Seven things I learned

In Acc 255 I learned how to:

Start Building a business
Create a paypal Donate Button
Create products on CafePress
Find products on Clickbank
Create A sneeze Page
Create a recommendation blog
Write a How To Article
Create a Landing Page
Create a Link Post
Create a List Post
Review a top Blog
How to write a development plan

My favorite Chicago Eats

If you are an avid follower of my blog then you know that I am originally from Chicago and that I am very passionate about the variety of foods that city offers. If you are not an avid follower, no fear, here are some of my greatest blogs about Chicago food and restaurants along with my recommendations. I hope this is very useful to anyone who travels to Chicago and can’t decide on one restaurant in the sea of restaurants it has.

Check out http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/06/heaven-on-seven-windy-city-of-new.html it’s my blog and recommendation of a restaurant in downtown Chicago by the name of Heaven on Seven. It’s a New Orleans style restaurant by food and feel right in the middle of the Midwest. It is by far one of my favorite places to eat when I’m roaming in downtown Chicago.

Looking for a place to go with a group and eat until you can’t eat anymore and have food left over to take home then you definitely want to check out http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/07/chi-tung-chicago.html . This is an Asian Cuisine restaurant on the south side of Chicago and it has some pros and cons. Check out this blog post to see how I feel about it.

This restaurant can be found in California as well but since I’m a Chicago Girl it’s classified as a Chicago Restaurant in my book. Overall amazing food! Check out my blog about Portillos: http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/07/portillos.html

Looking for something to eat that fast and delicious while in Chicago? Check out these blog posts to find out my favorite fast food style restaurants to eat at while at home. http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/07/dillingers-restaurant.html

http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/07/chicago-mom-and-pop-restaurants.html

http://foodloversdreamsunited.blogspot.com/2012/07/sharks-fish-and-chicken-shack.html

Brownies Yummy!!!

In case you don’t follow our website or didn’t even know where our website is, I have shared one of my favorite recipes of all time. My mom taught me years ago how to make her delicious Turtle Brownies from scratch and I have decided that it is just too good of a recipe to not share with as many people as possible. So if you don’t follow our website have no fear, here is my mom’s secret to amazing brownies:

Step 1:

Add two (2) eggs to a large bowl and begin beating them at a low speed with a mixer.

Step 2:

Add your two (2) cups of sugar slowly into the eggs you are whipping. Continue whipping the mixer until it produces a white creamy consistency.

Step 3:

In a medium bowl combine your ½ cup of all purpose flour and your one (1) cup of cocoa powder.

Step 4:

Whisk or stir the cocoa and flour mixture by hand combining the ingredients and breaking up any lumps.

Step 5:

Gather 2 sticks of butter which is equal to one cup or you can substitute it for one cup of margarine.

Step 6:

Melt the butter.

Step 7:

Let the butter or margarine cool for no longer than a minute.

Step 8:

Put ½ cup of the butter into the egg and sugar mixture and mix for about 30 seconds.

Step 9:

Combine half of the flour and cocoa mixture into the other bowl. Mix until ingredients are mostly incorporated and add the second half (½) of the mixture.

Step 10:

Add in your other half cup of butter to the batter. Mix until batter is a nice smooth consistency.

Step 11:

Pour ½ of the batter greased pan

3 Meals a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Today I have actually eaten 3 meals, which is a serious rarity for me. For most of my life I have never eaten breakfast because my mom never cooked breakfast and it just rubbed off on me when I began taking care of myself. Not only this but in high school I would eat a very small lunch and then a large late dinner. Throughout my life, as you can tell, I have had some very bad eating habits and this didn’t change once I got to college. Once I got to college I found myself working three jobs while maintaining good grades on a full time class schedule. With this lifestyle my time was also occupied by homework from those classes, finding time to make out a monthly budget followed by tracking my expenses weekly to make sure I stay on track, and trying to have a social life. Because of all of this, I find myself only eating once a day, which is a large dinner usually after 8pm of unhealthy foods. This messed up my metabolism so bad that I managed to gain 40 pounds in 1 year and didn’t even notice. Lately I’ve been trying new dieting techniques and one of them was trying to condition my body into eating breakfast for sure and eventually eating 3 meals a day. Today I had a fruit smoothie and some almonds for breakfast, then a Jimmy John’s sandwich with a pickle for lunch, and I made Salmon Croquette for dinner. Not to mention that I ate all these meals before 7pm.

Diet Details

I am trying this new thing where I don’t eat beef at all and only eat pork once a month and it is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done as far as eating in my entire twenty one years of living. I couldn’t completely give up red meats because that’s where your body gets its zinc from. My protein comes from eggs so that’s not a major concern like some people would make it out to be. My favorite food has always been seafood, but throughout majority of my life I ate beef and pork and seafood was an occasional meal. However, my entire diet has flipped and seafood is my everyday meal and pork is on occasion. This has helped and hurt me so far. It has helped because I have noticed that my body digests food faster and that it’s easier to drop weight. However, I have been a lot more sluggish and having a lot less energy since. Seafood has also made my monthly food budget increase, which is a large factor in my everyday life as a college student. I put on all this extra weight my last two years of college because the most unhealthy, fattening foods are the cheapest and on a strict budget money trumps health many times. I have also had to budget time and seafood is one of those things that takes time to cook because it is so easy to overcook it. Overcooked seafood is disgusting to eat texturally and you can’t eat undercooked seafood without serious risks of sickness.

Diet buster

No matter how hard I try to stick to a regular diet there will always be those weaknesses that have me second guessing or cheating on it. For most people chocolate is their cheat. Others have the hardest time resisting things like coffee or beef or pork that isn't in their diet. For me, my weaknesses are chips and sweets. Everyone tells me that I can easily lose weight if I would stop eating so many sweets and drinking things with a lot of things with a lot of sugar. However, I have always had a weakness for ice cream. As I write this I am seriously considering going to cold stone creamery and getting my 3 ice cream concoction that I stumbled on because of this love for ice cream I have. Another weakness I have is fruit flavored juices, which contains a lot of juices in the syrups they are created from. I also have developed a weakness for baked goods lately, more specifically, cinnamon rolls and brownies. I am not a big chocolate or fudge fan but it’s something about a warm brownie that makes me melt. I have recently started eating cinnamon rolls for breakfast and now that I am trying to shake some of the bad foods that I eat, I had added one more challenge to the list. In order to try and prevent myself from eating these, I have found some substitutes that have fewer calories. Instead of ice cream, I have found these fat free, sugar free pudding packs by snack pack that are only 70 calories. I have really found a substitute for the bake goods but once I’m craving sweets I just eat cereal.

Carrot Fries YUM!

This is a snack that I have been eating since I was a kid and that I still eat to this day. I have shared this recipe with my nieces and nephews and they love it as well. It’s delicious and a crunchy, salty, and sweet treat that is also pretty healthy in comparison to most snacks.

Step 1:
Preheat your oven at 400°.
Step 2:
Rinse your carrots and peel until only the bare orange color is showing.
Step 3:
Cut the top and pointed tips of the carrots in an angle to create an angled-squared edge.
Step 4:
Cut each carrot in half length wise, and then cut the halves in half length wise to create quarters, if pretty long cut the quarters in half width wise on an angle to produce pieces that resemble the shape and length of the fries at the major fast food restaurants.
Step 5:
In a bowl, combine the olive oil, salt, and pepper and stir.
Step 6:
Add the “fries” to the mixture and toss with hands, covers the fries evenly with the mixture.
Step 7:
Place the fries on a lightly greased metal cookie sheet. Spread out as much as possible to ensure crispiness
Step 8:
Bake fries at 400° for 15 minutes on the first side then flip them and bake for another 7-8 minutes. Make sure to check on them periodically to make sure they are not burning.
Take the fries out and serve hot. Taste one and add salt if necessary.

Perfect Breakfast shake recipe

This recipe is what my mom used to use to trick me into consuming vegetables. It’s a delicious fruit and vegetable smoothie that's so sweet and delicious that you can't taste the vegetables. This is why my mom named it the "Don't Say Vegetables" smoothie.

For my mom’s “Don’t say vegetables” fruit and vegetable smoothie you will need: 4 baby carrots, a ½ cup of spinach without the stems, 10 banana slices, ½ of a mango sliced, 8 strawberries sliced, ½ cup of plain yogurt, 1 cup of orange juice, ½ cup of apple juice, ½ cup of pineapple juice, and ice.

Step 1:

Add the ice in the blender and then followed by the juice.

Step 2:

Begin blending the juice and ice together just to crush the ice a little. The purpose of this is to make room in the blender for the fruits and vegetables.

Step 3:

Add in the solid components of the smoothie and blend until desired texture. Pour and enjoy!

If you don’t want to use ice in smoothie form you can feel free to make it more creamy like a shake either by adding yogurt or milk to the recipe where ice is called for in this recipe. I have grown to like it more in shake form so I use almond milk along with the fruit juices. If you choose to do the shake form instead of the smoothie with ice you want to add the fruit in first. For the best results, add the firmest fruits and veggies in the blender first, followed by the softer ones and then the juices and milk or yogurt.

Perfect "Breakfast" For those who don't eat breakfast

I have recently realized that my metabolism has slowed down a lot and it’s because I have never faithfully eaten breakfast as well as in the last 4 years I only eat once a day and that's usually a late dinner. When your metabolism slows down it's extremely easy to gain weight. My friend told me that eating breakfast we help this issue a lot but I am not the type of person to wake up and make breakfast. Most days I'm not even hungry until around 2:30 pm. I have begun trying to force myself to eat breakfast because I’ve realized the negative reaction my body had to the eating schedule I had developed. At first I bought all the makings of a delicious filling breakfast; bacon, eggs, orange juice, fruit, oatmeal, grits, pancake batter, bread for toast, English muffins, French toast sticks, waffles, etc. I pretty much tried it all until I realized my body just can’t eat that heavy that early in the morning so I started trying to just cut my meals down to a bowl of cold cereal or oatmeal with a couple of pieces of meat. Even with this, the meals were lighter but according to my friend eating breakfast were suppose to give me the energy to make it through the day. Instead, this made me just as sluggish and sleepy as eating the heavy breakfast did. Then I tried to reduce my breakfast down to either some nuts or trail mix which was a good decision for my body. I suggest you try these stages and see which one works for you because breakfast truly is an important meal.

Sharks Fish and Chicken shack

In Chicago, there is a restaurant by the name of Sharks that has found a secret ingredient that makes all fried foods just that much better. After they fry the foods right before they send it out to you they sprinkle lemon pepper over them. This one small seasoning has such a huge impact on the flavor, and in some odd way, the overall quality of the food. Today I ate at sharks and it was far from disappointing, as a matter of fact it was probably better than I remember it. I ordered their combo which gives you the option of picking two or three items from a list of: 2 pieces of catfish, 2 pieces of perch, 4 wings, and chicken tenders. I got the two item combo with the two pieces of fried catfish and the 4 chicken wings along with a side of fried okra. Everything was prepared and dropped in the grease once I ordered which is unlike a lot of restaurants that pre-fry your food to provide fast service. My meal also included fries, bread and coleslaw and came out to $12 and some change. My first bite into the chicken was amazing because it was crunchy and juicy and warm and flavorful all at the same time. The fish taste so fresh and was also fried to a perfect golden brown crispy texture. Usually they only put the lemon pepper on the meats and fries but they also put it on my okra this time. That one extra ingredient has probably made that the best fried okra I have ever eaten.

Chicago Mom and Pop Restaurants

Today I went to go visit my grandma with my mother and aunt and the center of our conversations was food. We talked about all this small mom and pop restaurants in Chicago we used to eat at when I was younger and even when they were younger. One place I remember vividly, well not really the place I actually remember their tacos vividly, was a place on 51^st which was right around my aunt’s house when I was growing up. Their meat was so fresh and the seasonings were perfect for a taco. The cheese was a tangy rich cheese that would be melted perfectly. Another place I remember eating at was a place called Nick’s gyros which had a couple of locations and they truly lived up to their name. Their gyros have yet to be topped in my eyes. They make it just like every other place I’ve gotten a gyro from but it’s just something about theirs that makes them stand out. My aunt and mom both talked about this restaurant called Barbeque Unlimited which has expanded and have an attachment called Soul Food Unlimited. They talked about how amazing the barbeque was and how they would go there whenever they were out late. Then once they expanded, their soul food was nothing shy of amazing as well. My mom said that she loves that the food so much that she believes if they had a parking lot they would have lines out the door. I haven’t personally eaten there yet but I plan on trying it soon. My love for soul food has always been satisfied by Morrison's Soul Food so Unlimited has a lot to prove

Subway Sandwiches

At my school, we have several restaurants on campus that we can use a part of our meal plan to eat at. Our most common restaurant is subway because they have one in every dorm. When I was in high school, our Junior and Senior years we were allowed to go off campus to eat during our lunch period. Many times I would go to subway because it was right across the street from my high school. Because I ate subway so much in high school, I wasn't really a big fan of it once I go to college. I would have moments throughout the semester where I would eat at subway once a month for about 3 or 4 months but that means I ate at subway no more than 8 times that year. When they did the all subs are $5 special I ate there more but still not a lot. After moving out of the dorms 2 years ago I have not eaten at subway since, until today. My mom ordered a tuna sandwich from subway that I had to try. I had never eaten tuna on a sandwich before and am actually about eating tuna in general. I loved my mom's sandwich. Their tuna was good with a hint of sweetness. In addition to the tuna and oat bread my mom ordered she put spinach, red onions, lettuce, peppers, and some sweet sauce on the sandwich just adding an explosion of flavors and textures. I have just become a fan of subway again.

Red Lobster

Red lobster has always been one of those restaurants that no matter how many other restaurants I go to that serve the same type of food, none of them can prevent me from going to it. Red Lobster is like my first love of seafood restaurants, I can't ever get over them. With them, it’s a combination of the favorite foods I established over time and the fact that every time I go I get the server that's always willing to help. I remember one time I had a server by the name of Sallie and she was the sweetest woman. She checked on us just enough so that she was there when we needed her but not overbearing or annoying. I had order snow crab legs this one particular time and she offered to help me crack them. She stood at my table for about 20 minutes helping me crack 2 1/2 pounds of snow crab, while keeping up great conversation and a lot of good laughs with me and the friend I came there with. I always get some sort of fruity drink whenever I eat at a restaurant, for Red Lobster I would always get a virgin strawberry daiquiri. For about two years, would get the regular sized strawberry daiquiri which came out to like $4.25. Then one time I went there and ordered it I had a waitress that was kind enough to let me know that for only .85¢ more I could get a big berry daiquiri which taste about the same and was equivalent to 2 ½ regular sized strawberry daiquiris in volume.

Chicago Eats

Ok so as I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts I am originally from Chicago but am attending school in central Illinois. Where my school is there’s not much to do but eat and boy have I been eating since I got there. In one year I put on about 30 pounds and didn’t see any of it happening until it was already done. Ironically enough, at school I tend to control what I eat and how I eat, which I’ve been doing since I realized the weight gain I had experienced. However, whenever I come home to Chicago all my hard work gets put on hold and most of it gets cancelled out with all the different foods I eat and places I eat at. For the last three weeks I have eaten little beef or pork which is a huge change in my diet. I came home four days ago and I haven’t eaten anything but beef and pork. I’m mad at myself for cancelling out all the hard work I had just begun to do but not really that mad because Chicago restaurants and I have a very special relationship. I know that when I come home I’ll probably put on an extra four pounds for every week I stay and when there’s a holiday an extra 8 pounds. New Orleans is known for their Cajun food, New York is famous for its cheesecake, Philly for their Cheese Steak Sandwich; Chicago is known for its Pizza, hot dogs, and Italian Beef sandwiches which shows how special Chicago food truly is.

Dillinger's Restaurant

One of my favorite restaurants in my city is a small restaurant that gives off the old diner fill. It’s called Dillinger’s and they have some of the best sandwiches I have ever had. Every time I come home I have to get a gyro with fries or an Italian beef from them. It’s something about their sandwiches that make them stand out from other restaurants that sell the same ones but it’s hard to figure out what it is. They never take very long to get you your food but every time you get your food it tastes freshly made. They also don’t tolerate mess in their restaurant. They will turn down your money if they feel you are creating a harsh environment for their other customers, which not many Chicago restaurants will do. They don’t just sell sandwiches; they have anything you expect at your typical Chicago restaurant. They have fried fish dinners, appetizers, salads etc. I have had several different things from there including, their gyro, Italian beef, Philly Cheese Steaks sandwich, Hot dog, Catfish and much more and I have always finished full and satisfied. Every time I go there I have to get one of their fresh fruit shakes. They are so delicious that many times I go there just to get the shake and nothing else. They use vanilla ice cream and real fruit. I do not like vanilla ice cream at all but they manage to blend the taste of the fruit completely into the ice cream that you don’t taste the vanilla and the bites of fruit you get when drinking it is the cherry on top of an amazing shake.

Picky Eater who loves to eat

I have always been the one in the family that has always been the picky eater and the one whose plate was a lot smaller than everyone else’s. As a kid, my family still makes fun of me today because of this; I only ate eggs and hot dogs for every meal and ice cream and hostess cherry pies for any snack. I have since then hated eggs and learned to tolerate them as long as they are either deviled, boiled and in a salad, or scrambled with a lot of cheese. The only time I will come close to a hot dog is if there is Sweet Baby Rays Barbeque sauce to go on it, and I have a new found love for sherbet that has kind of taken away from my love for ice cream unless it’s from a parlor. However, I am still that picky little girl with some things like liver or chitterlings which almost my entire family loves. I also don’t eat turkey over the holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas unless it’s deep fried and I don’t eat ham unless it’s prepared in brown sugar and topped with pineapples and maraschino cherries. I hate the texture of boxed mashed potatoes and even though I absolutely love mashed potatoes I can only eat them if they are made from scratch, boiled and hand mashed. I eat a lot of things I never thought I would like but I am still very picky with the preparation and ingredients of my meals.

Family Barbecues

When it comes down to it I am still like a kid when it comes to eating barbeque. I never eat the grown up foods as my family used to call it. When my family makes barbeque they go all out, Ribs, Rib tips, chicken, fish, beef brisket, hot links, Italian sausages, bratwurst, burgers, and hot dogs usually make up the meats of our meals. As for the sides, we usually have potato salad, seafood salad, macaroni salad, regular garden salad, deviled eggs, spaghetti, lasagna, chips, dip, veggie platters, cheese platters, and sometimes even sandwich platters.  We really cook when it comes to holidays like Independence Day and Memorial Day. However, my family can usually find me eating the same things the little kids in our family are eating. I love links, burgers, hot dogs, chips, and cheese. However, I am not a big fan of rib tips, ribs, grilled chicken, all those different types of pasta salads and seafood salads, nor spaghetti. My typical plate will consist of a hot dog or burger, some chips and a few cubes of cheese. I don’t know what it is but unless it’s a T-bone there aren’t meats I enjoy with that grilled taste. Even the ones I do eat have to have its different special instructions. For example, I like my hot dog burnt the blacker the better. Or I love the prepackaged burgers on the grill not the ones made by hand from ground beef. I only eat chips as a side to my meats; otherwise I eat the actual sides by themselves.

Chips: Potato Chips

I've spoken of my love for chips in my previous post and how Flamin Hot Cheetos was my favorite. I've tried a lot of different things with these chips but I have not discriminated against other chips as well. Whenever I have a chip craving but tired of eating my favorite kind of chips I like to go on binges with other types of chips. I love Lays Original potato chips, Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips, Cheese Cheetos, Chili Cheese Fritos, Flamin Hot Fritos, Original Fritos, and Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips. One of the things that have become a sort of a tradition for me is to make what I call a "Chip Salad." Back when I was kid I would go to the closest store and buy 4 small bags of chips, back then what we called "quarter bags" because the cost a quarter each, usually of at least three different kinds of chips. They would usually give them to me in a paper bag so once I got home I would empty the chip bags together into the paper bag. I would mix them up and eat them in whatever combination I grabbed, like you would do a salad. I have also tried some of my same toppings on the chips I listed above. For example, I love the Ruffles with nacho cheese and the Lays Original with cream cheese. However, my favorite creation was a “walking taco” using Chili Cheese Fritos as the tool to hold and eat my taco toppings with. Typically I use ground beef, cheese sauce, sour cream, lettuce, onions, and guacamole as the toppings of the “taco.”

Chips: Flamin Hot Cheetos

Everyone that knows me knows that I have a very special relationship with chips. Where most people's weakness or guilty pleasure is Chocolate or Ice cream, mine is chips. I have gotten so bad with chips that I have start using them as ingredients in regular household meals. For example, if I do not have crackers at home to crumble into my soup I use kettle chips instead. Whenever I have a recipe with cheese that needs a spice I always think of using spicy chips which adds a texture contrast and the kick the recipe may need. I use chips in almost every aspect of my life. I eat them as a snack usually, but if I get hungry but I do not feel like cooking, several times I have just eaten chips until my hunger pain was satisfied. I always look for new ways to enhance the flavors of the chips, usually using my favorite chips. I love Flamin Hot Cheetos more than any other chip and I am always trying something new with them. I have tried them with nacho cheese and regular American cheese sauces. After trying them with just cheese I decided to try them with full nacho toppings. I decided to try them with cream cheese spread because I didn’t want your typical toppings, surprisingly enough it was a really good combination. I love pickles and I love Flamin Hot Cheetos so I decided to try the two together. This combination not only made both ingredients taste better, but they blended well together.

Portillos

If you are not fortunate enough to be a resident of California, Indiana, or Illinois you are missing out on one of the greatest Italian Beefs in the world, in my opinion. Portillo’s is an amazing restaurant, know for its old school style and its char-broiled burgers and Italian beefs. Portillo’s has been a part of my family since I was a toddler. For years, every second and fourth Wednesday we would have it for dinner. In high school, it was the place to go on a casual date or on a group outing. The serves is great, the atmosphere is fun, and the food is amazing! Most of the people I know order an Italian Beef, dipped with hot peppers, every time they go. I do not know if it’s the tenderness of the beef or the amazing flavors of the au jus sauce they dip it in, but whatever it is makes for one heck of a sandwich. My family loves the char-broiled burgers and the amazing crispy thick gut bacon they use on the bacon cheese burger. Personally, I’ve had a thing for their chili for as long as I can remember. My first love was their chili dog until I decided to get a chili cheese fry. My first meal there was a chili cheese dog, a cheese fry, and chocolate malt. I stuck with this meal for years until one day I asked if they had chili cheese fries since their regular cheese fries were amazing and so was their chili cheese dog. Now I can only eat there when I am truly looking to indulge because I can’t help but get a chili cheese dog, a chili cheese fry, and chocolate malt.

Chi Tung Chicago

Today I ate at this restaurant Chi Tung, which is a restaurant in Chicago known for its Asian cuisine. The serve all types of Asian cuisine from Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. They have some amazing food and they usually come in large portions. We usually eat in a family style, being that we order our own dishes and they’re so big that we can share with everyone and we can have a platter style meal. My favorite dishes are the beef with broccoli and the seafood medley. Every dish comes with steamed rice and many come with an egg roll. The servers speak pretty good English but they’re pretty rude. One of the people I came with this time said that last time they came they literally took the plate once she lifted her fork up to eat and put in a take-out tray before she was finish eating or ready to go. This time we were in the middle of eating, it was an hour before the place closed and they took our flower center piece off out table. When the waiter came to refill our waters, instead of walking around the table to each person’s glass he would reach over our food. Then when we asked for separate checks he insisted that they had a limit of 2-3 separate checks per party and asked us to split our check up into no more than three checks. However, when he couldn’t understand how we were trying to separate it, he gave up and gave us all individual checks. Overall on a scale from 1-5 they get a 1 for service and a 4 for food.

Going Nuts for Nuts

Every time I want a filling snack that is not super fattening I can always depend on some type of nuts to hold me over. I am not a big breakfast eater at all and because of this my metabolism has slowed down tremendously. I found a solution to my problem with nuts. I either grab a large bag of almonds or trail mix, depending on if I have a sweet tooth or not, and the usually satisfies my hunger. Nuts, especially almonds are packed with fiber, which is an amazing component to help burn fat, so the calorie from fat are more so cancelled out by the good affects of the fiber. I love trail mix, specifically the fruit and nuts kind, because it’s a super healthy salty and sweet snack. I mean really, who doesn’t love salty sweet snacks? My favorite combination contains the almonds and raisins together, then in some of the bites add in a few sunflower seeds. I think this love for nuts came from my younger days with my step-father. Every day when he would come get me from the babysitter after he got off work, we would take the same route. At this same intersection every day, a nice older lady would sell peanuts and newspapers. Every day he would buy a newspaper and bag of peanuts, there came a point where she would have our order waiting for us when we pulled up and he would have her money ready. I would eat half the bag of nuts before we made it home. Then he would go to the store and grab a can of mixed nuts, which I would finish in three days tops.

T-Bone and and Baked Potato

Every time I come home, I have to have my mom throw me a t-bone and a baked potato on the grill. I have never had a t-bone as good as hers; she has tricks that she won't even tell me when cooking them. She never thaws it in cold water like some people do, she lets it naturally thaw which apparently helps it contain juices. I’ve never watched her season them because she wakes up early in the morning and season them so that they can have a few hours to marinate and absorb the flavors. Then she uses Kingsfords charcoal and lightening fluid to start the fire. Before she seasons the meet she puts some hickory wood chips in some water to soak and uses them as well in the grill. I don't know if it's the hickory wood chips or the seasonings she used or the amount of time she lets the meat absorb those seasonings but whatever it is makes for an amazing steak. I have gone to several steakhouses, which originally had me thinking I didn't like steak, but after tasting my mom's I love steak. I love potatoes in every form. My favorite is baked potatoes because you can add all the toppings you want right in the slit. I really believe cooking it with the skin still on also adds flavor to it. However, it’s something about the smoke from the grill that makes a baked potato so much better. Putting the two together makes one delicious comfortable meal.

Bad summertime foods and beverages

On the other hand some not-so-good things to consume in such hot heat are some of the things we most often eat. I know for my family, who loves the outdoors, heat is the perfect time to cook outdoors. They get to eat wholesome feeling foods without having to “sit in a hot kitchen.” During the summer my family barbeques at least twice a month, not including holidays. If they’re not barbequing, they are having a fish fry. These events are always filled with all types of foods in very larger quantities. Whether it’s a fish fry, barbeque, or picnic my family always has potato salad as a side dish. Potato salad is full of starch and very little vegetables. Starch is very heavy on the body and in high heat, which already makes you a bit sluggish; potato salad can significantly slow your body down. They also make all types of cold salads containing pasta which is also a starch. Of course in every barbeque there must be hot dogs, sausage links, and hamburgers at the very least. These fatty foods aren’t healthy to consume often anyway but once you add all the toppings and buns these can go from bad to worse. Any very heavy foods aren’t good because fats take longer to break down which in return slows down your body’s processes in addition to the heat and dry air from humidity. Contrary to popular beliefs, you shouldn’t grab a tall glass of sweetened ice tea or lemonade whenever you’re feeling parched in the summer time. A glass every now and again is fine but just like sodas, usually what you’re trying to avoid drinking when drinking lemonade or tea, it contains sugar which is a lot of unnecessary calories that you probably thought you were avoiding.

Hot Summer Day Food

The best sweet snack in hot weather like this is ripe fruit. Where I currently reside it is about 100° and in weather like this all you want to consume is something with ice in the name; ice cubes, ice cream, Icee, ice water, crushed ice flavored snowballs, etc. However, my mom had a trick for weather like this and consuming solid foods. When there was a week that had at least one really hot day she would go out and buy a ton of fruits. Majority of the fruits would be melons such as; watermelon, honey dew melon, cantaloupe because they contain a lot of juice. She would also buy apples, mangoes, and pomegranate. She would put them all in the fridge 2 days before the hot day and then on the day before, cut them all up into small cubes and put them in tuber ware to refrigerate overnight. The next day, the hot day, all day would eat all different combinations of fruit salad. The juices from the fruit kept us hydrated and cool while the fruit itself kept us fed and happy with very little effort. Not only was this a great snack but it’s certainly a healthier alternative to those other cool snacks I mentioned earlier like ice cream and snowballs. If you’re not necessarily a fan of some of the fruits my mom used you can always incorporate your own. Anything that produces a lot of juice is ideal but it can also be mixed with other fruits that don’t.