Thursday, June 30, 2011

Lafayette, LA and the food that you can eat there!

Here is a list of my favorite Lafayette (and surrounding area) restaurants.

Breakfast:
  • Cafe Des Amis is located in Breaux Bridge and I have only been there for Zydeco Breakfast on Saturday mornings.  With items on the menu like Orielle de Cochon, Couche Couche, and Eggs Begnaud (a biscuit with crawfish etoufee and eggs) what Cajun wouldn't want to have breakfast there??
  • Meche's has many locations around south LA and they make hands down the best doughnuts ever! As a kid I grew up eating a dozen doughnut holes at a time out of a white paper bag.  Now my favorites include original glazed, chocolate glazed, blueberry cake, lemon filled, chocolate filled....aww I love them all!!
  • Coffee Call is located in Baton Rouge and makes a great place to stop for beignets and cafe au lait on your way into or out of Lafayette! They have crazy hours, staying open till 2am on the weekdays and 24 hours on the weekends, so anytime you are in Baton Rouge it is a good time to stop in!!
  • Another Broken Egg Cafe is a new comer to the Lafayette food scene.  If you can cut it in this town, you usually deserve to stay and this is definitely true with this restaurant.  The "Flordian" is my favorite item on the menu.  It is an omelet with cream cheese, jack cheese, garlic butter, and crab...need I say more?  For Dani's graduation we had the brie and it was also fantastic!
Other:
  • Cajun Sno is located off Johnston street in Lafayette and has the best, juiciest sno cones around.  Don't let the size (or condition) of the little shack fool you, the flavors here are spot on.  I don't know how they do it, but King Cake and Red Velvet taste like the real thing!  There are million flavors (and options) to choose from and I have never been disappointed.  My favorite flavor is wedding cake. This is a creamy flavor and I love the taste.  It also does not stain every crevice of your mouth when you eat it.  If I'm really hungry I get it "stuffed" with vanilla ice cream.  Yumm!  Be careful when choosing a size though, the cups run rather large.
  • PJ's Coffee and Tea was my college hang out and one of my first full-time jobs. I still make iced coffee the way I learned to make it there.  I plan on making a stop while we are in town to pick up a couple of pounds of their flavored coffee.
I am currently packing up the family to head down to Lafayette, so the Lunch/Dinner reviews will have to wait a little bit longer.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Buying a "real" camera for kids instead of a toy version

As I uploaded pictures today from Ethan's camera onto our Shutterfly site I was again reminded about how glad I am that we bought him a "real" camera for his big brother present.  You see, when we first got pregnant I knew I wanted to get Ethan a big brother gift and then as the day of Asher's arrival got closer I settled on getting him his own camera.  After search for days for a kid's camera I just wasn't satisfied.  According to the reviews their screens are too small, the auto-focuses don't work half the time, and the pictures are just poor in quality.  The worst part is they cost as much as some nice new cameras.

The solution?  We scoured ebay until we found a "real" used camera that was cheap (less than $40).  Result?  Ethan has a great little camera with a large screen, stabilization mode for kid-friendly picture taking, and it can take videos.  All for way less then we would have paid on a "kids" camera.  And if he breaks it?  Oh well, we didn't pay much for it in the first place.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor: 5 Stars!

I got this beauty at a Pampered Chef party that I recently held:



It is simply wonderful!!  It is great for the small jobs around my kitchen when I don't want to haul out the big daddy food processor.

So far I have:
  • Used it to make graham cracker crust (working in two batches to crush 18 graham crackers and then adding it all back to the bowl to add the melted butter)
  • Made fresh salsa
  • Made saltine cracker crumbs to add to my crab cakes
  • Mashed strawberries for strawberry preserves
  • Pureed sweet potatoes into baby food
Yes, I could have done all this with my jumbo food processor, but with this handy little tool there is so much less work, set up and clean up (with only two small parts to wash instead of three large ones)!  If you do a bunch of small jobs around your kitchen it is worth the money (and cabinet space).

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