Dim Sum Sunday

On the last day of Christmas Vacation we decided to go out for something very special. We went for Dim Sum at Chinatown off Mopac in Austin. This was an amazing experience. I had never been to a traditional Dim Sum service. It was so beautiful and artistic and the servers were fantastic salesmen and women. The only torture was getting full and not being able to taste all of the delicious treats.

Thank you Chinatown! We will be back.

Baked Potato Soup

Last Sunday we had a large catering job and brought home an entire roasting pan full of mashers. The weather dropped to freezing Monday night so the Soup Season continues. Below is a simple version of Baked Potato soup made with left over mashers. Of course this recipe is a one pot dish. After all, who wants to spend the evening washing dishes. It is warming, hearty and delicious. Enjoy!

Start by chopping a package of bacon and frying it up in your soup pot. Take out the bacon when crispy, leaving a small amount of grease in the soup pot. Fill the soup pot half way with left over mashed potatoes. Heat through. Add enough chicken broth to fill the pot about 3/4 full. (basically, 2 parts potatoes and 1 part chicken broth) Season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.

Serve soup hot with grated cheddar cheese, chopped green onion and crisp bacon pieces.

Elk Meatball Stew

It's hunting season again and this year we were lucky enough to get some ground Elk from a generous and mighty hunter who braved the cold New Mexico mountains for this delicious Elk Meatball Stew.
Season the ground Elk with Salt and Pepper and form into small balls. Then brown in bacon drippings.


While the meatballs are browning, chop a small onion, three carrots, one clove of garlic and two red potatoes. Add all of this to the pot with the meatballs and cover with beef broth. Add one can of tomato paste for richness and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 min to an hour. As always salt and pepper to taste.


When the soup was done I simply rolled out pieces of raw bread dough and toasted them in a skillet. (Perfect for dipping)

French Onion Soup

Who doesn't like French Onion Soup? I could do without the crying but the end result was so good!

Ingredients
2 Tbl Olive Oil
2 pounds onions thinly sliced
1 small clove garlic chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 Tbl white wine vinegar
2 cups beef broth
1 cup water
1/2 French baguette cubed
cooking spray
Kosher or Sea Salt
Shredded Swiss cheese

1. In saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, garlic, salt and pepper, lower the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the onions are golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, beef broth, and water. Reduce the heat to low and cover the saucepan.

2. Cut French bread into cubes and place on sheet pan. Spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with course grain salt. (Kosher or Sea Salt) Toast at 350 degrees until brown.

3. Place a handful of toasted bread in bowls and ladle soup over bread. Top with grated swiss cheese.

Teriyaki Beef Soup

This is a soup that costs very little and goes a long way. Serve with egg rolls for a perfect meal.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces boneless beef sirloin steak
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 14-ounce cans lower-sodium beef broth
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup bite-size strips carrot (2 medium)
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups coarsely chopped broccoli
• 2 cups Udon noodles
• 1/4 cup sliced green onion (2)
• 1 cup teriyaki sauce
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Directions

1. Trim fat from beef. Cut beef into bite-size strips. In a large skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook and stir beef in hot oil for 2 to 3 minutes or until beef is brown.

2. Add broth, water, carrot, ginger, and garlic. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender.

3. Stir in Udon, broccoli, green onion, teriyaki sauce, sesame oil, and red pepper. Simmer, covered, for 3 minutes.

Note: I made this soup again with left over pork that we grilled for fajitas and it was even better!

Sesame Catfish and Miso Salad

This was an amazing meal! I simply patted some large catfish fillets with flour and cooked in a nonstick skillet with a little vegetable oil and sesame oil. Once the fish was browned I poured in a high quality sesame sauce. I turned the fish a couple of times to coat and heat sauce and added a handful of sliced green onions. I served the fish with a green salad with sugar snap peas and low fat, low cholesterol Miso dressing.

MMM Soup Season

This fall has inspired a soup revolution in our home.

In the past two weeks, I have made Broccoli Cheese Soup, Greek Meatball Soup, Matza Ball Soup and the following incredible Tortilla Soup!

This soup was so easy! It took only 10 minutes and tasted better than any I have had in a restaurant. (recipe follows)


Simple Tortilla Soup

1/2 onion (diced)
1 large can Enchilada Sauce
1 can Tomato Sauce
2 cans Chicken Broth
2 Cups Chopped Frozen Ready to Eat Chicken Fajita Strips
1 can Black Beans
1 can Hominy
Salt and Pepper to taste

Toppings
Cheese
Avacado
Cilantro
Green Onion
Crispy Tortilla Strips

Simply brown onion in soup pot then add all other soup ingredients and bring to boil. Spoon into large soup bowls and top generously. Enjoy!!!

Warning - this soup was so good, we nearly made ourselves sick eating so much.

Happy Halloween

This year we carved our pumpkins on Halloween Eve. Riley picked out two beautiful big pumpkins and we cut and scraped and scraped and cut and carved and rested and carved some more. Whew! That was alot of work and for some reason I didn't take a picture of the finished masterpieces so just imagine the most elaborate, wonderful carvings ever. :)

I did manage to save and roast the seeds this year which came out pretty good but didn't seem to hold the fresh cracked sea salt very well. I think maybe a finer salt would be better.



We also made giant chewy chocolate brownies with chocolate frosting, candy corn and orange colored white chocolate drizzle for Riley to hand out to her favorite peeps on Halloween. (At some point I will discuss my crappy camera and how I hope Santa is bringing me a new one - but that is a different post all together)

This year Riley dressed up in 50's attire. Her Nama made a fantastic Poodle skirt in pink. (oh, and the dog was dressed up too.)

Oh, The pleasures of Fall!

Fall is in the air and this season is marked not only with the falling leaves and dead grass but with an annual phone message from my Rita in which she sings to me "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas". This is also the time of year for my highly sought after caramel apples. I make these from the first of October through New Years each year. I have a few pregnant coworkers that have been begging for them since September so I promptly started making them October 1st. I had to limit the orders Wednesday and Friday now that they are so popular. I typically make about 15 - 20 apples twice a week.

These apples are large and tart. They are dipped in a hot caramel bath then topped with a variety of candies and chocolate.

Happy Birthday Poppy

My Father turned 61 yesterday so last night I ordered in some fresh quail and quail's eggs and made a feast. He also requested a "Ding Dong" cake. The menu was stuffed quail, grilled zucchini and poached quail eggs on toasted polenta cakes.

The quails came boned packaged nicely in a cooler with ice to keep them fresh and the eggs were laid that morning. I started by making the stuffing of Portabella and button mushrooms mixed with goat cheese, green onions and garlic.


I stuffed the birds and laid them in the backing dish before a quick saute in bacon fat before baking.


The tiny eggs were so beautiful! It took a few tries to perfect getting them out of the shell without breaking them.
Here is the "Ding Dong" cake Poppy requested. It was made with dark rich chocolate ganache which went very well with the red wine.

"Hey Cupcake!"

Saturday Riley and I were treated to a movie and a big cupcake. The is the new hip spot on South Congress in Austin Tx. It is called "Hey Cupcake!". It's a very small Airstream with a very large rotating cupcake on the roof. It was Saturday evening about 6:30pm and raining and the line was wrapped around and down the side walk.

Riley had "The Standard (Chocolate Top, Vanilla Bottom)" with sprinkles of course!
I had a "Double Double Whipper Snapper (Chocolate Top, Chocolate Bottom with a squirt of cream filling in the middle)"

OMG Delicious!

Two Year Anniversary!

To Celebrate 2 Years as an Art Director, I thought I would share a few of the fun things I have created.

Main Street Light Post Banners promoting our River Activities



5 Foot Billboard that can been seen entering Luling from the North



Hippie Picture Opportunity - Chili Cook Off 2007 (yes that is my parents - SMILE!!)



Wearable "Groovy" bus - Chili Cookoff 2007



Press Check - Milwaukee This is where I go every couple of months for the printing of my catalog.



Watermelon Thump Float 2007 (We won 1st place in the Business Division)



Watermelon Thump Float 2008 (We won 2nd place in the Business Division)



And of course, I made a few cakes...

Riley's 7th Birthday Cake (Hannah Montana themed of course)



Dual Birthdays for Mom and Laura



Baby Shower Cake for a Co-Worker

Cow Herding

A typical evening in Cow Town! At 3:47pm Tristian and I went to San Marcos for dinner and a movie. We first had to visit the outlet mall for a little shopping but then off to dinner at 5:30pm .....Gordo's (as most SWT alumni know from the square) has branched out with a second location toward the outlet mall. Gordo's exceeded our expectations with hot, fresh mushroom swiss burgers and the evening was off to a great start.

We had been preparing for the new X-Files movie by watching all episodes from the beginning and I felt ready so we went to see the new flick at 7:10pm. (The time line might be important) Since I am neither Siskel or Ebert I will spare the movie review. We left about 9:30pm and made one stop at Hastings before heading home.

This is were the fun begins......half way between Martindale and Luling, we came upon a wreck that clearly happened about 1 min prior to us driving up on it. Several cars were involved and a dead cow was in the center of the road. This poor cow managed to take out 3 or more cars with major damage to all. We checked to make sure that emergency vehicles had been called and then proceeded on towards Luling. About 50 yards from the wreck we spot the rest of the herd.

This stretch of road is VERY dark. We played this scenario out in our heads and realized that this could be a dangerous situation as more cars and emergency vehicles would be racing to the scene of the accident. We decided to keep the cattle in sight and try to keep them from crossing the traffic again. We called 911 several times to alert them of our location and attempt to get help keeping these cows out of traffic but as anyone who lives in the sticks knows....this is a county law enforcement responsibility and the only TWO officers on duty were assisting the accident victims. So after about an hour of holding the frightened bovine, we managed to get them down a dirt road with little to no traffic.

Our evening ended up as an unforeseen adventure. Of course I had my camera and never thought to take a single picture. :(

The New Me

Ok - I was finally sick of my Mother telling me to cut my hair so here it is. Enjoy!

Sushi

After the Billy Bob Concert went tried a new Thai and Sushi shop on the Drag. Tristian ordered Yellow Tail, Tuna Sashimi and a Spider Roll. I had Grilled Pork Saigon Noodles and we shared some dumplings. I wish I would have had a camera to document this restaurant since it will be the last time we visit this establishment. So much went wrong and I am still feeling a bit upset in the tummy from this experience. (and everyone knows I have a gut of steel)

Billy Boy!

Saturday night Tristian and I went out on the town. We went to the outdoor venue at Stubb's to see Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters! It was a little hot and humid to be outside but it was very cool to see Billy Boy up close. (He is a little guy off of the big screen) I even ran into my good friend Kerry who took these photos for me.

My first blog...

Today starts a new day in my obsession with the internet. I am an avid reader of various blogs of mostly food and art. As I spend most of my life either in front of a computer or in my kitchen, the next logical step for me was to create a blog of my own.

I am neither a greeting card sender or a telephone chit chatter so in order to do my part in keeping my friends and family involved in my life, I have decided to blog it.

Also, if my 4 month old God Son can write a weekly blog so can I!

Most of what will be contained in this blog will be food because let's face it, I'm obsessed with the subject. I will of course be documenting the uniqueness that is my daughter Riley as she has become a great little cook and artist.