Frank's smoothie

I've been in smoothie rut for a few years, always going with the traditional berry, banana, orange smoothie.  I kick it up a bit with some oats mixed in, but I haven't tinkered with peaches, mango, pineapple or other fruits in quite a while.  Until yesterday.  I have a new favorite, recommended by Frank: peach, banana, vanilla soymilk.  Try it if you haven't already. 

homemade chocolate bars

mmm....chocolate
I've been thinking about the awesome chocolate bar I purchased at the chocolate shop in the strip and thought a.  I can't live much longer without another one and b. I can do that.
So I did.  I took about half a pound of chocolate pieces (62% cocoa I think) from that shop, melted it, added pistachios, golden raisins (the only kind of raisins worth eating), and dried blueberries, mixed, and poured.  Later Saturday afternoon I had chocolate bars. Yum!!  This is a good use for those flexible silicon pans.  I oiled it a bit and then when the chocolate hardened again, it popped right out.  Make your own chocolate bar today. :)

another reason to live in Ithaca

I just received this message from my CSA coordinator telling me what I'll be coming home to tomorrow.
"This week, we're sending out about 3 pounds of apples (a mix of organic Enterprise and Gold Rush), a quart of grape juice, and a pound of frozen blueberries. The blueberries are form the Berry Bush and the juice was made from the grapes grown by Ed Dugue in Hector. You may notice some crystals on the bottom of the grape juice. These are a naturally occurring acid that separates out as the juice sits, and occur in our juice because it is unfiltered. We hope you enjoy it!"
Does it get any better than this?

Take Out

On Sunday we got some delicious food from The Flame Bar B Que. Kyle would love it! I had pulled chicken and pork with mac 'n' cheese and it was delicious! It's a big menu of all kinds of different barbecued meats and delicious sides. I think I saw a fish sandwich too and there are some meatless sides. It is located on babcock down toward the shop n save in millvale.

Another place that is awesome but I feel like we have had it too much for the amount of time we have been living here is Big Shot Bob's. We keep having different people over to try the wings and sandwiches. We are having some friends over soon so they can try them too. They have over 100 different wing flavor and some serious sandwiches. Again, I'm not sure that they have many vegetarian choices. I think one hoagie. The sandwich I have been getting is "The Tom Hardy". It's loaded with Buffalo Chicken, bacon, provolone, American cheese, onion, banana pep-pers, lettuce, and Ranch dressing. I have also tried a few different flavors of wings like....garlic ranch wet and pigeon wings.

Both these places are pretty awesome. Tell Kyle to check out the menus online. We will have to order from these places at some point when you guys are around.

In the Near Future..

In the next week or so I plan on making cinnamon rolls. I have been thinking about them for almost a week and just keep putting it off for some reason. I can't wait!

I will also soon make the Apple Walnut Muffins that we got for Christmas from Bobby & Debbie. The jar of dry ingredients looks awesome and I can't wait to bake them.

I also want to pull out my homemade bagels from the freezer but I don't want them to be gone! I will just have to make more! I froze a bunch the last time I made them because we bought some at the store. Turns out the store bought ones are horrible. Of course they would be though after making them homemade! I would like to make Tim some jalapeno cream cheese as well sometime soon. I prefer plain cream cheese but I always like to experiment and I am glad Tim loves to eat just about everything!