Home Again.

I am happy to say that we are safely back home after our trip to Austin.  While I loved being away, not having to worry about work, seeing my family, eating great food, etc., it is nice to be back home. 

Tony made me a delicious breakfast this morning – it was nice to have a home cooked meal!  Creamy spicy eggs in a Pam fried corn tortilla. Love the extra sriracha on top!

While on vacation I ate a lot of food. 

Italian beef sandwiches with chips and cookies on the boat.

I need to recreate this dip at home – Lizz recommended it and it was so spicy and delicious!  I think I ate 3/4 of the container by myself with everything flat bread crackers.  We found this at HEB – biggest grocery store ever!

 

Best sausage hands down at The Salt Lick:

The brisket was good too:

They let me enter the employee doors to get a good picture of the pit at Salt Lick – the smell is amazing!

We had burgers twice for lunch:  One at Elevation Burger.  This burger was good, but what made it great was a balsamic mustard sauce – I must recreate this sauce at home!

And Mighty Fine Burger.  Tony and I were underwhelmed at this burger for the price.

One night Joe, Lizz and I went to Chuy’s Mexican restaurant.  The place was packed on a Tuesday night!  The Boom Boom sauce on the side was amazeballs:

We had avocado egg rolls and sweet and spicy shrimp at Kona Grill.  Tony and I never thought we’d ever say these words, but it was too much avocado in these rolls, and they had stinky red onions in them.

I ended up getting a delicious pan fried noodles with beef tenderloin.  I asked them if they could make it spicy and leave out the onions.

udon noodles, beef tenderloin, vegetables, black bean garlic sauce

I really wanted to eat this whole dish, but I ended up eating half of it.  So flavorful, the meat was tender.  I never even heard of Kona Grill before but found there are two in Illinois. 

And on the last day I finally got to go to my first food truck!  I realized that a lot of the food trucks are either open at lunch time – typically 11:00 to 2:00 and then don’t open again until like 11:00 at night for the bar crowds.

We found that Garbo’s Lobster Truck was about a 20 minute drive from Joe and Lizz’s house and that was our lunch on Friday.

You had your choice of either doing it “Connecticut Style” or “Maine Style.”  Joe and I went with the Connecticut style – toasted bun, lobster and tarragon butter sauce.  Tony got the Maine style which is the classic version with a light mayo dressing.    After taking the stinky scallions off, this was an amazing sandwich – so much lobster!

But the best food for me was at Rudy’s BBQ.  Blog readers Peggy and Mary told me it was the best BBQ in Texas.  Best suggestion ever.

You buy the food by the pound.  Tony and I ordered half a pound of the lean brisket, and a link of sausage and potato salad.  Lizz and Joe step up to order a pound of the moist brisket, 1/2 a pound of turkey breast, jalapeno sausage and creamed corn.

They just give you butcher paper for a plate and lots of white bread!

The moist brisket was to die for.

I love my step daughter-in-law and was glad we spent time to get to know her better.  They moved away to Austin about three months after they started dating, got married at the justice of the peace last November and had a whirl wind trip to Chicago after that and we didn’t get to see much of them.

#1 reason I love her?  She loves her food!  She’s tiny, probably about five feet tall and maybe 110 pounds?  It was amazing to watch her build her sandwich at Rudy’s.

I drank lots of beer:

              

    

So I was shocked as shit when I stepped on the scale this morning.  Not kidding I had a dream while on vacation that I stepped on the scale when I got home and it said I weighed 206 pounds and I was worried how I was going to explain a 26 pound weight gain to you guys!

I lost 2.4 pounds!  I don’t recommend this diet to you, but I am happy not to have gained 5 pounds, because we all know that it takes four times as long to lose the weight than it is to gain.

We had fun with Joe and Lizz:

Lizz is a huge Brittney Spears fan, love it!

Got to see my brother Charlie and his family.  Charlie and I being goofy!

   

I only got to see my niece Sarah (on the right) for a quick lunch before she had to head back to Denton where she’s working this summer while school is out.  I got to spend more time with Rachel since I slept over at their house on Tuesday.  I knew she had to leave the house by 8:15 and when I woke up at 7:45 and she was still asleep, I went to her room and climbed in bed with her.  She had the radio alarm going and I started singing Demi Levato’s Heart Attack really loud to wake her up!

Yep, I am the crazy Aunt B.!!  We laughed so hard at that.  This Wednesday I am going to send her a text at 7:45 asking her if she wished I was there to sing her awake!

Charlie and my SIL Laura:

And I will miss Cinnamon Bun.

It just reminds me how much I miss having a dog, and Cinnamon is just so friendly.

Tony liked him too, well, until Cinnamon decided to jump off the couch several times using Tony’s balls as a spring board!  Tony also thought he was a noisy dog, but I got used to it.  If we ever get another dog, Tony would never go for a tiny dog like Cinnamon, but I loved him.

We enjoyed our time on Lake Travis – Tony is a great captain!

Of the 507 pictures I took?  Not one of me and Tony together!  I’ll have to see if the kids took any on their iPhones.

Now I am off to meal plan and do a grocery store run.  It will be nice to get Bizzy in my Kitchen again!  I only made salsa once so I literally haven’t cooked anything in 9 days – I think that’s a record!

Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day.  I probably won’t post again until Wednesday – I hope to walk before work tomorrow!  See you then!