Father's Day '08

Saturday June 14th

The tradition for celebrating Father's day in our household is to have the Father's day breakfast on the Saturday morning before Father's Day Sunday. That way, our stomaches are prepared for whatever brunch throws our way on the big day! (We're so smart that way :P)

My plan for breakfast was to make a one-plate simple dish that everyone could enjoy. The idea was to make a savoury "gruel" type of dish and what I ended up with was perfect. The main attraction was the creamy polenta, with andouille sausage, tomatoes, feta and cilantro. The combination may sound daunting, but it was quite delicious. To accompany the very striking dish, I decided to do a simple fried egg and some swiss chard... this combo was also very tasty.

My sisters loved the spicy andouille sausage, although one of my sisters decided that the sausage-feta topping was more tasty than the polenta and left that part aside :( And I thought that everyone loved corn.

To find the recipe for the creamy polenta and sausage click here!

Sunday June 15th

Continuing the tradition, the family went to Boston Pizza for the "Dad's Eat Free" special. Being the crazy asian gal that I am, I joined the Boston Pizza email club and got a coupon for a free entree, which I planned on using for our meal :P (It's tough to make money off of this family)

My Dad got the usual, the Boston Brute... A sandwich filled with bacon, salami, pepperoni, ham, mozarella cheese and marinara sauce usually $10.95, but for the special man, this meal was free! Woot!

This was my quesadilla, filled with chicken, cheese and green onions. Not too shabby, considering this was my free entrée! Woot!

My mom and I had originally wanted to try the Sante Fe Chicken Stromboli, but they didn't have any tomatos (due to the tomato recall) so we settled on this Thai Chicken Wrap. We scoured the menu for our BP favorite (the Thai Chicken Salad) but it was nowhere to be found :( the wrap was okay, came with a side of garlic toast (I'm not quite sure that it was the best side for this dish... Italian and Thai are not the usual combo) and was also $10.95

For $12.95, this Ham, Chicken and Bacon salad was pretty good. It came surrounded by slivers of tortilla chips (which I think needed salsa/sour cream) and a side of garlic toast. My sister really enjoyed this dish and ate everything (except the olives of course)!

My other sister can't get enough of pasta, especialy chicken alfredo/fetuccini. Give her any menu and she'll go looking for the pasta section. This dish was just so-so, we've had many delicious pastas in the past, and you can't really improve on pasta (I mean, carbs and buttery sauce... what could be better?). I wouldn't pay the $13.95 that they were asking, but hey... it's a special occasion.

Sidebar: This meal outing was the first time that I've actually felt the price increase on food hit me. I mean, I can't believe that my appetizer (which thank goodness, was free) woulc have been $9.95. I mean, It's an appetizer and basically a single tortilla with cheese and chicken (I could probably get it from taco time for 4 bucks... or free :P). And $12.95 for a salad was pretty extreme; $13.95 for pasta! WHAT! I guess we'll be feeling our hard earned dollar slowly having to stretch... especially us bakers, who will be paying much more for baking supplies! I just can't look anymore... first the gas prices and now food! Man, it's gonna cost a lot to live in this country :s

Aside from that, the celebration was a success. Although we felt really thirsty after the meal (must be all that sodium/MSG) we expended lots of pent-up energy by going to the park and playing a nice, long round of tennis in the beautiful sun. It was a lovely day to celebrate the greatness of dad!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY POPS! WE LOVE YOU!