Once Again, It’s Mostly Food Time at Home…in a Pandemic

It’s another pandemic post about food!  We aren’t creatively inspired by this self-isolation regime and as a consequence, home cooking is limited at our house.  We’re always looking for take-out options or some new product for us to try at home, whether it’s from the grocery store or on-line.

However…we did go out to eat once in the last 3 weeks!

After a follow-up visit to Knoxville’s Tennessee Orthopedic offices, we tried to think of a restaurant that would be safe for someone trying to avoid Covid-19.  Wild Wing Café in the Turkey Creek Shopping Center came to mind.  It was before 4 PM on a weekday, it was nice out and the inside of the restaurant is huge.   The outside was packed with folks and the inside was empty with the tables far apart and the staff were all wearing masks…  Perfect!

We decided that we’d order a starter…in this case Buffalo Chips – Sauced Up! ($5.99) As you can see, this appetizer was stacked high with homemade potato chips tossed in hot sauce and topped with melted blue cheese crumbles.  Then it was drizzled with ranch dressing.  It may not have been the healthiest choice but it was very satisfying! 

For our main course, we shared an order of 18 chicken wings with blue cheese dipping sauce. ($17.99) Diners can order a different sauce for each half dozen wings.  Choosing your sauces can be a challenge as there are 33 house made choices.  We decided on these three: China Syndrome (described as very peppery - 4 peppers hot); Red Dragon (a hot teriyaki wing sauce – 3 peppers hot), and; The Slayer (hot with lots of garlic – 2 peppers hot).

We enjoyed all of our wings with their different flavors and levels of heat but The Slayer is still our favorite!  Learn more about Wild Wing Café at https://www.wildwingcafe.com/locations/knoxville-tn.

Most Americans are not familiar with crumpets.  A crumpet is a small griddle cake made from an unsweetened batter of water or milk with flour and yeast.  They are popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

In any case, Laurie developed a craving for crumpets…and I went on-line to see what I could find.  After a bit, I discovered these crumpets, 8 to a package, from Butler’s Pantry Crumpets, LLC in San Francisco California.    

While early crumpets were hard pancakes that were cooked on a griddle, today’s versions are made with yeast and they’re usually soft and spongy.  This soft crumpet came into popularity during the Victorian era in the United Kingdom. 

The first photo shows our crumpets fresh from the toaster with fresh Amish butter.  The second photo takes the crumpets to the next level…slathered with peanut butter and a nice mixed berry jam.  These crumpets are indeed a bit spongy and one needs to keep an eye on them in the toaster.  The bottom or back side of these crumpets can get ‘over-toasted’…something we’d all like to avoid.  We both liked the crumpets texture and decided that they were a nice change of pace for us…

Time for some take-out food!  We ordered dinner one night from Little Italy Restaurant in Loudon Tennessee.  We’d started with some garlic bread with herb garlic butter ($2.25), forgetting for the moment that entrees were accompanied with buttery garlic knots…

Laurie’s entrée was the Veal Marsala, sautéed veal with mushrooms, garlic and Marsala butter over linguine. ($18.95) She was very happy with her choice and there was enough left over for a subsequent meal as well!

My entrée was the Chicken Broccoli Parmesan over angel hair pasta.  It normally comes with onions and pepper slices…which I left off my order. ($14.95) I shredded some real parmesan we’d purchased at Fresh Market.  It kicked up both of our entrees another notch.  Of course, as might be expected, I added Tabasco to my entrée for a burst of heat in that parmesan sauce.  I also had enough food left over for a second meal.

Both of our entrees also came a fairly large dinner side salad.  It was all good!  To check out the menu at Little Italy, you can go to https://littleitalyoftellico.takeout7.com/Home.  

What?!  A healthy meal!  Yes indeed… On our last visit to Costco, we’d purchased a package of frozen barramundi!  This was Australis All Natural Barramundi…the Better Fish.  The package contained enough fish for 2 meals.  In this case we kept it simple, just seasoned green beans and barramundi filets. 

Barramundi is a type of seabass native to Australia and the Indo-Pacific area.  It is a popular game fish and it has become a widely farmed fish in the aquaculture business.  It is a firm, flaky and mild white fish.  We first experienced barramundi while on vacation in 1989.  It tasted enough like lobster that Laurie fell in love with it… Subsequently, we’d only seen it once on a menu here in the USA.  FYI, barramundi is an Australian Aborigine word meaning “big scaled river fish”.

To learn more about barramundi, you can just go to https://www.thebetterfish.com/thecurrent/why-barramundi-is-the-future-of-fish/.

Yes this is another Costco product.  Kirkland’s Signature Seasoned Roast Beef, (and their sliced turkey as well), are almost food basics for me.  I usually buy one of each then freeze one until I’ve consumed the other… They provide ready to eat ‘finger food’ for a snack and both products make great sandwiches.

One evening when trying to decide what to have for dinner, I mentioned the sliced roast beef and Laurie said that she’d go for it if we could have it with au jus so she could dip her sandwich.  Great idea!  I added a bit of Tillamook shredded 3-cheddar cheese and some hot Jalapeno slices to mine.  I’d eaten half of my sandwich when I remembered to take a photo.  It was a very good sandwich with the au jus enhancing the whole experience…

That’s it for now… 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