Salad/Dip?

This one could have a few uses depending on what you want to do with it.  I had a “dip” at a party last year and never got the recipe.  I whipped this up because I thought it would be similar, and I had the stuff in the fridge.  You could definitely adapt this based on your tastes and what you have on hand.  There’s a lot of chopping, so it does take some time.  However, you can do some and then go back and do more throughout a day, so you’re not glued to the counter.  Plus you could make a smaller version which wouldn’t take as long.

Start with a green pepper.  You’re going to want to dice it into pretty small pieces.

While you’re at it, you might as well repeat this with a red pepper, orange pepper and an English cucumber.  All the pieces should be about the same size.  If you want, you can also add about 1/8th of a red onion, depending on your tastes.  I cut mine up a lot smaller than everything else.

Still with me?  All right, now grab yourself an Avocado.  Not something I’d normally eat (then again, neither is anything else here) but just go with me.  Take out the pit, peel it and puree the “meat”.  I tried my food processor first, but that didn’t work.  I wound up putting it in my Magic Bullet with a teeny tiny amount of or water to get the right texture.

Now throw the avocado in with everything else and mix it all up.

Maybe it doesn’t look like the best thing you’ve ever eaten, but eat this as dips with tortilla chips and it’s pretty good!  Plus, there’s not really anything in it that’s bad for you.

IHop

I’ve been travelling for the last week (road trip!).  That means I’ll have a couple posts about my restaurant meals. It might be a while before I get things posted because I’m still cleaning up after my trip, OR (more likely) I’ll get the travel posts up first then not post anything while I do the cleanup.  I also started a new job, so I’m not going to be around as much.

Have you been to an IHop before?  This is a newly discovered restaurant for me, since we don’t have one anywhere near my city.  In fact, I have to drive almost FIVE hours to hit the closest one!  Crazy, right?

After several hours on the road we decided to stop for breakfast.  I had their International Passport, which is a crepe, eggs and bacon, and I had a side of toast and a glass of orange juice.

That’s a LOT of food, especially trapped in a hot car.  Oh, didn’t I mention?  Our air conditioning broke an hour and a half into our cross-country trip.  It worked when we stopped for breakfast but not when we left.

Moving on…  The crepe wasn’t the same as last time I had it (seasonal fruit) but you didn’t really notice because it was smothered with yogurt and granola.  That was surprisingly good.  The eggs were cooked just how I liked and so was the bacon, but the toast was burned.  And the orange juice was super good, not watered down like you get some places.  I’m still shocked at how well the pineapple went with the yogurt.

Over all it was good but it wasn’t the “this is AWESOME” feeling like the last (first) time I ate there.

Someone else in my group got an omelette, toast and plain pancakes.  He said it was really good, although his toast was also burned (all four of us had that problem).