Shamrock Shakes

Why wait another 11 months for a Shamrock shake? Make one yourself!

2 c. vanilla ice cream

1 1/4 c. milk

1/4 tsp. mint extract

8 drops green food coloring

Blend until smooth (I used my magic bullet!). If needed, stop blender and stir with spoon to help blend in ice cream.

These suckers are pretty thick! I ended up adding a tad more milk to help the blending process.

Mint extract is STRONG. Don't pour a lot in. It will knock your socks off.

I love God and Shamrock Shakes ...

... in that order.

So today is St. Patrick's Day. I'm not much of a drinker, nor am I Irish, so I don't really celebrate. However, I do *heart* McDonald's Shamrock shakes. Not only are they delicious, but they remind me of my childhood. Nothing weird or anything, but I just drank them as a kid.

So today, driving home from a friend's house, I decide to get one. McDonalds #1 - sold out. McDonalds #2 - sold out. McDonalds #3 (which I hate going to, because when you exit the place you can't turn left. You have to turn right, drive 2 miles down the road and make a U turn) - sold out. Way to go McDonalds. I can't imagine how much revenue you're losing today!

I knew at home I had a recipe for home made Shamrock Shakes. I had all the ingredients except mint extract, so I was off to Wal-mart.

As I'm slowing driving over the speed bump that's in front of the gate in my community, I hear a noise. I look up as 2 cars are plowing into each other on the highway. One car's right side was totall smashed (the wheel was turned 90 degrees) and the car in front of me was totally crunched. It was also leaking a ton of fluid. I just kept imaging cars in movies exploding on impact.

Everybody was totally ok, but I just kept thinking to myself, "I owe you one God! If I was driving even 5mph faster I might have been right in the middle of that."

Connect the DOTS ...

How to sneak food into a hockey game.

1. Wear un-tight jeans

2. Wear a giant hockey jersey

3. Enjoy candy that doesn't cost $5!

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

I'm a little behind on my blogging. Everybody always says "December is such a busy month!" Well, for me, it's honestly not, so I don't really have a good excuse.

But way back on 12/4/09, Jonathan and I went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party at the Magic Kingdom. It was raining and freezing. Needless to say, I was NOT excited about going.

Right off monorail was a "lake" we had to walk thru. I figured "what the hell!" and barreled right thru the humongous puddle assuming my feet would get soaked inside the park.

Naturally, they didn't.

Even though it rained all night long, it was a really weird rain. You really couldn't feel it.

The bonus about Mickey's VMCP is the free food. They have free sugar cookies, hot chocolate, apples and apple juice. My goal was to eat as many cookies as possible. I was forced to stop after 3. They are pretty big cookies, and my stomach was not really happy with my decision making.

To kill time before a stage show (that ended up being cancelled b/c of the rain) we road the TTA. For those of you unfamiliar with the TTA, it's a lazy shuttle ride that goes all around Tomorrowland, including inside Space Mountain.

Space Mountain has been under construction lately, but it had opened a couple days prior.

I guess it wasn't 100% ready, b/c the ride was shut down the the lights were on. It was really hard to take pictures because:

A) I'm on a moving vehicle

B) there is a huge pane of glass between you and the ride, so you can't use flash

This is the best I could do.

Ted Drewes

Ted Drewes is a St. Louis tradition. I love cheesy places like this. I guess it's been around since the Route 66 days.

Their specialty was a 'concrete', which I had no idea what it is. Eating 'concrete' does not sound very appealing to me at all. Turns out, a 'concrete' is similar to a Dairy Queen Blizzard. I guess Ted Drewes sells only vanilla custard (what's the difference between custard and ice cream anyways?). Then they mix the custard with all kinds of crazy things.

Every time I get a Blizzard of a McFlurry, I ALWAYS get Oreo. This time, I'm on vacation so I went a little nuts. I got walnuts, chocolate and caramel. It was called something … like "The Duke" or something (that wasn't it … but something royal sounding). It was delicious … but it was also MASSIVE! I really wanted to eat the entire thing, but I just couldn't do it.

I know whey they are called 'concretes'. When the server handed me my order, he was holding the cup upside down. The custard mixture didn't move! But it wasn't hard at all, it was smooth and creamy.

If you're in the St. Louis area, look up Ted Drewes!

Pumpkins!

Since I don't really like eating veggies, but I enjoy CARVING veggies, I planted some pumpkins seeds.

After 1 week they were sprouting like crazy. After 1 month, they are out of control.

Pretty soon we won't be able to walk up the sidewalk to our house because it will be a pumpkin patch. Yay!

Beans

I planted some bean seeds and 1 week later they were growing.

One month later, they are huge! If I know anything about gardening (and I don't!), I believe the yellow flowers (which you might not be able to see from the photo) will turn into beans soon. Yay!

I don't even like veggies, but growing things is fun.

Burger Queen

Check out this lovely burger joint we saw in Ketchican. The cute little Burger Queen.

Huey's

Another Memphis original is Hueys - home of the #1 burger in Memphis.

Their "thing" is shooting toothpicks (you know, the toothpick with the little tassels on them that come in a huge burger?) into the ceiling.

I guess every year they take them down and donate $1 per toothpick to charity - or something like that.

Since I ordered soup (I was a little car sick), I didn't get a toothpick. Jonathan and Bailey (his 2nd cousin) both made valid (and hilarious!!!) attempts at hitting the ceiling, but to no avail.

Captain David (Jonathan's Army brother) shot about 5 into the ceiling. He was an all-star!

I met little Remy!

Jonathan and I ate at Chefs de France (in Epcot) today for one reason and one reason only ... to meet little animatronic Remy!

Look how cute he is!

The Rendezvous

I really have a hard time spelling the word "Rendezvous".

Every since I met Jonathan, he's been talking about this ribs place in Memphis called the Rendezvous. In fact, his entire family always talked about it. I guess their great uncle used to have some connections, so even though there would be a 3 hour line to get in (seriously - who wants 3 hours to eat?!?), there would always be room for Jonathan's family.

As you can see from the photos, this place is in an ally. And not a "ally made to look nice because there is a restaurant there", it's just a dirty old ally.

It was a really cool place inside. It had junk all over the wall - I think it was all the owners collectables. There were photos of past presidents who had dined there, including senator (at the time) Obama.

Since *gasp*, I'm not a huge fan of ribs, I ordered a pulled pork sandwich. It was delicious!!!!

So if you're ever in Memphis and want to eat at a "classic Memphis establishment", find the Peabody hotel, then walk down the ally directly in front of it. Also, get there before 5pm (like we did), otherwise, be prepared to wait it out.

YouTube Tuesdays

For those of you too young to remember, wearing Michael Jackson was REALLY cool in the '80s.  I might have worn 1 white glove from time to time ... and the Thriller video scared me to death when I was in 2nd grade.

Enjoy some moonwalking and some Pepsi.

YouTube Tuesdays

Jonathan calls this the "Amber" commercial, b/c he thinks I'm angry enough to actually do this.  I don't think so, not for a burger anyways!  ;0)

Restaurant Review: Trails End

Over the weekend Jonathan and I dined at Trails End.  Jonathan just LOVES this place.

Normally I'm not a fan of Disney buffets.  I just can't stand spending $30+ on one meal.  There is no way I'm eating $30 worth of food.  (Side note - our weekly grocery bill for 2 is only about $40-50).  Plus, every time I leave a buffet I feel totally sick.  One time, I ate at Tusker House (at Animal Kingdom), and I litterally didn't eat a full meal for 36 hours later.  I think I'm turning into a snake in my old ate.

Back to Trails End ... it's only $19/person to eat there, so I can almost stomach paying that price.  Plus the food is really good.  Jonathan ate 4 pieces of fried chicken.  They also have ribs, buffalo sausage, salad, mashed potatos, mac 'n cheese, some guy cutting some sort of fancy meat (that neither of us had) and desserts!

Magical, magical desserts!  They added something new - an ice cream sundae (sp?) station!!!  They had soft serve ice cream and tons of available toppings - including Gummy Bears!  I'm a huge 'gummy' fan.  I had a delicious cookie/ice cream sandwich for dessert.

Good times.

The Varsity!

No trip to Atlanta would be complete with out a trip to the Varsity.  They recently celebrated their 80th anniversary.

It's just a bunch of greasy food, but it's an Atlanta classic.  I had a chili cheeseburger and a peach pie.

The Varsity's catch phrase is "what'll ya have!".  Basically when you walk in the door, there is a mile long counter with tons of cash registers.  The workers just yell "what'll ya have!" at you until you read the menu and make up your mind.  Jonathan kept telling me that I would make a great Varsity employee because I'm cranky and yell alot.  Hardy, har, har.

Nuts!

So the inlaws left my house, and left some food behind ... tomatoes (yuck), Cheese Crackers (yum!) and pistachio (sp?) nuts.

I can honestly say, I've never had pistachios before. I think I've had pistachio ice cream (that's kind-of common, right?).

Let me just say - I LOVE PISTACHIOS!!! I can't stop eating them. If I know my nuts, they are probably high in fat and salt. But I can't stop!!!

Hawaii - Shave Ice

We watched alot of Travel Channel shows about Hawaii before our trip, and we saw Samantha Brown to go Matsumoto's Shave Ice (not "shaveD ice") shop on Oahu's North Shore.

Since I'm not one to pass up a treat, we took the bus all the way up the coast.  Let me tell you that shave ice is FANTASTIC!!!  It's creamy - but it's ice.  It's some sort of miracle!

I guess Matsumoto's store has been around since the '50's.  Notice the (ghetto) price list.  They sell this stuff with "beans"?  I think it's coffee beans or something, but still ... gross!!!

Notice the huge line to get inside.  The place was a madhouse (I guess it's like that every single day), but the line actually moved really fast.  I would recommend this place to ANY traveler!

Happy Memorial Day X2

It's only 3pm here, but I'm at the computer lab. Even though today is Tuesday, it's Monday back in the US - so we're officially celebrating Memorial Day today (then why was the beach party yesterday?). I guess the Kwaj residents do that for every holiday. Even their weekend is Sunday/Monday b/c that corresponds to the USA Saturday/Sunday.

I wanted to ride my bike down to the runway to watch the big Continental plane fly in and almost land on my head (like that Army plane did yesterday) and take a video of it. I was about 5 minutes too late. I was almost at the beach when I saw the plane lights. I was so bummed! It's really, REALLY hard work to ride bikes by the runway. There is a killer wind. The plane will land around 5pm tomorrow night, so maybe I'll try it again.

As we got back off the runway, it was noon. They were about to do a 21 gun salute to Memorial Day. I got that on film. Although the first time the guns fired I jumped a little bit. Those suckers are loud!

After missing the plane we ride over to see the sharks again. The stupid turtle was still there.

I didn't sleep very well yesterday. Yesterday was also the only day I didn't eat any ice cream. I figured the 2 were related, and I've been pigging out on ice cream today. You can't be too careful!

Not much planned for the rest of the day! The Rays (baseball team) are on at 7pm, so it will probably be a lazy night of baseball watching and probably more ice cream eating. Have you ever tried vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and peanuts? The salty peanut combined with the sweet ice cream is fantastic!!!

What's hidden in your food?

So I recently purchased a Magic Bullet. It looked pretty sweet for making smoothies and chopping up veggies.

But I recently discovered Jessica Seinfeld's book "Deceptively Delicious" (Jessica Seinfeld = Jerry Seinfeld's wife). Basically, her book is how to hide veggies inside meals. It's for the kids who hate broccoli, but they love brownies. Little do the kids know is that there is broccoli inside their brownies. Muhahahahaha!

Well, so far I've hidden cauliflower inside Jonathan's alfredo sauce. And yesterday I hid cauliflower and carrots inside our waffles. Jonathan usually noticed, b/c I always get a tiny bit of broccoli in there too (I have a mixed veggies packet in the freezer, so they are all stuck together), but he eats it anyway.

I hate veggies too, so I'm all for making my normal foods at tad more nutritious!

Do you believe in Magic?

I do - I bought a Magic Bullet! I can't wait to buy some smoothie supplies and use it.

I've watched the infomercial a couple times. I thought it looked awesome - but all informercials look way more awesomer on TV than in real life.

Then I met my boss - she told me she has a Magic Bullet and it rocks! She even bought one for my co-worker's wedding.

So I folded, bought one on ebay, and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I can't wait to experiment!!!!