What I've Been Eating

Well, I haven't been cooking anything for the past couple of weeks, so this stuff wasn't in my kitchen. But it was certainly in my belly. The Professor and I drove up to Canada and puttered around the Great Lakes for a few days. We ate some great food, drank some great beer and had an all around great time. So, because I'm too lazy to write out recipes and enchanting chatter for the 3 posts that I have pictures for, I'm going to just show you some of what The Professor and I have been eating and drinking for the past couple of weeks. And maybe throw in a little enchanting chatter. If I feel enchanting, that is.

We ate at a Big Boy on the way up, so just imagine a picture of a greasy, soggy Patty Melt dripping with cheese. And a Mountain Dew. Or three.

On Mackinac Island, we stopped and had a beer at this fun little cafe at Fort Mackinac (it's run by the Grande Hotel). The Big Porch Ale was perfect for cooling down after our exciting fort tour.

Later that night, we went to a great restaurant called The Lighthouse (it wasn't really a light house), and I had two firsts: Escargot and frog legs. The escargot were inside mushroom caps (so I didn't have to wrestle with the shells, thank goodness), and there was a little cheese on top. VERY YUMMY. The frog legs were part of the Seafood Platter I had for dinner - and they were fried. I picked the breading off of one so I could taste the meat by itself, and...I was underwhelmed. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. It most certainly did NOT taste like chicken. But I have no pictures of those, because I was starving. And forgot about the camera.


This is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie and Spanish Coffee that The Professor had for dessert. He had the pie half devoured before I could get the camera turned on. And Spanish Coffee (coffee with brandy and Khalua) is his new favorite after-dinner drink.

The next night we were at a lovely place on Batchawana Bay on Lake Superior. The Salzburg Hof Resort is just awesome. Unless you want 50 TV chanels and internet and no bugs. Luckily, even I can deal with no TV, no internet, and a few bugs for a few days.



The resort has a restaurant (which is good, because there's not much to eat around there) and this was my dinner our first night: Natur Schnitzel, which is like Weiner Schnitzel (which is what The Professor had) except it's topped with some yummy carmelized onions. I had a choice of pork or veal, and gueess which I chose? :) I had already eaten about half my veal when I remembered to take a picture.

Fast forward a couple of days, and we've arrived in Midland. After a tour of Discovery Harbour, we stopped for...wait for it...a nice cold beer.



That night, we went to dinner at a place right on the Bay. I posted a picture of the sunset that night on my other blog - it was the perfect place for dinner that night.



I had the Fish & Chips (The Professor ate the Potato Salad because...ewww!). It went well with that beer in the background.


The Professor had some Crab/Lobster Cakes which came with the most amazing sauce - slightly smokey, slightly spicy and all awesome.

Fast forward a couple more days, and we're in Niagara Falls in Canada. After doing the Maid of the Mist experience, we stopped for ... wait for it...a beer. And the next thing I knew, I had ordered an appetizer!



I highly recommend this: It's Shoeless Joe's Lobster, Crab & Shrimp Dip. If we had been alone, we would have licked that bowl up there.

A few hours later we headed to CoCo's for dinner. And once again, we dug in before I remembered I had a camera.


I don't remember the name of the pizza, but it had "quatro" in it. (UPDATE: Kittie reminded me: it's Quattro Stagione - which she helpfully translates for us all into "Four Seasons"). 1/4 had pepperoni, 1/4 had mushrooms, 1/4 had bacon, 1/4 had artichokes. I don't know how I escaped the heartburn, but I had to combine some of the toppings on a few slices - no way could I eat that whole pizza! The Professor ordered some ravioli that I completely forgot about in my love affair with bacon.

The next night we were in Columbus, Ohio, visiting some friends. They took up out to a Turkish restaurant - a first for me. And Holy Lamby Goodness, but was it ever yummy. I'm going to warn you that this is a HORRIBLE picture, but it was by far the best thing I ate on the entire trip - so I have to share. And of course I waited til the last few bites to remember to take the dang picture.


The restaurant called this "Sultan's Favorite"; it had the Turkish name on the menu, but A) I don't speak the language, and B) I didn't write it down. That stuff on the bottom that looks like hummus is actually eggplant. There was a plate full of it, topped with little bite size pieces of lamb in a smokey sauce. I would call it a Turkish bbq sauce, but I don't like bbq sauce.

Update: I found it! It's called Hunkar Begendi; Much Better Picture here.


The Professor had something that I have completely forgotten the name of; that's basically a lamb kebab with some Greek-type yogurt (shh! Don't tell the Turkish restaurant I called it Greek yogurt!) on top. His was good...but mine was better.

Tonight, we go out to celebrate The Professor's birthday. We're going to a Brazillian restaurant and have been starving ourselves all day in anticipation.

I think I'll be on a lettuce and water diet for the next month.

I Wanna Talk About Me*

*Kudos to the people that get the song reference. :)

Erika, over at one of my favorite blogs Tummy Treasures, tagged me for a meme. And it's the best kind: the kind where I get to tell you a lot of little useless trivia about me. Since I have a tendency to change the rules at will, I'm going to make this all useless trivia about me and food. Well, it's useless unless you're The Professor and occassionally feed me. OR unless you're a stalker who's been waiting for a tell-all post on the in-depth details of my food likes and dislikes. But that's disturbing, so let's move on.

So, here goes: 7 Things About Me And Food

1. I love peanuts. I hate peanut butter. I have often heard the argument that peanuts, unless swallowed whole, become peanut butter as you chew them. To these people I say "HA!" and "Oh no it doesn't!" The maturity level around here is soaring.
2. The above makes me very sad, because I love chocolate and it immediately removes about 49% of the world's chocolate from the list of "Things I Will Put In My Mouth".
3. I love fresh strawberries, but I hate any kind of strawberry syrup or strawberry-flavor-infused thing. Like the fake topping on frozen cheesecakes. It should be banned.
4. The exception to this strawberry-flavor-ban are those little strawberry candies wrapped to look like strawberries that have soft centers. I love them so much that they almost need to have a restraining order against me. If fake-strawberry candy could do such a thing, that is.
5. I love salads. I hate 99.9% of salad dressings, which means that the vast majority of the time I only use pepper to flavor my salads.
6. I have spent all of my 30 years in the Deep South, but I cannot stand the most Southern of foods: BBQ sauce, cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, iced tea!! If it weren't for the Southern accent I throw out occasionally, I'd get my Southern Citizenship revoked.
7. I don't do any kind of bean - black, navy, lima, kidney, white, garbanzo...yuck, yuck and yuck. I do, however, love a pot of lentils. You can tell me all day long that they're all legumes, but I don't care. I'm ornery that way.
8. Bonus: I love chili, but because of number 7, I only eat it beanless. The Professor tells me this is not chili. I tell him to be quiet.

So there you go. If you read this far, you must be related to me. Or have way too much time on your hands. But I have to tag a few people so this train doesn't stop with me. Here goes:

• Mike, over at Mel's Diner makes me roll with laughter.
• Sara, at i like to cook, gets us going with weekend cookbook challenges and many other yummy things.
• Ruth, at Once Upon A Feast, is just plain inspirational.
• Kittie, she of Kittens in the Kitchen, is just an all around great cook.

Go forth and meme!

Canning Tomato Sauce and Pickles

My sister found a great deal on a set of canning equipment a couple of weeks ago, and neither one of us even tried to resist. A 10 Qt pressure cooker/canner for $25? Count me in.
Thus embarks the great Canning Season of 2006.

Now, it’s really past the time I could be canning anything from my garden. The green tomato salsa from a few weeks ago is the last of the fresh produce from my garden this season.

But last Saturday, The Professor saw a seedless watermelon at the grocery store. And he wanted one last watermelon for the year. So what to do with the rind, other than make watermelon rind pickles?

My grandmother made these, and as I was growing up, they were always available at her house. None of my family got the recipe (that we can find), but there’s still a great aunt out there who may have it. I haven’t given up. But last weekend, I had to just hunt around the ‘nets and do something on my own. We haven’t cracked them open yet, but I’m going to wait for my grandmother’s recipe to post anything. Besides, my first canning trial resulted in a pint of broken pickles. Not exactly something to brag about on my blog.

Then, the next day, we came across a farmer selling the last of the season’s tomatoes. Yes, in the Deep South, you still get tomatoes at the end of October. So I bought 3 pounds, made up some tomato sauce and canned 3 pints worth. I had just enough left over to toss with some penne for dinner, and we are going to have some incredible pastas in the next couple of months.

So, I have no recipes for you today. Tomorrow, I’m going to make venison lasagna, so you’ll have to hold out for that. In the meantime, here’s a shot of my stove while I was preparing to can the sauce: