Monday, April 03, 2006

I survived a teenage slumber party!


The good thing about it is that we finally cleared out the family room. I'll try to post some pics in a few days. There were 9 teenaged girls, but most of them could not sleep over. Before we served the pizza, they all sat around in the family room and, after deciding not to play Mystery at Hogwarts - it was a Harry Potter themed party - they sucked helium out of the 30 balloons and entertained each other with their funny voices. DH thought they should be playing a game, so they could all interact, not just the more verbal ones who tend to take over. I have a good game that I could have led them in, but I was icing a cake and baking pizzas. The cake turned out yummy - chocolate with mint frosting. I wrote Happy 16th Caitlin in green frosting, put 16 candles on the cake, and lit them. When the kids saw the cake, naturally they sang Happy Birthday. The pizza turned out yummy too. My secret is to add extra cheese to the Weis market self rising crust pizzas. They always taste like take out pizza. The only problem with baking pizzas is that it heats up the kitchen! I wanted some pizza after the girls had settled down in front of the TV to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and so did DH, so I broke a piece off a frozen pizza and baked it in my George Foreman roaster. It has a small baking pan that can be put on top of the regular roasting area to bake cakes, etc. It turned out good. I know this little roaster will come in handy when we are camping. It doesn't take up much space and it has a grease pan to catch the grease. I like to cook a small chicken in it. It's better than a rotisserie because you don't have to tie the chicken up in string, just sit the chicken in the pan and turn it on.

After the party was over and the 2 sleepover girls left, DH took me out to lunch at this new restaurant in our neighborhood called The Cajun Crab. It is right around the corner from our house. We each had the cream of crab, which had a lot of crab meat and was spicy. I would have preferred less spice, but I still enjoyed it. I ordered the crab cake sandwich with red beans and rice, and fresh green beans on the side. The crab cake was delicious, and I was so happy to find one that was full of meat, no filler, and was so tasty. It was not overly spiced, but the red beans were too spicy for my liking. The waitress overheard me complaining about it and brought me some cole slaw. The slaw was nice. DH ordered the caesar salad with cajun shrimp on it. He said he would have been happier if he had ordered the crab cake. The waitress was quite attentive to our needs, so I gave her better than 20 percent tip. We will probably go back for our anniversary in June for a crab cake dinner.

Can you tell I like to eat out?

Saturday, April 01, 2006

High Fructose Corn Syrup in my Tomato Soup

The other day a doctor on PBS was talking about high fructose corn syrup (and hydrogenated oils or trans fats) being the reason there is an epidemic of obesity in our country, so I started paying more attention to food labels. Since then I have discovered that the Campbell's tomato soup I like so much has HFCS, and it's the first ingredient in my favorite salad dressing and my favorite barbeque sauce. I have tossed out the salad dressing and the bbq sauce, but I had stocked up on the tomato soup while shopping at Sam's club a few weeks ago.

I also felt inclined to throw out a bottle of pickle relish and noticed HFCS in my pickled beets and applesauce.

I am left wondering - who thought of putting something so sweet in soup? If you were making soup from fresh tomatoes, I don't think you would grab a bottle of karo syrup and pour it in.

Also from Campbell's - chicken noodle soup with monosodium glutamate.

Soup, anyone?

I have about 20 cans of tomato soup and at least 13 cans of Chicken noodle, and 8 cans of Swanson's chicken broth that has MSG in it. I guess I'll be donating to the soup kitchen around here.