What We're Eating for Dinner: Dec. 8-14

Feeling the need for a slight rant here to someone who would *get* why I'm so irritated. LOL!

Dh and I did a bit of Christmas shopping yesterday and afterwords we stopped at a local restaurant for a bit to eat. Now I prefer local restaurants to the big chains on general principle. I like the idea of keeping my money local. And generally I find the food to be better. Especially in a restaurant like this one. Housed in a historic building, lots of ambiance. Of course, out here in the middle of the American Midwest, gourmet palates are few and far between. Odds are that if you ask, most people's favorite recipe contains cream-of-something soup from a can. Most of their meals are meat and potatoes and most aren't interested in trying something new and different. I get that. Most upscale restaurants that go in here don't last long. Midwesterners, in this area at least, aren't interested in paying lots of money not to get their meat and potatoes.

Anyway, at this local mid-priced restaurant I opted for the soup and salad with their Soup-of-the-Day, French Onion Soup. Now I love French Onion Soup. I especially love the French Onion Soup I make and rarely have a found a bowl of restaurant French Onion that I like as well. I'm okay with that. What I wasn't so okay with is recieving a bowl of French onion soup, full of croutons that looked almost as if they were homemade ... and then topped with a slice of cheese that appeared to be a Kraft Single, albeit white. That same rubberry consistency. ::shiver:: And as it was perched atop the rather large croutons so that it wasn't even touching the soup, it had retained it's nicely square shape since they hadn't even run it through the broiler. (Is this odd or is it just me?) When I commented on the fact that generally I'd gotten French Onion Soup with the cheese melted and browned on top, they looked at me as if I had three eyes or two heads. "We've never done it that way", she said (and in a manner that also said "Why would we?")

It just seemed odd to me that you wouldn't run it under the broiler first before serving, especially if you are using fake, plastic cheese. Maybe you could skip it if you were using Parmesan curls or some other good quality cheese. But when you can still see the impressions left from the plastic wrap on the cheese? ::shaking head::

The sad thing was the soup itself was excellent. I could be a tad picky about how huge the onion slices were but I won't. ;-) At least you could tell they were actually cut by a human being rather than a machine.

Just seemed weird to me.

Maybe I've been watching Gordon Ramsey too much lately. LOL!



It's time for Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie once again. Here's this week's plan:

Monday: Basketball Game: Peking Chicken Pizza, salad

Tuesday: Basketball Game: Gumbo, crusty bread with freshly made butter and a salad

Wednesday: Eggplant Mini Pizzas, Lemon Parmegianno Chicken,

Thursday: Red Beans and Rice, salad, bread

Friday: Dinner @ C. and D.'s: Appetizers and Desserts

Saturday: Christmas Party! Take a dish!

Sunday: Italian Beef Sandwiches