Category Archives: Foodie

Eating Right

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I’m a big fan of a varied diet and I have to admit that I love food and I love to eat. Going out to a restaurant is always a fun adventure and I try to order different things off the menus to expand my culinary horizons. Of course, there are some places where I have my favorites and then it is a toss up if I will stick with the familiar that I know I love or take a chance and try something new.

This time of year looking good is even more important when the clothes you wear are shorter and more revealing than what you wear in the winter. Sorry to say that tee shirts and even golf shirts are very unforgiving about showing all the love handles and belly bulges that most middle age guys are carrying around with them. On the plus side, there are plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit for fresh salads and grilling, and it is easier to get exercise when the days are longer and the weather more conducive for outdoor activities.

No Broccoli

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At the grocery store tonight there was a sign on the freezer doors in the vegetable sections saying that due to acts of nature and circumstances beyond their control, there will be shortage of frozen broccoli and possibly other vegetables this summer.

I’m not sure where the top broccoli producing states may be and what acts of nature were involved, but I suspect that with all the flooding in the Midwest these past couple weeks and the fires in California, there may well be shortages of other vegetables and fruit later this summer.

On a good note, there are plenty of cantalopes and they are wonderfully sweet and at a great price this week. I plan on eating fresh cantalope daily while this bounty is here in our local stores. And my tomato plants are producing 2-3 ripe tomatoes every day. Last night we dined on BLTs and they’ve never tasted better.

ConAgra, Publix and Home Depot

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While standing at the customer service desk in Publix I noticed a little pad of coupons on the counter and pulled one off. This coupon turns out to be a pretty cool deal from ConAgra Foods, Publix and Home Depot.

The deal is that you buy $20 worth of ConAgra brand foods from Publix and send in the coupon with the Publix receipt for those groceries and they send you back a Home Depot gift card worth $25. Now, you do the math. Spend $20 plus a stamp and get back $25. That’s a sweet deal and not that hard to do. ConAgra makes a lot of big brands that everyone recognizes and uses, like:

  • Hunts (ketchup, spaghetti sauce, etc.)
  • Libby (hash, canned corned beef, etc.)
  • Chef Boyardee
  • Peter Pan Peanut Butter
  • Van Camps (pork and beans, weenie beanies, etc.)
  • Slim Jim
  • Reddi Whip
  • Crunch ‘n Munch
  • Gulden’s Mustard

and probably a few more that I forgot to list. But come on – how hard is it to spend $20 on any of the above groceries?

I don’t know where you are supposed to get these coupons from, but I found mine at the customer service desk – so if you want to take advantage of this you should head out to Publix ASAP because it expires June 29.

Lance Snacks

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We went Krogering yesterday and I was wanting a snack of some sort, but cruising the cookie aisle I couldn’t find anything that looked all that appealing. What I wanted was something small and portable, that I could munch on late at night when all I need is a small snack. Since I’m usually in the car and most stores are closed, I need to bring it with me.

I lost my sweet tooth years ago and most of the snacks I like nowadays are on the salty and crunchy side. So Kroger was running a special on Lance snack crackers and I stopped to take a look. I didn’t realize that there are some many variations and different flavors of those little square orange crackers filled with cheese. Do you know which ones I’m talking about? They come in little rectangular cellophane packs of 6 crackers. I picked the ones called “Captain’s Wafers” which is regular crackers filled with peanut butter and honey. I bought 4 of them them on sale and tossed them in the car console so that next time I need something for a snack they’ll be handy.

Taste of Chicago

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This year’s Taste is the 28th annual – how about that for a long successful run? It has changed a lot from when it started, but it is a great street festival and we are looking forwarding to going again this summer.

The cost is only $8 for a strip of 12 food and drink tickets. All of the vendors are required to offer a taste for just 1 ticket, and then they can offer anything else they want for as many tickets as they want to charge. Last year the average food item cost 4 tickets and we bought 3 extra strips for just two of us to fully enjoy and sample everything we wanted to try.

We really liked several of the different foods and made note of which restaurants had the best food so we could patronize them later in the year. I even tried fried goat cheese for the first time – but I found it rather strong and don’t think I would order that again. I found one vendor selling key lime pie and jumped at the chance to have some, but what they served was absolutely AWFUL and nothing like the real southern key lime pie recipes taste like. But the variety of ethnic tastes was fantastic and one of the things that I love about Chicago – the international influence on everything there, with a solid core of Americana.