Shopping Around the World

This month we are highlighting easy dinner ideas for the summer months. Summer months are way too hot to be cooking in the kitchen making the house even hotter.

During these months, mom likes to go for ‘light’ foods that really don’t require a lot of cooking.  When mom/dad went to Chicago in May, my Aunt Tina got this salad in the picture below at Richard Walker’s Pancake House.  Mom was so amazed about the beauty of it and knew that she could do the same when she got home and she did!  So although this picture is not one of hers, she replicated it perfectly and has many times in the past couple of weeks.  It’s very feeling and I know that first hoof because mom has fixed me some too.  I’m a lucky pig, right?  So without further ado, mom will give you the breakdown below.  Enjoy my friends… I know I do!

Grilled or shredded chicken.  I buy a rotisserie chicken at our local Sam’s Warehouse on Sundays.  It costs $5.00 and I break it up into three different meals for two people each.  Part of the shredded chicken goes into this this salad.  Breaking it into three different meals makes it cost $1.67 for two people on this salad.

A head of lettuce costs $0.99 and again breaks it up into three different meals.  That makes this part $0.33 for two people on this salad.

Shredded cheese.  I buy medium block cheese and got a block on special for $0.99 a block.  It’s really hard to ‘cost’ how much it would be for this salad.  I use it on a lot of different things and shred some for this salad.  I’m going to assume I cut the cheese block up into four sections.  With that being said, this part in the salad would be $0.25 for two people.

Boiled egg.  A dozen eggs cost me $1.29.  If I know we will be doing several salads in the week, I will go ahead and boil 6 of them at a time.  That way I’m ahead of the game.  Two eggs (for two people) for this salad cost $0.11,

Avocado.  I love slice avocado but the hub doesn’t.  I buy one avocado and split it into two meals.  Avocados were on sale for $1.00 so the salad part is $0.50.

Tomatoes.  I bought six medium sized Roma tomatoes at the market for $1.39 – that’s $0.24 per tomato and we use one per meal for two people.

Broccoli – a head of broccoli was $1.59.  Again, we break it up into many different snacks/meals.  It probably ranged $0.40 per meal for two people.

Dressing for the salad – the hub uses 1000 Island and I use Italian.  We pay $1.50 per bottle and it breaks down to about $0.25 per salad for two people.

Now the fun part – putting the salad together.  The only thing I didn’t put in the salad was shredded carrots.  Jim is not a huge fan so we left them out.  To build the ‘salad’, we put shredded lettuce on the bottom.  And when you do this, I make sure all of it is ‘bite sized’.  I hate it when you order a salad in a restaurant and you have to use a knife to cut it up because everything is cut too big.  Don’t you?  After the lettuce, I then place the items above on top like the picture. I add the salad dressing and then toss to get everything coated with the dressing.  Then it’s time to jump into that delicious salad and enjoy.  Final cost $3.64 for two people.

 

Travels in Chicago

Do you remember last week when mom/dad talked about the bacon pancakes they got at a restaurant in Chicago called Richard Walkers Pancake House“?  This meal was at the same restaurant.  Amazing huh?  Steak, eggs and hashbrowns.  Daddy was in heaven…. and so was mommy too.  Of course she had a couple of bites here/there in between bacon pancakes.  So what do you think?  Breakfast of Champions?

 

Travels in Chicago

Mom/Dad left us again a couple of weeks ago.  They went back to see my Aunt Tina in Schaumburg, Illinois.  Of course you know this means more food porn from them, right?  And of course that means us anipals didn’t get any doggy bags per say.  But then again, we were at Nana’s and well I can’t tell you what happened there… cause you know what happens at Nana’s stays at Nana’s.  So with that, I will let mom explain this awesome picture to you.  Take it away mom –

A restaurant that we found the last time we visited my sister was called Richard Walker’s Pancake House.  Now the hub unit has talked about this place every since the first time we ate there.  And I’ll tell you truthfully – the hub unit even dreamt about this place.  Yep, he liked it that much.

So of course it was on the ‘must go’ places on our list.  But this time, I fell in love with something on the menu.  Let me introduce you to my new love – bacon pancakes.

I’m sorry my sweet Bacon.  These pancakes are the bomb!  I think we ate them like three times while we were in Illinois a couple of weeks ago.  I couldn’t help it!  They kept calling my name.  The bacon was crispy – not mushy – and they were in the pancakes.  Of course I used sugar free syrup – LOL.  Don’t they look gorgeous?!

Now I want some more – ❤

 

Travels in Chicago

Oh friends – I have a good one for you today.  But for some reason, mom says I can’t be part of it.  She wants to talk about it.  So without further ado – take it away mom ❤

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Thanks Bacon.  Friends, for obvious reasons in the pictures below you can tell why I didn’t want Bacon here today.  No oinker should be around alcoholic beverages – LOL.  No really there is b.a.c.o.n. involved in this posting and I didn’t want the little guy to get his feelings hurt.  Carrying on with our Chicago, Illinois trip several months ago, I wanted to share a breakfast place that we went to for some fabulous food.  There is a restaurant close to my sister called Richard Walker’s Pancake House.  If you are near one, RUN to it.  They have the most fab food ever.

Of course every good breakfast needs to start with a solid drink.  Today was no exception.  We are on vacation and vacation knows no time.  My sister started with a Blood Mary with a slice of bacon.  THUD!  To say this restaurant has fabulous bacon is an understatement!  Mix that bacon with vodka and you have a party starting up right there and then.  I started with a Mimosa… gotta keep that orange juice flowing, right?  And of course the hub was the designated driver – snorts – so he had a Coke Zero straight up.

The muffin you see in the picture – that is a carrot cake muffin.  Gobble nom nom.  It was delicious!  We cut it all up and shared it together.  All it was missing was some cream cheese icing on top of it.

What we ate for entrees:

My sister went for the pancake looking picture.  That’s actually potato pancakes that was made from Idaho potatoes with a tad of fresh onion and served with applesauce and sour cream.  Now, before you go eeww, you have to try it before you knock it.  I was like yeah okay until I was personally hand fed a bite with sour cream.  Now I can’t get them out of my mind and want some…daily!  So yes upon our return trip to Chicago, this place is on the list for some potato pancakes.

I went boring style with scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon.  Okay the bacon wasn’t boring.  It was the most delicious bacon I’ve ever tasted here in the states and that’s saying a lot.

The hub unit went for the Classic Eggs Benedict.  Underneath that sinful hollandaise sauce was canadian bacon and poached eggs.  He made more grunting noises eating that meal than certain people make on certain television shows.  That’s all we are going to say about that – HAHAHAH

So I gotta ask – what was your favorite meal/picture?