Lunch: Tina stir-fried some rice with the remaining pork belly and broccoli rabe and served it with a corn soup.

Dinner: I mesquite smoked a rack of baby back ribs (as well as a couple pounds of beef short ribs, but that's for a different meal) and ate it with broccoli and tater tots.

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What I Ate: January 27, 2010 (Mesquite Smoked Baby Back Ribs)

Dinner: Tina and I went to a food tasting at The Carillon (1900 University Avenue, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 404-3655) near the UT campus. The Carillon is a bit strange in that it serves buffet lunch and fine dining at dinner. We tried a variety of dishes which were all decent to very good. The braised short ribs were some of the best that I've had.

Next best were the pork belly with Asian pear and fried mint.

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What I Ate: January 26, 2010 (The Carillon)

Lunch: I ate the leftover sirloin beef tips with seasoned rice with fresh cooked broccoli.

Dinner: I ate a couple slices of smoked pork belly with white rice and sauteed broccoli rabe.

Lunch: A quick lunch at Costco of a polish sausage with sauerkraut and a slice of pizza. I forgot to take a picture of the pizza until after I ate half of it. Sorry.

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What I Ate: January 24, 2010 (Costco, Whip In)

Lunch: I ate a couple slices of the Pizza Hut pizza leftovers.

Dinner #1: Midway through running errands (it seems like we're ALWAYS running errands - this time we were taking inventory of the shelving available at The Home Depot and Lowes for purchase tomorrow when we'll have a 14-ft. rental truck to pick up the materials), we got hungry. We were near Mighty Fine on Brodie Lane, so we stopped in for some fries. We also decided to try their chopped chili dog which was flavorful, but dry and a little chewy. Next time, I might try them with onions, cheese, and yellow mustard.

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What I Ate: January 23, 2010 (El Pollo Rico)

Lunch: Ever since I tasted the smoked pork belly I made a few days ago, I thought it would go great in ramen. The best we had on hand was our Nong Shim Seafood Ramyun which we cooked with Napa cabbage and laid several thin slices of the pork belly on top after it was ready. It tasted great, but it would have been better if the rub had less sugar and it had been roasted and not smoked.

Dinner: A couple days ago we talked about how we thought Domino's Pizza's crust was fine and we didn't know if the change would make it better or not, so we started talking about trying it on Friday night (because we needed a fast dinner since we had our neighbors coming over to visit and we wouldn't have time to make dinner beforehand for ourselves). I mentioned that since Domino's started advertising their new crust, Pizza Hut stepped up an ad campaign promoting any pizza for just $10. I said, they were doing that just to entice people to buy Pizza Hut during this time when Domino's is trying to draw people to their restaurants to taste their new pizza. $10 is a good deal, especially since you can pick all the toppings you want. Somehow, in the end, we decided to take advantage of the $10 for any size, any toppings pizza deal at Pizza Hut and ordered a Super Supreme without olives (Tina doesn't like them). When it arrived, it was the WORST pizza we had ever had. It was undercooked so the crust was bland and mushy and the toppings tasted raw with the cheese barely melted. It tasted worse than your typical frozen pizza.

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What I Ate: January 22, 2010 (Pizza Hut)

Lunch: Tina made a yellow curry and served it over rice.

Dinner: We ate dinner at The Olive Garden after running more errands. I forgot they provide salad and bread with dinner, so it was a pleasant surprise when it came.

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What I Ate: January 21, 2010 (The Olive Garden)

Dinner: I lightly smoked a slab of pork belly for 45 minutes with pecan wood, then slow roasted it in the smoker for another three hours.

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What I Ate: January 20, 2010 (Smoked Pork Belly)

Lunch: I had the Brussels sprouts with a couple of microwaved tamales.

Dinner: While running errands in Far South Austin, we stopped at a Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The lighting was horrible. I ordered their Sirloin Beef Tips (Tender pieces of sirloin with sauteed mushrooms and onions in a made-from-scratch brown gravy, served with seasoned rice and a house salad) which was fairly tender but could have been a tad saltier.

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What I Ate: January 19, 2010 (Texas Roadhouse)

Lunch: We made a simple lunch of fried eggs, beef snack sticks from U.S. Wellness Meats (made from grassfed beef, sea salt, black pepper, red pepper, garlic, and coriander - no gluten so it's great for those needing a gluten-free diet and no nitrates, high fructose corn syrup, or weird binders), and a baba ghanoush I made of roasted eggplant, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil spread on slices of toasted baguette.

Dinner: Tina prepared a Thai green curry and served it over rice.

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What I Ate: January 18, 2010