panera at home

i love panera.  especially their broccoli cheese soup.  and their strawberry + other fruit salad with poppyseed dressing.  and their sandwiches.  did i mention i love panera?  well, if i feel like it's a sandwich day i usually get the frontega chicken panini.  it's really good & all the flavors work really well together.  last night, i had a girl's dinner date with my l.a. bff and i decided to try my hand at recreating the panini with my wonderful panini press.  i looked up the ingredient list on panera and picked everything up on my way home from work.  it was super easy to make & they turned out great (in my opinion)!  i even made one for hubby when he got home from work (at 10pm!) & he loved it!  the only thing i'll try differently next time is to use a thinner bread because the ratio was a little off.  or maybe i didn't put enough stuff inside... hmmm.  either way, i will be making these again!

my ill-ratioed, yet delicious frontega chicken panini

'bld'elicious

hubby wanted to take me on a date before he left for his business trip.  we usually do dinner dates at one of our usuals, but i wanted to switch it up.  i decided that we should go on a brunch date to a restaurant i've been dying to try for over a year.  i saw it on 'the best thing i ever ate' on food network and i knew i had to go.  the magical place i am talking about is bld restaurant.

we were lucky enough to get seated right away (it's a pretty packed place, especially for brunch).  the restaurant is what i would call 'upscale diner' style... very good vibes.  we both got mimosas with fresh-squeezed orange juice.  delish!  fresh-squeezed o.j. definitely made a difference in the mimosas. while sipping, i read over the menu to see what all there was, but honestly, i knew exactly what i was getting before we even got there.  blueberry ricotta pancakes.  hubby ordered the fried egg sandwich with fries. when my pancakes arrived, they smelled incredible and they were gigantic!  oh.my.god.  they were soooooooo good.  like amazing.  even life-changing.  i thought i would be able to eat both of them due to an insane krav maga morning session, but i couldn't even finish one.  i really tried though.  even thought about sitting there the rest of the afternoon just so i could finish them.  seriously, indescribably good. and the sandwich?  well, let's just say it was the best dadgum sandwich.  not the mention the fries were perfect. hubby ate every last bite, but not before i had to beg to try it.

so in summary, it was one of the best dates and probably the only one where we've walked away planning our next trip there.  i am still dreaming of the food... i feel a mild obsession coming on.  wait, i'm already obsessed.