Posts filed under 'food'
Christmas Lights…a whole bunch of them…and more
Santa’s Wonderland is opening for the season tonight (November 20th, 2009). If you’ve been before, there are many exciting additions for your return visit. If you’ve never been, it’s worth a trip.
The park opens daily at 6pm from November 20th until December 31st.
Check the website at www.santas-wonderland.com for live music schedule, food menu, prices and advanced tickets.
New Visitors:
Advanced tickets: With a discount if you buy online at Santas-Wonderland.com
2.5 Million Lights: Yeah, a bunch of lights. Nothing like you’ll see strung on anyone’s house. There’s a river of lights, a couple of tunnels of lights, some animations created with lights, houses covered with lights. Lots of “OOH’s” and “AAH’s”.
Hayrides: A trailer with hay on it driving through the park. Really nice view of everything.
Horse and Carriage Ride: This is what I think is the Crowning Jewel. The ride is so romantic and nostalgic and cool. Don’t miss this. It’s really nice. Two huge black horses lead a large carriage that fits up to 9 people.
Food: Loads of food…from nachos to kettle corn to hot chocolate.
Live Music: From Country to Elvis to a full choir. Live music every night.
Petting Zoo: Yes, there’s even a petting zoo.
Mechanical Bull: And a mechanical bull. I wonder what Santa’s record is.
Christmas Stores: Everything from ornaments to stocking stuffers.
Fun: Something to remember and make a tradition to come back every year.
Returning Visitors:
Advanced tickets: With a discount if you buy online at Santas-Wonderland.com
More parking: In fact, parking across the HWY and a shuttle to get you to the park.
Horse and Carriage option: They have added a Horse and Carriage ride, and let me tell you, I’ve been on the Hayride and on the Horse and Carriage, and hands down, the Horse and Carriage ride is the best. Really captures the feel of the season and the park. I just loved it. You won’t regret it.
More Lights: More lights are up this year, and a few new “scenes” to enjoy.
Funnel Cakes: Yeah, and they are really tasty.
More Food: Check the website for the new menu.
Go check it out.
Add comment November 20, 2009
The (in)Convenience of TV Dinners
OK, so this really has nothing to do with Bryan/College Station…except that you can buy TV dinners at stores in town. OK, so they aren’t called TV dinners anymore…they were when I was growing up.
So, I thought it would be fun to have a night where each person in my family chose a TV dinner…just for fun. My wife thought it would be interesting, so we went for it. (I have 4 kids just so you know).
First of all, my wife went to the grocery store and picked them all out, letting each child pick theirs too. The kids were excited…they looked so yummy and fun. My wife picked a couple of “Hungry Man” ones and I asked her to get a “Classic Swanson’s Salisbury Steak” because that’s what I remember liking.
NOTE: it’s called Salisbury Steak after it’s inventor Dr. James Salisbury, who was one of the earliest health food faddists and taught that diet was the main determinant of health. He believed vegetables and starchy foods produced poisonous substances in the digestive system which were responsible for heart disease, tumors, mental illness and tuberculosis. He believed that human dentition demonstrated that humans were meant to eat meat, and sought to limit vegetables, fruit, starches, and fats to one-third of the diet.
The USDA standards for Salisbury steak require a minimum content of 65% meat, of which up to 25% can be pork; the remainder must be beef (can include beef heart meat), unless the meat content is labelled specifically. Cereal (bread crumbs, flour, oat flakes, etc.) content is limited to 12%, except isolated soy protein at 6.8% is considered equivalent to 12%. The remainder consists of seasonings, vegetables (onion, bell pepper, mushroom or the like), binders (can include egg) and liquids (such as water, milk, cream, skim milk, etc.). (from Wiki)
We homeschool, so any opportunity is a teaching opportunity.
My wife told me it was really awkward to have them in the cart. She hid them under the produce and rice milk in the cart. She felt like a bad wife/mom for buying these things. See, we cook almost every night and we make really good meals. We also eat pretty healthy, and these were not the “lean” or “healthy” ones. These were full of sodium, high fructose corn syrup and white flour.
So, she fought past the urge to put them back and bought them and brought them home.
Yeah, they were pretty, but wow, do they take a lot of room in the freezer. We had to move everything just to fit the boxes of dinners. I can’t imagine where we’d put them if this was something we did regularly.
OK, so the day comes when we were going to eat them and we realize that only about three at a time fit in the oven…and it was going to take 25 minutes to cook them. How are we going to do this? I have 6 people to feed (plus one of our friends who wanted to experience the meal with us).
So my wife decided to go against her instincts and cook a few of them in the microwave…which got me researching how microwaves work just to ease her that she wasn’t feeding our kids radioactive food…turns out microwaves cook with radio frequencies…really high pitched ones that we can’t hear, that make the water in the food vibrate, which heats up the water, thus getting the food hot. No radiation.
So, there’s my wife reading the directions on each package…Cut the film off everything except for the corn, then cook the brownie by itself, then the next one…take bread out and cook with film over food, then halfway though, poke holes in the film and put bread…argh. She was getting frustrated. She was kinda laughing…but I know that laugh. It was not an “I am loving not having to cook tonight” kind of laugh.
So I open up the Salisbury steak, expecting…well, expecting something bigger that what was actually in there. It was tiny. I looked at the package to make sure this wasn’t the “kid’s” version. It wasn’t. Maybe I was taller and it just looked smaller than I remember.
“How much did this cost?” I asked.
The kid ones were about $2.50, the Hungry Man’s were about $4.00. What? This meal was expensive! I had just fed my whole family at Freebirds the other night for about $15. My wife cooked a huge Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada thing that probably cost about $10 total and we had already eaten from it for at least 3 meals…and even froze some for later.
I started realizing that first, there wasn’t much food, second, the quality of the food was not “healthy” by a long shot.
I decided that I needed to make a green smoothie. Blender…frozen fresh spinach, frozen mixed fruit, plain organic yogurt, frozen blueberries, frozen bananas, spoonful of 100% juice concentrate, reverse osmosis water, reverse osmosis ice. OK, they’ve got some good stuff in them.
OK, so, 20 minutes later, the kids are eating their “fake” meals. They were enjoying it…I think. My oldest was first to finish and asking to eat something else. Organic Fuji apples and roasted almonds.
The adult food was almost done. The timer goes off and two of the three that we fit in the oven were still cold on the inside…microwave.
OK, so the taste was good. Everyone enjoyed their meal. Even the Salisbury Steak was good…small…but I cut it into little tiny bites so it would last longer. I could have eaten that whole thing in one bite…maybe two.
Then I picked up all the plastic trays they came in, and the boxes, and the film, and stuffed them in the trashcan. Wow, that’s a lot of trash. We don’t make this much trash on a regular day. See, we take our trash to a dump and pay $.60 per large black plastic bag. So this is costing us some pennies.
Well, we cleared the table and went on with our evening…oh, my youngest doesn’t like corn, but our rule is you have to eat everything on the plate before you can get down from the table, and sadly for her, every kid’s meal she had to choose from at the store had corn in it…we found her about an hour later sleeping at the table with her blue TV dinner tray pushed away from her, with the corn still in it’s little place.
We decided it was OK this time that she didn’t eat the corn, so we cleared her tray and arranged about 20 or 30 stuffed animals around her. She was surprised when she woke up. We all shared her brownie that she was only allowed to eat if she ate all her corn.
I am pretty sure I won’t ever suggest that again. I remember it being a lot more fun growing up. I think it was because we only had TV dinners when my mom was out for the evening and my dad didn’t feel like cooking…and those were the only times we could eat actually sitting in front of the TV. TV dinners…what a concept.
We don’t even watch TV at our house.
Needless to say, I am looking forward to what’s for dinner tonight. (Smells like Black Bean Soup…yum!)
2 comments November 19, 2009
Obama, Peanuts, Mushrooms and Airplanes
This weekend is shaping up to be quite a weekend full of events.
Starting on Friday, Obama is in town. (which for me and my family means we’re staying home…we don’t like traffic in town)
The Presidential Forum on Service will be broadcast live on KAMU-TV on channel 12.1, Suddenlink cable channel 700 and channel 4, and on campus cable channel 82. It will also be streamed live on the web at http://kamu.tamu.edu “Watch Now” and at www.georgebushfoundation.org.
Also Friday and through Saturday – Madisonville Mushroom Festival
Wine tasting, dancing, arts, crafts, food, kids zone, 5k run/walk, auto showcase, auction…fun.
Saturday – Grapeland Peanut Festival
The festival is held every year on the second Saturday in October. The festivities include a parade held on Main Street in historic downtown Grapeland as well as food, arts & crafts booths, live entertainment and more at the Grapeland City Park. The festivities are topped off with the Peanut Queen’s Coronation Saturday evening.
Grapeland is NorthEast on 21 to Crockett, then North on 19 to Grapeland.
Saturday – Coulter Field Air Show
Featuring performances by an acrobatic pilot and formation flights from modern and World War II aircraft.
The event will be held Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, but parking is $5.
There will be food vendors and activities for children.
For more information, call Carl Preston at 412-1611.
Add comment October 16, 2009
Oktoberfest Beer Dinner at Christopher’s
not including tax or gratuity
Add comment September 25, 2009
Santa’s Wonderland Launches Cool New Site
I know it’s not the Christmas season yet, but I wanted to write abouta new website just launched by a local attraction that’s been here for over 12 years. It’s pretty much a landmark…especially if you drive by at night during the season.
Santa’sWonderland is that place on HWY 6 on the way to Navasota with all the lights and the Old West looking town. You’re sure to have seen it if you drive by during the Christmas Season. It’s a beautiful site. It’s the most lights I’ve ever seen in one place. They actually made “walls” of lights. Pretty cool. Well, if you haven’t been, you should check it out this year. It’s not open yet, but they will be selling advance tickets pretty soon. They are opening on November 20th.
They asked me to help them work on their website…both the Santa’s Wonderland and the Santa’s Town website. The artwork was created by a Santa’s Wonderland family memeber. It’s really a beautiful site. There’s snow falling, flickering lanterns, photos and all the information you need to learn about Santa’s Wonderland.
They’re scheduling live music, they have a mechanical bull, a petting zoo, and of course, hayrides and vehicle tours through the lights.
They told me they added a bunch more lights this year, and have added some LED lights and worked out some of the parking issues as well.
They have shops, a cafe and so much for the whole family. They even play various Christmas Movies at Santa’s Town. Check out the Santa’s Wonderland website for more information.
We’re still updating some of the pages on the site, so check back for more information. I’ll be writing another post once they schedule the live music events for the season, so stay tuned.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Add comment August 17, 2009
