Well my photo blogging subject began to bore even me. I don’t think anyone was actually interested in what I bought/made/slapped together, so I’ve given up on it.

I’m also pretty sure no one even missed it while I was slacking.

As I see it, there were two big reasons this project failed.

1) I rarely remembered to take a picture before eating and,

2) I was using my cell phone to take the pictures. The food almost never looked appetizing since I’m not a food photographer. Heck, I’m not any type of photographer. So nothing came out looking even remotely good.

You may all thank the heavens, I won’t be subjecting you to any more crappy cell phone pictures of icky looking food. Even if it did taste delicious.

So I’m a little behind on this project. Don’t think anyone has noticed though. No one has said, “Hey Jen! What happened? I’m desperate to know what you’ve eaten for the past 3 days!!!”

Well, too bad if you don’t care because I’m back with an update anyhow.

July 7

I blew this day bigtime. I completely forgot the take a picture. So sit back, read this through, then close your eyes and picture it yourself. Cheese and spinach ravioli with alfredo sauce, and cheesy garlic bread. Mmmm

July 8

I made 2 dinners this night. Jason was out for the evening, Christian was heading out early so I made dinner at 5. Well I wasn’t hungry at 5 so I didn’t make enough for me. Only for the kids. They had cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce and regular old garlic bread. By the time I was hungry, there was nothing left which was fine. I wasn’t especially excited about basically repeating the last night’s dinner. So I cooked up some more minute steaks, dished out some potato salad, and made a few more pieces of garlic bread.

July 10

Last night was homemade pizza night. My favorite grocery store, Fresh and Easy carries packages of fresh pizza dough. No mixing or kneading required. Not only that, it tastes fantastic. I’ve made several pizza’s and bread sticks out of it. I like to keep a package on hand because it’s so good.

I’m not one to make the same tired pizza over and over. Sure I’ve done the pepperoni, sausage, bbq chicken, and the like. But I don’t like to make the same thing over and over. My recent favorite was the pizza with alfredo sauce (man can you tell we’re fans of alfredo here?) mild italian sausage and mozzarella/asiago cheeses. Holy cow was that a good one.

But last night we went with no sauce. Just olive oil and some garlic seasoning blend. Top that with some provolone cheese and some sopressata salami. That’s it. I did heat up some creamy tomato and basil pasta sauce for Jason’s dipping pleasure. The kicker? Caitlin loved it! The girl who doesn’t love anything I make loved it. Jess did too. Chris missed out because he wasn’t here.

Last night was a bit trying. After work, Jason and I had to drive out to Anaheim to pick up his new (to us) car. By the time we actually got around to thinking about dinner, it was getting pretty late.

We finally settled on something Caitlin’s been requesting for days.

Almost all of us eat them a different way.

For me: whole grill and spread only

Jason: meat, cheese and bun

Caitlin: meat, cheese and bun

Christian: sauce only

Jessalyn: cheese and spread only

We even had a friend of Caitlin’s here and she had lettuce and spread only.

I drove over there and ordered 6 burgers and 3 orders of fries.

One of these nights I’m going actually cook dinner. Something that’s not completely last second and thrown together. Maybe tonight’s that night. If so, a trip to Fresh and Easy is in order.

The only problem I’m having with this project is remembering to actually take a picture before I eat dinner. Such was the case last night.

My girlfriend Christie made dinner and so I’m not the one that did the cooking. The main dish was tacos de carnitas. That would be shredded pork tacos. After I ate my dinner, I realized I forgot to get a picture of my tacos before eating it all up. So I bring you a picture of the leftover meat in the pan.

The meat was tasty and the only thing I put on my taco besides the carnitas was chopped onion and cilantro.

Saturday saw lots of running around car shopping. I started off going with Jason, but by mid day when it was starting to look like we may never find a car, Jason bribed his brother into helping him out. I’m glad he did because I know nothing about cars, therefore my answer to, “What do you think” would always be based on how the car physically looks.

Anyhow, part of the deal was feeding my brother-in-law dinner. When asked what he wanted, he threw out “Tacos.” And so that’s what we had.

I know it may not be the most appetizing picture, but they were tasty nonetheless.

Tacos are a team effort around here. It’s my job to prepare the meat and any other fillings we’ll be having (which is usually only cheese and sour cream) and it’s Jason’s job to fry them up. Yes, we go the super healthful route by sticking them in hot oil!

Jason didn’t cook these as much as I usually prefer. I like them a bit browner and crispier, but he was pretty wiped out by the time we got around to making dinner. It as already 8:30 at that point, so I’m just grateful he helped out at all.

Ahhh yes, Independence Day. The day we cook meat over fire and blow stuff up after dark!

The 4th of July saw many tasty foods of which I ate a lot. Here’s a small sampling of what I had.

Look! It’s meat! It’s a stick! It’s meat on a stick!

Beef, onions, red bell peppers and green bell peppers cooked in the backyard over a flame. Yum.

Then I had a little of this:

I mean really, what 4th of July BBQ would be complete without the watermelon? Well actually, my husband would tell you every single one of them because for some odd reason, he doesn’t like the stuff. That’s just the weirdest thing to me. Not to mention UnAmerican!

Of course there were chips, veggies and dip, BBQ meatballs, cookies, cupcakes, and the like, but it was also 2 days before the host’s son’s birthday. So there was cake! A gigantic cake decorated with a football theme. When the cake was about to be served, Tyler (the almost b-day boy) was asked which piece he wanted. He pointed to the laces on the football indicating those, and only those. What he got instead was a whole lot more!

No, that’s not a small cake plate he’s holding. That’s a 9″ dinner plate. His grandmother cut out the entire football and slapped it on the plate. Of course he thought he’d have no problem eating the entire football, but after what would have been a smallish piece if served to anyone else, he was over it. His sister gave him crap for it because he talked the talk, but wasn’t able to walk the walk. It was all in good fun though.

A good time was had by most, if not all. The food was good, the company was good and the fireworks were most excellent. We had a fantastic spot for viewing the local high school’s show which lasted for 25 minutes.

I hope you all had a great 4th/Friday.