Tuesday, August 2, 2016

2016 Western Trip – Day 10 – Breakfast & Brighton With Friends

The next three days were mainly devoted to spending time with our Denver friends beginning with breakfast at the Pierre Michel French Bakery in Highlands Ranch, CO.  They serve breakfast and lunch and, as expected, the meals are heavily slanted toward baked goods and with lots of delicious pastries. 



This is the group of Lea Ann (Cooking On The Ranch), Bob, Bev, and I - Riley & Pat decided to stay at home.


Everyone ordered something different and all meals were enjoyed.  Since I occasionally make them at home, I ordered the Croc (Croque) Madame to see how mine compares with a French restaurant version.  A Croc Madame is basically and ham & Swiss cheese sandwich that is broiled and topped with additional cheese, béchamel sauce and fried egg.  Here’s a shot of mine then theirs.



Obviously there version stood out more due to a large slices of French bread but I believe they tasted very similar and next time I make it at home I’ll see if I can make mine look like theirs.

After the restaurant, we were joined by friend, Heather (Rocky Mountain Cooking), and headed northeast of Denver to visit Lulu’s Farm Market in Brighten, CO – a major farming area in eastern CO.  Lulu’s is family owned and they grow the produce they sell on their 55 acres of farmland next to the market. 




Like many of these places, they also sell a variety of “Made exclusively for” items such as jellies, pickled item, spices, etc. - it was easy to see why they were doing a brisk business.


We picked up some delicious bi-color corn for Sunday and a couple of other items.  The others also bought corn and Heather bought a big bunch of beets for pickling.  From the farm market, we drove into downtown for a visit to Tortilleria Chihuahua to pick up some fresh warm flour tortillas from their small on-site factory.


Heather and Lea Ann raved about them and they bought several bags to take to friends and we bought three bags for the freezer – we sample one on the way home and it was soft and delicious – they had a 5 star rating on Yelp.  From Brighton, we headed back to Sweetie to get ready for the evenings activities – it had been a pretty full and fun day already and the evening activities were yet to come.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/29 event date

6 comments:

  1. What a great time spending time with friends enjoying some wonderful food.

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  2. Larry, Laurie and I would have never gotten past all those sweet baked goods at that French bakery! I must admit that your Croque Madame looked great too...but that's something that I could make at home. Farm stores and a tortilla factory would be hard for us to pass up. That's one advantage of RVing...you can take it with you and use it along the way. Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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  3. I swear I put on 5 pounds just drooling over your bakery photos...and while their breakfast was prettier than yours, it's the taste that counts. I really need to try that one of these days; I know hubster would enjoy it! Glad to see you enjoying yourselves, Larry.

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  4. Yum! The pastries and eggs both looked fabulous! Denver area is so awesome and I swear you can see forever. Great pics!

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  5. Looks like you are eating lots of tasty grub. That Croque Madam is calling my name!

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  6. My brother lives in Highlands Ranch so I was scanning your photos to see if he was there! What a wonderful visit you had and a terrific looking breakfast!

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