Oink and Moo

I've heard of their food trucks, never happened to be at a food truck event where I was (not that I've been to a huge number of events) Just one of those back of the brain want to try list foods.  Then....

Curt (being food helpful - probably to make up for lack of fUSB progress) sent me a link to their website, Oink and Moo had a storefront location!!!  It is the next town over from where I work!!  If I were a bird it would have been much easier - it is in a really residential neighborhood - took 15 minutes and 9 turns after the main road to get there:

But I found it!!  And got dinner to go, 2 orders of Trifecta Tacos (basically one of each on the menu - although you can customize, I figure let's see what they are about first) they were out of both sweet potatoes :( So I got the mac n cheese, baked beans, greens and cornbread.  (for the record I shared with Curt - wasn't all for me - and he deserved some)

Pulled Pork, with pineapple bbq sauce and cilantro lime slaw - would have been too sweet if not for the slaw - perfectly balances and adds nice crunch.  Chipotle Chicken - had pickled poblano and cilantro lime sour cream - if you know me, you know I'm not a huge chicken fan and most of my chicken gets hidden or buried beneath stuff - but I would eat this again - highest praise bird will ever get from me.  My absolute favorite of the 3 tacos however was the skirt steak - before you think "she'll always pick the beef" I'm probably pickier about what I consider good beef over pork and chicken. Steak was done perfectly, had the same cilantro lime slaw as the pork but a chimichurri over top that added a nice, but not too spicy level of heat.

The mac n cheese was really good, liked the crunchy bits on top, could have used a bit more of a sharp cheese in the sauce seeing as it's a bbq side, the cornbread was sweet (I know some regions like that, I'll be quiet) The greens, a mix of collard a kale, were done really well, soft enough for Curt's happiness, not disintegrating like some places, seasoned well.  My surprise favorite though was the baked beans, there was a great balance between the sweet in the sauce and a slow heat as well.  They are probably my favorite baked beans I've had in recent memory.

What to do with leftover nachos??

BREAKFAST!!

Meant to get a picture once I broke the ooey gooey yolk.. but I was hungry.  also no pic after the salsa topped it off.

Recent Food Pics..

While my friend Min and I eagerly (and might I add supremely patiently) await Curt inventing the fUSB (food USB) device for us to send food back and forth with, the poor woman and Fe have to settle for pics... here are some recent ones:

chicken and dumplings

Mexican rice with eggs, salsa, guac and sour cream

beef and noodles

roast beast, fresh mozz, prociutto, and arugula sauteed with chili flakes and garlic

 

Big Brew Beer Fest

Went to the Big Brew Beer Fest at the Morristown Armory yesterday.  Actually took public transport!!  (the Angie would be proud) Took a train and then a shuttle bus!!

Forgot all about the pretzel necklace thing - but fortunately there was a table with Food Bloggers that was giving away pretzel necklaces if you liked them on Twitter or Facebook.

I got my picture taken with the Horny Goat!

There was a guy there with a Revolution Brewing t-shirt like mine so yes, I gave a high-five!  We chatted with Chris, the ciccerone from Hot Rods, bought some meat sticks and Jerky to send to the Angie from Mr & Mrs Jerky (also walked around with their stickers on!  The chocolate covered bacon guy wasn't there (sadness) but there was a lady selling

bacon jam (win!) Had a great Guiness cake treat from A Cake and  A Jar - they build on 2 mini cupcakes in a jar. Very Cute. Shared a pork mac n cheese from Morris Tap and Grill with Curt- so yummy!



Discovered some really interesting cherry ciders one was way too sweet, but it's been forever since I've had soda so it might have been me.  There was a competition BBQ booth, and I decided to split an order of bacon wrapped meatballs with Curt.  There was a choice of regular and spicy.  Now, in my defense usually "spicy" really isn't.  Also in my defense, Curt didn't say no, get regular. 

I thought they were really good, actually had a nice kick, good flavours underneath, bacon not overcooked. I ate mine in 3 bites.  Curt popped the whole thing in his mouth  Curt's head just about exploded!  (and there is no milk at a beer fest, I don't think milk stout would work - alcohol usually just spreads the burn) I gave him my two pack of raspberry fig bars- it was a close to bread as I could figure.  I bought some fried cheese curds, but apparently temperature hot is not good when your head is on fire.  He even used his inhaler. It was scary, but now that it's over it's funny. 



I've decided that this guy had the funniest shirt at the fest.

 I also bought a cool license plate plaque, I'll post another day- don't know where Curt has it.

Dessert for my Valentine

I had to work the three days before Valentine's Day, and the day itself, but I still wanted to make Curt a yummy decadent dessert.  So, I cheated a little and combined some stuff from Rachael Ray and Michael Symon.  Symon had made a chocolate cheesecake covered with dark chocolate ganache and topped with bourbon cherries.  Curt however, doesn't like cheesecake ( I know!!! wtf??) Ray had a long time ago, made a cake where she substituted beer for water and added cinnamon and nutmeg.  SO here's what I used:

Duncan Hines Perfect size chocolate cake mix (comes with it's own easy release pan) 
butter (amount from box)
1 tbsp cinnamon
about 1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
6 tbsp Yards Chocolate Love Stout
1 egg

I followed the directions on the box and cooled overnight. For the ganache I heated the cream and sugar, then added the chopped chocolate and stirred until it started to get thick, poured it over the cake and "pushed" some over the edges to get the sides.


 
1/2 cup heavy cream
bar of 86% and one of 72% dark chocolate rough chopped to one cup
1 tbsp coconut sugar






After dinner I put all this in a heavy sauce pot and stirred occasionally until thick and saucy:
2 cup frozen dark cherries
1 tbsp coconut sugar
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 1/2 and peel of 1 lemon (pulled the peels out  once done)
1 tbsp cornstarch
1tsp real vanilla extract
2 tbsp water
1/4 cup Knob Creek bourbon 

Poured sauce still warm over slice of cake.... cannot even begin to describe how good this was!

 
 

Mardi Gras Menu at Hot Rods.

Was enough to draw the Angie home on Friday night...

Crawfish.... (Curt had catfish.. which I love, but crawfish..)  and mac n cheese, bit spicy, with sausage and shrimp.

I had a flight with dinner - one of the more interesting beers I've had was Death by Coconut Porter.. very, very coconut.

I mixed some with Yard's Love Stout... OMG like drinking a Mounds Bar!!  Who needs dessert??

 

Stuffed turkey breast

I didn't get a good picture. But basically, I saw Mario Batali make a stuffed turkey thigh on the Chew, I saw Michael Symon make a stuffed rolled something and Bobby Flay did something on one of his shows.  It was the holidaze season and I didn't pay close attention to any of the recipes, but made my own version - that came out really really good.

In a skillet, with olive oil cooked down some (chopped up) spinach and (small diced) baby bella mushrooms with thyme, tarragon and sage - added some garlic near the end so it wouldn't burn.  Then I let this cool. After it cooled I stirred in a lightly beaten egg and some whole wheat panko - over working this will apparently create a rock in the center (don't remember whose advice this was)

Took a boneless/skinless turkey breast and butterfly cut it open and then pounded it until relatively even. Lined the cut side of the turkey with prosciutto. then spread a layer of softened Alouette garlic and herbed goat cheese, finishing it off with the spinach mixture.

I then rolled it into a log and tied it up, sprinkled some salt and pepper.  Seared it on 4 sides in a hot cast  iron skillet, then added turkey stock, covered it in foil and stuck it in an oven until done. The oven was about 400degrees - my oven isn't entirely accurate - need to use a thermometer for desserts- for about an hour.

Let it rest, sliced it up - thinned the stock that was left in  the pan with some fresh stock over low heat a few minutes with some more garlic, thyme and sage for an au jus kind of gravy.

This was supposed to post on jan 2.

If in Chicago - Giordanos

The Angie wanted to try Giordano's deep dish pizza when we were in Chicago.   I will admit to being skeptical, especially since Uno's was terrible, but she flashed her dimples and on our last evening we found ourselves in a Giordano's on South Michigan Ave.  We showed up at a good time, no wait for our table, waiter was nice.  We started out with the appetizer plate. The mushrooms were especially delicious.

We split a small pie with pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers.  It was delicious!

 

Hot Rods

Tuesday night we went to one of my top 3 favorite restaurants - Hot Rods in Wharton.  Where one of the best ciccerones (ok I have no idea how to spell that) works.  One of my pet peeves is a "craft beer pub"  that is 95% IPAs with a couple of sours and maybe a cider thrown in. Some of us don't like IPAs!!! Chris has a really great on tap list  - yes there are IPAs, but there are ales and stouts and other interesting things for people like me (as well as a pretty long bottle list)  I got a flight.

From left to right is Nitro Milk Stout (super smooth and creamy low abv of 6% I could drink a gallon), Great Divide Chocolate Yeti (9.5% abv- super chocolatey), Magnify Black Wheat (espresso, malty with some hoppy kick 5%abv - brewed in Fairfield NJ - and they have a tasting room... oh Curt!!)and Angry Erik (I don't remember which it is - they are located in Lafayette, NJ have a tasting room -BYOF - that's bring your own food - and they fill growlers and grunts!!!!)  The Angry Erik was like the perfect compromise between wanting an ale and wanting a bourbon.  I spent the entire evening with that one...

The one thing I HAVE  to have when going to Hot Rods is the bacon wrapped burnt ends.  Seriously the best food ever!! You can see the plate before I got to them in front of Curt up top.

I couldn't stop myself from taking a bite of my burger - ok several bites - before remembering to take a picture.  I got the Choppperblox - rare.  As you can see - they actually know how to make a rare burger ( I really don't trust the "freshness" of meat in places that won't do rare) topped with BRISKET and BACON, habenero jack cheese - I left off the onions.  Burger heaven!!  Seriously no need to decide if I want a burger or brisket when I can have both - and topped with bacon??  The bad day I had just melted away.  Curt had ribs. I was too busy eating my burger to take a picture of his dinner... oops

And yes - I was bad and had almost half of dessert... so worth it...

 

Hot Rods

We finally got to the new Hot Rods location (they moved maybe a mile)  Part of an old mill building,  there is lots of parking (always had to find somewhere to park on the street before) it's bigger, love how they kept all the bricks and everything in the decor.  The only drawbacks I can see to the location is that the traffic light two blocks away totally jams up during rushhour aka early dinner time, and it was cool last night - there is an industrial park down the road and a lot of tractor trailers went by on their way to I-80 - if they open the windows it could get noisy - did not look to see if the windows open. The other thing is coming out (or in) if you don't go down the ramp on the side you have to turn left at what looks like a loading dock to get to the stairs - I can envision inebriated patrons stepping off the ledge thinking there are stairs there.



My view of the bar.  The food is still amazing, there looks to be several new items on the menu (chicken and waffles anyone?) new salads, and in the coming soon section - burnt ends vodka sauce!  One of the things I love is their long beer list - and the cicerone has never steered me wrong!  Curt knowing full well how long the beer decision could take ordered appetizers up front.  My favorite  bacon wrapped burnt ends (heaven) and fried pickles.





Once I finally picked my beer and we were able to order - I had to tease Curt about being civilized... I usually drink mine out of the bottle unless it's draught, Curt though...



I ended up getting fish tacos - also great with cole slaw (you know you really have to like it to order it) and sweet potato fries:



I'm so glad I wasn't in the mood to cook Wednesday Night!!

Staring into my fridge...

Some people have menu plans for their entire weeks. Some even write the down, create a grocery list, go the the store, have everything on hand for every day.  Some people even do a lot of the prep work days ahead!!  I am not one of those people.  In my defense, I go grocery shopping every other day - because I go through a lot of stuff that doesn't store for long periods of time.  Mini-cucumbers, tomatoes, packs of "super greens", packs of prewashed salad green mixes, baby bella mushrooms... I do have a pretty decently stocked pantry and freezer that I work with.  Since the Angie has been gone though, I end up having  'extra bits'  either I end up cooking too much and we have to have leftover days, or I have to make dinner of leftover bits that need to be used or wasted.  The other day was one of those nights.

I made a one skillet, one oven dish chicken and bits dinner. First I turned the oven to 350 (it seems like a good default temperature)  I tossed about 3/4 of a pound of baby yukon gold potatoes in olive oil, herbs de provence , dill and a pinch of coarse sea salt.



In the skillet first I browned 2 links of chorizo broken up out of the casing with a handful of  quartered baby bella mushrooms.  I started on very low heat so the oil for the chorizo was enough to brown the mushrooms when I added them.



After adding them to the potaotes, I sweated out 1/2 an orange and yellow pepper, and a whole cubanelle pepper cut in large chunks.



After adding the peppers to the oven dish, I small diced a poblano pepper, 1/4 of a sweet onion, 3 garlic cloves  and the stems of 1/2 a bunch of rainbow chard.



After these started to soften I added the chopped leaves of the chard to the pan and to speed up wilting added a splash of stock after a few minutes.



Finally I browned 2 small chicken breasts cut into chunks sprinkled with poultry seasoning.



Once everything was added to the baking dish (chicken and sausage were still not cooked all the way through)  I covered it with foil and baked it for 30 minutes.  



It came out delicious and Curt took the leftovers for lunch 2 days after.     

 

North Jersey's Diner culture is alive and well.

First, I should say that just off the top of my head there are 9 diners in  a 5 mile radius of my house, may be more there are main roads I rarely use.  There's another opening soon.  One of the local favorites, the Hibernia Diner, was closed for a couple months for renovations. The Horror!! People were forced to go other places!!!  Curt and his Thursday bowling friends had to go... 2.75 whole miles to a different one!  Seriously though, it's not like there is a lack of restaurants you could pick from, unless you were with Curt and his friends looking for food late at night.  I personally missed the Sedonna Eggs Benny for breakfast out.

This is the before shot -windows are different and there are neon bands going down between the windows - also the sign changed.

They re-opened on Tuesday.  The local grapevine went insane.  The Angie in Philly knew it had "finally" opened.  Even Curt knew it opened!!  Since I got off work at 8pm (ok it was more like actually 8:25) we decided we would meet at home and drive over for a late supper.  At 9pm they were "down" to a 30 minute wait.  Apparently at one point the wait was almost 2 hours!!  The wait staff and kitchen crew were clearly overwhelmed, we left after 11pm.

The old interior decor


Curt got the Breakfast Burger - Applewood bacon, pepperjack cheese, fried egg and hash browns with the burger supposed to be on french toast - he got it on a bun.  I got the Southern Fried Chicken and Waffle Sandwich (they have regular chicken and waffle not sandwich too Grace!) The waffle was the "bread" along with the strips of chicken was bacon, mango aioli, spicy slaw with bourbon raisins  and candied pecans.  

  

Picture of Tuesday night from the Angie's facebook she sent me.


I just realized, I took the pictures on Snap chat and didn't in the subsequent 24 hours save them to my gallery...   Guess i'' post photos next time I go... sorry,  before pictures were from the interwebs.

Leftover Corned Beef?

 


I finally managed that elusive food - leftover corned beef!  Mind you - in order to obtain it - I bought 2 corned beefs - one was about 5.25 pounds, the other just over 2 pounds.  We had the smaller one on St Patrick's Day and some of that, plus the larger one was .. LEFTOVERS!!!!!

Last night we had hot corned beef with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and russian dressing on a mice crusty Russian rye (with seeds of course!)  But Sunday morning I made my chunky version of corned beef hash--- in a cast iron skillet - the best pan to make hash (You know who you are - yes, I'm pointing this out to you!  and Grace - don't get paranoid it isn't you ) 



the really tiny red potatoes- larger ones cut in half parboiled


some quartered/sixthed (don't think this is a word - but it's for the larger ones) Baby bellas


cast iron skillet with butter and olive oil heated  - I start the mushrooms first so they get a nice caramel and not weirdly waterlogged from the other ingredients.


add onion slices, lots of chopped garlic, red,yellow, green and poblano peppers


Some herbs de Provence - I like this brand - it's not overly lavender or rosemary spiced.






After this starts to brown - I barely smash the potatoes and put them in a layer on the bottom of the skillet (move stuff from half, put the potatoes down, put the stuff on top get potatoes in the other half) and press down so the potatoes get good contact to brown at the bottom of the pan. (this isn't a heavily potato hash- not a fan of the "hashes" that are basically meat flavoured potaotes)  I put large diced corned beef (when I make this from deli corned beef I have them slice it about 3/8" thick) and rough chop the carrots that I cooked the corned beef with originally,

  

I let them brown for a while before I turn, smash, let sit, turn, smash, let sit - until I decide they are done.



Then Curt got 2 poached eggs on his--- mine got properly peppered (never had a white egg white in my life!)