food

Today’s lunch spread: bacon, lettuce, and tomato ranch pizza, puppy chow, red velvet cookies, and pumpkin-brown-sugar-glazed cake. I meant to go light on the sweets today too… woops!

Hi kittens!

Yesterday was Chuck’s and my big Date Day (hmm, why does Date Night sound so much better?) We started out with massages at Mayfaire, but then I surprised him with tickets to the “Heart of Downtown” walking tour of Wilmington’s best restaurants, with Culinary Adventures.

One of the last times we were in Wilmington together, Chuck ran up to a tour and got the lady’s card. He kept talking about how we needed to go, but we never followed up and it didn’t actually happen. So, I stole the card off his nightstand and booked it myself. (I tend to be the one who takes a little more initiative on these things 😉 Plus, Chuck is not easy to “shop” for – it’s difficult to find things he’s excited about that I can actually get for him. This was perfect!)

So, despite walking around in the heat, we had a great time learning about the area restaurants, getting little tidbits of Wilmington history, and tasting delicious noms ranging from gourmet French, to low country Southern, to all-American breakfast, to cupcakes (yay!), to a variety of fine wines. We met chefs and even got a few cooking tips.

At first I was worried the tour would include a lot of the restaurants we’d already been to (which wouldn’t have been awful – they’re all great!), but luckily we visited quite a few I’d never even heard of. We actually started at a very nondescript-looking deli on a corner, which turned out to be one of my favorite stops. Each sandwich is inspired from a different port city (like Wilmington) from around the world, which I thought was a very fun concept and made for some unique and tasty sandwiches.

Anyway, for foodies like us, it was a perfect thing to do together, and something a little different. We got home and Chuck whipped up some homemade mozzarella sticks – guess he got the culinary bug for real now…!

Otherwise, the rest of the weekend has just been really rainy – so we’ve been watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Chuck is appalled that I’ve never seen it. I’m actually surprised by how much I like it…I’m not much of a fantasy person typically 🙂

(Taken with Instagram)

I was craving straight up chocolate decadence last night, so I whipped up a devils food chocolate layer cake (just out of a box) with semi sweet morsels and a cream cheese frosting center… And a rather lopsided powdered sugar heart on top? 🙂 I added a few tablespoons of heavy whipping cream for extra richness!!

I’m not gonna lie, it tastes GLORIOUS.

(Taken with Instagram)

I am sooo full!! Chuck and I had a great weekend with no plans, so aside from one short workout together and a couple hours reading on the beach, we just ate a lot.

Saturday night we grilled tuna steaks over a bed of spinach, with tomato salad on the side. I wish i had a pic of that – it was pretty 🙂 We finished an entire pitcher of our very own sangria together and “watched” about 4 movies – more like talked and laughed our way through them. It was glorious; I’m so grateful that Chuck and I still genuinely enjoy spending simple, random, silly time together. We tend to be around people so much that true time just the two of us is rather rare!

Anyway! Today we made eggs, bacon, and blueberry muffins for breakfast – finishing off with fresh peaches. For dinner we decided to live on the edge and have blue cheese -stuffed bacon burgers served on our fine china just for fun, since we never get to use it. We had sushi and cantaloupe to start, which was a surprisingly delicious and fresh combination, then shared two cupcakes for dessert – triple chocolate and key lime.

Sooo good, but Lordy, I feel like I could never eat again!