Lobsters & no cook dinner

And, after a month away, back to what we have been eating.

Which is to say, we have been eating out a lot. We were on vacation, I got sick and went on antibiotics after suffering as only mommy martyrs apparently do for like two weeks, then Dan got food poisoning, and then I think we had a week where we were feeling well when the stomach bug of the year hit, and, well, there went March.

But, some highlights! I bought a Groupon recently from http://getmainelobster.com/ and decided to make an evening of it. I knew that live lobster (that doesn't live in those fishy Kroger tanks) was a rare thing around these parts when I asked the Whole Foods fish guy about lobster in the area and he informed me *HE* had never tried fresh, not frozen lobster. So, we invited some neighbors and a couple of Dan's work friends over for some classic surf & turf. It was great!

It happened to be a lovely warm weekend so we spent lots of time outside on the patio, and I boiled up the lobsters just like my college roommate and Mainer friend Andrea showed me years ago. We grilled some steaks for those not feeling brave or whoever was extra hungry, and gave everyone the tools and they had at it! You can see how I did the table below. Everyone was awesome - they wore their bibs, cracked open their lobsters and dug for that lovely fresh meat. The company was awesome and I highly recommend them for their packaging, customer service and website.

Everything on the table (aside from the crackers and bowls) was disposable, which was perfect since lobster is so messy. All in all, I think it was one of the more fun dinners we've had and I'd totally do it again as it's really low maintenance for me and felt very festive and special.

But that was a brief highlight in a month of really not doing a lot besides putting shredded rotisserie chicken over pre-washed greens and ordering pizza. I did take advantage of Zingerman's spring sale and ordered up some awesome bread, cheese, salami and other tasty delights and it served us well for dinner more than once in a week. See below! No cook dinners can be lovely too. It's made me think a lot about bread and how LONG a loaf of prepackaged stuff from the grocery store lasts and I think I'm committing to buying bakery bread more often, to avoid those nasty preservatives. The Zingermans loaves are expensive but heavenly.

 

I hope to be back before a month next time!