Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas! We headed up to Sidney's grandparents' house for a family breakfast. Once there, I found some baked brie with pepper jelly and bread.

Brie not really being my thing, I gravitated more toward the cinnamon rolls.

In fact, I couldn't resist taking one. I mean, just look at this thing! How could anyone resist this?

Answer: no one could ever resist this.

And since everyone was drinking mimosas, I filled a glass with orange juice to not feel left out.

In reality, I just wanted a glass of Simply Orange with Mango. This stuff is like the best juice ever.

I'm sure I could drink about 10 of these bottles. It's that good. And I would regret nothing.

I then found an interesting dessert tray. I sample the left most thingies, the middle thingies, and the right most thingies.

It was then time for the main attraction. The real reason everyone likes this Christmas morning get together is the Eggs Benedict. Sure, spending time with family is nice, but these are the best Eggs Benedict we're talking about here. They really speak for themselves:

But in case you can't hear them, what they're saying is that they're made with the best English muffins, the best Canadian bacon, and the best hollandaise sauce.

After my first one, I went back for a second one.

But as good as they were, I wanted to be done after two since I knew that Sidney and I would be going to dinner with my parents later in the day.

But, it somehow happened that there was an extra one that somehow no one wanted. Presented with this prospect, and the fact that everyone knows me only as the bro that never gets full, I was the one tasked with eating it. So I did. I had three Eggs Benedict, which is a surprisingly filling meal.

When we eventually arrived at my parents' house, I found a tub of cookies that my dad had made.

I had a couple, but I didn't want to spoil my dinner. And though I never want to spoil my dinner, this was especially true tonight. In honor of A Christmas Story, my parents and my favorite Christmas movie, we decided to start a new tradition a few years ago. Instead of making the traditional Christmas dinner with turkey, ham, or whatever else people like to eat on Christmas, we go to Hong's Buffet. This is also our favorite Chinese buffet. So, just as the Parkers ate at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas, so we do as well.

I loaded up two plates to the mad right from the beginning to eliminate down time traveling to and from the buffet.

I got so much food, and everything was so good, as always. This was one plate:

And this was the other:

After these two plates, I was both full and satisfied. I went back for my customary ice cream cone.

This is definitely one of my favorite parts of eating at Hong's. Some people don't like the stiff and slightly grainy texture of the ice cream, but I think it's just wonderful. It's the perfect consistency to build masterpieces. I've been coming to Hong's for around 8 years, and it's still as good as always.

When we got home, it was just about time for the Chiefs game to start. After a good first half, everyone was in good spirits. We celebrated the good first half with some Oreo/chocolate chip cookie brownies at halftime.

Doesn't that look downright stunning?? Yes. But just wait until you see what's inside.

What's inside is two Oreos with a chocolate chip cookie in between those. Then brownie batter is poured around all of that and baked in an muffin pan. After they were done baking, they were covered with a deliciously smooth chocolate ganache.

After the Chiefs won the game (a great Christmas present), we celebrated with another one of those cookie/brownie delights.

And that's the proper end to a proper Christmas. There was wonderful family time, wonderful food, and a Chiefs win. Merry Christmas to all!

An Italian Christmas Eve

Today, since I was aware that we had dinner plans with my parents and friends, I didn't eat anything until then. We would be going to a nice Christmas Eve dinner, so I decided to dress up just a little.

We then met everyone at Carrabba's Italian Grill in Overland Park.

I started off with an Italian salad that had a lot of tomatoes in it.

Surprising to everyone there, I ate quite a few of them. I would even to say that I ate more than half of them. They didn't have that strong of a flavor, and it was even less noticeable with the Italian vinaigrette.

For my main course, I couldn't decide between the chicken Parmesan and lasagna, and I also wanted to try the fettuccine Alfredo. But since this was the first time I had been to an Italian restaurant since Sidney and I made our own amazing lasagna (the best lasagna ever, by the way), I had to at least order the lasagna. Conveniently, there was a menu option that was a chicken Parmesan and lasagna combination. I ordered fettuccine Alfredo as a side, so I ended up getting exactly what I wanted.

Everything was good, but there's a catch. The lasagna was definitely not as good as the amazing lasagna that Sidney and I made. The chicken Parmesan was pretty good, but I didn't have any trouble imagining how it could be better. And finally, the fettuccine Alfredo was actually better than average, but it still wasn't as good as that from La Strada in Lake Lure, NC or that from Anthony's in Kansas City. But, like I said, everything was good and it was an enjoyable experience with family and friends.

Puzzle Me This

Here's the puzzle that Sidney has been working on for the past few days. It's 1,500 very small pieces. I helped, particular with the edges, but I discovered something while doing so. While Sidney finds puzzles to be soothing and relaxing, I find them stressful and irritating. I am sure this is because I get so fixated on finding one specific piece that I eventually become irritated when I can't find it. Oh well, I guess puzzles aren't for everyone.

One thing that I find soothing is a Sidney blueberry muffin, so I had one for breakfast.

It really is perfection every time I eat one.

And I think without a structured schedule, I'm falling into the habit of eating something for breakfast and then not eating anything for dinner. And while this may not be an entirely new concept, today was no different. For dinner, I accompanied Sidney's family to El Potro for some good Mexican food.

We started off with a big basket of chips and a cup of salsa for everyone.

There was also a little cup of queso, but honestly I preferred the salsa. It was very rich with cilantro! I love me some good cilantro!

For my dinner, I got the special of the day, which was a crab and shrimp enchilada with double rice.

It was very good. Really, if you want consistently good Mexican food, it's hard to beat El Potro. 

The Egg Finally Hatched!

I spent all day taking care of some important business, and Sidney so lovingly offered to make some eggs and potatoes for dinner. I couldn't resist! She cooked up some breakfast potatoes, she made some over easy eggs (I asked for 4 because I'm selfish, and huge), and she delivered perfectly. 

Soon it was a goopy mess of eggs whites, potatoes, and egg yolks. Mmmmmmm, yummy!

Next, since I always see people put ketchup on this stuff, and since I've never tried that before, I decided that I would add a splash of ketchup this time.

It was actually very good. I can see why people do this. The ketchup mixed really well with the runny egg yolks to create a unique flavor that itself went really well with the potatoes. Yay, new discovery!

I then decided that I would finish off the cola gummies, and at the same time I would put a dent in the candy corns.

I'm bound and determined to finish off those darn candy corns! And a little later, when Sidney asked me if we had any Reese's cups, I presented her with two of these babies:

I broke it out of its plastic and cardboard cage.

This thing is great. It's almost as big as my hand, and it's a Reese's peanut butter cup on steroids.

Unfortunately, they have been frozen for quite a while (probably since Easter), so cutting them was a bit challenging. Eventually, though, I was able to get a respectable wedge separated from the whole.

It tasted fine for having been frozen for so long.

Cake and Ice Cre...I mean, Milk

Today was off to a better start than yesterday. I mean, any food is better than no food for breakfast, but a blueberry muffin beats pretty much anything, food or non.

For dinner, I had some more soup. And since I had been unable to unsoup this soup, this soup remained soup even a day later.

For dessert, I had some of that cake my parents had made. Look at that crest of frosting there on the point. That is scandalously intoxicating.

And, in my opinion, a glass of milk goes with cake almost as well as ice cream.

Do I even end a blog like TheStradman??

Today was pretty devoid of food until late. That's when Sidney decided to make some more chicken noodle soup.

And this time she didn't let me destroy it by boiling all the broth away. I added some more bread with butter and that was my dinner.

I had a cookie and milk for dessert...

...but all in all this was a pretty light day. And just like that, this day was over, and I'm out.

^^Blatantly stolen from TheStradman

Encore of Encore? And two LaFerraris!

This morning featured a perfect breakfast:

It then featured very little in the way of food until dinner. I was informed that we would be going out to eat. Where? Encore!

Apparently, I am quite the flirtatious individual. I simply asked the waiter if I could get a glass of just tapioca bubbles. He said that he wasn't sure he could do that, so I negotiated with him. I eventually conceded and ordered a mango smoothie and implored the waiter to give me as many bubbles as possible. This is what I ended up with:

It might be hard to tell, but there were a crap ton of bubbles in there! There were easily double the normal amount. I just saw this a result of me asking for such, but everyone else viewed it as a result of me flirting with the waiter. As proof, they pointed to the fact that nobody else that ordered a smoothie with bubbles got as much as me, but I pointed out that they didn't ask for extra. I did.

At the end of the day, I didn't care why or how I ended up with more bubbles, only that I did. I was the real winner here. We then ordered a couple appetizers, which consisted of crab rangoons and calamari with a couple different yummy dipping sauces.

And, again without looking at the menu, I ordered the beef teriyaki.

It comes served in a bamboo log with onions, peppers, mushrooms, and fried rice beneath. It's just so good.

And since Encore is on Mass, what does that mean???

Oh yes. This time at Sylas and Maddy's I experienced a wave of school spirit and pride for my alma mater, so I got Rock Chalk Jayhawk and Da Bomb.

We then went to Target so everyone else could do some shopping. While there, I found these gems:

If only they made them in adult sizes!

I then found these other gems:

I'll take the lot!