Why didn't I try this sooner?

I had a definite "Duh!" moment today.

I was preparing dinner (meatloaf was on the menu tonight) with my assistant chef, when I realized I hadn't grabbed the breadcrumbs from the pantry. As I turned to walk into the pantry, I glanced at the counter and saw an almost empty bread bag on the counter. There were two end pieces left in the bag.

I'll admit it. I'm a discriminating bread eater. As a general rule I don't eat the ends of bread. On occasion I'll eat an open faced sandwich using the end, but it's very rare. There you have it. Sometimes the truth is ugly.

Anyway, probably inspired by some show on the food network in my subconscious, I decided to use the leftover ends to make breadcrumbs.
I grabbed my cheap Hamilton Beach food chopper, tore the bread into pieces, put the lid on, and turned it on high for, oh I don't know, 30 seconds or so. And then an amazing thing happened.

Right before my very eyes I had breadcrumbs.

Whole wheat breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs that probably cost all of .25 cents

So can anyone tell me why I've been spending 3 bucks a pop on store bought breadcrumbs? Anyone? No I didn't think so.

Oh, and you know what else I did? I added some Italian seasoning, a pinch of sea salt, and voilà, seasoned breadcrumbs.

It's the little things in life I tell ya. The little things

Time for cookies

(excuse the grainy pic to the left, it was taken on a cell cam)

A couple of weeks ago the control panel on our stove went out and as a result we could no longer use the oven. Since it was an older stove that was already there when we moved into the house, we opted to get a new one instead of replacing it. When the new stove was finally delivered you know what we had to do don't you? Christen the new stove by baking chocolate chip cookies, of course. Dark chocolate chip cookies to be exact. How else are we supposed to get our antioxidants?

Anyway, since Ian loves to help with, well, anything, I enlisted his help and we got to work.

Are those cookies done yet?

Yummy, I like cookies. Oh, are you taking a picture of me?

Ok, I'm ready to take my picture now

And the winner is

Remember when I decided that I would start eating red meat again?
Well in an attempt to have me put my money where my mouth was, Dan suggested that we treat ourselves to a burger tasting around town.

The plan: From the many burger joints in town, Dan would narrow down two places for our burger consumption. We would visit each place individually, rank the burger, and at the end of the day declare a winner among the two contestants.

The Contestants:

VS.

First stop: Culver's

Now I had eaten at Culver's before. In fact, I used to love their tuna melt, but I had never had the ButterBurgers that always gets such rave reviews.
We decided to order one ButterBurger to split between the both of us. When it arrived at the table, I immediately approved of its appearance. The patty wasn't too thick or too thin, and even though we were in a fast food restaraunt, the burger didn't have that fast food look to it.
The first bite was quite good. Good flavor, great bread, not too greasy, and the burger proved to be downright tasty all the way through. Ian agreed as he happily chowed down on my our half of the burger. Yum, yum!

To cleanse our palate, we ordered some peach custard. (What. You didn't know you could use peach custard to cleanse your palate? Well you can. Ask any food critic. The fact that the custard was smooth, creamy, rich, and delicious had nothing to do with it. We were all about business, I promise)

Second stop: Mighty Fine
When we first arrived at Mighty Fine something quite bizarre happened. As I was getting Ian out of the car, I heard a man make a noise like he was trying to cough up a hairball. "WRAGH, WRAGH", he grunted. When he noticed we were looking in his direction, he yelled out towards us "That's a crazy burger man, a crazy burger." That's when I realized, he wasn't clearing his throat, he was expressing his pleasure over his food. I was intrigued.

Once we ordered and received our hamburger, I have to say, it didn't look like my kind of burger. The patty was entirely too thick, and it looked a tad bit greasy. But never one to judge a book by it's cover, I took a bite. I immediately though to myself, Ok, this is pretty good, but then it happened...
All of a sudden, taste buds that I didn't even know I had were awakened. This first bite was heavenly I tell you. I mean bright light shining down, angels singing, heavenly. So heavenly, that the when I finally composed myself to speak, the first words out of my mouth were "Good Lord". The diners sitting to our left laughed.
Oh, and Ian, he gobbled up that burger like nobody's business. You've never heard a 2 year old say yum so many times during a meal. It was absolutely fantastic.

While the Culver's burger was really good, I declared Mighty Fine the winner two bites into the burger. I mean really, there was no sense in delaying the inevitable.

By the way, I was mistaken. What I misjudged as grease on the Mighty Fine burger was actually flavor, baby. Pure, unadulterated, flavor.