Salad Pizza (Yummy!)

On Saturday, MTH picked up the snacks for our small St. Pat's Day get together. He bought some pizza rolls, beer, gouda cheese, beer, 4 leaf clover butter cookies and more beer. So, we needed up only eating the pizza rolls and the cookies. Therefore, there was gouda left in the fridge. We're moving out later this week so I'm trying to use up all the food in the apartment. I did a search for gouda pizza and found a recipe for something called Rip's Red Salad and Gouda Pizza. The reason it's called "red salad" is that it has radicchio, red onions, tomatoes, red bell pepper and red jalapenos in it. I did not want to spend the extra money so I had green bell peppers and yellow onions. I also didn't use nearly as much chesese as that recipe calls for. The nutritional information said it had 599 calories and 32 grams of fat per serving. It used a Boboli pizza crust so a serving was considered 1/4 of one of those. That's not huge. I looked at how much fat was in one of those and it was only about 4 grams. Therefore, all of the fat was pretty much coming from the cheese.

In case you're not interested in looking at the recipe, the basic idea is:

marinate a mixture of radicchio, tomatoes, green peppers and onions in a balsamic vinegar, olive, salt, pepper and sugar mixture for about 45 minutes. Put some cheese into the mixture as well as onto the Boboli crust. Be sure to drain the marinade from the veggie mixture as much as possible. Put the veggie mixture on top of the cheese topped Boboli. Put a little more cheese on top of the veggies. I also added some red pepper flakes. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 12 minutes. Let stand for 4 minutes after removing from the oven. Enjoy!

The end result of this recipe was awesome. MTH ended up eating about two thirds of it! I had one quarter last night and the other small portion that was left tonight along with the leftover asparagus.

Phoebe The Cat: Her Favorite Word

It's 'Shower'. So, maybe I'm humanizing Phoebe by thinking that she can understand me when I say 'Shower'. But, she seems to understand as she starts running towrds the bathroom. Then, once I'm in the shower, she balances herself on the edge near the faucet so she can lick up the water that's dripping from the showerhead. Then, when I'm done, she continues to balance and licks the drops that come out. Sometimes, she even sits in the bathtub. For some reason, she loves this water. Here's some pictures to show how cute she is. In our new house, she's going to be very disappointed. The two bathrooms iwth showers do not have bathtubs that enable her to reach the faucet while we're taking a shower.



Here she's trying to catch a water drop with her paw! She sometimes almost falls into the bathtub trying for the waterdrops

Nice action shot - she's jumping into the tub

She's now sitting in the tub getting more of that fresh water

Our House (Almost)

We're almost residents of The Fan District in Richmond, VA. MTH and I did our walkthrough of the house on Friday morning. There were only a couple of things that the seller needs to do and they are all minor. We sign on the dotted line on Monday morning. Then, we will officially own a house again. The movers will show up on Wednesday along with our new furniture and Comcast. It's going to be a busy day. The movers will unpack all of our boxes. But, that only means that they will put our stuff onto a flat surface, not in its proper place. I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep up as they unpack and actually have the place somewhat organized by the end of the day. MTH and I leave for Atlanta on Friday evening so we'll have no time for unpacking the weekend after the movers come. Then, next week, we leave for Las Vegas on Thursday evening. Even so, I believe that we'll be fully into the place before that trip. We'll just have to buckle down and get some stuff done at night during the week.

Another Richmond Taxi Saga

MTH and I had another run in with trying to use the Richmond taxi service. We thought we had to wait the last time. We were wrong. On Saturday night, we met a friend at the Byrd Theatre to see Casino Royale. As an aside, I do not recommend seeing that movie. The story made no sense whatsoever. The best part of the movie was when they were in the Bahamas and it looked so awesome to be at the beach. Once the movie was over, we headed over to Avalon Restaurant on Main Street between Robinson and Mulberry. Another aside: since I had popcorn at the movies, I had the small maple roasted butternut squash risotto and the applewood smoked bacon lentils. I then had the chocolate cake with a coffee. Of course, MTH and I had forgotten that we needed to call the taxi ahead of time. We remembered when we were paying the check. MTH called Veteran Cabs to be told that one was around the corner. We thought, "Wow, how did we get so lucky". We hurried out the door so we wouldn't miss it. Then, we waited and waited and waited a little more. MTH called back to find out what was going on. The lady had a little breakdown and said there were no taxis available. MTH then tried calling other taxi services. The answer was the same. He then decided that we should walk to the Boulevard. A taxi was certain to drive by. We stood there for a few minutes and then realized that wasn't going to work. We then walked back to Avalon. During the entire time except when we went to the Boulevard, I stood in the front of Avalon watching MTH. It was so cold outside! Finally, I thought that MTH had hit pay dirt. A taxi stopped and he was talking to the driver. I ran outside. No, the taxi driver thought maybe he could get an extra fare on his way to picking someone else up. Unfortunately, he was going in the opposite direction that we needed. At least 2 other taxis drove by without even looking. I was starting to think that we were going to have to walk home. It's only 3-4 miles so it would have been doable (even in my high heeled boots). At some point, we got lucky and an empty taxi drove by with a driver headed nowhere. I asked him how we could get a taxi in the future. His answer? He laughed. At least, we got home.

We figured out that one of things that was working against us last weekend was that the CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) Basketball Tournament was going on that night. That had to be the cause of the dearth of taxis in Richmond!

The Lucky Buddha

MTH and I went to another restaurant in our neighborhood last Friday. The Lucky Buddha is an Asian fusion place. When we first got there, I was a little worried as the place was basically empty. It was around 8pm. I still haven't learned the schedule of the Richmond crowd but I had thought it was earlier than DC. So, MTH and I thought maybe we were the last ones. We were wrong. As we went through dinner, the place started filling up - especially around the bar. That makes sense as they have a very nice drink menu. Who knew there was such a thing as Chai liqueur? I didn't try it but plan to try it next time. We focused on the food. We started with the Salt and Pepper calamari and steamed spring rolls. We only needed the calamari as it was huge! We then each had a noodle bowl. I tried the BBQ Pork and MTH tried the shrimp and pork noodle. Again, they were huge. The next time we go, we've decided to get two smaller appetizers and just one noodle bowl to share. That will fill us up! And, then, maybe we'll have a little room to try the green tea creme brulee.

Furniture Fun

MTH and I spent yesterday afternoon looking at furniture. We went to La Difference in Shockoe Slip near our apartment. We bought a new bed frame, dresser, chest and nightstand. We also looked at a couch but need to figure out if it will fit in our living room. Then, we headed to a store 2 doors down called These Four Walls. I thought we were just going to walk around. Then MTH fell in love with a red item. It's definitely going to add character to our new home! It may go in our front living room or in the dining room. We have no idea yet but MTH decided he had to have it :)

We then went to Sine for a snack. It's an Irish pub that's just 1 block away. While there, we talked about a writing desk that we had seen at These Four Walls. We decided that it made sense to go ahead and get the desk. Then, it will be delivered with the special red thing.

So, now our house is going to be more ready than I expected when we move in. Now, we just need to order the blinds!

Day Trip Ideas

Since we're still trying to meet people here in Richmond, we don't have a ton of things to do on the weekends (except MTH's working out and working). I decided that I wanted to go on a day trip this weekend. We kind of did one last weekend when we went to Charlottesville to see GT play UVA and went out to dinner with friends after. We came back that night. It turned out to be a nice trip but we were then home for MTH to work out on Sunday.

I found one good resource at www.richmond.com. They called them One Tank Trips. Not sure if MTH and I will do one these tomorrow but we're thinking about it.

If you have any ideas for day trips, please let me know.