Truckin' Along

I took a little hike over the river to grab a bite...

... from the boys at the Southern Mac & Cheese Truck.

Then I bopped back over the bridge...

... and back to the office, where I could sit down and enjoy...

What's in The Bedford?

"Stroganoff" meatballs, roasted mushrooms and sherry blue cheese gravy and paprika

All for $9? Creamy, cheesy, gooey...

... DECADENT!

Here's the scoop -- it's enough for two women, especially if you add a little side salad, or one hungry guy. I'll be tracking this truck down again and again and again.

Drive-Bys

I admit it -- I have a girl-crush:

"We have to make county government more efficient. We have to figure out how to provide good service to people with fewer resources," Preckwinkle said. "We're clearly going to have to consolidate services. We're going to have to do more shared purchases and be more intelligent about our purchasing."

Of the 37 initiatives Preckwinkle outlined after being sworn into office, 11 already have been completed, including the final rollback of predecessor Todd Stroger's unpopular sales tax increase, her office said. The county sales tax will drop by a quarter-cent in January 2012 and go down by another quarter-cent in January 2013.

Preckwinkle also has suspended all nonessential construction projects and purchasing, consolidated offices, and reduced payroll.

I heart her.
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The city of Chicago has finally allowed food trucks to do more than deliver more than pizza, coffee and danish pastries. Today I tried the empanadas from 5411 and they really rocked.

Next on the list? Meatyballs, Mac & Cheese, Tamales and Naan-wiches. Yum!
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Roadside Diner

Recent fast food breakfast finds that are astonishingly tasty and pocketbook friendly, too?

Caribou Coffee's Chicken Apple Sausage Daybreaker:

The "brioche" bun has more a challah chewy density and sweetness, but it pairs really well with the savory/sweet elements of the chicken apple sausage. This thing is so darned good that I haven't gotten around to trying the rest of Caribou's hot breakfast sandwich offerings... but I'll get there eventually. The Daybreakers are less than $3.75 with tax -- a great value, especially for the quality of the ingredients.

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It's also no secret that I'm a huge fan of Potbelly's breakfast sandwiches, which for $3.32 with tax, are an incredible bargain. But NOW, my local Potbelly's is offering breakfast "squares," where the bread is a square-shaped, skinnier and slightly smaller roll, the egg portion remains the same as the original sandwiches, but the meat portions are a little smaller (1 sausage patty instead of two, for example) and they now have cheddar cheese available. The new bread toasts up crispy and wonderful, and the portion size is more lady-like. For about $2.75, this is a steal of a deal!

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On the flip side, Dunkin Doughnuts has a new calorie and cholesterol bomb called the "Big N' Toasty" that contains not one, but two fried eggs, four slices of bacon and American cheese piled onto liberally buttered and grilled Texas Toast.

At 580 calories and 55% of your recommended daily allowance of saturated fat, and costing just under $5.00 with tax, this might give you pause. I will say, however, that they're not kidding about the tasty part. Rats.

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So why am I so fixated on breakfast all of a sudden?

I normally spend the last five to ten minutes of my train ride into the city assessing the level of my hunger pangs and the demands of my taste buds, then plotting my pathway to Burrito Beach for a Lo-Carb Scramble or to Potbelly's or Caribou or Dunkin Doughnuts or to Lloyd's Express for a more customized breakfast, working up a healthy appetite by the time I've picked up the daily selection and hit my desk. I am a creature of habit, dammit.

I don't usually give things up for Lent, but this year I decided that it would be good for my self discipline, if not my soul, to give it the ol' college try this year. And I figured that for it to be a true exercise in self denial, then it might as well be something I really, truly love... and I love breakfast.

How do I define breakfast? It is the meal that you eat after waking up in the morning any time before 11:30 a.m. It also involves fried or scrambled eggs, bacon (not even on burgers) and/or sausage, pancakes, french toast or hash browns at any time of the day.

Urk.

(I can do this...)

Roadside Diner

I just finished opening my rather stuffed up sinuses with one of my favorite quick and delicious winter indulgences.

In a sauce pan I sauteed up about a third of a pound of diced ham and bacon deli ends* along with a small diced onion and a tablespoon of diced garlic. Then I added some leftover chopped up chicken tenders** and tossed them in the pot. Next, I added 2-1/2 cups of water and a can of Ro*Tel diced tomatoes with lime juice and cilantro, and brought the whole mess up to a boil.


To the boiling liquid I added 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and then dumped in the contents of a package of Vigo's Jambalaya Cajun Rice Mix, covered the pot and let it simmer for 25 minutes.


While it's good right away, I like the leftovers, which I freeze in individual portions, even better after they've been sitting in the freezer for a while. The heat -- and there is heat -- just seems to bloom more that way.

That's a huge pot full of goodness for a very reasonable amount of money.

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*My local grocery store always has these if you know where to look. I can usually score a pound for about $1.50. When I make these rice pots, I'm not totally wedded to pork. Chicken and/or turkey ends are good, too.

**Sometimes I order these out for dinner, and I can never eat the whole plateful by myself. I'm too damned cheap to let perfectly good protein go to waste, so I bring them home, even when it's only a single one. I store them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer to use later in soups or rice dishes. I do the same with popcorn shrimp, which I'd probably add in the last few minutes of cooking.

Drive-Bys

My new hero:

A North Carolina restaurant has put a ban on unruly children, with a sign on the front door saying screaming children will not be tolerated.

Brenda Armes, the owner of the Olde Salty's restaurant in Carolina Beach, said she got sick of customers complaining about parents who couldn't control their children during meals.

She said many parents allowed their children to treat the restaurant like their personal playground, misbehaving and 'squawking'.

And of course you know someone just had to bitch about it:

But Ashley Helfin, a mother of two, said: 'I've never seen a restaurant say, don't bring your screaming kids in here. You can't help it if your kids scream.'Ummm, Ashley?

The Princess Mom made sure each and every one of her children knew how to mind their manners in public. Just because you don't know how to parent doesn't mean the rest of the world has to suffer.

If you're ever in Carolina Beach, NC, go visit Olde Salty's!
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I saw this article and just had to buy the book. How could you not find NASA's "coefficient of flatulence" fascinating?

And I do hope Mike Ditka's The '85 Bears: We Were The Greatest also comes out on Kindle. From these excerpts, it looks to be a hilarious read.

(I do have eclectic reading tastes, don't I?)
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I see President Tin-Ear strikes again on the issue of illegal aliens. Too bad if the (legally) voting public wants the immigration laws already on the books to be duly enforced...
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Speaking of President Tin-Ear, nice to see he's knee-capping Emanuel's chances as a mayoral candidate here in Chicago:

“My expectation is, he’d make a decision after these mid-term elections.”

And...

"I think right now, as long as he is in the White House, he's critically focused on making sure that we're creating jobs for families around the country and rebuilding our economy.

"But I think he would be a terrific mayor," said Obama.

Right. As long as he's doing what you want him to do, its fine to think in the abstract about what a fine mayor he'd be.

In the meantime, da locals have da edge.

If Emanuel remains at the White House until Nov. 2, he would be forced to play catch-up unless he has an army in Chicago “laying the groundwork” for him, said Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Daley’s City Council floor leader.

Candidates for mayor must file at least 12,500 valid signatures between Nov. 15 and 22 — and three times that many if they want to be certain they stay on the ballot.

“It could work. Clearly, he’d have enough money and it could allow him to size up the field. But, it could also allow people to make commitments [to other candidates] they can’t come off, which would limit his ability to make alliances,” O’Connor said.

Nice of President Tone-Deaf, who knows Chicago and Illinois politics, to cut the guy who's had his back all these many months a break. Now that's politics Chicago-style.
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