Days 28 continued, 29, 30, and 31

On Wednesday night, the boyfriend brought home a pepperoni Pizza from Papa John's.

I would like to start off by saying that I really don't care that much for Papa John's Pizza - between them, Pizza Hut, and Domino's, I think Domino's tastes the best. And Pizza Hut has the best wings, especially if you have them run them through their oven twice. (I used to work at a Pizza Hut and did this frequently.)

But, the Pizza Hut here is notoriously awful and my boyfriend insists that he's gotten sick off Domino's every time he's eaten it.

Plus, he works at Papa John's, so we get discounts.

So, he ordered a pepperoni pizza on Tuesday night, along with some cheese sticks. But, I wasn't feeling too hungry, so I only has a few cheese sticks and a slice of pepperoni.

On Wednesday, I was hoping to eat some leftover pizza, but the boyfriend had taken the entire box to work and eaten three of the four leftover slices. But promised he would bring the last of the pizza and cheese sticks home later.

I ate what was left of the Chinese food for lunch, (can you believe it lasted this long?) and he brought the box home for dinner, eager for that last slice of pepperoni...only to find one of his coworkers stole the last slice out of the box.

(He actually works two jobs....this pizza-stealing occured at his office job.)

But, he felt bad and ended up bringing home a half buffalo-chicken, half pepperoni and olive pizza (because I love olives).

Thursday afternoon, I ate some leftover pizza.

Thursday night, boyfriend was feeling really sick...and wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese. It seemed pretty obvious that he had a flu, and I think he was sicker than I'd ever seen him. He actually stayed home from both work and school that day - which I've never seen him do. And he slept a lot. So, I was more concerned with getting him what he wanted than taking any photographs. But, the grilled cheese has provolone and American cheese slices, and the tomato soup was just some campbell's condensed I found in our cupboards.

I wanted to make the tomato soup spicy, hoping that some spice would help clear up his sinuses - so I added some Cayenne and crushed red peppers, along with some garlic, basil, and a bit of lemon juice. It was fairly tasty, but ended up being too spicy for him. So we had some leftover soup.

I actually tried using those leftovers as a tomato sauce for some pasta. It turned out...okay.

I intend to cook real tomato soup one day, because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of canned soup, for the most part. But it did it's job.

 
I also made myself from Cheesy Rice-A-Roni last night.

Finally, boyfriend ordered me a sandwich from Jimmy John's the other night - I got one with Turkey. Again, I didn't take a picture, because we were preoccupied with other things. But this one looks kind of close:

Day 21: Jinny John's, Macaroni and Cheese

I'd forgotten to mention yesterday that my boyfriend ordered me a sandwich from Jimmy John's the night before. Here's what he got me:

Yesterday, I ate half of the sandwich that I hadn't eaten the night before, and some Kraft mac and cheese.

Day 17: The Library, Drinks

Yesterday was weird.

At lunchtime, boyfriend asked me if I wanted to go anywhere to eat, and I told him I didn't really want to spend anymore money right now, so that I can make sure I have enough money for when I'm in Phoenix next week. He told me he would pay for my lunch, so I agreed.

We ended up going to The Library, which is pretty much a staple in this town. In February, they shut the doors to their old location while they started construction on a new building in downtown Laramie. The new building opened in September, though until recently, they didn't have any of their own beers available (they're also a brewery!).

For lunch, neither of us were in the mood for alcohol, though I ordered an Inferno (a BLT with jalapeno bacon and guacamole) and a side house salad with blue cheese dressing. Boyfriend ordered the same sandwich, though without tomatoes and guacamole. The inferno is probably one of my favorite things to order at The Library, though they also have pretty decent pizza, macaroni and cheese bites, wings, and when they have it - beer.

Side note: never order the hot wings at The Library if you don't eat a lot of spicy food. While they're not unbearably spicy for some people, they are spicier than most wing sauces at most chain restaurants. (I'm also not a fan of the flavor - I think the jalapeno flavor comes out too strongly in the hot wings.)

The Library has an 81% rating on Urbanspoon. The overall reviews on the site aren't terrible - most of the "negative" reviews just say the service is sub-par and the beer is just "okay". We've had issues with service in the past,  but nothing awful since they've reopened.

The one thing I will say about their new location is that it doesn't seem to have as much character as their old location. Their new location has a lot of televisions hanging around the dining area and bookshelves to go with their name - but it's obviously a new building, a much larger one at that, that seems to lack the same "charm" as their old location (pictured below).

I ended up ordering too much food and took half of my sandwich home, which I ate for dinner.

Around 8:00, a friend invited me out (and since I had previously supplied beer for past social functions, she pretty much bought all of my beer). We started at Front Street Tavern, where we drank two pitchers of....well, I can't even remember. The first was a strong, dark stout...and the second was something from Odell. But honestly, I hadn't eaten much that day, definitely not as much as I should have eaten, and I failed to remember the names of both drinks.

However, we did stop in at The Library, because my friend informed me that their new beers are now available! Yay! I had a blueberry pomegranate ale, and honestly...I can't remember how it tasted. It sounds tasty. I want to believe it was tasty. But I really don't remember. I drank way more than I expected last night. Whoops.

Day 15: Eggnoodles With Butter and Cajun Seasoning, Cornbread, More Broccoli and Cheddar Soup.

So on Tuesday, I booked a flight for next week through Spirit to visit my best friend down in Phoenix. It was a pretty cheap flight, but when I looked at my bank account, I realized I had less money than I thought I did. Whoops! So, I'll have to be fairly careful with how I spend my money, so the next month could be pretty boring food-wise (except for next week's trip, because I made sure to allocate money for that).

That said, my boyfriend did buy me lunch (he wanted either subway or McAllister's again, so I picked McAllister's so I could get some more broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl), and I did cook up some egg noodles last night with butter that ended up being pretty tasty. I also finally ate the last piece of cornbread. Yay!

Day 9: Sandwiches, Burgers, Cheese Fries.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday, mostly because I forgot. Whoops. But we literally ate out for every meal....also bad. But anyways...it started when my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to go to lunch. He only had half an hour, so we just went to Subway. I got a turkey sandwich on Italian herbs and cheese bread with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, banana peppers, and spicy mustard (should have just done oil and vinegar, whoops). Here's a realistic picture of a sandwich I found on the internet, one that's not all fluffed up and plastic.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of a photo I saw on Reddit yesterday:

We did end up getting burgers later, at the Five Guys in Cheyenne. It was just before we went over there to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is not playing in town. Though, to be honest, I was more than happy to not pay $8 to see a movie on a screen I could potentially install in my apartment.

Interestingly, a Google search of images for "Five Guys Burgers" does not yield any fake advertisement burgers.

My burger had ketchup, mustard, grilled onions, lettuce, and tomato. Normally, I would just order everything, but I've found that doing so results in a very messy burger, and I'd prefer to keep my hands clean. (Actually, a friend who came along for the ride did order a burger with everything, and his did end up falling apart.)

Boyfriend and I shared an order of Cajun Fries.

When the movie ended, it was about 9:00. There was some buzz going on around the media about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights, so we stopped in at Old Chicago for a few beers before heading out there. Boyfriend was hungry (yes, two hours after we'd eaten a full meal), so he ended up ordering some cheese fries.

They looked something like the above photo, except there were some green onions a lot more sour cream. Boyfriend looks at it and makes a comment along the lines of, "Why is there so much sour cream?" and ends up scraping as much as possible off his fries with a fork. I also caught him picking some green onions off his fries. And no, it's nothing I haven't seen before.

While we were there, I ended up drinking two beers: an Odell's Cutthroat Porter and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

And in case you're wondering, we were not able to see the northern lights. Apparently, the geomagnetic storm came in weaker than expected, and it looks like nobody in our part of the country was able to see them.

Day 6: Banana Bread, Leftovers, Brocolli Cheddar Soup, and Snacks

Since I've already posted pictures of these things in the past, today I just ate my leftovers from the other night at Chili's and some more banana bread. I'll probably end up eating something else, but to be honest, I haven't had much of an appetite today, or yesterday for that manner.

Later, I did end up eating some more brocolli cheddar soup, this time with a bread bowl. Boyfriend and I went to McAllister's.

And for a snack, I had some saltines and peanut butter.

Day 4: Homemade Chicken Tenders, Chili's, Chai Latte

I think the biggest problem with me and this blog is going to be remembering to take photos of things I'm eating when I'm around people.

First off, last night, I had some more banana bread and some chocolate milk before bed:

And then, after spending probably an hour or two trying to figure out what he wanted to eat, my boyfriend offhandedly mentioned that we should make homemade chicken tenders sometime, to which I replied that such a thing would not be that difficult. But first, he wanted to stop at the coffee shop (Coal Creek Coffee in Laramie) and get hot chocolate. I got a chai latte:

It's supposed to be a tree. But I didn't think to rotate the actual glass until it was too late. Whoops.

The chicken tenders were made in the fryer, soaked in egg and breaded with a mix of roughly 1/2 cup flour, 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, and 1 tsp. of Creole seasoning. It was just about perfect, though others would probably find it too salty.

Moving on, the boyfriend wanted fries to go along with the chicken. (Actually, creole seasoning tastes awesome on fries.)

And for a late dinner, I was trying to ask what my boyfriend wanted to eat for dinner, and we ended up at Chili's. But I forgot to actually take a picture of my full meal because we were with a friend (whoops), so I took a picture of my leftovers: wings and southwestern eggrolls.

Day 2: Bailey's in Laramie, French Dips, Baking Soda

At about 11:15 this morning, my boyfriend sent me a text asking if I wanted to go to lunch while he was on his break at work. He suggested McAllister's or Chili's, but seeing as I had soup from McAllister's yesterday and we go to Chili's fairly often, I suggested that we try something new instead.

Bailey's is located in our town of Laramie, Wyoming. It has an 82% rating on Urbanspoon and it serves mostly soup and sandwiches. I ordered a french dip with banana peppers. They had two advertised soup of the day - potato and bacon and chicken and dumpling. While I was eyeing the chicken and dumpling soup in a bread bowl, I had originally been told by a friend to come here for the sandwiches. And since it is a sandwich shop, I decided I could order soup another day. My boyfriend ordered the Bailey's club, which is advertised as coming with Ham, Turkey, and Cheese.

Now, my meal was alright - nothing that special, but then again, I didn't exactly order an extravagant sandwich. But I'm a sucker for french dips. And this is one of the first places I remember offering me banana peppers on a french dip, and it was a pretty tasty combination (though they could have put more than 2 banana peppers on my sandwich). I also ordered a Pepsi and a bag of Lay's Barbeque chips. Their selection of chips was admittedly disappointing - normally, I would have ordered either Sun Chips or Baked Lay's, neither of which were available.

However, the biggest problem with Bailey's, as it turns out, was their menu, which pretty much had nothing more than the names of the sandwiches - no descriptions of what came on the sandwich or anything. This is not something that's necessarily a huge problem for me, but my boyfriend's "Bailey's Club with Ham, Turkey, and Cheese" - in addition to those three ingredients, also came loaded with lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar, and - surprise! - salami (another meat he doesn't like).

At the counter, he asked what kind of sauces came on the sandwich, and the lady said it came with oil and vinegar. He asked for mayonnaise. And when the sandwich actually came, it was loaded with lettuce and tomato. It since it was shredded lettuce right below the mayonnaise, he literally ended up wiping the lettuce off his sandwich. Not to mention he was irritated about the sandwich coming with salami.

Now, I like salami, lettuce, and tomato. But not everybody does - not to mention the fact that some people have allergies to this kind of stuff (I personally know at least two different people with fairly severe tomato allergies). And while the "Bailey's Club" sounds like a pretty damn good sandwich, I think that they, and every other restaurant, really needs to have accurate descriptions of what they put onto their food.

Interestingly, even their online menu lacks an accurate description of the Bailey's Club. (See below.)

As we pulled out of the parking lot, the boyfriend looked at me and said, "I don't really want to go back there."

Overall, it was okay, but the fact is that there are a lot of places you can get a sandwich in town. It probably would have been better without a lot of the little things - the drinks were small, the selection of chips was small, the descriptions of menu items was lacking, and despite what the above menu may lead you to believe, our total for two sandwiches, chips, and drinks was $22.50. We would have paid just as much at McAllister's or anywhere else in town, and probably ended up with more food.

Interestingly, the Urbanspoon reviews echo similar cries about the price.

"Malfan doesn't know the difference between subway and bailey's and that explains why the other posts say the prices are too hi. If your getting the same as subway then their prices should be the same too. maybe malfan is to focused on the fact that they can get a sandwich with their scooner of mexican beer. This is a review of the food not the alchohol. prices too hi, service sucks, the owner is sexist and needs to be investigated for his selfconduct with female staff. even the great patio isn't better than my own at home. Lastly this is not a laramie staple. keep that out of your food review."

                                                                                    -True Chef, October 1st, 2012

"Good food, extremely over priced and the owner is a jerk"

                                                                                    -wyo_resident, September 8th, 2010

"Over priced!"

                                                                                   -Chelsea Heck, March 31st, 2011

But overall, it really isn't that terrible of a place. Just make sure you ask what comes on your sandwich if it really matters to you.

Finally, I want to add a small blurb about baking soda and urinary tract infections. On my way home from lunch, I started to feel the beginning symptoms of a UTI. Ladies, if you ever feel a UTI coming on, mix 1/2 tsp. of baking soda in roughly 8-oz of water, and it will really help combat the UTI. Cranberry juice is another option, but avoid juices with a lot of added sugar.