French Yogurt Cake (Times 2!)

A week ago Saturday, I managed to make a French yogurt cake to give us an additional option for dessert after our beef bourguignon meal, and it paired pretty nicely with a couple of scoops of the butter pecan ice cream I'd made.

Then, the next morning, I made a second loaf to take with me on the road to Virginia Beach, in order to share with the administrative teams at the schools I was working with. It's so easy, and so delicious. You should click the link below and try it out for yourself!

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"French Yogurt Cake," by Andrew Knowlton. In Bon Appétit, May 2012, p. 30.

Another Gorgeous Night for Food Truck Friday

The convenience of Food Truck Fridays, right behind the house, make it all too easy to just grab the Friday night meal from there. I could only imagine that last week's beautiful Friday evening represented the last of those gorgeous weather days. But then yesterday turned out to also be awesome, and also Food Freaks made one of its rare appearances with their fantastic stuffed burgers.

I'm glad I was first in line when they opened just after 6 pm, because there were already about 15 people in the line behind me. I got the Elvis. You can imagine what a remarkable combination of ingredients found their way into that one.

One Final Food Truck Friday for 2015?

Today was another gorgeous fall day, although it did not start out that way. It was cloudy and a little rainy and pretty chilly. But by early afternoon, the sun had come out and the temps warmed nicely.

I am guessing the Food Truck Fridays are going to be wrapping up by the end of the month, so I could not turn down at least one more venture to see what might be had for supper. I was drawn back to the Camel City Grill peanut butter bacon and jelly burger, which was good yet again.

Saved By a Fave: Food Truck Fridays

After two full weeks of working in Virginia, with only a brief weekend respite in between, it was especially taxing to try to make it home from Woodstock, VA, this afternoon with I-81 completely tied in knots by multiple wrecks. I attempted a detour down the west side of the Shenandoah Valley but found it did not allow me to bypass the next traffic shut-down around Weyer's Cave. My GPS eventually routed me all the way over to The Grottoes and then down through Waynesboro so that I had to pick up VA 151 and then US 29 down through Danville and to Greensboro. That meant it was an almost five-and-a-half hour drive for what normally should have taken around four hours.

Glad that Food Truck Friday was still happening in the lot behind the house, and I sauntered up to Camel City Grill and got me a peanut butter bacon and red pepper jelly burger for my supper. It sure was tasty.

The Convenience of FTFWS

It is not a short return trip when I come back home from working in Virginia Beach City Public Schools. After an intense but excellent five hard days of work, I got home Friday night and it was nearly 8:30 pm. Yet again, right behind the house, there was a whole collection of food trucks for the latest edition of Downtown Winston-Salem Food Truck Fridays. On a beautiful August evening with a very nearly full moon coming up over the city skyline, and tempting smells wafting all around the house, I stepped up to the Bulkogi Korean BBQ food truck and ordered my dinner. This here is kimchee fried rice with chicken bulkogi BBQ, and not a small amount of kick:

The spice in it caused me to too quickly down a couple of Abita Andygator helles doppelbocks, forgetting that they are 8% ABV...so I ended up a bit giddy once dinner was over. Guess that reduced my hesitations and why it was a double scoop of gelato I got from the West End Coffeehouse afterwards.

This Korean BBQ crew came all the way from Wake Forest, NC (not Wake Forest University!). I see from their schedule that they don't just stay in the Raleigh area. They'll be back for another Winston-Salem Food Truck Friday behind the house on September 11th (but I'll be in California!).

Tonite we're traveling to Winston Salem for their Downtown Food Truck Fridays at 751 W 4th St Winston Salem! Serving from 6-9! See you soon!

— Bulkogi Korean BBQ (@NCBulkogi) August 28, 2015

Food Truck Fridays Strikes Again

I was all prepared to make some dinner on last night's delightful summer Friday night, but I also wanted to support the local happenings right outside the back door. So the small crew on hand last night joined me in walking up the steep hill behind the house, up to where the latest round of Downtown Winston-Salem Food Truck Fridays was playing out. I went with a chicken pita from Ghassan's on the Go. Not to be self-serving about it, but it wasn't as good as the dinner I'd've made here at home. Like I said: supporting the local shindig is also important.

After bringing dinner in, though, I still had a hankering to create something in the kitchen, so I turned to the Caramel Popcorn version of Cap'n Crunch Cookies:

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"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

August Friday Slumber Party

Whoa: I just taught five days straight, which was split between a road gig in Virginia for the first two days and then three days of teacher training in the next county over from home. By Friday evening, I'll confess to feeling a bit tuckered. But it was also a great night for another Roediger House slumber party with eight or ten friends due. Although I had bought groceries with plans to make a big dinner, it turns out that it worked better for most of the crew to get here later, thanks either to work or traveling in from out of town.

Thank goodness, then, for Food Truck Fridays, right outside the back door of the house:

My two slices of feta and spinach pizza from Home Slice Pizza & Subs last night were fantastic:

As for my kitchen responsibilities for my own shindig here last evening, I guess I learned from the previous overnight gathering back in April that we don't necessarily have to have a ton of food. So this time around there was a fresh batch of pimento cheese, which got completely wiped out by hungry munchers:

As noted in yesterday's blog post, I also had Sprinkled Donut Cap'n Crunch cookies already made, and they were quite delicious!

Around 1 am, I brought up to the crew a warm batch of swiss bacon dip, inspired by an appetizer version of this that I enjoyed with great friends and colleagues at the Woodstock Cafe in Virginia:

Then, this morning, even though we'd all been up until after 3 am, folks somehow got up too early for me to have prepared anything more than a bowl of creamy grits for them:

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"Swiss and Bacon Dip," from Rachael Ray. Available online at the Food Network website.

"South Carolina-Style Pimento Cheese." Recipe worked out by me, based on Sharon's Palmetto Pimento Cheese.

Source of creamy grits recipe: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.

Meal No. 1348: Porterhouse Steaks & French Fries

It was a great week back at work after a wonderful stretch of extended time off. And while it's been hot and quite muggy again, this Friday night just had the feel of a great summer evening. The parking lots and sidewalks around the house were busy with people going out to eat or grabbing gelato or heading to the Winston-Salem Dash baseball game. And for the third week, the Food Truck Friday event has been taking place right outside my back door:

With all that good food outdoors, and the weather so nice, and a hope to get in a quick early dinner before diving into the evening's plans, and of course with porterhouse steaks on sale, the Roediger House supper was mighty fine: