Wood Fire Food

The past few days have been uncharacteristically cool. A front came through on Friday, and, I'm sure with applause from most of Texas, dropped the temperature into Are We Experiencing What Most Of The United States Calls "Fall" range. My usually panting dog has enjoyed keep his unusually large tongue in his mouth, and I've enjoyed having one more excuse to nap and watch football instead of studying. I didn't actually need another excuse, but it helps. With fall weather coming (and soon leaving) in such a hurry, I found it necessary to make a pot of one of my cool-weather favorites: chili. The high today was an astounding 59 degrees, the forecasted high for Wednesday, three days from now? 88 degrees. You see my reason for such haste.

With chili I tend to take the easy way out- why individually measure ingredients when I can buy a 2-Alarm Chili Kit and go from there? Exactly. There is no reason. I added a few extras to this batch, and I think it turned out exceptionally well. It's not too spicy, which is in stark contrast to my usual fiery brew. I used nilgai meat for the chili, and those who have eaten and cooked with it can understand why I think of it as the perfect game meat. It's lean, not game, and so tender. Never heard of it? Nilgai are 500 lb Indian antelopes that have become basically wild in South Texas, escaping exotic game ranches and thriving in the region. They also make great chili, burgers, steaks and I'm sure anything else one can think of, which in my opinion is many times more interesting than their Texas history.

About twice a year the urge hits me to crank a handle on a leaky wooden bucket for an hour while pouring six pounds of salt on a pile of ice and praying The Goods won't be contaminated with saltwater. Oh, and with this strange desire comes the very natural craving for homemade ice cream. Continuing with my Smitten Kitchen obsession I found this recipe on Deb's site and followed it to the 't'. Just when you thought homemade ice cream was a healthy alternative to store-bought a recipe like this would come along and ruin your dreams. Wait, you never thought ice cream was low-fat in any fashion? I didn't either, and after seeing this my suspicions were only solidified (frozen? heh...)

via Smitten Kitchen

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups buttermilk

12 egg yolks

1.25 cups sugar

1 t vanilla extract

a little salt

I know what you're thinking, either "this sounds like a perfect, tart, custardy mix" or, if you don't like buttermilk, you may be thinking "disgusting." I'm here to tell you it's good. In fact it's very good. It IS heavy on the buttermilk (which, interestingly enough is actually lower in fat yet higher in calcium, potassium, and vitamins than whole milk- you can read all about it here) so next time, and there will most definitely be a next time, I may substitute little regular milk for about have of the buttermilk. As is this is undoubtedly the creamiest, richest homemade ice cream I've ever eaten. Good.

Goodnight.

Pupusas. Please, if you're ever in Honduras (or I would imagine most countries in Latin America) eat some pupusas. From what I could tell, this was some sort of thick, cornmeal based masterpiece filled with beans and heaven in the form of yogurt-y sour cream. We ate them everyday at a little street vendor near where we stayed, and they were great every time, and with a little cabbage salad and hot sauce, (peppers, onions, water, and vinegar fermenting in what looked to be an old gasoline can) even better.

Cerdo y Yucca. Pork and Yucca- so limey and perfect you almost don't know what you were eating. Watching Marianne cook this pork I was dumbfounded. All she did was take it out of a bin and thrown it on the griddle with just a bit of oil. All of the flavor came straight from the marinade. The Yucca, which if you've never had it, is kind of a starchy, rooty vegetable, but with more of a chewy texture than a potato, was great as well. Cooked perfectly tender all the way through with a little crisp on the outside. Served with spicy pico de gallo.

Anything and Fresh Avocados. What could one possibly put with avocados that you couldn't make work to at least some degree? Salads, tacos, sausage, tortillas, we ate them all with avocados in Honduras, but I think my favorite was just fresh flour tortillas with lime and avocado. Just the color alone of the flesh of these beautiful fruits was enough to make me fall in love, but the taste- well that was something completely different than what we get at HEB here in Texas.

Forever spoiled by fresh fruits and pupusas

Progressive dinner? I say yes.

The plan last night was hors d'oeuvres at Alex's house, dinner at mine, and dessert at the home of a few very pretty ladies that for some reason let us hang out with them. Until yesterday I had never heard of such a thing as this, but I decided to play along with their foolish food games, but a feast it became.

The night began with cocktails and a few figgy selections: 1) some sort of prosciutto, feta, fruit, and cracker ensemble and 2) my favorite, caramelized figs with goat cheese on toasted crackers. It was perfect. Applause to Alex for something that never would have crossed my mind; this one is most certainly stored away in my to-be-cooked database. The martinis weren't so bad either..

Now for dinner. Cherry-glazed lamb chops, mashed sweet potatoes, ricotta-stuffed tomatoes with truffle oil, and sauteed white asparagus. Besides the asparagus, all were new dishes for me, which is usually not the goal when cooking for eight hungry friends with moderate expectations. I basically followed a recipe for the meat, not sticking directly to in, but then again not straying too far in any other direction. There was only one goal in mind while making the sweet potatoes- infuse as much butter and heavy cream into these delicious, orange rooty things as humanly possible. Can you ever go wrong with that? I will always argue that you cannot. One stick of butter and a few cups of cream later and we all left feeling just a bit fatter. Mission accomplished.

My favorite dish of the night (not because it was necessarily the best, but because I couldn't find anything exactly like it on the Internet) was the stuffed tomatoes. Seeing as how I had never stuffed a tomato with, well anything, this was again new territory for me. Ten beautiful roma tomatoes in hand, I cut just the top off and scooped out the inside, making room for what were the really important things: 1 cup ricotta, 1 cup herby/garlicky bread crumbs, 4 teaspoons truffle oil, 2 egg yolks. I did my best to stuff the tomatoes with as much of this goodness as I could without eating a majority of it in the process. After baking and filling house with that very unmistakeable smell of truffles (mind you it already smelled like a heaven full of butter, lamb chops, and cherry preserves) they were finished. Easy and quite tasty. I did my best to quickly present it, and dinner was served.

What would a good meal be without a great dessert? My answer is nothing. This isn't exactly my forte, so I won't go into details (because I don't know them) about what our good friend Katherine made but I can tell you that dessert #1 was a great, middle-eastern spicy coffee cake thing, and dessert #2 was Death By Chocolate, which was, well, death by chocolate.

Progressive dinner again? I say yes to that as well.

I love pizza, not only because it's wonderful, but because it's one of the few foods that a majority of people can come to some agreement on. Almost everyone can at least figure out some combination of toppings on some sauce on some style of dough that they like. Tonight was a great night of pizza making for us. In all we did 12 pies with pretty simple but good ingredients: pepperoni, sweet italian sausage, onion, portabellini, pepper, artichoke, and of course mozzarella. For the sauce I went back to a style that I haven't been to in a while. Of recent my sauces have been pretty classic, only using crushed tomatoes, a small amount of onion and garlic, and tiny bit of basil and oregano. Today I strayed away from pizza classicism and went where I feel most comfortable, this time absolutely loading the sauce with onions and garlic, and now adding in white wine, red pepper flakes, and a healthy serving of herbs and fresh cracked salt and pepper. Getting compliments on the sauce once again was nice, and I realized that the void in my life has been single-handedly caused by my pizza eating friends not acclaiming my pizza sauce over the last five months. Craving attention and praise, it's obvious which sauce will be made in the future. Problem solved.

My favorite pizza of the night-

Portabellini

Onion

Prosciutto

Mozzarella

Towards the end of the party a great thing happened- the fire was burning perfectly, it was time for AT to take a break, he had been working hard to turn out plenty of pies while I did the oven-ing, and the frantic slice grabbing/eating pace that accompanies our parties was slowing down. I finally had the chance to make a few pizzas all on my own, concentrating on each one, one at a time; this is, in fact, a rare occurrence. I was able to go from beginning to end without the delegation of tasks required by hungry-people time constraints, and I relaxed a bit, knowing that the guests were full and these pizzas would be just for me. Although at the time I was full from grabbing slices here and there through the night, these untouched pies will serve me well tomorrow, providing a perfect Saturday breakfast and a great reward for a successful Friday night.

It truly pains me to write this, but here goes.

Yes, I realize that a bicycle is not edible nor is it made in a brick oven, but this story is only too miserable to not share with the blogosphere. I intend that your dining on my misfortune will provide at least as much nourishment as a few pictures of baguettes.

This all begins with my laziness yesterday afternoon; I leaned my bike up against one of my roommate's cars, a seemingly harmless act that would lead to disaster. At some point in the evening he left, and being a great friend another roommate noticed the bicycle and set it aside so they wouldn't run over it. Problem solved, right? Unbeknownst to me it was behind my truck. This morning it's cold, rainy, dark - horrible biking weather, so as a change of pace I drive to school. Everything is fine, nothing is wrong. I come home and what do I find? A crumpled bike, laying helpless in a puddle, a sick sight indeed. What lowlife human could do this? What the hell is the matter with my roommates? They run over my bike and don't even tell me about it? No, this is a huge problem, I'm pissed.

I soon realize my version of the story is a bit construed.

A mass text to my roommates says, "Did I leave my bike behind a vehicle??"

A few responses I receive-

"Yes, you left it behind your car"

"Yes I believe your own"

"I saw it this morning behind your truck"

"Oh no.. You killed it. Bad?"

I did a horrible thing. I never even knew it happened. I'm sorry young fixie, you were mine for two and half years. Seriously, I am very upset about this, you were great to me. To the streets in the sky you go; I'm just sorry it had to end like this. Your cranks, seat, and wheels will go to good use when I create your son. Goodbye.

For a 'before' picture, just imagine a not-mangled bicycle.