Pregnant Steak Delight

Aimee craves protein and luckily we live in Montana, so we got some good ass beef! (And Bison) She whipped up this Sirloin, Mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus with Creole spice infused Chez Wiz covered with a mix of White and Mushroom gravy. I shit you not. I had a couple bites and it was tasty. I like cheese better then gravy, but hey, it's her steak and she loved it.

Dramatic Baked Apples

Apples baked with various nuts and berries and drizzled with honey. Next time I think I'll add a bit of cream cheese to the mix. Smells like Christmas.

Shrimpfest Tonight!

The Shriner's Shrimpfest is tonight. It's only boiled shrimp served cocktail style. It would be much cooler is they had fried, boiled, etc. but the tickets were free and they have beer so game on.

Aimee's Sweet Cakes

Chocolate truffle, banana and raspberry pancakes. Aimee made these last night, a while I usually find pancakes fairly bland (except Ihop's chocolate chip pancakes when I was a kid), these were the best damn flapjacks I've ever had.

Dramatic Egg Salad Sandwich!

I felt like Ed Norton in Fight Club. A house full of condiments. But I did have eggs so and Egg Salad sandwich I made. 3 Eggs hard boiled, Mayo (I probably put in too much), honey mustard, salt & pepper and a couple pinches of blue cheese. The honey mustard and blue cheese really worked well together, but I wish I had a fancier bread or roll for this.

Big Al's Sandwich Shop's Egg & Cheeser

Big Al's was a Helena downtown eatery that served breakfast and lunch, named after Al Capone who used to come to Helena, Montana to get away from things. Originally it had murals and photos of famous crime bosses and such. The owner, Dennis, is a huge Greenbay Packers fan and said if they went to the Superbowl, he'd redecorate in a football theme. Well, the Packs went and Dennis changed the motif and Sandwich names. (Before they were gangster related names, now "The Heisman" and such. Each day of the week he had a special and it never changed week to week. Wednesday's special was a chili dog. But this was a foot long dog on a bun, on a plate, piled high with fresh chili and cheese. This thing was huge and fatty! Thursday's special was my favorite, a Chicken breast sandwich with bacon, cheese and lettuce. His breakfast sandwich that I most liked was the simple Egg & Cheeser. You can add bacon or ham, but I prefer the good old simple standard.
American Cheese (a must for this sandwich), Salt & Pepper, eggs and Mayo. Not Miracle Whip, Mayo. Best Food's or Kellman's.


I like my eggs organic! From B&B Market.


After cooking one side of the egg I flip it, apply slice of american cheese and cover until the cheese is gooey.



Mayo on one side, then cut. (I prefer the diagonal cut.)

And the end result is an orgy of dairy delight. Kids like 'em, great hung over food or great in the middle of the night. The Big Al's Egg & Cheeser.

Todays Lunch

Nothing.

Grilled Cheese Month 1

In honor of National Grilled Cheese Month I decided to whip one up for dinner. (And that's about all we had in the fridge) I was never a big Grilled Cheese fan growing up so I threw in a bit of avocado and onion (not pictured). I really like to lay on a lot of butter on the out side of the bread to give it that nice crispy crunch. As I was cooking it, I swear, it smelled just like fresh White Castle. Weird.

The end result. A bit soggy on the inside but still yummy.

Taco Del Sol

Today's lunch: A Taco Del Sol beef burrito with mild sauce, hot sauce, white sauce, refried beans, cabbage and rice. I'm not a big fish fan, but they have delicious fish tacos and burritos too.

The Crazy Dog

NY Style beef frank with pork n' beans with bacon and cheddar cheese, cheez wiz, crushed Ruffles, chopped onion and fresh steamed artichoke! Smokey and delicious, the artichoke really finished this one off.

Bully!

It's not eats, but it is Montana and it's my favorite president, the Man amongst Men, Teddy Roosevelt on the steps of the capitol building in 1903. From helenahistory.org, a great site filled with tons of beautiful old photographs of a budding town transforming into the city it is.

Worth a stop to check out for a while.

NY Style Coffee Cup

My badasssss New York Greek Deli style porcelain coffee cup from uncommongoods.com

Staggering Ox, What Happened?

The Staggering Ox used to have unique, delicious and homemade sandwich's. They've been featured in Maxim as the second best sandwich in America. The Ox even has their sandwich bread Trademarked. It's basically a hollowed out cylinder of bread. The insides they sell in bags with Ranch dressing or with a bit of meat and cheese, which are my personal favorite of theirs, one things that hasn't seemed to get worse. Maybe 5 or so years ago, but how the mighty have fallen. (At least in flavor and quality.) A couple years ago the Ox expanded to more then double in size and added a small bar (beer & wine), hosts music events and even has a Erotic Art Show every year. But in all of this growing and expansion they lost the love and quality of their food. The meat seems highly processed and the staff is mainly a bunch of high school kids that have no sense of people or customer service. A helpful and caring staff, better ingredients and not just riding on the good name you've built for yourself would be the beginning of  a return for a unique sandwich shop. The Ox is like the really smart kid in class who could always get an A but instead just goes for a C. Godspeed, Ox, godspeed.

Jedi Spice Master

I keep Yoda with my spices. 

He keeps a Jedi like calm in my kitchen.

Snowy Burger

Leftover night. Had some hamburger, no buns, and a carton of garlic mashed potatoes from On Broadway the night before. Fried up the burger in butter and  wortishire sauce, heated up the mashed and slapped it on top of the burger. Genius! And delicious.

A dining room from Montecatini, Italy. Montecatini is were my family came from a couple generations ago. It's a spa town, small and quaint with some of the most delicious food you could eat. (And I don't really like most Italian food, go figure. Well, at least "Americanized" Italian I don't like. It was really great to visit with my parents. Pasta in a butter and spicy oil sauce was to die for.

Goose Egg

A Real Food Store Goose egg. Only 69 cents!

I've never actually tried one.

R-B Drive In, Helena

R-B Drive In

Fish n' Chips - Hamburgers

Old Timey Drive-In where they bring it to your car, but not on rollerskates, unfortunately. Decent food, fried and fatty, fairly cheap. Great Steak Fingers and special Steak Sauce. Their Chicken Cheese Melt is what McDonald's wish it tasted like. Fresh melted cheese on a fried chicken patty with mayo, ketchup, lettuce and tomato. Good shakes too.

R-B Drive In, Circa 1967. The big Root Beer glass it still there.

Adam Is Pleased With His Sandwich

Our house guest examines his Luigi's style sandwich and seems pleased with the results. Turkey, Tomato, Green Pepper, Onion, Oil and Parmesan Cheese.

R.I.P. Montana's Grab-N-Go Burger Shack

No Photo Available, sorry!

The Grab-N-Go was a tasty little burger shack in the north valley on the way back from the cabin on Canyon Ferry Lake. Their specialty was a ginormous burger that had to be at least 10 inches in diameter. I never had one because I can't eat that much, but many a dear friends tried them. It was just a wooden shack so you couldn't actually go in. It's been gone now for several years, but I still remember their damn fine burger.

Tuna Pita

My pregnant wife's dinner: Tuna Pita with tomato, green leaf and avacado with mayo and French's mustard. I hate tuna. Hate it. Bacon is much better.

No Kitchen!!!

My kitchen is getting torn apart today to get some new bamboo flooring put in and I won't have a stove for a couple weeks. This is my favorite lunch and now I can't have them for a bit. The cheap (About a $1 per patty) easy (15 minute cooking time) and delicious (it's meat). My mom used to make these for me and my dad, and I suppose it's a sort of comfort food for me. I present my mom's Pan Fried Cube Steak Sandwich!

I like to use quite a bit of butter and a bit of creole spices when frying. (on Med. flip only once)

For the spread I like to use good old fashioned mayo and it's gotta be Best Foods (also known as Kellman's on the East Coast.)

For the dipping sauce I go just the way I used to like them as a kid, Ketchup! Now I like to make mine Spicy Ketchup and there's no better hot sauce than Brother Bru Bru's. This stuff is really hot. Not too hot, but a nice robust flavor and a good heat. I use about 8-12 drops in a puddle of ketchup. I highly recommend this hot sauce. (Hey Bru Bru, send me some free shit!)

And here it is. The Cube Steak Sandwich. Nice and simple and really good!

Too bad I can't have one of these babys for a while.