Seafood Supper Serendipity May 17, 2011

Sometimes unplanned meals turn out unexpectedly well.  Perhaps it is from having low expectations from not being prepared to assemble a well thought out meal, I don’t know.   Recently, Sunday afternoons have turned into, Sunday Hang Out, Play with Puppies, and Watch Jamie Oliver Reruns, with my friends Christian and Jamie.   Having recently launched Bola Pizza, and with great success, they don’t have much time to hang out anymore, between the Triangle Farmer’s Market, the Downtown Farmer’s Market and weekly catering gigs.   So I was excited that they wanted to hang out and bring Leo the existing puppy, and Bonnie the new puppy over Sunday afternoon.

After watching food shows for a while, and with evening fast approaching, I suggested we cook dinner.  I had purchased two beautiful pieces of Wild King Salmon from Quality Seafood, my new seafood source, since we’ve lost San Miguel from the farmer’s markets, hopefully just temporarily.  Once Christian, who used to cook every day, aside from making pizza dough and toppings, started pondering the meal plan, he pronounced that we’d blacken the salmon, and serve it over dirty rice.  Ok! I always have Lowell Farms rice, but how would we dirty it up?  I opened the freezer on the lookout for Boudin, and there it was, Dai Due Smoked Crawfish Boudin.  Perfect!  I had blackening spice from Savory Spice Shop, and garden onions and tomatoes.

I had also purchased some cucumbers from the farmer’s market, with a plan to make pickles, but sliced and tossed with some garden tomatoes, oil and champagne vinegar, they would become the perfect crisp acidity to cut the fat of the salmon and a foil to the heat from the spice.  So, game on!

King Salmon, Spiced up

The cucumber salad came together quickly, and was set aside to marinate for a bit.

Cucumber salad

The crawfish boudin was already cooked, so it just went straight into the rice, with onion and tomato.

Dai Due Crawfish Boudin

While the salmon was going into a screaming hot cast iron skillet, I thinned out some Full Quiver Neufchatel, with goat milk, to add a creamy element to the plate.

Salmon searing

So the final plate went down like this, Dirty Rice, Crispy Blackened Salmon, Cucumber Salad, and a drizzle of Neufchatel cream sauce.  This was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in my house, and it is no coincidence that most of my top 5 favorites, involved Christian.  He is an amazing cook.

Delicious Dinner

And on top of that, I got a photography lesson too.  He gets photo credits for the good shots.  Nice to see the foodie photographer behind Austin Food Journal, back in the kitchen, with a camera in hand.

I Heart Antonelli’s Cheese Shop January 5, 2011

This is no surprise to anyone who reads this blog.  But here’s further evidence why the Antonelli’s Cheese Shop rocks my socks off.  I’ve spent many hours in the hospital with my dad following surgery the last week. Prior to his injury, I had agreed to host the monthly Austin Food Journal a/k/a Bola Pizza night at my house.  It was time to give AFJ headquarters a break, and besides, the wine glasses we trade back and forth were already at my house.  So, I didn’t cancel.  However, things being as they are, I didn’t have time to do much planning.  I emailed Kendall the night before the party and asked if it was enough notice to do a cheese tray, and gave her my budget.  She said “no problem”.  When I showed up earlier than I was supposed to yesterday to pick it up there were two and they were stunningly gorgeous.

 

Gorgeous cheese plate

Another beautiful plate

Each plate came with a descriptive page, with cute stickers detailing whether the cheeses were cow, goat, sheep, or buffalo.  They thoughtfully included some of my very favorite cheeses, which are not local, so I had been deprived during my No Grocery Store Year.  (I had made the decision to also just eat local cheese for that year.)

 

One plate included an amazing Quadrello di Bufala, a washed rind Water Buffalo Milk cheese from Italy, along with my favorite Carr Valley Menage, which is cow, goat and sheep milk cheese from Wisconsin as well as Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Uplands Cheese Company in Wisconsin.  The other plate included the last of the Hopelessly Blue from Pure Luck Dairy which is local.  The goats stop producing milk until around March or April, so this was a wonderful addition.  My all time favorite Clothbound Cheddar was also on this plate with more delicious cheeses, Proscuitto and Crespone.

 

Cheat Sheet

One plate was accompanied by Confituras Apple Preserves, the other with Kocurek Mustard.  The Plates came with 2 loaves of Barrie Cullinan’s fabulous bread.  The plates were devoured in no time, and everyone was happy.

 

So, the story doesn’t end here.  Toward the end of the evening, John and Kendall announced that they had something for me in the car.  They had meant to help me celebrate the end of my No Grocery Store Year on New Year’s, but my dad was in the hospital.  So they brought in this:

 

Huge Box of Glorious Cheese!

Yes they did.  I haven’t even begun to dig in.  I’m thinking of a cheese of the day blog series to celebrate this amazing gift.  For now, I just keep looking at it in awe and with an amazing amount of gratitude.

 

Bola Pizza to Heat Things Up at the Farmer’s Market November 26, 2010

There is an exciting new addition to the SFC Farmer’s Market at Republic Square Park, Bola Pizza.  If you have been reading this blog for a while, you’ve watched as have I, the evolution from bi-weekly private parties, to pizza making classes, to a full scale pizza catering business.  http://wp.me/po5VL-zA. Tomorrow will be the first day that Bola Pizza will be available to the general public.   The menu and other useful information is available at http://www.austinfoodjournal.com.  I’m anxious to try the breakfast pizza, and have already put in orders for lunch for my folks.     The farmer’s market just got better!

 

Bola Pizza

MMM Pizza

More amazing pizza

 

This pizza was the best I’ve ever had when Christian was still making it in his oven.    Once the mobile wood fired pizza oven was up and in business, the pizza got even better, which is hard to believe.

 

Mobile Wood Fired Pizza Oven

Don’t trust me though, head down to the Farmer’s Market at Republic Square tomorrow and warm up with some amazing pizza, topped with locally sourced ingredients, from Kocurek Family Charcuterie, Full Quiver Cheese, Milagro Farms and more.

 

http://www.bolapizza.com

No Grocery Store, Day 268 – Whole Pig Roast September 26, 2010

Warning, this post contains pictures of a whole pig.  Dead.  It might be disturbing to some.   It would have freaked me out a couple of years ago- so, no judgment.

So, this whole pig roast was conceived almost 2 months ago by my friends Marshall, Kristi and me, while having dinner at a Dai Due Supper.  I think it was mostly Marshall’s idea, and we jumped on the band wagon.  Digging a hole in the yard was discussed, but renting a Bobcat seemed out of the question.  Our mutual friend Addie suggested we think about La Caja China.  (www.lacajachina.com)  Marshall contacted La Caja China and they graciously sent us a pig roasting box.

La Caja China Roasting Box

Marshall ordered a 50 pound pig from Richardson Farms, three weeks in advance, and started reading up on cooking a whole hog.  We invited some friends over to watch the UT game (and Marshall’s Arkansas game) and had a plan.

Kristi made pork belly rillettes, and I assembled assorted sausages from the Kocureks and some from The Noble Pig.  Christian brought over the newly tiled Bola Pizza Oven.

Bola Pizza Wood Fired Oven

Pick up time for the pig was 8:00 a.m. yesterday.  Marshall had already received the news the night before that the pig was frozen.  It was not supposed to be.  And it was almost 10 pounds larger than expected.    Once we all got back to my house at around 10:00 a.m., we started trying to thaw the pig.  It was not just a little frozen, it was frozen solid.

Marshall and the Frozen Pig

This was a scene I’d never imagined, my friend Marshall, resting on a frozen pig foot, in my kitchen.  We determined that we needed to put the pig in water, but really had no idea where that would be.  We put the pig in several layers of trash bags, sealed them tightly, and moved him to the bathtub where we put about 3 inches of water.  Trust me, no pig touched the bathtub, and it has now been bleached.  When you have a frozen pig in your bathtub, a mobile pizza oven in the driveway, and 8 pounds of sausages in the fridge, you just know it is going to be a good day.  After a couple hours in the tub to no effect, Marshall and Kristi headed out to buy a new trash can, in which to submerge the pig.    I started cooking sausages for pizza, and Christian fired up the pizza oven.

Never enough pork

By the time we were ready to submerge the pig into the trashcan and fill it up with brine, it had started to thaw, or so we thought.  After about an hour in the trashcan, we pulled it out and Marshall began the process of cutting the pig, so that we could flatten it out in the roasting box.  The hacksaw, minus its porky blade, is still in my kitchen window.  Marshall worked it out, then the process of flattening the pig between two metal grates (for turning) began.  This took several people, a step stool and a coat hangar.  No lie.  Eventually the pig was transported to the box and stuffed in.  We had already fired up charcoal on the top of the box.

Pig in Box

So, finally, by this time, others had started to arrive for game time, and we had the pig in the box, and ribs and sausages in my smoker.

Full Smoker

After all this, we were hungry.  Thank goodness Christian was on hand with Bola Pizza.  Game on, pig in box, full smoker and we need pizza!  And out they came:

Bola Pizza

It is nearly impossible to get between a hungry crowd and Christian’s pizza, so I didn’t manage any photos of whole pies.  Best pizza ever.

As the Horns started to implode, people migrated outside and away from the game.  Unfortunately Marshall’s Hogs didn’t prevail either.  Not a good football day.

After 3 hours, it was time to turn the pig.  We pulled the hot top off the La Caja China, to see how it had progressed.

Turning Point

When push came to shove, it ended up being the girls that hoisted this pig out of its box and flipped it over.  Good Job Kristi and Jenna.  Girls rule.

By around 5:00 or so, the others had arrived, some thankfully bringing vegetables.   Lisa brought Kale Salad with Butternut Squash and some yummy dessert bars using Stephanie‘s yummy preserves.  Natanya brought a tomato, cucumber salad.

Kale, Butternut Salad

Tomato, cucumber salad

Once it became time to take the completely cooked pig out of its box, we started wondering how that was going to happen, where we were going to take it, and how to deal with a whole pig.  We determined the best course of action, was to move everything off my kitchen island, line it it paper bags, then plastic bags, then a layer of fabric.  We used an old table cloth and an old cotton duvet cover, clean of course.  The end result, was something that looked like a white table cloth, but could be discarded.  So, out, and in came the pig.

Cooked Pig

Yes, it looks slightly gruesome.  If we had wanted a pork chop, wrapped in plastic and sitting on styrofoam, we would have gone to Randall’s and we would not have this image of a whole hog.  But, in reality, we all are personally acquainted with the source of this pig, the Richardsons; we know that it was raised humanely, fed well, treated well, not loaded down with growth hormone and antibiotics; and raised by a family committed to treating their animals in the best way possible.  We know that it was processed by a U.S.D.A. approved facility, and that it is of the highest quality possible.  And we celebrated it by eating it, enjoying it, and learning from it.  And it was good.

Then we ate cake!  Thanks to uber everything Michelle who rocks the planet, and her lemon cake.

Lemon Cake

And, she showed up in this shirt!

Theme shirts rock!

In the end, we learned a lot.  We kept the party smallish, so as not to be intimidated by our lack of knowledge of how to pull this thing off for a larger group.  We had a great time, although the day was full of losses, sports wise.  There was also a great amount of folly, looking back on us moving that frozen pig, feet up,  from room to room.  Memories like these are hard to come by, I’m thinking, and I wouldn’t have changed one single thing about the day.  Yes, we’ll do things differently next time, but all in all, it was a perfect day, because of the people I got to spend it with.

Special thanks to Zack Northcutt, Mulberry Executive Chef and soon to be Haddington’s Executive Chef, for the whole hog butchery advice, support and amazing Fois and pork sausages!

No Grocery Store, Day 257 – Virgo Pizza Party! September 14, 2010

Genius, Superstar and Sister Virgo Jodi conceived of a Virgo Food Lover’s party, which evolved into a Bola Pizza Party at the lovely home of Christian and Jamie. Virgos are special, you see.  Maybe more special than any of the other birth signs.  Once the stars align just right, special things happen.  And we were all together to celebrate our special fabulousness.  Plus 1′s were invited, but I fear they felt inferior to our Virgo specialness.  Our bad.

While the pizza was being prepared, we dined on Burrata, and CKC Chevre from Antonelli’s Cheese Shop with Confituras tomato jam.  Yum.

Burrata, CKC Chevre and Confituras Tomato Jam

Then Christian started firing pizzas in the oven he had pre-heated the night before to 1000 degrees!  Crazy.

Pizza in the hot oven

The same pizza, about 7 minutes later:

First pizza out, wow!

The reason this pizza has ruined me for all other pizza, is that the crust is really flavorful, fermented for 3 days, and the gluten is allowed to really develop; the ingredients are the highest quality, local ingredients; and the thoughtful combination of flavors are beyond great.  This isn’t cardboard crust, loaded with generic tomato sauce and loads of cheese and fake meat pepperoni.  This is good food.

Uhm. Yep, that's a rockin pizza

The new Mushroom Pizza

Jodi brought a peanut butter and chocolate cake from Suger Mama’s Bakeshop, that simply said Happy Birthday Virgos.  We sang Happy Birthday to ourselves, congratulated each other on our individual and collective wonderfulness, and ate more.  It rocked.

Virgo Cake

Then Christian made one more pizza:  The new mushroom pizza.  It was perfect:

Gorgeous Mushroom Pizza

Speaking of rocking, uber Virgo Christian, had compiled a playlist of all Virgo artists.  No, I’m not making that up.  It turns out, some of the coolest artists are Virgos: Michael Jackson, Pink, Gloria Estefan, Otis Redding, Beck, Elvis Costello, Amy Wino, and many more.  The dude from KISS.  Anyway, it was a super fun evening, hanging out with like signed folks.  Two common bonds, love of great food, and Virgo.  We rock!

Food Blogger Potluck Baby Shower August 17, 2010

Food Blogger Potluck Baby Shower sounds like too much going on, even as I type it.   It was a really good idea, though and I can’t take credit for thinking of it.  That would be because my friend Kristi conceived of it.  The food blogging Facebook Group, led by our “patron saint” Addie Broyles, has been meeting for potlucks for months.  Addie just happens to be expecting her second child next month, so the Food Blogger Potluck Baby Shower came to be, and I was fortunate enough to host it.  With 50 confirmed attendees and 20 something maybe’s, I was concerned about space for potluck dishes and bodies in my humble abode.  Everything went off without a hitch (as far as I know) and a good time was had by all.  As a special treat, Christian,  brought over his brand spanking new wood burning Pizza Oven, and launched Bola Pizza right before our eyes.

Bola Pizza Mobile Wood Burning Oven

The oven was brought over the day before, and fired the night before for optimum heat retention.

After the first bites of pizza were consumed, people started positioning themselves in Christian’s path from oven to kitchen, and very little pizza made it into the kitchen.  While I was fortunate enough to grab a slice here and there, I didn’t even try to get between the people and the pizza to take pictures.    Actually, I got very few pictures of the whole event, because it was a packed house and it just wasn’t feasible.  There were people, presents, and food everywhere.

One gorgeous dish, was the first to arrive:

Breakfast Bundt

There were some cocktails and wine:

Local Bloody Mary's

The Opal Divine Bloody Mary mix was amazingly good, very fresh tasting, perfectly seasoned and a winner all around.  Kristi brought this with Dripping Springs vodka and pickled okra from the farmer’s market.

The food kept arriving until the tables in 3 rooms were full.

Yummy treats

Local Chorizo Stuffed Peppers

I was quite proud of my friend and constant garden helper Jim, for picking up all the ingredients from the Longview Farmer’s Market to make these local stuffed peppers, driving back for the party, making these before helping out all day.  They were great!

All in all, I think it was a great party; but what can you expect when you get 50 or so food bloggers together?  My only regret is that I didn’t get more pictures of the amazing food.

No Grocery Store, Day 219 – Thunderheart Bison Dinner Series #3 August 8, 2010

For late breakfast, two scrambled eggs, and a link of Dai Due Champagne sausage.  Nuff said.

Dinner for this day has been in the works for a while.  My friends Christian and Jamie and I started doing Thunderheart Bison dinners a while back.  The first one still might be my favorite dinner ever.  Last night, runs a very close second.

Christian recently interviewed the chef at Fonda San Miguel about their most popular dish, Carne Asada.  We immediately thought about doing a similar dish with Bison tenderloin.

Christian has the spices already ground and assembled when I got there.  Peppers, chipotle, cumin, annato, and clove.

Carne Asada Mise en Place

He deftly spiral cut the bison, for a flat strip.

slicing the bison

He had already mixed up some peppers and onions for a flavorful garnish.

pepers and onions

For crunch he fried some corn tortillas.

Fried corn tortilla

Next up, he seared the well seasoned bison in a hot cast iron skillet.

Seared bison asada

While the bison cooked, he made an avocado, tomato, red onion salad and lightly tossed it with oil and vinegar.

Avocado, tomato, red onion salad

The final plate was black bean puree, topped with the bison, topped with the peppers and onions, then surrounded with the avocado salad, and garnished with a tortilla.  The end result was spicy smokey bison, tempered perfectly with the creamy avocado, and cool tomato, with very slight acidity from the vinegar, creamy black beans with crunch from the tortilla.  This is one of my all time favorite meals ever.

Bison Carne Asada

My First Garden Corn! July 1, 2010

For those of you who follow my little adventures, you know how excited I was to rip out my horrible landscaping (Nandina) and plant corn.  I’ve been so hopeful all along that the corn would make it, but for the last couple of weeks, it seemed to stop its progressive growth.  Yesterday a couple of the stalks fell over.  Was it from the weight of the corn?  Was it a sign that the plants were done?  The corn cobs seemed smallish.  After a day of errands, my friend Christian stopped by to chat about the day’s events.  When time came for him to leave to pick up Jaime, I said come back for a glass of wine and we’ll have happy hour.  I really just wanted support for what was about to happen, the plucking of the corn.  I had no idea if there would be kernals or not, worms or not, or just not anything.

So, I plucked a corn cob.

My first corn!

While not the monumental, lengthy grocery corn of my youth, I found it to be perfect, and wormless.  So, with company coming back, I wanted to celebrate my corn, so I scraped it off the cob, picked a ripe jalapeno, and took a ripe Celebrity from the window, and sauteed them together.

Corn, Garden tomato, and garden pepper

MMM, garden corn

The end result, was amazing to me, topped with shaved Sand Creek Farm Monterrey Jack.  I over peppered it for one of my guests.  Sorry C!  I didn’t know.

Final corn tasting

I have planted 40 corn seeds in the 5 x 5 garden I’ve dedicated to Three Sisters Gardening.   The corn I planted is different, but from Buck Moore Feed, so I’m sure it is corn that grows well here.  I’m excited for more corn adventures.  I picked some more and another tomato to boot!

this evening's harvest

No Grocery Store, Day 167 June 18, 2010

I have been fending off a hamburger craving for weeks now.    Yesterday, I succumbed and took my mom to Jack Allen’s.  We had burgers and they were good.  Green Chile Cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries to be exact.   And I was happy.  Jack Allen’s is great, and where feasible, sources 70-80% of their food locally.  I see Jack Gilmore frequently at the farmer’s markets.  Cudos, Jack Allens.

Later in the afternoon, I headed out to Niederwald with my friend Christian, to do a garden consultation for Ben of Salt and Time, at their salumi making shop.  Look for some amazing photos and an interview of Ben at Austin Food Journal dot com soon.  Ben was a gracious host and spent a good deal of time explaining the process, then he gave us tastes of  lots of his cured meats, the chorizo being my favorite, his pickled radishes, pickled beats, and even some lemon cake made by the chef.  It was all outstanding.  Look for Salt and Time at Antonellis Cheese Shop and at the HOPE Farmer’s Market as well.  He’ll be doing hot dogs for the 4th of July at HOPE.

After that, we headed to Boggy Creek Farm for the Slow Food Happy Hour, with food provided by Ecstatic Cuisine and drinks from Tipsy Texan and Bill Norris.  We were late and I was stuffed from salumi sampling, so I didn’t eat.  Boggy Creek is in fine form these days, and there were what seemed like miles of tomatoes, and an amount of basil growing that we decided could only be described as a shitload.  Pardon my German.  It was a lot of basil.  Enough basil to make pesto for life.  I’ll get some photos up later.  The arugula was in great shape, which makes me want to plant some.  I had figured it was too hot, and it may be soon.

No dinner.  I got home too late and wasn’t hungry.

Friends in High Places June 16, 2010

For those folks who read this blog, you get to see lots of pictures of pizza and hear about my friend Christian of Austin Food Journal.  Well, the acclaim is spreading far and wide and he is getting some deserved attention.  Congratulations Christian!

http://tinyurl.com/32pfmsl