Food and More

We were treated to some snowfall in Breckenridge over the Thanksgiving holiday, but thankfully, we got out of town before the madness started. With heavy snow falling and blizzard conditions thanks to the winds, sections of I-70 were closed yesterday, stranding people in Silverthorn, Vail, Copper and other areas. I was sitting comfortably at home, enjoying a light snowfall in Denver, Dempsey enjoying his first romp at the park in the snow.

A couple weeks back, I made yet another woot.com impulse purchase, this time a Breville indoor grill. I have long sung the praises of the Black and Decker griddle/waffle iron combo, but it is relatively flimsy in its construction. The griddle also has an impossible to clean non-stick coating that is microns thin and scratches when you look at it wrong. The price of the woot was just plain silly and then became even cheaper when they realized they sold the grill as new but it is a refurb, subtract another $20! Refurbished appliances don't scare me, expensive electronics on the other hand . . .


The trusty appliance has been the go to for anything griddle worthy in the past. It makes a pretty mean grill cheese, it can be flipped open for maximum surface area for pancake making or the plates can be set to waffle for some waffle making. I avoid the waffling for the most part because despite the non-stick coating and a heavy dose of cooking spray, the batter inevitably gets stuck and waffles butchered.

The Breville 800GRXL is essentially the same as the boxer hawked indoor grill, but prettier and a bit better built. Like the Black and Decker, it opens flat for maximum surface area, but the plates are fixed so the grill is always a grill and likewise with the griddle. Don't let the pictures fool you, the thing has a footprint of about 19" x 15" so there is plenty of pancake making space.


And pancakes it made . . . very surprisingly the griddle temperature was consistent from side to side, edge to edge.


And pancakes I ate . . . well, just a couple. The remainder hit the fridge for weekday morning consumption.


The grill got put into service later last night as well when it came time to make the grilled cheese to accompany the soup I decided to concoct. Being trapped within the comforts of my house, I decided it was a perfect day to make use of the remainder of the pumpkin sitting around by making some soup and some more pumpkin muffins. The soup recipe was pretty basic, start with some aromatics, dump in some broth, pumpkin, corn and spices. I added a few extra ingredients and it could have used a few more.

This batch of pumpkin muffins got a dose of blueberries for a change. The recipe calls for dates, but I find them to be too sickly sweet for my liking. Unfortunately, I lost the cash register receipt from the Co-op in Nederland that had the recipe for the pumpkin blueberry muffins with flax seed and spelt flour. Those hippies make a mean muffin. I am almost out of pumpkin, except for the stash in the freezer for use at a later time. Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I'm never eating again . . . what's for lunch?