I was happy when I was in the dining room on Saturday night and not in the bar. I make a lot of money in the bar, but having to work until close two nights in a row would have been rough. But, as luck would have it, I had a 10 top sit down at 9:00 a.m., and they were the last table to leave – so I didn’t get home until 1:30 anyway. But their tab was $700, so I was like “you can stay until dawn!” They bought a $95 seafood tower appetizer. It was five couples – five men on one side of the table and five women on the other. Two completely different conversations going on which I thought was funny – the men talked about football and the women were talking about their kids. I ended up walking out with $205 after tipping out – so I can’t really complain about making $500 bucks in two nights! I put this picture up on Facebook and Instagram, this is one of our appetizers – I know Tony would love it – it’s calamari steak with a balsamic glaze.
I thought for sure I’d sleep in yesterday, but I was wide awake at 9:30. I did laundry, made a batch of chili (recipe coming tomorrow!) using the last of my sirloin roast, and didn’t really get hungry until after noon. Doing a quick fridge/pantry glance, I realized I could make Tony and I calzones for lunch.
Cabot Cheese has invited me to be on their Cheese Board for 2014. They sent me an assortment of cheeses to try out.
Yesterday, I used this cheese for our calzone filling:
Dough for Two Calzones:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup water
I love this little scoop I found at Goodwill – I keep it in my flour container.
The sauce was just 3/4 cup of tomato sauce, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste and some Italian seasoning – I just let that cook down for about 5 minutes.
My filling: sauce, sausage, pepperoni, baby spinach and the Cabot cheese. Simply bring the back of the dough to the front, and pinch to close. I deep fried ours – it only took about 2 minutes a side.
These were really good – next time when I have more time I’ll try baking them.
So we were all set to have King Crab legs and Fried Chicken Gizzards – I was surprised to learn how many of you actually have fond memories of chicken gizzards. I looked through several recipes, and ended up par-boiling the gizzards for 10 minutes, then soaking them in buttermilk that had a dash of salt, pepper and Tabasco. They soaked overnight. Then I just dipped them in seasoned flour and fried them up.
Tony loved them. He asked me to try one, and upon first bite it, the texture just grossed me out and I couldn’t even take a bit – I tried though! We ended up having cheese and crackers, and a shrimp cracker dip. We both had recollections growing up of our parents having tiny shrimp cocktail over cream cheese – and we both thought the shrimp and cocktail sauce came in a jar together, and you just poured that over cream cheese. Does anyone else remember this??
Um, apparently they don’t sell this anymore, because no one at the store knew what I was talking about. I ended up buying a jar of cocktail sauce, and a can of tiny shrimp and just mixed that all together with a few tablespoons of cream cheese.
We ended up not being hungry for the crabs, so we’ll have the crab legs and Hooter’s shrimp for dinner tonight. I didn’t do a full grocery shop this weekend because we have plenty of food in the house – this weeks menu will be interesting!
So my WI today? I didn’t do my toes yet, so I put socks on for you – you’re welcome! I am up .2 – but I drank hardly any water over the weekend – I need to fix that!
I had no energy to go to the gym this morning, but I plan on working out at lunch and tonight I am going to give T-25 a try. It’s all good! Off to put my shit together – hope you had a great weekend and make it a great day!
Love that cute little yellow cup. I have to try find something like it. I wonder how my husband will react to fried Calzones? He is Italian so it could be interesting. Looks wonderful by the way.
I can’t believe how much money you make in 2 nights. No way you get paid that kind of money here in hotel as a waitress. You have a fixed salary here and tips are divided over every employee. Besides in Holland you don’t have to tip if you don’t want too. I only do it when I’m satisfied with the meal/service. If you just have coffee in a bar or restaurant or a glass of wine, you don’t tip here.
If I could make this kind of money I immediately took a second job too.
I don’t remember that shrimp with cocktail sauce at all. My parents aren’t big seafood fans, so that’s probably why. I don’t think I ate shrimp cocktail until I was on a choir trip in high school; at least that’s the first time I remember eating it!
I haven’t made calzones in FOREVER. I’ll have to do that soon – MAK’s favorite filling is light on the marinara, a variety of meats (crumbled Italian sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon), a crap ton of cheese and just a few veggies. I use an egg wash to make them glossy, and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes, sometimes 35 depending on how golden I want the crust.
Maybe you can switch up MAK’s chicken and waffles with calzones! I will try baking them next time too – it was just simple because the fryer was on the counter! 😀
I was born in the early 80s and I definitely remember the glass jars with cocktail sauce mixed with little shrimp. My mom would let me buy one on Sunday after church when we went to the local grocery store. I ate it right out of the glass jar with a spoon! I think it was 99 cents for each one 🙂
Also, I have memories of eating baked chicken gizzards that would come in a family pack of chicken. My mom would bread them and bake the whole pack, including the gizzards.
That is such a great memory! You didn’t mind that it wasn’t cold? Love it!
Nice job with the tips in two days – that’s amazing!! Not too shabby for part time. I can’t believe they bought an appetizer that cost that much! HAHA
And they didn’t even blink an eye at the price!
Sometimes I want a second job so I can make some extra money. $500 is great!!
It’s not so bad, especially since I am working on the weekends – hoping to build our savings up again. I average about $37 an hour at the restaurant – not too bad!