The fall weather is upon us, everyone! I broke out the boots today (and almost missed the bus trying to get them off the top shelf of the closet…actually Ben got them for me. Thanks, bro!). The ONLY thing that I don’t like about my whole family being home is that I can’t take the car to school. But that is so trivial in the grand scheme of things.

So here we are with another Wednesday in which I show you all the fun stuff that made my belly sing (words taken from my Dad). I actually think food makes my taste buds sing….

Anyway, thanks Jenn as always for being a super(mom) host! I formatted this WIAW like last week’s--just a compilation of some of the most interesting meals I’ve had. The MOST interesting EPIC meal was my mom’s second birthday dinner at an incredible Italian restaurant through Groupon. Read on to see the feast 😉

Breakfasts

English muffin with pb, sun butter, banana slices, and a glass o’ milk.

Kath’s peach dough boy smoothie (one of my FAVORITE things ever) + cereal on top for crunch!

Raspberry banana oatmeal with sun butter

Lunches

Confession: I think all of these are actually dinners because lunch has recently been a turkey, cheese, and spinach sandwich at school. I figured these are a little more exciting and meals I would have for lunch at home anyway.

Eggs, avocado toast, and another toast for necessary yolk dippage 🙂

Pork chop, sauteed onions, corn + roasted bell peppers, lettuce for wrapping

Grilled salmon with lime dill yogurt sauce, carrots, and rice

Snacks

Honey Oikos Greek yogurt (thanks to our generous neighbors!) and a peanut butter dark chocolate KIND bar (reminded me of a PB cup–YUM).

Vanilla, mixed fruit protein smoothie

Plus lots and lots of dried figs dipped in plain Greek yogurt. That is my go-to snack of the evening. I think I’ve nearly finished a whole bag of dried figs by myself over the course of this month. Oh and grapes–the huge, black, seedless, two-bite kind. I get grape belly far too often…

Dinner

As I mentioned before, we went out for a second birthday dinner for my mom thanks to good ol’ Groupon. We actually went on Monday night because the deal was only valid Monday-Thursday. Who says you can’t have a full-out Italian feast on a Monday night at the beginning of the school year?!

This can’t even be called dinner. This was literally like Thanksgiving…or more. Yes, more. My dad didn’t even eat lunch because he had been to this restaurant with my mom (through Groupon also) before and knew what to expect. Not only are the portions at this place ginormous, but since the Groupon included one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert for EACH person, there was a flippin’ copious amount of food. AND they served a bunch of antipasti and bread, which were just standard pre-appetizer munchies. I kept saying how boggled I was at the amount of food we were getting for such a great deal. I actually feel the need to take you through the steps of this culinary experience:

1) You sit down and they immediately bring you parmesan cheese and prosciutto.

2) Then comes some fabulous bruschetta:

3) There was also bread and some green bean antipasto.

4) The appetizers definitely could have been meals themselves (probably because four people should be sharing one appetizer, but we were getting a bang for our buck). No joke. I was asking for dessert after I finished mine.

Mine (L): Burrata and tomatoes with olive oil. So creamy and heavenly.

Ben’s (R): Beef carpaccio salad. That thing was huge. And good.

Mom’s coconut shrimp with dijonnaise sauce. Dad had clams in a tomato sauce, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

4) Alright, you could probably imagine that we were pretty full already. It was like a food marathon. All about the pacing. The entrees were ahead.

I got the seafood special of the night–Oreganta-crusted orange roughy. Guys. This was AMAZING. I ate/shared a little more than 1/3 of it and took the rest home. (I just ate it for dinner and it made for a big meal still!)

Mom’s filet mignon with mushroom sauce. “Like buttah,” says Dad. My mom will never order steak anywhere else.

Dad had a delicious panko-crusted baby lamb chop and Ben had some intense veal dish in a cream sauce. I’m definitely not a huge red meat fan, but I tried a bite of everyone’s and they were all fantastic.

They brought complimentary scalloped potatoes. We ate about 3 slices of this and took the rest home. So full.

5) Capacity had basically been reached at this point. But how could you leave out dessert, right?!

I got the peach melba (polished it off…I made sure to save room ;)) and Ben got the “#1 cheesecake in the county” as claimed in their menu. It was fluffier than traditional NY-style and less sweet.

The birthday girl got a chocolate truffle cake, which was a hit around the table. And dad had Florida orange slices with Grand Marnier (prepared table side)!

Are you stuffed just looking at all of this?? I couldn’t think of food afterwards. It was so amazing, so fulfilling, and so worth the oompa-loompa feeling I had walking outta there. I was wearing a maxi dress and I told me family that I felt like I was in a maternity dress (hellooooo, food baby)! Bonus: we left with a solid 3 more meals of leftovers. *Thumbs up*

Well that’s enough food-photo-dump for ya today. Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

So tell me: What was your most recent huge culinary experience? What have you been eating lately?