GIVEAWAY!!!

There's a new Chinese buffet right by my house, The Cresean Buffet.  I love a good Chinese buffet - well, really, any buffet.  The key is to not overeat, which is really hard at a buffet, of course!  Sometimes, tho, if you try you can actually eat better!  They have fresh fruits & veggies, and you get to pick a little of each kind of "bad" item, like fried foods or high-fats.  I usually try to get a good balance of meats & veggies, 3 or 4 crab ragoon, noodles & some yummy sushi.  For dessert, it really depends on the buffet.  This one had some good cheesecake along with the usual cookies & cakes, and soft-serve ice cream.  


All in all, it was a very tasty trip, and I will certainly be going to it again.  I've heard they do carry-out, which I have been missing since Royal Wok closed!  I used to go there a couple times a month to get a box of buffet.  Now, I can go just down the street & get a delicious & fairly reasonable take-home meal.  : )  


Also - they have really GREAT hot tea!  : )  

He's not drinking hot tea; he actually made himself a root beer float.  Heh!  


Now!  I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you about a new opportunity with CSN stores!  One lucky US or Canadian reader will win $15 to use at any of their over 200 sites.  If you don't know, CSN stores have so much to offer - purses, clothes, Pendant Lighting, kitchenware, bedding, furniture... Really, everything!  I've quite enjoyed having some giveaways at the Musings blog, and have decided to do one for my readers of the Menu!


To Enter: 


Visit the link above and leave a comment with your favorite item. (This is the only required comment.  Each extra comment, will give you an extra entry.)   


Tweet about this giveaway, and leave a comment!


Facebook this giveaway, and leave a comment!


Blog about this giveaway, and leave a comment!


Leave a comment with your favorite Chinese or regular buffet item!  


If you find more than one thing you love, leave a comment!  


Each comment will give you a separate entry.  : )  


On March 12th I'll use Random.org's random number generator to pick a winner from all the comments.


Until next time - let's get commenting!!  

Coming Soon!

Just a quick note to whet your appetite - tell your friends!

The Menu will be having a CSN GIVEAWAY soon!  What that means for one lucky reader is FREE STUFF!  You know you're interested!

No time now to share details, just wanted to give you a heads up.  Check back this weekend to see how YOU can enter to win $15 to spend on anything you'd like at CSN.  : )

Until next time - have you ever won something fun from a giveaway?  Do share your story!

Biaggi's Italian Restaurant

Tonight I had a lovely dinner with my friend Becca & a group of her friends to celebrate her birthday.  Biaggi's is like a step or two up from The Olive Garden.  Don't get me wrong - I love me some Olive Garden!  But it is to Fazoli's what Biaggi's is to it.  Does that make sense?  I guess it probably does if you're familiar with all three of these restaurants.  *laugh*  For those of you not familiar, here's a quick reference guide.


Fazoli's: Italian food fast.  Has a drive through.  Serves pretty good pasta and pizza, but is kinda overpriced for fast food.  


Olive Garden:  Chain restaurant, so the menu is the same and dishes prepared pretty similar in all locations.  Fairly quick and good.  Yummy breadsticks, but you kinda get the feeling they were made somewhere else & frozen to be baked up in crazy batches that can never keep up with the customer demand.  Kinda small dessert menu.  


Biaggi's:  Chain restaurant, but a little more upscale that OG.  Portion sizes are huge, dishes can be shared between two people.  Main courses feel like they were made from scratch right there, no frozen components (this may not be true, but it's how it feels).  Bread basket filled with various fresh breads, with oil, parm, and pepper at the table for dipping.  DELICIOUS.  I don't even know for sure what kinds of bread are in the basket, but they are amazing.  : ) Huge dessert menu, including various coffee options.  Yummy!


This is where Becca chose to have her birthday dinner.  There were about 16 of us, I think, so a rather large group!  Our waitress did an awesome job.  We were there for about an hour waiting for everyone to arrive, munching on the much anticipated bread.  We went thru many baskets, and didn't have to wait for fresh bread.  


Many ladies had some adult beverages, and they were very pretty, as you can see with the Bix Blue Martini and the Cherry Basil something-or-other below.

For my main course, I chose one of the night's chef specials, Penne Portabella? I actually just realized I don't remember what kind of mushrooms they were, but they started w/ a P and that is the only kind of mushroom I can think of that starts w/ a P!!  LOL  Anyway, along w/ the penne & mushrooms, it had some basil & tomato salsa, a cream sauce and spinach.  

YUM!  I brought over 1/2 of it home for dinner tomorrow because I'd eaten so much bread, tho.  *laugh*  Cassandra had this gorgeous chicken salad, with avocados, which almost made me wish I'd ordered salad.  Almost.  I could have sub'd spinach for the iceberg... heh.  

For dessert, I just had a big cup of coffee w/ cream & Splenda.  They have excellent coffee!  One of the girls very kindly offered to let me photograph her creme brulee for the blog.  Thanks, much!  : )  

Isn't it lovely?  Other desserts chosen included tirami su, bread pudding, cannoli, lemon tower, and a divine chocolate cake.  


A very enjoyable evening, and I'm so glad I was able to join in on the festivities!  : )  


Until next time - what's your favorite pasta dish or Italian dessert?  

Hodge Podge

Hello, and welcome to Carrie's Hodge Podge of cooking!  Today, I am featuring two recipes for our vegetarian friends, to they can totally be made non-veg by the carnivorous.  : )  Like me - I added meatballs to both dishes.  

Tonight's dinner was a delicious baked potato, with Country Crock, sour cream, diced Roma tomatoes, cheddar cheese, sliced mushrooms, salt & pepper.  Mmmmm!  I added meatballs w/ KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce as a side.  I know it's a simple dish, but not something I thought of until Bret bought potatoes, so... I thought maybe someone else could use the idea!  : )  


I thought I had another veg dish for you, but I guess it was just my normal pasta dish (bowtie pasta, cream cheese, tomato sauce (I use Ragu chunky mushroom & green pepper), basil, oregano, salt & pepper, and cinnamon).  It's good with no meat, chicken, or beef.  : )  

And then we have a savory dessert!  

Crescent rolls with cream cheese, cream cheese & walnuts, cream cheese & chocolate chips... And oh snap!  I just thought of what I will make next time - cream cheese & cinnamon!  : )  Ooooh!  Easy peasy cinnamon rolls!  


So, I know my food pictures aren't the height of gloriousness, and are really crappy compared to the rest of the food-blog-o-sphere.  I just wanted to let you know I know.  *laugh*  And I don't really care.  I just like to share.  


Until next time - what new thing have you been cooking lately?  And did you take pictures?  ; )  

More Ovaltine Please!

I'd never had Ovaltine before, even tho I've seen their commercials for years.  "More Ovaltine, please!" rings out like a chant in my head.  Still, the marketing didn't work on me!  For chocolate milk, it was always Hershey's syrup or Swiss Valley jugs.

Then, the other night Bret & I went grocery shopping at WM, and he said, "Oooh, let's get some Ovaltine!  It tastes great on vanilla ice cream."  Truthfully, I was thinking, "Why not get Hershey's syrup?"  *laugh*

Tonight, I scooped a bit of vanilla ice cream into a dish & happened to see the Ovaltine container out of the corner of my eye, sitting on top of the fridge.  I thought, "Hmmm," and sprinkled a little onto the scoop of ice cream, added a splash of milk & stirred it around... Voila!

Chocolate malt.  : )

Until next time - what's your favorite way to eat ice cream?  Sundae?  Shake?  Do you like a good Malt flavoring?  Do share!

Buffalo Wild Wings

Today Aunt Jan & I went to BWW (as the cool kids call it) for a late lunch/early dinner.  We'd been trying to get together for months, but one or the other of us was always busy!  So today we got to hang out, and she had some gift certificates for BWW, and she shared one with me!


Most of  you have probably been to this mecca of sporting events and bar food.  They have 20 or more big screen TV's all around, showing everything from basketball (Texas/Kansas, I think, and Kansas was up 8-0) to hockey (Go Chicago!).  There are screens with games or something in the booths.  We were at a table in the middle, so I just barely saw the booths.  


The menu is quite a bit more eclectic than I'd thought it would be.  I mean, there are the things I expected - ribs, burgers, potato wedges, pulled pork sandwiches - and then things which were a surprise, like the mini corn dogs and flips served with chips & salsa.  


Jan ordered a burger which was a little spicy for her, but oh so good.  I ordered a delicious steak & potato flip, which is steak & fries, cheese & their signature, hickory BBQ sauce in a thin pizza crust shaped like a quesadilla.  

As I said, it's served with chips & salsa.  The flip itself was DIVINELY delicious!  There's a reason their honey BBQ is their signature.  Mmmm!  The chips were light & crispy & perfect, as well.  The salsa I probably wouldn't order again, tho.  It wasn't bad, and I ate it all (LOL) but it had a peculiar flavor that I just didn't enjoy 100%.  


It was an amazingly yummy lunch, and only cost $2.99 with the coupon Jan gave me!!!!  I tipped on the amount of the bill before the coupon, tho, just in case anyone was worried.  : )  This is definitely a restaurant I'd like to go back to!


Until next time, what's your favorite thing to get at BWW?  What should I try next time I go?  Before I decided on the flip, I was thinking about the pulled pork.  Good idea/bad idea?

New Year's Eve

For NYE this year, I met my friend Becca at our favorite sushi and hibachi grill, Osaka!  I ordered the Peanut Roll, which they make differently than the other Osaka across the river.  Isn't it pretty?  I actually prefer the other one, but this was still very good, and between the two of us, we dispatched it nicely!  : )  

We sat in the bar, but ordered hibachi as well.  Sure, we didn't get to  watch them make it, but it tasted just as delicious!  It was funny, tho - I ordered off the side order menu, as I usually do because it's cheaper.  : ) Yep, I'm all for eating out, but since I want to do it often, finding ways to do it for less is the plan!  Coupons, lunch deals, etc.  

So, I ordered the hibachi side order of steak, and Becca ordered the filet hibachi dinner.  The waiter ended up giving us the wrong meat portions, which was okay cuz we just switched!  But, what I noticed was that my portion of steak was so much more!  I think they gave me more than the side order... Anyway, I had leftovers twice, so I'm very thankful for that!  

that's actually becca's portion of filet mignon.  when we switched, mine filled the plate!  

It was only a week ago, and I am already ready to go back!  Wonder what Mom's doing for dinner tonight?  ; )  Until next time, what fun did you get up to on NYE?  Did it involve delicious food stuffs??