In an attempt to use the blueberries I got in my Greenling box last week, I decided to make some blueberry muffins for the guys at work. I remember now why I rarely bake.

I used a recipe from Food & Wine: Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping that seemed easy enough. However, baking requires that you follow ALL of the directions. The muffins came out fine. It was the nice crumb topping that I messed up on. I had neglected to combine the dry ingredients prior to putting in the melted butter to form the crumbs. I realized this as I was pouring in the melted butter. So, yes, there were bites of non-sweet crumb and/or salty pieces on top of the delicious muffins. In my defense, I did all this early this morning before getting ready for work. Who's coherent at that time of day? And the recipe says it makes 18 muffins. I'm guessing they used a small muffin tin, because I only had enough batter for 6 muffins using my large muffin tin. I think I'll add more sugar to the muffins next time - it was good, but not as sweet as I wanted it.

I've been meaning to give the Round Rock Farmers' Market a try since it's opening. Let's say I didn't miss anything. I made it out there this morning a little after 10 (they open at 8). They're located in a parking garage (nice for when the weather is bad). However, there were less than a dozen farmers/artisans present - literally. Now, maybe the others sold out early and left. But I seriously doubt it. It was sad.

So, since I was craving some peaches and wanting to pick up some veggies, I headed over to Sunset Valley's Farmers' Market. They always have something. I got myself a basket of small peaches, some huge white mushrooms, a couple of zucchinis, a loaf of bread, and a strawberry napaleon for dessert. I also got myself some Gulf shrimp to go with the Persian limes I bought the other day. The limes were from Costco and were an impulse buy. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the limes, but they looked good when I saw them. When I saw the shrimp I realized I could make myself some tequila lime shrimp. Now I only need to figure out what to do with the other dozen limes in the bag.

I also have all the vegetables from my Greenling order to deal with. I ended up with a spaghetti squash - I'm guessing to make up for the missing sweet peppers. I've never had spaghetti squash. I also have an acorn squash from a previous delivery. What should I do with them? All the receipes I see call for roasting/baking them. I'm not sure if I even like squash.

The jalapenos in the Greenling order were beautiful looking. I can't wait to use them. I already ate the figs - yummy. I wish I had bought some more while I was at the farmers' market this morning. The heirloom tomatoes were really small - slightly smaller than romas. Are they suppose to be that way?

Tapioca Tea House is a small store located in a shopping strip on Grand Avenue Parkway that sells purified water, cell phone service, and bubble tea. They also sell food now. I've been meaning to give them a try for a while now, and I finally stopped by the other day. They sell Banh mi sandwiches, spring rolls, and a couple of rice dishes. I think they're the only place you can get bubble teas north of Coco's. They're decent for the price with a lot of flavor options.

I tried one of the Banh mi sandwiches - the House special. It was a pretty good deal for $2.50. They also have a special of buy 3 get 1 free. I'd neglected to ask what was in the House special, so I'm not sure what the meat was in the sandwich. If you know, please let me know. It was tasty - whatever it was (I'm hoping it's not tongue or something strange like that). I'm not big on raw carrots, but it added a nice texture to the sandwich. And spicy! Those jalapenos (which were optional) in the sandwich had some heat to it. Luckly, I had a peach smoothie with lychee jelly pieces (I prefer the jelly pieces versus the tapioca balls) to douse some of the flames. I'll have to try out some of the rice dishes next time.

We stopped by the Blue Bell Factory in Brenham for a factory tour yesterday. No cameras were allowed on the tour (you can't even pull out your cell phone on the tour or they'll confiscate it). The tour lasted about 45 minutes and cost $3 ($2 for young children and $2 for seniors). They start the tour off with a brief video of the history of the Blue Bell company. Then we toured the facility - we got to see where they make the ice cream, how they add the flavorings into the ice cream mixture, and how it gets packaged. We also got to see how their ice cream sandwiches and novelty products were made. It was pretty neat.

And they really do make all they can eat and sell the rest. It seems that employees get all the free ice cream they can eat at work. My sister said she was quitting her job and applying to work for Blue Bell immediately.

It seems that boy bands can still sell tickets. My sister was working on the New Kids on the Block (a.k.a. NKOTB) Full Service tour and got us tickets to see the final show of the tour. The winners of "America's Best Dance Crew", Jabbawockeez, was the opening act. I hadn't seen them perform before, and I thought they were a good opening act - they got the crowd revved up for the main act. NKOTB also incorporated them into the show for one of their numbers.

NKOTB's show was decent. They were entertaining and the show had a lot of pop - I especially liked the pyrotechnics. I wasn't as thrilled on the re-mixes of older songs, and I only recognized about half of the songs they played. The fans loved the guys.

Since it was the last show, the band talked about the outpouring of support they had received from the fans and how much they appreciated it. The crowd around us, made up of mostly females young and old, were crying or sobbing during this. (My sister pointed out that the crowd is so heavily populated by females that they converted some of the restrooms at the venue from Men's restrooms to Women's restrooms.) It's amazing how dedicated some of the fans are - I can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars to travel not once but twice (or more) overseas just to see a band perform (as one of NKOTB's super fans had done). It was fun though, and all of the guys were really nice and friendly.

My sister loves this place and wanted to take us there the next time we were in town. So, while we were in town this weekend, she took us there for lunch. Not exactly what I would associate as a tea room since they didn't have a tea menu or what I would consider tea sandwiches. They did have a display of Republic Teas and a tea of the day, which was blackberry. My sister had the blackberry iced tea and said it was good.

The food was tasty though. They brought out a small basket of what tasted like fried wontons with butter to snack on while we waited for our food. I ordered their special of half a sandwich with soup - the spicy chicken sandwich on a croissant with the soup of the day - chicken tortilla. It came on a pretty plate with the soup in a mug. My lunch special came with potato chips. The sandwich was filled a little too much - filling kept falling out of my croissant. I liked it though. The soup was light and warm. The chicken had a nice kick to it. It was just the right amount of food. We were too full to enjoy the tasty looking desserts. Next time.

It was a bit girly - there were dolls, victorian knick-knacks, and figurines decorating the place. And only 2 guys were in there. Not exactly a place to take your male friends/SO, but it seems like a nice place to take your girlfriends.

I think I'm going to give Greenling's Local Box another try this week - even though I swore to myself that I wouldn't order another one after letting most of the produce go to waste last time. But this week's box has usuable items, and if I plan accordingly (and cook instead of going out to eat) I can use at least the majority of this box. Right?

This week's local box contains:

Geez! Who pays $250 (60% off retail price of $625) for a TANK? Yes, a tank top. That's what on sale at Hautelook right now from The Great China Wall. Sure, it's a graphic embellished with crystals, and it is hand made. But would you pay that much for a tank top? Maybe a dress or suit, but a tank top? And it would have to be specially dry cleaned.

Sadly, I was outraged by the price of the tank tops, but not so much on the cute t-shirts in the same sale that were priced at $310. Not that I'd buy a t-shirt at that price, but why didn't I feel as outraged as I did regarding the tank tops? Maybe the graphics were cooler? I don't know why, but I'll admit to being a hypocrite.

Rue La La is having a huge final sale (up to 70% off) right now. Unfortunately, their website always crashes due to the huge influx of visitors during big sales - like it is now. I want to view what they have on sale for Hale Bob and Badgley Mischka, but nothing happens when I try to click on items to view/buy. Some of the item images aren't even viewable. I want to get these cute Hale Bob Mary Jane pumps! Let me in, Rue La La!

I'm completely hooked on Scramble on the iPhone. It's like Boggle. I can sit there for hours playing the game. Ocassionally, I'll even do well when there's a good board (as evidenced on the screen at left) . Sometimes, though, the board sucks - like when it has one vowel or lots of Qu's or X's. If you're one of those people who can names more than a handful of 3 letter words using those letters or words that don't contain vowels - congratulations, you're wierd (in a darn-I'm-jealous-way).

So, I didn't feel like cooking last night. I wanted to either find a 3-column template to use on Blogger or alter my current template into 3-columns instead of cooking or coming up with an idea for dinner. I ended up pulling out a frozen pizza from my deep freeze. It was a California Pizza Kitchen pizza. I don't think I've had their frozen pizza before, so I wasn't sure how their pizza crust came out at home.

It turned out a bit softer than I expected - more bread/dough like. In fact, there was just a bit to much crust for me - and I usually like to eat the crust. According to the directions, you're only suppose to cook the pizza for about 19 minutes for a crispier crust and 22 minutes for a softer crust. I had it in there for about 20 minutes. Tasty, but very bready. Hmm...I just noticed that the box said Rising Crust. That probably explains that bready characteristic. Oops.

I did like the tomato and cheese ratio though - not overdone (although, maybe just a tad bit more tomato sauce might have been nice). Not bad though for a quick, no-hassel meal.

So, I was watching a re-run of CSI:Miami last night, and I was wondering why it is that when they portray CSI's investigating a scene the CSI's are always going over a crime scene with a flashlight in the dark. Why don't they turn the lights on? Aren't you going to miss something? How much can you see with a flashlight?!? It's the same on CSI and CSI:NY. Do real CSI's do this? Really, how powerful can that small flashlight be?

Ever try hearts of palm? It sounds strange, but I've discovered it's actually quite tasty. My contribution for tonight's supper club gathering is an ensalada palmito (hearts of palm salad) and mixed fruit. I did find the hearts of palm (usually found in the canned state here in the states from Costa Rica or Hawaii) at Whole Foods. It's the color of artichoke heart, soft, and a bit refreshing. It seemed a little bit salty and reminded me of bamboo shoots. It's the core of a certain palm tree, and mostly used in salads.

I'm not sure how the salad will turn out though - no dressing goes with it (unless I wanted to use the optional receipe ingredient: mayo - which seems a bit strange to me even though it would be similar to ranch dresssing). The salad is pretty simple to make - lettuce, hearts of palm, spritz of lime, and salt and pepper to taste. I cheated on the fruit mix. I bought pre-cut fruit (papaya, pineapple, watermelon, and cantaloupe). Cost a bit more, but it saved me the hassel and mess of cutting it up myself.