|
|
By Amber, on January 26, 2012, at 10:24 pm 
Bacon broke free from breakfast a long time ago, but why not chorizo? (And why don’t I have any photos of chorizo??) Granted, I can get chorizo con huevos at any hour here in Houston, but let’s see you do that in Philadelphia. It’s time for chorizo to shine!
I guess Austin has been on the hipster taco tip for a long time, but Houston is finally catching up. We got a Torchy’s Tacos and Mark and I have been eating the heck out of that. Green chile pork for him, chorizo egg & cheese for me. It’s beautiful when you can get breakfast tacos for dinner, and they’re open late.
BUT — tonight we tried Tacos A Go-Go at the new Heights location, and I’m afraid that after tonight we may have to just be friends with Torchy’s, because the chorizo, egg, bacon and cheese tacos that I ate have won my heart. Plus they’re open until 2 AM on weekends, which might as well be all night for us.
I have a growing list of chorizos I’ve sampled in Houston. Like bacon, I don’t think I’ve had a bad one, but some are better than others. I think the ground chorizo we get from the Whole Foods meat counter is as good as any restaurant’s, and never gristly.
And then there was the time Mark cooked my chorizo and eggs in the pan in which he’d cooked a habanero omelet earlier in the day. My heat/spiciness tolerance is offset by about an order of magnitude from Mark’s, and that may have been the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. The suffering I endured through that meal is a true testament to my love of chorizo.
By Amber, on September 18, 2011, at 10:00 pm You know what we had this weekend? Rain! A drop in the bucket of this year’s terrible drought, to be sure — but good, hard rain nonetheless. We took the car through the carwash today and were rewarded with another little sprinkle of rain for our effort.
Oh, we also had these beautiful ribeyes:
 Our favorite butcher had tweeted about them on Thursday and although they sounded wonderful, I was awfully tired at the end of the day and figured they were probably gone anyway. When they were mentioned again on Friday morning, I started planning my day around them (following Revival’s tweets has made me hungry non-stop and may end up being very expensive). We didn’t have any sides, so while I was there I picked up some extremely long beans:
 And of course, the most important part of any meal:
 I needed some lunch anyway, so I also brought home one of these, which I immediately enjoyed with great gusto:
The dog is supposed to be served with relish, but I don’t like anything on my meat except cheese or more meat. Figured the house-made chicharrones were close enough to meat, so I allowed them. Oh, and if you’ve never have Zapp’s chips, you should rectify that.
How did your weekend taste?
By Amber, on August 14, 2011, at 11:00 pm Birch beer, that is.
Tonight Mark and I went to the home of one of his coworkers for deer tenders and deer burgers! I think I have had tiny pieces of venison at Rainbow Lodge, and I have had elk and antelope, but I consider this my first real venison experience. The hostess provided the burgers and a different coworker provided the tenders — I was the odd one out in the group as far as not being a hunter. I’m not interested in shooting anything myself, but I’m always glad to eat whatever someone else has shot! My contribution is dessert.
Anyway, the food was great and the company was great. It was a nice way to spend the last evening of my pretirement. I feel like I am going back to school tomorrow after summer vacation — I have met my ‘teacher’ once, but the school and all my classmates are new to me. Will the other kids like me? Will I be able to find the bathroom? Will anybody sit with me at lunch??
I’m actually not too anxious. The first week of a new job is usually a pretty good one, especially if you don’t know anything about the business you’re going into, because you get to start learning a bunch of new stuff, there is only so much actual work you can do, and if you’re lucky they take you to lunch the first day. Speaking of which, my new job is across the street from one of my favorite restaurants. That’s what we call efficiency!
By Amber, on August 9, 2011, at 11:20 pm I had a serious pizza craving tonight, but we are trying to expand our horizons beyond our regular place (which seems to be having difficulty with instructions lately), and late Tuesday night is a tricky time to find a pizza in Houston. I decided that a pancake would be close enough, as it is round, starts with ‘P,’ and is loaded with carbs. And I could eat it in my pajamas, which were already on. Plus, that Mrs. Butterworth has been taunting me from the pantry in recent days. She doesn’t understand why she hasn’t been invited out in months.
Mark used to make chocolate chip pancakes or French toast for me every single weekend, but since we started shifting our eating away from as many grains, eggs and bacon became the usual weekend fare (with occasional dining-out exceptions!). I don’t usually miss my weekend bread bombs, but Mark is the master of breakfast, and he has not lot his touch — this thing got devoured in record time. Even Mark couldn’t resist an enormous bite when it was done!
The best part of pancakes at night is that the resulting carb coma occurs at a sleep-appropriate time, instead of wiping out my entire Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
What have you been craving?
By Amber, on July 26, 2011, at 10:04 pm All my mom ever wants for Mother’s Day or her birthday is crab and family time. This year we schemed to bring her both in a way she didn’t expect — with a crab and shrimp boil in her own backyard!
I had a hard time narrowing down the photos for this post — there are just so many great shots of my family enjoying the time together. I am convinced that if you want to have a successful party, all you have to do is throw some food into the biggest pot you can find, mix some drinks, and watch it all come together.
Follow the jump for more!
Continue reading Birthday crab boil
By Amber, on July 19, 2011, at 10:00 pm 
Here are some things I’m grateful for this week:
Okay, wait. My whole list so far is food-related. I am very grateful for food, but let me see if I can change gears:
- my last week at my current job! I highly recommend having a last week somewhere — there’s nothing like handing your least favorite tasks to someone else!
- my ipod’s sudden bad behavior coinciding with my last week of gym access at said job (it still works in the car, which is where I really need it!)
- inspiration for home projects that I’m really excited for!
- looking forward to celebrating my mom’s birthday this weekend!
What are you grateful for this week?
By Amber, on June 30, 2011, at 11:01 pm There’s something so appealing about candy bark. Maybe I just like the excuse to eat enormous pieces of candy. Yeah, that could be it.
Anyway, it’s really easy to make, but the version I’m sharing with you tonight is only for serious, serious bacon lovers. It is so smoky and rich that I can eat one little piece and I either have to stop or move on to something lighter.
You’ll need:
- up to 4 small/medium pieces of good bacon
- 1 cup of the best lard you can get
- 4-6 oz of dark chocolate (a Ghirardelli 70% bakers bar from the baking aisle is exactly 4 oz)
First, fry your bacon and chop it somewhat finely. Keep the grease if you want your bark to be really out of control bacony (and you know you do!).
Melt your chocolate in a double boiler. When all of the chocolate is melted, stir in your lard and bacon grease, and keep stirring until uniform.
Pour the melted mixture into a lined 8″x8″ dish. You can use wax paper or parchment paper for this step. Sprinkle your bacon evenly throughout the chocolate (if you made too much, you get to eat it. Yay!) and put the pan into the freezer.
I’m not sure how long it takes to freeze because I went and did other stuff for a few hours, but I don’t think it’s long. When you’re pretty sure it has hardened, dump it onto a cutting board and gently peel the paper away:
You’ll have to work out your own method of dividing it up into chunks. I find pressing the blade evenly in (and, optionally, whacking it) gives a pretty good line all the way across the brick. In any case, you will have delicious, rich little chocolate bacon squares. You’ll have to store them in the freezer.
Enjoy!
By Amber, on June 16, 2011, at 10:00 pm The guanciale was delicious in eggs, but I wanted to see what else it could do. I already had plans and supplies for a bacon and scallop dish from Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals, so I decided to use the scallops. Close enough to what I had planned – hopefully better!
I had 14 pieces of guanciale left, and 24 scallops. A couple of the pieces were fairly small, so I set those aside and cut the others in half across the short axis (if I had cut them across the long axis, half of the pieces would have been all fat, and I wanted all of them to be similar in composition). The pieces were large enough to cover the scallops, but not wrap them, so I stuck a toothpick in each to prevent excessive curling:
We had some smoky scamorza left over from Heather’s visit (Revival Market impulse purchase! Can you tell we love that place?) and it seemed like it would make appropriately decadent chapeau for the scallops. I cut some little chunks and pressed one side of each into panko bread crumbs for a little crunch:
My advice: make sure you do this ahead of cooking the scallops, and set them on a plate. You’ll want them to be ready and next to the oven when you need them.
Broil the scallops for six minutes. At the end of six minutes, pull them out and quickly stick a piece of your panko-covered cheese on top of each one, then pop them back in for 2-3 minutes (you’ll want to watch them starting at two minutes, because the cheese melts and the guanciale crisps up very quickly at this point):
Et voilà! Guanciale-wrapped scallops with melty scamorza and toasty panko. Could that have been any easier?
Oh yes — you probably want to know how this tasted. Well, Mark ate the first couple and said, “Wow.” And then he kept saying it, louder and louder with each scallop. And he fist-bumped me. By the time we finished, I knew I’d be making these again.
In this setting I detected a richer quality to the guanciale, versus regular bacon — especially considering how very thin the pieces were! The cheese and bread crumbs provided a really nice touch, though I might press more crumbs into the cheese next time.
Overall, it was one of the best things I’ve made in recent history! You could serve these as appetizers — the toothpicks will be handy for guests to pick them up – but I’d recommend keeping them for yourself. Of course you can use American-style premium bacon (which I will probably have to do most of the time since guanciale is not a daily item at Revival), but this was so filling that you will probably want to be judicious in your bacon use, especially if you buy the thick kind like we do.
Mangia!
By Amber, on June 14, 2011, at 9:24 pm
I don’t remember how I stumbled onto it, but about a year ago I first heard of guanciale via this article. I was immediately intrigued – a better bacon? Is that even possible?
Thus began a fixation. I was desperate to experience it for myself, but chances seemed slim unless I could finagle a trip to Italy. I even begged Mark’s parents to send some back from their Italy vacation — they sent me a tiny photo instead:
Then, a few months ago here in Houston, Revival Market opened in the Heights. Their philosophy is to offer organic local meat, raised humanely and sustainably. Their meat case would make any carnivore salivate. We have had their Mangalitsa bacon and sausage, and it is incredible.
We happened to be buying some bacon there in April when I noticed that the pig diagram on the chalkboard included guanciale. “Do you cure your own guanciale?” I asked. The man behind the counter said “We have some curing now; it will be ready next month.” I could hardly believe my luck. Christmas was coming to Houston!
Finally the day arrived that guanciale and I were in the same place. I knew it would be coming home with me! Since we had never cooked it and it was priced the same per pound as the beef tenderloin we buy from Whole Foods, we decided half a pound of paper-thin slices would make a good test run. Look at this beautiful meat:
It wasn’t in the fridge for even 12 hours before we dug in. Our first experiment was to slowly fry it up like regular bacon, cook some eggs in the grease, and add the guanciale back to the eggs.
It was rich and delicious, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could have distinguished it from Revival’s standard amazing bacon. I wanted to try something different for the second half of our stash.
Come back Thursday to find out how we got our $25/lb worth!
By Amber, on May 26, 2011, at 8:00 pm When Mark and I were in Honolulu last June with friends, we had one especially spectacular dinner at BLT Steak. It was one of those occasions where you order way more appetizers and sides than you know you’ll need, just because it all sounds so good. Imagine our surprise when the waiter brought out the bread course, which consisted of popovers the size of footballs! Well, maybe Nerf footballs. But trust me, they were huge.
BLT brings the popovers out with a little card that tells you exactly how to make them, and enough people have fallen in love with those popovers that you can easily find the recipe online. I do have a popover pan, but you can make them in a muffin tin if necessary. They won’t be quite as enormous, but that means you can eat more, right?
The pan was a gift last Christmas, but I put off making them because I was sort of nervous about it. I have read that you have to follow the recipe just so, and I was afraid to do something wrong and end up with unpoppedovers. Finally, my craving for popovers was too great to deny, and I decided I was going for it. I halved the recipe, which turned out to be a good call because apparently my pan is not quite as enormous as BLT’s.
If you have never had a popover, they are airy, eggy, and super-moist. BLT adds gruyere to theirs, which is delicious, but they are just as good plain. We used parmesan on some of them, but it doesn’t melt like gruyere, so it flakes off and is a little messier.
I couldn’t fit all of the batter in my pan at once, so I stored the remainder in the refrigerator overnight and let it come to room temperature the next day while dinner was reheating. I don’t think you’d want to try using it cold, since part of the instructions are to heat the pan before you add the batter, but at least I’ve proven to myself that popovers aren’t nearly the fuss they appear to be! We don’t eat a lot of bread these days, but I think we may be eating a lot more of these…
Happy Memorial Day weekend! I will be poolside, so posting will resume on Tuesday. Be safe, have fun, and eat something delicious!
|
|
