Eating at Home – Mostly

…continuing with my break from chronicling our adventures from our St. Louis trip in June, I decided that I should ‘catch up’ on some of the food choices I’ve (sometimes we’ve) made in the last month or two.

In general, but not always, simple is better and minimal clean-up is a key factor for many of our meals.  This is not an essay about creative cooking…

Over the years, I had grown a bit tired of Spam…probably because of my age and the fact that most Spam is so salty.  I’d never tried Low Sodium Spam but recently I perused the Spam display at our local Food Lion grocery store.  I was stunned to note the variety of Spam products on display.  At first I was drawn to the Low Sodium variety, but then I spotted “Spam Lite”.  It has 33% fewer calories, 50% less fat and 25% less sodium, so I bought it!

Of course I had to have a Spam and eggs breakfast, just like they do in Hawaii… I paired 3 slices of fried Spam with leftover mashed potatoes that I liberally coated with shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  Then of course I added 2 easy over eggs and toast.  It was an excellent breakfast.

Spam Lite did not have that ‘heavy’ Spam flavor that could overwhelm the eggs and potatoes and yet I could enjoy the ‘porky’ flavor of the meat.  FYI, a couple of the varieties of Spam that are available is “Spam Maple” and “Spam Hickory Smoked”.  I admit I almost gagged when I spotted the “Spam Flavored Macadamia Nuts”.  To review the entire Spam line up, go to The Spam Shop at Varieties - All Products (spam.com).

We do like Barbeque, although technically, what I’ve always created on the grill is grilled ribs, pork steaks, etc., as I don’t smoke any meats.  In any case, our grill has been down for the year due to squirrels eating their way through our propane hose for the 3^rd or 4^th time.  Our grill is connected to our underground propane tank…and a 6’ to 8’ flexible metal hose is the answer…if I could find one.

So, without the grill our Barbeque options are limited.  In this case we bought some ‘country pork ribs’…called ribs despite there being no ribs involved… Laurie seasoned them with a BBQ rub and we cooked them low and slow adding BBQ sauce a little later in the process.  It made for a nice ‘BBQ meal’, sided with yellow squash and a little bread.  Laurie added pickled beets to her plate.  Nevertheless, we both miss the char that we would have if the grill was operational.

As the title of this post said, “Eating at Home – Mostly”.  These 2 photos are the exception to our dining at home.  But they are included for a reason.  We had planned to eat elsewhere in the area but that restaurant was closed.  We ended up at Aubrey’s Restaurant in Lenoir City Tennessee, a favorite of ours and a very reliable dining destination.

Laurie’s Asian Chicken Salad, ($15.00), was made up with grilled chicken, fresh greens, roasted peanuts, mandarin oranges, crispy wontons and sesame seeds in a Thai vinaigrette.  Her salad was huge and she ended up taking about half of it home for dinner the following night. 

My Fish and Chips entree ($18.00) was huge too.  It consisted of panko crusted Pollock over thick cut potato ‘chips’ with lemon caper sauce.  My meal also came with a nice large cup of Tomato Bisque. (No photo) By today’s standards, it seemed like I got a lot for my money.  Both the fish and those thick potato slices were excellent.  In any case, I took a couple of those Pollock filets and some of those potatoes home with me.

To view the menu from Aubrey’s Restaurant in Lenoir City, go to Aubrey’s Lenoir City (aubreysrestaurants.com).

Of course, bringing those fish filets and fried and seasoned potatoes home from Aubrey’s, just had to result in a breakfast treat.  I reheated both the potatoes and fish in a frying pan with a little butter, mixed up some cocktail sauce using my horseradish and Heinz Tabasco Ketchup, and I was ready to feast!

This is an example of either ‘too much of a good thing’ or the combination just doesn’t have a future.  We had some leftover Macaroni and Cheese.  I heated it in a frying pan with a little butter, adding more shredded cheese and hoping for a bit of fried cheese around the edges.  Then I dropped a couple of over easy eggs on top.  The result was underwhelming.  The eggs were lost in the cheesy pasta and hot dog flavors.  Not to be repeated…

When visiting Costco recently, we browsed the coolers and shelving, looking for simple shortcut ‘no effort’ meals that we could use whenever the impulse overtook us. 

We noted this package containing “12 Petite Belgian Waffles” from Le Chic Patissier”.  We do like waffles and it can be a drag pulling out the waffle maker and cleaning up afterwards so we decided to give these a try.  They are individually packaged and aren’t refrigerated.

We heated a couple of them up in the microwave for each of us.  Then we added butter and maple syrup.  Sensory overload!  These little waffles are quite sweet and sugary and adding maple syrup was too much for our taste buds.  Laurie didn’t like them at all.  Since our initial try, I have eaten one of these sugary creations right out of the package… an OK sweet snack.  Another time I buttered a couple of them and then layered on the cinnamon.  Better if not great.  This product is not our favorite. 

Le Chic Patissier does offer other items in addition to these mini waffles.  They include macarons, Stroopwafels (a Dutch cookie) and 2 different varieties of brioche bread.  Learn more at Le Chic Pâtissier - High Quality Baked Goods (lechicpatissier.com).  

Our next Costco “temptation”, or at least my temptation, was this bag of pre-packaged mini-pancakes made in France from “Le Marie Patissier”.  Laurie doesn’t like pancakes but I do.  None of the frozen varieties I’ve tried were close to real/fresh pancakes so I ‘had to’ buy this package which contains 25 packets, each with 2 little pancakes.

To prepare them, all I have to do is remove them from their little packets, apply butter, and then nuke them in the microwave for 30 seconds.  Then apply maple syrup as desired.  I had 6 mini-pancakes/3 packets.  They were pretty darn good too!  I will buy this product again…

Le Marie Patissier is a commercial bakery located near Paris France.  They have been in business since 1933.  In addition to the plain pancakes, they offer strawberry or chocolate filled versions.  Other items include Rum Babas and a variety of cakes (shaped like pound cakes) that include a wide variety of fruit options.  Website: Lemarié Patissier | Un site utilisant WordPress (lemariepatissier.com).

My final easy meal style food, at least in this edition of my blog site, is this package of 15 Chicken Melts from Sandwich Brothers.  Once again, this was a Costco purchase.  As you can read on the box, these small pita ‘sandwiches’ consist of a ‘white meat chicken patty with American cheese”.  They are fully cooked and they are reheated in the microwave.

To be honest, we had low expectations.  The terms ‘white meat chicken patty’ and ‘American cheese’ do not usually denote much flavor…and the combination is usually pretty bland.  But, as you can see from the pair of Chicken Melts on my plate, Sandwich Brothers did add seasoning.  We actually thought that these chicken and cheese pita creations were pretty tasty!  We both liked them and we will buy them again. 

Sandwich Brothers is a Wisconsin based division of ConAgra.  ConAgra bought the company from the original owners in 2018.  The company produces 4 different breakfast sandwiches in addition to 5 different ‘melts’.  Of particular interest to us is the “Spicy Chicken” version of the standard Chicken Melts that we’d enjoyed.  To learn more about these products, go to Sandwich Bros.| Really…Really Tasty Sandwiches. 

That’s all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave