Foodie Tuesday: Obligatory State Fair Post

Of COURSE I'm posting about State Fair food. Duh.

All the old favorites were there like fried green tomatoes, Pronto Pups, cheese curds, and the like. But three things stood out this year, and not all in a good way.

Peach glazed pig cheeks
When Famous Dave's announced this new food earlier this year I was horrified. Glazed what? I'm not much into pork anyway unless it's in bacon form or cooked so long it's nearly melting. But I'll try anything once (except brains) so we started the day with these (and chocolate dipped bacon). For $5 you get a generous portion of three cheeks on a stick. Cheeks. For real. Pig cheeks.

These are some good damn cheeks.

Cheeks must be like the filet mignon of pig. I hear you have to cook them for a long time to get them to this state, so they're alright by me. They're incredibly tender and meaty. Kind of like pork pot roast that's been in the slow cooker all day or big chunks of pork ribs that have been in the pit for hours. The peach glaze has just enough heat to get your attention.

Bravo, Famous Dave.


Spaghetti and Meatballs on a Stick
This has been around for a couple of years at least. Skip it. It's dry, flavorless, and the sauce can only be described as insipid.

Deep Fried Snickers
Let's take a moment to examine this, shall we? You have a candy bar. Layers of sugar with chunks of sugar that has been covered in sugar. You take this thing, shove a stick in it, cover it in what is essentially pancake batter, then deep fry it. Then just in case you didn't have enough sugar in there, you put powdered sugar on top.

Because, you know, a chocolate drizzle would be going a little too far.

I think I got one that had been sitting under the lamp too long. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it being. The batter was too doughy and chewy and I ended up with powdered sugar all over my shirt. If you're going to spring for deep fried confections, go for the Oreos.

Mama Thursday on Friday: State Fair Delay

There was no Mama Thursday yesterday because we were at the STATE FAIR, BITCHES.

We packed up the baby and the mother-in-law and arrived bright and early at 8:00 am. Henry Rollins was right -- we are now baby roadies. Thankfully our stroller isn't obnoxious and we can still fit everything we need on or in it. I'm looking forward to next year when we can use the umbrella stroller. There were plenty of people with those double-wide stoller abominations. If you are one of those people who a) brings these to a crowded place like the State Fair, or b) brings these inside any of the State Fair buildings, you need to be kicked in the head because clearly the common sense portion of your brain needs stimulation.

Interesting: I did not see a single mullet yesterday.

We started the day in fine style at the Famous Dave's building with Pig Lickers (chocolate covered bacon) and the new peach-glazed pig cheeks. I'll write more about these on Tuesday, but I will tell you that if you're going to eat one thing at the fair this year you should make it the pig cheeks.

This year I bought the most ridiculous thing since my last tattoo. Behold:


And by the way, that's not a pegasus, it's a PEGASUS \oo/, (The hand gesture is compulsory.)

I love the dangling word at the bottom. They could have done "this is my / state fair shirt" but the artist decided that it would be better to attempt to squeeze everything onto the top.

Lily was an absolute delight all day. We took advantage of FM107's Lactation Station three times. She happily snoozed in her stroller much of the time and happily chilled out in the Moby Wrap the rest of the time. She was confused by the cows and sheep, slept through the rabbits and poultry, was indifferent about the pigs, and was very interested in the goats. That's my girl!

So much for that idea

What I was going to eat today in preparation for our State Fair trip tomorrow:

beets, tomatoes, green beans, grapes

What I am eating today because it's August office birthdays free food day in the office:

beets, tomatoes, green beans, grapes, chocolate chip cookies, Cheetos, Doritos, taco dip, ramen salad, breakfast bake, crackers, cheese, and sausage

DON'T JUDGE ME.

Foodblogging: Disappointing Lemon Tofu and Teriyaki Edamame

Looks good, but this was actually kind of disappointing the way I made it. I did nothing to the tofu before frying it and it really could have benefited from some soy sauce or five spice powder or something. But I was really tired yesterday so we had this.

I pulled the rice, lemon chicken sauce, and edamame out of the freezer. I dipped the tofu in egg and cornstarch, fried it, and plopped it on the rice. I shuffled some things around in the fridge and found some teriyaki eel sauce and put that on the edamame.

Boring, boring, boring.

On a happier note, I made a giant batch of great tabbouli with parsley from the garden and have been eating that for lunch this week. It gets better the longer it sits in the fridge despite its somewhat delicate ingredients.

The garden should be perking right up after all the rain we've had lately. The two and a half corn stalks that remain are doing well (okay, that half stalk probably won't make it to harvest) and I continue to pull yellow squash, zucchini, green beans, and cherry tomatoes off every couple of days. There are a ton of green tomatoes right now and I'm looking forward to canning them next month. I'm going to try making and canning ketchup this year. We'd like to keep buying Annie's Naturals brand ketchup (no HFCS!), but at over $5 for a small bottle we just can't do it.

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Foodie Tuesday: Zucchini Pancakes and Balsamic Corn Salad

This was my second helping. Please excuse the mess.

It feels good to cook again. It feels even better to pull stuff out of the garden and put it directly to use.

The Zucchini Pancakes are from Meatless Monday. I used one large zucchini and one medium yellow squash from the garden and had to add an extra egg and another two tablespoons of flour to get the batter right. And when they say to squeeze out the veggies after shredding, they're not kidding. I was surprised at how much oil these fritters didn't soak up while frying. They weren't heavy or greasy at all.

The corn salad started in my head as a simple mixture of tomato slices, fresh corn, and Italian dressing. We were out of Italian dressing and our tomatoes were a bit mushy so it evolved into this. This could easily be turned into a raw food dish by not microwaving the veggies. This is a good way to deal with mushy supermarket tomatoes because they soak up the dressing anyway. The fresh corn is really what makes this, so don't cheat with frozen. If you try to use canned you should stand back, take a look at your life, and try and figure out where you went so very, very wrong.

Balsamic Corn Salad

kernels from 2 large ears of corn
1 tomato, coarsely chopped (or a bunch of cherry tomatoes, halved)
1 good handful of fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 1" lengths
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 Tbsp fresh basil, minced
salt & pepper, to taste

Cut the corn from the cobs by putting a small bowl or cup upside-down in the biggest bowl you have. Use the small bowl/cup as a platform to rest the corn cob and slice the kernels off into the big bowl. It's messy no matter how you do it, but at least the corn will be contained in the big bowl.

Put the corn and green beans in the microwave with 1 Tbsp of water for 3 minutes. In the meantime, whisk together the balsamic, oil, sugar, basil, salt, and pepper.

Add the garlic directly to the hot veggies and let this cool down for a couple of minutes before adding the tomatoes and dressing. Toss and serve.

Yields 4 servings

Mama Thursday: Thank You, World Book.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
-Mark Twain

I was thinking about what in particular I hated about my last job. It wasn't so much the job, but the people. That place was full of early-twenty-somethings. And though these people were only a few years younger than myself, they had a shockingly different worldview. You know what I'm saying -- it's the one where they want everything handed to them on a silver platter simply because not getting what they want when they want it would wound their fragile, all-important self esteem.

After finding myself surrounded by this caliber of people for several years I slowly got jaded. Surly, even. My new "normal" had become "bitter". This frightened me.

Now why in the hell have I been thinking about a job I quit two years ago? Here's where I bring us back to Mama Thursday.

I'll be damned if I let my daughter grow up to be one of these vapid, helpless non-adults. I had to rely on a great deal of self-sufficiency while growing up, and while the reasons for that may not have been ideal, self-sufficiency is something I want to make sure Lily has. One of the greatest gifts of my childhood was a set of encyclopedias. If I had a question about something or wanted to know more about some random thing I'd head on over to the bookshelf. Sometimes I'd just plunk down, pull out a random volume, and start reading a random page. Does that make me a giant nerd? Maybe. But it sparked a lifelong interest in learning. I can say that I literally want to know everything about everything. I want Lily to feel this same sense of curiosity about the world around her. I don't want her to retreat into herself the second she can work a computer mouse. Why read a book when there's Facebook, Netflix, video games, and TV? It only takes a few brain cells to operate these things. Why strain oneself?

I love where she is right now (unable to even sit up by herself) but I'm super excited about when she learns to read. We'll explore the world together, encyclopedias in hand.

Foodie Tuesday: What What Pizza Pizza

I'm a foodie. I'm the first to admit that I'm a total nerd when it comes to all things food. Bring on your locally grown vegetables, your artisinal cheeses, your fancy-pants prix fixe menus complete with amuse-bouche, dessert, and accompanying cordials.

But sometimes a girl just wants some greazy-ass pizza.

Pizza. Not flatbread. Not a speck of whole wheat or goat's milk or truffles or marinated anything.

Sometimes a girl just needs some Crazy Bread.

Yes, my friends, that is when a girl goes to Little Caesar's. You know, the place that doesn't deliver. The place that used to give you not one, but two pizzas. I'm not sure what happened to the two-pizza thing but Little Caesar's is back in the Twin Cities and hot damn -- it's better than I remember.

The crust has that fried-in-its-own-grease crisp to it. The sauce has more high-fructose corn syrup than a 2 liter bottle of Coke.

The Crazy Bread?

Let's just say that if Crazy Bread was a stripper her name would be Destiny, her boobs would be real, and she would volunteer at the food bank between law school classes.

So don't be afraid -- get on down to the strip mall and pick you up some pizza and Crazy Bread for under $9. Just try to not sneak in a piece of Crazy Bread on the way home. I bet you can't.

Issues. I have issues.

Sooooo.... Someone had some low blood sugar issues yesterday.

Because of a freezing computer I didn't get a lunch break because I was the only IT person in the office. Not that it would have mattered if anyone else was there at the time. I worked on that issue from 11:00 am until 2:30 when I finally decided I needed to pump milk due to missing my noon pumping. Then my boss showed up and I handed the issue off to him before my head exploded.

Stupid laptop... it was freezing up and the hard drive was clicking suspiciously. Easy enough, thought I, it's just a dying hard drive. I imaged up a new laptop, moved the user's files over (including his GINORMOUS Lotus Notes mail file that took FOREVER), and voila... or not. Got the old laptop with the new hard drive back to his desk and it's freezing up too. Okay, must be a hardware issue. Put the new hard drive into a new laptop. Still freezing. WTF? Swapped out the mouse, the power supply (hey, you never know), and the dock. Still freezing. Started it up with absolutely nothing plugged into the dock. STILL FREEZING. WTF? How could this be a software issue on a brand new image? ARGH.

Meanwhile there are umpteen hundred people coming up to my desk and asking me to fix their problems that aren't really problems (JUST CLICK OK ALREADY) instead of calling the help desk like they KNOW THEY SHOULD. And I'm trying to pretend that one small orange is going to tide me over until I get home and have a proper meal. And I'm also trying to forget the fact that I haven't exercised in over a day and I'm fat.

I still don't know what my boss had to do to it last night. I'm afraid to ask. I think that user's office is possessed by Cthulu.

Honestly

This new Green Day CD kind of sucks.

Mama Thursday: I'm not a fucking mommyblogger

I solemnly swear I will not prattle on and on about how Lily is OBVIOUSLY destined for Harvard because she ate a blue crayon and everybody knows that blue heals spinal cords and oh look how adorable she is in these 1,409 photos.

Foodie Tuesday: She Cooks!

I've done slightly more cooking lately than usual. By "slightly" I mean I go out to the garden every once in a while and throw stuff into a pan. I did come up with two things that were really good (if similar) though.

Squash Succotash

1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 pkg baby bella mushrooms
1/2 cup green beans
1/2 cup corn
2 Tbsp fresh basil
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1/4 cup Alfredo sauce
Salt & pepper

Chop and sautee all veggies in a little olive oil. Add herbs and Alfredo sauce, season to taste. Serve over brown rice for more of a meal.


Sausage and Garden Veggie Lasagna

Lasagna noodles
Mild Italian sausage
Shredded carrots
Chopped zucchini
Chopped baby bella mushrooms
Chopped onion
Chopped garlic
Ricotta cheese
Egg
Shredded Mozzarella
Shredded Parmesan
Red pasta sauce

Boil noodles, brown meat, sautee veggies. Mix cheeses with egg. Layer all in the usual lasagna fashion. Top with more cheese. Bake, covered with foil, for 30 minutes at 350. Uncover and continue to bake until cheese is slightly browned.

On the list

Whenever we get money again I have to invest in a serious new sports bra. I can't even begin to jog with these jugs in my cheap Target bras right now.

The ones featured at Tall Mom on the Run look fabulous and you can even win one! Whee!