It was a long, fun weekend of road tripping to Iowa to see my Spartans play good ball. My lovely friend decided to treat us, her ‘foodie’ friends, to some of Iowa City’s signature eateries. Alan & I committed to total carb overload – sigh. It would NOT be a dining experience at Atlas without 1) Baked macaroni topped with this marinated tomato delicious-ness…and 2) a buffalo chicken burrito. This was no ordinary buffalo chicken burrito, folks. It was filled with mashed potatoes, carrots, celery, and crunchy onion straws. UN REAL. The following day after tailgate, we dined at Quinton’s. You can pretty much call this place the home of soup bread bowls. What a lovely way to warm up after a fall football game. Did I mention the intense tailgates, filled with traditional Iowa dishes!? I didn’t catch all of the names – too much captains and coke, perhaps? Opps. I think every tailgate had a batch of scotcharoos – essentially a rice crispy treat, made with peanut butter and topped with a huge layer of chocolate. And some kind of pickle pinwheel, rolled in smoked meat. Come on, people…ICIA killed my waistline.
So after my long, fun weekend of….non-stop eating in Iowa, I came home to do my normal refrigerator ‘clean out.’ I find that sometimes we have lingering items, that either need to get used or get tossed. So, I embarked on a 2 hour cooking spree…ya know, while all the goodies from ICIA digested.
· Quiche. I am huge advocate that you can put just about anything you like in a quiche and it will taste good. Not to mention this is a easy re-heat weekday breakfast. So, I chopped up our remaining fresh herbs (sage, thyme, and rosemary), 1 pre-cooked chicken sausage, piqullo peppers, finely sliced golden beets, and then my ‘usual’ quiche egg mixture. And it tasted great as I was munching at my desk this morning.
· Asian Slaw. This is a staple in our house, mainly because we have mastered the vinaigrette – vegetable oil, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt. I shredded ½ head of cabbage, 1 carrot, a few chives. Gingered some golden beets. Combine with the dressing, add sesame seeds.
· Roasted Buttercup Squash. I received this in my farmer’s CSA box 2 weeks ago, but haven’t touched it. Guilty…didn’t know what to do with it. Decided to slice off the top, scoop out the seeds, and roast for a little over an hour. It turned out delicious…sweet, weirdly savory. I removed the rind, mashed with a fork, and stored in the fridge for dinner tonight.
· Meatballs. Still attempting to create the best meatball recipe ever. Found this one in Real Simple to use as inspiration - http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/spaghetti-bacon-meatballs-00100000068418/index.html The bacon was a nice touch. I think I’ll incorporate it in the future. And is there anything other than Spaghetti and Marinara that pairs better with Meatballs? No. So we whipped that up for dinner. I mean after my carb binge in Iowa, I figured, why stop now?
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