"Why Haven't I Ever Thought of That?" — Culinary Edition

Here's a collection of interesting things to do with food that I've seen and thought "Why haven't I thought of that?" or that I came up with and thought "Why haven't I thought of this sooner?"

DRINKS
• I wanted strawberry lemonade, but I had pink lemonade mix, so I sliced up some fresh strawberries and stirred them in. Delicious!

• Frozen strawberries work well as ice cubes. They cool your drink without watering it down, add a little flavor, and when your drink is gone you can eat the defrosted berries.

• I normally don't like flavored waters, but slices of cucumber in water add a subtle, refreshing flavor.

CHEESE
• You can add other ingredients to grilled cheese such as slices of tomato, ham, or pepperoni.

• Make deviled egg boats by threading a triangle of thinly sliced cheese onto a toothpick to make a sail and insert it into the egg half. Instead of cheese you could use a tortilla chip, or if you want a more colorful sail you could use triangle-shaped slices of bell peppers (if you like those disgusting things).

Mike introduced me to some fun things to do with cheese dogs:

• Slice them up and mix them into mac and cheese.

• Wrap them up as pigs in blankets.

DESSERT
• Use Peeps as the marshmallow in s'mores or rice krispie treats.

• Dip bunny Peeps in chocolate to look like tuxedos.

• Check out more fun things to do with Peeps here:
http://kimandjason.com/blog/2012-03-29/peeps-aplenty-20-unconventional-things-to-make-with-peeps.html

Feel free to share any clever food inventions you like in the comments!

Inconvenient? Bank On It.

I'm reading Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry. I like this section he has about banks:

"A major problem during the Depression was that people kept trying to get their money out of banks. To put a stop to this kind of thing, the government instituted modern banking regulations, under which:

* The banks are never open when it might be convenient.

* The customer is never sure what his bank's name is, since they keep changing it, usually from something like 'The First Formal Federal National State Bank of Savings Loans and Of Course Trust' to something like 'InterContiBankAmeriTransWestSouthNorthCorp.'

* There are always stupid people in line ahead of you trying to cash checks from the Bank of Yemen and using underwear labels for identification."

My bank switched from Wachovia to Wells Fargo 14 months ago. My only concern was whether I could continue using my Wachovia debit card. (I could.) Yesterday Wells Fargo just (finally) mailed me a new debit card, which you can set up by calling a phone number or going to one of their ATMs. So today I went to the bank for the sole purpose of setting up my new debit card at the ATM (because I HATE talking on phones). Of course once I got there I discovered the ATM was "temporarily out of order." Seriously? Are you freaking kidding me? Inconvenient.

And Dave Barry is so right about the bank not being open. The only times my bank is open and I'm not working during are for 45 minutes on Friday afternoon and three hours on Saturday morning (which I'm generally sleeping during). Inconvenient. And lately whenever I do get in there, they always harass me about changing my savings account. Just cash the check and leave me alone, OK? Thank God I have direct deposit.