It was a fairly quiet weekend for us with a few hints of some foodie activity sprinkled in-between here, there, nowhere and elsewhere.

Went on our weekly grocery store jaunt on Friday night and feeling a little adventurous at the banana section we decided to try out the little Dole baby bananas, they are so cute! Got one bunch of those and then decided to get a bunch of the red baby bananas and a bunch of the Burro bananas, both from Costa Rica. Inspired by the NPR Hidden Kitchens story from earlier in the day, I found the Rice-A-Roni section and never knew there were so many verities these days, so I decided to get two boxes each of four different flavors, rice pilaf, chicken, beef, and parmesan. Also picked up the usual from the grocery list, our usual items include milk, bread and OJ, these are our staples that are always a given.

Once home I tried one of the baby bananas and they really are sweeter then your typical banana, nice little bite size too, not too much, just rite for a little snack.

Monique made her famous smothered pork chops with onions on Saturday and I made a double batch of the Rice-A-Roni Rice Pilaf since my craving was highlighted from the airing on Friday. The pork chops were good with the exception that they were a variety cut and had bones all over the place.

Sunday we watched the new episode of “Big Daddy’s House” with Aaron McCargo on the Food Network, he is the New Food Network Star. His first show may have been a little rushed to production as he was just crowned last week, to me there was way too much oil used on everything. It all looked great as he demonstrated a “Fried Chicken Tender Salad”, “Pork Sandwich with Broccoli Rabe”, and some “Oven Fried French Fries”. Everything was prepared with grape seed oil, the chicken tenders were fried in an inch of the oil, the pork loin was seared in the oil, the sandwich was grilled with what looked like the oil, and the French Fries were covered in oil. He also used the same spice mix throughout every dish. It was a mixture of smoky paprika, garlic powder, kosher salt, and seasoning salt.  He stated and it was a focus of the show on many occasions how the sandwich and salad recipes were inspired by his two sons Jake and Josh, and that he named the sandwich after his son at his restaurant. Funny that he mentioned a restaurant because in the “Next Food Network Star” reality show it was promoted that he was a Hospital Catering Chef, I never once remember them mentioning a restaurant that he owned, but maybe I missed that detail.

We also watched a segment of Food Detectives with Ted Allen and they de-bunked the old theory of the “5-second rule”, where food left on the floor for just a few seconds is still okay to eat. This version of the scientific study was a better than the one “Mythbusters” ran awhile back, as they tested two different foods on multiple surfaces. They used shrimp and hard candy and tested them both on the food lab floor, a desk top, and outside on a sidewalk. The experiment also included a control sample of each item that was not exposed to surface contamination. Each of the three surface locations was sampled for under 5-seconds, 5-seconds, one minute, and then for an hour. Of course and not surprising the one hour duration showed the most bacteria growth, but more bacteria growth also was obtained from the samples that were exposed to the food lab floor, and not the outside sidewalk as one would think. In conclusion, it is not recommended that you eat any food that is exposed to the floor or unsanitary surfaces for any length of time.

For lunch on Sunday I made ham and Swiss sandwiches with English Muffins. I toasted the English Muffins and spread some mayonnaise and brown mustard then layered some thin sliced ham and topped that with some Swiss cheese, then melted that before putting on the top of the muffin. It kind of reminded me of an Egg McMuffin without the egg.  Then for dinner we ate leftover pork chops and rice on Sunday evening, nothing really special, just good food prepared well.