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Mounds Pancakes
2010/03/28,14:47

Will, Ella and I let Mommy sleep this morning. Learning from our past experiment with Banana Coconut waffles, we sprung forth a new adventure, named above. Our recipe went something like this: 

 

  • 2 cups Bisquick 
  • 3/4 cup Milk
  • chocolate chips (added individually to each pancake)
  • toasted shredded coconut* (added individually to each pancake)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 bananas**
 Then, it's just pancakes as usual. Place batter on a warm skillet, add ingredients as you feel necessary. I recommend adding the chocolate chips BEFORE the coconut. Flip once, and viola. Pancakes. And if you haven't yet got your fill of coconut, sprinkle some on your pancakes after buttering and syruping.  
 
*   I toasted my own shedded coconut, just spread out the coconut on a cookie sheet and heat at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Once the edges start turning golden brown, remove from oven and mix together.  
** I know Mounds doesn't have bananas, but I like bananas so we added them in too. 
 
The whole Walters clan enjoyed these for breakfast.  

 

Sports and Coffee
2010/03/24,07:55

Big shout out to by UNI Panthers for knocking off number one seeded Kansas over the weekend. Since ESPN, CBS, NCAA.com and even David Letterman have all had their chance to praise the Panthers, I'll save my words for more interesting topics. 

MLS 2010 season was saved from a stupid players strike. An agreement for a 5 year collective bargaining agreement was signed last week. I'm glad this got done sooner than later. ESPN has more details here.

 

Caribou Coffee has changed their look. For the most part, it's pretty much same-old, same-old. Caribou used to have a policy that would allow for $0.50 refills on a cup of coffee after you purchased your first one at full price. THis policy has been dropped, and instead you have to pay FULL price for any refill. Combine that with the fact that they raised the price of a large cup of coffee by $0.45 and it leaves me paying significantly more for my daily dose of caffeine. I like Caribou, but paying more than $2.00 is for a cup of their coffee, when I can go to Dunn Brothers or StarBucks for 7/8th the price, isn't worth my time. 

 

Caribou, I used to love you. Now, you are dead to me. I cancelled the refill card I've had for the last 7 years. Breaking up is hard, but the Dunn Brothers are my new mistress(es). 

 

Food and Beer and Windfall
2010/03/13,08:56

So I made shredded BBQ chicken for dinner last night. It really wasn't anything THAT spectacular, it was really just surprisingly easy. 

 

  1. Boil three chicken breasts until completely cooked
  2. chop chicken into large pieces and place into large sauce pan
  3. add one bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (in this case Arthur Bryant's Sweet Heat) 
  4. Cover and Simmer for about an hour
  5. If simmering for more than an hour, add 8oz of light beer (optional)
Yep, it's that easy. 
 

 

 

K and I found a little bit of extra cash laying around and splurged on two beers normally out of our price range. 
 
The first was an Issaquah Brewery Menage a Frog. Issaquah is part of the Rogue Alliance of Beer; which, from my perspective, means a certain winner. This beer did not disappoint. Menage a Frog is a Belgian-style Tripel ale. Its been my experience that belgians don't have a very long shelf-life if not properly chilled. Finding a domestic brewer that can make a good one is solid gold. This beer has everything you'd expect, lots of foam, flowery scents, and delicious flavor. This is a beer that is perfect early spring beer. It will be hard to drop $17 for another one, but I'll definitely have to think twice before passing one the Frog in the beer isle.
 
The second beer we splurged on was a Danish Barley Wine style Ale. Called Little Korkny Ale from Norrebro Bryghus (or here Shelton Brothers ) this beer packed a flavorful wallop. Bottled in 2006, this was aged and then shipped to America, so it's easy to understand the $25 price tag. I'd hoped that after bring this home, that I wouldn't be pouring my money down the drain after making such an investment into a brewery that I'd never heard of. Again, I was not disappointed. This beer is Rich, carmel-y and strong (12% ABV). And while strong in flavor and alcohol, it was very VERY good. We didn't have sniffers to savor our brew, so we had pint glasses which served us well. If you looking for something a little bit exotic for your next get together, try this beer. But at $1/oz it's likely not to be a regular addition to your fridge. 
 
 

 

Sauce and Beer
2010/01/17,08:24

While making Stir Fry last Thursday, I realized that we did not have any teriyaki sauce. A quick search on the internets, found that it's a surprisingly each to make on your own. He's the recipe( along with my adjustments) 

1 cup soy sauce

1 cup sweet rice wine (sangria)

 1 tsp sugar (honey)

Pour all ingredients into a small sauce pan and bring to light boil, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and allow to cool. Add to stir fry. 

 

 

Kirsten and I purchased a 32 oz bottle of Left Hand Brewing Company's Widdershins, a barleywine beer. As I''ve had with other Left Hand beers, this was delicious. Light, sweet, with a Great creamy head. All in all, a phenominal beer, I'll be buying more of this one. 

 

Another Left Hand selection I made a couple weeks ago was a Milk Stout. It being Winter, I'm hibernating with some heavier beers, and this had the looks of fine way to settle down at the end of the evening. I think what confused me was the label. The words 'Milk Stout' on the label where printed in light brown; this immediately made me think of chocolate milk (stout). So I was shocked to find this was not chocolaty stout at all. Drinking this beer out of a glass avoided the mental block I had, and was able to enjoy this beer immensely.  Dark, creamy, maybe a hint of smoke, but no chocolate or coffee flavors in this one. Good beer, but maybe I'll stick to other stouts. 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacon Cups
2009/12/22,23:25

 A healthy person enjoys a salad more often than not. This person, may enjoy real bits of bacon on his/her salad. But it takes an aficionado to eat salad out of a bacon cup. 

http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2008/02/27/bacon-cups/

While technically, this would be a salad bacon bowl, the small volume makes these more "cupish" than bowl-like.  

Obama Blend coffee [ UPDATE 2 ]
2009/12/14,22:07

Kirsten found a great little coffee shop in St Paul called J & S Bean Factory (http://www.jsbeanfactory.com/). I've had several different blends and roasts from there, and they've all been particularly savory. As I was running low on beans, Kirsten stopped by on her way home from work and picked up a couple pounds. First was and Organic Yirgacheffe, light and strongly caffeineated. Quite delicious. Can be drank without cream or sugar. 

 However, what caught Kirsten's eye was the Obama Blend coffee; a mix of Kenyan AA and Hawaiian Kona. This strikes me as a very interesting combination and an unbelivabely awesome idea.  In fact, I find it hard to belive that anyone hasn't thought of this before. This should be a new fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Who wouldn't pay $50 for Obama coffee? I'd certainly think about it. I don't think Kirsten paid that much for it. But we still managed to support the local coffee shop. 

I've yet to actually drink any Obama coffee yet, but I'll update tomorrow after drinking my first cup. 

 

 [10:30am by gscott] Obama blend is very good. Lots of good Kona flavor that seems to overwhelm the subtle Kenyan flavors. a Very VERY enjoyable cup of coffee. No word yet on the Cup of Joe Biden blend. :)

 

[ 9:51pm by gscott ] Obama Blend is caffeine you can believe in.  Yes We Can!

Breakfast Waffles
2009/12/12,09:16

This morning, while Kirsten slept, Will, Ella and I all snuck downstairs and scoured the Internets for a perfect waffle recipe. After about 15 minutes, we found it. Oatmeal Waffles, courtisy of Waffle-recipe.com (when it doubt, try the obvious). Yum. 

 Here's the link: http://www.waffle-recipe.com/recipes/oatmeal-waffle-recipe/ 

While we should have had bacon on hand to supplement breakfast (more like we should have had waffle to suppliment the bacon), these waffles taste good, with or without bacon.  

 

 

Holiday Egg Nog
2009/11/23,10:06
Not everyone is a huge fan of EggNog, but I myself love the stuff. Thick, creamy, nutmeg-y and delicious. So when I found this recipe I thought I'd pass it along. This recipe comes courtesy of Amazon Daily Blog: http://www.aldenteblog.com/2009/11/brandy-bourbon-rum-egg-nog.html
 
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