Winter Vacation Highlights (Final)

This post concludes our winter vacation foodie highlights while we were in Florida. We stopped before making the final leg of our journey home by car. I managed to pick up a few great food items to bring home so will discuss those as I use them. We left the rental house Thursday morning, stopped for breakfast in Lakeland then made our way along the Gulf coast. It had been a great break from the snow and cold but it was time to go home.

Fresh Picked Orange

Picture is the last of our fresh picked oranges. Oh how I would love to be down there during the orange harvest! Residents told us that many picked the oranges and grapefruits then put them to the road with a sign "free" simply because they could not use them up. I would be canning orange slices, making marmalade and squeezing juice! If I lived in Florida for any length of time even as a snowbird, I would certainly buy the juicer attachment for my KitchenAid®.

I seriously would be in seventh heaven being able to walk into my backyard and pick fresh citrus fruit! This last lone orange was popped into my purse with the intentions of eating it on the plane. But the plane was delayed and then there were problems which meant we had to deplane. Almost six hours later we were finally on our way so I forgot until we were in the car. We can't bring citrus into Canada so we ate it before getting to the border, enjoying once again the sweet taste of Florida sunshine!

Poached Eggs

Normally we eat breakfast out a couple of times or more during our vacation. This time we didn't. Since we were flying out that night we figured a hearty breakfast was the way to go. On our way through Lakeland we found a nice little cafe called Nana's Kitchen featuring "homestyle cookin" (exact spelling). Well how could we resist stopping for breakfast?

My husband ordered the chicken fried steak ($5.99) with home fries, toast and poached eggs. It was a substantial, home style breakfast. The eggs were soft poached. Chicken fried steak is a thin cut piece of steak dipped in the same kind of coating you would put on chicken. It is then fried and served with a white gravy usually sausage gravy.

Eggs Sunny Side Up

I ordered eggs sunny side up with bacon, home fries and toast ($4.99), another substantial home style breakfast. When I was little these were called dipped eggs and I still eat them this way. First I sprinkle a nice amount of pepper and just a bit of salt over the eggs. A piece of torn toast is dipped into the yolk then eaten, continuing this way until there is no yolk left. Then the egg white is cut into pieces and enjoyed last. Eggs at their finest :)

My biggest problem was my mouth so for this meal I did not use any salt or pepper. It was painful eating and I made sure to keep any food away from my lip. In hind sight cream of wheat might have been a better choice but despite that I still enjoyed most of my breakfast. It was a good way to start the day!