It's 9 o clock! On the Dot! I'm in my drop top crusin' the streets!

Actually. It was 9 o clock and sadly I was in no drop top, nor was I cruising the streets. It was 9 and Todd and I realized we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Opps. Todd usually doesn't get home until around 7:30, so we are used to eating late. And.... I usually come home and take a nap because while I have been out of school for over a year, I just can't shake my naps. I feel like I making up for all the naps I lost as a child.

Story time! 

As legend has it I did not sleep for more than an hour until about 4 years old. Opps. Sorry Mama and Papa Shute! While Papa Shute has a flair for the hyperbole (and now y’all know where I get it from) this apparently has some truth to it. My sister and I are 1 year and 17 days apart and girlfriend had to be relocated to my brother’s room so that she could get some sleep.  This was largely due to my refusal to sleep, a pinch of not wanting to be a part of any of the action splashed with taking a friend traveling down that slippery slope of insomnia with me. I also did not nap. Ever. Nap time was the worst! Now I can’t believe at one point in my life I was REQUIRED to do so.  And now what I wouldn't give to be able to curl up on a soft mat under my desk and siesta mid-day. If I had only known then what I'd be missing as an adult I would have taken every napping opportunity I could!

THE END.

What was I saying? Oh yes. It’s late and I needed to make dinner quick. So how about shiitake mushroom and brie frittatas!??! YES!  Preheat your oven to 350.

Sautee ½ cup of chopped onion until soft.

Add your chopped mushrooms and cook until they start to turn to a darker color.

In a separate bowl beat together 2 whole eggs with 4 egg whites. (or 4 whole eggs if you’re not watching your waistline). Add in 3 tbsps of grated Parmesan cheese, 1 tbsp rosemary and salt and pepper.

Slice your brie and place on top of the mixture. It will stay on top. Cook almost all the way through until the top is still liquid.

Place in the oven to finish cooking. It is done when cooked through, brown on top and the cheese is gooey.

Cut into sections and serve. So good. And ya’ll know I love the brie and shiitake combo!

Inappropriate Summer Meals

I love hot things. Why? I am routinely cold, and I am not talking a touch on the chilly side, I am talking my fingers or your bare skin results in frost bite. I’m talking there are throw blankets in every room of my house and in every car that I own. People: I have a space heater under my desk which has been turned on... in July! With record highs in North Carolina! Obviously I have to deal because I married a person who if I could harness their body heat into electricity I could power my house for free. It’s not natural how hot-natured he is and how cold-natured I am. It defies all logic. 

One of the ways I deal is I drink coffee like it is going out of style and eat soup for lunch on a daily basis. And yes I realize this is a totally normal thing-if you live in Sweden whose average temperature in July is 70. Pheft! 70? We’re lucky if it stays 70 degrees for 5 days in the spring. Which P.S.-- I would like to say I am officially mourning the loss of the season formally known as Spring in North Carolina. This year it went from 30 to 100 in a week.  Thou dost displease me weather! Make a note of it.

While I love a calm chowder, I wanted to make my own summery hot soup. So I did.

So it’s summer- this means summer squash and the last of those pesky acorn squashes from my produce box.
Preheat your oven to 400. Grab your food processor, one sauce pot and a saucepan and as P. Diddy says: LET’S GOOOOO!

Cut your acorn squash into 3-4 pieces and roast for 15 minutes. While this is roasting you can go ahead and cook the other vegetables.

Cut up 2 summer squash and add to a hot saucepan with EVOO. Cook on medium heat until soft. About mid way through add chopped onion and minced garlic. (I cheated and used already cut frozen onions) Once soft, add in shredded carrot and cook until all the vegetables are soft.

In your pan, cook down 2-3 chopped large field tomatoes on medium heat. I didn’t bother to remove the seeds, because usually this removed the goo that holds the seeds. I like to get all the moisture from the tomatoes that I can. Next: to this pan I add the scooped out flesh of the acorn tomatoes. I let these fuse together.

We’re ready for the food processor! Assemble and add the tomato and acorn squash mixture first. Turn on and mix until smooth. I then add the summer squash and carrot mixture along with 7-9 springs of FRESH basil. (You could also use cilantro if you were feeling funky) This will start to incorporate nicely.

This goes back into the pot where you can now decide how thick you want this to be. Dilute to your preference with stock (I wound up using about ½ cup of vegetable stock because I wanted this to be hearty soup.  Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Once finished, I knew I was missing something…you guessed it! TRADER JOES ROASTED CORN! Hate on it all you want- it definitely gave the finished product some needed texture and man do I love it’s flavor!

And there you have it! A soup that normal people could enjoy in the summer! And it was yummy!

Easy like a Sunday Morning

These stuffed peppers are as pretty as they are easy to make.  Both peppers are hot banana peppers. One is red because it sat in the refrigerator for longer and started to turn colors. Nevertheless, I deemed it still appropriate for cooking. I have made stuffed bell peppers before and thought it would not be any different for stuffing these. Todd made his weekly trip to the meat house and had purchased some ground grass fed sirloin, thus came the inspiration for the meal! One meatless and one with meat.  For hybrid households like mine- I like to cook up a lot of meat at once and then I can add it where I see fit for the remainder of the week so that the carnivore does not begin to froth at the mouth unnecessarily.


Preheat the oven to 350. Cut off the tops of your peppers and set aside. Go ahead and brown your meat in a separate pan. In another pan sweat your onions on medium heat with a little olive oil and salt and pepper (this means cook them until they are translucent and is different than caramelizing them- but if you take it to that level of doneness, it will add a sweet flavor to the dish). Add some minced garlic to this and cook. To this mixture add 1-2 diced tomatoes and cook until soft.  Add 1 cup of brown rice.

Now it’s time to add spices! You can customize this to your taste buds. We like spicy things so I added pepper flakes, the habanero sauce del gary and some Sriracha. (On fire!) BUT if you could take this Italian and add rosemary, basil or oregano- it just depends on what you like. 

For the meat-less variety- stuff this mixture into your pepper with a spoon. For the meat lovers variety- add the mix to ¼ cup of your browned sirloin and stuff your peppers accordingly.

Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes or until the peppers have softened- as you can see below they are slightly wrinkled. They also get slightly brown, which is not evident from the picture below.

ENJOY!

Let's get SAUCED!!!!

Ok: TRUTH. I am a sucker for a cleverly named eatery. I am also a sucker for an eatery located less than a mile away from my house. It could be said that the love affair that has blossomed between Sauced and I was written in the stars.  Sauced is opened late and gets packed in a hurry at about 2 am. And I may confess this too is how I discovered this eatery. Who can resist a place whose motto is “get sauced” when you are in fact sauced? Not me- it drew me in like a moth to a flame. I have since eaten there sans copious amounts of CH3CH2OH or in shortened science geekery:  EtOH. This my friends is the magical crunk chemical equation of our beloved beverages of choice.

Sauced is located at the back side of the creamery on Glenwood and boasts a menu featuring New York-style pizza using quality fresh ingredients on their over sized thin crust creations.  There are daily drink and food specials and a full bar if you get there before closing time. The inside is decorated with locale photos and college sports memorabilia.

While the menu has all the classics of hoagies and calzones- I have always gotten the pizza. On this particular visit I went with the classic mushroom pizza and a side salad. Simple but delicious. And the pizza is so big, I usually can only eat just one.  The slices are made to order with dough made fresh daily. I also enjoy getting “The Popeye” which is loaded with mushrooms, fresh spinach and roma tomatoes.

The hubs went with an appetizer of the buffalo nuggets, which he said are always a winner. Naturally for his pizza choice he ordered the ”Wolfpack” which is chicken, bar-b-que sauce and red onions.  He has also gotten “Final Four” featuring Italian sausage, mushroom, onion and green pepper.  The majority of the menu items, if you have not caught on yet do have regional names, so everyone can go home happy.

*Insider Information Alert!*

On this particular day, the hubs has called in the order and I picked it up on my way home from work. When I went in- who do I see but my old friend from Jasmin Mediterranean bistro! No lie- Jasmin is amazing.  I know so many people that have been converted to loving this style of food solely because of Jasmin. Jasmin purchases all their ingredients from the farmer’s market daily and describes their food as Lebanese Greek cuisine- but I describe it as addictive. With that said their Tabbouleh is like methamphetamine and when I was in grad school I went in everyday to get a fix.  It didn’t help that I could see the place from my office window and it would call my name through misty like zephyrs and I HAD to answer.  Deep Breath. I’ll be ok. (Now do y'all understand why he probably he recognized me over 2 years later? Nuts.) It was my surprise when he said he now owns Sauced! He is doing an entire overhaul of the menu and is bringing in some of the flavors everyone loves to the pizza and appetizers! I will admit this was last month, and I have yet to see the change in the menu.  Unfortunately if you read Sauce’s reviews everyone has the oh so funny comment of “you have to be sauced to like sauced.” Y’all know I disagree, but whatevs. I have yet to see a negative review since under new management. SO I am excited for Sauce’s future. I will keep everyone posted on the changes- but remember you heard it here first!

TGIFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No. Not Thank God It's Friday- this post it Thank God It's Football Season! I love football season. I have loved it since my first game which was ironically on my 18th birthday way back in 20... well that part really doesn't matter. The point is I have loved every aspect of collegiate football and without fail. Yes, thanks for asking as a matter of fact I do judge people base on who they root for. I also without apology judge them harder if they root for a college that either they, their siblings, children or spouse did not attend. Truth y'all. It's all I speak,

Well now that the pleasantries are over with, I can also tell you that I also enjoy the tailgate aspect as much or quite possibly more than the actual game at hand. And for this years inaugural game we decided the best way to christen this event would be with a good ole' fashion Louisiana Boil. It was also our way of pouring one out to honor Lady Bird who cannot be here this season because she is attending Med School at fabulous Tulane in NOLA. I know- I am deeply jealous as well- but no worries folks! We have a crew all ready to go visit her when we find an awesome deal on a flight. I'll keep you posted for when that little adventure happens.

So back to the boil. I'll have you all know I had every intention of photographing every aspect of this boil, but as any good southerner knows: when the firefly sweet tea vodka starts a flowing- just go with it and let the night happen (I think that is in some famous quote book, but not likely. It should be).

This recipe was largely adapted from this website: What's Cooking America?

I only had a 2 gallon pot, so I made this in two batches. This was what I used:
For the actual boiling liquid:
2 garlic bulbs (1 used per batch)
3 oranges (1.5 used per batch)
2 lemons (1 used per batch)
4 light beers (2 used per batch)
water (~3/4 gallon per batch)
Crab boil seasoning (same bag for both batches)
8 bay leaves (4 per batch)

I let these items come to a boil. I will now list the ingredients as a per batch basis. If you have a larger pot then double this or do like I did and make it twice. First you add 9 new potatoes. These need to cook for at least 10 minutes, or until they are fork tender. I had frozen corn from my produce box so I added to the mix 3 ears that were shucked, pre-boiled and were cut in half. Next I added good ole' slice andouille sausage. 2 large links cut into 1/2 inch pieces and added into the pot. These cooked for 5 minutes.

Next I added 1.5 pounds of whole crawdads. As the kind folks at Earp's seafood kindly told me: this aint crawdad season (not to get political, but even it it was I am sure the oil spill would have something to do with the lack of quantity). Apparently crawdaddy season is from January from April. Hello? Who eats crawdads during this time of year? Those critters need to get with the program.  So... all they had were fresh frozen crawdads, which were fine by me. I let them cook in the mix for 5 minutes. Lastly I added 1 pound of frozen shrimp (hey the crawdads were frozen, so who really cares at this point?). These cook for 3 minutes MAX.

I remove everything by cooking everything in a strainer that fits snuggly in my pot. Technically you're supposed to lay everything out over newspaper- but we put each batch into a bowl instead and feasted. Once in the bowl we sprinkled some Old Bay on top for extra seasoning. It was a hit. No crawdad left behind, thanks Dubya. As it should be. Who knows what will happen at the next home tail gate season? We shall see. But this was definitely a hit, one worth repeating. When you have strangers coming up and asking you what smells so good, you know you have done something right!

Mexican Vacation Hot Sauce Eat’em Up Review

 GUEST BLOG ALERT! MY BROTHER, MATT, WAS KIND ENOUGH TO SUBMIT THIS FOR YOUR CULINARY PLEASURE! ENJOY!

-SSC

My sister Sara went on vacation to Old Mehico and was thoughtful enough to bring me back a treasure from the south.  It was a selection of 3 hot sauces from “sauces del Gary” which after researching the ancient translation means Sauces of the Gary….Ahhh, wait huh?  So after reassuring myself that there was no ulterior meaning to this brand name I set to partake of these as I have a minor affliction, and that is anything spicy! 

It was a nice Sunday morning and I thought what better way to start the day off than to ingest 3 potential harbingers of gastrointestinal distress, I had spare time.  Also knowing that said thoughtful sister also writes a food blog, why not document my foray into the flaming abyss through the magic of the inter webs.  Without further ado I whipped up a sweet 3 egg omelet with cheese as the platform for my most scientific research. 

 First up was the Salsa Picante El Diablito Habanero (Green).  This little ditty translates to Sharp Sauce of the Habanero Frog.  Okay maybe not exactly but it has something to do with habanero peppers and a frog.  What is odd is that with all of the talk of the name here I completely did not even think to read it before eating and assumed it was a regular green pepper sauce.  The key word I missed was habanero which on the pepper scale, or Scoville scale, is right below the Naga Jolokia (the hottest pepper in the world commonly called the cobra pepper) and law enforcement grade pepper spray.

Nerd Break – Skip if not fascinated by hot stuff

Peppers are hot because of a chemical called Capsaicin.  It is the active component of all chili peppers and obviously is an irritant for mammals, including humans, and produces a sensation of burning in any tissue with which it comes into contact. Capsaicin and several related compounds are called capsaicinoids and are produced as a secondary metabolite by chili peppers, probably as a defense mechanism against certain herbivores and fungi.  Pure capsaicin is a hydrophobic, colorless, odorless, crystalline to waxy compound.  Ironically research conducted at the university of California, San Francisco has shown that this chemical mimics the sensation of burning in nerves (duh) by binding to certain proteins in pain and heat sensing neurons.  The neurons get overwhelmed by this influx of protein and shut down.  Chronic exposure to capsaicin can deplete the neurons of neurotransmitters leading to a reduction in the sensation of pain and the blockage of neurogenic inflammation i.e. it becomes a pain reliever….just not to your tongue. 

End Nerd Break

Back to the review.  Luckily I am used to hot stuff and have huge pectoral muscles as a normal man would have been rendered incapacitated by such an oversight.  Actually after the initial influx of unexpected heat it mellowed nicely and was a very balanced flavor.  It did not completely mask the flavor of the food but rather added to it.  Hot Sauces that are hot just to be insanely hot are fine to try and say you did it but are the equivalent of a side show freak.  Sure you will pay your $5 bucks to see them at the fair but you aren’t going to bring them home with you.  The other thing you have to watch out for is the cumulative effect that can be experienced hot sauces.  The first bite may be okay but number 5 and you are starting to have visions from the pain.  This sauce did get a little hotter but was still very edible.  I really liked it and am excited to try this in a recipe as well as a condiment.

Next Up was the Salsa El Diabilito Botenero.  Botanero is a type of restaurant according to the inter webs so I don’t know exactly how that pertains to the sauce but I do know it does not have the word habanero in it.  This sauce was a very traditional Mexican hot sauce and while it looks bright red (natures warning sign) it was mild to hot and eggcellent on my eggs.  Maybe the Botanero was a meant as a description for a “house” hot sauce that would commonly be found out on the table as I think this would suit a lot of palettes.  It added kick but was very flavorful and had a nice hint of roasted chilies which is my preferred base rather than a sweeter style such as Texas Pete.

Finally we come to the Salsa Picante El Diablito Habanero (Red).  Might not have wanted to save this one for last but, “fortibus fortuna favet” fortune favors the brave!  This one is hard to decipher as it was the 3rd on and the heat was definitely on in my pie hole.  It did seem to be the hottest but still very palatable.  It was no doubt a habanero sauce but still not anywhere near the insane level.  This was another solid offering as it did not completely drown out the taste but had nice heat.  This would be a great mid tier hot sauce with Frank’s being low and Dave’s insanity being the high.

Overall it was a great breakfast that won’t leave me crippled in the bathroom asking the hot sauce gods for forgiveness.  All three of these will soon be gone from my cabinet as I plan to use these quite frequently.