Mama Rini’s!

After Hannah left for work, I started to think about what to fix for breakfast when the words “How about Mama Rini’s?” spilled out of Tony’s mouth.  I believe I was ready to go in about 5 minutes!  I love diner restaurants, the staff is usually really friendly, and we’ve been so many times they recognize us now!

The only bad part is they tend to seat tables right on top of each other, and the woman next to us was talking while she still had food in her mouth, and then got on her cell phone and spoke in a voice so loud we couldn’t believe it!  Luckily they were out of there about 10 minutes after we arrived. 

I veered off my normal path: no egg white omelet, no corned beef hash, something they called a Pammy Hammy.  English muffin, ham off the bone, eggs and cheese.  This was half!  I only ate a few of the potatoes, they were really under seasoned.  Our food kind of took a long time, and the waitress said it was because their normal cook decides every now and then not to show up!  So the owner was cooking!

Then while Tony went to get the giant hot dogs at the butcher (I’ll get there in a second!) I wondered to the farmers market.  And guess what I found??

Of course I immediate thought of K from ksgoodeats!  I’ve seen purple cauliflower on her blog forever, and have never found it – and this whole thing was only $2!  I also bought some zucchini and Tony bought some chicken wings from a meat vendor.

Once we got home I got to work on sterilizing my jars to can my pasta sauce.  I call this a “base” sauce, as you can add ingredients to kick it up for what you are making – i.e., adding fresh grated parm, kicking it up with crushed red pepper, adding tomato paste for pizza sauce.

I still cooked it down a bit for my final taste test – well Tony is my official taster, he has a better palate than me!  He suggested a bit more salt, but deemed it ready to can.  I added beef broth to bring the fresh tomatoes around and has a nice, deep rich flavor.  Sorry, no recipe, because its trial and error based on how the tomatoes cook down!

I canned the jars for 30 minutes in a water bath.  I have well water, so I need to wipe my jars after they cool.  I got 9 pint jars!

Then I am meeting my sister and our best friends who are twins tomorrow, and my sister is bringing chips, so I made my baja fresh salsa!

I decided to keep the tomatoes whole this time, not coring them until after they grilled.

I made a jalapeno popper on the side for a snack!

The popper was delicious!  I took the seeds out so it just had a hint of spicy (for me!).  The skin was still a bit firm but the cream cheese was all melty – only 1 teaspoon of light cream cheese for each half.

So remember about how I said Tony went to get the hot dogs while I went to the farmers market?  Here is how huge they are!  Love how my drying cutting board got in the pic!

Um, since tasting Hannah’s deep fried hot dog – we just had to do it!  It takes this hot dog to a whole other level when its fried.  I scored the top and the two ends – I just think it looks cool!

My hot dog – with tons of mustard!  I don’t really want to know how many calories this was, but I savored every bite!

When Hannah got home from work, she called and said she was starving and asked if I could make her a pizza.  Not sure if it was the dough, or what, but it rested on my pizza pan for about 20 minutes – and I could not get it off the pan!  I’ve had my pizza pan for probably 10 years, so it was time I got a new one – I hit up Bed Bath & Beyond, and $10 bucks later, came home with this:

It’s teflon, so I don’t think anything will stick to this now! 

I had no idea what I was making for dinner – Tony and I were trying to figure out things we haven’t grilled in a while, and turkey breast came to mind.  Except the store I went to didn’t have any!  But I saw in the store flyer that they had bone in chicken breasts for $1.69 a pound!  Score!  I had visions of grilled bbq chicken breasts, corn on the cob.  But they were sold out!  So then I went to plan B, which is actually going to be tomorrow nights dinner!  You’ll just have to come back and see what it is!

Since I worked late last night, Tony went to the butcher and picked up a couple steaks.  We decided to cook that up.  Since I had two potatoes in the pantry, I decided on making grilled twice baked potatoes – simply cook the potatoes in the microwave, let them cool slightly, make the mash and then melt the cheese on the grill.  We also had asparagus that needed to be cooked.  Here is the veg  read for the grill!

And while Tony and I enjoyed a New York strip, Hannah had her thin cut Purdue chicken breast.  Seriously, you could almost see the flames through the chicken that’s how thin it is!

It’s so sad that by 7:15 it was almost dark out!  So this picture isn’t too good.

I plated in the kitchen.

For Tony’s asparagus, I added a balsamic glaze I made last week when my mom came over.  I, however, used my horseradish sauce from our lunch out last week. 

My plate – 3.5 ounces of steak, 5 ounce twice baked potato, asparagus and about a tablespoon of horseradish sauce.  Not bad considering at 5:30 I really didn’t have a clue as to what I was going to make!

While I didn’t make it to the gym, Tony and I did get a lot of house work done.  Cleaned by our computer desk, DEEP clean of the bedroom, hung curtains, so we got a lot done!

Looking forward to seeing my twin sister tomorrow and our best friends who are twins!  And, pretty sure Tony is set for his first full Sunday of football tomorrow!

Hope everyone enjoyed their day – see you tomorrow night! 😀