It's a Hard Knock Life

After a morning spent drinking coffee and perusing the Friday newspapers, The Wisconsin State Journal and The New York Times, we four O's hopped into the trusty O-mobile and headed to the eastside Maharaja restaurant to sample the lunch buffet. And, oh, what a spread! I ate veggie dishes and spicy dishes and rice dishes and curry dishes and fried dishes and saucy dishes... I ate pakora and kofta and aloo and naan and tikka and chutney and biryani... (I even may have had the #2 veggie dish: "MALAI KOFTA: Vegetable Balls, Fried, Cooked in Delirious Gravy"; I'm not sure.) Oh, and I had a mango shake and a spoonful (or two) or mango ice cream and a spoonful (or two) of pistachio ice cream and one itty-bitty gulab jaman, a "non-fat dry milk and cottage cheese fried ball soaked in sugar syrup," which may sound gross to some people but is actually quite delicious, like a little pancake ball drenched in syrup (although not as delicious (or delirious) as the caramel creme, of which I also may have enjoyed a spoonful or two.) I'm not sure what all I ate, but it was all scrummy--and I "sampled" a bit too much of it, that's for sure.

I somehow managed to pry my plump tush out of the restaurant chair, waddle to the car, and drive us to the movie theater to see Stranger Than Fiction, which earned thumbs up from all four of us. (I'm still, internally, debating the number of stars--at least 3, possibly 4, on my 5 point scale.)

After we returned home, I started to fall asleep sitting upright on the sofa (so as not to disturb the cat in my lap) but woke myself up just as I was starting to drift off, no fewer than four times, by my own snoring. After watching an episode of Lost, I finally got around to doing something somewhat productive, making Sunday's dinner, red beans & rice, with the bone from our Thanksgiving ham. (Yes, ham.)

Having dropped the ball on holiday preparedness, while my beans & ham bone were simmering I went to Copps looking for green beans so that I could make Green Bean Salad with Toasted Pecan Vinaigrette for the family get-together and Uncle Jim & Auntie Susan's tomorrow. Copps was, inexplicably, completely out of fresh green beans, so I grabbed a few bags of frozen organic green beans, with the hope that they will turn out just fine. (I could kick myself for not buying some of the delicious fresh petite green beans that I saw while shopping at Whole Foods on Wednesday morning.)

This brings us up to about 8:00, when I finally ate a bit of dinner. Well, it was just some leftover mashed potatoes from yesterday, but I thought that I should have something to eat as I hadn't had anything since our early lunch, and I thought the potatoes would help settle my stomach. (Perhaps you're not surprised that my gorgefest resulted in a bit of dyspepsia.) I mixed a bit of leftover pureed sweet potatoes in with the regular mashed potatoes; the result was surprisingly tasty.

The pureed sweet potatoes were leftover from the sweet potato biscuits I made for dinner yesterday. Now, I'm no disciple of Martha Stewart--I don't think I've tried one of her recipes before--but these also were quite tasty, especially as I had added a bit of nutmeg and a bit of allspice (and had intended to make maple butter for them but got lazy). I also prepared the aforementioned ham--distressing both of the boys, who think it's sacrilegious not to cook turkey on Thanksgiving--along with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberries and mandarin oranges, and, of course, pumpkin pie. No veg, as usually everyone fills up on the other goodies, and no complaints about the lack of such either.