How Cheap Nuts, Old Basil, The Inadequacy of Others, My Good Looks, and General Laziness Provided the Best Thing I Ate This Week

Fact: I am broke as a joke.

Fact: I suck at taking care of plants and let my basil get to the point of flowering.

Fact: I love shellfish.

Fact: I love it when the inadequacy of others benefits me.

All of these facts led me to make the best thing I ate this week.

Yesterday I left the gym and I was REALLY craving some scallops. The problem is that scallops are as expensive as fuck. I figured five little scallops wouldn’t set me back too much though, so I hightailed it to the Publix and asked the seafood man for exactly five scallops. I didn’t realize until I looked at my receipt that he put a sticker for tilapia, which was on sale, on the package instead of a sticker for scallops! My five scallops only cost me $1.17! I’m not sure if the seafood man made a mistake when he rang up my order or if he was just smitten with my good looks.

Really, who can say?

I took my $1.17 worth of scallops home and decided they’d be perfect seared and put on top of a bed of whole wheat fettuccine. I needed some kind of sauce, so I looked to the flowering and yellowing basil plant on my porch. I fail at taking care of plants. I’ve been growing that basil for months and haven’t pruned it once. I decided it was time.

Since I had to use all the basil, I decided to make a pesto. I didn’t have any pine nuts, though, and pine nuts are as expensive as fuck anyway, so I just used some almonds I had in the pantry. I got two big packs for $5 awhile back. Bargain! Almonds are way cheaper than pine nuts and I love cheap nuts. With some Parmesan, lemon juice, the basil, and olive oil, those cheap-ass almonds were a fine substitute for pine nuts.

Broke as a Joke Almond Pesto

The almonds actually gave the pesto a really nice creamy consistency. I may just make it a regular contender in my pesto. As you can see, my abundance of more-yellow-than-green basil kind of made the pesto look less pesto-y, but it tasted just fine!

I boiled up some whole wheat vegetable fettuccine, nuked some broccoli and cauliflower, and seared my $1.17 worth of scallops. The combination of this cheap-o meal was divine.

Does that look like some gourmet shit or what?

Isn’t it nice when the scales tip your way?

$1.17 for these scallops...if you're me!

Make this meal as soon as possible, even if you’re a sucker and have to pay full price for your scallops. If you make it my way, this delight for your mouth shouldn’t cost more than $5 or $6. Suck it, Bonefish Grill.

The Best Thing I Ate This Week: Homemade Meat-a-balls!

Ciao!

I come from a long line of big-hipped Italian women, and yet, I’d never made my own spaghetti and meatballs until this past Tuesday. It’s been well over fifteen years since I’ve eaten spaghetti and meatballs and my memories of the dish were fuzzy at best, though I know we ate it all the time when I was a kid.  When I went grocery shopping over the weekend I found ground chuck on sale at Publix and thought “Why not?”

I went into this really not knowing what I was doing, so I called upon the all-mighty Pioneer Woman for help. Of course she had a recipe for spaghetti and meatballs, so I printed it out and went from there. I was going to skip the ground pork step, but my friend Sharon told me to definitely use a mix of ground beef and ground pork because the pork keeps the meatballs moist.  Back to the store I went. She also suggested using garlic powder instead of fresh garlic, to avoid a bitter bite.  I took her advice. I also omitted the parsley from Pioneer Woman’s recipe, because I don’t really like parsley, and I don’t have to eat it if I don’t want to. Otherwise, I pretty much stuck to Pioneer Woman’s word.

The verdict:

Balls on a pan

Balls, up close and personal

Browned balls

Simmering balls

Balls in a bowl!

Not pictured: Balls in my mouth.

Meatball success!

Though my recipe somehow yielded way more meatballs than Pioneer Woman’s (I used a pound each of pork and beef, but I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal) and it took longer than expected for them to cook all the way through, these came out really good.  I put them over Barilla whole wheat spaghetti, which is really excellent, and served them with a salad (with my new awesome homemade dressing) and garlic bread, courtesy of the Publix bakery for $2.99! They just have that shit ready to go and you put it in the oven to get it toasty and it comes out perfectly.  Way better than any garlic bread I’ve ever made.  Thanks, Publix!  My male dining companion and I ate those balls up, then I sent him home with a bag of leftover meatballs and sauce and the extra garlic bread, because I am, in fact, my 80 year old grandmother.

Buon appetito!

The Best Thing I Ate This Week: Lobster Tacos

Fact: I’m 27 years old and today I ate lobster for the first time in my life.

Wowowowowowowowwweeeee.

My first lobster has prompted me to start a new series on my blog called The Best Thing I Ate This Week.  It’s pretty self-explanatory.  At least I hope it is.  If you’re confused, we need to talk.

So, a friend invited me to eat at The Ravenous Pig, a gastropub here in Orlando.  The Ravenous Pig is a pretty popular place with the bourgeois elite in Winter Park and Thornton Park and it always gets great reviews.  I’d been to the Pig (as the bougie folks call it) twice, but both times I only had drinks and dessert because, as the name implies, The Ravenous Pig is NOT vegetarian friendly.

Of course, now that I’m eating meat again, I happily agreed to check out the food at the Pig and I looked at the menu several times trying to decide what I’d get.  There were a lot of choices, including the Pub Burger, which I have on good authority is the best burger in town.  I was undecided right up until the waitress came back a second time to take our order and I went with the lobster tacos, even though I’d never had lobster in my life.

I made the right choice.

I was expecting strips of lobster sauteed in some kind of butter or wine sauce, served with traditional taco toppings in crunchy shells, but what I got were tender chunks of lobster lightly fried in a tempura batter with a crunchy seasoned coleslaw and avocado cream in soft corn tortillas.  I took my first bite and I was sold on lobster.

Photo Source

Full disclosure—-I did not take this photo. I didn’t have my camera on me at lunch, or I would have taken a much shittier version of this photo because my photography skills leave something to be desired, as you probably know if you read the blog.

These lobster tacos melted in my mouth.  The best thing about them is that, though they were fried, I could really taste the lobster–the fry batter didn’t overtake the whole thing.  I ignored the pickled jalapenos on the side, but really enjoyed the crunchy coleslaw and the avocado cream that complemented the lobster.  The only bad thing about these lobster tacos is now I will have to live the rest of my days knowing how delicious lobster is and not being able to afford it on a regular basis.

FML

Come back for next week’s edition of The Best Thing I Ate This Week, which unfortunately will probably not include lobster.