Making Noodles & Company at Home! - National Macaroni Day - July 7th

Who is feeling like noodles tonight? I've been wanting a tasty mac and cheese for a little while now.
I haven't had Noodles & Company for years now. Noodles & Company was something Theresa and I would indulge on when we were in college. Tonight, we're going to try making it at home! And today is National Macaroni Day! I think we can do something with that.

Pizza at Home - New York Style Pizza

It's Sunday and time for Pizza! Being a July 4th weekend, my mind takes me to New York. The Statue of Liberty and people coming to America for the very first time. I figured our pizza today could take us there also, and so today we're doing a New York style pizza.

Disneyland Treats at Home - Marshmallow Wands, Caramel Apples, and Chocolate Apples

Today we're continuing our series of making some of our favorite Disneyland Treats at home! Last time we made Mint Juleps and Mickey Beignets.
This time, it's those tasty treats we always stop by and at least look at after we ride Winnie the Pooh. It's tradition to go inside Pooh Corner and then get either a marshmallow wand or a caramel apple.

And we're going to throw in a chocolate covered Mickey apple to go along with this. It is a Disneyland treat after-all. And speaking of Disneyland, these marshmallow wands are the Disneyland version, meaning that it's marshmallow, a layer of caramel, and then chocolate on top. Theresa was unhappily surprised when we were at Disney World in Florida and she ordered her favorite treat from back home and it was just marshmallow and chocolate, no caramel.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy 4th of July!

Red White and Blue Oreos for July 4th

On a recent trip to Walmart (can you get more American) I noticed an end-cap with a whole bunch of patriotic treats for the upcoming July 4th Holiday. Red, White, and Blue Chips Ahoy, Twinkies, Hostess Cupcakes and Ding Dongs, and my personal favorite, Oreos!
Now that the July 4th weekend is here, the kids and I put on patriotic colors, donned our patriotic hats, and we're going to have a Red, White, and Blue Oreo taste test!

The packaging is classic Oreo. Those three layers of creme look impressive. I wonder how close the real thing will be. And aww, that's unfortunate the Olympics have been cancelled this year. Looks like Oreo was all set to release these to go along with them. They've got the Olympic rings on the package and on the cookies.

An experimental test to make the best Cheese Crisp

After the very successful night of making Parmesan Whisps at home, feeling emboldened, Theresa and I are venturing out to other cheese varieties. There's plenty of different cheeses we could try, but, we're going to sample a few of the more traditional cheeses you might have at home.

And so, here's our different cheese crisps that we're going to try tonight!
Wait a second, that doesn't look very scientific.

There! That's better! Is my inner engineer showing through?
We're trying 5 different cheeses and 5 cheese blends.
Those 5 cheeses are: Monterey Jack, Asiago, Sharp Cheddar, Smoked Cheddar, and Black Diamond Cheddar.
For the blends, we'll be combining those with shredded Parmesan cheese.

Dark Chocolate Oreo Thins

It's been nearly 2 months since we've had a new Oreo flavor to try. I don't know why, but that seems like a long time to me. Today we've got the New Dark Chocolate Oreo Thins.
You might remember about a year ago we tried Dark Chocolate Oreos. Now those regular sized Oreos have become Thins!

And I know that last time the cookies tasted very dark, so we've got an appropriate 85% dark chocolate to sample it with. The USDA actually recognizes Dark Chocolate as 70-85% so we're getting to the high end of the bitterness spectrum.