I made milkshakes for dinner the other night. It wasn’t easy convincing my sweet wife that milkshakes were a good idea as a supplemental item for dinner. However, when I explained that I needed to have something to write about in our blog she relented.
It’s just like the old days when I wrote for the Standard Journal. If I got a hankering for something I would just tell the wife It was the subject of my next article and there you go. We ate really well for those eight years.
It’s been a little rough here of late without an ulterior reason to feast. We have had a lot sandwiches and soup from cans. I can’t justify expensive cuts of meat or rich entrees loaded down with cheeses and fatty sauces without someone to share the experience with, of course in the name of literary art. I’m sure most of you saw right through me. I had myself convinced that I was cooking to enlighten and entertain. I was feasting on rich foods so as to have something to share with my 28 faithful Standard Journal readers. I was selflessly giving up my waistline for others. Right?
Ok, my name is John and I’m a foodaholic. Yes it’s true, I admit it. I’m hooked on food. Why I can’t go a single day without having to eat something. In fact sometimes in as few as six hours after a meal I start to get cravings for more. I can’t get enough. If I wait too long between meals I get grouchy and lose energy. I got it bad.
For eight long and glorious years, I planned every week around what I was going to make for my readers. Sometimes it would take several attempts to get it right and then there would be all those delicious leftovers to warm up or take to work for my lunch. Not anymore. Now the only excuse I have to cook a meal is to stay alive. It’s not the same. But hey, I have a blog. I get to write about anything I want. I can write about how to save the planet, or how we all need to get involved with the world around us and unite for greater good through enlightened government and selfless involvement and stuff like that. Or I can write about food, maybe food and football. All of a sudden I’m feeling really inspired.
You know football season is going full bore right now and one of my favorite things to do while watching the game is to eat. But you can’t eat just anything while watching football, it has to be something really good like some nice grilled brats with sautéed onions and peppers on a luscious homemade bun, or a glorious Philly cheese steak sandwich. That’s one of the great things about football. It demands that you pull out all the stops. You have to try and match the excitement of the game with the intense goodness of the food. If the food can’t hold its own when your team goes through a tough stretch then you are heading for an emotional sinkhole of possible biblical proportions.
Of course, to hit a home run, or better yet to score a touchdown, with your food selection, for game day, it doesn’t hurt to have a trick play up your sleeve in case your entrée of choice lets you down. It happens. You can’t expect to always be on you’re A game. The planets don’t always line up properly; maybe the butcher didn’t slice your Philly Cheesesteak meat to the correct dimensions. There is often something that throws things out of whack. That’s where a nice homemade milkshake comes in.
If you serve a homemade chocolate milkshake with any meal, and I mean any meal, including my wife’s infamous sausage and rice casserole, it will be a success. A homemade chocolate milkshake can cover a multitude of sins.
If the game is going your way the milkshake will enhance the experience making it all that much better. If by chance your team is struggling, the delectable milkshake will help to distract you until they get it together. If your team should lose, heaven forbid, then the milkshake followed by many others will help keep you away from the gun closet.
For those of you in need of a way to appease the hungry masses that congregate around your dining room table here is the simple recipe for the key to happy and contented hordes. You can serve homemade milkshakes to your family with chicken weenies on stale bread and be a hero. Also, a wonderful thing about homemade milkshakes is you don’t have to do anything.
I used to get out the big bowl and place all the ice cream along with everything else in it and stir and mash and stir until my arm about fell off but no more. Just plop the unopened ice cream container onto the table with chocolate milk, or regular will do, and chocolate syrup along with a glass and spoon for each worthy member of your family and or company and let them go crazy. They can all make their own darn shakes.
Of course, if you are making strawberry milkshakes or any other flavor besides chocolate, there is a little more to it than chocolate syrup, ice cream, and milk. When making a milkshake other than chocolate you will need to either get some milkshake mix or you can add sugar and maybe a pinch of vanilla flavoring to the milk. If you just add strawberries, for instance, and then milk, it will taste watered down. Of course, if the berries are already sugared up sufficiently you should be ok as well. Just remember that anything you add to the ice cream that isn’t at least as sweet will dilute the flavor and richness.
So there you have it. Whether its football time or you just can’t get moving to feed your angry horde, remember, that milkshakes are an easy way to pass off a pile of chicken weenies and stale bread as a meal.