Brandini

I wanted some toffee, so the other night when I was searching for cherry berry nut mix, I found Brandini Toffee. I ordered some, it arrived today, and let me tell ya - that stuff is gooo-oood!

Simple, but good

I went to the grocery store today, and loaded up on groceries. I bought some ground beef and hamburger buns, and some sloppy joe mix. I hadn't had SJ's in a long time. So, I'm back home, putting away the groceries. Chris comes across the SJ mix, and looks at me and said "SJ is to me, like LeSeur English Peas are to you". Uh oh. Cross that one off the list of future meal planning.

So, I back tracked just a tad and made hamburgers and fries instead. It was simple, but it was good! I was happy with the way it turned out. I spiced them up a bit, and all of the spices worked together. (luckily) The meal came together in about 20 minutes. Hardly any mess. Gotta love the simple, but good things.

Anyone need any SJ mix?

(Chris read my blog today and reminded me that we did eat the SJ's, so they are back on the list and you can't have the SJ mix -- he's going to post a comment, so be sure you read it).

Oh no I didn't!

Three words:

LeSeur.English.Peas.

I hate them, I have always hated them. My mother made us eat them when we were kids. Thank goodness our dog Fritz liked them. When the parents left us at the table until we cleaned our plates, Fritz made his rounds and ate the peas for us.

I have gone out of my way to avoid English Peas.

I cooked supper tonight, and thought Chris would like something green. (I'm anti-veggie) And, I found myself opening a can of LeSeur English Peas!!! *Gasp*

They still smell as gross as I remember them. Chris enjoyed them though.

Low Country Boil

Chris cooked a log country boil for supper tonight. It was delish!

Cookies

Chris's family annual 4th of July BBQ is tomorrow. The men will cook all night tonight, and we will eat tomorrow. I decided to get a little festive and make some cookies, complete with decorations. This is the first time I've ever iced cookies believe it or not. I thought they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. They even taste good. I hope they taste and look good tomorrow.

Fajitas

Tomatoes, peppers and onions....

Homemade chips... the best

Fajitas, with refried beans and what we call "almost pico".

Edelweiss

Whenever we travel, we try to find a German Restaurant. This one wasn't very far from the Ural dealership. We were so glad we tried it. It was one of the best we've ever been to.

Calamari

We bought some fresh calamari at Fresh Market on Saturday night. We cooked it tonight and it turned out so well!

It's just not fair

In the previous post, I talked about Chris getting up to take a break from the race and his snacks and told me to make sure Willy didn't bother his snacks. Chris wasn't even out of the room before Willy was making a move to get to the food. Chris went to put it away. Willy wasn't going to miss an opportunity to check it out though, just in case any crumbs had been left behind.



Inspecting and finding the olive pits. I was very surprised, but he liked the pits! I had to stop him from licking them and get Chris a new plate.

Daytona 500 Snacks

Red pears, Asian pears, baby carrots, smoked salmon, sliced brie, mozzarella, zuchini and celery


Hard salami, capicola, asparagus spears, assortment of marinated ripe and green olives and peppers

Crackers - Sociables, Ritz Crisps and Ritz Vegetable Crisps

Chris definitely loves getting his snacks together when it is time to watch a sporting event. He is eating now, and is very vocal about how good it is.

We went out to eat last night to a local Italian restaurant. I was given a gift basket for being one of the top individual walkers for the Heart Association Heart Walk, and in the basket, was a gift gard to a local restaurant. I realized it was about to expire (on the 16th) so we decided we should use it. We went early because it was Valentine's Day.

Back to our dinner last night, I got the Piccata Pollo (chicken) with fettucine pesto, and it was WONDERFUL!!! I had eaten at the restaurant at lunch several times and had never really liked it. So, I was only going because I had the $40 gift card. We will definitely go back!! We ordered the calamari for an appetizer - it was so tender and flavorful. Chris ordered the Steak Marsala - an 8 oz Sirloin. It was so big, he thinks it had to be a 12 oz steak. The entire bill was only $48. We thought that was very reasonable. I ended up bringing 1/2 of mine home there was so much food. That was the best pesto I've ever had.

We were so full that we decided to take a walk. It was such a beautiful night.

Since it was early, and we had some time once we finished eating, I suggested we go to the Fresh Market. We had never been. They have so many wonderful things there, wish we hadn't waited so long to go. Chris bought the majority of his "snacks" there, and we both saw many things we want. We had to tell ourselves that we didn't need to buy it all on the first trip. The store is only 10 minutes from where I work, and 30 minutes from where we live - so it is easy to get to.

Football and Buffalo Wings

Tonight is Super Bowl night. We had some friends over last year, but this year, we decided to just have a quiet night. We did want to have the traditional wings. So, I picked up some yesterday. I used the fryer Wanda gave me for Christmas. I threw together some spices for the breading, and 12 minutes later, we had some great wings if I do say so myself. It's a great little fryer, has a lid on it, which I love.

Last night, we used the fryer to make some calamari. Chris went to get groceries and the little grocery store in our town had fresh squid!! He did a great job on it. They turned out so well that we are definitely going to have them again.

Carne Asada!

A while back, our favorite Mexican restaurant in our town closed. Their carne asada is the best. We try the CA at every Mexican restaurant we go to, and have been disappointed each time. Well, last night we were on our way to eat at a restaurant next door to the closed down restaurant - when I turned into the parking lot - I saw that the Mexican restaurant was open again!! YAY! We changed our plans and ate there and sure enough, the carne asada was as good as we remembered.

$0.25 wings, all you can eat shrimp and football

We spent the day working in the yard, well, Chris did most of the yard work, and I started cleaning out the garage. I didn't get finished, but I feel good that I made some progress.

On one of the trips to the dump we saw a sign for $0.25 wings and all you can eat shrimp, with the ballgame on at 8. So... we decided to go. We got 8 wings for an appetizer, and then got the shrimp. We shared the two re-orders while we watched the game. Food was great!

The dangerous thing about this, is that it is only 3 or 4 minutes from the house! We could make a habit of this! I ate more shrimp than I should have, but it was sooo good. Shrimp has to be one of my all time favorite foods.

Gifts

We've been getting lots of food gifts over the past couple of weeks... some of them have some great food in them. The McTavish Shortbread Cinnamon sticks are wonderful! The toffee from Toffee to Go melts in your mouth! Nunes Farms almond caramel chews are fantastic! And Chris loves the Ferris Coffee & Nut cherry berry nut mix. And then there are all of the things I didn't list!