Hitting up Trader Joe's this weekend and want to go with a game plan, seems every time I go there is tons I want to try and then I get disoriented and just want to grab what I need a leave. What is always on your to buy list at Trader Joes?
this is our must have dip for Buckeye games, serve with torilla chips:
1 pound ground beef
1 pound italian sausage (not the link variety, use the "roll" we use Bob Evans)
1 onion
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 pound block velveeta cheese
jarred sliced jalepeno peppers
brown ground beef, italian sausage and onion, once hamburger and sausage is cooked put in crock pot and add cream of mushroom soup and cubed velveeta cheese. Cook on low until cheese is melted, chop jalepeno's (start with 3 tablespoons chopped) add to dip and cook on low for 20 minutes, taste and see if more jalepeno's are needed and turn crock pot to warm. This goes quick at our tailgates, I have also in the past added a can of rotel tomatoes
The italian place is Bucca Di Beppo and there is one in Worthington about 10 minutes from the zoo, it is located right off of 270 and 23:
http://www.bucadibeppo.com/
There is also Goose Neck Tavern in Powell which has great home made food, it is probably 5 minutes from the zoo at 9721 Sawmill Rd.
City BBQ is AWESOME and there is one about 3 miles from the zoo that also has a Graeters Ice Cream attached:
http://www.cityqbbq.com/index.php
Out of all of them I would recommend City BBQ
Head to Athens and eat at Casa Nueva, you WILL NOT be sorry! Worker owned, local produce, seasonal menu, slow food and great prices. Try the black bean salsa, I have driven 2 hours to have it when the craving hits.
Hit up the Cantina/Bodega next door between 5-8 for the Puerco Pibil..they also make alot of their own infused vodka, the ginger infused vodka with ginger ale is to die for. Actually anyone within a 4 hour drive of Athens should check it out sometime.
My parents divorced when I was 3 and up till I was in 2nd grade I lived with my Mom, then she moved to another town an hour away and instead of moving me halfway during the school year my dad would come stay with me and on the weekends my mom would come home. Every morning my dad would try to do my pigtails (always lopsided and crooked, he was a welder and his hands werent made for little girl hairstyling) and pack my lunch. Always the same thing..fried thick cut bologna on white bread with ketchup wrapped in foil, a Little Debbie oatmeal pie and a quarter for milk. It was the weirdest lunch ever but very exotic since my Mom never allowed me to have white bread, she always made her own wheat bread and woul NEVER buy me any "snacks"
Cant go wrong with any of the places listed here:
http://www.dineoriginalscolumbus.com/database/restaurants.php
Also Comfest is going on that weekend in Goodale park, lots of music and many great food vendors:
There's a fantastic website/blog out there that does tons of recipes for the crockpot. She's been featured on Rachel Ray's show and gives a good review of the recipes (not all are hits). She also has 2 kids and it's nice to get that point of view.
Personally I use my crockpot as much as humanly possible. It's a no fail. I have the Fix-it And Forget-It cookbook and many recipes you make in the oven or on stovetop can be converted for the crockpot.
My two recommendations are City BBQ (Upper Arlington) and Jenni's Ice Cream (Grandview Hts) (the ice cream is pricey but very unique) City is the best BBQ I've had in Ohio hands down. I wrote about them here:
http://dineomite.blogspot.com/search/label/City%20Barbeque
http://dineomite.blogspot.com/search/label/Jenni%27s%20Ice%20Cream
The problem with Columbus is that it's a corporate restaurant town, unless you consider the Max & Erma's, Bravo!/Brio, Cameron Mitchell corporations as local. If you didn't like City BBQ then I'd say there really isn't much in the way of local inexpensive unless you consider Katzinger's Deli (German Village) which is a blatant rip off of Zingerman's.I would definitely give Jeni's a try. My wife and I just brought back some sweet corn ice cream; it's a very unique place.
I'm from Ohio and surprised that for a Serious Eats convo there's not too much talk about independent places (except for the diner, tavern, and Jeni's ice cream). Buca di Beppo and California Pizza Kitchen can be found throughout the country, guys. What about Northstar Cafe which is trying hard to support the community through local growers and producers? Two locations: Beechwold and Short North. What could be more appropriate for families than truly wholesome food? Oh yeah, they are reasonably priced and casual, too.
Thanks for all for the suggestions. For all you City BBQ lovers, I have to say we went to the Powell location last year after Boo at the Zoo and were a little disappointed. We all had pulled pork sandwiches with a number of different sides. The meat was a bit dry & the sides cold (like stored in the fridge & microwaved - cold in the middle). The Graeter's that followed made up for any disappointment, though. Sounds like we need to have a family conference to decide where to go this year!
My mother was fairly clueless about the whole school lunch thing. She'd pack too much food, and she'd wrap it in aluminum foil so that I'd have no idea what was in there until I unwrapped it. The sandwich was usually pretty obvious, but the rest were mystery shapes that could have been anything. I was a slow eater to begin with, but all the unwrapping of foodstuffs that were packaged to withstand radioactive fallout made me even slower. I'd never finish the lunch, because there was never enough time, so I'd have to bring home the leftovers for mother to look at. It's what I now unfondly call the daily lunch autopsy, where she'd unwrap each item to see what was in there. "Oh, you didn't eat your dill pickle. You like these. Why didn't you eat it?" And she'd look sad, and say that we'd have to throw it out, even though I'd offer to eat it on the spot. I didn't eat it because it was all knobby and weird-shaped in its aluminum shroud, and I had no idea it was there, and no time to unwrap and eat a dozen odd items. "Oh, look, here are the three cookies I packed...and the handful of chips...and the carrot sticks...and the celery sticks...and the olives...and the cherry tomatoes from the garden...and the....." aaargh.
It was a happy day when she agreed to let me buy my lunch from the school for a whopping 35 cents a day. And when she realized that she could sleep in instead of packing my lunch in the morning, it was a happy day for her. After that, no more packed lunches, ever again.
My favorite lunch was always after the holidays when my mom would give me leftover sauerbraten in a wide-mouth thermos - she'd shred the meat into the gravy when she warmed it so I could get some in every bite. Yummm! I had major back surgery 3 years ago and she made up a bunch of these and put them in my freezer as nostalgic comfort food :-)
Otherwise, it was Tillamook pre-sliced medium cheddar or tuna fish with Miracle Whip on cracked wheat bread. Occasionally, I'd get a sliced egg or peanutbutter & pickle on white as a treat. There was always a cookie or homemade "pudding cup" in a baby Tupperware and a piece of fruit. In junior high, they opened my locker one day becuse they thought i had smuggled in hard apple cider and spilled it in my locker - you guessed it: a month's worth of uneaten apples fermenting in a metal locker in the So Cal sun!
our elementary school had a microwave and all the other kids would bring those chef boyardi lunch ravioli things to heat up and eat or lunchable packets. meanwhile, i had my stacked lunchbox of rice, kimchi, bite-sized pa-jun, fried spam, and a thermos of whatever soup we had leftover from the last night. during the winter, my lunch was often some rice and a thermos of curry and on really lazy days, cup ramen.
I remember one day when my grandmother didn't pack anything and gave me money to buy the school lunch. I was so excited to try out the school food and bought one those mini pizzas. needless to say, i was forever grateful of my packed lunches and never again did i envy those other kids who had to eat those pizzas that tasted significantly similar to the styrofoam trays they came on.
I still remember my first sacked lunch ever (first day of kindergarten): a thermos of milk and one (1!!) twinkie. I think my mom must've been in a rush that morning.
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