Tag Food

One (Zucchini) Out Of Many

Michael 3 Comments

My last post I said I was going to do something I hadn’t done for a while, complain, which may have been somewhat inaccurate. This post runs to something I don’t do often enough and is surely quite accurate, be grateful. Not any old gratitude is it that I am expressing, but heartfelt thanks for my nearly 19 year old electric range, and my almost 29 year old eccentric daughter.

Most social media platforms are the most antisocial of platforms but I indulge for the special interest groups. Support for chronic illness or rare diseases is easier when you involve most of the planet. And hobbies or interests can be explored more easily when you spend most of your days in a smallish apartment by way of a connected phone, tablet, or laptop while plopped in a comfy chair. It is one of the latter groups of groups that reminded me of how good I must have it. Yes, I seem to be quite more fortunate than others not among those sharing medical burdens but of those who enjoy cookery to fill a few otherwise dull hours throughout the week.

Apparently one cannot really cook unless using a $500,000 range metering gas fed flames unless one instead is cooking over the open flameless heat of natural chuck charcoal or in the smoke of natural hardwoods in a specialized outdoor vessel. Or so those of my cooking aficionado collective extol in their various posts, complete with pictorial evidence.

Yesterday my daughter interrupted my trip to the local farmers market to bring me a basket of bounty from her backyard garden. Included in that were several zucchini, just the right amount for one of my favorite summer treats, zucchini fritters. Or zucchini cakes if you want to think more healthily, but just barely. And handful of readily available pantry ingredients and 60 minutes later we were sitting on the patio enjoying piping hot patties of grated zucchini dipped in ranch dressing enjoying the summer sun’s warmth and shine.

Thanks to my apartment complex provided and now aging electric stove I enjoyed a most wonderful repast on a most wonderful break with the most wonderful offspring. I’d include photographic evidence but we are it.

You’ll just have to take my word that I expressed the right amount of gratitude.

—-”

Bonus recipe! Real good zucchini fritters

1-1/2 pounds zucchini, shredded and drained.
1/2 large yellow onion, shredded
1/2 large red onion, shredded
1 or 2 or even 3 Italian banana pepper, chopped fine
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 teaspoons coarsely ground pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 tsp adobo powder (or chili powder)
1/2 tap garlic powder

Shred zucchini and onions. I use the shredding disk on my food processor. A real cooking hobbyist would use the large holes of a box grater. Place in a colander over a bowl, or to be like me into a salad spinner, and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the salt and allow to sit for 10 to 25 minutes.

Mix flour, baking soda, the remaining salt, and the herbs in a small bowl.

Transfer the zucchini and onions to a clean tea towel and wring the devil out of them. Hopefully all the water will also get wrung out. If you were like me first take them for a spin in the salad spinner and then transfer them to the towel and squeeze with all your might.

Heat a large frying pan to medium high and add enough oil to cover the surface. (I use light olive oil but any normal oil will do. I’ve even used corn oil. But don’t get fancy and try to use coconut or avocado oil for goodness sake!) Assemble a cooling rack in a rimmed baking sheet and heat your oven to 250°F (120°C).

Plop the now abused zucchini and onions into a large bowl and fluff with a fork or some other fork like object. Mix in the chopped banana pepper and the beaten egg. (Thought I forgot about them, didn’t you?) Add the flour mixture in 3 installments a making sure each is completely incorporated.

Add a reasonable amount of the mixture to the hot pan and squish down to about 1/4 inch thickness. (I use a quarter cup for six 4 inch diameter fritters fried in two batches but do your own thing). Fry until golden brown, admit 3 to 5 minutes per side then transfer to the cooling rack. In between batches add oil if need to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to return to heat. Once all fritters are fried and resting nicely on the rack, pop the baking sheet into the oven for 15 minutes.

Eat and enjoy. Best shared with a friend or friendly relative.

No Bones About It

Michael 7 Comments

Last week at the deli I finally took the time to actually read the little tags in front of the rows of meats waiting to be sliced to your favorite thickness, or thinness, to your preferred weight. Actually to the weight you want the meat. Probably if you were looking to get to your preferred weight you wouldn’t be at the deli.

Anyway, I was reading the tags and I kept noticing a theme with the ham selections. They were all “off the bone.” I didn’t understand. Isn’t ham supposed to be off the bone? If I wanted ham on the bone I’d go buy the big chunk of pig leg and bake my own ham to ultimately slice as thick, or as thin, as I’d like. I know on those occasions I have done just that, step number one to slicing ham however thick, or thin, you like it is cut the ham off the bone.

HamHam has always had something of an image problem. Years ago there were basically two kinds of ham you could get. Cooked or not cooked. You had to cook both but the not cooked took more steps and more hours than the cooked to cook. Then someone decided that was too confusing so they started calling them city hams and country hams. It only took a few times to the store to figure out which was the cooked ham that didn’t require as much cooking as the not cooked ham. That’s the one I wanted. Maybe because I was from the city. Or maybe it was because I liked the idea of someone starting the cooking for me. I don’t know. But I figured out which was which and which to take home and cook. Or finish cooking.

And then those same theys (I think it was the same theys but it could have been a new group of theys) started fooling around with the pig anatomy and came up with a semi boneless ham. I never knew which part of the bone, or the leg, was halved but the ones I got always still had a bone in them. But that was a good thing because how are you going to make the bean soup when you’re all done slicing the ham off the bone as thick, or as thin, as you want it if you don’t have the bone to start the soup with. I have read several recipes for bean soup and they all start with “put a ham bone in a big pot.” Not “put half a ham bone in a big pot.”

Now the latest thing they (the original theys, the second wave of theys if there was even was a second wave, or a whole new they group) came up with is the spiral sliced ham. Oh sure, you can say that’s not new, those have been around a long time. But in the past to get a spiral sliced ham you had to go to a special store and they were all the way cooked and they cost about as much as filet mignon instead of your basic pig leg. But now you can walk into any grocery store and pick up a spiral sliced ham as long as you want the cooked version and don’t mind relinquishing the how thick, or how thin, the slicing to an anonymous spiraler.

But to get back to the short story, no matter what kind, how cooked, in the city or out in the country, with or without half a bone, or presumed pre-sliced spirally speaking, you have to get the ham off the bone. So what’s the big deal with this “off the bone” label?

And don’t even get me started on the salami!

 

 

 

 

Things Numerous but not Sufficiently Voluminous

Michael 4 Comments

I’ve had too many odd thoughts running around in my head and it’s time to get rid of some things that don’t make any sense to keep.

ModernThinkerHave you seen the new Internet food fad, donut chips? The last time I was at the store I purposely sought out day old donuts to try them. What you’re supposed to do is split your leftover donut in half so you have two skinny disks. Then you coat these in sugar and cinnamon and press them in a panini press. Don’t waste your time. Or your donuts. Unless you like flat, scorched, stale donuts.

I’ve seen this a lot in the last few weeks. A vehicle with appropriate handicap placard or plates idling in a handicap marked parking spot with a driver. This confuses me, particularly when I am walking past the vehicle in question after having has to park my handicap marked vehicle 3 rows away. Is this idling driver an able bodied person who dropped off his or her handicapped passenger at the store front and will return to the door to then pick up the passenger? Or is it a handicapped driver who dropped off his or her able bodied passenger and is himself (or herself) not intending on getting out of the vehicle. In either case, does that car have to be in that spot?

PatioSnow

View from my patio early Wednesday morning

Should it be normal that I didn’t think anything odd that almost 9 inches of snow fell here on the first full day of spring?

Baseball, the game of the boys of summer, starts its season March 29. Hockey and the boys of winter start the Stanley Cup playoffs on April 11. I wonder if this is why baseball style caps are the biggest hockey fashion accessory after replica sweaters.

There is a difference between being chronically ill and being disabled. Yes, a person can be both one leading to the other, and can be both neither affecting the other, and one can be either and not the other. The struggles are real for any of the above.

Am I the only person who still uses the 3 part recipe – eggs fat, and heat – for scrambled eggs and adds a splash of half and half in my morning meal mix?

QuestionIt’s been eleven days since we changed our clocks to Daylight Saving Time and I still have one clock that hasn’t’ been advanced yet. If people want an extra hour of daylight in the summer why don’t they just get up an hour earlier?

Why are there braille markings on drive up ATMs?

How many spiders are living with me that I can wipe out all the cobwebs in the corners on Monday and they’re all back Tuesday morning? And should I be worried about that?

Thank you for listening. I feel much lighter now.

 

The “Not Togethers”

Michael 5 Comments

I like yogurt. I like chocolate. I recently found out I don’t like chocolate flavored yogurt. Some things aren’t meant to go together. Even when not obvious, it soon becomes apparent that you are facing a combination that never should have been. Eventually the natural order of things will correct the imbalance and life goes on.

Every now and then, however, an aberrant pairing sneaks through and escapes corrective action. Sometimes they work. For consideration I give you oil and vinegar. Sometimes they don’t. Think pineapple and pizza. (Do not try to argue that point. If you disagree you’re wrong.) (Period.) Sometimes they should never have been put together in the first place, like good food with bad service in a restaurant.

Tuesday a friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going out for dinner. Since this was in celebration of their anniversary they had picked a new to them restaurant. I hadn’t heard much about it and since it was a dialysis day, I had 4 hours in front of me with not much to do. So I pulled out my trusty tablet, connected to the free guest WiFi, and did some research. Regardless of the source, I found consistency in the reviews. The food is very good. The service is below average.

What do you do with that kind of information? Going out to dinner is more than just eating. At a fine dining restaurant that goes without saying but what about at a local, family owned eatery. Good food coupled with a good wait staff gets added to the permanent dining rotation. Bad food brought by disinterested servers is equally a no-brainer; there is no reason to ever go back. Pleasant efficient wait people serving bad food is a little challenging. You don’t ever go back and spend money on disappointing food but you should slip the name of a good restaurant to the waitress in hope of a career upgrade.

But the good food/bad service establishment can be problematic. It’s hard to argue with good food. On the other hand, with a little planning and some care and attention, you can make your own good food in your own good kitchen. And as I already noted, going out to dinner is more than just going for the food. Service is called service because you expect to be served. And you want to be served well. You can’t separate the food and the delivery.

YogurtIf the server and the cooker are related you absolutely take the establishment off your future consideration list. Otherwise the decision is difficult. As much as you want the tasty morsels you can’t subject yourself to bad behavior to get them. Maybe you give them one more chance and see if the owner saw the errors in his or her earlier hiring practices and has upgraded the front of the house staff. On the other hand, if a subsequent visit reveals the same poor presentation, well that’s a combination that just has to go.

Just like chocolate yogurt.

 

Now I’m Just Milking It

Michael 11 Comments

I think it’s happened. I have finally gotten so old that I don’t understand what’s happening. Not that I don’t think I understand or I misunderstand. I don’t understand what’s happening.

With milk.

BananaMilkdI was going over this week’s grocery store ads (you know, those things that come in the mail) (yes, that mail) (yes, in email too if you want) (or on line) and saw that this week’s sales include banana milk. What do people have against cows?

I know many people have dairy allergies and need a cow’s milk alternative. That’s why we have soy milk although I don’t understand how they fit the little stool and bucket under a soy bean. But that’s a different kind of not understanding, not the big not understanding what’s happening of understandings.

Then somebody decided soy milk wasn’t any better for people than cow’s milk so they had to invent new milks. (Just to mention another thing in the long list of things that I don’t understand is how the soy in soy milk isn’t good for us but the soy in tofu is still ok.) So now we have almond milk, cashew milk, flax milk, quinoa milk, hemp milk, oat milk, rice milk, coconut milk, and pea protein milk. And now banana milk. All with nothing in common with dairy milk (and soy milk) except they are sort of white but without all the pesky allergens. And most of the nutrients. Then we add to each one its proponents. Check that. Each one’s fanatics.

Why is it that food attracts so much controversy? There always seems to be as much debate with food extremists as with partisan politics zealots. And sometimes not even as much fun. We have vegans, gluten freers (who are not celiacs), paleo dieters, juicers and cleansers, and now milkers. But not the kind with stools and buckets. Each trying to convince anybody not in said camp why theirs is the one way, the right way, the only way. Next you’ll be seeing them soliciting in airports handing out banana peels in exchange for your loose change.

Well, while all those others are trying to fit their stools and buckets under their nuts and peas and bananas I’m going to have a nice big glass of old fashioned milk milk. With a cookie. Baked. If that’s not too old fashioned.

Cow

Moo.

Happy Hot Sauce Day

Michael 8 Comments

Happy Hot Sauce Day! 😲 I’m not sure if that really should be capitalized but it sounds official enough so why not. I’ve looked into it but have not been able to determine the origin of Hot Sauce Day but I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s relatively new and was dreamed up by a marketing company. I’m guessing it’s fairly new because when I was growing up there weren’t many hot sauces out there so there wouldn’t have been a need for a “day” and it probably would have been called chili pepper sauce day not hot sauce day. And I’m guessing it was the brain child of a marketing group because I’m not stupid.

Hot Sauce Day is a particularly significant day for me this year. I am finally getting some appetite back having been set back by pneumonia now going into its third week. But just because I want to eat doesn’t mean I can taste much of what I eat. Thus the addition of strong flavors to my foods. It’s amazing what a splash or two of Tabasco will do to scrambled eggs.

HotSauceTabasco is one of two hot sauces I keep in my pantry. The other is Frank’s. I don’t get any remuneration from either but if one, the other, or both would like to make an offer, I’m all taste buds.

Frank’s is the hot sauce most often associated with Buffalo wings although it serves a more subtle use in my kitchen. Anything made with ground beef, chicken, or turkey, such as meatloaf gets a few splashes of Frank’s. So too do most sauces and braising liquids. Tabasco, being lighter and more acidic is added to most dressings and marinades.

So today being Hot Sauce Day in one way isn’t such a big thing for me. Almost every day is Hot Sauce Day to me. On the other hand it’s a really big deal because instead of the controlled restraint I usually use on my hot sauce, today and for a few more I’ll be pouring it on like the typical macho bar fly uses his hot sauce. As a weapon against his taste buds.

Fortunately my taste buds are just as incapacitated as the rest of me and can stand a little extra jolt. Hmm. Jolt? No, that would be November 19, Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day. I wouldn’t make that up.

 

Why We Eat

Michael 8 Comments

It’s the time of year that posts are flying all over the Internet with main dish recipes and cookie recipes and appetizers that don’t require cooking recipes and make ahead dessert recipes and the world’s best ever side dishes recipes. I gain weight every day just opening my tablet.

Seriously, I am gaining weight every day. I know because I weigh myself every day. There might be a little vanity in there. After years of avoiding scales because my weight was approaching numbers usually reserved for poor credit scores it’s refreshing to step on a scale and see a number more closely associated with IQ test scores. (Not my IQ but I’m ok with that. The world needs average people too.) Anyway, I get on the scale every morning and I see a number just a little higher than the day before. Over the last week I’d say a couple of pounds higher.* And I know why.

It’s not because of all the cookie pictures Facebook. Although they certainly aren’t helping. I would go through this unexplained weight gain when I was working, specifically anytime I was about to go out on a business trip.

Regular readers with good memories and occasional readers who visited just the right posts know that back in a different day when I was working I worked for a national health care company. An extra duty as assigned was visiting other facilities to do operational reviews. Unlike McDonald’s or Wendy’s which have the same food from coast to coast, our hospitals did not share that familiarity. There were some pretty bad cafeterias in those places. So I think subconsciously when I knew I was going away I’d eat a lot. Why ever it was, I knew that whenever I was going somewhere I was going at least two pounds heavier than the week before.

So, if we are to believe that a) there are no coincidences, b) the past is a harbinger of the future, and c) I historically always use three examples, I am gaining that weight for a reason and it has nothing to do with water weight gain and/or Christmas cookies in the kitchen. I’m going on a trip! Now since I haven’t planned anything on my own and since neither my bank balance nor my credit score is sufficient to finance a trip much farther than 12 to 15 miles down the road**, somebody is giving me a vacation for Christmas!***

Boy I hope it’s somewhere where sun block is recommended.

*For those of you of the metric persuasion that “couple of pounds” would be about a kilogram if you subscribe that a pound is 2.2kg or 1kg=0.454lb. I used to know why the abbreviation for pound is “lb.” but I don’t remember right now and it’s not all that important anyway. Probably more important is if you are somewhere that requires me clarifying the relationship between pounds and kilograms, do you also require clarification of the American credit score (or debt score as some would insist)? If you do, well, there is no reasonable explanation but the lowest FICO score possible is 300. In the VantageScore system the lowest score is 501. See. No sense at all. Just like the lowest SAT score is 400 but the lowest PSAT is 320. Oh. What’s SAT? This is going to take another post. My weight approached the lowest FICO score, not the VantageScore.

**19 to 24 kilometers (We really need to universalize weights and measures.)

***Holiday (We really need to universalize English too.)

One Tough Cookie

Michael 11 Comments

Today is National Cookie Day! Those of you outside the United States please feel free to celebrate also. I am almost certain that there is nothing so subversive about cookies that would undermine any world government.

I became aware of today’s designation when I read an article in the paper last week reporting that Cinnabon selected today to release its new cookie/cinnamon bun hybrid specifically because it is National Cookie Day. Since they have outlets in about 40 other countries they must not think cookies pose a threat of international destabilization either.

Although the thought of a cinnamon bun wrapped inside a cookie (or the other way even) is intriguing (and mouthwatering to boot), it was the day designation that made me go “hmmm” when I read that piece. I could have sworn we already had a cookie day this year. A check of my official “let’s celebrate anything we can to make a buck” calendar indeed revealed December 4 as Nation Cookie Day! (exclamation added) Is there nothing we won’t celebrate? (Tolerance of opposing political views excluded.)

Already this month, if you haven’t been paying attention, you have missed Red Apple Day (Dec. 1), National Fritters Day (12/2), and Roof Over Your Head Day (yesterday). Don’t be caught tomorrow in black moccasins because Tuesday is Brown Shoe Day. Not surprisingly every day has something associated with it. Thirty six occasions (you read that right) are special interest supported days designed primarily to get you to buy something. Apparently just about anything from the aforementioned Fritters to Bicarbonate of Soda. (That comes on December 30.) (You would have thought that would have been the Friday after Thanksgiving.) (Or January 2.) (But Dec. 30? Who’s pigging out on Christmas ham for 5 days?) (I probably overuse parentheses, don’t I?)

So, if you are reading this in Morocco and want a cookie today, feel free to stop at your local Cinnabon and try out their new Frankencookie. I am almost certain you’ll be able to find one debuting there also. But if you’re concerned about inciting a riot by serving bouillabaisse on the 14th of this month because it is an American “holiday” (even though you have a better claim on it that we do), feel free to serve a tuna salad sandwich. We’ll understand. (Probably.)

CookieGuide

Butter Me Up

Michael 9 Comments

While going though yesterday’s emails I skimmed past the one “What’s in Movie Theatre Popcorn Butter,” stopped, went back, and clicked. First, DON’T click on that if you like movie theater popcorn butter. And second, this post has nothing to do with movies, theaters, or popcorn. But that does leave butter. (Which apparently is more than you can say about movie theater popcorn butter.) (Ooops.)

Christmas is coming and shortly we’ll start seeing the television commercials they only trot out at holidays. Among these are the commercials for fragrances. You would think the only time anybody bought perfume for their feminine others is at Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day. Come to think of it, you’d probably be right. Equally right would be the only time anybody buys colognes for dads is at Christmas and Father’s Day. (I’m specifying dads here because other than dads and granddads, the chance of having a male fragrance bought for any male without guilt ridden children with no idea what to get him is basically nonexistent even at these times of year.)

Something that has changed in the last few years is that men’s fragrances now don’t stop at what one splashes on one’s face. Today the fragrance world also includes men’s favorites for room freshening.

Leather, cedar, barbecue, and bacon scented air fresheners will also be heavily advertised in print, on line, and on air next month. These are the smells men like. One fragrancier boasts air fresheners named “Hunting Lodge,” “Distillery,” and “European Sports Car.” A major chain ‘mart’ has pizza scented freshener hanging next to the dangly pine trees. You can buy candles scented as gunpowder and pipe tobacco. Turkey leg and corn dog car scents threaten to replace “new car” and “ocean breeze” for on the road freshairness.

Hot dogs and pizza, even bourbon and tobacco are good smells. Nobody can argue against the ability of the smell of bacon crisping on the stove to stimulate the salivary glands. But do you want to smell that all day. Ok, maybe you do, but I don’t. I don’t want to smell bacon or bourbon, pizza or pipes, or heather or hotdogs everywhere I go. At the same time, even though I enjoy hanging out with my sensitive side, I don’t want lavender and chamomile following me around all day either. So what do I want my living room to be to my nose? Where can in turn for some smelly inspiration?

I spent almost 40 years working in hospitals, nursing homes, and colleges. All have their own unique … um … smells yet they’re all the same. Whether outside a patient room, a dorm room, or the C-Suite conference room, there will be a mix of bad coffee, sweat, fear, and a bodily function gone wrong. No, not there.

I love to be outside. In the summer I don’t really need a house. I’ll be at the pool, on the patio or on the road. In the winter I am very happy walking through snowflakes falling from the sky on a crisp morning. In between those seasons it can be rainy and windy and ugly but it’s also the best times to put the top down and test the limits of lateral suspension cruising down a country road speeding by the new colors of spring or the waning colors of fall. The sights of the seasons may be remarkable but the olfactory memories are of chlorine, charcoal, gasoline, road salt, and abused tires and clutches. Pass.

My personal favorite scents come from the kitchen. Starting with breakfast and sizzling sausage and brewing coffee. Ripe apples cut into super thin slices stirred into yogurt dusted with fresh grated nutmeg at lunch. Dinner with fresh lemon juice and balsamic dancing in the ripping hot pan around a perfectly cooked salmon. Now here are some a-list aromas. But no. They are special. They belong in the kitchen and the dining room. Not hung from the rear view mirror.

ButterSo what manly smell would I want hanging around me all day? Remember that movie theater popcorn butter that started this meandering missive? Yeah, that one. No, not that. But it’s close. It’s butter. Real butter, but the real butter melted in a hot pan when it just hits that perfect spot after the water has sizzled out of it but the browning hasn’t started and it gives off that unexpected nuttiness that lasts just a handful of seconds. That butter.

Take that scent and put it in a candle, hang it from a mirror, or spray it all around. Heck, do all three. Even the manliest of men will stop and sniff the air and know this is the way the world is supposed to smell.

And if that doesn’t work, well there’s always the popcorn.

A Fish Tale

Michael 6 Comments

Yesterday I had a sandwich for lunch. You know, I started a post a couple of weeks ago almost just like that. Well, I like sandwiches. Hmm. I started a post a couple of years ago almost just like that. Now that I think about it, I’ve probably started a post about sandwiches every couple of months. Anyway, the one a couple of years was mostly about sandwiches in general and how generally universal they are. And universally general while we’re at it. The one from a couple of weeks ago was about a specific sandwich, the grilled cheese. I mentioned in that one that I hadn’t had many grilled cheese sandwiches growing up but I never said what I had growing up, sandwichly speaking. I thought of them yesterday while I was sandwiching.

To make a short story long, yesterday I had a sardine sandwich. Go ahead. Sardines often generate that kind of response. It’s ok, we’re used to it. I happen to like sardines. More often than not, I’ll have fresh sardines that I’ve roasted and served with a light pasta. But every now and then I’ll grab a tin of sardines in olive oil or mustard and plunk them on a hearty rye bread. Yum.

But how does one who didn’t grow up in Sardinia grow up to enjoy sardines. Thanks to Napoleon (you know, that Bonaparte fellow, yeah, that one), and my father. Napoleon got things going by having them canned for the first time. My father got me going on them by sharing his sandwiches with me. To clarify, the fish Napoleon had stuffed into glass jars were probably real sardines and more closely related to the fresh variety that I have for dinner. The sardines that my father ate were probably a variety of herring which seems to be the sardine standard (or standard bearer) in North America.

So yesterday, when I had that sardine sandwich, it got me thinking of those sandwiches that I had as a sandwich impressionable youth. Sardines weren’t the only sandwiches I had that weren’t grilled cheese. While others might have been developing their sandwich palettes on grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and ham and cheese, I was growing up on sardines, roast chicken on whole wheat, and fried pepper sandwiches.

I see your confused faces. You understand chicken; you accept that some people eat sardines between slices of bread. But peppers? Aren’t peppers a condiment to add to something else. Not always. On Fridays, a meatless day in our household, my father would fry thick slices of large green and red bell peppers, yellow and green mild banana peppers, and yellow hot banana peppers in olive oil and slap these on any hearty bread (rye, wheat, Italian). Oh, that mix of heat and the bread oozing flavored oil. Italian yum!

I’m sorry but that’s going to have to be it for food posts for a while. Every time I write something like this I get hungry and go eat again. I’ve gain 4 pounds this month and we still have Halloween coming! Now I have to go to the store and get some banana peppers.