  And it was so good.  I love fried falafel but this had the flavor of the fried stuff without the oil. 

What better way to finish up a day of sitting in traffic than at your most favorite bar?

Cigar City delivered last night. 

Every single beer in my flight was great.

From the left:  Cucumber Saison, Granola Brown Ale, Horchata Ale, Nitro Whiskey Stout

The Granola Brown was probably my favorite of the evening.  Sounds weird.  Too good. 

A close call.

Matt made it home!  Barely.  He was in New York yesterday morning and took a train to Philadelphia and was supposed to go to Atlantic City but it was cancelled because of the storm so he got an earlier flight out of Philadelphia.  Like the last seat, on standby.  Thank you Jesus!  Bonus, he got here early enough to eat dinner at home and still go out with friends.  Because how would I survive without my Cigar City fix?  Behold, the peach IPA.  It is their best flavored beer.  Their cucumber is pretty great too.  I'm not a big fan of their other flavored beers.  So now you know.

I wanted Luke to be the best he could be so I bathed him.  He was not a happy camper and sunk into the couch because he knows I can't lift all 7,000 pounds of him.  See?  He's the bad smart.

But it was all good because he felt better about himself once he was bathed.  So good he wanted to hold his dad's foot while he ate dinner.

It's so beautiful out this morning, I feel bad posting about it but it was absolutely lovely.  Luke and I got in some miles and just breathed in the cool air.  Until it got hot.  How did I ever run in the summer.  It was 57 when we ran and I was sweating so much.

P.S.  If anyone wants to join up, I be hosting a run group out of Curtis Hixon tomorrow at 4pm.  We will stick around till 4:05pm for any slackers who are late but I have to leave at 4:45pm so we can't wait forever.  Let me know if you are coming so I can give you more info!