The Almighty Egg

Today's breakfast is brought to you by the incredible egg. My favorite-- A spinach and colby jack omelet. add some leftover chili potatoes from last night pork chop dinner and today is officially started out right!

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Midwest Eats

Vacation food is always a good blog topic, and this trip to Wisconsin is no exception.

First let me say, that Wisconsin exceeded my expectations in many ways.  I now have a great appreciation for "America's Dairyland." * Wisconsin cheese is awesome!  We went on vacation with another family (the fabulous Ratties)  and there were nine of us total.  Well, eight of us were eating regular food, Sean wasn't up for it yet.  :)  So we did a little grocery shopping and the first thing to take me by surprise is the cheese selection at the deli counter.  Wow!!  And my friend said that their selection was limited! 

Two more "Wisconsin and Midwest" things that I experienced was Cheese Curds, and Culver's.  Cheese curds....I don't know what I was thinking that they were but essentially they taste like mozzarella sticks.  Sometimes they surprise you and instead of mozzarella it's cheddar.  Culver's is a burger and frozen custard joint native to the Midwest.  Their burgers are fantastic, and I really enjoyed my frozen custard.  Brian however, did not enjoy his as much since I brought him home some and it was more of a milkshake, it had melted so much. 

But the best things that I tried were in Lake Geneva.  We went to "The Newport of the Midwest" for a day and grabbed a quick bite to eat before getting on a ferry to see the sights that Lake Geneva had to offer.  I got a "Chicago Style" hot dog:  dog and bun, mustard, relish, onion, spicy peppers, pickle, tomatoes and celery salt.  I thought that it seemed like a lot of stuff to pile onto a dog, so I got mine without tomato.  WOW!!!!  The relish is this atomic-green color, and the peppers certainly are spicy!  The only thing I would change about it is to chop up the pickle and peppers so that it was easier to eat.  And next time, I'll be sure to eat it with tomatoes.  So good!  Our friend Scott said that in the Midwest, it's all about the Chicago Dog.  All the convenience stores and restuarants have the fixings to make an official Chicago Dog!

The other thing was an ice cream shop voted "Wisconsin's Best" for 33 years at the Wisconsin State Fair.  They had so many unique flavors of ice cream.  I settled on the "Fat Elvis" which is banana ice cream with a peanut butter ripple and chocolate chips.  Ahhhhh......a delicious way to end the day.

All in all, I loved Wisconsin.  But if I lived there, I'd have a serious issue:  too much good food!!!!!

*and for it being America's Dairyland, for all the farmland that I saw in Wisconsin, I didn't see even one cow.  Where are they hiding them??  :)

Summer Salad

In a quest to eat more fruits and veggies and having an empty fridge post-vacation (minus the rotten chinese food and spaghetti in the back) , I started fresh at the grocery store yesterday.  Came home with peaches, plums and nectarines.  And that thing that always tastes better in a restaurant than in your own home....salad. 

I love salad.  The Asian Chicken Salad I had from the Ninety-Nine on Saturday night was excellent.  However, when it comes to making salad at home, I'm not so good about it.  I thought about it carefully at the grocery store and I think I've figured it out:  I just get bag-o-salad or iceberg lettuce and then just chop whatever I have on hand and call it salad.  And a salad it is, albeit a mediocre one.  But if you put some thought into it...maybe it could be so much better?  I also got to thinking about dressing.  I mean c'mon, it's just not right that salad dressing has more calories than a cheeseburger! 

I came home with ingredients and an idea.  I ended up with a dreamy salad:  Romaine, hardboiled egg (which I usually am not crazy about but this was good) tomato, cucumber, REAL bacon pieces that I cooked up special, sliced red onion and light honey mustard dressing.  (Newman's Own, has a little kick and it doesn't taste "light" at all)  Now THAT'S a salad!  So good in fact, I tossed some chicken strips on it this morning and brought it to work for lunch.  Happiness is....a plan that comes together.  Can't wait for another new creation.

Use it Up!!

One of the weirdest parts of getting ready for a trip...using up the perishables in your fridge!  In anticipation of this, we didn't do any grocery shopping this weekend.  Nope, no more bagels, orange juice, etc etc.  Working on finishing up what may go bad while we're on vacation in Wisconsin.  Right now....looks like it will be spaghetti and cupcakes for breakfast tomorrow.  :)  I mean, can't let these precious cupcake beauties go to waste!  Also, we have four eggs, a little coffee creamer and I've defrosted pork chops for dinner tonight.  A side dish ought to be interesting. 

Agenda of a Cupcake

It's been a blah day.  It's been a crappy week.  With nowhere to go today, Brian and I had taken to lounging on the couch, watching World Cup and knitting.  (Guess who was doing what??)

So when Will said he was hungry and suggested cupcakes, I was very open to suggestion.  I too am hungry, and well, a cupcake sounds really good.  I tend to eat when I'm sad so it wasn't strange to desire baking.  Plus it gives us something to do instead of sitting and thinking.    I rifled through our cake mixes and had two choices:  spice cake or devils food.  Easy choice, no?  :)  The delectable goodies are baking in the oven, prepared as indicated on the back of the box.   However, to make them extra-special, I am going to make a chocolate-marshmallow frosting from scratch. 

Will's VERY excited about the cupcakes, although he doesn't realize that they're not for dinner.  I mean really, cupcakes for dinner?  I'll bet in his three-year-old mind, that would be wickedly awesome.  He's full of questions, starting with the ever-present "Are the cupcakes done yet?"  Repeated every five minues.  The really interesting one was asking what cupcakes do when they're not baking or being eaten.  Hmmm.  I don't think cupcakes really have an agenda.  No calendar to fill, no appointments to run to, maybe a birthday party to attend, but pretty much all they do is sit.  Bake, sit, get eaten.  The life cycle of a cupcake.

Single-Mom Dinners

Hubby's in Cleveland this week, so dinners have to be really easy.  After all, it's tough to make dinner for me and the Big One, while the Little One is usually clamoring for food too.  The Little One recently discovered that he likes fruit.  Not baby food-fruit, he likes that, but he really likes "real" fruit.  He was lusting SOOOOO hard this weekend after my watermelon slice at a birthday party that I gave in and let him lick it.  He loved it!  I tried the same thing with a strawberry slice this morning at breakfast and he was all over that thing, too.  It's funny what you'll try with a second kid, I never would have held up a piece of fruit to Will when he was a baby to let him "lick a taste."    :)

Anyway, with being a "single mom" and not having the neat-o ability to grow a third arm (why not!!!!)  dinners for me and Will have been super-simplified.  Like quesadillas for him last night and me eating a soft taco, standing up over the sink.  Tonight I said I'd make pancakes.  When I asked if he wanted blueberry or chocolate chip, DUH he said chocolate!  I didn't even bother shredding zucchini in them.  Then, to my horror, I realized that we were almost out of Bisquick.  Nope, not even enough to eke out a batch of pancakes.  Sean was screaming like crazy, the house was hot, and  I had just had a miserable time of changing Sean's crib sheet for the third time this week.  (Seriously...somebody needs to figure out a way to make that easier!)  I very nearly caved and tossed the whole fam damily in the car to have an impromptu dinner at Friendly's.  What stopped me was our quest to save $$$, and Will really was excited by the idea of pancakes for dinner.  And the rain shower had already spoiled my plans of eating the pancakes al fresco.  So I pulled out "The Bible."  And I made pancakes from scratch.  It was surprisingly easy, and the cooked up nice on the electric griddle.  And wow, they were delicious!  I mean, breakfast and chocolate for dinner?  What's not to like?  The pancakes were slightly thin, but so delicious.  I'm telling you, I'm never buying Bisquick again! 

Spice and Sass

I think that there's something out there that I haven't tried and that I should....Vietnamese food.

We had "Vietnamese Spiced Pork Chops" the other night from a Cooking Light recipe.  Usually if I'm having seconds it's of the starch, like rice, pasta or potatoes.  But this meat was so good, I had a second piece!  I realize that it's not really "authentic" Vietnamese cooking if it's in Cooking Light.  But I found the spices intriguing enough to want more. 

Then on Friday night, as we were driving home from our friends' wedding, I spied a big new Vietnamese restaurant on the way home.  It's definitely a sign.  :)