Good Eats At Rocco Vino’s

Way back in January, before we managed to hit “PEAK STUPID” every day with the China Wuhan Virus , we had an “out of towner” that we had to entertain for a few days and the good  best part of that was we got to expense a pretty good dinner.

Rocco Vino’s

There were six off us and we ordered three appetizers:

Bruschetta, Calamari, Toasted Ravioli.

All very good !!

For my main course, it was a coin toss between the Linguine & Clams or the Zuppa.

I went with the Zuppa.

Zuppa di Pesce….$26
“Scallops, calamari, shrimp, octopus, mussels &
clams with linguine in a tomato herb sauce”

Man, that was really good !!!

When I ordered it, the waitress asked if I wanted it with “red sauce or white sauce” and as soon as she finished saying that she said, “Honey, nobody orders the white sauce.”

Hmmmm, I really thought about the white sauce, which would have been interesting if it were an Alfredo, but not sure if I would want it if it were a white wine sauce.  So I got the red.

I had a dish very similar to the above before.  Similar but not the same:

Acquaviva Winery

I remember the Zupp di Mare was really good but it was so long ago that I wouldn’t be able to say which dinner was better.

Using search engines on the intertubes, I can’t find any difference between Zuppa di Mare and Zuppa di Pesce.  It might just be a personal or regional difference.

Chinese Food Porn

I have been doing “fairly well” with watching my caloric intake and had not been to a Chinese buffet in quite some time.

Below is “Plate # 1”

I usually judge the quality of a Chinese buffet by their egg drop soup and their crab rangoons.

This was a new place for use to go to and they scored an “A” for the soup and rangoons.

Toaster Bacon?

Making bacon in the toaster?

Yep, it was tried in the mid 1960’s.

Just drop the foil package with precooked bacon into the toaster and just 60-90 seconds later, hot bacon.

I can think of at least two possible problems with this idea:

1.     Obliviously any grease leaking out is a fire hazard.
2.      There are several way of opening the package that I could easily see someone         carelessly spraying hot grease around.

The approved way to cook bacon:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hardware

Had the occasion to take the wife out for her 50th birthday and we went to a “new” restaurant in our area.  I say new because we haven’t been there.  I think the place has been open for a couple of years.

Hardware:

I of course started my dinner off with a beer flight.  4 different 4oz beers for $10. Surprisingly the Black IPA was my favorite.

 

The wife ordered Poutine for an appetizer.  Everything with a fried egg on it is good.

One of the drinks of the night was the Mojito.  The wife got one and instead of rum, it was made with whiskey

 

 

Several good items on the menu that I wanted to try but I went with the “Sticky Chicken.”  Fried thighs with a whiskey based glaze.  This was really,really good !!!

 

The wife ordered the “Pork Belly Korean Fried Rice.”  Again, with a fried egg on it, how could it not be good??

Food Review

I had the occasion to stop at a McDonald’s on the way home one day and thought I would try one of their new items:

Well, the item is called “Jalapeno Double”.  I was presuming that the double meant “double beef.  I don’t recall tasting any beef, I thought I was eating a jalapeno/jalapeno sandwich.  There was no shortage of “HOT” in this item.

“Clam-A-Roni”

“Clam-A-Roni”

Not to be confused with “Rice-A-Roni” (The San Francisco Treat)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice-A-Roni

or with “BeefARoni”
http://www.chefboyardee.com/products/beefaroni?gclid=CPyz2vvv4LICFelFMgodtyUAuQ

Just a few simple items.

All cooked up.

SmashBurger

A new hamburger joint opened up in my area (It’s been here about a year, but I just got around to going to it).

It’s called “Smasburger”

I like burgers.  I like burgers a lot !!

To me, a good burger is a patty and a bun.  That’s really all I need. Maybe a nice shot of horseradish mustard.

Since I was at a “specialty” type burger joint, I decided that  to properly evaluate the burger, I should order something other than just a simple burger.  I ordered the “Spicy Baja” (Pepper jack cheese, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, onion, spicy chipotle mayo and fresh jalapeños on a spicy chipotle bun)

The fries are “shoestring cut” and they are actually hard to eat because they are small.

The chipotle sauce was quite zingy but over all, there wasn’t a whole lot of taste.  I had a much better jalapeno burger at Applebees.

It was a $5.99 burger and the price was right since we had a “buy one, get one” coupon.  If I get another coupon, I might go back just to try a plain burger.

My wife and I both concur that if we are in the mood for going out for a burger, the choice still is Portillios.

We’ve been to Red Robin twice.  This is the kind of place that I think gives burgers a bad name.  Too many choices, too many “things” to pile on .  Kind of like have a salad or a side entree stacked on the burger.

A Quick Spaghetti Dinner

The wife and daughter were out for dinner with my mother and my out-of-town niece, so I was on my own for dinner.  We had already planned on having spaghetti so I went ahead with it for my self:

I come from a very non Italian family and I remember when I was a bout 12 years old, I was having dinner at a friends house and when they served the spaghetti, there was a separate dish for the pasta and the sauce !!  To me, that was something that was out of the norm !

The sauce was from a jar

The meatballs were frozen in a bag

The Parmesan was pre-shredded.

That’s why it’s a “Quick” dinner !! (Don’t think bad of me)

This was the food count for the day:

	Calories	Fat	Carb	Protein
Lean cusine Egg Roll	320	1	62	8
3/4 cup rice	240	0	54	6
1 cup Yogurt	120	0	18	10
Fruit	70	0	14	0
6 Meatballs	230	16	5	15
Sauce	160	5	24	4
Pasta	630	5	123	21
Beer	55	0	0	0
	1825	27	300	64

When I was counting out the calories making dinner, I thought that there was WAY TOO MANY and I decided not to have any toasted garlic bread. But when I totaled it up for the day, I was quite surprised (pleasantly)to see that I was still under 2000 calories for the day !!

Lunch For Week XVI

Lunch for week XV was nothing to write about, really !!

It was a 4 day work week and on Tuesday and Wednesday, I had leftover beef and mashed potatoes from Christmas dinner.

Thursday and Friday I had “Cream of Chicken Soup from a can.

But now, it’s on to week XVI !!!

I am slightly embarrassed that it is store bought, packaged food.  I am only using 3 cups of the rice to add to the dinner.

But there is a method to my madness.

At work, there is a weight loss contest/competition (for a lack of better description).  I would much rather cook my own food, but it is much easier to use packaged food that I can easily count calories, fat, carbs etc.

I learned about this weight loss event about two weeks ago.  I decided that it would be counter productive to continue going to the gym AND watching what I ate if I were going to do this.  So I stopped my normal eating habits and did not restrict/control/restrain myself when it came to foodstuffs.

I FEEL HORRIBLE !!!!!!

I can not imagine what I would feel like if I continued like that.  I did not try to overeat, but there was very little reason to stop.

That’s a funny thing about my daughter.  A few years ago were at home eating hamburgers and she (6 years old at the time) was about halfway done with her burger and she put it down on her plate and said, “I’m full” and was done eating. Over eating is not natural and has to be learned???

Because of the eating of the past two weeks, I expect to weigh in close to 250 pounds.  My goal for the 12 weeks is to lose 10%.  Yes, a lofty goal but since there is prize money involved, I have an extra incentive !!!

Lunch for Week XIV

Back to making another classic: Split Pea with Ham !!

Normally when I make my lunches for the week, I end up making enough for just four lunches, leaving me to forage on Friday.  But this week I made a double batch of the soup and not only will there be five lunches, each one will have a bit more then normal !!

And of course, the finsihed product.

The ham was on sale at the supermarket “Buy one Get one Free” and with a coupon that I had, it made this ham only about $5.00 and total for the week of lunches will be under $4.00 since there is much more soup, I won’t add any crackers.

Oh, and as a footnote, No, I did not use all of that ham in the soup.  I used only about a 1/4 of it and will slice the rest of it for fried ham and hash browns for a dinner this week.