What's for supper tonight?

Last week, I made carrot cake. This week, I made GINORMOUS oatmeal cookies.

 

I cooked tonight. Fresh roast turkey with gravy, homemade applesauce, steamed green beens, baked white sweet taters, iced tea. I picked the apples yesterday at a "pick your own" orchard.

 

Carrabba's is awesome.

 

never had beens before... what are they like, frank?

 

They're like beans, only past their prime.

 

I like Carrabbas, too.

My apple turnovers were a freaking disaster. I didn't know how many sheets of pastry to use (there were 10 in a pack), so I used all 10. What a freaking moron. Should've used about five. :'(

 

I love me some Quizno's, but nothing beats Firehouse Subs. I'm sure those who have tried their Italian sub agree that it blows the doors off Quizno's.


As for Coors Light, I admit to being a bit of a beer snob, which should be obvious. I think Bud, Miller, Coors and the rest taste like dirty bath water. I like a nice Grolsch, Heineken, Red Stripe, Corona or this one Italian beer I tried recently. They just don't know how to make beer in the states. It's sad, really.

Of course, I'm on this big weight-loss kick. So I've had chicken, fruit, rice, veggies, tuna fish sandwiches, turkey wraps. If anyone has ideas for healthy meals that taste great, I'm ready for the recipes. I don't have time to scour through Web site after Web site. One thing I'm hoping to work out is a low-fat recipe for turkey meatballs, so that I can put something worthwhile in my pasta.

BTW, if you're interested in scrapple, there's a song by Robbie Fulks.

On Macaroni Grill, I thought it was pretty good. I'd do that again. It is in a completely different class than something like Olive Garden.

Here are two of my finest culinary tidbits:

1. the best burgers you'll ever eat: get some ground chuck and mix it with diced onion, garlic salt, Tabasco sauce, perhaps a little crushed pepper and pour in a bunch of honey, which keeps the meat sweet and moist. Then make some thin patties the circumference of softballs, but save about one-fourth of the beef. Next take your favorite cheese (original recipe called for blue cheese, which I don't eat. So I use feta or pepper jack.) Cut the cheese into chunks or slices and pop it on the patties. Now, these are stuffed burgers, so plop a little hunk of the extra beef onto the patties and roll in the edges of the bottom patty. There's a lot of moisture in the cheese, and that's going to work with the honey to keep the meat moist. I've never had a better burger. You can adjust the ingredients to fit your preferences. I like a lot of Tabasco, and I replaced half of the onion with jalapeno a few times. If you really want to finish it off, I like to saute some baby portabellas and put that on the burger along with some Sweet Baby Ray's.

2. If you're making a red sauce for pasta or any kind of chili, don't forget the brown sugar. That's the key to a tasty meal. You can adjust it to your taste buds. I like it pretty sweet, but I also like it spicy, so I toss in some gourmet pepper seasoning and some jalapenos.

If you try any of this, let me know what you think.

 

also, if youre making red sauce from scratch .... add a little veal stock .... mmmmm.

 

Heineken --

That burger is called a Juicy Lucy, and every other bar in Minneapolis claims to have invented them, but the most prevalent claim comes from Matt's Bar in Nordeast.

They use cheddar and onion in the middle, and the things come with a strict warning not to bite into them right away. That cheese gets like molten lava. If you're ever in the area, stop in and get the basket with a pitcher of Grain Belt. You'll be pleased.

I made chicken parm w. puttanesca last night, and it was excellent. Though I have a hard time keeping the puttanesca sauce from getting too salty. Anyone got any suggestions?

 

Zeke, I like ya too much to give you the quick answer.

 

Wiseass.

Seriously, though, between the olives, anchovies and capers, it does get really salty, even if I use fresh tomatoes and no extra salt.

Still tasty.

 

Thanks for the tip. There's a restaurant nearby that uses puttanesca on nearly all of their dishes. I won't eat anything with an anchovie in it, and that's a shame, because I hear the sauce is great.