Bread and Garlic Soup

The flavor of this soup was delicious even though the texture was somewhat off-putting. The recipe actually called for day-old Pao, a dense Portuguese bread similar to cornbread. I used semi-stale sourdough, and it was kind of mushy in the end. I also (just realized) I used 1 pound rather than 1/2 a pound--way too much bread! Again though, the flavor was wonderful, and I will definitely make this again, with a different bread and less of it.


4-6 eggs, lightly beaten
2 red chilis, seeded and chopped
1 handful chopped cilantro
1 Spanish onion, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
5 cups veggie or chicken broth
1/2 pound day old Pao, a dense Portuguese bread, crumbled
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Saute onions, garlic, and chilis in oil over low-med until onions are softened. Add bread and turn up heat slightly, stirring constantly until bread is slightly browned. Add broth, lower heat again and stir. Add eggs, cilantro, salt and pepper. Heat, stirring, until just below boiling point. Turn off heat and serve.

I also think this would be a good base for many other soups, minus the bread. What I was thinking when I was eating it was that it would be wonderful with slices of garden fresh tomatoes floating in the egg-y broth, instead of bread. Next time:)

Portugese Potato and Tomato Pie

This was a nice dish and would serve as a lovely side dish to a main meal. It was pretty mild tasting, but a little shredded pecorino livens it up nicely. If I had to do something differently, I would fry the potatoes before hand, to add a little flavor. I would also add some parm or pecorino on top of the tomatoes before I baked it, but after was fine too. I would also make the red pepper paste properly, instead of just using a jar of pimientos. Always read your recipes before you go to the store!

2008 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

Dealers of pain. Purveyors of The Source

A brave soul prepares to taste the source, cameras at the ready:)














The best way to kill the burn, or at least simmer it down to a dull roar--sugar + ice.



A lady was handing out shots of this stuff and telling people to put it in their beer. I did, and was pleasantly surprised. It was like a michelata or beery mary maybe, but more like a margherita...maybe. I would like to try more and may buy some.






The crowd left a mess of this booth--the Aztexan is a popular sauce. I love the color.






Winston Hot Sauce--a good sweet Jamaican with just enough heat. Not my favorite to put on a chip (I'm not a fan of sweet hot sauce) but it would be killer in a chicken dish.



Lines, lines, and more lines.


Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears








The Pecan Smoked Brisket from Matt's El Rancho is delicious!














A nice downtown mural, snapped from the car.

Among others, I tried what was being popularly referred to as the clown salsa, because the vendors were dressed up like creepy, flame-eyed clowns. Its actual name is The Source, and supposedly it's the hottest extract in the world at 7, 100,000 Scoville Units! To give you a frame of reference, the woman told me that the other hot sauces at the festival ranged between 30,000 and 70,000 Scoville Units. They gave it to you on the tip of a toothpick with warnings not to get it on your lips and not to try to wash it down by chugging your beer--you'll only spread the heat. It was really hot. Really. But it wasn't so bad I wouldn't do it again. The endorphins hit just a second or two after the pain really kicked in--which took a good 60 seconds or so, and then I was burning and floating and sweaty and cold and a little tingly all over. A top-drawer experience, if you are into setting your mouth on fire.

As for more typical hot sauces, I liked the Aztexan Habanero Supreme. I didn't get to try most of them though, and I purposefully left out ones I had tried years before. The lines were just too long, and I got there kind of late. I learned two important lessons. One, get there early, like ten minutes before they open, or you will stand in line for HOURS if you want to go through the main tasting lines. Two, snow cones are better than beer or water for quelling the heat. Sugar is the reason--sugar is a great heat neutralizer. Milk is ok too, but who wants to drink milk in 105 degree weather along with beer and hot sauce??? I remember Two Hot Mamas was really good in '06, and they appear to have won a lot of the awards, but I missed them this year. I had some fabulous pecan smoked beef brisket tacos from Matt's El Rancho though, and I had fun taking pictures, people watching, and drinking beer.

Chic Pea Broccoli Casserole from Vegan With a Vengence

Call For Testers!

Hello lovely readers,

I am beginning work on a cookbook, and I need your help! I need testers for my recipes. The testers' job is to simply make a dish EXACTLY as the recipe instructs, and see if it turns out right. It is imperative not to tweak it, as most of us are inclined to do, because then I won't have an accurate judgment on the to-be-published recipe. No need to be formal about it, and no real time line at the moment. Just pick one from the archives that I don't note as being someone else's recipe, try it, and then let me know how it turns out. If there is a dish you see that you would like to try but I don't have the recipe posted, let me know and I will get it to you. If you want one of the recipes from my old blog, which are archived into two entries in this blog, just search for a word in the search bar or scroll around until you see something you like. Some that I have gotten great feedback on were the Cauliflower Soup, the hummus pizza, and the chicken and dumplings. Thanks in advance!

JBS

Sun Cheese

I made this last night and it is really, really good. It is best after marinating a bit in the fridge--at least an hour or so. Also, I don't recommend over-doing the garlic. Something about the ume vinegar really brings it out and a little goes a long way. This went great on the chic pea broccoli casserole from Vegan With a Vengence, and would go great with any casserole probably. It's called sun cheese because of the sunflower seeds, but I want to try it with pumpkin seeds too. In addition to the suggestions in the recipe, I would suggest this as a sandwich spread with maybe a slice of ripe tomato and a crunchy cucumber, on salads, or as a cracker dip. You could jazz it up like hummus too--red peppers, hot sauce, etc. The best part is, sunflower seeds are very good for you! The chart below is from the website in my link list, World's Healthiest Foods, and illustrates some of the nutrients packed into the humble sunflower seed.



Sun Cheese
Casa de Luz Community Cookbook — Sauces, Dressings, Condiments and Spreads edited by Jill Kivikko

Serve this cool and creamy condiment over grains, enchiladas, pasta, or greens.

1 1/4 cups organic sunflower seeds, soaked 4–6 hours or
overnight
1 clove organic garlic
2 tablespoons organic umeboshi, aka ume plum, vinegar--found in asian section or maybe vegan/macrobiotic section if your grocery store has one
2 tablespoons organic lemon juice
1 1/2 cups spring or filtered water

Directions
Place seeds in bowl and cover with water. Allow seeds to soak 4–6 hours or overnight

Rub seeds between hands to loosen skins. Skins will float to top of soaking water. Pour out skins and soaking water. Rinse seeds, cover with water, and repeat rubbing process 3–4 times until most skins have been removed and poured out. The more skins you remove, the whiter the sauce will be. (I did this 3-4 times and there were still skins floating around but the sauce still turned out pretty white.)

Mix seeds with garlic, lemon juice, and umeboshi vinegar in a blender, and add 1 cup of water. Blend until desired consistency, For a thinner consistency, add up to 1/2 cup more water.

Vegan Sloppy Joes

I have been wanting to make these forever, mainly because I have had a big jar of TVP on my counter that was never going to get used otherwise. In my humble opinion, why use TVP when you can use cracked bulgar or something a little more natural and unprocessed? Anyway, I had some, and I love sloppy joes, so I finally made the vegan sloppy joes recipe from Where it All Vegan. I give it four out of five stars. I think the taste is close (I haven't had an original style sloppy joe in years), and the taste is good. It is satisfyingly sloppy and the texture is right. It goes great with Fritos, which are also vegan and surprisingly free of weird ingredients, and it's easy to make. I think the taste is closer to a really thick, chunky spaghetti sauce, but I also used more tomatoes than the recipe called for because I had to open a can and I used the whole thing where it only called for one chopped tomato. I am without a method of downloading pictures at the moment, but I took some and will download them when the boyfriend comes home and figures out my computer issues. So please check back Tuesday, and in the meantime, go pick up Where it All Vegan. The awesome lentil burger recipe I'm always talking about comes from that book, as well as a lentil stuffed squash recipe that is delicious. In fact, every recipe I've tried from that book has been great. That's the true test of a good cookbook. I have a tendency to fall for a pretty cover and lots of pictures, but you never really know how good a book is until you give a handful of the recipes in it a try. My favorite and most used vegan cookbooks are Vegan with a Vengence and Where it All Vegan. Of my non-vegan books, my favorites are my Better Homes and Garden cookbooks (circa 1970 and 1995), and my Whole Foods cookbook. I have another one that I love, but I just realized I don't think I have made any of the recipes. It's Prevention's Low-Fat, Low-Cost Cookbook, and it has a ton of great money saving advice and cheap, healthy, practical recipes. Practical meaning mainly that they are ingredients you can find anywhere and that your family will actually eat them. I am going to try to give it a test drive and I will report back.

Barton Springs and The Save Our Springs Alliance

Yesterday I had a particularly brutal karate class, so I decided to go stretch my bones and cool my feet in Barton Springs. It was even more lovely than I anticipated, and I got to thinking how sad it would be if we lost it, which looks ever more possible every year. I've added a new link for the Save Our Springs Alliance. Please give their site a read and do what you can to help. If you've never swam (swum?) at Barton Pool and you're in Austin, you really should. While you're at it, read up on some of its amazing history. A whole lot of construction and development around Austin, besides being annoying, seriously threatens this priceless natural resource and cultural mecca. That's right, I said cultural mecca, and I meant it. The pool is rich with history, and people have been going there to swim since before the city of Austin existed. It has an undeniable energy and happy vibe to it, and you can swim there year round without getting chlorine in your eyes. People come from all over the world and swim at Barton Springs Pool, and whenever I hear a tourist on the bus ask someone where they should go in Austin, the one thing almost everyone says is "you gotta go to the Springs." So get involved a little and you can say you helped. Donate money if you have it, or if you don't maybe donate some time. If you have neither, like me, but maybe you have a more popular blog, then take a few minutes of your time and blog about it:) Thanks!

Favorite Trick of the Day--Saving Tomato Paste

Do you often open a can of tomato paste for a recipe that only calls for a tablespoon or two, then jar it and put it in the fridge with the best intentions, only to rediscover it and maybe two or three like it covered in hair weeks later? I have a solution! It works great and it will make you feel awfully clever. Next time you open a can of tomato paste, roll out a sheet of wax or freezer paper onto a cookie sheet, and measure out a tablespoon-sized dollop at a time onto the paper. Put the cookie sheet in the freezer just long enough to freeze the dollops, then roll up the paper with the dollops still slightly stuck on, and put the whole thing in a gallon zip lock bag. Keeping the dollops in place keeps them from sticking together, and it's part of the cuteness/cleverness effect I mentioned earlier, as is the word "dollops";)

Broccoli and Cotswald Quiche

Hi all--

Sorry I have been absent lately. I have been crazy busy with a million things. I made this very easy quiche from Albion Cooks (see link list), and it turned out absolutely delicious, and pretty too (I promise). The only thing I changed was that I added a single layer of cooked, gold potato slices because I had some leftover, and I used colby jack instead of cheddar for the bottom layer of cheese. Cotswald can be found at Central Market and probably Whole Foods. It's a small, triangular, softish, yellow cheese with bits of chives and stuff in it. You could probably sub goat cheese or a strong cheddar or just anything with a strong flavor that you like. It's a quiche, so really, do what you like!

Broccoli & Cotswold Quiche:
1 cup small broccoli florettes
1 premade frozen pie crust
2 oz cheddar cheese, grated
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup half & half
2 oz Cotswold grated
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F degrees.

Cook the broccoli florettes in salted water for 5 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Beat the egg, egg yolk, and half & half. Salt and pepper.

Grate the cheddar cheese into the bottom of the premade frozen pie crust. Arrange the broccoli florettes over the cheddar (cut any that are large into halves). Pour in the egg custard. Top with 2 oz grated Cotswold cheese. Press down on florettes and cheese with a spatula to insure all are covered with the custard. Salt and pepper.

Place crust on a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes, until custard is set.

Serve with a simple salad.