it’s 10 PM and we just finished eating dinner.
TEN PEE EM.
an hour and a half of that has to do with the fact that i got into a heated phone call with comcast after work today. this big fat waste of time led to me canceling my cable and internet service and i know i will be ultimately happier in the long run. GOOD RIDDANCE, COMCAST. get out of my life.
whew, sorry, went off there, didn’t i? it’s still a sensitive subject, apparently. moving on.
after hanging up with comcast, i let my frustrations out at the gym. i didn’t even get to the gym until 7:30 PM—yikes. i spent an hour on biceps + triceps with a short 10 minute jaunt on the elliptical. (can we call it a jaunt?)
the dinner we just finished eating was worth the wait! it was so dang delicious.. marshall said it needs to go on “the menu for the restaurant”—yes, we WILL have a restaurant some day.
greek!
before leaving for the gym, i diced two chicken breasts into 1” cubes and marinated the cubes in a mix of olive oil and this line up of spices:
when i got home from the gym, i skewered the chicken onto some bamboo sticks.
marshall grilled the chicken while i prepped the rest of the dinner.
first i made some tzatziki by i combining 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt with a small minced cucumber (after peeling it), the juice of 1/2 a lemon, a half tablespoon of dried dill and some salt & pepper.
next, i got to work on the salad—this was tough. i tore up a head of romaine, pulled some marinated artichoke quarters out of the cupboard, grabbed the costco container of grape tomatoes from the fridge and crumbled a tiiiiiny corner from the massive block of euphrates feta emily sent me.
this is the second of the two blocks i received.. we have feta for days, folks! come on over! i have plenty to spare.
simplest salad ever.
i was going to make greek dressing from scratch, but since we were short on time, i used one of my favorite bottled varieties (i always pick this up when i visit a trader joe’s!)
i also prepared some whole grain couscous. i was planning to do roasted lemon potatoes, but after the whole comcast fiasco, those were out. couscous is the quickest starch to prepare, so that decision was easy.
for the couscous, i boiled one cup of low sodium vegetable broth and then added one cup of whole grain couscous. i removed it from the heat and covered the pot. after it sat for about 5 minutes and all the broth was absorbed, i fluffed it with a fork.
i then added three thinly sliced green onions, about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a generous shake of granulated garlic, the juice of 1/2 a lemon and a little salt & pepper. one more fluff and the couscous was ready!
just as i was finishing everything in the kitchen, marshall brought the chicken kebabs in from the grill. we threw it all onto our plates and called it good. and it was.
this came together relatively quickly considering how many components were involved!
i ended up mixing the couscous into the salad and then pouring the tzatziki over top of it all. the various textures and flavors were incredible together! i need to start topping my green salads with grains more often.
i am already excited to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Qs~
1. what is your favorite grain?
2. what time do you typically eat dinner?
bonus question: do you hate comcast?
xo. janetha g.
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My boyfriend and I left Comcast for Qwest/DirecTV last December. Best “grown up” decision we’ve made yet! Somehow, our Comcast bill kept getting higher every month, even though we never made any changes to our contract. Qwest has been great, and if you have it in SLC (we’re in Portland, OR) I HIGHLY recommend them!
EXACTLY! it started at $90 and the most recent bill was $200! I was appalled. I will look into it–Marshall wants Direct TV for the free NFL ticket! Thanks!
In WI we have Charter, and at least once a week our internet and/or cable is down. It’s unbelievable frustrating! I swear the cable companies are thieves!
yum! I want to go to your restaurant, let me know when it’s opening day! :)
We have Time Warner and it is pure bullshit. Hate them.
Can I say that you are amazing? I don’t know how you manage to do with cable, workout, eat dinner at 10 PM and STILL blog?!
except i didn’t get to blog about what i WANTED to because i ran out of daylight and time :( boooo. you need to give me a tutorial with the straightener at HLS!
We haven’t had cable for years- we have rabbit ears and dude, I seriously don’t even have time to read blogs, how on earth would I have time for TV. All I can spare is some news during dinner and in the AM in PS. Love local PS news LOVE IT! Little old lady mugged on East palm Cyn story at 11! Woo!
Woops, where was I? OK the meal looks divine and I love your bright green runner/placemat.
You are a superstar for doing all that you do. You bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan (OLD OLD OLD hilarious commercial I’m sure you could youtube- and so worth it)
I know–I don’t even care that we won’t have TV! I don’t have time for that! Haha. but Marshall wants to watch sports so we will probably have to get something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA4DR4vEgrs
Here- what a hoot.
HILARIOUS! And you caused Marshall and I to spend 30 minutes watching commercials from the 80s and laughing our asses off, so thank you. I love you!
every time I see that big block of feta I want it! Mmm.
dinner looks amazing – I love cous cous. when your restaurant opens, I’m there.
I fired comcast this year too – after making them credit the extra $ they’d been charging us each month for about a year, for a piece of equipment we gave back to them. boo. we are getting faster internet and more channels for less than HALF what we were paying comcast – we’re also with quest (in Portland!) with a dish. awesome.
there have been SO MANY times ive wanted to chuck my remote through the tv. comcast/time warner is the worst. the WORST so i feel your pain. we ditched tv and rely on netflix and kyles ipad to watch things now. but how are you going to get internet connectivity?
anyway. i very much enjoyed your use of the word jaunt. its underused in todays conversation. way to bring it back j money. oh thats your new nickname i guess? im in a delirious mood right now…lack of sleep i think. this comment is heading to crazytown so ill cut it off now. but i never got to say how yummy dinner looks. ah well, you get it, its a food blog and all.
I love you when delirious.
I have time warner cable and its a bitch! I start paying like 90 bucks a month and now my bill is like 230??? WTF? And lets not forget the random “glitches” that occur for no reason and I have no internet for a few hours. Grrrr.
Come be amish with me.
That’s what happened! It was $90 and the most recent was $200! WTF!
Oats and bulgur are faves!
As for dinner time-now? Yeah I know its supposed to be unhealthy to eat this late but it hasn’t hurt me yet. As for comcast, I dunno I’m too cheap for cable!
Is it unhealthy? Haha it hasn’t hurt me, either! I eat up until the point I have to go to bed.
mmmmmmmmmmmm I loveeee greeek!
Agh!! How frustrating! These random (debt collecting I think) companies keep calling my number and asking for some man that is not my husband and I have to keep telling them it’s the wrong number! Not the same thing I know but sometimes dealing with people on the phone is so difficult. Hope you get your cable/Internet figured out. :)
Ugh I feel your pain! Someone got a hold of Marshall for that same thing once.. he’s like THAT IS NOT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Wow, good on you for still uploading a blog post after all that! I would be way too pooped for that!
My favourite grain is rice….preferably inside a sushi roll :) I eat dinner at 7-7.30 and then have a protein shake right before bed, at around the time you’re eating dinner haha. I don’t live in the US, so I’ve never heard of comcast, but I’m guessing I should be pleased about that!
I didn’t get cable when I moved, I only got internet service and I watch every single show I watched on tv online. You just have to be willing to put in the search time to find your shows.
I don’t even have any shows so that would be easy for me! Except for Family Feud with Richard Dawson. He was a pimp!
Concert Is a little bi@tch! I traded mine
In for direct tv. Soooo much happier:-)cc
man, what a waste of your time…not to mention all that negative energy!!
no more cable for me…ditched it about a month ago, and like melissa (above) i watch anything i want online (not that often, don’t make the time for it). i guess rogers would be the canadian equivalent! and yes, quite $$, too…
at least you got to the gym – yippee for that!
It’s amazing how ridiculous internet and cable companies can be. I think 99% of human beings have had some kind of falling out with them.
Dinner looks amazing as always. I’m still working on my 1st block of cheese. LoL I had to give the second block away and I’m not half way done with the first one.
Yeah–we gave the second half of the first one away! SO HUGE!
not gonna lie, wasn’t sure what comcast was. We don’t have cable and i’m pretty outta the loop on that stuff. But glad its no longer driving you crazy.
mmm greek! I have that seasoning. I am pretty sure it goes on all my food. Maybe I just like to think I am half greek, right?
;)
You should be glad you didn’t know who they were!
Comcast for the most part has been good to us (knock on wood!!!) but I have heard from plenty of other people that their service is the worst.
I love that you and Marshall have food for the “menu for the restaurant”!
O.M.G. there are not words to describe how much we hate comcast! their service was terrible…both with the internet and with customers! we had them for a year because we signed a contract and then the second we moved we changed to Qwest. Much better!
dinner looks good though…i love barley, and bet salads would be great topped with that too!
1. Brown rice
2. 7:00-ish
3. I am okay with Comcast because I check my bill every month (ever since my bundle expired and my rates catapulted without me taking notice for months). Bad on me for not paying closer attention beforehand.
WE LOVE QUINOA – seriously cant get enough of it – I use it for just about everything…couscous was our favorite until we found quinoa! We are super early birds when it comes to dinner like 6pm…call us senior citizens! Here in Trinidad the sunsets at 6pm (because we r so close to the equator) so by 6 your hungry, tired and ready to eat watch some True Blood and go to bed! xoxo from Trinidad (that chicken looked awesome) P.S. I made some amazing homemade granola yesterday…hop on over just posted about it!
Mmm we love quinoa too! It was a toss up last night, because quinoa is so quick, too! Thanks for the granola notice.. I just bought 3 bags of warrior crunch for Susan’s cause so that is the last thing I need but I will bookmark it!
My favorite grain is couscous! I love it so much. Although quinoa is a close second.
I usually eat dinner somewhere around 5:30-6pm. Yeah, I’m an early bird. Haha. ;)
Oh, and trust me, I share your passion for hating Comcast! They NEVER show up for appointments on time. Oh, and I love every time I open our bill, it magically goes up! I don’t ever change any options and it still goes up. Then when I call there, no one speaks english or they give me the whole, we can’t do anything to lower your bill speech. It’s so annoying!
Oh my gosh–I was nodding along to that WHOLE Comcast paragraph! You are so right.
I usually eat dinner around 5:30. Any later, and I need a snack to tide me over. Earlier, and I’m starving by 7…ha.
And the couscous addition looks delicious! I haven’t eaten couscous in ages, but it’s definitely one of my favorite sides. That, along with quinoa, millet, and bulgur. :D
We FIRED Comcast this past weekend and went BACK to DirecTV. We had DTV for YEARS but thought we’d give Comcast a shot since it was going to offer us ONE HECK OF A DEAL…We were so sorry we made the switch!! We had intially also went with the bundle (phone, internet, cable).
Well, we call Saturday night to cancel phone and cable (we’re keeping the internet as we like it a lot better than our old Verizon and not many other options are available to us here)…well, an hour later..our internet doesnt work. They turned that off too!! WTH!?!? Dh calls, complains, and 15 mins later it’s back up.
Fast forward to yesterday…we come home and sure enough NO INTERNET..AGAIN!!! They had put in a ticket for “new services” (WTH is so new about just canceling two out of the three services?!?) Back to the call, complain and 15mins later it’s back up. UGH! COMCAST BLOWS!!!
That’s the funny thing–you complain, and all of a sudden everything is perfect! SO LAME! I loved your comment!
Hate Comcast. We ditched cable several months ago (still use Comcast internet) and it has been the best decision we ever made. I thought it would be difficult to learn to live without cable shows, but it was really easy and I truly don’t miss TV. We watch Netflix streaming and that’s been plenty. I wish we could get rid of Comcast internet because that company is so awful to deal with but there just isn’t another choice of the same calibre in our area.
We never had comcast while living in Utah – Jake said no. Glad we didn’t have hearing everyone’s stories. We used xmission. I think they service SLC too. But they don’t have cable as far as I know – just Internet. They were excellent though and I totally recommend them. We never had cable so you’ll have to look into that part.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I can totally relate to whipping up the quickest grain onhand…BUT, if you do have time, you should really try boiling red skin little potatoes, mixing them with oregano & mustard! They are SO good. And totally simple (:
Sounds super tasty! THe red skin little potatoes are the ones I was going to make! They are sitting on my counter, sad that they didn’t get eaten ;)
9 pm is when i’m usually digging into dessert #2, if we’re being honest, and by 10 pm i’m asleep :) just call me grandma! boo on having to deal with comcast, i have a burning hatred for all cable/internet companies…comcast is not one i’ve had to deal with in the past but now i’ll stay away! we’ve gotten rid of our cable (no time for tv anyway) but still have to deal with them re: internet/phone. blah. i make ryan call and fight with them bc he’s hardcore!
enough rambling, can you tell it’s friday at work ha?! have a great weekend full of yummy food!!
yum..that looks like the perfect dinner!! oh my god..we had the WORST experience with comcast. they overcharged us for like 6 months, so essentially stole money from us for 6 months!!! like, a lot of money too. we fought with them every month and they always said they’d fix it..finally they did but it took forever. it was ridiculous!
Welcome to the no-cable club! I did a What to Watch on Hulu post this week and am doing a Netflix version next week. I don’t miss the cable a BIT.
I have been following your no cable posts! I dont have any “have to watch” TV shows, anyway, so I don’t care about the cable canceling (hello, blogs!) but Marshall wants NFL ticket–have you found a way to watch sports without cable?
How on earth did you do all that and still BLOG?!?! I need your secret!
Comcast = suck fest. We had them when we lived in Denver. I remember waiting on the phone queue for like an hour one time. We ended up cancelling and just having Blockbuster Online.
What will you name your restaurant? If it’s a secret, you don’t have to tell.
It’s a secret! ;)
figured as much. I usually don’t give out children’s names that I like, for fear that people will steal them.
omg. comcast. no words. i have FIOS because they suck so hard. no grains for me at all! i typically eat anywhere from 630-8pm usually.
Comcast is SO frustrating… second only to Verizon, in my opinion. Your dinner looks worth the wait!
Oh Verizon. I agree.
Wow, that dinner looks delicious!!
Never had to deal with Comcast before, but I can tell you that I called CapitalOne while I was at work one time, and got transferred and placed on hold so much that by the time I spoke to a supervisor I went OFF on them! My co-workers heard me and thus the new term for going off on someone over the phone was born at my work “Going CapitalOne on thier @ss” teehee
That’s hilarious! I love that term!
I LOVE barley, yum. We usually eat around 7:00 when the hub’s gets home from work. Someone else was talking about switching from Comcast yesterday, I hear they suck. We have Bresnan in Colorado and I can’t complain considering we took our cable box back and cancelled last year. But when I plugged the cable into the wall, our cable still worked! Yay! Free Cable! We really can’t complain or else they’ll shut us off. Hehe.
Hell yes! Score for you!
oh! we have the SAME freeze dried cilantro that deej bought me and i’ve got to say that i never ever know what to do with it! thank you for curing me of that!
Well that wasn’t cilantro I used (maybe it would be good but I dunno about cilantro in greek…?) but I am sure you can find a use for it–catnip?
I used to hate Comcast. Then I used Charter while I was in South Carolina for college and, well…I don’t hate Comcast anymore. Although I still can’t say I love them.
Do you like that couscous recipe on its own, or did you feel the need to mix it for more flavor? I’ve been looking for a good way to easily do couscous and I think I’d like this one.
Oh it’s great on its own! I was eating it right out of the pot.
I worked for Comcast for a miserable 5 months and wanted to literally shoot myself. Comcast can give two sh*ts about customers and insist on increasing prices. I was tired of always going into meetings every other day that prices were increasing, but “its better for our customer” crap! We still have Comcast, with some discounts, but I fear that will end soon….ugh. My bill will be about $200…we will have to figure out something to do. Maybe remove cable altogether and only have internet…ugh, but no DVR?? Sad panda. On a side note, I went to the gym SO much when I worked there, I hated it – no LOATHED it!
BTW – Dinner looks BOMB! I have always wanted to try the couscous! Your explanation is really easy so I will have to get outta my comfort zone and DO IT!
Oh you poor thing!!! And yes, try the couscous! I didn’t try it until about 2.5 years ago and I can’t believe how simple it is.
Holy SMOKES. I love Greek food, so this is definitely going to be made!!! YUMM.
We eat dinner around 7 pm (right after teaching fitness classes until 6:30)—perfect! :)
Cavenders greek seasoning is my favorite spice mix! I put it on everything – including my new favorite grain, quinoa. I also add alot to a container of Chobani plain nonfat yogurt to use as a dip for veggies. I also love the balsamic vinagrette, but I use Maple Grove brand since there is no Trader Joe’s near me. But I do love it as well.
No specific time on dinner for us but usually around 7 or so.
Comcast is not my fave, but they have been a little better lately for us. Sorry you had such a problem – they justs don’ know who they’re messing with!!
Don’t blame you on wanting the leftovers today at lunch – it looks SO good!!
I e
I will have to look for that brand since I don’t have a TJs either! Thanks for the recommendation.
Cavenders would make a shoe taste good.
What a fancy dinner for 10 pm! …and Greek is one of my favorites. Just made a spicy Greek orzo salad on Monday with grilled veggies. So yum. Did you know that couscous is a pasta ? I always thought it was a grain… It’s basically ground semolina, but isn’t really pasta… more like a ground whole grain, shaped into grain like piece. Mind bender …
Favorite grain (since quinoa is a seed!) = brown rice
dinner time varies: light, early lunch = dinner at 5:30 – normal time and sized lunch = dinner at 7
Haha thanks for the grain lesson! I did know that about quinoa but I still just throw it into the grain fam and I usually include pasta and couscous in my grains category consideration since it’s made from grains.. that counts, right?
We LOVED DirectTV. Sadly when we got an HD t.v., their HD satellite wouldn’t work in our area – we live in the “sticks” and the guy took a 10 second walk around our property and deemed it unable to accept their HD signal. I got pissed and cancelled them. Let me tell you, my hubs seriously misses the NFL ticket – Marshall will love you (and it!) if you get Direct TV – totally worth the $$.
Oh–Marshall is already amped on DTV! The NFL ticket is free for a year! ha.
Comcast customer service is the reason we switched to Verizon…their loss! :( Sorry about your frustrating time too!
Yum!!
Favorite Grain: Barley! I love it so much!
Dinner Time: Strictly at 6pm. I eat my meals by a clock daily (otherwise I wouldn’t eat – darn ADHD meds!) and dinner waits for no one! By then, I’m normally coasting off of my Adderall, so I’m ravenous!
And I HATE Comcast. And Charter. And AT&T. With every fiber of my being! I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with them.
Wow. You’re better than me. if I had gotten home from the gym after 8:30 there is no way I would have made that. I would have eaten cereal and called it a night. Way to go!
Oh boy, we are late dinner eaters. On most nights, we eat around 9. We’re just night owls, so it works. :)
We are such late eaters, too!
My favorite grain is a toss up between whole wheat pasta and oatmeal! I usually eat dinner at around 6:30 or 7. Your dinner looks fabulous! My family always used to call couscous “goose goose”. Weird, I know. But it got us kids to eat it! lol
Cute! I never ate couscous as a kid.. but I wish I had and I wish it had been called goosegoose.
I usually eat pretty late, 830ish. And when I waitress until 9 sometimes I dont eat until 930-10. I sort of like dining late, it makes me feel sophisticated hah. Favorite grain….. I think it will be buckwheat when I finally try it but for now Ill go with millet!
Yummy looking supper!
I am obsessed with Quinoa right now! Love it every way!
We usually eat around 7pm on a good night, but sometimes its been close to 8pm, yuck!
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