sometimes obvious is delicious

Yesterday, being the first day off after a series of gut wrenching doubles, I laid in bed and drank coffee and read while Demetrius made me a delicious brunch. An hour or so after he got back from the bodega, I set down my book (naked - david sedaris) and ventured into the kitchen to see what was going on. I walk in and my heart sunk and my hungry stomach growled. Demetrius had gone overboard, he was marinating the bacon, using english muffins to make french toast, squeezing blood oranges for god knows what! See the thing is, I have never had marinated bacon, smoked is about as fancy as bacon can get, and english muffin french toast, that seems like a whole lot of pretentious europe and it seems that if it were good it would be as common to see on menus as brioche or challah.
Well I could not have been more wrong.
He marinated the bacon in red wine and herbs, which just tamed the salty over load that bacon can sometimes be. The french toast was fantastic, flavored with bourbon vanilla, nutmeg and blood orange topped with REAL MAPLE SYRUP (there is no substitution, imitation syrup is absolutely disgusting). Luckily I had a bottle of Rosé Prosecco in the fridge so we had some yummy mimosas as well. All in all I win, I ate a great meal and I did not have to lie to Demetrius about liking it.

Margaritas

Okay so we re-did fish taco night to try to make it better. My tacos came out basically the same, but Demetrius made a delicious mango beef fajita thing that came out awesome (but slightly overcooked). The real thing that I was trying to perfect was my margaritas. I followed the recipe for lemon sour that we use at my restaurant ( 2 parts lime juice to 1 part simple syrup and 1 part water). I bought 5 pounds of limes at Stanley's and still only came out with about a pitcher! Yikes, with the way my friends drink next time I am going to be juicing limes until my arm falls off. Honestly drinking margaritas while sitting on a patio is the best way to do it, but most of those places do not use their own mixes and I end up with a sour mix stomach ache. I have heard that Salud tequila bar has a really good margarita so I am going to have to check that out, and keep looking around town (luckily i have many kind friends who are willing to go on these research trips with me).

fish tacos (stop giggling)

Last Sunday I woke up to a beautiful and warm spring like day, so obviously I was dreaming of tequila. As is a custom in my kitchen I planned the meal around the libations, and fish tacos and fresh margaritas sounded like the perfect combination. Luckily I had no idea how to make either of these and decided to be completely stubborn and not look either up on the internet. I mean don't get me wrong, I can make a mean margarita, but in terms of making fresh sour I was clueless and don't even own a hand juicer (luckily i do own a boyfriend with strong hands). Regardless we made do and I bought orange peach mango juice to add to the mix. I didn't use grand marnier in the margaritas because I figured the juice would be enough (and i was being cheap) . Surprisingly the margaritas were not the best part of the night, the fish tacos came out pretty good.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that I wanted a lot of bright veggies and fresh flavors. I bought green, red, yellow and orange bell peppers, red onion, and some frozen organic sweet corn. I also got about 2lbs of dover sole filets frozen from Trader Joes. I defrosted this and then marinated it in fresh oranges, white wine, a few dashes of cholula hot sauce, salt, pepper and a few other random spices.
I (laura) diced the bell peppers and red onion, and I boiled the corn to al dente and sauteed it all together for about ten minutes. I served it over corn tortillas with rice and black beans and a whole lot of condiments (white cheddar, guacamole, fresh salsa, sour cream, limes).
The meal itself was pretty easy to make, but depending on how much you do from scratch can be time consuming. My friend john is the sous chef at an upscale taqueria and he has promised to teach me how to make a variety of salsas and guacamoles from scratch.
I am making another version of this dinner tomorrow night for more people (last time there were only 8 or 9 of us who ate) and I am going to focus on making some really badass margaritas.

come on spring just get here already

The few warm days last week really spoiled me. I got excited for spring and summer in logan square. I love my 'hood, but in the winter I forget how much I enjoy just about anything other than my bed (my mom got me one of those memory foam thing - awesome!).
Friday Demetrius and I celebrated the ability to walk down the street in spring jackets by having lunch at Lula Cafe before I had to go in to work. I had one of the best sandwiches of my life, and that's saying a lot because I love sandwiches. It was braised beef shortrib with gréyure, tomato remoulade, arugula and a fried egg! It was served on a mini baguette with roasted redskin potatoes and a small mixed green salad. The sandwich was just about perfect, melty braised beef shortribs against the crusty bread. The only thing that I would have changed was the egg was fried overhard, to me a perfect fried egg is over medium, so that some of the drippy yolk can cover the sandwich. I got really accustomed to adding an egg to hamburgers or steak when I was in Europe, and I have never looked back. The sandwich was so filling that we probably should not have split a half order of the special french toast for dessert, but it just sounded soooo good. Brioche toast stuffed with rhubarb covered in a pistachio cremá - HEAVENLY! I have no regrets, even if I did feel like I was going to vomit for the first hour of work - totally worth it.

Other "springtime forays" included Polish Dinner hosted by Laura's polish cousins who were in town visiting. Yummy sausage and sauerkraut with choice of mustards. The only thing that made this spring like is that I was able to walk there and back in relative comfort. Danny and I also made a fun night out of going to the whirlaway lounge for drinks served to us by logan square's communal grandmother, and La Puebla for 24 hour mexican food served in a restaurant designed by the Golden Girls. Now all I need is for the trees along Kedzie to start blooming and I will be happy as a clam.

corporate picnics in winter

Okay so there was no picnic, seeing as it is winter, and it wasn't corporate as it was my kitchen in logan square but the menu certainly screamed "have you tried deb's famous potato salad?". I needed to have a brainstorm sesh with my farceytail productions partner stacey, and decided it was a great reason to bake up that whole chicken that was sitting in our freezer. Of course having two days off in a row, and spending the morning hung over in my apartment, I felt the need to turn this into a giant to-do. The menu was baked bbq chicken, macaroni salad, mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli and corn bread. A random summertime meal in midwinter. Nothing about the dinner was exceptional, except the chicken.
I decided to try baking some of the chicken with bacon wrapped around it. I always think that bacon will ruin a meal (which makes no sense salt and fat are my two favorite flavors), so I was not brave enough to try it on all. As usual I was wrong, I should have double wrapped everyone of those bitches! Bacon wrapped meat is always delicious, and bacon on burgers with bbq sauce is awesome, why wouldn't bacon barbequed chicken be fanfrickentastic? It was, and it was really easy to make.

Dredge chicken in seasoned flour ( salt and pepper for sure, I also used paprika, cayenne and some other random spices)
Wrap in raw bacon
Place in buttered pan
Cover in foil and bake at 400 for 45 minutes
Smother in favorite bbq sauce
Bake uncovered for another 20 minutes

My friend danny brought over a case of PBR and I think that it was a perfect pairing, but any light hoppy beer would go well.

chicken sausage is not turkey bacon

This morning I woke up slightly regretting the bourbon and belgian style beer combination from last night. I knew the headache would only go away if I ate a good meal (which if i had done last night i would not be feeling like this in the morning). I decided to make my favorite breakfast sandwich of late; chicken apple sausage, egg and swiss.
I have always been a big fan of chicken sausage- it is versatile, tasty, and good for you. The thing about chicken sausage is that it is not a substitute for pork sausage, it is its own entity. Once you embrace chicken sausage's independence you can truly love it.

This sandwich is easy to make and delicious. I use whole wheat bagels, but whatever breakfast sandwich bread you like best should work. I cut the chicken sausage (i use the trader joe's apple chardonnay ones) in both length wise and...umm...gurth wise? And pan seared them in butter for about 5 -7 minutes. Meanwhile cook the eggs whatever style you like in a sandwich (i like over medium, but demetrius won't eat eggs unless they are scrambled) Toast the bottom half of your sandwich bread and top with sausage, egg and swiss cheese. Put in toaster oven (or regular oven) for about 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Toast the top bread, I usually add horseradish mustard and mayonnaise, garnish with mixed greens. I paired this meal with tropical flavored emergen-c and a cup of coffee (i didn't have the fixins for a bloody mary).

Another favorite breakfast using chicken sausage is a basic egg scramble with spinach and feta sausage and some sharp cheddar cheese. Super easy and tasty.

soapbox please

ok so, i am not going to use this blog as a cathartic platform for me to complain about annoying customers. So i am just going to put out my blanket "things you should know if you are planning on eating out in a restaurant" now and get it out of my system.

1. 20% is the standard tip for good service. None of this 15% crap. I know that that was the standard but times have changed, and a 15% tip makes me ask "what did I do wrong". The reason for the increase is necessary because not only do servers make well under minimum wage, but also we have to tip out so many people, bartenders, hosts, food runners, busboys, party planners, ect.

2. Food taking a long time is usually not the servers fault, so please don't take it out on them. Same goes for drinks from the bar.

3. Trying to talk to your server while talking on your cell phone is absolutely uncalled for.

4. A note to all large parties. Patience. Seriously. You are a big group and everything is going to take a little longer. Please don't all shout at once, and please don' give attitude about your twenty specialty cocktails taking ten minutes to get to the table. There is nothing that anyone can do. Also when you see that 18% gratuity added ask yourself, is that really enough? Remember that added gratuity is taken before the tax and that usually if you are a large party two servers were taken off the floor to service your group. If you liked your servers and nothing catastrophic happened you would only be helping your karma to leave a little extra to say "thank you for dealing with us and cleaning up our mess".

5. A restaurant is not your living room. Please don't sit at a table for 6 hours on a busy Saturday night, you are literally taking money out of your servers pocket. And do not think that because you tipped 20% that it is ok. If you spend a couple of hundred dollars then sure camp out and let me bring you more wine, but it you and your friends want to sit at my table and have me refill your waters please go somewhere else. I know it is unfair, but think about it from the servers prospective, we are all just trying to get by.

6. Reservations are not a perfect system. People show up for their reservations late and then act like the people described in #5. Be patient on the weekends.

7. Restaurants being out of things is sometimes a good thing. It means that they dont over order and let food sit, they probably get fresh items in more often, or that they get more highly allocated ingredients.

8. Please stop drinking diet coke, or at least dont act like a crack fiend if your glass is empty for more than twenty seconds.

9. Free bread is not a guarantee, please dont demand it.

10. When the host brings you to a table, please dont ask to move, there are reasons they brought you there, server rotations, reservation spread ect...

11. Most servers aren't uneducated morons, so please dont speak down to them or assume that you are better in anyway.

A good server will never let you know if you are breaking the unknown rules, or being an asshole, so please try to keep yourself in check.

toot toot

That is the sound of me tooting my own horn, which is what I am going to do in this post.

So two of my friends turned 25 this past week, which was cause for celebration and a great dinner. Well none of us really have the money to go out and celebrate the way we normally would, so I decided that I would cook dinner at my house so that we could all eat and drink and have lots of fun and not break the bank. In all the dinner that served five including wine cost a little over $60 in raw materials. It sounds expensive, but that is just $12 a person and well worth it. The dinner turned out was better than I expected so I am going to post the menu and a quick guideline for how to throw it together.

The menu was an asain style surf and turf. Pan seared New England scallops served on a bed of sesame bok choy with a ginger carrot orange reduction, served alongside a sesame horseradish marinated filet Mignon on a bed or garlic redskin mashed potatoes topped with steamed asparagus.

Ok so if you are big into following recipes you probably won't be able to follow this because I do not measure or time anything exactly-and I tend to ramble.

I started out by defrosting the scallops in a bath of cold water. This can take a few hours. I also marinated the steaks for a couple of hours in red wine, fresh horseradish, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, sesame seeds, liquid aminos (soy sauce works as well) and black pepper. While waiting I started the Ginger carrot reduction. I used about a cup and a half of carrot orange juice, a cup of white wine and a small ginger root. Just grate the fresh ginger into the juice and wine and boil down until it has a thick consistency, it took about an hour and a half this time. Meanwhile my friend laura (if i cook you dinner, you can expect to chop vegetables, i hate chopping vegetables) washed and cut the potatoes. Boiled them down til the were ready for mashing. I made the whole bag because laura went a little nuts on the cutting, but leftover mashies are always useful. Mashed them up using a little over a stick of butter, half and half, splash of milk, a tablespoonish of chopped garlic, kosher salt and black pepper. Just keep sticking your finger in and tasting til you get the mashed potato flavor balance to your liking. I then broiled the filets following the time guidelines on the package- it came out a little well done for my liking, but my guests seemed ok with them. I would say check them at ten minutes. Before broiling I poured some of the marinade over the steaks and into the broiling pan. I then coated them in sea salt and sesame seeds. I soaked the scallops in milk, salt, and pepper for about 30 minutes after they defrosted to take some of the "fishy" out. This step is optional. I coated them lightly in flour and pan seared them in butter about 3 minutes on each side. The bok choy only takes a few minutes, saute it in vegetable oil for a minute, add a few tablespoons of water and cover for about two. Toss with a dash sesame oil and sea salt. Serve the scallops on top of the bok choy with the ginger reduction on top of the scallops.

I don't know if anyone will go out and try to make this, but it was pretty easy and came out all fancy tasting. I paired it with a bottle of "The Stump Jump" which is a Shiraz, Grenache, Mouvedre blend from D'Arenberg wineries in McLaren Vale, Australia.

casserole the restaurant

Casseroles are delicious, and a great vehicle for hiding ungodly amounts of butter. Mmmmm. Everyone loves casseroles and rightly so. I have heard of casserole clubs, basically weekly casserole potlucks, which sound awesome, but I want to take it one step further. I want to open Casserole the Restaurant. The theme is apparent, but it could be really fun and creative. With the right chef and a constantly changing menu, mom's lazy dinner can be turned into delicious fair. Certain staples would have to remain, green been casserole, Bruce Bono's famous onion casserole with a Ritz cracker crust, Nana's homemade mac and cheese, but the entreé casseroles could be changing with the seasons. My concept is that there would be entreé casseroles, side casseroles and dessert casseroles all with a whole lotta butter. I mean sure it would have a niché market but I sure would love eating there. I looked on Google to see if anything like this already exists, there is a restaurant in Montreal called Le Casserole, but thats all the way in French Canada, we need one here.