The problem with eating delicious meat is that lesser cuts just don’t taste the same once you have!
When Paramount Fine Foods invited myself and a few other tastemakers to the grand opening of their Yonge & Eglinton Paramount Butcher Shop location (pun intended), I expected good food. I’d hit my share of butcher shops over the years, so I figured my taste buds were ready for whatever might come my way.
I couldn’t be more wrong—they most definitely were not.
Toddlers wouldn’t know good food if it hit them in the face. (And if you’ve ever seen a toddler eat, you’ll know that’s exactly what it usually does.)
I mean, sometimes it’s a struggle to get this guy to eat, but tortilla bowls proved interesting enough for him to give it a try!
Feeding kids ain’t as simple as it used to be. Back in my day (I cringe that I’m old enough to say that), I remember plenty tuna casseroles, stir-fries and macaroni and cheeses. No one had the time to slave over stoves like Moms did in the ’50s and ’60s, so quick and easy were the name of the game after a hard day’s work. And even though parents have less time than ever in 2016, we’re a lot more discerning in what we eat. We scrutinize nutritional guides. Scour ingredient lists. We do everything in our power to make sure we’re not giving our families food we’ll come to regret later.
So you’ll need meals that’re both quick to produce and good for you—good thing Old El Paso’s dinnertime options provide just that!
Though the little ones are too young to appreciate theme days like Taco Tuesday, Sarah and I appreciate planning our meals well in advance. Nothing’s worse than hearing “What’s for dinner?” before you’ve even had a chance to think about the answer.
And so our second Old El Paso dish was Skinnytaste’s Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup in Old El Paso Tortilla Bowls—a meal with minimal cleanup! Being the efficient chefs that we are, we used much of the chicken from our last recipe for the meal! Interested in how we made them? Check out the recipe below:
Pretty sure I had this idea before, but couldn’t make it stick. Putting together a quick synopsis of the week to show what I’d been up to without needing a full post for every little thing.
But the last time I did it? I overthought everything, getting too lost in the details to make it effective.
This time it’ll be quick, dirty, and good for people who just want the highlights of what your favourite blogger’s favourite blogger* is up to!
So let’s go!!!
Sunday, September 27th
Started the week by wrapping up our church retreat at Camp Kwasind in Utterson, ON, a few hours north of Toronto. Little Man had a killer time, even going as far as finding comfort in the arms of other parents.
This month’s Dempster’s sandwich gave me a little lesson in supply, demand, and the art of improvisation.
Originally, we wanted to rock some mean burgers. Sarah and I are part of a crew that holds semi-regular Danforth Dinners, a dinner party for 8-10 where we take turns hosting to give everyone a taste of what the group has to offer. Though not everyone lives in East York anymore (rumours of a St. Clair Supper are in the air…), we still try to keep up, regardless of the newest—and likely most difficult—member sometimes wanting us to do otherwise.
So, knowing that time’s often limited for parents, our friends give us the easy job—”just bring the buns”. Well—everyone in town must’ve had the same idea now that our weather’s more promising than the horror we dealt with for 6 months because no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find Dempster’s Deluxe Hamburger Buns anywhere! We checked six stores, and everyone must’ve been out barbecuing in 10° weather because they were out of stock like the hot toy at Christmas!
So that didn’t work out—I mean, obviously, we still had burgers, we’d be stupid not to—but with some other bread we’d never heard of before to encase the deliciousness we knew we were to get.
With my delicious burger dream reduced to crumbs and the buns to hold them mysteriously absent wherever I looked, I needed a new sandwich idea and fast; a freelancer’s deadlines wait for no man! So it was off to Plan B—thinking back to my childhood and the stuff my Mom whipped up when she was in a hurry — SLOPPY JOES.
For #100HappyDays Day 26, the word was “productivity”. After clearing out some outdated tech for electronic disposal, getting my old Fish ‘n’ Chimps comics prepped for their return to the Internets, and whatever household chores were on the list, it was time to hit my in-laws’ to celebrate my Dad’s 64th birthday.
Can you imagine that my smartphone’s more powerful than everything in this photo combined? Yeesh.
While far more exhausted than I thought I’d be (I guess an 8-hour night of sleep won’t fix a week of rotten sleep habits…), I always enjoy time with family and my mother-in-law’s home cooking! (I can tell you that cottage roll’s gonna be a regular commodity from home from now on, I kid you not!)
The weekend’s won’t likely be relaxing, but great times are still ahead!
#100HappyDays Day 26/100—I’m off to bed early, since tonight is the worst night of all for nocturnal types like me, where Daylight Savings Time steals an hour away for whatever ridiculous reason.
“Spring forward, fall back” my butt 😔
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
