Baked Cheese and Monster Trucks

This is a story told from two points of view, the first is mine that way you can get an idea of what I was thinking. The second is told from the point of view of... well I guess we can call it reality...

It was a pretty typical weekday evening, we were watching television, playing and talking, you know the regular hub-bub of a normal house. Somewhere in the course of the evening I started to doze off on the couch (I mean it was almost 9:00 what do you expect from me I'm old). Kris gave me a little poke and told me to go to bed, so I started to shuffle off through the kitchen on my way to the bedroom. As I was going Kris said, "oh, sweetie we spilled some Nesquick on the floor don't sweep it up, and if it is there in the morning just leave it."

So, I go to bed thinking about how sweet my wife is with her, "don't worry about the mess honey, I know you have a lot going on," sort of comment. When I get up in the morning my normal routine is to do the dishes then get ready for work but there is a big mess of powdered chocolate on the floor so I sweep it up and Swiffer the kitchen floor before I load up the dishwasher, then I go about the rest of my morning routine.

About 6:10 Kris sends me a text "you weren't supposed to sweep the kitchen!"

I put my phone away and think, "yeah but you have the husband of the year, I sweep and do the dishes."

Nothing seems odd until I pick Mr. Man up from day care. His classroom reminds me of any episode of Cheers, when I walk in there is a chorus of 5 and 6 year old voices calling, "Mr. Man, your dad is here" (yes, I really call him that). After the obligatory round of high fives, I help my little guy with his coat and we start to head out. As soon as we step outside he stops me and says, "DO NOT sweep the kitchen floor." I didn't think anything about the comment at the time, peculiar but Mr. Man has said some strange things before. When we get home our usual routine is to set him up at the computer to play a game and get him a juice while I run next door to get Miss Lu from the neighbor that watches her after school. So I start our normal routine with the question, "hey bud, do you want to play on the computer."

"No, I want to play with this!" I follow him into the kitchen and he points to a big pile of Nesquick powder on the floor. Now is a good time to start the theme music to the "twilight zone" I admit I am lost here, I shake my head to rattle out any hallucinations and walk next door to get Miss Lu. When we get home I find this...

It turns out that I didn't pick up on all of the details... here is what I missed in my fog.

Mr. Man tried to get everything together to make chocolate milk and dropped the can of Nesquick on the floor, then came into the living room crying because he was so upset. Kris told him that it was fine, we all drop stuff (heck once in college I broke 800 juice glasses in one day) we don't make a big deal out of it. He was still upset until Miss Lu got down on the floor and showed him how to play monster trucks in the spill.

Apparently Kris told me all of this as I was shuffling off to bed; I just didn't process any of it. Mr. Man was so upset when he saw the clean kitchen floor in the morning that he cried again and Kris dumped the rest of the Nesquick on the floor for him. She ran out to Target at lunch to get one of those under the bed boxes so Mr. Man's chocolate monster truck rally can be contained.

This is going to be one of those clumsy segues to a recipe we will call this my "apology for ruining your monster truck pit lunch"

Melty baked cheese sticks...

Take an assortment of individually wrapped cheese stick snacks and freeze them for several hours or overnight.

After they are frozen preheat your oven to 400 degrees, then put together your breading set up, there isn't really a recipe here but you need three dishes:

The first bowl with flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder.
The second bowl with two eggs and a splash of milk.
The third with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.

I don't measure these things, you really shouldn't either. When it is time to go take your cheese sticks out of the freezer and unwrap them, cut them in half them put them through the breading process. One at a time fully coat them in your flour mixture, then the eggs shake them off pretty well and roll in your bread crumbs and put on a baking sheet. When they are all ready pop them into the oven for about 8 minutes. Take out and serve warm with marinara sauce. I have to note that it is important to work with frozen cheese; you want the crust to bake before the cheese starts to melt then it is all contained in the breading!

These are great! Mr. Man and I gobbled them up while we watched the Transfomers. I liked the Mozzarella/Cheddar swirl best, it had a nice flavor and the textures were great together Mr. Man preferred the plain Mozzarella.