Toliver

At my family's Memorial Day barbecue (in San Diego), one of my older brothers brought a couple of the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes, deep red and untouched by critters of any kind. We were having hamburgers so the tomatoes were welcome (and delicious! ). It turns out the fruit came off a tomato plant that my brother never bothered to to pay any attention to this year. He said he just ignored the plant, thinking it was "used up" from the previous year. Lo and behold, it's now bearing the most beautiful tomatoes any of us have seen in quite a while. A pretty good harvest considering it's a volunteer plant.

MetsFan5, are those double wall ovens I spy? If so, I am green with envy!

It's funny...the hair salon where I go to get my hairs( ) cut has vacuum units like this trash can except with much larger openings. Whoever is sweeping the cut hair on the floor just moves it over to one of these vacuum units...turns it on (it sounds like a loud vacuum, of course), sweeps the hair into the unit's opening at floor level, and then the sweeper-person shuts it off. Easy peasy. I've also seen homes built with a central-vacuum that have a floor level kick plate in the kitchen. Do your sweeping, kick the kick plate which opens the vacuum slot and sweep your sweepings into it. It shuts automatically and is very quiet (since the central-vacuum itself is in the garage usually).

Where are you people getting all of those tree trunk-thick asparagus? The only asparagus I see in my local grocery stores is thin to super skinny (pencil asparagus). Not that I'm complaining it's just I am finding it curious to see such thick spears in a lot of the dinner photos posted in this thread.

So I finally got around to trying the Oscar Mayer Bourbon Barbecue Seasoned Bacon Jerky that I mentioned in the post above. It's basically chewy bacon with just a hint of bourbon flavor. And when I say "hint", I mean as in barely there. I think if it was more jerky-like instead of just like chewy bacon, it'd be a better buy. I liked this flavor better than the Teriyaki Ginger Seasoned bacon jerky but it could still stand some improvement.

This weekend my sister-in-law gave me a box of Trader Joe's Cookie Butter Cookies. OMG. They're basically small sandwich cookies, with the cookie butter in the middle. The cookies themselves tasted just like simple sugar cookies. Needless to say, the box of Cookie Butter cookies was devoured rather quickly.

Not sure about the RedSlime. I will have to look next time I buzz through. After selling a ka-billion (I'm not kidding about that number...they estimate they sold a billion of them) Tacos Locos with their Doritos Taco Shells, Taco Bell is now testing Frito Taco shells: "Taco Bell to Unleash Fritos Taco Shells on Your Town Very Soon"

I am snacking on a new Doritos flavor called "Roulette". It's nacho cheese Doritos with one out of six chips being a spicy hot version. Yes, the spicy chip does have a little kick to it. The bag looks like a Doritos Nacho Cheese bag except it has a roulette wheel on it with a circle of chips surrounding the wheel. Supposedly the flavor has already debuted in Mexico and Canada and is now available in the US.

Well, that was short-lived! The Taco Bells in my area have discontinued the chicken-in-a-biscuit from their breakfast menu. You can get their other usual crap (scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, cheese....whatev) stuffed into a biscuit "taco" for breakfast but just not chicken anymore.

The last time I was in Trader Joe's I bought a container of their Soup Starter veggies in their produce section (not to be confused with their mirepoix veggies). I wish I could recall the laundry list of veggies (I think there were 8 or so) that were diced up in the mixture but reading it I thought they would be good in a salad mixed with some lettuce/greens. They looked a little dry when I opened the container so I refreshed them in some ice cold water. I drained them, added them to salad greens and added some canned albacore tuna and tossed it all with some salad dressing. Quite tasty! The container is large so I had enough diced veggies for more than a few salads.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Or in this case, use the cake in a trifle with fresh raspberries (or the fruit of your choice), whipped cream and/or custard. No one has to know the cake was a mess. Fat Guy, co-founder of eGullet, once wrote "Deep-frying hides a multitude of sins". So can whipped cream and/or custard!

On occasion, my mom would use kielbasa sausage as the meat in her spaghetti sauce and would even use slices of the sausage on her homemade pizzas instead of pepperoni. Back then, we didn't go out to eat very often (not many did then) so her versions of pizza and red sauce became the "norm" for us. As kids, we didn't know any better and enjoyed it all. Go figure!

Call me cynical but does anyone want to bet that when they get to San Diego they end up at Richard Blais' Juniper & Ivy restaurant?

For all of you hockey & bacon admirers: "Here’s a Stanley Cup Made Entirely Out of Bacon" Mmm...Stanley Cup 'o' Bacon [/Homer Simpson]

Bought some Trader Joe's Blister Peanuts last night. Super crunchy and tasty, too. Thumbs up!

Trader Joe's also has their own brand of no-boil lasagna noodles.

File this under "Things that make you go hmmm..." So McDonald's announced recently that they would no longer purchase chicken with antibiotics in them. Which means they now have a huge amount of antibiotic-y chicken to use up before the antibiotic free chicken enters their supply chain. What to do with all of that antibiotic-y chicken? Their most recent promotion: Two McChicken sandwiches for two dollars. Really, McDonald's? And they're the worst sandwiches ever conceived...a dollop of mayo, the breaded chicken piece and some shreds of lettuce on a hamburger bun. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Sorry to revive an older discussion but this week I found Oscar Meyer Bacon Jerky (<- click) in the store. It's at the bottom of the listing of Bacon products on the Oscar Meyer web page. It comes in two flavors: Teriyaki Ginger Seasoned and Bourbon Barbecue Seasoned. I bought the Teriyaki Ginger Seasoned Bacon. It mostly tastes just like bacon but with the barest hint of teriyaki sauce. I can't discern any ginger flavor whatsoever. And it's not very jerk-like. It's like eating chewy bacon. If you enjoy bacon, you'll enjoy this snack but don't expect to taste the Teriyaki Ginger flavoring. I am in hopes to go back and buy the other flavor and will report back soon.

It was mentioned in the LA Times today: "Game-changer? An automatic knob reads, controls the temperature of your stove" Congratulations.

It's interesting to see that #28 Food 4 Less is ranking higher than #44 Ralphs, since Ralph's owns the Food 4 Less chain. And #49 Vons and #50 Albertsons are now both owned by #58 Safeway. Mediocrity sinks to its own level.

I have a good friend who always gifts me with kitchen-related items and doo-dads. This past Christmas she gave me one of those huge silicone "lily pads" that you place on top of pots to prevent boil-overs. It works really well. However, I will never again use my bare fingers to lift the silicone "lily pad" off the top of the pot. Silicone items can be used at high temperatures and won't melt but since they're sitting on boiling hot water, they're still very hot to the touch. DOH! What was I thinking? Plus, they seal the top of the pot pretty well so not only was it hot to the touch but as I lifted it off the pot the escaping steam was scalding hot on my fingers, as well. Lesson learned.

Embrace the Ramen, sparrowgrass-hopper. I have a (spray) can of Kraft Easy Cheese (cheddar & bacon flavor) in my pantry and I carry no shame over it. edited to be a smart ass

"McDonald's gives all-day breakfast a test try" and this: Uhm, MickeyD...why a partial menu? Can't you do it all? Besides, it's been done already. Jack-in-the-Box is the clear winner in this fast food competition. Instituted a few years back, at Jack-in-the-Box you can order anything on the menu at any time of the day. Dinner for breakfast? Breakfast for dinner? Jack-in-the-Box can do it. What is Jack-in-the-Box doing right that MickeyD's isn't? edited for clarity

And I feel the opposite it true. It used to be good and then changed for the worse so I stopped my subscription. I also subscribe to Food Network magazine (it was a gift subscription), Southern Living magazine just for the recipes, and Louisiana Kitchen & Culture magazine. I stopped my Bon Appetit subscription some time ago. I guess we grew apart.

I tried the new Chicken-in-a-Biscuit at Taco Bell this morning. I'd rate it a "meh". It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. The chicken is breaded with some sort of crumb coating which made it slightly crispy. Tasting the chicken by itself, I was surprised to find that the breading/coating had a little "kick" to it. You can get the biscuit "taco" with either gravy or jalapeño honey. The gravy/honey comes in a small, widemouthed (so you can dunk your chicken biscuit taco in it) disposable container. I got the honey. I think the chicken breading was spicier than the honey, which tasted just "sweet" and that was it. To me, the oddest thing about it was that the chicken biscuit taco came in a cardboard sleeve. The only other Taco Bell item I can recall that had this extra sleeve was when they offered those Dorito taco shell tacos where you needed the sleeve because the Dorito shell was so fragile holding the taco without the sleeve would result in a quickly crumbled taco. Which is what happened with the chicken biscuit taco. I cast the sleeve aside ("Sleeve? We don't need no stinkin' sleeves!" ) and as I was eating it, the biscuit started breaking up in my hand. Lesson learned. The Chicken Biscuit combo costs a little more than the previous Waffle Taco did. I'd say it's worth trying but it wasn't amazingly awesome which is what I think Taco Bell needs to generate more breakfast business. As an aside, I was alarmed to read on all of the Taco Bell wrappers and sleeves a warning about not reheating or microwaving their food in the wrapping/sleeves. What chemical is in the wrapping/sleeves that can't go through a reheat or nuking?!