What You Should Have Eaten #8

Eggs-traordinary Stuffed Toasty Baskets with Lemony Greens

Damn me and my curiosity, my I’ll-try-anything-once attitude. Having never had it before, I made the mistake of giving the anisette a quick sniff before adding to the mixing glass. Licorice. I hate licorice. With a passion. I don’t think I’m going to like this drink at all. I may be breaking open a Sam Adams Light to wash this down with.

Well, that wasn’t NEAR as bad as I thought it would be. There’s absolutely no bite to the drink, and the anisette is very muted. If anything, I think I’m mostly getting Benedictine. Still, nothing I’d ever choose to have again, but I now know I can drink it if ever I was forced to.

My family’s menu for every Monday thru Friday never changes. Well, the meals don’t, but the days we have them on might, depending on how late we’re running. But one of those dinners is always breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. It looks like tonight’s dinner is going to be a variation on that theme, so I hope the kiddos end up liking it, despite the different appearance and the addition of tomatoes and garlic.

I’m making two versions of fruit salad: a family-friendly version and a more grown-up version. Same types of fruit, but the grown-up version will also have a dash of Malibu coconut rum and some triple sec. Mmm, tasty.

I’m using our regular sandwich bread rather than the soft white that the recipe calls for. I’m not going to buy an entire loaf just for six slices. Plus, the wheat gives this the slight illusion of being somewhat healthy.

I’m also not making a mixed green salad. Bagged salad all the way if I’m going to get these kiddos to eat some leafy greens. And while I’m still going to make the lemony dressing and use it myself, they’ll be having a bit of ranch on their iceberg lettuce and shaved carrots.

I’m looking forward to finally preparing a recipe that doesn’t call for anything to be cooked in a skillet on the stove. I get grease splatters everywhere!

I’m slicing up the fruit and mixing it all up first and letting it sit in the fridge to get nice and cool before dinner. It’ll also help the grown-up version marinate a bit.

I’m using jazz apples in the salad. I’ve never had them before, but they were on sale, and I didn’t want to use a regular red or golden delicious, and I don’t like Granny Smith. I tried one as I was chopping them up, and they’re very sweet. I like them. Other fruits I’m using are: seedless red grapes, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, dianjou pears, and Neil Patrick Harris. Hey-OOOOO!!!!

I’m getting extremely camera lazy lately. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the finished drink and the fruit salad. My bad.

Since we eat bacon at least once a week, we’re a turkey bacon household. I love love love regular bacon, or hickory smoked bacon, or applewood smoked bacon, or maple bacon…I love bacon. But yeah, it’s not terribly healthy. Since we already had some turkey bacon in the house, that’s what I’m cooking with.

Now, I usually like to pretend that I’m at least slightly modest, but not right now. Damn, that was good. Everything was good. The egg cup thingies were surprisingly good. I used to make something similar for breakfast that I found either in a Weight Watchers or South Beach cookbook, but this blows that out of the water. And the adult fruit salad was spectacular. I’ve made it before where the alcohol really overpowers the fruit, but this had a great balance.

The kids tried the egg stuff, but they didn’t go for it. The gobbled down the fruit salad (not the adult version) and regular salad, though, so I was still pleased. I’m looking forward to a good week of leftovers for lunch.