FOODIE NEWS

 Ooohhweeee it's been a hot time in the old town!  95 degrees wasn't so bad for the first hour, but after that, it got pretty old.  Here's the old gal and her dog checking out the morning's vegetable cache. I'm pretty sure I've never eaten this many tomatoes in my entire LIFE!  

After checking on the squash ... no edible denizens on this morning ... we came in for breakfast.  Mr. Cooper hit the hay immediately.  

I'm going to eat up that quiche if it kills me.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered there is just as much crust as there is EGG.  What a big letdown.  More tomatoes went bye-bye, along with some excellent avocados!

Back outside before the REAL heat hit ....... now you see them .......

Now you don't.  I was extremely sad to see these go.  The gazanias, stolen from the roadside by my friend, came with an ugly disease that I was afraid would spread to everything else in the garden.  In spite of $50.00 worth of spray, and constant spraying, it would not give up its grip.  I'll have to clean it up and find something else for this spot.  

In need of a couple quick items from the store, including yeast because I got another crazy idea, I headed out once again into the oven.  It pays to be nice at the grocery store.  The nice young gal stocking the shelves asked if I was looking for something.  No, I always look this way ... like I'm lost.  

Turns out she was stocking eggs.  Now I don't NEED any eggs ... I have 18 in the fridge, followed up with two dozen from Costco.  "You should get them now" she said ... they are $1.99 a carton.

WHAT?  How could that be?  I just paid $4.00 a dozen at Costco.  So of course I snagged two, which was the limit allowed.  What I'll do with them, I don't know.  Oh wait ... I'll make QUICHE with FLAVOR!

Unfortunately, the nice girl ALSO told me that Ben & Jerry's was on sale.  I don't buy Ben & Jerry's any more since they tried to tell Hershey how to make the candy bars that went into their ice cream.  I don't think ANYONE tells Hershey how to make candy.  

I stared at it for quite some time.  This used to be my all time favorite ice cream.  I bought TWO.  The good news is I can make it last a VERY long time.  The bad news is they are using some off-brand toffee that doesn't taste NEAR as good as Hersheys.  I'll suffer through.

And then THIS happened.  Amazon is a BAD THING.  They are back to delivering most everything the NEXT DAY.  It's been years since I went the sourdough route, mostly because it's a big pain in the patoo to keep the starter going.  But here we are ..... sourdough starter started.  I'll let you know how that works out.  Anyone remember that friendship bread??  More on this later.

It's seriously hard to lose weight when you are home alone with nothing to do since it's too hot outside.  So let's BAKE.  This one is for Barbara and Tom.

I've mentioned before, that as we crossed the entire United States, we taste tested every bread pudding we could find.  We were on a mission to come up with the BESTEST in the U.S.  Turns out it was at the Miners Inn in Jerome Arizona.  

I thought this one might be interesting ..... it's made with Kings Hawaiian rolls.  Who doesn't like THOSE?   It came out of the oven looking like a million bucks.  I couldn't wait to taste it.

I should have waited a tad bit longer because I instantly burned my mouth!!!  Sadly, I could not find my GOOD recipe for the sauce, so I used this one.  It's not the best, and truly, needed some bourbon.  I had to suffer through since I'm not buying a bottle of bourbon just for one dessert.  I'm not a bourbon drinker anyway, as evidenced by almost getting kicked out of the bourbon tasting joint in Kentucky because I thought it tasted terrible.  

It give it a solid FIVE.  It's all about the sauce I think, and it just wasn't up to snuff.  Too bad I still have to eat the entire casserole dish full.  The bread part was delicious ... maybe I can find another sauce recipe.

And so ended another foodie day as I prepare for tonight.  I'm switching out hats for a waitress apron.  There's a really big gig going on at the Elks Lodge tonight that I will be waitressing.  I haven't done that in about 40 years, but they are short handed.  And I get to keep the TIPS!!!  I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow!!