Testing out my birthday present (camera lens (60mm macro f/2.8))… my breakfast…

What I’ve been making for lunch the past few weeks.

I heart Hellman’s Dijonnaise…

3 slices of Boar’s head oven roast chicken and a slice of turkey + lacey swiss cheese.

2 slices of Beefsteak’s Light Rye bread (60 calories for 2 slices).

And voila!

Chris picked up a few tuna steaks for dinner. Yum, we haven’t had fish for awhile, so this was a nice treat!

He marinated it in soy sauce for an hour before putting them on the grill.

For sides, we had sauteed baby scallops and some veggies. The scallops were pan seared in clarified butter!

Very filling and not entirely unhealthy dinner =)

I bought fresh salsa and the package of pre-cut veggies last week for a girls night in…. but we wound up not touching them (in lieu of other foods available). I didn’t want the salsa to go bad, so it was tonight’s dinner!

Apparently, if you live on Long Island, it is an absolute must to try the burgers at this dive. I first heard of All American Burger from my coworkers a couple years ago. They all claimed it was THE BEST burger ever… and would often make the long drive & brave the crowds to bring back a bagful of burgers for lunch. I had always resisted the temptation and just watched from a distance as they gobbled up the food and sat lethargically at their desks afterward.

But tonight….I decided that enough was enough, I would try it and see once and for all what the whole hooplah was about.

A shot of the joint from across the street… it was not nearly as crowded as I had seen it in the past. But we were going at 7pm on a Tuesday night… so that probably helped lessen the wait time. We waited in line for a little over 5 minutes before putting in our order. While waiting, a table (one of very few) opened up outside and I grabbed it so we didn’t have to chow down in our car — which is what most other people do. (Though some even brought lawn chairs to sit on the side)

It certainly does have a charm to it — definitely not a McDonald’s or Burger King fo’shure!

First up… their fries. We ordered a large to share between the two of us, which was more than enough. I was definitely impressed. I could instantly taste that their fries are freshly cut. It actually still tasted like a potato! Very crispy on the outside, soft and delectable on the inside.

Now the burger…. I ordered the ‘Double Double’ which is basically a double cheeseburger. Yum, look at all that gooey American cheese melted on the wrapper. The bun was awesome. I really hate thick buns, so this small bun was a perfect ratio to the yummy beef patties inside.

A closeup of the burger. It was VERY GOOD! Probably one of the better burgers I’ve eaten in my lifetime. I’m not sure if I’d call it the best burger ever (I have difficulty labeling anything THE BEST)… but it does come very close. It was just the perfect size, not too meaty, not too fatty, not too bready… basically just had good overall taste that was not overwhelming with any one particular sense.

As if I wasn’t full enough… here is a knish we also ordered to share. I thought it was a bit random that they served knishes at a burger joint, but whatever… it was very good! The outside was very crispy and the inside so full of flavorful fluffy potatoey goodness.

First bite of the knish…

And halfway through the knish…

Overall, a big two thumbs up for All American Burger. This was definitely a treat that was WORTH IT! I hate it when I splurge on foods that never live up to its reputation, but this place definitely made me feel not so bad about consuming the additional calories. Of course, it’s time to work it off now… and I already vowed that we would only be going here once a year!!! ;)

All American Burger
4286 Merrick Road
Massapequa, NY 11758

Last weekend, I attended a former coworker’s barbecue with a theme of ‘Baconpalooza’ …the idea was that guests were all to bring any concocted bacon dish that would be consumed and judged by a select few.

I wanted to do something original and figured there wouldn’t be too many dessert dishes w/ bacon….so I decided to re-use my chocolate covered pretzel rods recipe but instead of using sprinkles, I’d use bacon bits instead! The idea sounded great…until I put it into practice…

Frying up the bacon…Oh my gosh, my entire house and clothes reeked of bacon after I fried up the entire package!

Yeah… look at all that bacon grease… it makes me cringe!

I had sliced up half the package of bacon prior to frying and the other half, I fried up as-is. I thought the slicing would help w/ the chopping afterward, but there wasn’t much of a difference between the two in the end.

And the final result…. FAIL! I tried to sprinkle the bacon bits onto the chocolate covered pretze but it would not stick well at all… and plus, it looks pretty unappetizing. So no go for bacon covered chocolate pretzel rods. It probably would’ve beatened the bacon wrapped salmon for worst dish had I brought them….

The award winning dish at the barbecue was a bacon flavored cheesecake…unfortunately I did not get a chance to try it. =( It was all gone by the time I arrived. There were a lot of bacon wrapped jalapeno dishes (though slightly varying), bacon wrapped scallops, bacon kebabs, deep fried bacon, bacon finger sandwiches, bacon chili, bacon meatloaf, bacon brisket, some sort of bacon wrapped around meat wrapped around more bacon, and a ton of other bacon dishes I can’t remember.

Despite eating dinner prior to going to the BBQ to stave off temptation, I still wound up taking more bites than I should have. It was just too tempting to try all these funny concoctions!

After watching a Food Network special on cheese, I began craving goat cheese to the extreme. Finally picked up a small tube of President goat cheese for my dinner tonight.

I combined spring mix lettuce, halved cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, honey chicken slices (pre-cooked & storebought), goat cheese and drizzled some EVOO + pepper to mix. It was simply deliciousssss!

A closeup:

The goat cheese was pungent and creamy, yummmmy!

Monday morning, I was scrounging around the kitchen for ingredients to make breakfast. There wasn’t much in the fridge at all so I had to be creative. The best I could come up with was this…

I found a baggy of grape tomatoes that my parents had forgotten to take to work, and half of a zucchini from dad’s garden. There was about 1/2c of eggbeaters left in my carton. Sauteed it all with EVOO and added some black pepper + soy sauce…voila!

Okay the end result doesn’t look that appetizing, but it was pretty decent and overall still healthy!

A no-frills dinner I cooked last Monday for myself…

Sauteed chicken breast w/ garlic + oven baked potato wedges + green beans.

Ooooh la la!! I was poking around in the fridge for a small snack when I saw a carton of jumbo Rainier cherries!! I heart that my parents always stock up on oodles of fresh fruits, but even moreso when it’s pricier stuff that I tend not to buy for myself.

I found conjoined cherries! (looks like a butt, doesn’t it?)

The cherries were super sweet and succulent!

In continuation of last night’s post…. we get home from Starbucks and I caught *someone* in the kitchen heating up his own little chocolate cake!! =P What a cutie pie… I decorated it with a few marshmallows and had to take a picture before he ate it. (Full from my latte, I did not even have a bite!)

We originally bought these porterhouse steaks at Giunta’s Meat Farms to grill for the 4th of July, but then at last minute we got invited to a block party. The steaks went in the freezer and finally two weeks later, we got to cook them.

The steak was rubbed with a concoction of soy sauce, chili powder, cayenne powder, and McCormick’s Montreal Steak seasoning.

It was deliciousssss! The spicy kick was a nice touch of heat in the mouth after every bite. I couldn’t even finish my steak because the porterhouse is gigundo! The sides are some mixed veggies (peas, carrots, corn, greenbeans) and some leftover potato salad.

And this is the dessert brownie that never was — as in, I cut out a little piece but then we decided to go get coffee at Starbucks instead. Rather than waste calories on something I probably wouldn’t enjoy that much (it was a store bought Entenmann’s fudge cake that was leftover from another BBQ)… I would get a yummy healthier sf ff latte instead.

My breakfasts have been relatively boring in recent weeks and I was looking for a way to freshen things up. Enter Tofu! I seldom buy tofu, not because I don’t like it, but just never crosses my mind very often.

I bought the organic pre-cubed (me=lazy) NaSoya extra firm tofu, sauteed it in EVOO, then added a few dashes of soy sauce.

Then I poured in some EggBeaters, scrambled it up… and voila!

I paired the scrambled eggs with a Morningstar Farms veggie burger. The tofu was super yummy… I love the subtle sweet savory taste of it!

Very filling and healthy breakfast!

I whipped this up for work dinner tonight (and for tomorrow). Nothing special… just whole wheat penne sauteed with spinach, corn kernels, albacore tuna. Seasoned with salt + pepper and a couple dashes of Dijonnaise.

I was very curious as to what pizza would taste like in Vietnam… well, I got my chance in Saigon. After the wedding was done and over in Hue, we traveled back to Saigon and stayed in a hotel that had a ton of ‘Italian’ restaurants along the street. Feeling adventurous, my cousin and I walked into one — hah, we were seriously the only patrons in the restaurant.

I ordered some kind of cheese pizza… and this is what arrived:

It was definitely interesting. Kinda like chunky tomatoes, melted cheese on a big cracker! It wasn’t bad, just not really pizza.