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Food

Text Tuesday ~ New Potato Chips

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 By Sherra

Since I can’t seem to sit down and actually write a complete blog post with photos…

I thought I could change up my favorite random Typo Tuesday and make it Text Tuesday.

My kids randomly text me throughout the week and I’m sure many of you receive amusing texts like I do.

I especially love the ones with an accompanying photo like this one from Rachel.

I’m so glad someone finally though of this. I was tired of eating chips and hot dogs separately

Humpfreeze humor is alive and well. Thanks to darling twin #1 for this one.

Keep sending the typos if you see a good one. Meanwhile I’ll mix it up now and then with some funny texts.

I don’t want to over-commit but I might be back tomorrow. 😉

Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Food, Twenties

Food Trip Across the Midwest

Monday, August 13, 2012 By Sherra

Scary Baby and I took a semi-spontaneous eight day road trip at the end of July. I drove (and she rode) over 2,000 miles.

Driving from one city to the next anticipating our next meal was the only way we survived the car trip. Meals that we ate from recommendations on urbanspoon.com and roadfood.com were almost always the best. A little computer research was worth the time.

Besides eating, we attempted to mix in some education. So much to learn on a car trip together…

Map reading, navigation skills, budgeting, history, communication and conflict resolution were our main topics throughout the trip.

Here are some food highlights of our trip to the great Midwest.

Pancake Pantry – Nashville, TN

One of our most favorite meals. And not just because we drove around in circles in Nashville for 40 minutes and it was way past lunch time. Scary Baby talked about her silver dollar pancakes for days. Said they “might” be better than the Humpfreeze pancakes which means they have to be fabulous.

Adding pecans to pancakes wherever you go is highly recommended. You might not be able to see it with our stellar photography skills but Pancake Pantry puts pecans in the syrup!

I had to send my eggs back – over medium eggs seem to be difficult to get right depending on where you eat. I love them and that means a runny yolk with a solid white. I can’t do jiggly, runny whites. Eww. In spite of that mistake which was corrected, the food is really delish.

Gigi’s Cupcakes – Nashville, TN

Love their packaging.

They looked great in the bakery case. Though they didn’t travel well in the backseat.

White Midnight Magic and Raspberry Buckle were our picks. Scary Baby only ate half of hers. Claims it would have been better the day of purchase. Unfortunately we ate them the next morning in our hotel room. Cupcakes for breakfast are absolutely acceptable on road trips!

Garrett’s Popcorn – Chicago, IL

Scary Baby’s personal food highlight. No line, right downtown on a 100 degree day. Warm popcorn. She picked cheese and I picked caramel with cashews. How did we forget to take pictures of the popcorn?

We walked 2 more blocks to a 7-Eleven where Scary Baby had her first Slurpee®. I have to confess the banana piña colada Slurpee I felt compelled to order because I really the combo sounded great was disgusting. OMG – I didn’t realize it was made with banana soda so it was fizzy. Gross. Thankfully, I bought a back-up Coke.

Harry Caray’s Tavern at Navy Pier – Chicago, IL

Fun to walk through Navy Pier at night when it had cooled down to a breezy 90 degrees. Bonus fun was taking Scary Baby on her first taxi ride from our hotel downtown. Harry Caray’s Tavern was very marginal. I would have been happier with a Chicago hot dog. I forgot until after we got home that I really wanted to go to Superdawg but alas, we were on the wrong side of town.

Perkins Restaurant & Bakery – Janesville, WI

BONUS LESSON: Scary Baby now knows where the newly announced Republican Vice Presidential candidate is from.

Yes, it’s a chain but not in Georgia. They have perfected breakfast and I know because I had it twice. Egg perfection on both visits but different locations! Brioche french toast anyone?

And they have pie.

Scary Baby is still talking about the chicken noodle soup and the pie.

Johnny Pamcakes – Rockford, IL

A brief history lesson for Scary Baby meant I had to introduce her to swedish pancakes. It’s a Rockford specialty that I love. My “Swedish Connection” breakfast was delicious. Are you getting the idea that I really love breakfast for lunch? 🙂

Winner of Best Breakfast Meal on Entire Trip.

In addition to delicious food cooked exactly the way we ordered it, this family-owned restaurant did everything right. From the hostess to the waitress and the chef and kitchen staff, it was a well-oiled machine where everyone was friendly and they all helped each other on a very busy Sunday afternoon.

Even if Scary Baby was less than impressed with the pancakes and said “they’re like crepes and I really don’t like those that much either.” She order a bagel with cream cheese and one swedish pancake. She can’t be related to me.

Culver’s – multiple locations in several states.

Maybe, just maybe we had Culver’s custard more than once three times. But who counts when you’re on vacation and it’s one of the hottest summers of our lifetime.

Lynn’s Paradise Cafe – Louisville, KY

A personal recommendation from my friend Laura inspired us to visit this fun and funny restaurant. We have rarely driven through Louisville at meal time in all our years of traveling to visit family so this was a treat on our last day on our way home. My breakfast was good not great – I had to send the eggs back. Yes, it would be easier to order scrambled as PhilBillPaul has kindly pointed out several times. But I really like over medium eggs and think restaurants should know how to cook them correctly.

The highlight was an order of Bourbon Ball French Toast made with cinnamon swirl bread, bourbon vanilla sauce, chocolate sauce, pecans, strawberries and bourbon whipped cream that was featured on Food Network’s “Throwdown with Bobby Flay“.

Order tip: I asked if they did a 1/2 order because I knew after a full breakfast, I couldn’t eat a whole order. It wasn’t on the menu but the waitress said yes and brought the perfect-sized 1/2 order. YUM!

Scary Baby had scrumptious macaroni and cheese.

Click here for Lynn’s Paradise Cafe macaroni and cheese recipe on their website

I made it for dinner last night.

Pizza, Wisconsin cheese curds and a few other meals and we rolled ourselves home.

Later this week, I’ll show you what else we did on our trip and how much weight I gained as we ate our way through the Midwest.

Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Food, Teens

Once a Month Blogging

Monday, July 23, 2012 By Sherra

After I hit the 500 blog post milestone, it certainly appears that I’m become a once-a-month blogger. Never my intention but…

Life happens.

I can’t really blog about the trivial stuff of our summer and ignore one of the worst tragedies we all woke up to on Friday last week. Sad, sad stuff and my heart goes out to all those families in Colorado.

We are all fine, fine, fine here.

It seems a little funny to think our summer is busier this year with one 13 year-old at home and the 3 college kids mostly managing their own lives than when we had all 4 kids at home. Feels weird to me anyway.

More to come because I really don’t want to abandon my neglected little blog. Until then, here are some snippets of the Humpfreeze summer memories.

Reminder/Disclaimer: Food pictures follow even though this is not a food blog which is obvious when you look at the pictures.

Even though we’re working hard to stay away from boxed foods and make homemade things as much as we can, I will confess that many convenience foods were used to make the darling twins birthday dessert requests.

I used The Best Chocolate Cake Ever recipe and cheated with a box of Jello chocolate mousse I didn’t even remember buying that I had in the pantry. Homemade no-bake cheesecake filling and homemade whipped cream. We all thought it was one of the best cakes ever!

Rachel’s dessert request took on a life of its own. Recipe inspiration came from this crazy Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Oreas ‘n Brownie Bars recipe. It was surprisingly edible. Even at 21, who doesn’t appreciate monkey party hats and plates I brought to as well as the princess napkins? It’s a twin thing to pick a few special things for each twin and I picked things that match their personality.

We delivered their cakes after making them cut them so we could bring 2 pieces home for Scary Baby and took them to dinner.

Forgot to take a picture of Rachel’s monstrosity after we cut it.

I bravely cooked again at 4th of July. The summer heat has us avoiding turning on the oven so I opted for crockpot shredded pork BBQ.

I used two recipes from Monica’s blog, The Yummy Life and we all loved the BBQ. I really liked it because even though “they say” the fat from pork roast adds flavor, I don’t like it and don’t like to strain it all off. Picture of the pork is before I added the Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbeque sauce. Here are links to both recipes:

14 spice dry rub mix
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

We also enjoyed the super sweet variation of strawberry shortcake that my friend Leigh Anne had posted. It’s hard for me to say anything is too sweet but the frosting layers on this cake were very sweet! I loved the butter almond cake but would use a lightly sweetened whipped cream with the lemon curd next time. We shared half the cake with neighbors who raved about it.

Berry Almond Butter Cake with Strawberries

It’s rare that all six of us are all in one place at one time with the 3 college kids’ summer work schedules but whenever we can capture any of them it seems to usually involve bribing them with food.

How are you surviving this summer heat?

Filed Under: Food, Moments, Tweens, Twenties

Typo Tuesday ~ Catering Menu Options

Tuesday, June 12, 2012 By Sherra

One of my favorites…

Especially when the subject matter is clearly about food, cooking, restaurants, menus, etc.

Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Food

Our Last Tween

Monday, May 7, 2012 By Sherra

We enjoyed 22 months of teenage-free living and then, darn it, if that Scary Baby didn’t go and turn 13 and put us back in that parenting mode. Again.

Though really, her tween years counted double since she had three teen siblings for those years.

The tween and teen years really put the toddler years to shame. Oh how I yearn for those cute, funny days.

Alas, we can’t turn back time and here we are with a teenager once again.

We continue to keep birthdays pretty low key around here at the Humpfreeze house and have never caved to the peer pressure of extravagant, expensive parties and typically opt for family celebrations.

After her birthday weekend was spent with the grandmothers, she patiently waited two weeks to have a few friends over for dinner and a movie at home.

She picked the menu.

Fruit kabob appetizers. She was inspired to make kabobs when she found the funky skewers at a garage sale the weekend before for the bargain price of 50¢.

Chinese carryout – sesame chicken and fried rice.

And a birthday cake.

Selected by her via the Publix website.

Ebony & Ivory cake.

The chocolate pudding was suspiciously missing between the layers as described on their website but the cake was otherwise good.

Side note: I’d personally recommend the Chocolate Ganache Supreme instead. I also have a few customer service tips for Publix about the bakery clerk taking the cake order over the phone. Very surprised to get anything less than stellar customer service from Publix. (Especially since my 3 darling Twenties were forced to work there by their mean parents so they could learn the art of stellar customer service.)

Now we look forward to the next five years with our new teenager. She has so much potential and we can only hope her elderly senior citizen parents can live through it.

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Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Food, Milestones, Teens, Tweens

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