Wednesday

Earl Cooks Weeknight "Breakfast for Dinner"

We often have what others consider breakfast for dinner, and when we do, most often it is scrambled eggs. We like them with lots of cheese and we usually top them with green onions. But tonight my wife (a.k.a."Turkey") wanted the onions sauteed and more mild. I was more than willing to oblige, since variety is the spice of life, I sauteed the onions, whipped up the eggs in my handy little mixer and before I knew it, it was time to add the shredded cheese! Scrambled eggs are by far the quickest way to get a protein rich meal on the table.

My wife likes hers with ketchup, but I prefer Chili Sauce, which is basically very chunky ketchup, which I learned to eat when my mother made a large batch of it for my father when I was a child. I later found it in the grocery stores and they called "Homemade Chili Sauce" which is what we called too!. Heinz also makes a version, and most grocery chains have their own version. Not to be confused with salsa, this is mild, like ketchup, with the chunky freshness of salsa. When my dad later ran out of the real homemade, he switched to Tabasco, which isn't close. He didn't do the shopping and the good stuff wasn't available in the coffee shops he frequented. I also like mine with toast because it helps me shovel the eggs toward my fork, My toast was a delicious piece of my wife's homemade bread slathered with butter. Dinner is complete—veggies—proteins—carbs!

Tuesday

McDonald's Does BACON in a Big Way - A Review

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese,
pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun and now with BACON!
I  don't have  anything good or bad to say about McDonald's as a general rule. It does seem that they try to get away with as little quality and innovation as the market will bear. That said, today's fast food market in the U.S. is driven by McDonald's! They could use this power for good, and now they have! They are offering BACON on several dishes including their flagship BIG MAC®. They also have a Quarter Pounder® with Bacon and Cheesy Bacon fries.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I like bacon. I have tried bacon gum, bacon toothpicks, bacon toothpast, bacon floss...I have a bacon necktie and a shirt with a bacon slogan on it. I have tried it on many dishes but until now, never on a Big Mac®. It was lunchtime and I was passing a local McDonald's so I thought it was a great way to buy and try their newest offering. Pictured at right is a comparison with mine on the left side and theirs, (as pictured on their website), on the right. I don't think any restaurant can claim their food tastes as good as they MAKE it look, so I am always willing to TASTE it and decide. I may be at a bit of a disadvantage since the Big Mac® has never been my favorite burger at McDonald's, but when I worked at Wal-Mart, you could smell the bacon cooking as it wafted through the vents.
Let's begin:

The Big Mac® Bacon: This was a good burger! The bacon made it better and I don't have anything bad to say. They actually put a fair amount of bacon on each burger and though I would like more, that's my problem. I would recommend they make this a permanent menu item!

The Cheesy Bacon Fries: Normally, I like fries at McDonald's. These were NOT good! The bacon was okay, but the cheese was HORRIBLE! It was worse than any canned cheese I have ever tasted. Next time I might say "Cheesy Bacon Fries please...hold the cheese!" No. I will never order these again.
As always, McDonald's knows how to cross promote. Left is a clip of the bag my food came in. I have yet to try the Quarter Pounder® with Bacon, but I am sure it will be good too. Funny thing, the Quarter Pounder is Daughter #1's favorite, but she doesn't much care for bacon (we're still awaiting the DNA test because she might not be related😊)

Try the Big Mac® Bacon! DO NOT TRY THE CHEESY BACON FRIES!!!




Sunday

"Turkey" Pressure Cooks Artichokes - Simple IS Better

Before I married my lovely wife, (a.k.a. "Turkey"),  more than 40 years ago, I had never eaten an artichoke (in fact, I had tried to avoid foods with the word 'choke' in them).

One of our wedding gifts was a Presto Deluxe pressure cooker in the lovely 70's color of Avocado Green and stenciled with animals, vegetables, and kitchen implements (shown at the bottom). A pressure cooker was also something I was unfamiliar with. Our kitchen growing up didn't have one, but my lovely wife knew just what to do read the directions, follow the recipe guide — things I rarely do! One of the first and best uses of the new device is artichokes! We used to eat these regularly as our daughters grew up, and they loved them too. Don't confuse these with the canned or bottled stuff in the grocery store. These take real work to cook & real work to eat them right, but man, are they worth it.

 If you have never eaten a whole artichoke, a brief anatomy lesson is on the right, alongside  the required bowl of melted whole butter required to enjoy each petal. One may say that anything dipped in a bowl of butter is good, and I won't argue with that, but the act of peeling, dipping and then scraping the bit of artichoke flesh dripping in butter left on the petal is unique. I am a bit of a purist and butter is all I need, but my wife does like a bit of lemon on hers. And once you devour all of the petals, remove the thin purply covers, you get to the choke, which is aptly named, but once you remove it you are left with the heart.

Yes, the heart is what every one wants, bottles, or cans, and there is a reason—It is like butter coated smoothness, and then it is gone😒.

In the past, I have recommended frozen artichoke hearts, and they are fine, but the experience of eating them freshly cooked by my wife is light years bond those! Obviously, you can't have hers, but try them in your pressure cooker or instant pot or even in a steamer basket!

Thursday

Earl & "Turkey" Cook Trader Joe's Wonton Soup

I love shopping at Trader Joe's! They have some great people, products that are unique or hard to find at the normal grocery store, and most products are their own private label! But don't think generic or cheap. Their products are reasonably priced and often imported. That said, sometimes their frozen products have failed to be what we expected. But I am always on the lookout for something new and tasty. On this visit I found Trader "Ming's" Chicken & Vegetable Wonton Soup. It looked good at first glance, but then I noticed it was microwave only, which always worries me. It had an uncooked protein, a wonton wrapper, and frozen carrots...three items I normally don't care to micro-zap. But the picture looked tasty, and we rarely go out to eat Chinese food, and I never cook it, so i bought one for each of us, and we each cooked our own.

My wife (a.k.a. "Turkey") had me go first. All I had to do was add about 5 ounces of water and microwave it for about 5 minutes in the provided bowl and voila, it's soup! I topped it with fresh ground pepper, added a dash of Soy Sauce and it was great! My wife even said it was good enough to do all over again. For a quick, satisfying meal, it is nice to have on hand!

Conclusion:
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐(Very good)
Price 💲💲(Really nice)

P.S.: I read a review today that said they didn't care it. We must have been eating different meals. Nothing they said applied to our meals!

Wednesday

Earl Compares Three Cheese Snacks

I can't express how much I like CHEESE! It is not only good by itself, it is good as an ingredient...I can honestly say I have never found a cheese I didn't like! Of course there are some I like more than others and some that are usually out of my price range (that's what I love about grocery stores that have good cheese sections - THE SAMPLES!) It will come as no surprise then that cheese snacks are almost always in my cheese keeper (fridge). For this post I am reviewing three cheese snacks. One is the one my #1 Daughter loves, one is a favorite of my wife (a.k.a. "Turkey"), and one is a newcomer to the marketplace at Sam's Club, Members Mark Jack Snack Cheese.

Let me start at the very beginning...a very good place to start, with the Jack Snack. I expected this to be a knockoff, like so many store brands. In fact, I was surprised that knockoffs of Babybel hadn't happened before now, at least near me. But when I opened it and tasted it, I was pleasantly surprised. From the name, I expected it to be a Monterrey Jack, but nothing on the package identified the type of cheese, just it's components. It is a semi-soft cheese, but not like the Babybels I have tried. It was sharper and tangy-er, a bit like Swiss, but not really, and I loved it. They come in a bag of 26 and run about 29¢ each. If you like cheese, you should buy these! As you can see from my photo, they do not have a nice red coating as the Babybels do, but that really means less trash!

The next in this taste test is Mini Babybel Mozzarella style. This is Daughter #1's favorite. It's texture is semi-soft, it's flavor is VERY mild, and much like mozzarella in bricks at the store. It seems an attempt to compete with string cheese, but this is NOT string cheese. It is smooth and quite delicate. No rubbery cheese here, and of course, no strings...don't even try. I like it, even if it has no identifiable flavor profile. These run 35¢ each and are also sold in a bag of 26.

My final review is my wife's favorite of the three. Mini Babybel light. "Turkey" (a.k.a. my wife) does not like cheese plain. On crackers, as an ingredient, melted on top of...fine. She likes to take one of these and mix it with her scrambled egg for lunch, or on a cracker with a Little Smokie for a game-time snack. I started buying these rather than the original to cut some fat calories from our lives. It hasn't worked, but I still have hope. These are very nice to have around. Like the mozzarella style, they are semi-soft and wrapped in plastic and red wax coating to remind you of it's heritage, coming from a French version of the Dutch EDAM cheese, which also is often red wax coated. Surprisingly, this is the most expensive of the 3, running 38¢ each, at Sam's. Not much, but if you extrapolate it to price per pound, it is more than $8/pound!

I started my taste test with trying to take a similar sized bite from each of the three. As you can tell from the photo, the Jack Snack is larger in diameter but also slightly less thick. All three weigh in at ¾ of an ounce.

I also tried them on a cracker. My cracker of choice is a Club Cracker. It's buttery goodness compliments the creamy texture and the salt kicks the flavor a bit, but my rankings remained unchanged with or without the cracker.


 My rankings are  as follows:
  • First: Jack Snack—I liked the tangy element this offered, and the price is also the lowest.
  • Second: Mini Babybel LIGHT—Because of the fat calories. It almost came in last because of it's added cost.
  • Third: Mini Babybel Mozzarella styleThis is a great snack and only came in third because I have so many other mozzarellas to chose from, I don't need another, but I may sneak one when I am at Daughter #1's!

My price comparisons were all from Sam's club, and Mini Babybels are quite a bit more at the grocery store. 


There are many more cheese snacks available, I chose these because I had them available for comparison. While I have had string cheese that wasn't stellar, mostly I would choose cheese over candy bars any day!