Home Bound – A Variety of Meals

I’m down to 2 posts a week during the ongoing world-wide pandemic and I’m likely to reduce these efforts to only once a week.  No travel and exploration, in tandem with very limited social interaction or dining out, and my available subject matter is extremely minimal… Time will tell.

Food is the one constant but it’s a matter of time before even this topic will just be a rehash of previous posts.  Nevertheless, here’s one more food related post…

We sometimes grow tired of our own cooking and order take-out for a bit of variety.  In this case, we had been running errands in Lenoir City Tennessee and we decided to pick up dinner from Firehouse Subs. 

Laurie loves their “Italian” with Genoa salami, pepperoni, Virginia honey ham, melted provolone, Italian dressing and seasonings.  She had hers almost “fully involved”, with mayonnaise, onion, lettuce, tomato and a kosher dill pickle.  She had them leave off the deli mustard.  

As usual, I was impatient and immediately started eating my sandwich before taking any photos… In any case, here’s a picture showing half of my “New York Steamer” with accompanying potato chips.  This Firehouse creation includes corned beef brisket and pastrami, with melted provolone, deli mustard, mayonnaise and Italian dressing.

Our sandwiches were still warm when we returned home and the best part is that no cooking was required and after dinner clean-up was minimal!

When Father’s Day and birthdays come along and you are hard to buy presents for, what are friends and family to do?  I literally don’t have a gift ‘want list’, partially because at my age and stage in life I pretty much have everything I can afford that I want or need and I just buy what I want when I think of something.  

So…knowing that I love to eat and that I’m a carnivore, boxes of meat and related items are gift solutions that are often sent for my enjoyment.  Omaha Steaks in different variety packs as well as a number of Lou Malnati’s Tastes of Chicago products periodically fill our freezer. 

In this case, it was a new item from Lou Malnati that was sent to me by my son David II and his family… This is a Vienna Beef Italian Style Sliced Beef and Gravy combo complete with giardiniera peppers.  It contained 2 lbs. of the beef, 2 lbs. of the gravy and 6 oz. of the hot peppers. 

After thawing the ingredients, the sliced beef was immersed in the seasoned gravy, (really a spicy sauce), and it was heated until everything had a chance to meld.  This was a big pot of food!

Here’s a photo of about half of the hot and spicy giardiniera peppers.  I love some heat but I have to admit that these peppers were even too hot for me!

On to the finished product!  We’d purchased some bulky buns so it was just a matter of slicing them and then piling on the wet and spicy Italian sliced beef.  The result was excellence…almost as good as the real thing as served up in a scattering of traditional restaurants in Chicago!

Laurie tried a little of the giardiniera on her sandwich but it was too hot and she had to remove it.  I put some sliced jalapenos on mine… In either case, we were happy campers!  For my second sandwich, I dipped the top of my roll in the spicy ‘gravy’ and that kicked it up yet another notch.

In any case, we’ve now added the Italian Beef to the Lou Malnati’s ‘favorites’ list…along with the Vienna All Beef Hot Dog Kit.

Keeping it simple… Another recent dinner started with a big box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese…the three cheese version.  To that we added a small can of Green Giant baby peas and 2 – 3 all beef hot dogs from one of our Omaha Steak gift packages.  You might note the red specks on the mac n cheese… We’ve discovered that we like sprinkling Hot Hungarian Paprika on our mac n cheese as a flavor enhancer!

This photo is a bit blurry...sorry…but on one recent night I cooked breakfast for dinner.  This was Laurie’s plate with buttered toast, hash brown potatoes, sausage patties and two easy over eggs.

The hash brown potatoes were purchased at our local Ingles Grocery Store in Lenoir City Tennessee.  The dehydrated shredded potatoes came in a small milk style carton.  I rehydrated them with hot water in the carton, drained off the excess water, and then I fried the hash browns in butter.  The sausage was purchased at Benton’s Bacon and Hams retail location in Madisonville Tennessee.  It was a very tasty dinner!

One item I almost always purchase when we visit Costco is Kirkland brand sliced meat.  I usually have a pack in the freezer.  Their turkey and beef are my favorites.  I use it for sandwiches or I just eat a slice or two without the carbs to assuage a hunger pang. 

However, this time we’d had so many leftovers in the house that I hadn’t been able to finish the sliced beef I had opened.  Its time was running out so I had to do something with it and soon… So I started out by frying/crisping up the remaining beef with a pad of butter.  I also found a few small pieces of roasted potato that I sliced up and added to the mix.

What the heck!  I know that my blogger buddy Larry, aka Big Dude at http://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/, knew what was coming next.  Of course!  I just had to top that beautiful roast beef and those potatoes with a couple of over-easy eggs…it’s what I do!  It was an excellent breakfast!  Waste not, want not…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave