Soup & a Sandwich

One of my favorite sandwiches - grilled baby swiss, turkey, and ham on whole wheat.

Homemade ham, bean, and veggie soup!

Tomato Bisque & Grilled Cheese

Homemade tomato bisque soup with grilled cheese (marbled cheddar on whole wheat). Delicious. Unfortunately, the boys that I live with were too unsophisticated to enjoy such a fine meal with me so I ate alone.

Good Stuff - 7/22 & 7/23

On Tuesday, I was inspired by the Mary Mac's picture that Erin sent me to make some southern food. I had some fresh black eyed peas on hand, so I made Hoppin John. Hoppin John (or at least the recipe that I used) involves sauteed onions and garlic simmered with stock, bacon, cumin, jalapeno and habenero peppers all served over white rice. OMG, this was a delicious meal! I made mac & cheese as well. Yummy.

Tonight I made tortellini and spinach soup. This was pretty much the best thing that I've cooked since... well, since I made Hoppin John on Tuesday. I sauteed garlic and onion in olive oil and added crushed red pepper, fresh basil, sea salt, cracked black pepper, chicken stock, and crushed tomatoes. Then I threw in a pound of cheese tortellini and a pound of fresh spinach, served with a little grated Romano cheese on top.

Food and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas

I'm just going to put it out there... I hate Jimmy Buffet. I might even hate him more than I hate Nickleback. At the risk of alienating members of my loyal readership, I will go as far as to say that I even dislike his fans. The fact is that his music sucks. It's lazy music for people too lazy to find decent music to listen to.




And here's why I suck... I ate at Jimmy Buffet's restaurant while I was in Las Vegas. I was with my dad, the restaurant was right in front of us, we were hungry and thirsty, and I gave in. I hate myself for contributing to the evil empire that is Margaritaville.




I had the chicken nachos. They were okay. They weren't bad and they weren't great. But with each and every bite that I took, I felt like a bigger and bigger bastard.





Later in my travels, I had other meals that did not result in self-loathing. Here is a bowl of tomato bisque with mini grilled cheese sandwiches.





Here's a side salad and bowl of French onion soup. The soup was really good.




Here's my co-worker's chicken Caesar salad. She said that it was one of the best Caesar salads that she has ever had.

Max & Erma's - 07.03.2009

Max and Erma's is another restaurant that I am not overly found of, mostly because I don't like their menu. I don't care too much for hamburgers and that seems to be their core competency. Tony loves Max & Erma's and we had a gift card, so we headed out for dinner.





Appetizer - onion rings. These were good, very good.


Beer. Ian had a Stella and Connor had... I can't remember which kind of beer he had, actually.




I had a cup of tortilla soup. It was okay. It wasn't nearly as spicy as I would have liked.




I'm just gonna say it - my salad was good. Not as good as the one from O'Charley's but definitely better than the one I got at Jimmy V's recently.




Connor has recently declared that he's a man. He doesn't order off of the kid's menu or drink out of a cup with a lid when dining out. He ordered a combo that came with a cheeseburger, fries, tortilla soup (which I ate), and a warm cookie. He ate about 6 fries and 1/4 of his cheeseburger and called it a day. He wasn't impressed by the cookie either. Tony had a burger and fries too.


Ian had... chicken and fries! No surprise there.


All in all, it was a good meal!

Sunday Lunch with the Stewarts 3.22.2009

It's a lazy Sunday at the Stewarts... The kids are tired because they had a sleepover at my grandmother's and stayed up late. I got a great night of sleep, but went on a long hike with my brother and our dogs and didn't feel much like cooking when I got home.


Connor wanted Kraft Mac & Cheese for lunch, which is one of my favorite foods so I was happy to fix this delicacy for him. As soon as I put the water on to boil, he changed his mind and asked for a Kid Cuisine. Kid Cuisine is the lowest form of frozen food that you can buy, but they have a heavy marketing presence on Nick Jr. and the Cartoon Network so Connor requests them from time to time. Today he decided to try the cheese stuffed crust pizza with corn and pudding for the first time. He got one bite in to it and told me that he couldn't eat it. I tried one bite and also found it not fit for humans. Or animals. Nothing should be forced to eat this. While I was microwaving the Kid Cuisine, I was also heating a can of Campbell's Healthy Request Wedding Soup on the stove. I ate the soup. It was good. I really liked it.


After Connor's attempt to eat the Kid Cuisine meal, he decided that Cool Ranch Dorito's would be a better lunch. I can't blame him. Who doesn't like Cool Ranch Dorito's?


Ian asked for Pez for lunch, but we were out. He then asked for an apple. I gave him a sliced apple and he proceeded to lecture me for cutting the apple in to 8 slices. Stupid me, I didn't read his mind to know that he wanted his apple HALVED not SLICED. Anyway, he ate the apple but I forgot to get a picture of it. He then proceeded to fix himself a Sam's Club sized bag of On The Border tortilla chips.