The Ingredients

I spent wayyy too long yesterday eating and looking for places to eat.  I was starving when I came home so I snacked and then ended up making plans to go out to eat with a friend after a conversation about this grilled cheese restaurant in Pasadena I want to try at some point.  From the time we made the plans to the time he got here was over an hour and I spent the entire time trying to find a place that sounded good to eat.  I told him I wanted either burgers or Mexican.  I finally found a burger place that sounded good (Grill Em All-- grillemallburgs.com if you're curious).  I looked up the menu and it reminded me a bit of Stella's in Bellevue, mostly because they have burgers with peanut butter (don't knock it until you try it.  So tasty!  Even better with peanut butter and a fried egg).  Grill Em All has a burger with peanut butter, strawberry jam, bacon, and sriracha.  Oh my God do I want to try it.  We didn't end up going there because someone failed to tell me that he didn't want burgers, so he found a Mexican place instead.  That was acceptable.  It's the first real Mexican I've had since I've been here.  It was good and the place wasn't too far.  I just had a quesadilla, so I want to go back and try more.

I am way too excited to cook tomorrow.  I finally went to the store and bought ingredients to cook.  I love to eat out but I can't spend more money, especially when I spend so much as it is on other things, like food for home.  If I have food here, it's a lot harder to find an excuse to go out to eat.  I still find them--I always do--but it's harder.  Tonight's project is to make a cookbook.  I printed out all the recipes I've found so far on pinterest.  I'm putting them in sheet protectors and then in a binder.  I"m going to separate them into the categories of vegetables, main dishes, crock pot dishes, drinks, and desserts.  I bought a new crock pot today as well as a George Foreman grill to motivate myself to cook.  My goal for tomorrow is to make either the stuffing chicken that I've made before or try making salsa chicken.  I love crock pot recipes.  They are so hard to mess up.  I can still do it, but it's harder.