YYYYUUUUMMMM!!!!

This is Mac & Cheese week in Montreal, Quebec and Toronto!

Of course they want us to celebrate mac & cheese and to fork up $20 for a plate!

Me? I decided to cook some homemade mac with the addition of Portuguese smoked bacon....

In Pyrex of course!

This recipe is definitely a keeper (I have to write it down!) 

Twitter Beware

I read my twitter feed a couple of times a day to keep up to date, read witty tweets and get new recipes.

On Sunday afternoon I spotted this recipe .

Avocado, eggs and bacon .

I said to Dan, I need to try this for breakfast tomorrow!!! It looks delicious...avocado good, cheese good, egg good, bacon good.

Since the recipe called for cooked bacon, i fried up some bacon and pulled out an avocado from the fridge.

Yesterday morning, I pre-heated the oven and started wrestling with the avocados. The recipes asks us to put the avocado halves on top of a muffin tin otherwise the eggs will spill...

Well GOOD LUCK with that! I tried and next thing I know the hole I made is not big enough and the white spilled on the counter and in the muffin tin....Finally I balanced the halves on milk glass cups in tin foil plates.

I was really excited to try this, the cheese was golden, the bacon looked crunchy....

And then I took a spoonful and scooped out some and ate it.

OMG WHAT THE HECK IS THAT??? IT TASTES OF DIRT!!!

I couldn't believe what was happening...the warm avocado tastes like crap...okay dirt

It was a bit better with cheese and bacon but a total fail overall.

Don't people test recipes anymore?

And to think of all those people who loved it on Twitter and Pinterest!

Sorry but from now on no warm avocado for me

(Just the thought of it makes me gag...)

Bacontastic lattice of goodness

Sunday, after watching 2 back to back episodes of Feed the Beast I was inspired to try something new.

I decide to wrap a deboned turkey breast in a latttice of sweet bacon and grill it.

                                Ok the bacon lattice is not perfect....lol

                                I placed the turkey breast on top with some Pixie Dust and Chick Magnet

                                 Wrapped everything up and tied it with bucher's twine (you don't want stuff to    fall away)

                                            Here's the finished product! Delicious!

                                            Now about the Pixie Dust and the Chick Magnet, these rubs are made in Maine by Denny Mikes . When ever I go, I make sure to stock up and so should you!

Well gotta go the morning comes fast....Sleep tight!

Retro Tuesday: Diet Recipes

Today's Retro Tuesday is brought to you by Family Circle March 1962. It seems excess weight has always been on women's mind and the magazines don't help!

Here we go, just in time for bathing suit season....

The Bargain Feast

Imagine spaghetti topped with a tomato rich sauce on your diet plate! It's true. And your dinner includes this colorful fruit compote invitingly big enough to double as salad and dessert (canned fruit in a bowl). Here's your portion: 11/4 cups or spaghetti with 3/4 cup savory sauce, meaty with low-calorie, high protein scallops (yes you read that right! scallops)-plus a sprinkling of grated cheese. Just see how generous it'll look on your plate, how teasing to your eye. Whole dinner: 460 calories

(I ain't putting brown spaghetti in my mouth,,,no way)

 

Meatloaf Hearty

Who'd ever guess that this bountiful meal was meant for waistline watchers? Each hefty serving of meat loaf counts as 2 slices- and what a bright new flavor team veal,cottage cheese and carrots make (yeah blah!). Salad is a whole tomato dressed with a tart dill-seasoned marinade. To rund out your dinner, you MAY (thanks for giving permission) have a full cup of steamed spinach, a raw vegetable nibble and a rich chocolaty dessert- yes complete with whipped cream..

Whole dinner: 350 calories (ok now I'm totally sceptic about that one...) This pic is definitely my favorite thanks to the lonely and surely peeled tomato all alone in her little dish and the horrid looking pudding, I crack up everytime I see them. 

Good for you Tempter

Chubbies and skinnies alike will polish off this gourmet liver-and-onion diner, with its coconut-capped custard (not pictured) for a sweet finish. Here the liver is cooked a new way-browned quickly , then simmered in a nippy french-dressing sauce. Serve along with 2 new potatoes and creamed peas and a small salad of watercress.

Whole dinner: 407 calories

I can't get over that they're using the terms chubbies and skinnies. That is so bad for our fragile self image.In the early versions of Weight Watchers you had to eat liver once a week (EEEEEWWWW). I can't stand the taste nor the texture so I guess I'll stick to the meatloaf!

All that talk of diet food just makes me want to eat this....

   

A whole pound of bacon! Salty,fat,smoky...DELICIOUS!

But wait! Even the bacon ads are sexists in 1962! Read the text: It's every man for himself when bacon snitchers get near the brown sugar cured flavor of Swift's Premium Bacon.

Well guys you better watch out because when I get a bacon craving I GET A BACON CRAVING and it ain't pretty. I'm the baconitor!!!

Be sure to visit Crazy Suburban Mom for more Retro Tuesday fun!

Retro,kitschy appetizer supper

So we celebrated Xmas on the 24th with an appetizer supper....It had been a kitschy fantasy of mine for quite a while now. I love the idea of having little bites of this and that and I didn't feel like cooking a turkey! I will probably cook the turkey for new year....turkey....YUM!

Ok now for the appetizer supper! Clockwise from left: Salad buns stuffed with meat (ti-pains fourrés a la vinade), green salad with homemade catalina dressing,asian green beans, smoked salmon, cold cuts plate, cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon, an assortement of crackers, herbed cream cheese and pot stickers.

The big hits were the pot stickers and the bacon wrapped sausages. They went in a blink of the eye! They might not have been all vintage recipes, but I had the please everybody and some vintage recipes can be scary,jell-o mold anyone?

The real vintage recipes were the bacon wrapped sausages and the salad buns stuffed with ground meat. The salad buns are a real hit here and I have a suspicious it's a Campbell recipe because you need a can of Chicken Gumbo. But alas I have looked for it in the Campbell web site and nothing. I nearly made Cheese Dreams from Kraft (another vintage gem) but decided against it. Cheese Dreams id made by taking hamburger buns splitting them, spreading them with Cheezwiz and adding half a slice of bacon on top and broiling it 5 minutes. It might make tis next year but with baguette slices instead of half a hamburger bun. Next moring I noticed that I had extra cocktail sausages (which were dangerously close to their expiration date so I took out the bacon and wrapped another batch....We had those for breakfast! LOL

See you tomorrow for Retro Tuesday! Bye

Happy New Year!!!

I wish everybody a truly wonderful New Year full of possibilities (aren't possibilities the best?), tons of thrifting finds and JOY (laughter is a must) and let's not forget Health (where would we be without it).

I love the idea that we have a new year to explore!

2008 was certainly an interesting year (to say the least!!!).
I got canned, I did most of my TO DO list, really I mean REALLY enjoyed the company of my cats, started a blog, became an ebay seller (when people actually pay for the stuff...LOL), opened my little boutique on Etsy, went crazy in the Pyrex collecting and started to really appreciate who I am. Aaaaaah! The wonderfulness of me! I found out in 2008 that I was much better and talented then I thought and certainly more creative.....I can't wait to discover what 2009 has in store for me!

The picture is of Hoppin' John, a traditionnal New Year's day dish that is supposed to bring you money....I made a big batch....LOL, it's delicious...Rice and black eyed peas, tomatoes and bacon (What's not to like! lol) I saw it on Paula Deen's show, thought it was a good idea and found one on the web...I do add some chicken stock, parsley and tons of green onions. Delicious!

Later my friends!