Atlantic City!

I love going to AC, it's a cheap, nice place to go and relax. I'm not much for gambling, I'll play the slots a bit. This trip I found a slot machine called baron Von bacon! And I won $30 bucks on it, of course, bacon always has my back. I ended up about $65 up for the trip, plus had quite a good trip. I really needed the time to unwind and it was good because a couple days after I got back Rachel passed and I haven't done much to relax at all since then. Looking at planning another trip down in the first week of feb too I think. Always stay at Harrah's, it's off the boardwalk and I get a bay view room or better for $40 a night. They even upgraded us to their best room, it had a massive glass shower and the toilet was in a separate room, one of the many perks of being part of the elite i suppose. That's pretty hard to beat, I like going sun-tues.
Since i was right before Christmas they even had a sand "snowman" in the lobby.
Also stopped by Cesar's and got some gelato. That's always one of my favorite stops, it not overpriced, $5 for two good size scoops which is pretty standard for gelato. This time I got one scoop of hazelnut and one scoop of white chocolate. That was an amazingly good combination and I savored every bite. I also stole the do not disturb sign from the hotel, it's one that always makes me giggle so now it's on my wall.
I also made sure to include a picture of me in front of a cactus Christmas tree in the foyer of wild west.

An adorable foodie

I discovered this really cute little kid on the Internet! Her name is Rino and she is a little Japanese girl, her mom cooks food items for all over the world and then Rino tests them out. She's super adorable and you can read about her here http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/meet-the-most-adorable-japanese-girl-who-really-lo and check her out. The videos also have some shots of her moms prep work cooking.

Some funny

Just a little bit to make me laugh before bed. I love the Ikea monkey, probably because he seems to like Ikea as much as I do! I can get lost in there forever and someday I will furnish my whole house from Ikea.

Bill's Bar & Burger, Atlantic City NJ

I love staying at harrah's in Atlantic city, we went in December and were looking for dinner on Tuesday night when the buffet at the casino was closed. We were going to go to Sammy D's, but after 10 minutes and a horrible experience with the waiter there we left in a rather bad mood.
We decided to head across the casino floor and check out Bill's Bar & Grill. We were very pleased, the service was exceptional and the food was nice, casual, fresh, and affordable.
We had a grilled shrimp burger, which was great, very moist and had a good flavor, seasoned but not too spicy. It was topped with coleslaw and tarter sauce and came with a pickle. Got a side salad to make it healthy. Also got an order of corn dogs and some disco fries! The corn dogs were good (and I'm a corndog freak) the disco fries (fries smothered in cheese sauce and gravy) were mediocre. They were well intentioned, but compared to the well made shrimp burger and even the crisp corn dogs they seemed very artificial and just like frozen fries covered in canned cheese sauce and canned gravy. I've had them done much better, but overall the meal was pretty good, plus good service goes a long way in my book.

Truth

So there is truth that I can find bacon anywhere.... Today I went to the local Asian supermarket which is super fun (more on that trip later) and found Asian bacon! It was flavored with soy sauce and was very expensive, like $6 for a small package so I didn't buy it, but I did take a photo.
My friend who is a teacher also posted this hilarious school paper on Facebook.

Trader joes!

On Sunday I went to the farmers market, but didn't find much for me. I did however pick out all my stuff for January's foodie penpal, she'll be getting a box of items from the Schenectady green market, so more about that on the 31st.
Since I can't really talk about my trip to the farmers market, I don't want to ruin "healthy gamer girl's" surprise, on the upside I also took my first visit to our new trader joes! It's been here a while, but I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to go yet. Love the trader joes in cape cod so I was psyched when they brought one to Albany.
One of my regular members was very excited when they came in and his favorite part was the 19 cent bananas because he felt that they cost too much money at the regular stores. So I made sure to take a photo of the 19 cent bananas.
I also really love their sample station. I used to be the sampling manager when I worked at hannaford so I always seek out the sampling station to check it out. While we were there, we sampled creamy tomato soup, peach juice, and yummy Gorgonzola snack crackers.
On the way out I managed to get one good impulse buy in of some candy. I also go some Brie with wild mushrooms, it was very creamy, though the bits of mushroom where very finely chopped and kind f far and few between so it didn't have much extra flavor.
As far as the other stuff I picked up, we got some tiny fingerling potatoes, frozen artichoke hearts, brussels sprouts, and a garlic herb pizza dough for dad. We also bought some ravioli like pasta with prosciutto, it was ok though I didn't really taste the prosciutto flavor.I also picked up some orangina which is a yummy sparkling orange juice drink that I used to get when I was a kid from the health food store down the street from my dads bookstore.
We cooked the pizza dough the next night and I really wasn't a fan, trader joes kind of let us down there. The flavor was very strong, but the dough wasn't very fluffy.
Hope you enjoyed the trip to trader joes, stay tuned for some more cooking and shopping adventures with Maeve!

Christmas appetizer.... With bacon!

Since I served Christmas dinner for everyone here this year I had some appetizers, dips and things to have out before the meal while people are chatting and opening presents. Plus that's usually the time I'm int he kitchen rushing around getting the meal finished so it keeps everyone in the living room and out of my hair.
I saw the lazy guy on the pilsbury commercial make these bacon cheddar pinwheels and decided they would be perfect. Of course since its me I didn't go on the website and look up the recipe I decided to just wing it. So here's what I ended up doing.
First I cooked my bacon on a sheet pan in the oven. I did it this way for a couple different reason, one because I had to make a ton of bacon for multiple components of my meal, and also because it's less messy than the stovetop. To cook the bacon you lay the bacon on on some parchment paper on the cookie sheet and then cover it with bacon. Then put the pans in a cold oven and turn it up to 375 and cook for 20 minutes. The foil keeps it from getting burned and also from getting oil all over your oven.
Then I layer out the crescent roll and add a layer of shredded cheese. I chose a Monterey jack blend rather than just a straight cheddar. Then I add a layer of chopped bacon and roll it up. This is where it got a little tricky because I had to slice them without ripping or smashing them. I found a sharp knife (not serrated) and kind of a sawing motion worked the best. I did slices that were about 1/2 inch thick.
Make sure you grease the pans well and cook at 400 for about 12 minutes or until golden brown and the cheese is melted. They were easy to make and a big hit.