02.12.09 Breakfast, Lunch at Ruby Tuesday and Dinner at Home

Didn't get much sleep...woke up around 9:30am since I needed to head over to pickup my mom and sister so we could go out to the funeral home and church to rearrange things.

Printed out all the directions from Google Maps that I would need and grabbed a Coconut Cream Pie Larabar and hit the road.

Arrived at my mom's and loaded up grandpa's photo frames of pictures, his self portrait, a nice suit, belt and some accessories. My sister arrived at the last minute and we hit the road about 10:40am for the 11am appointment at the funeral home.

There was road construction galore so we ended up being about 10 minutes late. We got there and were greeted by a really nice man named Barth who took us through the whole process and assisted us in deciding certain things.

We finished up the appointment around 12:45pm and headed to Ruby Tuesday to get a bite to eat since my last coupon expired that day. We were all starving but realized we were almost out of gas so we stopped at SuperAmerica and I used my $25 gift card that I won at the party several nights ago.

Got to Ruby Tuesday, ordered and headed straight for the salad bar.

My salad

Soup and Broccoli

Cottage Cheese

Left Ruby Tuesday at 1pm and headed to our 2pm appointment at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Arrived a bit early so we sat in the waiting room for awhile. My grandpa attended the church for 30 years and would have wanted the service to take place there. Met the pastor, great guy...he has been there for about 6 months but he visited my grandpa in the Care Center regularly. So we set things up for a showing, service, communion, a luncheon, and then the service at Fort Snelling since he was in the war. 

Finished up around 4pm and headed back to the funeral home to change some details and coordinate between the two. Left the funeral home to go buy a wrinkle free dress shirt to go with his suit and came back to the funeral home to drop it off around 5:45pm.

Left the funeral home to drive my mom and sister back home. 

Got them back home and hugged my sister Sarah goodbye and gave her my last B1G1 Free Ruby Tuesday coupon so her and her boyfriend could go out for dinner. Went into my mom's house to burn a CD of memories of my grandpa to work on. Hugged my mom and said goodbye and headed home.

On the way home I called ahead to have Dave and Angie put the Trader Joe's Eggplant Parmesan in the oven. Arrived home around 7pm, changed into my comfy clothes and there was about 20 minutes left of the eggplant parmesan so I fried up lean ground turkey and threw a cup of tabbouli in with it and seasoned it and also steamed some broccoli. Plated dinner and had Angie place SF orange drinks on the table and we prayed and ate.

My portion

For dessert I dished us up cups of Edy's Cookies N' Cream, again. It was so good though!

After dinner we watched the latest episode of CSI Miami and I fell asleep a lot sooner than I wanted to...11:30pm and I will be working Friday through Tuesday nights 6pm - 6am so I need to sleep in tomorrow!

01.30.09 Lunch

After my shopping trip to Whole Foods I went to Rainbow Foods and bought six more cans of low sodium soup because they have a really good sale...$5 off when you buy 5 cans plus I had coupons ($13.50 - $5 - $2 - $1 = $5.50. 

Also bought Japanese Breadcrumbs $2, Wheat Crackers $3, Oatmeal (B1G1 Free) $2.50, 2 cans Turkey Chili $2, SF Orange Drink Mix $2.50, V8 Juice $2.50, Dannon Light & Fit $3, Blueberries $3, 3lbs Chicken Breast at $1.99/lb, Lean Turkey Sausage 3.50, 2 Ltrs Diet Canada Dry $2.50, Duffy's Crumpets $2.50 and a Mixed Berry Powerade Zero 79 cents. Did my Valentine Card Shopping too...$12 for 4 cards after B3G1 Free:) $55.00

Ran into Walgreens next door and got a nice box of Russell Stover Sugar Free Valentine Candy for half price, a package of Sugar Free Heart Peeps, got another bottle of my new favorite Curel Lotion ($1 off coupon) and got 6 South Beach Diet Bars on clearance for $1 each! $20

Ate the package of Peeps and drank the Powerade Zero in the van on the way home...

Got home and made Eggplant Parmesan for lunch!

(2 medium eggplants cut into rounds, 1 can NSA Hunt's Sauce, 8oz container of mushrooms, 4oz mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, olive oil, Japanese Breadcrumbs and one IKEA roasting pan with rack)

I cut the eggplant into rounds, salted both sides because the salt helps take the moisture out of the eggplant, placed them on the rack in two layers with plastic wrap in between and then weighted the eggplant down with soup cans to help drain the bitter flavor...let it sit for 30 mins.

I rinsed the salt off of the eggplant and dried it.

I got the egg mixture and japanese breadcrumbs ready.

Heated the pan on medium with olive oil, Dipped each eggplant round into the egg mixture, then the breadcrumb mixture and placed them in the pan and fried until golden brown.

Placed the eggplant rounds on the rack to drain.

Took out my IKEA shallow roasting pan.

Lined it with 1/2 cup Hunt's NSA Sauce.

Placed six eggplant rounds on the sauce, put sauce on the eggplant, layered about 6-8 mushrooms on top of that, then sprinkled some mozzarella cheese.

For the second layer I put six more eggplant rounds, used another cup of sauce, about 6-8 mushrooms per round and sprinkled some more mozzarella cheese.

For the final layer I put on one more layer of eggplant rounds, another cup of sauce, the rest of the mushrooms, sprinkled some mozzarella cheese and then sprinkled 1/4 cup parmesan on top.

Baked in a 350 degree preheated over for 30 minutes and Voila!...dinner was served!

My portion

My portion side view

Yes, I had seconds

Dinner was so good! Dave and Angie loved the Eggplant Parmesan and Manda (Our Dog) loved the cheesy saucy bits (no mushrooms) that hit the floor!