Carsonie's in Upper Arlington

Tony and I went to Carsonie's in Upper Arlington for the first time last night. The high point of the meal was the pizza that we split as an appetizer. The dough was fresh and thick, but not too thick. The cheese and toppings were good quality and plentiful enough. We will definitely go back for the pizza.

The pasta dishes that we ordered were just meh. Not bad but not great. I am a stickler for al dente pasta and was disappointed that my penne was over cooked. The sauce was good - roasted red peppers, spinach, mushrooms, and a light cream sauce. Tony had Chicken Carsonie, which is actually just chicken Parmesan. I cannot recall one single time that Tony as dined at an Italian restaurant and not ordered chicken Parmesan. I think that pigs would fly, hell would freeze over, and the Earth would stop turning if Tony ever ordered anything but chicken Parmesan at an Italian restaurant.

Other notes: Carsonie's has Peroni beer on draft. They score extra points for this. The stromboli here looked amazing. I will definitely go back to try it.

Some Stuff From Last Week

I think that this was taken last Sunday or Monday. Regardless, I told Tony that I was making an Insalta Caprese for dinner and he looked at me like I was crazy. I explained that an Insalta Caprese is a fresh mozzarella and tomato salad with basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. When I told him that the salad was ready, Tony grabbed a plate and some salad dressing out of the fridge. He then asked where the lettuce for the salad was. HAHAHAHAHHAHAH. There is no lettuce in caprese salad! You can take the boy out of Indiana but you can't take the Indiana out of the boy...

My personal challenge to crack the code to a perfect lasagna continutes. It's a man versus himself type of story. On Friday, I made a pan of lasagna. This time I used 2 times the amount of sauce than I would typically use and it turned out a lot better. But still not as good as my mom's kick-ass lasagna. Darn you, mother dearest. I will perfect my lasagna recipe and you shall rue the day that you ever made a pan of saucey, noodley, cheesey goodness! PERFECTION SHALL BE MINE!!!

This is currently my favorite food in the world and I make this at least 5 time a week for lunch or dinner. It's a chef salad with baby Italian greens, campari tomatoes, a bit of shredded cheese, and shaved turkey and ham. True story - I would marry this salad if I wasn't already married and it were legal in the state of Ohio.

I made this, so I will post a picture. I was disappointed in myself regarding this meal as it wasn't my best work ever. It tasted good but it wasn't as attractive as I would have liked. This recipe is often called Straw and Hay. It's egg noodle fettucine and spinach fettucine with a light basil cream sauce, tossed with peas and ham. I used grated parmesan in the sauce instead of shredded parm. I discovered that grated doesn't melt nearly as well at the shaved variety. Balls, dude. At least I know for next time.

Okay, so early in the week I mocked Tony for thing that there was lettuce in an Insalata Caprese but then I got to thinking... Maybe fresh mozzarella and tomatoes would be really good on a bed of baby Italian greens with basalmic vinagrette dressing... And it was!

stuff from last week

I made this. It was good. It's penne pasta tossed with a lot of homemade red sauce, topped with a 4 cheese blend in then cooked under the broiler for a couple of minutes.



This is the Turkey Club Salad from Arby's. It was delicious and I would eat one of these a couple of times a week if Arby's wasn't so damned expensive. This salad and a medium Diet Pepsi cost over $7.oo.



A healthy meal! Roasted chicken with steamed asparagus and a baked potato.



Connor received approximately one billion LEGOs for his birthday last week. When I was a kid, all we had was a plastic bin filled with various LEGOs. Nowadays, LEGOs are sold in kits that make specific structures. Connor is a huge fan of the Star Wars, Mars Mission, and Agents variety of LEGOs. It took about 3 days and the combined effort of Connor, Ian, the 11 year old who lives across the street, and myself to complete these structures.



Here are a couple of pictures from the Muffins with Mom breakfast held at the kid's school last week. My manorexic children don't care for muffins or donuts, so we ate at home and then visited the kids' classrooms and hung out with the other familes when we got to school. I have no explanation for the face that Ian is making. The kid is odd, what else can I say?

Sounds Like Someone Has A Case of the Mondays! 4.20.2009

Ian asked to use my camera on Monday and I gladly let him. He knows how to navigate YouTube and several gaming web-sites. He also knows how to open the camera application on my BlackBerry and takes pictures with my phone. He's also quite handy with my digital camera. He told me that he was going to take pictures of "everything in the whole house". The result? He took about 200 pictures in an hour! About half of those pictures were of the episode of SpongeBob SquarePants that he was watching. Here's his picture of a Venom toy and some random LEGOs.


I love to make homemade chicken stock, but it's a little time consuming so I don't make it very often. On Monday, I had the ingredients on hand and some extra time so I made stock. You can throw whatever aromatics and flavors that you like in the pot. I like a combination of onions, carrots, celery, garlic, cracked pepper, and Kosher salt. The most important ingredient is chicken on the bone.


After an hour of simmering, I had boiled chicken and chicken stock so I decided to make chicken and noodles with carrots and peas. Good stuff!



Connor opted for pasta with marinara sauce on his favorite placemat.