Veteran's Day

-
In many parts of the world, today is Veteran's Day or Remembrance Day. My husband is in the military and returned from a deployment earlier this year, so this day is one where I try to spoil him a little and do something nice for others who still aren't home yet. I'm donating to Club 9, a cookie club program that sends deployed soldiers a dozen cookies for free. It was one of my husband's favorite care packages and the other guys in his group enjoyed them too :) We're also going out to dinner, courtesy of one of these companies, who provide a free meal to thank service members. We are so grateful for the support.

Comments

  1. Liz @ Economies of KaleMonday, November 11, 2013

    Have a lovely dinner out - that's great that places will give you a meal for free :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousTuesday, November 12, 2013

    You must be so proud of your husband. I hope you both had a wonderful meal out! It's fantastic those businesses support returned service members.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SarahN @ livetolistWednesday, November 13, 2013

    I don't think I realised your husband was in the military. I think it's great that you can eat out for free, as far as I know that's not something I've seen here in Australia!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AmandaWednesday, November 13, 2013

      I think a free dinner out is a great way to say thanks - who doesn't like free food? :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

I love comments - please leave one (or twelve)!

Popular posts from this blog

Vegetarian Version of Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup

-
Image
I love Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup.  Love, love love!  In the past, I would gladly eat two bowls of it, about 5 breadsticks, and take my whole meal home!  But I've had to skip it since becoming vegetarian and that sucks.  So I found a copycat recipe online , and tweaked it to make it vegetarian.  (I am so grateful for copycat sites!) Surprisingly enough (not), the original recipe calls for chicken ... I added boiled potatoes to take their place.  You could probably cook the potatoes right in the soup - just make sure to add them early enough that they finish cooking before everything else goes soft.  That might be too much potato in one soup for some people (is that even possible?).  :)  You could bump up the amounts of the gnocchi or other veggies in the recipe, or add corn, bell peppers, or soy "chicken" if the extra potatoes don't float your boat. Any other ideas for taking the place of the chicken? Start by chopp...
Read more

Houlihan's Asian Chop Chop Salad

-
Image
Happy Friday! I'm so ready to sleep in tomorrow :) Have anything fun planned? Mr. Giraffe and I recently had a date night and went out to dinner. My appetizer was nothing to write home about, but my salad? Amazing! Houlihan's bills it as the Asian Chicken Chop Chop Salad, so I used one of my vegetarian eating-out tricks and asked for the chicken on a separate plate. (Mr. G gave the chicken two thumbs up.) Unfortunately, at $15, it wasn't the most affordable meal, but I plan to make it at home for much cheaper.  It's lettuce, cabbage, carrots, snow peas, bell pepper, jicama, peanuts, sesame seeds, and wonton strips or tortilla strips. All fairly normal (except the jicama - this was my first time trying it, tastes like a raw potato), but I never would've thought to combine them myself. (The asparagus was part of my husband's meal that he kindly gifted to me.)  I didn't sample the salad dressing - see more of my weird food aversions  here  - but it was s...
Read more

Yummy Vegetarian Dumpling Soup

-
Image
Soup is one of my favorite foods (alongside rice) and such a versatile food that I never get sick of it. So I'm always on the look out for new soup recipes or ideas. (One I'm not sure I have the gumption to try -  cold soup . Have you had it?) Enter this Chickpeas & Dumplings soup  by Kiersten.  my small first helping - it smelled strongly of thyme and I wasn't sure I'd like it! It's the vegetarian version of Chicken & Dumplings soup, one of my top 5 favorites. We had almost all the ingredients on hand, so I made this the day she posted it. It was amazing! Even Mr. G, who was pretty certain he didn't like dumplings, loved this soup. The first picture is when I had just dropped in the dumplings. Second picture is 20 minutes of simmering later. So cool! I made a few small changes to the recipe: left out the chickpeas because we didn't have any in the pantry (thought about substituting edamame in their place, but the soup was hear...
Read more