I hit the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market today and found a few nice things… The couple vendors I’ve been hitting this summer have been good about making some deals with me. Most of the stuff is generally $2 for the container, or 3 for $5 – that’s a LOT of food for a single person to deal with, let alone someone like me living a post-weight-loss surgery type life style. So I pick and choose, and when I ask they’re pretty good about letting me get say a half-container for a buck.

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A sort of rite of spring took place today right outside my office window. Mamma duck hatched her eggs… it must have happened within the last 16 hours, cause there was no sign of anything other than eggs yesterday… today I saw a duckling!

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Ok.. maybe I’m getting carried away with the movie references. Especially since so few people saw/remember The Replacement Killers with Chow Yun-Fat, oh well.

This morning I made something I’ve wanted to try… it’s not really a taste issue, more of a visual one. I made French toast on a waffle iron.

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Until recently, I tended to avoid wheat breads, but I have to eat better so I’m given them a shot. While I haven’t quite stepped up to 100% wheat, I came up with a recipe that I really like. It’s a mix of wheat and white four, and instead of just an all-purpose flour, I use stone ground flour from a local co-op.

I’ve had a bread machine for years… on my second one actually. I used to make different breads for holidays or other gatherings, but only a few times have I ever actually cooked in the machine. I typically use the dough setting and then make loaves or rolls. This is a recipe for a2-pound loaf, and for my machine I put wet stuff in first, followed by dry with the yeast going in last,  so that’s the order I have things listed. Check your machine directions to see if it’s the same, or if you want to make it by hand you’ll have to figure that part out.

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A few Christmas past, my mom gave me a George Foreman grill, one of the larger ones. I used it once in awhile.. in the summer I prefer the grill on my deck… and I’ve never cared for burgers on the GF. Maybe it’s the fact that you do lose so much of the fat? I dunno. Bout the same time I ended up with an electric griddle. It was handy, but when just cooking for myself it didn’t get used very often.

Awhile back, I saw that Cuisinart had what they called a “Griddler” It looks similar to the GF grills, but it doesn’t sit at a slant. What it looks more like I suppose is a panini press, one of those machines that just borders on being a uni-tasker that you might see Alton Brown throwing out the kitchen window. Both a panini press and a GF grill are what are often referred to as “contact grills”. They grill by direct contact heat to both sides of your food at the same time. Not that you couldn’t use a regular grill and just flip stuff over, but hey… anything to make things faster, right?

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I’m not exactly sure why it’s all collecting here, but water and snow coming off the roof of our office building has been collecting outside my window… combined with hot exhaust coming out of the mechanical room next door and I’ve been getting what seems to like a termite mound made out of ice.

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