WIAW #3: Date Night

For my third What I Ate Wednesday post, I bring you... date night!

We don't have date night very often. We used to, back when we were a double income household, but it was one of the first things to go. However, it's important to relax and have an enjoyable evening every once in a while, and when I worked all 3 days of Columbus Day weekend and made Saturday-like tips each day, I felt I'd earned a night out.

It was last Thursday, and it was the one day that week I didn't have rehearsal, but I worked 1-5:30, so I spent my morning trying to catch up on packing for my upcoming trip (which promises super exciting WIAW posts!!), emails and other things. I started out with my normal breakfast. My egg was a double yolk one (this dozen actually had 3 double yolks in it... a record?). I had raisin toast with cinnamon sugar, coffee, water, and my usual slew of vitamins (thank you, CVS, for having them buy one get one free).

As usual, I lost track of time so I quickly scarfed down 2 laughing cow wedges, a giant Mutsu, and some Cape Cod crackers before heading off to work.

I tried to avoid snacking since we were going out for dinner, but I was hungry when I got home and Clint was still at work. Also, I was dumb and had made caramel corn, and I just can't resist, especially when it's pumpkin spice caramel corn (recipe coming soon!). Seriously, this is probably the main reason I can't fit into my size 8 jeans yet.

And at 7, we decided it was about time to head to dinner! We went to a small Italian/Lebanese restaurant around the corner from our house, called Le Mirage. It's a 7-8 minute walk (at my speed, more like 10 min at a normal person's pace), and it was chilly, but the parking around there isn't great and walking would make us feel less guilty for getting an app AND dessert. Also, this is a BYOB restaurant (part of why we went, knowing we can still drink but not get charged an arm and a leg for it), and if the two of us finished a bottle over an average-length dinner, neither one of us would be in great shape to drive.

We started with baba ganoush dip, which was delicious and smokey from the "fire roasted" eggplants.

I got pasta, which is downright strange for me. I rarely eat pasta, so much so that I bought 2 boxes of spaghetti 3 years ago when a friend came to visit (knowing she likes pasta, and tends to eat much early than I do, so I wanted a quick dinner so she wasn't starving) and one box is still unopened in the pantry. But this penne had a gorgonzola cream sauce and walnuts, so I couldn't resist. I'll get the kibbe next time.

You can see this dish is quite enormous. I had it for leftovers for lunch AND dinner the following day. note: pasta with cream sauce doesn't reheat well. I never remember this.

This was our wine, Lost Acres Vineyard Rock Wall Red.

Lost Acres is in North Granby, CT, very near my family's home- this home, I mean:

We've been to Lost Acres twice now for a tasting, and the Rock Wall Red was the one I liked best out of the ones we tried, but I didn't loooove it. Well, last night I kind of loved it. It might be that I'm becoming more accustomed to New England reds, which are lighter than their California counterparts, or maybe it was just perfect with the baba ganoush (it was, actually). We really enjoyed this one last night. The reason we selected it from our sizeable wine collection (we get comments from nearly every person who comes to our house) is because we have 2 bottles. Also, my parents go there often so could easily get us more. We really hoard our bottles, always "saving them for a special occasion". Which is silly and we know it, so we're trying to drink up. It's just too bad we came to this conclusion after I decided I wanted to lose weight.

Then we had dessert: chocolate hazelnut cake. This restaurant has lots of cheesecakes, but I can't do cheesecake. For me, it was this or the cannoli, since I have a real weakness for cannoli. Clint, on the other hand, does not. I can't remember what his other choice was, but this was delicious.

 Then we waddled home, warmed by the sugar, fat and alcohol. When we arrived at the restaurant (which is small, maybe 10 tables in the front room and I'm not sure how many in the back room), there were 2 tables. When we left, I think we were it. We weren't there all that long though, we just got a relatively late start.

I wish we could do date night more often. This whole dinner, including tip, was $59, and I think the bottle was $15 from the winery (but my dad bought it for us). It's not a huge amount, and we don't need an app *and* a dessert, so it'd be under $50 that way. And it provides us (me) with a meal the next day. So it's not that bad, but it definitely adds up. If we can revive date night, this place and Joey's will be our regular spots.

What did you do for your last date?