The Monday after a July 4th weekend is perfect for a picture-themed post.
We had a great, but exhausting time spending two nights at G-Ma’s for the first time. After making it back home on Sunday, Going Mom and I ran around doing chores and tending to the yard.
I will have a recap of the weekend up soon, but in the meantime, here are several pictures of Avery’s cute, sometimes eerie, facial expressions I’ve been able to snap a shot of.
Hope everyone has a great day and start to a new week!
Have you ever had a McGriddle breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s? The soft maple-flavored pancake “buns” sandwiching crispy bacon or sausage, egg and cheese creates a sweet and savory fast food breakfast.
Mmm, I really enjoyed these sandwiches back in my “ignorant to how food is made” days. Now…not so much.
Glad I’m free from food ignorance now, and can see right through the “M” branded griddle cakes stuffed with fluffy egg and crispy bacon. I only see low-quality, non-nutritional ingredients like enriched flour, chemicals created in a lab to obtain that certain “flavors”, and cheese that is anything but.
Starting from the top, lets break down the ingredients in one of these sandwiches from McD’s. This info comes right from their site here.
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| Who brands their buns anyway? |
One Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle (source) packs a whopping 420 calorie handheld heart attack served neatly in colored paper wrap. You get a substantial (not in a good way) 18g of fat, 240mg of cholesterol, 1110mg of sodium, 2g fiber, and 15g of sugar.
Still sound good? Lets keep going….
The top-level ingredients for a Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddles® are:
Griddle Cakes, Folded Egg, Pasteurized Process American Cheese, Bacon, Liquid Margarine
Seems somewhat safe, but dig deeper and we find the Griddle Cakes have a little more than you or I would use to make pancakes:
Water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), sugar, dextrose, palm oil, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), brown sugar, salt, soybean oil, rice flour, whey powder, modified tapioca starch, buttermilk powder, caramel color, natural (dairy and botanical source) and artificial flavors, soy lecithin, corn oil (processing aid).
Surely there’s nothing in the Folded Egg besides “egg”….right?….wrong:
Pasteurized whole eggs, food starch-modified, soybean oil, natural flavors (botanical source), sodium acid pyrophosphate, carrageenan, flavor enhancer [salt, maltodextrin, natural flavor (plant source), spices, herb, turmeric (color)], monosodium phosphate, citric acid, soy lecithin (release agent).
And the topping on (and in) the “cake” is Liquid Margarine:
Liquid soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, soy lecithin, mono-and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservatives), artificial flavor, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color).
This, among numerous other reasons, is why I happily prepare my own food at home!
My version is actually what you would expect an egg sandwich with pancake buns to be; two pancakes with a cooked egg in the middle. Wow, shocker!! I made a batch of coconut flour protein pancakes from ProteinPOW.com for the “buns”, but you can use your favorite pancake recipe if you choose.
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| The fluffy white one was obviously my egg-cellent first choice. |
For the egg, I had this bright idea to microwave it in a small, circular glass dish to make the perfect round egg patty.
As you can see, I did this 4 times, and the egg just expanded and wrinkled into a brain-like resemblance. #FoodieFail.
I made do with the best rounded one of the bunch and just saved the other eggs to put on salad. Since my pancakes were too big, I trimmed around them a little; not necessary, but I wanted to make it look good!
Topped with a drizzle of raw, local honey, sprinkle of cayenne, and dash of pepper, this was a delectably sweet and spicy sandwich I devoured immediately after the last picture; pancake trimmings included.
I was pumped when the idea to make this sandwich came to mind, and I’m glad I did. These non-McGriddles are a delightful (and healthy) way to start or end the day. Not to mention they can be fun to make with kids!
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| I think it’s smiling at me… |
My favorite breakfast on the weekends would be a scrambled egg sandwich with ketchup that my mom would make, and I could eat several! Did I mention I was a heavy boy? I don’t have ketchup anymore, but salsa suits me just fine and I don’t feel like I’ve given up anything!
Have you ever made your own fast food version into something healthier?
Do you like egg sandwiches with ketchup?
Read more: http://www.dadcreek.com/news/who-needs-a-gym-fitfamilyfriday/
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans, and Happy Friday to all others! Both great things, and both reasons to celebrate!
We’re heading down to G-Ma’s to celebrate the 4th of July weekend with Uncle Preston (if he’s around) and G-Ma’s boyfriend, Paul. This will be the first time Avery gets to watch fireworks, and we’re not too sure how she’ll act. Any tips?
Growing up, I remember getting tremendously excited around New Year’s and the 4th of July because that meant fireworks!! When I was old enough, I would have my own yard sale trying to sell anything from some of my old books to jewelry I thought my mom would never miss.
For some reason, some boy sitting in the front yard with a few things laying on a blanket never got me very far. I earned some money, though, but mainly out of pity from the neighbors. I even tried my shot at a Kool-Aid stand which earned a bit too. Same reason…..pity.
With my earnings, I’d ride my bright neon Huffy bike to the firework stand nearby and spend it all on whatever I could afford. The stand owners were parents to one of my friends, so they’d always toss in a few extras.
I couldn’t afford the big fireworks, my sympathetic mom helped there, so I mainly came back with a lot of Black Cat firecrackers. Probably for the best since trying to ride bike while carrying several artillery shell fireworks would be ill-advised.
Not 30 minutes after arriving back home and I’d be out of my hard earned fire ant disrupters. Man, for such a small thing, those firecrackers are pretty potent!
One day, while Avery was screaming because I set her down for a second, I reflected upon my past obsession with firecrackers and came up with 4 things they have in common with babies. I figured 4 is a good number for the 4th; see how intuitive I am?
1. Both are small but loud. When compared to an adult, babies are small, cute and (usually) cuddly, right? Likewise, a firecracker pales in comparison to the enormous fireworks you’d see at a major firework display. Despite their small packaging, babies and firecrackers can and do create quite a racket.
The firecrackers are self-explanatory; you light them and they go “boom!” Babies do a great job at creating loud noise with just their vocals, or by grabbing anything nearby and banging it on anything else nearby.
Although, unless you have one of those strands of 50,000 firecrackers set to explode one after the other in sequence, babies tend to make noise for longer periods. And, unfortunately, it’s not on cue by lighting a fuse, it’s all on their terms!
2. Both are good at exploding. While firecrackers themselves explode, babies tend to create explosions by other means. But, after either one “explodes” you have a mess to clean up.
The paper wrapping and any remnants from an unfortunate toy might be scattered across the ground, while babies leave their aftermath inside a diaper, on the floor, up their back, in the tub, in the car, in the…well, you get the idea.
3. Both have a short fuse. You ever try to light a single firecracker? Those things explode before you can turn the other way after lighting, and a lot of people, me included, just light and throw them quickly as they explode before touching the ground. Not safe or smart since you eventually have one go off in your hand which feels far from good.
Babies, on the other hand, can be as happy as a clam at high tide for one moment, but if you so much as take your attention off of them to scratch your head, they can go irate! This happens to Going Mom and me frequently; we’ll have Avery laughing as we coo at her and make funny faces, but we stop to talk to each other and WHAM! she’s crying.
4. Both need to be tightly swaddled/wrapped. We haven’t swaddled Avery in months, but when we did, it had to be a tight wrap. If it wasn’t tight enough, she’d get her arms free and thrash around like a short circuited robot. For a firecracker to work as intended, it needs to be very tightly wrapped around the powder inside.
If you’re celebrating today, I hope you have a fun and safe time wherever you are. Happy 4th of July!!
Can you think of any other semblances with babies and firecrackers?