Happy Christmas!

 Merry Christmas! Today was such a low key Christmas, being just the two of us. We had a pretty usual day, and then Husband made us an absolutely delicious cranberry beef thing for dinner. 

Hope you guys had a good Christmas as well. 

Food Food and more Food

 I have been making some new recipes lately, but hey, didn't make the cut of their own posts. So here I have made some French bread: 

You can find the recipe here :

https://www.mykitchenescapades.com/easy-french-bread-recipe/

Mine could have looked browner, turns out I forgot to do the egg wash, alas for myself. 

Here I made a Mexican street corn salad: 

I accidentally added too much lime, but I know how to fix that in the future, so I look forward to making this again! Here is the recipe if you would like:

https://midwestfoodieblog.com/mexican-street-corn-pasta-salad/

Please enjoy! 

Puppy Dog Eyes

Tonight, I went to my SIL's house to watch the women's session of conference, and then we were having our usual nerd night fun. I brought some Taco Bell for dinner, and we ate as we watched.
My small niece Ken was right at my feet, trying to get my food and trying to appeal with some puppy dog eyes

Come on, who wouldn't give this baby all of their food? Nobody.

Food Food Friday

On Fridays, I go out to breakfast with the kiddos and their parents. Today, we went to Gandolfo's, and in the restaurant there, there's a display with Krispy Kreme donuts. Darth really wanted one, and so I told him that if he ate his entire sandwich (which he's never done in his whole life) I would buy him two donuts. He promptly put the entire sandwich in his mouth.

Now, I know what you're wondering. Did he finish? The answer is no, he definitely choked a little and spit out the entire sandwich about 20 seconds after the picture. Since he did his best, I did buy him a donut.

Food times

Eating with the little guys has been interesting. Darth is the pickiest eater and only likes a few things, and Gecko literally loves to eat all the food he can get his hands on. We got Darth a grilled cheese sandwich, and I got a salad for dinner. Weirdly though, when we sat down to eat, Darth was so excited that I had lettuce, and then proceeded to eat my dinner instead of his own. My sister snapped a pic as we were sharing.

Then after dinner, we all shared some eclairs. Gecko had a great time with his.

What a great bunch of guys.

Someday, I'll eat again

I hate the dentist. Hate, hate, hate. I try not to. Growing up, I always had bad dentists that were total douches, and were mean, and I was always in pain. So I never went to the dentist, and my parents never made me, so I successfully avoided the dentist for a number of years. Of course, now I’m paying for it with all of my dental work that I have to get done. But, the end is in sight. I’m nearing the end…is what I thought. I spoke before of the bone graft I had done back in March, which was painful enough. But now, I’ve mostly healed, and my implant surgery is now on the calendar (July 11, in case anyone wondered) and I figured that I would be totally finished.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a minor toothache in a tooth on the opposite side of my mouth than the bone graft. I figured I had just been overworking it, since I can only chew on that side. So I let it go and go until finally, I called my dentist and went in. On a side note, I love my dentist. I hate going, but this guy is a good guy who really helps me out, so that’s a plus side at least. Anyway, so when I went in, I had a checkup/cleaning, and they found the culprit, I have a fracture in my tooth. So, my dentist suggested this experimental procedure (that he’s only done on 1 person before!) and I said ok. I mean, it was either that or lose the tooth, and I’ll not do that. So I had this done, and was told not to eat on that side of my mouth, lest I mess up any of the work that they just did. So…now I can’t eat on that side, and I can’t eat on the other side, (having had the bone graft/I have no teeth over there right now) so…eating is a problem. Now that it’s about a week later, I am sick of eating things that have no substance. I am hungry all the time, because when all you eat is applesauce, soup, pudding, and yogurt (with the occasional ice cream/shake, froyo), it doesn’t really fill you up and you’re hungry again about an hour later. I’ve not had any meat since the Wednesday before my surgery, and I miss it. Yesterday, Husband came home from Tucano’s, and I could smell the barbecue-ness on him, and I thought, holy cow. I must be so crazy wanting meat that I can smell a little bit of meat on someone else’s clothes.

But it gets better. My stitches came out on Monday, and even though there is still a hole in my mouth (it didn’t really stitch up before they fell out, sheesh), I feel good about it healing. They told me I can start eating on that side once it stops hurting, yay! But sadly, there is still pain. It’s not as constant as it was, but when I touch the tooth, there is pain. I am definitely feeling confident that in less than a week, I will be eating solid foods again. And when I can, I’m eating nachos. And a burger. Some ribs. BREAD, I miss bread. Cookies. Basically anything. I can’t wait for this to happen.

It’s not laziness…

So today, I got home from work later than normal, after some shopping and errands and what not. When I got home, I was going to work out, I was so ready for it. It was on my to-do list and everything. I get home, I put on my workout clothes, lace on my shoes, and after I had done all of this, I decided that instead of working out, I would instead eat taquitos.

So, I’m in my workout clothes, making taquitos, then I sit down and eat them, and the whole time while I’m eating, talking on the phone, I’m thinking, wow, I could not be lazier. But at least the intention to work out was there, so I can feel better about myself. Which I do. And I’d like to say I regret the decision to skip the workout and eat, but I don’t. I feel like I made the right choice.

Aloooone….

Tonight when I was driving home after FHE, I got a hankering for some tacos. And not just any tacos, the tacos from Del Taco. That’s right, those delicious $.49 ones. And I didn’t want to wait to get home to eat them, so I ate them on the way. One, I ate on surface streets, and the second one I ate on the freeway. Which, BTW, it is pretty hard to eat a crunchy taco while trying to go freeway speeds. I don’t recommend it.

As I was eating my tacos on the way home, I realized that it’s a little weird to eat in your car when you’re alone. With others, its totally cool, you and a friend, (or friends) are eating, having a good time, but when you’re alone, you feel just a little weird. And then I thought of other things that are totally normal when you’re with other people, but alone…kinda weird.

Hitting up an amusement park. I’ve never done this, but I can only imagine how odd it would be to be at this sort of place by yourself. There’s no one to enjoy the good times, to laugh at all the craziness happening! Bowling is another one. With friends – a great night! Alone…you seem a little sad. Playing on a seesaw. Well, now I just feel bad for you. You couldn’t find one friend to sit on that other side? Aw.

I know that I do weird things all the time, and this is neither the first nor the last time I’ll eat in my car. I don’t care that I do it, it’s both delicious and a time-saver. Genius.

Everyone is different

Today it seemed the conversation of how people eat their food kept coming up. There are those who like everything smashed together, and those who won't eat their food if its touching each other. I am the latter here, I don't like when my food touches each other. Then later in the day, I was made fun of for how I was eating my popcorn. It got me thinking about all the weird ways I eat things. For example...
When I'm at home, I eat my popcorn with chopsticks. I don't know why, but it seems much more delicious that way. Plus your hands don't get buttery or greasy! (my popcorn doesn't have butter, but maybe it used to when I started this) When I eat potato chips, I have to eat the smallest broken ones first, then the smallest whole ones, then bigger broken ones, then the bigger whole ones, and if there are any in the bag, I finish off with eating any folded ones. The folded ones are my wish chips. When I was younger, I was told that if you can eat a folded chip in one bite, that whatever your wish is will come true! Wow was I gullible.
If I have a handful of m&m's, I have to eat whichever m&m's don't match my outfit, in order of color until the final color I have matches my outfit the closest. Why? I don't know. And I think everyone does this, but if there's something on my plate I don't like, I'll hurry up and eat the whole of it, so that I can enjoy the rest of my food. I rarely drink soda, but if I do, I always chase it with water. A swig of root beer, swallow, a swig of water. Delicious.
I don't know if this counts, but one of the most delicious things I can think to eat is to get one slice of white bread (Wonder bread is best here) cover it in Miracle Whip (mayo doesn't work) and top that off with a slice of Kraft singles. Then don't ruin it by putting another slice of bread on it-you need to leave it just that way. This started like, 15 years ago, and I still enjoy it to this day.
There are I'm sure a billion of these quirks that I have, but this is all I'll share for now. And I'll have to share the weird things I do while eating another time- we should not make this post too long!

A bowl of soup is a lot!

Today was my mama's 98th birthday. All right, jokes, she's not (quite) that old. (ha ha!) Anyway, for her birthday, we went to eat at the Garden of Olives. I couldn't decide what to get there, it took me a while. I was trying to decide between getting the chicken scampi or the soup/salad/breadsticks with the Chicken Gnocchi soup. Finally, the waitress suggested I get the scampi, but instead of getting the salad with my meal, I get the soup. Genius!
She delivered the soup and I ate my whole bowl, it was so good. When our meals came, I was already pretty full from the soup and breadstick, but I ate some of my food. I saved some room, because I wanted to eat some dessert, which to me, is the point of the meal. As we were waiting for the desserts, my ENTIRE family made fun of me for the amount of food I ate! I ate a lot! I know it doesn't seem like a lot, a bowl of soup and a little pasta, but come on. The soup was thick, and the chunks in it were quite large.
I eat a lot-people know this, but I want to reiterate it. I'm no lightweight-I'm pretty sure I can out-eat anyone I know. I'm a champ-and no matter what any of these people say, my meal was not tiny. So there.

I'm supposed to eat all this?!

We went to Ruby River tonight, to use our gift certificate thingy that I got from work. Everyone who reads this knows already of this, so I don't need to explain. We had this last year too, but last year when we went I didn't like steak, so this year was better, in that respect at least. And this year, I love steak. Meat is just so fantastic-I don't know how there are people that don't eat it!
There is so much food that Ruby River gives to you! I can't even believe it. We had only finished our appetizers, and I was full already. Of course, then our meal came, and I couldn't believe the amount of food on the plate. I ate a little of the steak that came, but then, I was just out of room in my belly. We had to wrap our desserts to go-I couldn't bear to eat anything else. Why they give you that amount of food, I will never figure out. But we ate so much delicious stuff, it was great! I don't think I could eat like this all the time, but doing it every once in a while is kinda nice. I've included pictures of our appetizers and the meal, so you can see just how much food we had.

Unwrapped!

I love the TV show Unwrapped. I don’t know if any people out there besides me watch it, but I do, religiously. And then, I share my findings with other people, whether they want to know or not. For instance, did you know there’s a 15 pound pizza sold at a pizzeria in Colorado? And if you (and a friend) can finish it in an hour, you get that pizza for free! I don’t remember how I first got hooked into that show, probably through dad. I seem to remember him watching it. At first (before I’d really heard of it and only saw dad watching) I was only interested because the host of Unwrapped is none other than Mark Summers, our friendly host of such classics as Double Dare and Family Double Dare! You can’t tell me you didn’t love those shows as a kid. I wanted so badly to be on that show. I had even picked the sibling I’d take with me. Now, I’d better not say who that was, lest I start a fight. My answer has changed now, of course, I’d pick James. I’m pretty sure he’d win that for me. But this has nothing to do with the show, so I’ll move on.
I love all the stuff I get to learn about food here. Each day has a theme, and within that theme, each day there are 6 things you get to learn about. Last night’s theme, for instance, was country cooking, so we got to learn about restaurants that have country home cooking, and food that’s massed produced that is also as country cooking that city people are going to get. I don’t know that I have a favorite episode so far, although I have to say the one where we learned about giant foods was pretty cool. I don’t remember the exact dimensions of all the stuff, but there was a seven layer chocolate cake, a five layer (and like ten-pounder) Strawberry shortcake, and a thirty pound hamburger, courtesy of Fuddruckers. I can’t believe that people actually make these foods, much less that people eat them.
The bad part about watching this show is that inevitably, by the end of the show, I’m hungry, usually for something I saw on the show. Usually, I’m watching at 6:00 in the morning, so of course I’m hungry anyway, but usually one doesn’t crave fried chicken in the morning. But I do today. And since most of the stuff they feature is out of my state, I’m always thinking of ways I could get there. I’m like, well, I don’t think I’ll ever go to Montana, but I could swing by that state just to try that place out! And of course I know I’ll never get there, but oh man, would I love to. And there are so many things that I want to try, but they only sell in other states, and that makes me sad. But it seems silly to me to travel to another state, just to get some food. It has now become my dream to host this show. I don’t know when Mark Summers will be retiring, but when he does, I’d gladly fill his shoes.

Food, glorious food.

I love food, but I am a very picky eater. I'm nowhere near liking all foods, though I don't know of anyone that likes all foods, but I do like many. Mostly I'm so picky because of previous stomach problems. Not being able to digest foods very well limits what you can eat. You end up eating the bland foods, chicken, bread, rice, pastas, but only if the pasta sauce doesn't have too many spices, or else you can't eat it. Luckily, I'm on some miracle pills that make it so I can eat pretty much anything. I still have to be careful, of course, but I can eat a lot more of the foods that I used to have to look longingly at. Of the ones I hate, only a few stand out as being the most despised of all. Fish, walnuts, cantaloupe, honeydew, tomatoes, seafoam, chocolate cake, soup (of any kind), and white lettuce seem to top off the list. And mostly, I don't like food because of the texture. Sure, the taste comes into it, but mostly its the texture, how it feels in my mouth. I'm sure seafoam is delicious, but because it feels so weird while chewing, I'm out. I can't even fake eating it. And soup? Come on-its not a real food if its liquid! And don't come to me saying that stew could be better, because it isn't. Its like a drink with chunks in it. And the only way I do liquids is a drink, I won't be "eating" it. Tomatoes are gushy, I don't care if they're fresh or old, I swear there isn't a difference, there's all sorts of juices squirting out at you, and random seeds all over the place.
I know lots of people do this, but when I'm eating, I'll eat the stuff I don't like first, to get it out of the way for the stuff I do like. Pretty much, whenever I go out to a restaurant, I don't mix it up and try new things, I go for the same thing I always get, because I know it'll be something I like! I have begun to branch out a little, though. For instance, at the Red Robin the other night, instead of getting a boring old cheeseburger, I got a bacon cheeseburger! Thats right, I'm going wild! And I do sometimes ask the waiter/waitress what they recommend...and end up getting the thing I usually get anyways. Sometimes, what the suggest just sounds gross. And I'm not wasting hard earned money on food I'll pick through, and then still be hungry by the time we leave.
Now, to cheer myself up, I will talk of the things I love. Pizza. Oh, pizza is so delicious. I'm pretty sure I eat pizza every weekend now. And my winning combination is pepperoni and green peppers, with ranch dressing on the side for to dip the pizza into. I don't necessarily have a favorite place, but I do like the Two Jacks pizza here in Spanish. Especially with extra cheese. Mmmm...so good. I'm a huge fan of macaroni and cheese, people actually make fun of me because I order this when I go out to eat. Come on, mac and cheese is the food of the Gods. Right now I'm loving steak. I used to hate it so much, and when people would talk about it, I'd be like, ugh, gross, but then I had this super delicious steak at Ruby River, and since then I just can't get enough of it! But that could also be because it's winter, and in the winter, I always crave meat. Just like how in the summer, I always crave salads. Its a cycle I go through. I am a fan of cereal. Right now, my favorite is multi-grain cheerios. Its healthy, and delicious! And pie. I am so in love with pie lately! Lemon, coconut, banana cream, strawberry rhubarb, apple, cherry, I love it all. I want some of that right now!
Thats really all I can think about right now. Plus, talking about all this food has made me pretty hungry.