Home sweet home

I was going to stop at a friend's place for the night yesterday, but I was terribly homesick, so I took a nap at a rest stop and 16 hours later, I was home!

So, today (my first day home in about 3 and a half months) me and the hubby went to Sunday brunch. This is my favorite part of the entire week and the thing I have missed the most about being away. It gives us a chance to hang out, relax and have really good food! Do you understand why it's so hard for me to lose/maintain my weight? My entire family loves food and a lot of our plans center around it, for example, Sunday brunch.

This brunch venue was a bit different than any others we've been to. There have been little cafes in Old Town Alexandria that we walk to, bar-type places that we stop at after a run, but this one came with a show - a burlesque show. The restaurant is called Sax and it's in DC and it was a blast! The whole place is dimly lit, there's super comfy couches to sit on and all the waitresses wear corsets. Then, about every 10 minutes, some of the girls will put on a dance up in this glass case. Nothing like half-naked women to make your Sunday.

Oh, and the food! It was soooo good. I had smoked salmon (my favorite) on pumpernickel bread that was very crispy, then topped with capers and a dill cream sauce. You can't go wrong with dill. Me and the hubs also shared a little pot of blue crab and gruyere fondue with bread as the dippers. (I calculated this to be about an 18 weight watcher point meal, but it took up breakfast and lunch). Everything was delish and the show was spectacular! Definitely recommend this place if you're ever in the area and looking for an exciting Sunday brunch.

Again, it was dimly lit so you can't really see the food and I didn't want to be that weirdo that had their flash going off, but this is the smoked salmon and pumpernickel bread.

They had really great coffee, too, and I loved the glass! They had great service and the coffee just kept on coming. They also offer bottomless mimosas/bloody mary's.

For dinner, I made due with what we had at the house (not much) and made some red wine and tomato shrimp over spaghetti that I just kind of threw together based on what we had available. I thought it was tasty, but the hubs didn't finish his (he doesn't finish a lot of things though).

Red wine and tomato shrimp 

(Makes 2 servings at 9 weight watchers points each)

-Heat up a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of chopped garlic in a pan

-Add half a cup of red wine and let it simmer for about 2 minutes

-Add about a half cup of diced tomatoes and about 2 cups of deveined/shelled shrimp and let it cook till the shrimp are done (try not to overcook so they don't get tough)

-Split in two servings and pour over the top of 1 cup spaghetti and give it a stir. Enjoy!

After dinner, it was time for dessert! Now I don't have a terrible sweet tooth, but sometimes I like to end my evenings with a bit of fruit and my mom introduced me to this homemade banana ice cream that is to die for.

Banana Ice Cream

(0 points if you don't add toppings with points)

If you're like me and you always have cut up bananas in your freezer from when they started to brown and you always tell yourself that you'll make banana bread, but never do, then you're in luck! Take those bananas and make ice cream.

Whenever you freeze them, make sure you cut them up first so that they look like this:

It makes them easier to blend.

-Put the frozen bananas into a food processor or blender and give it a whirl. 

-Stop it frequently and scrape the bananas off the sides and push the big pieces back into the path of the blades

-Keep doing this. It may get tedious and seem like nothing is happening, but sometimes mine only goes about 5 seconds before I see that nothing is moving so I have to scrape the sides again

-The bananas are going to start looking kind of grainy and you're going to think it's not working, keep scraping and spinning

-Eventually, the bananas turn into this creamy, amazing consistency that totally will fulfill your ice cream craving. 

Just keep blending until it looks like this.

Now, you can add whatever toppings you want either directly into the blender or after it's in the bowl. My mom will add some PB2 directly into the blender for peanut-banana ice cream, my husband will add some chocolate syrup on top once it's in the bowl, and I poured some strawberries over the top of mine. Seriously, amazing!

I finally got a run in, too! Nothing great, but 2 miles was better than nothing. It felt good just to move after being in the car for 16 hours yesterday! Tomorrow I'm going to try to start getting on some kind of actual workout schedule again. 

Until tomorrow :)