And the Man at the Back Said "Everyone Attack"

This morning we went down to Casa Grande and had breakfast at Big House Cafe with Scott's mom.  I was disappointed with my florentine omelette, but I think that's because I really wanted to order the corned beef hash but didn't as I felt I needed to behave, gastronomically speaking after a weekend already full of bacon.  The omelette was good, mind you; I just wish I hadn't seen (and sat, staring at) the specials board, on which the chalk words corned beef hash taunted me, in size 72 font.
Scott, on the other hand, was unencumbered by some inner voice telling him to order wisely, and he selected the Barnyard sandwich - a whopper of a meal between a large roll.  The sandwich included eggs, cheese, a breaded pork cutlet, ham, and bacon (I think that's it).  It was so repulsive it was almost pretty:

The side of potatoes (yes, it totally came with a side)
was also slathered in cheese.

Ain't No Thang But A (Cajun Smoked) Chicken Wing

I know - two posts in one day, right?  Today was just one of those delicious meal type days that are worthy of such attention.

After lunching, Scott turned his attention to dinner.  He had wanted to smoke the chicken wings we had in the freezer for some time, and today turned out to be that some time.  So after thawing, he threw on the rub that had also graced the pork butt on Easter (after adding cayenne pepper and cumin to give it that heat he wanted) and loaded the wings into the smoker.

The good thing about wings is that they don't take a great deal of time (unlike the twelve-ish hours that the pork butt took), so by five, dinner was about on the table.

Best BLT Ever

My favorite sandwich has to be the bacon-lettuce-tomato.  It's true that the salty bacon and sweet acidity of the tomato work so well together.
I am often disappointed by BLTs in restaurants - the bacon is rubbery, the lettuce wilted, or the bread soggy.  But at home, I can make everything to my specifications.

Best BLT Ever

• Two slices (per person) of whole wheat bread made with my friend Christie's recipe
• As many rashers of bacon from The Pork Shop that you think you can fit in your mouth
• Thickly sliced heirloom tomato (from my mother-in-law's garden)
• Green leaf lettuce from our CSA
• Homemade aïoli

The bread must be toasted completely (Scott always says that he likes his toast toasty - it needs to be crispy and crunchy all the way through), and the bacon needs to be as crisp as possible.  The lettuce needs to be washed and then thoroughly dried.
I hate mayonnaise.  It's gross - literally gives me the dry heaves.  But thanks to a Facebook post from Hounds in the Kitchen, I mustered up the courage to try a recipe from my favorite, David Lebovitz.  Now I understand why the French dunk their Pommes Frites in the stuff.
We didn't have any Pommes Frites, but we had a few CSA carrots and some crackers with herb cream cheese on the side, and it was a great lunch for a great day.

Zzzzzzzzzz...

This past week has been insane, busy, and insanely busy, so nothing much exciting happened, other than the fact that I discovered more tomatoes on the plant, and I believe that the potato that HRH and I "planted" (it got yucky so I let her throw it in the ground) is actually growing.
I've fallen off the movement and eating well wagons, to so I need to get back up on both of those.  There's really no excuse - I have just been taking the "easy" way out in between work, potty training relapses, and jury duty.
Yep - jury duty.  I have been called to sit, so I'll be doing that for a bit.  I won't be talking about the goings-on (since that's, you know, not allowed), but I will have the opportunity to try some downtown restaurants, so hopefully I can report back on some tasty local joints.
And speaking of tasty local joints, if you are in the East Valley, you may want to give Crackers and Co. a try.  We met some friends who are in town for the weekend there for breakfast this morning, and we were quite impressed.  HRH inhaled 4 rashers of bacon and nearly an entire bowl of fruit; Scott had a chorizo-carnitas skillet, which he said was very tasty, and I had the California eggs benedict.  It was nice to find a local place and spend some time with good friends.
Short post tonight - I'm beat from my busy day and busy week.  Hopefully I'll be much more interesting next post!

Just Peachy!!!

I need to preface this entry by saying that the kerfuffle with Zooey on Monday isn't the reason I have been away from the blog for the week.  It was finals, and I was in a grading frenzy.  As for Devil Dog, who is currently snoozing at my feet, she turned three on Thursday and took her birthday in a barking stride.  Hopefully now that she is officially an adult coonhound, she will settle down, but I have a notion that trash bin diving will always be a hobby of hers.
But she is cute, isn't she?

Snoozing in the sun

What to Do When You Catch Your Dog Eating Out of the Garbage (or, What I Did on Monday Morning) - by, Allison

I had planned to give an update on my garden to let you know that my cantaloupe finally seems to have sprouted and such.  However, I think might offer those of you who read this blog regularly (or at least once or twice) a little Schadenfreude.

Zooey, as a scent hound is wont to do, regularly allows her nose to take charge, and today as I worked, I heard a rustling upstairs that could only be one thing: her noggin inside a bathroom trash can.  If this has ever happened to you, please follow these steps to help ensure your dog's continued health.

Impromptu

We got potatoes in our CSA share this week, and Scott was all over them.  He announced that he was going to make vichyssoise, as we had also gotten leeks.  So off to the store he went for cream (and deodorant, but that wasn't for the soup), and then he got busy in the kitchen, completely ignoring the giant container of chicken stock that was already in the fridge to thaw a bag from the freezer and trying to burn down the house by broiling some bread with herbed feta (HE herbed it; it came "plain").
I had found a very simple bean salad recipe from Mark Bittman that I had planned to have for lunch, but since Scott had his own lunch while I was out donating blood, we saved it for dinner.  I used chickpeas, my favorite, and green red onions (I mean that they are baby red onions; this isn't some homage to a weird PBS series).  This really was simple, and the beauty of the recipe is that it's insanely versatile, so I can use this again a zillion times with new taste combos.  It's a great excuse to start buying my beans in bulk rather than in cans.
Since we were getting all fancy (I mean, come on - vichyssoise - that word just LOOKS fancy), we told our lemon dealer friend Danielle to invite herself over for dinner, which she did.