A long time coming

Wednesday saw the office's long awaited return to Leonard's Barbecue. They have an outstanding buffet, that has a MWF and T-Th schedule. The MWF one is more of a southern cooking type, whereas the T-Th is a flat out bbq extravaganza. More of us prefer the southern one, due to their country fried steak, so we went there on Wednesday.

That's a mountain of mashed potatoes, a couple of pieces of country fried steak, some fried okra and a roll. Now double that pic (excepting the roll) and that's what I had to eat on Wednesday. There was no dinner that night, I was still working on lunch.

Their country fried steak is pretty much the best I've ever had. The gravy is good, but I prefer the cafeteria's and Paula Deen's over theirs. The fried okra was OUTSTANDING. It was, for me, perfect. Nice and crunchy, just the right amount of salt, but you still had the pop of the seeds inside. The potatoes were the weak link, once again. They had a great consistency, but they just didn't have any seasoning. It was tough to get them salty enough because of the gravy being on there you couldn't really mix it in. Their rolls are ok, they're similar to Sister Schubert's, but they're a bit too dense for my liking, so I usually only eat a half of one.

Picture-less Tuesday

Tuesday didn't have anything that looked particularly appetizing in the cafeteria, so I went with some microwavable chicken and biscuits for a lunch time snack. I'll get a pic of them next time I eat them. They were ok, considering they were microwavable chicken and biscuits.

For dinner, I stopped off at 5 Guys to pick up burgers and fries for Jesse and myself. I went with the usual bacon burger. And as normal for them, the burger was outstanding and the fries were really good also.

Hearty Monday

Monday, the cafeteria had their "Texas Pot Roast" for lunch. I decided to give it a shot, as I was fairly hungry after my light Sunday eating:

I discovered fairly quickly what made it a "Texas" pot roast ... one of the things it was cooked in was jalapenos. Luckily, it wasn't too overpowering, and gave a nice robustness to the flavor. The potatoes were pretty well done that day, but they still needed help from the gravy.

For dinner, I fried up some ground beef, Italian sausage, then doused it in some Prego meat sauce and simmered it for a while. I boiled some penne pasta up then drowned it in some of the sauce and had some crescent roll rounds to fill it out:

The sauce was more meaty than saucy, and the penne just sucked up even more of the sauce, so it was more like a beefy mac. That said, it was still really tasty, and only could've been better if it was a chilly night, instead of in the beginning of summer.

A Sunday Cookout

On Sunday, I hung out with the parents for most of the day. That evening Dad cooked some burgers and hot dogs on the grill:

You may be asking, "Where's the beef?!" I assure you, there's some in there. It was a very dense patty, but was pretty good. The hot dog was a bit more charred than I care for, but was still tasty. The fries were perfectly cooked.

A light Saturday

On Saturday, I had my first full day off in a while. And by full day, I mean I did nothing, not even any "chores" or house keeping stuff. As such, I had some chips and Pancho's nacho cheese dip for lunch, and for dinner I hit up Arby's. As I hadn't had much to eat, I went with the usual #2 (medium roast beef sandwich and potato cakes) and added a small cheese sticks to the order:

The potato cakes were cooked well and drained well too, so they weren't very greasy. The cheese sticks were nice and gooey inside and crunchy on the outside. The beef was warm and very juicy.

Friday Junk Food

On Friday, I went to see Brave for an extended lunch break (I highly recommend seeing the movie, even more so for Mothers and Daughters). At the theater, I went with my usual corn dog and frozen coke combo. No pic this time. It was a very well cooked corn dog, the bottom of it didn't come apart as I scooted it up the stick to continue eating it, which usually happens. And the mustard packets seemed to have a lot more mustard in them than usual this time, almost had too much for the corn dog.

After the movie, went back to work and worked a little bit late. Met up with the gang for a dinner of Papa John's, which I forgot to take a pic of. David and I split a large pepperoni pizza. It was good, nice amount of meat, the cheese was plentiful, and not too much sauce.

Trifecta

On Thursday, I had a trifecta of sorts. I hit up food from 3 different ethnicities. For lunch, I went with the cafeteria's wonderful country fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy and one of their egg rolls:

The steak was good as usual, the potatoes were pretty good, the gravy outstanding and the egg roll was deliciously meat filled as usual.

For dinner that night, Jody, Jesse and I hit up the Pizza Hut's box meal, which was a "medium pan pizza" (in actuality their bread sticks with sauce, cheese and toppings, which I LOVE) cheese sticks and cinnamon sticks. We went with a meat lover's for the pizza. It got delivered in a timely manner (unlike the last time) and as a result, was nice and warm and appropriately gooey. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a pic of it, so here's a tiny pic of the generic item from Pizza Hut's website:

Trying to climb out of the hole

So, after Tuesday's wallowing in unhealthy tastiness, I went with a salad for lunch:

We've got 2 types of lettuce, some spinach, carrots, some purple stuff (not sure if it's lettuce or cabbage), ham, chicken, bacon bits and italian dressing. It was pretty good, I didn't get the dressing mixed around enough though.

For dinner, I finished off the chicken strips and supplemented it with a couple of nuggets and fries:

It was ok, the strips were pretty good, the nuggets are passable.

The decline continues

On Tuesday, I just threw out all pretenses and went with what sounded good:

Corn dog and fries for lunch. It was pretty tasty, nice and warm, the cornmeal wasn't too done, but wasn't gooey, and the hot dog in there was nice and warm. Their fries are never salty enough, but unlike the upcoming dinner fries, you can actually get salt to stick to them.

For dinner, I met Jody and Jesse at Huey's, cause I wanted a Huey Burger:

I went with just bacon and ketchup for the toppings (If I hadn't give up for the day I'd have added some lettuce and onion) and fries for the side dish. Huey's has some great steak fries, but the downside of them is the inability to get salt to stick to them. They're just too dry (on the outside). I'm wondering if I could get them to salt mine as soon as they yank them out of the fryer.

Pork Monday

Lunch Monday, I went with the cafeteria's pork tenderloin. I had them douse it in their gravy, and added some mashed potatoes with gravy, creamed corn, and a roll.

The loin was pretty good, but as usual, not a lot of flavor. Nice and tender and juicy though. The gravy helped with the lack of flavor problem. The potatoes were ok, but the corn was horrible. There's 2 predominant ways to do creamed corn, and I'd go so far as to say in my neck of the woods, it's about an 90/10 split on which of these gets done. You can either do it sweet (90) or salty (10). If you can't tell by the split numbers I've assigned, there is a preferred way. The cafeteria went with the salty route and it wasn't good.

For dinner, I went with baked pork chops and zucchini.

I've gotten pretty adept at cooking this, so the chops were very juicy, great flavor and tender. The zucchini was pretty good too.