Slap Happy for Mexican Food

Rachel and I have been on a Mexican food kick. It all started the night that Mexican Night at the Zellner's Changed Our Life (That's going to be a chapter in my autobiography, by the way).

We do it often. Sometimes tacos, every once in a while enchiladas, and, recently, taco salad on occasion. Plus, the occasional trip to Maria's Tacos. But that's rare, and the real point of making Mexican is that we make it once, and with just a little work, we've got leftovers for about four meals. And it's cheap!

Normally, we'll make big grilled burritos. We take a giant burrito shell, fill it with a thick layer of cilantro rice, then cheese, then red/hot sauce (if it's mine), meat (either chicken or beef), refried beans, corn, and then more cheese. Lately, we've added sour cream to the mix. It's delicious! One of our favorite meals.

Anyways, on to the point of the blog entry. The wife was a bit slap happy today. I sent her an e-mail before lunch asking a dumb joke.

Q: What do you call a charming Mexican entree?

A: A Beau-rito

She thought it was hilarious.

So I sent her another one just before I picked her up.

Q: What kind of Mexican entree costs $200?

A: A Tac-Go!

And this proceeded a phone call with several more:

Q: What is a lawyer's favorite Mexican entree?

A: Case-adillas!

Q: What is a foot's favorite Mexican entree?

A: Toes-tadas!

And ... my favorite one of all ...

Q: What kind of Mexican entree do rulers eat by the dozen?

A: Inch-aladas!

(Go ahead ... laugh ... yes, it's stupid, but it's okay to laugh)



Sometimes, it's just good to be stupid and laugh. Got any to add?

Two Things to Say ...

I've been busy, but here are my two thoughts for the day:

1) Free Southern Chicken Biscuit at McDonald's with any drink purchase + $1.00 for any size soda at McDonald's = win.

2) They really need to do a new version of Match Game with modern B- and C-list celebrities. I'd watch it.

Opening Day

I think you all know by now that I love baseball. The Indians were my first love. Someone asked me the other day if I had a choice between Rachel and lifetime Indians season tickets which I would choose, and I honestly had to think about it.


(Rachel won out in the end, BTW)


So, yesterday, I went all out. Had the Indians game on the radio. Got a little teary-eyed with some of Hammy's calls. Made a festive lunch for Rachel and myself to enjoy. We had hot dogs, super pretzels, and homemade Cracker Jack.

And then the Indians went out and gave a microcosm of Cleveland sports: they had a seven run inning, highlighted by huge plays from up-and-coming stars. But, at the end of the inning one of the best players on the team got injured. To top that off, the staff ace couldn't hold that 7-2 lead, thanks in large part to a player the Indians once had but couldn't afford to keep.

Then again, despite all that, they won the game. Which means they're on pace to go 162-0.

So maybe this year will be different.

And why not ... it's April.

Green Bean Casserole

So, tonight for dinner, I made green bean casserole. We also had hot dogs. But they were nowhere near the main focus of dinner. That was totally the green bean casserole.

And I started to realize how much I love green bean casserole.

It's almost magical. It's super easy to make, super easy to add a twist to, it's the perfect dish to bring to a potluck dinner, and it goes with just about everything! And I'm not sure I've ever really stopped to think about just how great a dish it is.

Seriously, think about this: the federal government is going to disallow the consumption and creation of one food. The public gets to decide. How many foods would you vote to keep around at the expense of green bean casserole? I can't think of too many slam dunks.

I'm Done Being Sick

No, really. I'm done.

I don't know if my body is done being sick and the virus (or whatever) has left me, but I'm done.

I mean, I'm ready to move on. I'm tired of not having energy, of coughing too much, and of shivering. And, more importantly. I'm tired of eating rice, chicken broth, and toast. I want a freaking cheeseburger. It's almost getting close to me breaking down and yelling "Click Click Bloody Click Cheeseburger".

My Stomach is Rarely This Happy

So, Rachel and I went out for lunch today. It was an odd day, I had to meet with my boss for a little bit right as she was ready for lunch, so I wasn't able to cook for us, like I have been lately. So we went out for lunch.

To Maria's Tacos. Man, I love that place. We got enough for lunch and dinner (or perhaps lunch tomorrow, not sure which way we'll go on that). That place has 100% perfect burritos, amazing chips and salsa, and I've never had a bad piece of food there. My stomach is so happy, and there's more food for later.

But, a trip to Maria's Tacos, as good as it is, is hardly blog post-worthy. What is, however, was the gentleman who was waiting on us. I kid you not, it was Caesar, from Gilmore Girls. That's right ... the guy who helped Luke out. He sounded exactly like him. He had mannerisms just like him. He was friendly and talkative just like him. He even kind of looked like him. It was kinda weird. I almost asked him if he had any chilled bananas.

Anyways, adding Maria's Tacos to Monday's Jac n Do's and Tuesday's Hong Kong Buffet makes me very happy. Now, all I need to do is mix in a little Dietsch Brothers ice cream and my Findlay Food Week can be complete.

100th Post

Here it is ... my 100th post on this blog.

Not sure it's a milestone worth celebrating or whatnot, but at least there's a good story for it.

And it involves something kind of like the number 100 ... well, at least something that involves two identical round objects.

Tonight marked my first trip to Hooters. Great atmosphere for watching a football game, really good food (had hot wings and jalapeño chili nachos), and an overall fun time. Had heard about the good food for a while, but wasn't close to one or had an actual reason to go until tonight. And of course, the reason to go is because where I'm at the Stillers game wasn't local, and the two BW3s I tried to go to were full beyond belief.

But of course, just going isn't enough to make this a worthwhile story for my 100th entry on this blog.

My company is.

I went with my wife.

And my mother-in-law.

Soup For You?

Attention people local to me:

At Thanksgiving, I made sure my mother-in-law didn't throw out our turkey carcass. Rather, I spent time that evening making homemade stock out of it. That stock is currently frozen in my freezer, along with turkey meat. That means all I have to do to make homemade turkey frame soup is get the veggies and the noodles, and let it cook itself.

So, here lies my problem: lots of stock for a big pot of soup, itty bitty freezer. (Say that line again, but this time say it like Genie from Aladin. It's more fun that way. Trust me. Do it! Do it now!)

So, I'm looking for some people who want to get together and have turkey frame soup for dinner with Rachel and I. If you've never had it, it's not that dissimilar to chicken noodle soup, only it's made from turkey.

If you're interested, let me know and we can set up a time.

Good Food, and Good Friends

As I posted a little while back, I've been in a funk. I struggled with work, I felt no forward motion in many areas of my life, and I was frustrated that my wife couldn't get a job. I hadn't been blogging because I didn't want to just emo all over the place. I know how Quinn gets around Emo, and I didn't want to have to face that.

However, I think the corner is being turned. The black cloud of funk is being lifted. The ... well, I'm sure you can think of a better cliche than I can.

And it all revolves around what I should have figured in the first place:

Good food, and good friends.

This past Wednesday, Rachel and I made the trip to Ada to have dinner with the Hoseks. We'd made a bet a few years ago, and I finally got him to pay up. We went down, had dinner, played boche ball, and talked with another married couple for a few hours about the struggles of early years in marriage, tight finances, and all sorts of topics. It was a really good way to break up a week.

Then, this past weekend was STE National Officer Advance. It's always a blessing to see and interact with those guys, even if i couldn't do better than second place at a poker table. Even if Krispy Kreme donuts are better than Dunkin. There was plenty of bonding, plenty of laughter, and plenty of growth. Not to mention the fact that Shan makes a wicked awesome steak, Skyline is awesome for lunch, and LaRosa's isn't bad for dinner.

The funk is lifting. I can feel it. Good things are gonna happen. Rachel's got a job. A full time job. And I've got hope for my job that something soon will break and be good. Very good.

I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on. There will be an end to the struggles. But until that day comes. Still I will praise you.

Mistakes and Regrets

You ever make a mistake, and immediately upon seeing and feeling the ramifications wish you could undo it?

For example ...

This past weekend, on our trip to Wal-Mart, I needed to pick up a new box of cereal. My Kroger brand frosted shredded wheat bites was almost gone, and my Kroger brand of Corn Pops was all gone.

Wal-Mart doesn't have an off-brand of Corn Pops, and I didn't really want to get shredded mini wheats again. So I opted for Toasted Oats (GV Cheerios) instead of Honey Nut Spins (GV Honey Nut Cheerios).

Just two bowls in, and I already regret the decision.

Anyone care to commiserate with me?

I Like Animal Crackers

It's true.

I like Animal Crackers.

They taste good. They're fun. They're decently healthy, too, for a snack.

And you get sixteen of them in a serving! Sixteen whole crackers. That's a lot!

I mention this because Rachel and I have decided that we need to lose more weight. We both lost quite a bit in the last year (you'd have to ask her how much she lost, and all I know for sure is I dropped from a 44 to a 38 pant size), but neither of us are happy with where we are. We want to go further, we need to go further.

So, we decided that while we're working on really watching our finances and using a budget in a real manner, and all the other stuff Dave Ramsey advocates, we might as well use the same basic principles to work in our diets, as well. Budget out our food.

And the easy thing is, someone already laid out a blue print. We just have to follow it. And the blue print is super easy to follow. It's called "serving size".

We're fairly certain we can market this as a new diet and make a killing on it. We'll sell a book along with cooking attachments. Like a blue cup (that coincidentally is half a cup) that you use to make rice for one person. And a green cup (that coincidentally is the exact same size as the blue cup) that you use to make pasta for one person. And a multiplication chart, telling you that you need to use the cup x number of times to feed x number of people.

And while I'm at it, I figured I'd work on improving my overall health, since physical health is only part of the picture. I figure I'll take the advice of Dr. Fuller (the chair of Mathematics at ONU when I graduated): you need to make sure you do at least one thing in each of six areas every day. The six areas are career, mental exercise, physical exercise, spiritual exercise, fun, chore. And, there can be no overlapping (i.e. I went to Journey, walked around and talked, and discussed is spiritual growth, not physical, spiritual, mental, fun, and chore all in one). Sounds simple, but I'm convinced that if I really make an effort every day to do something from each category, I'll be healthier, happier, and probably wealthier.

Also think I'm going to resolve to set aside more time for reading. I blogged a few blogs back about a big queue line for books, but I don't schedule time for it. I just do it when I don't have anything else to do. And it's a shame, because I'm not going to finish my current book (I want to be Left Behind, by Ted Noel) before it's due back at the Library Thursday. Oh well, at least I already have another book out to read! (The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis)

Also, I need to blog more. I only blogged four times last month. And I, for one, think that was far too infrequent.

Days like this could kill me, but at least I'd die happy

Another solid day of basketball. Another solid day of bad-for-me food. The two seem to be going hand-in-hand. Also, Rachel decided to stay in Columbus all day. Not a coincidence that my food choices didn't become any healthier.

let's see if we can tally up the food (so far) today ...

2 corned beef sandwiches with swiss cheese on sourdough rolls
8 deep fried jalepeno poppers
4 boiled red potatoes topped with butter and oregano
3/4s of a cabbage (look, vegetables!)
1 large slice of pie
several heaping handfulls of garden salsa sun chips
1 can of pepse
1 corona

Add to that the self-imposed stress of near heart attack(s) from watching the Buckeyes game (thank you, Ron Lewis, for sparing various articles of furniture in my house from being destroyed), and following the Cavs game online (32-31 halftime with Boozer outplaying Hughes and LeBron combined??? thank you, Sasha Pavlovic for playing an entire game, and thank you LeBron for playing a rock solid second half), and I'm amazed I'm still alive. This day can't have been good for my heart.

Rachel better come home soon. I might not survive many more days like this.

And on that note, I think I'll go eat some more. I've got more Corned Beef, so that's an option. Or another big slice of pie ... or some Girl Scout Cookies ... hmmm ...

Pumpkin Cupcakes

You never really know what you're going to take away from church when you go, do you?

Five02 is Rachel and my home church community. It's a fledgling community, being launched from within St. Marks UMC and only in its third actual week (after many months of planning and years of prayerful development). It's set up as a post-protestant (the term I like, others might call it post-modern) community, and the teaching is followed by discussion, which usually lends itself to a greater amount of knowledge, at least on my part. Something about hearing from other people and getting their POVs really drives it home for me, I guess.

Anyways, before each community worship gathering, we share a meal. It's a bring-whatever-you-have-in-your-cupboards potluck style meal. Ryan and Andrea typically make some kind of caserole (last week was super yummy apple-sausage-sweet potato), and others fill in with all kinds of deserts, soups, and whatnot. Tonight was almost completely filled with out-and-out dinners. There was a vegetable-ground beef-tater tot caserole, a lasagne, chili, chicken and bean soup ... and these amazing Pumpkin Cupcakes.

And, as we sat around the tables eating our meal, one-by-one it seemed that all of us tried a Pumpkin Cupcake and marveled at how good they were. They were light, but still filling, sweet but not overpowering, deserty enough to satisfy a sweet tooth, but still plain enough to compliment a meal.

So why do I bring this up?

Partially, because of tonight's teaching. We're going through the Lord's Prayer in our worship gatherings, and tonight we focused on "Your Kingdom Come" ... a simple, but loaded question. Ryan chose to focus on the word "Kingdom" and talk about what the Kingdom of God is, and how Jesus used parables to explain it to us.

Through it all, I came to realize that the Kingdom of God is more about restoration than reward. The Kingdom of God is where we are restored to what God's original plan was. That means we go away from the secular and into the spiritual. Our lives become completely Christ-centric. Everything we do is spiritual ... there are no lines between our "Christian" lives and the rest of us.

So, the Cupcakes, to me, brought this point home as I reflected later. How God-like is it to take something simple, add just a little bit of flare to it, and use it for glory? How many times has God done this? He took a sheppard boy, and turned him into a king. He took a fisherman, and turned him into a leader. He took a persecutor of the Church and turned him into a preacher most of us quote today.

And so what do we have? A basic box of yellow food cake, added to it 15 oz of pumpkin, a quarter cup of water and a quarter teaspoon of pumpkin spice.

And it's that simple.

And the way God wants to restore us, to allow His Kingdom to come ... are probably that simple, taken one step at a time.

And I think I'll pray "God, restore me in a simple step this day, so I may take another step towards Your Kingdom coming."

Amen.

Musing

Today was a very good day. I got to spend quality time with my wife and mother-in-law, picked up a new suit, a couple of new ties, and some new shirts. Plus, we had Red Robin for dinner (mmmm ... Red Robin's onion rings are sooooo good).

Tomorrow holds promise. Our church is having their annual outdoor service at the Park. That, in and of itself would be exciting. But there's more to it than that. Rachel and I have our dramatical debut at the church tomorrow during the service. We're doing a liturgical drama (with Andrea) to the song "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns. I think it can be real powerful. Then, afterwards ... POT LUCK! And we all know if Methodists are good for one thing, it's Pot Lucks!

Prayers would be appreciated for the service to go well. It's not only good outreach, but good inreach for a church that needs connection and healing.