Oh December

This month flew past.  I had a really bad case of writers block or was it just not wanting to write in general?  Either way there hasn't been a post since Thanksgiving...oops.  A lot has happened.  Arielle has forgotten her job documenting her various food adventures.  There was definitely a batch of blueberry muffins with lemon icing, but she said the texture was all wrong and she didn't take pictures or have a recipe for me.  She also said they tasted fine and the icing was "on the spot" but I guess we have to wait for a recipe! <Sad Face>  I attempted a new thing with kale.  It was almost successful, but missed and was merely ok.  I sauteed some kale down with horseradish and some salt with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.  It was ok.  Nothing to write home about.

It smelled and looked more enticing than it actually tasted.  The flavor fell flat...anyone have any suggestions?

That same night I put grapes with some of our home made Italian sausage.  It was interesting; the sweet with the salty was surprisingly pleasant on the palate if I do say so myself.  Just take your favorite Italian sausage out the casing and fry it up in a oven safe pan.  Throw in the grapes and heat in the oven till the grapes start to get tender.

As you may remember from a post a while back about gluten free artichoke things I made, I cook for my celiac Aunt and cousin.  For Thanksgiving I made them a loaf of gluten free challah bread because they were going to see their Jewish Grandmother and were attempting to be polite by bringing their own bread.  Well they told me I did a good job.  I was quite impressed with my mad cooking skills that I could make bread, gluten free mind you, and make it taste like the real thing.  Was patting my own back for days.  I don't know what I did with the recipe though.  I'll have to find it.  I think it's in the abyss, aka my vehicle.  It's my adapted version of the Gluten Free Gourmet bakes bread  recipe though.  So if you have her book there you go.  Next post should have the recipe.  If not, please yell at me for it! 

I also started making the family "secret recipe" fig cookies.  No really, I can't share it with you, but Arielle and I can sell you some cookies if you like.  There are a million different recipes for this cookie.  Each nuanced to a specific area or family.  Mine is different than any I've seen in one way or another, and our dough is getting better and better every year.  Many Italian fig cookies I find in the store or bakery have too much dough that is hard and flavorless.  How do these people profit off these tasteless dry cookies!?  It baffles me...anyway, I started the fig filling at the end of October and let it marinate till 2 weeks ago in a bottle of brandy.  It was the first time I made the filling and I am proud to say, the family approves.  Yes, these overly critical, food snob people I came from actually liked my fig cakes.  This must be my month for cooking.  I swear.  The other cookies on the plate are cardamom crescents.  If you touch these cookies their beautiful powdered sugar outside melts ways or latches on to your fingers and the cookies never really look as pretty as they did when you first applied the sugar. But THEY TASTED AMAZING!  All my dad could gripe about was how dry they were, but they are supposed to be dry.  They are tea cakes, basically!

The cardamom crescents:

2 cups flour

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 cup chopped almonds or pecans

1 cup butter

1 tbsp vanilla 

Preheat oven to 350.  Sift flour, spices, nuts, and salt together in a large bowl.  Cream butter and vanilla and blend in sugar.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Form crescents with hands and bake till golden ~15minutes.

Today I made chocolate chip cookies to send to my brother in Okinawa.  Hopefully they make it to him in a month.  We're going to vacuum pack them in hopes that they will stay fresh.  We just sent him a pack of my dad's home made beef jerky and there may have even been some venison jerky in the mix.  If we're lucky, I'll be able to share that recipe too.  If not, you can order some when you order your fig cakes. ;).  For the cookies my mom and I have been using a friend's recipe for years.  Tristin Wellmeyer's dad, Danny, made the best chocolate chip cookies ever.  I swear these things were the size of my head when I was a kid and they tasted amazing.  We really have made them almost every year (except a few years after Katrina) and every one loves them.  Move over best chocolate chip cookies according to the New York times, Danny's cookies are so good!  See our facebook page for pics!

 Stay tuned...Arielle is hopefully making pralines sometime in the near future...Happy Christmas!

Too much food...

Ah, the holidays.  The time of year when everybody over eats, but they don't really seem to care about how much weight they gain until after the new year.  I'm pretty sure I ate more food over the course of the past 5 days than I have all year--Thank you Herring Family! Not only did I eat lunch, I had round 2 for dinner and lots of food on Black Friday and a stack of pancakes for lunch on Saturday.  Picture Dawn French in the Vicar of Dibley when she ate Christmas lunch 4 or 5 times except over the course of a few days.   This was also my first holiday away from my family, I went to the Mississippi and ate with the Herrings.  I also threatened Arielle upon pain of death that she would provide me with pictures of her Thanksgiving down by her momma and such for this post.  It worked!  She gave me picks of her yummy food and even a recipe, which I shall graciously share with you dear reader.

Arielle's family feasted upon:

Turkey

Baked ham with pineapples and bourbon soaked cherries

baked mac and cheese

dirty rice

cranberry relish

buttered peas and corn

sweet potato crunch

corn bread

DESSERT:

pecan pie

red velvet cake(SHE NEGLECTED TO GIVE ME PICTURES OF THE DESSERTS!)

Turkey Recipe:

4 sticks of celery

1 apple

1 large red onion

bunch of fresh parsley

1 orange

1 bottle of injectable Tony's Garlic and Herb Marinade

"Stuff all the ingredients above inside the turkey after properly washing; then inject marinate. We're lazy at my house and put the turkey in a giant electric roaster and cook it all night on 250 degrees. You could always bake it the traditional way, but who wants all that hassle."

At Cotton Branch, I had quite a different meal than usual.  There was no cayenne in anything, no oyster dressing, no mirlitons, no dirty rice, and no cheese cake, but that's ok because Mrs. Barbara's cooking is still awesome!  There was:

Smoked Turkey

Traditional Turkey

Dressing

 

Corn and Butter beans

Wild rice and regular rice

Sweet potatoes

Louisiana Yams(I made these, recipe below!)

 (Dirty Coast sticker on my computer...got to be a NOLA girl everywhere...)

 

Frozen salad

cranberry sauce

 (my plate)

(the spread)

DESSERT:

Strawberry Cake, White Chocolate Bread Pudding,  and Chocolate Pie

 

YUM!:)

Sweet Potato Casserole:

3 cup mashed sweet potatoes
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup milk (I used half and half)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butte (melted)
1 tsp. vanilla
mix ingredients for casserole and place in large buttered shallow pan or baking dish.  Spread with topping;

topping:
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup softened butter
1 cup chopped pecans
mix sugar and flour, add softened butter, mix well.  Add chopped pecans and mix well.  Place on top of sweet potato mixture.  Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for a bout 25 minutes.

**Somebody's Grandma asked for this recipe, I was so proud of myself! Enjoy!

Something Real...

I could enumerate my various food adventures for you this week, tell you how I went to Hattiesburg, Ms with my mom and ate good Arabic food at a place called Petra and had some amazing custard at Bop's.  And how, true to form, I only managed to get a picture of the custard.  However, I feel it necessary to discuss our current state of affairs.

While on my way to the jewelry show (one of the most materialistic events on the planet) in NOLA with my mother and two grandmother's in tow, we started a conversation on the trendy topic: "Ain't dere no more."  This discussion evolved somehow into the slowing/stagnant economy and how we've lost faith in people, and the me, me, me...I WANT IT NOW, self-absorbed attitudes most American's have fueled our talk. 

I envy my grandmothers.  One of them, Honey, was born in October of 1929, so obviously, as the date intimates she was a child of the Great Depression.  Her parents were fortunate enough to know some wonderful people.  Her father was out of work for a year and they had absolutely no money at one point, yet their landlord let them stay, their grocer continued to supply them with food, and the nuns let my grandmother go to school.  The mentality was, you pay when you CAN pay.  Things got better and they paid all their debts, and quiet frankly my grandmother has led a rather privileged life ever since.  But, today that would never happen.  The corner grocer "ain't dere no more" you have to go to Walmart-the great culture killer-if you don't want to spend your entire paycheck on groceries.  And you can guarantee your landlord will evict you if you are late with the rent check more than once.  Moral of the story here...BUY LOCAL!  BUY NOLA!  BUY LOUISIANA!  BUY USA! Invest in your community for posterity, if nothing else.

Something has to give in this economy.  We need to take pride in what's around us.  I see more abuse of the system in my new place of work than I care to admit, and it disgusts me.  What do we do about it?  I'm thinking in terms of baby steps here with the buying local and investing in your community.  Clean up the streets, remember there are farmers and fishermen in this state and the next one over who need our patronage, stop buying crap from China, help your neighbor, and take pride in your surroundings.  I think when people have something to be proud of, things will improve.  Its the current set up where the government foots the bill for food and medical care for people who drive BMW's and Mercedes Benz that don't work and abuse the system, thus they take no pride in anything they have because it was neither earned nor deserved, that needs to end--this sentence was almost long and incoherent enough to be in an Edward Said book. 

I did feel the pangs of guilt though.  I bought some very nice pieces that I should not have, but I figure while I can be slightly irresponsible with my income I may as well get it out of my system to avoid F*&^ing up big time when I finally get my big girl job.  I also decided this is my time to live a little.  I moved back home because I could not afford to live on my own.  I didn't run to the government and demand financial support because "IT'S MY RIGHT."  Well no, it isn't my right to live off the honest people.  I'm scraping all my pennies together to have one last hurrah before my real life begins...yet I still feel guilty because I feel like I should be saving this money.  So while I'm still and educated derelict, I've decided to enjoy myself--but not so much I can't pay my student loan bill every month.  Maybe I know deep down that my spending can be justified because my responsibilities are not that demanding yet and I'm not going around attempting to complicate my life financially by having more children than I can afford or any children for that matter.

God does have a sense of humor though-we were shown that there still are good people in the world.  When we entered the jewelry show, we were told we could only bring one guest (my mom still had her pass so only my grandmothers needed passes).  The lady next to us, whom we shall call Mrs. Mary Kay consultant because that was her business name, was kind enough to let us use her guest pass for the day.  Just when we thought people didn't look out for other people.  Insert foot in mouth...thanks!  After that we received a reality check when some girl almost knocked Honey over, so rude.  But the salesman who lives in Alaska/California contributed another point to the redemption of the Human Race. :), He was great!

Hopping down from the soap box now...hope you enjoyed the rant...

Fall Fun

Since Arielle and I are both semi employed and our schedules don't mesh well anymore and we lost Joy to the great BR and her big girl job, we have lost a bit of momentum.  However, we still cook, we still eat, and we still adventure...just less often.  The past two weekends, I made the Southern Living fall pumpkin cakes they had in the fall 2009 issue.  I've found that people who like pumpkin are far few and in between, so not many people eat my pumpkins.  But, those who actually like pumpkin LOVE these cakes.  I'm not going to type the recipe for a number of reasons.  1. It's not mine, my family's, or Arielle's.  2. I don't feel like typing it.  and 3. you can probably find it in Southern Living's archives.

I have decided that if I am ever to make these stupid pumpkins (that are only loved by a small portion of the population) again I need to invest in another pan.  The pumpkins are cute and yummy, but time consuming to make.  I was in Mississippi visiting my boyfriend and to go to his family's annual Herring Gas Company bike party.  I enlisted his help cutting caramel leaves to no avail.  He kept eating the caramel.  It's ok though, we finally finished and went to McComb to have Mexican for dinner. 

I finished the cakes the next morning and we went to the party.  Mr. Ed made these really, really, really good pheasant and bacon kabob things.  Oh man!  They rolled the pheasant around some pepper jack cheese, wrapped it in bacon, then skewered them surrounded by bell peppers, onions and tomatoes.  WAS SO GOOD!  I just kept eating them.  Josh and I must have split at least 4 between us.  I went to the grill and ate the remaining tomatoes and bacon stuck to it.  YUM!   Mr. Ed and I joked about having a whole pig on his huge grill next time.  Pork is good!

Josh and I had to go on a beer and water run during the soiree.  We went to a small convenience store where they gave us a bag that encouraged BUYING LOCAL!  Love it when people understand that concept.  Don't forget to BUY LOCAL! 

Elizabeth's in the Bywater

As today is the last day in October, I thought it would be a good idea to finally share our adventure at Elizabeth's for my birthday.  Arielle came with me and my family.  We were all excited about the praline bacon I've been dying to try for over a year.  I loved the restaurant as soon as we walked in.  It was so cute, everything mismatched but it all went together.

Brunch was very good there.  It took a while for us to actually get a waitress.  We had already decided what we wanted, changed our minds, changed them again, and started staring at each other wondering if the waitstaff forgot we existed.

Once we finally got a waitress, everything was great. I got a coffee mug that said something about a tiggerific grandpa...so cute!

My dad ordered the Eggs Elizabeth, which consisted of honey ham, poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, all over french bread with a side of grits.  This dish was by far the best dish we had on the table.  As one of their signature dishes, I'm quite pleased it was actually amazing!  I don't know where they get their French bread, but it was so good.  

Mom had the Eggs Florentine-oysters over cream spinach on a bed of fried potatoes.  This was our least favorite dish.  The cream spinach had no flavor and made the fried oysters soggy.  My mom said she loved the light batter on the oysters, but the dish left much to be desired.

My Grandmother(Honey) had one of the specials, Softshell crab with eggs and potatoes.  I usually don't like softshell crab because it comes out soggy and gross when restaurants fry it.  But this softshell crab was crisp and beautiful.  It was huge too!  They also know what salt is.  I swear, I hate it when restaurants don't use salt.  It doesn't taste the same if salt isn't cooked with the dish.  Elizabeth's batter was delightfully seasoned.  Thank GOD!

Arielle and I couldn't decide if we wanted the Duck Waffles or the Crab Cakes special.  So she went with the Duck Waffles and I took the Crab Cakes.  The Duck Waffles were good in theory, duck and sweet potato hash over a cornbread waffle.  It was yummy after we slathered it with butter.  The potato and duck hash was too dry especially with the waffle.  Both tasted quite good, but needed butter to be "more better."

My crab cakes were wonderful.  I usually don't like crab cakes, but I was feeling adventurous, so I gave them a try.  BEST CRAB CAKES I'VE EVER HAD!!!  They weren't over ridden with bread crumbs to make them cheaper, they were well seasoned (yes, they know what salt is!), and there were chunks of beautiful white crab meat and trinity.  All with poached eggs on top...YUM!

The Praline bacon: Whomever invented this is a genius.  How can we make bacon even more unhealthy?  We cover it with pralines!  Diabetics and heart patients watch out...here comes PRALINE BACON...dun...dun...dun!  It tasted like maple syrup on bacon, but 10x better than plain old maple on bacon.  I will attempt to recreate this at home...soon!  They also had really good fried chicken livers with pepper jelly.  YUM!  I'm pretty sure if I make Elizabeth's a regular of mine, I'll need to have Louisiana Heart Hospital's number on speed dial.  And I'm pretty sure those biscuits went straight to my hips...

  WE LOVE ELIZABETH'S in the Bywater!

Louisiana Beer

Louisiana has lots of great beer.  And what better time of the year than October to have a beer tasting session to compare, contrast, and indulge in some good Louisiana beer.  We tried the Heiner Brau Marzen, Abita's Vanilla, Covington Bock, LA 31 Granade, LA 31 Biere Pale, Lazy Magnolia(I know it's from Mississippi!), and Abita Pecan.  Most of the beers have pictures, however, we were way too excited about drinking to worry about the damn camera so some of the pics just show the bottle and the Covington brew doesn't even have a pic.  Oops!  Got way too excited about beer...

Here's what we came up with:

Heiner Brau Marzen: 

copper/amber in color, not much of a head-dissipates back into the beer.  Definitely malty with a hoppy finish that wasn't completely unpleasant.  It looked promising, but fell flat like the head.  Not the worst marzen ever, better than Godon Beirsch.

Abita Vanilla Double Dog:

So Arielle and I decided that Turbo Dog was probably the bastard child of this beer that Abita kept hidden until its 25th anniversary.  It poured with a foamy, tan head and looked uncannily like bourbon and coke.  It was a vanilla, chocolatey, malty, less offensive beer than Turbo Dog.  Quite smooth, but not our favorite.  Reminiscent of Steens cane syrup.  

Covington Bayou Bock:

Nice golden color with short lived head.  Almost boring in taste.  For just a plain lager, its pretty good.  Nothing to write home about.  But, we liked this beer.  It wasn't the best and Abita Amber is definitely our go to beer if drinking, but this would be good at a crawfish boil or any outside event with seafood.  Might not be good enough for BBQ.  It's nice and light, but still has some flavor.  Not a complete let down.  Probably better if tasted and not seen, keep it in the bottle folks!

LA 31 Grenade:

Looks and smells like apple juice!  We were a little scared about the passion fruit as passion fruit tends to be rather overwhelming, but this was so good.  Only a slight fruit flavor on the end.  Both of us wanted to pair it with something special like a steak or even almond/wedding cake.  Pretty sure this "bottle of amazing" and champagne will be served at my wedding if that ever happens.  It reminded me of a darker Hitachino Nest White Ale, probably because of the fruity-ness.  Smooth, beautiful, and tasty...to be sipped or paired with fine foods as desired...

LA 31 Biere Pale:

This beer was NASTY!  I almost puked...It tasted like dirty dishwater.  I'm pretty sure dawn was the main ingredient.  It was strange, I took a sip and it wasn't too bad at first, normal pale ale.  But as soon as the beer moved to the back of the throat, soapy water taste commenced and gagging ensued.  EW!  Arielle flat out refused to try it.  She had tried it once before and I got the "I told you so" after me and my open-minded self decided to give this nastiness a try despite her warnings.  I cannot believe that the same brewery that produces that heavenly elixir, Grenade, could produce such foulness.  What's next dirty socks?  I went to the website to read about this beer and at the end it says "A votre sante!"  My foot!  I think they confused this with the bottle of dawn they used to clean up.  AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan:

Yes, its a Mississippi beer, but it's still within our general proximity.  They're in our backyard.  Beautiful caramel amber color.  Sweet in a molasses sort of way, but not overwhelmingly so.  More sweet than nutty, but pecans can be bitter so its a nice balance.  It's not as thick as one might think.  Arielle and I decided this needs to be a dessert beer despite its sweetness it has a dry finish that would pair nicely with chocolate.  Super smooth.  We should have tried the Abita first...this one is so much better than the Abita and it kills us (and our brand loyalty tendencies) to favor this MS brew over our beloved Abita...

Abita Pecan Harvest Ale:

Abita we love you, you know that right?  This was definitely a savory beer.  Could replace the Amber for my go to just for drinking beer.  However, it has that signature Abita bite in the finish.  It's got a great molasses and pecan flavor, but it lacks the refinement of Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan.  It was SO PAINFUL for Arielle and I to admit our preference for the Lazy Magnolia over Abita.  Sorry love, you just didn't do it for us this time.  Don't get us wrong, it won't stop us from drinking the Pecan Ale, but if I had to choose, Southern Pecan would win. 

We didn't get any Oktoberfests yet.  Lischmann's didn't have any out in the make your own six pack section.  Next time, next time.

Harvest the Music Adventure

October is an awesome month.  Both Arielle and I have birthday's this month.  Her's was first and we had various birthday shenanigans throughout the day.  We had a picnic with the picnic basket I got her for her birthday.  It was interesting.  Arielle, our friend Doug, and I went to Rouses to pick up some cheese, salami, apples (because they are in season NOW!), grapes, drinks and bread for the picnic.  Arielle then decided we had to go to Coliseum Square for our picnic because it was close to the Harvest Music Festival spot.  However, she had us go there through Albuquerque.  I felt like bugs bunny was giving me directions!  We finally got there and had a lovely picnic.

After our lunch outing, we met another of Arielle's friends, Kristin, at Sucre.  We love Sucre.  They have the best cupcakes and pastries around.  However, their chocolates and gelato leave much to be desired.  In fact, they are down right nasty.  But the pastries and cupcakes, as I stated before, are divine!  Arielle had her usual chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing, Kristin had the red velvet cake, Doug had the chocolate mousse thing, and I had the Tiffany-a dark chocolate raspberry piece of diabetes waiting to happen.  Sucre is rather fru-fru, but we like to go for our guilty pleasures a few times a year.



We left to get a beer at Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar, and to meander our way to Lafayette Square--beers and lawn chairs in tow.  The Harvest the Music Festival is every Wednesday for the next few weeks and the food and drink monies help the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana.  The food at the FREE concert (with Irma Thomas by the way!) was really good and not at all expensive.  The beer was pricey at $4 for a plastic cup of Abita, but what do you expect at such events?  We all acquired 3 dishes from 3 different booths.  There was Mac'n cheese from Ms. Linda's Soul Food Catering,  pulled pork over roasted corn cheese grits from Squeal, and spring rolls with dragon sauce from the Second Harvest Food Bank Community Kitchen. 

The Mac'n Cheese was so creamy and so cheesy and so delicious.  We all reveled in its wonderful greasy, cheesy goodness for a moment, maybe two!  Food for the soul, no false advertising there.






Squeal's pulled pork was nothing to write home about.  It was pulled pork, plain and simple.  Honestly, looked better than it tasted.  There was no imagination in the creation of the sauce.  It was what it was, ok pulled pork-a tad on the dry stringy side.  The corn grits however were pretty tasty.  We had to dig under the massive pile of mediocre pulled pork to get it, but it was pleasant none-the-less.  I'd rather a bowl of just the grits myself.



The spring rolls were just your average spring rolls.  Flaky, crispy, salty,  goodness.  But, the dragon sauce was surprisingly good.  We grooved on this sauce.  It had a bite from the pepper flakes and maybe even some sriracha hot sauce was in there.  There was also a nice tangy, sweet taste too.  It was just darn good!  Arielle is going to try to recreate it!