Zips Diner- Dayville, CT

This is part of why we'll come back....but only partly.

Zips Diner in Dayville was just a 'winging it' kind-of-day... We felt like hitting a diner on a Sunday brunch mode. We looked up diners on the internet and this one spoke highly of their breakfasts, and their coconut cream and banana cream pies. My personal favorites.

 It's a perfect redition of the old steel hulled diners, and it was pretty packed for a Sunday - late morning. We almost missed this sign below, because we were looking for the 'diner'. I know, I know... it really is hard to miss the sign.

It was fun to see the old cars that came into the parking lot....This guy was only one of a few out for a drive. Nice day for it, too.

Walk inside and it takes you back in time....the stools, the chrome... beautiful. 

 And then there was the food!!!!..... Oh, yeah.....Hubby decided on the breakfast, ala traditional. Eggs homefries and hash. The hash was in addition to the breakfast choice, but sooooo worth it.

 

I opted for the club sandwich. It was very good, but aren't they all? I truly couldn't wait for the dessert!!!! 

The photo's a little fuzzy, so I think we have to go back for another photo opp. It was sooooo good. No, really. Good, with a capitol G. I almost didn't want to eat all of it, so I could bring some home in the doggie bag that I'd started with the club sandwich (great lunch for work tomorrow).

Could I leave it? ....Nope. gone.

I did end up with a nice lunch for work the next day. 

 I'm giving you a sneak peak at the bathroom....dilema? check out my bthroom blog to see the interesting critique on this one... http://www.tripstothejohn.blogspot.com/

 The fun part about hitting the bathroom was on the way out and back into the diner was, that you had to go through the 'dining car' entrance and 'lo and behold, there was an old fashioned phone booth! Wished it worked. I would have spent money to make a call. 

Oh well, ... we'll have to come back to try something else out.

What to do with leftovers for Breakfast...?

Sweet Potato Hash and Eggs
This has become one of my favorites....It's what to do with leftover Christmas dinner.
We had Ham and Sweet potatoes among other good stuff, and lots of ham leftover. I felt like eggs, so I took some ham (with pieces of the pineapple glaze still attached), chopped it up, half an onion and a wedge of green pepper (chopped both of them up fine), saute it in a pan.

Take a cooked sweet potato and chunk it up add to the pan, get it all nice a warmed up, toasty golden brown.... smear out a divot in the center and add an egg.

Since I prefer my eggs over hard or scrambled, I took the spatula and smooshed it around until it broke up, then let it cook enough to keep the pieces all together (I smooshed the egg so it covered all the loose pieces of the 'hash'), flipped it over gently and .....yum! I'll make this one again. And again...and again.

Thanksgiving Dinner 2010

Just a few shots of my Thanksgiving dinner this year....This is where the buffet line would be...I wasn't sure about the stuffing (if I would add packaged stuff to my home-made sausage stuffing- I ended up not really)

My daughter and her fiancee came down from MA, but didn't want to come down on Friday (our usual Thanksgiving dinner day, since we volunteer at a local charity function on Thanksgiving, always). Since her beau works as a cop, he could onlly make it on Sat. That was fine, since our family has a tradition of making "Slumgullion" for the day after. And she loves Slumgullion even better than the original dinner (so do I!). The only thing is, you feel as though you are making enough for an army, since you want to have enough for both dinners.

Now, don't go googling Slumgullion, as you will only get some kind of macaroni and beef mixture.

This was my stuffing bread... great mixture of leftover breads in the house that were getting to the stale part (croissants, high grain-pumpkin seed, poppy seed, sunflower seed and sesame seed bread-yummy, potato chive bread and toasted them in the oven for an hour while making other stuff below.

Had a leftover apple and added it and the skin to the pan that I sauteed my celery, onions and zucchini-- this is the base for my stuffing mixture.

I had made the sweet potato pie the night before (okay I just baked a frozen one, but it was very good) and Malakai, my 4 yr old grandson baked cupcakes and cookies during the week. So I had the dessert table set.

Here is the buffet table, from left to right... turkey, gravy, cranberry-orange relish, mashed potato/sweet potato combination.

Clockwise from bottom left: Apple Walnut Rice stuffing, gravy, cranberry-orange relish, potato/sweet potato combo, sausage stuffing, cauliflower-broccoli mixture, and green bean cassarole in the middle.

Clockwise from bottom: stuffing, sauteed mushrooms, more stuffing, broccoli/corn casserole, diced turnip.

An old friend in NY, Eileen, taught me how to make Slumgullion ...with all the heated items that you have at Thanksgiving as though you are making a Shephard's Pie, layering all the goodies; peas, turnip, onions, corn, squash, stuffing, turkey, gravy, etc and ending with mashed potato/sweet potato spread on the top. We even made Green bean casserole this year (I've never made it). Throw it into the oven the day after and it's absolutely delish!!!
Should have taken a photo of it.... Next year I will.