Garden Time #2

See if you can find the three tiny zucchini!

Japanese Eggplant flower

It's amazing what a month of growing can do. Looking back at pictures from the first garden post I'm quite amazed (and pleased) with the amount of growth taking place in our little garden. Much of that can be attributed to our substantial rainfall over the past month combined with the warm Spring temperatures.

The Italian zucchini, for one, is growing very fast... It already has 3 tiny zucchini eagerly awaiting their pollination time. The Japanese eggplant has put out one large gorgeous purple flower and has well over a dozen more getting ready to pop. The tomato plants are really on the move about now with the most ambitious Sun Gold plant reaching nearly 4 feet in height with several clusters of yellow flowers. Even the pepper plants which prefer the hot heat of summer are getting in on the action sending out a few tall, tender branches. Enjoy the pictures!

Garden after one month

24 Hours in New Orleans

The bar at MiLa

Sitting here in the New Orleans airport (yes, again) I figured I would write about my dinner and lunch over the past 24 hours. Last night I had dinner at MiLa. I was originally planning on driving out to Clancy's but MiLa was literally across the street from my hotel. I took that as a sign from the food gods and to MiLa I went.

The chefs of the restaurant are Allison Vines-Rushing, a 2004 James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year winner and her husband Chef Slade Rushing.

The restaurant was pretty empty aside from 2 or 3 couples and a stray flying termite that managed to creep under the front doors. (It is evidently swarm season in the Big Easy) They weren't expecting much business the day after the Memorial Day weekend and I was happy to have plenty of space to spread out on the bar. Entering the space, your eyes are drawn to the huge alabaster bar lighted from underneath. Perhaps the termites found it pretty as well (?). They have a few published signature cocktails on the menu but I decided to let the bartender whip me up an orange something or other. Great drink as an aperitif, he did well. It was a nice balance of sweet and bitter orange. If only I could remember all the ingredients. I started dinner with a complimentary amuse bouche: a goat cheese crostini with tomatoes and a balsamic reduction drizzled on top and a deep green parsley oil underneath. It was OK. The balsamic taste wasn't as strong as I had hoped. Considering you only have one bite, you've gotta pack some punch. All was fixed when the appetizer came along though. I ordered a deconstructed oysters rockefeller. The six or so very lightly poached oysters arrived on a bed of spinach drizzled all over with a white creamy foam and each oyster was topped with a piece of thin, cripsy bacon. The fact that you don't have to wrestle with the oyster shell was a nice change, especially when you've got on a freshly ironed light blue shirt. Everything was well seasoned and the oysters were my favorite part of the meal. Next came the entree; a sweet tea brined duck cooked on a rotisserie, served with roasted beets on a bed of wilted greens and drizzled with a date jus. This was a good idea in theory but there wasn't much tea flavor. Maybe I was expecting something like tea smoked duck, but I felt the flavor could have been more pronouced. The bitter wilted greens were great though, and the date jus was a perfect flavor match with the duck. Overall it was a pretty good plate of duck. For dessert (something I rarely go for) I got a Muscadine wine gelee. The gelee flavor was rather subtle and frankly I would have preferred more muscadine flavor. There is probably a fine line between gelle and grape jelly though, and if I had to choose, I'll take the gelee. It was cool and refreshing nonetheless. Overall the meal was quite good.

Today I drove back to Cochon Butcher for lunch before I left town. I had the muffaletta last time so this time I tried the bahn mi. I thought about it for a minute... why order a Vietmamese sandwich in a Southern Cajun style restaurant? To their defense they do list the "bahn mi" with quotations on the menu and refer to it as a Vietnamese po'-boy as not to offend any hard core food bloggers. Anyway, the sandwich was just OK. It was not as impressive to me as the muffaletta was. The bread was great, it had that thin crust that shatters all over your lap but is yet still super soft on the inside, it had the pickled daikon and carrots, the cilantro, and the jalapeno peppers too, but yet again, the flavor was lacking. The meat of the sandwich was pork liver pate and head cheese - fantastic in theory but they just lacked the pronounced pork flavor that I was hoping for. Still, I really admire and respect what they do there at the Cochon complex so I'll certainly be back when given the chance to try more!

Riverside Farmers Market

Today was opening day for the second season of the Riverside Farmers Market in Roswell, GA. I was really looking forward to grabbing some tender Spring vegetables for dinner tonight... but unfortunately the market had just about everything BUT produce. This was similar to last year's opening day where the main attractions were craft items and flowers. Maybe it is just too early for local farmers to have a good harvest to sell at the market? No, because I'm quite confident the in-town markets like the Peachtree Road Farmers Market and the Morningside Market have an abundance of fresh produce.

At the Riverside Market I noticed candles, jams/jellies, coffee, fresh flowers, pieces of pie, a master gardener stand to answer all your home gardening questions, even some live plants and bags of composted manure. I'm not going to discredit the quality or craftsmanship of these items, I'm sure they're wonderful, (OK maybe the composted manure didn't take much skill) but when I go to a farmers market I want produce and I want lots of it! As it was, the only real produce I saw were some flats of strawberries, and a girl selling some greens. I already have a small bag of strawberries and a opened bag of pre-washed, pre-cut greens in the crisper drawer left over from last week. I was pleased to see some fresh eggs and a Artisan Foods Bakery stand selling fresh breads but I had already made up my mind that I wasn't buying anything. I'll try back in a month or so and hopefully the market will have ramped up its selection of fresh, local produce.

Garden Time

Here's our little backyard garden for Spring/Summer/Fall(?) 2009. It's nothing extraordinary (we just don't have the space), but hopefully it will provide more than a few summer treats for us. We tried a garden last year but after our tomato plants had a run-in with our lawn service's broad leaf weed spray, they decided to stop growing. 2, 4-D isn't friendly. So, garden #2 is up and running!

I ordered our vegetable plants from Tasteful Garden again this year. They are based out of Heflin, Alabama. They are a small family, but they are doing big business lately - good for them. They also have lots of great heirloom plants to choose from. This year I'm growing...

Tomatoes:
Sun Gold
Carmello
Black Pear

Peppers:
Chile de Arbol
Carmen Pepper

Vegetables:
Japanese Eggplant
Italian Zucchini

Herbs:
Stevia
Lemon Varigated Thyme
German Thyme
Basil
Tarragon

Jacques Pepin's Flatbread

Jacques Pepin is certainly no stranger to the culinary community. Through cookbooks and TV series, he continues to churn out highly useful information and innovative ways of cooking in the kitchen. The recipe below is from his most recent TV series, More Fast Food My Way. The recipe was developed after Pepin visited a Tibetan restaurant and wanted to re-create a pan-cooked flatbread. The advantage of this bread is that it cooks up FAST. Start to finish you're looking at no more than 20 minutes so it's a great weeknight meal addition. Of course, we're not talking about the depth of flavor associated with something like sourdough, but the bread takes to flavor additions like herbs or mushrooms, as I have added in mine.

Jacques' Flatbread

1 1/2 cups of AP flour
1 cup of water
salt to taste
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Dump everything into bowl and "stir it into a gooey stuff" as Jacques says. The dough will indeed be very wet, gooey, sticky... whatever you want to call it! Heat up a pan that has non-stick properties* over medium to medium-high heat. Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and then pour in your dough. Spread it into one flat layer in the pan with a spoon or spatula. A little oil on the spoon or spatula helps keep the dough from sticking to it. Add a tablespoon or two of water around the outside of the dough where it meets the pan; the object is to create steam to help cook the bread. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for about 8-10 minutes. After 8-10 minutes have passed, flip the bread and re-cover the pan so that it cooks from the other side. Think of this as a big savory pancake. Cook for another 5 minutes and you're done!

I suggest peeking at the bottom of the bread about half way through the first 8-10 minutes just to make sure the bottom isn't burning. You want good color, but you don't want charcoal! Adjust your stove top temperature accordingly.


Feel free to add your own touches. I have added dried thyme, black pepper, and sauteed mushrooms to this bread just to change things up a bit.


*I use the term "non-stick properties" because while a non-stick pan is perfectly acceptable to use in this recipe, I prefer to use cast iron or carbon steel whenever it is available.

Wingin' It

In Atlanta you can find a variety of chicken wings at places like Wild Wing Cafe, Taco Mac, Hooters, and the best of the ghetto, J.R. Crickets (holla!). The wings found at most restaurants are deep fried, and while that generates absolutely NO complaints on my end, it's fun to do you own wings at home using your grill. The grill method eliminates any large pots of gurgling hot oil so you can (somewhat) safely enjoy a few beers and not worry too much about burning down your house at the same time.


As you can see in my picture above, I like to have a mound of hot coals in the middle of the grill and then place the wings around the outside of the main heat source in a ring. This allows me to slowly grill a couple dozen wings (or more) over indirect heat while avoiding any flare ups. The fat renders out of the skin and crisps up wonderfully. You'll never know they weren't fried aside from the fact that they will have great smokey, grilled flavor. I've managed to squeeze in 32 wings in this grilling venture.

After they come off the grill, you'll need to apply your favorite wing sauce. I make a mixture of regular Texas Pete and melted butter, maybe with a few herbs mixed in. Texas Pete has a great balance of heat and flavor. Wings should be spicy but not overpowering. I'm not into the "I have bigger balls just because I like hotter wing sauce than you" - that's crap. I want taste, not mouth numbing heat! Here I have a mix of about 1 part butter and 3 parts hot sauce with a pinch of dried thyme added in. Toss the wings and sauce in a large bowl and you're good to go.

Add in a cheap American lager and you've got yourself a night in front of the TV. Enjoy!

Dining in Brevard, North Carolina

So it's been a while since my last post. Most of that is because I've been in Brevard, NC the past couple of weeks working at the site of the now defunct Ecusta Paper Mill. It is a very large project and the environmental cleanup and demolition that is going on is quite extensive. While I was there I was able to eat at a few restaurants of course, so here are a few short reviews of some local fare. Good or bad, I will preface these reviews by saying I only visited these places once or twice during my stay.

Jordan's Street Cafe
Jordan's was probably where I had my best meal. We stopped here for dinner one night and I was impressed with the food and the bottled beer selection. I had a pan roasted chicken breast sitting on top of a bed of kale and broccoli rabe ravioli. The seasoning was spot on and the chicken was moist and crisp. I had a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA to accompany my meal... maybe a bit hoppy when sidled up to a chicken breast but I'm not complaining - the 90 minute IPA is killer.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

The Falls Landing
Another restaurant with a decent beer selection. I had local trout topped with candied pecans, and served with blue cheese mashed potatoes and green beans. Being so close to Asheville, I was pleased to see a couple of local brews on tap from Highland Brewing Company. I opted for the Gaelic Ale which was a good match with my dinner. The fish was OK, it was maybe a little too sweet with the candied pecans but it was certainly edible. Nice bartender and the chef was accommodating.

Stars: 2.5 out of 5

Poppies Gourmet Farmer's Market
This place is an absolutely WONDERFUL little store nestled along Asheville Highway. They close shop at 7 PM so dinner is an option for the early-ish birds, but the lunch I had was killer. The lunches here consist of custom made sandwiches, hot entree specials like beef stew over noodles, and personal pizzas cooked in the stone oven. Everything here is upscale, crunchy-granola organic and super tasty. From the looks of things they try very hard to source everything locally. They also have a very large beer selection that would make most liquor stores in the Atlanta area blush. If you're looking for a great lunch for a fair price, stop here.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

Twin Dragons Grand Buffet
Yep, it's a Chinese Buffet. Surprisingly the food here is pretty good and the selection is incredible. Items range from the typical Chinese-American dishes, soups, to cheese quesadillas (for the kids or for the timid), custom stir fry where you pick the ingredients and they cook, salt and pepper frogs legs, sushi, and even a nice dessert bar complete with it's own self serve ice cream. I mostly stuck with sushi which was by no means the best I've ever had, but it was always fresh and tasty. There were sides of kimchi and seaweed salad too which was nice. Perhaps the best attraction to this place aside from the friendly service is the price. Lunch was about $8 and dinner was $9.50. For all you can eat sushi, I'm in.

Stars: 2.5 out of 5

The Clock of Brevard Fine Food
Funny name, great fried chicken. This was a lunch stop for us one day. The fried chicken was great. No heavy breading, just a light coating that is fried to a crunchy, crispy crust. Served with a side salad, cole slaw, fries, and a buttery toasted piece of bread, it was a good lunch. The sweet tea was surprisingly good here too. I was pleased that it lacked the sickening, super-sweetness that some sweet teas have.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Ed Boudreaux's Bar-B-Que
The better of the two BBQ places I visited while there but that doesn't mean it's anything extraordinary. I opted for the beef brisket which arrived shredded rather than sliced. I'm not a brisket expert, but I'd rather have mine sliced with a nice fat layer on top. Instead this one arrived dry with no evident smoke ring at all. Perhaps the best part about this place was the TV trivia we enjoyed with some co-workers and friends... that or the few pints of Lagunitas IPA I had.

Stars: 1.5 out of 5

Pisgah Fish Camp
We stopped here for lunch and dinner on two separate occasions. The atmosphere is kind of dismal but at least the service was nice. For lunch I had the buffet which on this particular day consisted of calabash shrimp and various sides. Not great, but dinner a few days later was better. For dinner I had the local trout entree which was actually pretty good. The trout itself rivaled the trout I had at The Falls Landing. I opted for the baked potato and something else (can't remember) as a side. Good stop if you're looking for something quick. I'm knocking a half star off of this due to the cafeteria/retirement home atmosphere.

Stars: 1 out of 5

Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que
Not my favorite BBQ in the world but then again, as with all these places it's hard to fairly judge them after just one visit. I had the pork BBQ plate with the Eastern BBQ sauce. The pork was kind of dry and had no discernible smokiness. The Eastern NC BBQ sauce is usually a tangy, tart, vinegar based sauce with the typical sugar and spices that one would expect in this neck of the woods. This one however was dull and watery. No surprise considering the first ingredient in the sauce was literally water. If you're looking for good BBQ pork, keep searching.

Stars 1.5 out of 5

Ingles
This Ingles is indeed the Southeast grocery store chain that we all know of... you know, the Ingles Advantage. Walking into this store, I was immediately impressed: clean, fresh, good selection of produce and meats - everything you want in a grocery store. I stopped here one night for a sandwich and a salad while my co-worker opted for leftovers from the night before. I was more than impressed with the salad bar and my sandwich was pretty good too. This grocery store was better than some of the restaurants! If you're in need of a quick, late night sandwich while in Brevard, look no further than here.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Sagebrush Steakhouse
It's a chain. It wasn't good. Don't go here unless you want a sodium-induced coma the next morning. This place makes Applebee's look like the Ritz. My meal was likely prepared by a high school student. I had the prime rib with smashed new potatoes and a salad. The prime rib was mealy and had a weird beefy shellac on the outside crust. The potatoes were OK but the salad had an inedible mildewy mustiness that only pre-bagged, far out of date lettuce can have. I would have sent it back at any other restaurant (and I usually don't send things back unless something is really wrong) but I know it would have done no good.

Stars: 0 out of 5

Flat Iron Tacos

Liv was working late last night so I cooked dinner for myself: grilled flat iron steak tacos. The flat iron cut is FULL of beefy flavor but it's also very cheap so it works great as a fajita or taco meat. Sliced thin, it's as good as it gets.

Here are a couple pictures of my Tex-Mex dinner for one: flour tortillas, Mexican crema, some pre-mixed shredded cheese, and some grilled onions and tomato. OK, I'll admit the rice on the side was from one of those little bags, but given the few beers I had in me I wasn't willing to make much from scratch!

ESB

It's not Extra Special Bitter, Extra Strong Bitter, or Extra Special Brew, this one is Early Spring Beer. Turns out beer companies like acronyms... who knew? Anyway, this is the latest seasonal offering from Sierra Nevada: ESB 2009 edition. It's not quite early Spring just yet but I'm not complaining - it's good! Nice hops, nice malt, nice color, 5.9% ABV. As with most Sierra Nevada brews this one has pronounced hop flavor. As a self-proclaimed hop head, that's not a bad thing in my book. In fact, I would go as far as saying this one almost tastes like an IPA (there's that acronym thing again) but this one is a little heavier on the malt than an IPA. So if you want a nice late winter or early spring beer, check out your local grocery or liquor store. This is a seasonal brew so it won't be around forever.

P.S. For future reference, I won't just post any old beer up here. If it makes the blog it's worth checking out. Enjoy!

Cast Iron Grilling

Here's my new grill toy: it's a cast iron grill grate made by Lodge. I've been wanting this for quite a while now but I finally gathered up the $30 needed to buy it. In other words, it's fairly cheap to purchase but I've just been lazy and haven't clicked the few buttons on Amazon.com so they could send me one. You might ask, What's so good about cast iron? My grill works fine just as it is. You're right. This item isn't a necessity and that's partly why it took me so long to order it to begin with. Your grill probably works fine, as did mine, but what if you could help it work a little better?

Some higher end grills already come with cast iron grates. Some of them even come with enameled cast iron grates but sadly, my Weber charcoal grill does not - one of the very few pet peeves I have about Weber charcoal grills.

Whether it is a cast iron pan on the stove top or a grill grate like this one, cast iron heats up relatively slowly and evenly but it also holds on to that heat once food has been placed onto it. The advantage is that compared to a thin, wiry grill grate, (like the kind that comes with Weber charcoal grills) food placed on one of these thick cast iron grates will not cool off the metal as quickly. A deeper, darker sear is attained much more easily because the grate says hotter longer.

For our Super Bowl Sunday dinner I grilled a steak. As is evident from these pictures, our super-thick ribeye has dark, smokey, crispy grill marks. Yum! I can easily say that it was the best steak I've cooked on this grill.


The picture above is taken after just one turn so you can clearly see the grill marks made by the cast iron. The steak turned out great; a crisp salty-peppery crust.


Because this ribeye was so thick I only cooked one and sliced it. Served with it is an endive, mushroom, and sweet pea melange that I saw on Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way, and a simple baked sweet potato with butter.

Scraps the Fox

If I do say so myself, here are a couple great shots of our resident red fox that we have lovingly nicknamed Scraps. She (or he) has been visiting our backyard for the past year or so. She is a beauty and I'm really happy that she comes to visit every now and then. We think it is a female because neighbors have spotted her with a couple other foxes, possibly her kits.

Last summer, Scraps appeared rather regularly, every other day or so, whenever I happened to leave her a tasty squirrel. I got into the habit of laying the "dispatched" squirrels at the back of our yard near a large oak tree (in the right of the picture), sharing in the bounty. Scraps would come by, grab the squirrel, then trot off to areas unknown. Our hope was that she was feeding her young and, again, based on the reports from neighbors, she may have been doing just that. Enjoy the pictures!

Squirrels & Beer

There comes a time when each blogger comes into harmony with the title of his or her said blog... Today is that day. Below you will see the remnants of squirrel #69. That's right, I ate one.



If you can't tell from the pictures, I only used the legs. The squirrels are so small that actually breaking down the animal is rather difficult. Especially when your butchery is regulated to the backyard patio and a plastic cutting board. I've had this guy in the freezer for about 6 weeks or so until I gathered up the gumption to actually defrost it and cook it. Part of my encouragement came from a New York Times article on squirrel cookery in Great Britain. Turns out that squirrels are being served on restaurant tables all over the country and people are loving it. You can read the article for more interesting and useful squirrel cookery information.

I cooked this squirrel in a very simple braise of carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and herbs. The braising liquid was of course... beer (and a little water). I used a Redhook Winter Hook brew with plenty of good flavor. The squirrel was pretty damn good - not at all gamey or musky. While avoiding the "it tastes like chicken" cliche, if I were to compare it to other meats I've had in the past, I would say it is most similar to rabbit with a hint of squirrel, I guess! So next time you're in the mood for something different, stop on by our house. I'll try to keep a squirrel or 2 in the freezer for some drop-in dinner guests.