My wife made stuffed peppers the other night. This is a great low carb option that is fun to do. We use ground turkey, onion, diced tomatoes, and cheese and then some spices to get the flavor up there. Really yummy, low carb and something thats definitely different. You can find several different recipes out there, and many will tell you to use rice. I say just use extra meat!

Having some broccoli and hummus for a nice low carb snack. Lots of fiber and vitamin C. It's a great healthy low carb option.

Across from a recent theater was a salad bar chain called Salata. You walk down the line picking your items and a server helps create your salad by adding what you chose to the lettuce, mixing you greens, and adding your dressing. While I love the notion of picking out exactly what I want for my salad in a quick easy method, this place does two things wrong in my book.

1. My salad was 10 bucks with chicken. I understand that a salad with meat should be a little extra, but I can get a huge salad at a Cheesecake Factory type resturant for roughly the same price. If I am going to an express shop, I am doing it because I want the convience of having a salad my way, I want it fast, and also to save a few bucks because of the experience. I think $8-9 would have even been more reasonable. $10 bucks could have bought my groceries to make my own salad.

2. After I was done selecting my items for the salad, the young server mixed in my dressing, tossed it all together then asked if this was "for here, or to go?". I decided to sit and enjoy my meal so I picked the first, "for here." She handed me over the large mixing bowl for me to eat my salad out of. No putting it on a nice plate or nothing. Just eating out of a mixing bowl. Eating my meal out of the enormous bowl kind of made me feel silly. Like some lonely guy in the corner of an apartment that is short on clean dishes. No presentation, no comfort, just eating lettuce out of a big bowl. Lame. 

All that to say, I wasn't a fan. Yes, its an option for those needing something quick and within their diet, but the price and presentation makes it hard for me to enjoy them. If they retool their model a bit, I could get on board, but not just yet. 

Now, you serve me Cap't Crunch in a bowl that size, we have a deal.

We ate at a great little place in Boston called the Paramount. It's a great little brunch & lunch place. The line for the place was all the way out the door when you walk in. That's usually a good sign. They do an interesting thing there where they don't allow any table saving until you actually have your food. They found that by doing this it actually causes less traffic in and out of the restaurant and is a lot easier and a lot less waiting for tables.

The food there was great. I got a western omelette and my wife got some blueberry pancakes because she loves to infuriate me with carbs in front of my face.

Lots of great places to eat in Boston. But if you're in this area try this place.

After our tour with Peter Pan ended my wife and I found ourselves in a unique situation. It was time to decide what our lives were going to look like. We had a lot of conversations about what we thought the future held for us and if we wanted to do more tours and travel,  My wife and I both agreed that we wanted to root ourselves a bit more. We wanted to have a home and start to build a family. We also decided to start working on some business plans of our own. So we decided to settle down in that frozen tundra of Fargo ND where I was born and raised.  Seemed like a good fit. The big obstacle of this change is going from the lives we have had for the past year of leaving out of suit cases, to finding a home of our own. Basically we had to head back to California, gather our belongings, share time with good friends and family, and hit the road.

First off, I want to say, moving across the country is not easy. Maybe the actual physical act of doing so is, you just pack up a truck and drive.  However when you have such amazing friends as we do, emotionally it's not easy at all.  There was not a moment when we didn't question ourselves and think we were making a mistake leaving such great people behind. It was very hard and there was plenty of tears. But I think the past year of traveling opened our eyes to realize that the world can be as big or as little as you want it to be. Distance between loved ones can be extremely far away, but if are intentional with friends and those you love and make it a point to visit them regularly, Skype, Facetime, text, or even just make a simple phone call, well it may not be so far after all.

That being said, we had some quality time with friends and then hit the road...

I had to hit my favorite local spot in California with some of my favorite guys, Ed and Rene. Wingnuts was a staple for over a year when my wife was busy in school. We would have guys nights, go eat some wings, and retire to play some Xbox at my place. The food here is really good, and in my opinion some of the best wings you will ever have. Knocks Buffalo Wild Wings out of the park. 

Our friends through us a great going away party. Good food and a nice way to say goodbye. Although, saying goodbye just makes things sadder sometimes doesn't it. Chris and Dannae are some of our favorite people to walk through life with and we are bummed to leave them behind. Such great friends. You can see Dannae has a bit of a baby bump going on. We are bummed we wont be around to witness the rest of that particular  adventure first hand. 

Gathering our belongings meant everything, including Rosie, our cat that my mother-in-law had been cat-sitting. We had to get her things and bring here in our Budget truck along with our small turtle Lois. Sneaking a cat into a Days Inn motel and driving 29 hours with a cat in a kennel who doesn't want to be in a kennel is no picnic. We made it though. Rosie is a champ, and God Bless Cat Calming Collars.

Along the way we stopped in Colorado and got to see some friends we hadn't seen for some time. Tex and Cori were college friends and they were so great to hang with and see. Cori took us to a great breakfast spot in the morning, I would have posted pics for you, but I get nervous of posting to many omelet shots. 

On our drive we didn't really make a lot of stops other than for gas and food, but when we drove through Le Mars, Iowa and saw signs for it being the Ice Cream Capitol of the world, we decides to splurge on some carbs. We stopped at the birthplace of Blue bunny Ice-cream and their museum. Not much to see in the town, but the museum and ice cream where pretty cool. Warning: Also, ice-cream is scrummy and not low carb. 

Anyway, we find ourselves unemployed and in Fargo now looking for jobs to help us start to settle in. Big changes are coming down the pipeline. In terms of the blog, you should hopefully start to see more recipes and home cooked meals show up on this blog again. Now that we have a kitchen, it means back to cooking for ourselves. 

So, thats what's been going on. What's new with you?

Sorry guys, I don't have any low carb pics to show you for this stop. I did have a yummy spanish Omelette here and fruit, but forgot to take a pic. I did however remember to take a pic of my wife's yogurt and some yummy graham cracker french toast. Both things are not low carb. So uh, probably good idea to just skip this post and pretend it never happened. or just stare at the pictures and train yourself to hate. 

From the outside of this place it looked like the last place I or anyone who wanted to be healthy should ever walk into. It has the look of a sportsbar with TVs up everywhere and just screams fried and greasy with the neon beer signs in the window. And while that perception isn't entirely false, when my wife brought me in here to get a burger I was shocked when I saw a nice little low carb meal on them menu just for me. 

I went for it and participated in their idea of a healthy low carb meal and was very pleased. The burger was super juicy with a great flavor and whatever cheese they use is super yummy. I seemed like the meat they used was fresh and not frozen and I thin that its the key to a great burger. I had been craving a hot dog as well so having that on top was a nice little extra. The chili is all meat, no beans, which is great because that means less carbs and less guilt. It was pretty tasty too. Its definitely a greasy plate, but you get the bang for your buck and you wont leave hungry here. I would come back here in a heartbeat if I was in the area just for this plate. Very good burgers. 

One or two won't hurt you, but the carbs can add up fast with these. Watch out. 

As for me, this is how I want to die, with a P.F. Changs Lettuce Wrap in hand. 

One Order of Lettuce Wraps
Carbs:47
Fiber:8
Net Carbs:39