Just About Food!

…just one more home based post before I return to the adventures and experiences from our family road trip this past May to Omaha Nebraska and St. Louis Missouri.

As the title states, this time it is just all about food!

In my last post, I mentioned that we’d had a roasted bacon wrapped pork tenderloin sided with some Main Street Bistro cheesy scalloped potatoes.  Well, I was quite pleased about having leftovers for another satisfying breakfast.  Laurie eats very few leftovers so they are my responsibility.  Waste not, want not!  I heated up the meat and potatoes in a frying pan, and after plating both items I covered half of the potatoes with a couple of easy-over eggs accompanied by a couple slices of buttered toast.

We tend to keep our evening meals simple…and this is a perfect example.  Simple doesn’t mean low quality though.  In this case, I made some coleslaw using Marie’s Coleslaw dressing, then I grilled Kement’s all beef hot dogs while Laurie fried the buns in butter to give them more flavor.  We added a bit of shredded cheese on the bun…really unnecessary…but the final results were Excellent!

We buy Klement’s Hot Dogs at the Fresh Market in Farragut Tennessee.  They are the best hot dogs we’ve come across in years.  There may be a valid reason for the quality.  They are made by the Klement Sausage Company and that company is based in sausage country…Milwaukee Wisconsin!  This company must be doing something right, they’ve been producing quality sausages for over 60 years.  Website: https://klements.com/.

The next food item was unexpected and never ordered.  I love Heinz Hot and Spicy Ketchup…as its spiced up/heated up with Tabasco sauce.  In the last 2 years I’ve been unable to find it in any of the several grocery stores we frequent, so I’ve taken to ordering it on-line through Amazon, in this case from one of their secondary providers.  Peter’s Select did get the label right…as well as the number of items…but that was about it.

Despite the label, the box contained 6 bags of “Belgian Boys” Belgian Chocolate Cookie Bars.  Since the shipment was delivered on a 90F degree day, that cute little face on the cookies had dissolved into molten chocolate.  We did put them right into the refrigerator in an effort to make them eatable…and they have been…although refrigerated chocolate is never as tasty as the original.

In fairness to Peter’s Select, (the Amazon provider), when they received my complaint/commentary, they did promptly send me my ketchup.  I wonder how an order filler could have made this mistake.  He or she applied the right label on the wrong product…even the wrong food category.  No harm, no foul, at least from our viewpoint…

Moving on…we had friends Jodie and Morrie over for drinks and snacks.  We might have gone a ‘little’ over the top, but on the other hand, no one had to put together a big fancy dinner.  

Hey, we had to serve something with all those different types of crackers!  So we put this charcuterie board together.  It was loaded with 3 different Spanish salamis, Jamon Serrano thin sliced ham, blue cheese, Manchego cheese, Gouda cheese, a spreadable Boursin cheese, an olive and feta cheese mixture from Fresh Market plus some large ‘grape’ tomatoes.  All it was lacking was a yellow cheese for color contrast!   

Laurie made up a batch of her special deviled eggs just in case the charcuterie board wasn’t enough to go around.  She puts small capers in her deviled egg mixture.  The good news is that a few of them were left over…but not for long.

Jodie and Morrie brought a big platter of chicken salad sandwiches along with a large bowl of fresh mixed fruit.  The sandwich mixture included celery for crunch and grapes for a sweet touch…and they were very good.  I actually ate 4 of them! 

That bowl of fruit included 2 varieties of grapes, chunks of watermelon pineapple and blackberries.  It nicely complemented the charcuterie board and chicken salad sandwiches and it should probably have served as our dessert…but on this occasion we went for even more ‘excess’! 

A couple of hours after our feast, during which we consumed a much larger quantity of the items previously described, it was time for dessert.  We topped a portion of Martha Stewart’s warm Apple Crisp with a scoop or two of Talenti brand Madagascar Vanilla Bean gelato.  We were completely satiated…and content too!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave