The Best Thing I Had In My Mouth - WheatFields Kalamata Olive Bread

My friend visited Kansas last week and brought home three mini loaves of WheatFields Kalamata Olive Bread.  If you are near Lawrence, Kansas, you have to make a stop at WheatFields, one of the best bakeries in the country.  Seriously, I am still searching for an equivalent in New York and cannot find one.  And you can find anything in New York!  They have great bread, a wonderful breakfast, and the best chocolate et chocolate cookies.  This toasted Kalamata Olive bread with scrambled eggs was the best thing in my mouth all week.  Hands down.  This sourdough bread is filled with whole olives, so you really get a couple of olives in every slice, instead of whimpy, tiny pieces of olives I have found in other olive bread.  No competition!

Click here for the Dutch Baby Pancake with Peaches I made last year.

French Fries and Pizza

I went back home for the holidays.  Here are some food photos - there is quite the pattern - french fries and pizza!

French Fries in a mini shopping cart - how cute!  My dear friend took me to Blanc Burgers + Bottles on the Plaza for the first time.  What a treat!  The french fries were awesome, they had a long long list of beers and a delicious portobello burger.

Waldo Pizza - pine nuts, red bell pepper, and spinach.  Delicious, but crust could have been crunchier.

Waldo Pizza - Boulevard Beer flight.  4 for $5 - whoa!

Bye-bye beer.

McDonald's French fries from Bethany, MO.  Eaten in the car of course.

My mom's rosemary and potato hash - yum.

Papa Keno's cheese pizza with green olives in Lawrence, KS.  New York has some competition.

Free State French fries with Ad Astra beer - don't forget their mustard for dipping.

Oh and the next day I tried a "new" restaurant in Lawrence called 715.  Pizza and a salad - soooo good.  If you live around there, I would definitely recommend trying it!  There is the $7.15 special, which is quite the deal :)

The Best Thing I Had In My Mouth - Peppernuts

A little over a week ago, my friend received two pounds of peppernuts from his mom.  These were made by the First Mennonite Church of Hillsboro, Kansas, and boy do they really know how to make them.  If you have never had a peppernut, I truly feel sorry for you.  These tiny, crunchy, sweet and spicy little cookies are addictive.  

Photo taken from The First Mennonite Church, Hillsboro, Kansas.

Peppernuts are a Mennonite tradition, especially around Christmas time.  Peppernuts Plain and Fancy states that "original peppernut recipes probably were copied from the Germans, Dutch and West Prussians when Mennonite families moved about Europe in search of religious freedoms," then the recipes were brought from the Ukraine in 1874 and have been used ever since during the holidays.  Here is a great description of peppernuts from the very front of the book:

Peppernuts may taste like cookies, but they are smaller - much smaller - about the size of a haxlenut or dime. Ladies use to take pried in how small they could make them. Grandmother's rivaled the size of large peas. Others painstakingly cut their in perfect little circles.

They were definitely the best thing I have had in my mouth this week.  And yes, I finished a whole pound of them, so what :)

For a few pictures of me making them a couple years ago - click here.