Wonderful Leftovers

Now I really needed a detox! After all that lasagna, bread, cake, and ice cream, I needed to simply eat less. I started my day with a brotein bar. 

I had another for lunch.

I then went back to my to visit my parents while I still have some time off before school starts. My mom got off work early and we decided that it was a great day for some tennis.

I carbed up slightly with some of these.

They're actually really good!

Not bad on the carb front either! Plenty of carbs with not too much sugar.

There was also a leftover chicken strip in the fridge, so I had that too. I needed some brotein after all!

Then my mom and I went and played some tennis.

It was a little hot, but for some reason we just didn't feel that oppressed by the heat, nor did we really get all that thirsty or tired. It had been a while since we had played, but we were out there for well over an hour, just hitting away. We had a really good time, I didn't get all that angry (which is a big deal when I play tennis), and we both played well for not having played in a while. It was just really nice.

For dinner, we still had some ground beef left, so we made a few more burgers.

The main reason for making these burgers was so that we could have some more of that Freddy's sauce we made the other night.

I also brought along some lasagna and garlic bread!!

My parents were equally as blown away by the lasagna as I was last night. And today, it may have been even better! Pasta always gets better with age, and this was no different. I was again blown away with how good it was, even after having eaten it less than 24 hours ago! There was a little bit left, so I split it with my dad.

I'm still in awe over this lasagna.

How many times can one mind be blown???

The day after the consumption of all that wonderfulness, I needed a detox. No better way to do that than with some good ole' fashioned antioxidants, but where oh where can I find some of those???

That's right! Wonderful dark chocolate! Granted, this isn't the 90% that I'm used to, but it'll do I guess!

This was all I ate for a good portion of the day. When we were about to start on dinner, we decided to finish up the last of those amazing Sprouts gummy worms. It turned out that there were 8 left, so we split them.

Sorry for the overly dramatic lighting, I just had to. We also decided to finish off some prunes that we've also had for a while. I don't really know how many I ate, but we pretty much split this bag and finished them off.

Then we got to making dinner. Sidney really wanted to make lasagna, and she had done her own interwebs scouring to find a recipe she really thought looked promising. We had all the ingredients, now just to cook them. I'll give a brief overview of how we did that.

1. Browned ground beef and ground Italian sausage.
2. Added crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and a bunch of spices and seasonings.
3. Let that simmer for 90 minutes. 
4. Make ricotta mixture.
5. Cook lasagna noodles.
6. Layer everything in pan with meat sauce, noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmesan. 
7. Bake for 25 minute with foil cover, then 25 minutes uncovered. 

We also made some homemade garlic bread with French bread, butter, and fresh garlic.

This all culminated in a beautiful sight:

The bread was looking really good, and it was smelling even better.

The lasagna was looking straight amazing.

I scooped out a big (HUGE) portion onto a plate. Look at those layers!

To complement the lasagna and garlic bread, we had an Italian chopped salad.

It had a bunch of yumminess in there.

But just look at that lasagna and garlic bread. Let's start with the bread. It was really good. I would very happily make this again instead of buying premade frozen garlic bread. It was easy and it tasted better, and it was likely cheaper too.

But that lasagna tho... Let me start off by saying that I'm not a big fan of lasagna. I never order it at Italian restaurants, instead opting for more cream-based things like Alfredo. I just always picture lasagna as some bland noodles with bland pasta sauce on top. Obviously, this isn't an appealing thought, so I always take my taste buds elsewhere. So when Sidney said that she wanted to make lasagna, I agreed with reservations. Not only have I historically swerved away from lasagna, she nor I had ever made it before. But I'm always up for new adventures in the kitchen, so it was all systems go.

With my first bite, my entire mindset changed. Not only did it change, it was now the farthest away from it's former state that it could possibly be. I simply could not believe, like literally and physically could not believe, how utterly and mind-blowingly good this tasted. I cannot in any way, shape, or form express to you how good this tasted.

I made the proclamation that this was one of my favorite things that we've ever made. This was better than literally anything else that I could think of that we had ever made. This was so good that for one of the first times in my life I believed that no restaurant could make it better. I mean, with everything else we've ever made, even if I had been impressed with how it tasted, I always knew that it could be better or that there was a better version at some restaurant somewhere. But not this. This was so good that I can't even imagine how it could be better, even at a very good Italian restaurant. After tasting our lasagna, I made the decision that the next time we visit an Italian restaurant, instead of ordering fettuccine Alfredo I would be ordering the lasagna. I expect it, though, to not be as good. I'm still blown away.

Now for the second mind blowing of the night. We had some cake leftover that my mom so graciously let us take with us.

This time, though, we let it sit out on the counter for a while to let it come to room temperature. You see, yesterday, we ate it straight out of the fridge. I think this was a mistake. Tonight we paired it with some classic vanilla ice cream. Oh. My. God.

With the cake and frosting being at room temperature, it tasted 1000000000 times better, maybe more. I don't know why this is, but letting it come to room temperature makes all the difference. This cake literally just went from a decent chocolate cake to by far the best chocolate cake I've ever made. Again, for the second time tonight, I simply could not believe how good it was. I was yet again blown away. Finally, I have found a chocolate cake recipe that is truly amazing. I will no longer search for new recipes. This one will always be my go-to recipe for chocolate cake and frosting. Again, I'm still not over how good this cake is!

By now, I'm feeling pretty good about my abilities in the kitchen! Maybe I should consider a career in the food industry...NOT!!!

August Birthdays: Part 1

Alright, in full disclosure, today was not actually a day in August nor was it any family or friend's birthday. Due to schedule conflicts, however, it was necessary to celebrate my mom's birthday a little early. This commenced with a breakfast cooked by my dad. That started off with some breakfast sausage with bacon.

Look at all that wonderful grease! Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm! But what to do with it? Surely we can't let it go to waste. Oh no, far from it!

In go the eggs! Nothing like eggs cooked in all natural grease! But hey, it's more natural than oils, spray oils, and maybe even butter. After all, this is literally just melted fat. I know butter is essentially the same thing, but butter often has other ingredients mixed in there for flavor or texture. This is plain and simple fat. It's also plain and simple delicious!

To round out the breakfast, some buttered toast was added.

This was essentially all I would eat until dinner, since we would be going out to dinner. It was decided that we would be dining at a barbecue restaurant. This particular restaurant was also voted one of the best overall restaurants in Kansas City. If it was really that good, I knew I wouldn't be holding back, so I saved as much room as possible for the impending expansion.

I did, however, indulge in a very small portion of cashews, pecans, almonds, and chocolate. This also served to kick start my metabolism after a reasonably long time without eating.

But then it was time. It was time to eat!

In case you can't quite tell what the sign says, it's "Q39 BBQ, Wood Fired Grill, Bar." Q obviously stands for barbecue, and 39 stands for the street that it's on, that is, 39th Street. After looking over the menu, we decided to start with a couple appetizers. The first one was macaroni and cheese.

The second one was a cheese fondue with pretzel bread and apples.

Both were good, but let me tell you the pretzel bread with cheese fondue was really, really good.

For my main course, I got one of their combo plates. This one included beef brisket, burnt ends, and a rib. It came with corn bread, potato salad, and cole slaw with some extra barbecue sauce as well.

After I had eaten my corn bread, my mom volunteered some of her fries to visit my plate.

After sampling, resampling, and utterly devouring everything, I can say that everything was extremely good. The true winners were the brisket and burnt ends, and the cole slaw was very good as well. The barbecue sauce was perfectly spicy. Overall, after everything was eaten and I had considered all the barbecue that I had ever eaten, I came to the conclusion that this was one of my favorites. I will mention, though, that I am not ready to say that this is better than Joe's KC (formerly Oklahoma Joe's). I would quite literally need to do a side by side comparison of the same items (ribs, burnt ends, brisket) to make a real decision. The other thing to consider is that Q39 is a sit down restaurant, whereas Joe's KC is a fast service place where you go up to the counter and order then sit down. But if you're looking for a slightly more fancy place or are all about being waited on, Q39 does that quite well. I think that even if I compared the two side by side and made a decision based only on food quality and flavor, I could still be happy going to either. It really depends on the experience you're looking for.

But now, here comes some more excitement. I leaked a little teaser yesterday, and the full reveal is about to happen. Yesterday, I made a cake. It was the first cake I have made in quite some time. Now, I used to be quite the cake boss, so it wasn't my first rodeo by any stretch of the imagination. But it was a new recipe. I wanted to make the best chocolate cake ever, so I scoured the interwebs in search of just that. I found that there are a lot of chocolate cake recipes with "best ever" in the title, so it was actually pretty challenging to find a good recipe. Eventually, though, I found one. I read through the article, the ingredients, the directions, and I was sold. The culmination of that searching and my efforts:

Not my most sophisticated cake decorating, but it gets the point across perfectly I think.

Paired with some of that cookie dough ice cream from last night, it was really good!

I'm not sure if I can call this the best chocolate cake I've ever had, but the chocolate buttercream frosting was definitely up there with the best frosting ever! I'd call this cake a success. It looked decent, tasted good, and above all else my mom really liked it. That's really all that matters, after all! Happy Birthday Mom!

Examinations of Gustatory Response

Today marked our long awaited (2 weeks) return to the Market. You know what that means!!!

Gotcha! This wasn't a breakfast burrito. Unfortunately, that guy wasn't at the Market today. Luckily, there was another delicious option:

This polish sausage was really very good. It should be too, let me tell you.

Sidney went the more frugal route and got a cinnamon roll from the church.

It was really really good.

Also, this week Sidney discontinued her double chocolate banana muffins in favor of lemon poppy seed muffins. Of course, we had to sample one, of course for quality assurance purposes.

It was very very good as well! It's just a given that anything Sidney makes, especially if it's baked, is going to be amazing. Take, for instance, this week's Frankencookie.

Since I wasn't around yesterday to share this cookie with her, Sidney saved it for today. It was a little bit chocolate chip walnut oatmeal, a little bit breakfast cookie, and a little bit Devil's chocolate.

Again, it was very very good.

When we got back from the Market, I had some baking to do myself. Without completely spoiling the surprise, I'll give you a little sneak peak:

Of course, when undertaking projects such as these, there will inevitably be instances of:

These weren't the only two examples either. There were quite a few more.

Sidney and I then headed to my parents' house. When we got there, my mom recommended some tortilla chips that were extremely "fluffy" and delicious, for lack of a better word. I tried one with some salsa.

Then we started on dinner. We decided on burgers tonight, so I fired up the grill and broke out the cast iron skillets.

After the buns were toasted, it was time for burger assembly. I started with my secret weapon for today's burgers:

Then on went a patty with cheese and some onions.

This was followed by another cheesy patty and some mayonnaise on the top bun.

Instead of fries, I hit up the tortilla chips and salsa to complement my burger.

I also had a yogurt and poppy seed salad.

At this point, I was surely artificially intoxicated with all the poppy seeds I had today. But just look at this burger:

It was very very good (the theme of the day). It may have even been as good as griddle burgers. Granted, using cast iron skillets is really very similar to using a cast iron skillet, but these weren't smashed quite as thinly. But, again, they were still really good.

After everyone had eaten, there was still one patty left. I decided that not only would I eat it, but that I would also make something I've been wanting to try.

For months now I've been wanting to try to make a homemade version of Freddy's now famous Fry Sauce. I knew it was essentially mayonnaise and ketchup, but I had recently found a recipe online that looked pretty promising. So I pulled that recipe up and whipped it all together really quick.

 
I plopped a generous amount on the bottom bun and placed the burger on top.

It was actually better than I expected it to be, and I had high hopes for this. It was interesting, though, when I considered that the main ingredients in this sauce were all things that are already very common to find on burgers. These ingredients are mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickles (juice, in this case). At any rate, it tasted really good.

I also tried the sauce with some potato chips, and this was quite good as well. I think this homemade sauce would be excellent on fries. Hmmm, fry sauce good on fries...brilliant!!

My dad then proceeded to belt junk food at me, so I obliged in carrying out an unbiased and purely scientific examination of gustatory response. The test subject: Suzie Q.

Results: Decent, but the cake was a little dry.

A little while later, my abilities in gustatory response examination were again required. This time, the test subject was chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Results: Very very good (as if it could be anything else).