Happiness is Only a Pancake Away

Tags

All Good Cafe, breakfast diners, BuzzBrews, Chicken San Miguel, Dallas, Iced Chai Latte, Justin Bieber balloon, KaLynn, Kamryn, Kara, kid-friendly restaurants, pancakes, steak and eggs

KaLynn and Kacey (#8 and 1)

Few people are lucky enough to have a 100% biological sister that’s 19 years younger. It just doesn’t happen that often. It would make more sense age-wise if KaLynn was my daughter. But nope, it’s way better than that, because I get to be her big sister. I exist solely for the purpose of making her life more fun. I get to impact her life through a few teaching moments and the good thing is, I’m not her mom, so I’m thinking that this ups the chances of her actually listening to me. Maybe.

KaLynn (#8) – The talented athlete in her softball uniform. She’s an awesome pitcher already. Pitchers run in our family…all of my siblings and I did it at some point.

KaLynn has grown into a super cool 11 year-old. With every year that passes, she becomes more mature and is a pleasure to spend time with. Sure, it was rocky when I’d take her places at the ripe young age of 3, with temper tantrums and gimmes threatening to take over at any moment. When she was 4, she never wanted the fun to end and would pout when it was time to go (okay, this lasted until about 6). By 7, her manners were well developed and there would be genuine “thank yous” when I was dropping her off after an all day event. At 8, she was the perfect flower girl/dog escort for my wedding, acting more like my bridesmaid than my baby sister. I still marvel at how well-behaved and grown up she was that day. Now, she’s just one of the girls. She can hang with adults like we are her peers and can blend in quite nicely. She has truly had a unique childhood and I hope she is able to look back on it one day and think it was terrific.

I was excited and a little nervous to take KaLynn to BuzzBrews. The girl likes pancakes, but typically she has them at All Good Cafe. Of everyone in my family, she is not someone you want to culinarily disappoint. It reads all over her face, even if she’s trying here best to disguise it. I get it. I can be the same way. So it was extremely important to me that she like BuzzBrews because frankly, I love it and if she does too, it increases my chances of going back. Now there would be two of us looking at Danny with our eyes wide and sparkling…and as all men know, it’s definitely harder to say no to two girls.

Here KaLynn is all smiling and optimistic, but the jury was still out. Thankfully, not only did she LOVE the pancakes, but she ate almost every last bite. I was worried she might not like the syrup. Not because it’s not good, on the contrary, this is premium quality syrup, no high fructose corn syrup in here, and it’s fantastic! But to an 11 year-old, well, I wasn’t sure if she would be able to appreciate the depth of flavor. She proved me wrong and absolutely adored it. Looks like I have a budding foodie to bring along on tasty adventures after all. She was also in love with their in-house fresh squeezed orange juice and had an admiration for my Iced Chai Latte as well, which reminded me of a milkshake on the rocks.

When Danny and KaLynn get together, there is never a dull moment. These two adore each other.

He doesn’t even mind one bit when her tiny little eyes peer over at his food longingly. He doesn’t skip a beat cutting up his steak and sharing a bite….or lots of bites after she discovered she liked it better than her bacon. Hey bacon for steak, it can be a fair trade…he definitely loves his bacon.

I tried the Chicken San Miguel for the first time and it reminded me of a breakfast chicken enchilada casserole. It was spicy and the tomatoes helped cooled the mouth after several bites when you start to feel the heat. I also like that it comes with black beans, which are better then their potatoes.

KaLynn and I are definitely cut from the same cloth. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she didn’t mention gifts. She specifically requested pancakes, fresh squeezed orange juice, and a back rub. She truly has an appreciation for the finer things in life.  Finding happiness is only a pancake away.  I hope it’s always that easy for her.

Happy Birthday to my terrific baby sister, KaLynn! It is a joy to watch you grow up.

KaLynn, Kara, and Kamryn (#8, 6, 7)

Winging Out

Tags

#4, #6, #7, #8, Buffalo Wild Wings, family fun, frozen yogurt, Gross Reese's Minis, hot wings, KaLynn, Kamryn, Kara, Kelly, peanut butter frozen yogurt, Purple Berri, worst Reese's ever

It’s never dull when family gets together. Mine is no exception. No matter what the combination, just a couple of us, or the whole bunch of 8 siblings, we definitely make memories. Kelly (sister #4, striped shirt) spearheaded today’s get together at Buffalo Wild Wings. And Danny and I were lucky enough to get an invite.

Apparently, Kelly likes hot wings. I did not realize she was such a wing lover until today. She did the ordering and I gladly sat quietly and waited to see what new flavors would be headed our way. Kara (#6, in green) and Kamryn (#7, in red) were not having any of the traditional style wings; they prefer their chicken bone-free, chicken-nugget-style and chose that option. For the rest of us, it was Honey BBQ, Mild, Jammin’ Jalapeño, and a rub of Buffalo (this one was not saucy, but it turned out it was one of our favorites). I also really liked the sweet, spiciness of the Jammin’ Jalapeño.

Turned out these four flavors made a pretty good combination. Not too spicy, in fact, I didn’t eat very much ranch with these, as I wanted to get the full effect of the sauces. I’m sure if I would have ordered a super hot sauce, I would have more heavily relied on the coolness of the ranch to cut the bite of the heat. I preferred to wait to the end of the meal and cut the heat a sweeter way…with frozen yogurt. Good thing a Purple Berri just opened in Waxahachie (by Subway and Domino’s) and my sisters did not need much convincing.

The decor was fresh and colorful and included visually interesting chandeliers that just so happened to photograph well. Kara, Kamryn, KaLynn and I went to work deciding which flavors we wanted to grace the insides of our bowls. My favorites were the peanut butter and the white chocolate mousse, and since they were side by side in a machine, it made it easy to swirl them together. Peanut butter should always be topped with chocolate, so I added chocolate and peanut butter chips, coconut, almonds, and a tiny scoop of heath bar.

I would have added Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but they had the AWFUL, new, super tiny cups (Reese’s Minis) that have more waxy chocolate than peanut butter. These are served up intact since they are too small to chop up, which means that when added to something cold like ice cream, it becomes super hard and your tongue can’t even melt the chocolate enough to get a good taste. It’s a complete waste and I’m quite disappointed as you can tell. I’m hoping that these new extremely tiny Reese’s Minis get discontinued and fast…they are ruining things for me, yogurt-wise. It’s to the point that I’m seriously considering chopping up my own regular size Reese’s cup and topping my peanut butter froyo myself. I really hope it doesn’t have to come to this.

Enough of my peanut butter rantings, the bottom line is that Purple Berri yogurt is good and from what I can tell, the flavors don’t have the artificial-ingredient-after-taste. A huge plus in my book. We filled up our bowls (bet you can’t tell who made the colorful bowl 😉 and laughed and giggled like we were all 10 again.

Kelly’s Top 3 Wing Destinations:

1. Buffalo Wild Wings

2. Walmart in Ennis

3. Wing Stop

Thanks, Kell 🙂

Tuscan Slice: They Let You Try Everything

Tags

cheesecake, Italian food, Kara, pizza, sister #6, spinach artichoke dip, Tuscan Slice, Waxahachie

Some of the best Italian food that you can get in Waxahachie is at Tuscan Slice.  Sister #6, Kara (10 years my junior), and I had a dinner and movie night.  It was the last few days of her holiday break from my alma mater, Baylor, and I wanted to do something fun before she headed back to Waco.

Me & Kara

One of my favorite things to do at a restaurant is order more food than I can possibly eat because I want to try EVERYTHING!  Tuscan Slice lets everyone do just this and they make it easy.  They have a Friends and Family menu that allows you to try many different things (served family style) at a fairly reasonable price.

Tuscan Slice - Friends and Family Menu

For $14.99 each, we had an amazing culinary adventure as we ate our way through the restaurant.  We started with the Tuscan Spring Salad, which is by far the best salad you can get in town!  It even has my husband hooked.  The flavors just work so well together.  If there’s one thing you MUST try at Tuscan Slice, it’s this salad.  It is good enough to make you an instant repeat customer.

Tuscan Spring Salad - Spring mix tossed in Italian vinaigrette, caramelized pecans, green apples, red onion and topped with blue cheese crumbles

Kara’s a big fan of spinach artichoke dip and I’m so glad we tried it here.  I love that it’s a baked dish, served warm with plenty of cheese and garlic flatbreads (very good by the way, and you receive a basket of them at your table upon sitting down).  And in case you’re wondering, we both that it was terrific and we absolutely ate every bit of the dip 🙂

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Next we chose a pasta course of Baked Ziti Formaggio.  It was slightly spicy which was good.  The cheese on top was great, but I think it could have also used Ricotta cheese mixed in with the sauce on the inside.

Baked Ziti Formaggio

Per our server’s recommendation, we chose the Chicken Marsala and we are so glad we did.  It was the favorite entree of the day.  There is an interesting mushroom sauce, which leaves you wanting more even after you’ve cleaned your plate.  At first, Kara was thinking about ordering the Chicken Picatta, but it had capers in it.  Kara had not had these before, so it was a good choice to avoid them.  They have a strong flavor that you either really like or really don’t like.  I’ve mentioned that I don’t like to be culinarily disappointed and I try and look out for others when I can.  So my advice to her and to anyone else…try capers first before you choose to put them all over your meal.  One option might be to ask the server to bring some on the side.

Chicken Marsala

Dessert was a Traditional New York Style Cheesecake.  We chose the plain version and choose to add raspberry sauce on the side.  The cheesecake had a delicious vanilla icing on the top of it, which was a nice touch.  The consistency was a little soft for my liking, but it was a decent slice of cheesecake, especially with the addition of the tart sweetness of the raspberry sauce.

Traditional N.Y. Style Cheesecake

A few bites to get the full flavor of the cheesecake itself and then Kara added the raspberry sauce.

Look at these drizzling skills!

So all of this for only a $32 bill.  Not bad, not bad at all.  What a tasty tour of the restaurant.  So I will most definitely be back to Tuscan Slice….who am I kidding….I actually went back the very next evening and the Artisan Pizza is wonderful, by the way.  I really liked the flavor and texture of the crust.  As a side note, I did try the homemade cream puffs…but I won’t be having them again.  Kind of like a doughnut in a super sweet pudding sauce.  I don’t think it is worth the calories.

Artisan Pizza - Pesto-ricotta, spinach, artichoke, mushrooms, roasted peppers, red onions, feta, calamata olives, garlic

Pizza or pasta, it’s hard to go wrong here.  So two days of tasty research has led us here….you’re welcome!

What to Order:  

1. Tuscan Spring Salad

2. Chicken Marsala  (also they are 1 for 2 on their Chicken Parmesan, so you’ve got a 50/50 chance of this dish being amazing)

3.  Spinach Artichoke Dip

4.  Artisan Pizza