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Posts tagged with food

Vacations, Morons, and Encased Meats

On the Hot Doug’s website (at least on 2012-02-01):

William Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s best-known and most popular authors, wrote, “I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.”

William Robertson Davies was a moron.

THEREFORE …

HOT DOUG’S WILL BE CLOSED FOR VACATION

I love me some Hot Doug’s.


Winter White Bean Stew Recipe requested by D.G. 1 large yellow onion chopped 1 large or 2 medium sized baby bok choy, white parts chopped, greens leafy parts sliced 1 can of white beans rinsed 1 cup of stock or water or more for thinner soup 1 TB olive oil Black pepper, salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, red chile flakes, and garlic powder. In a dutch oven or pot, sauté onion in olive oil until beginning to caramelize. Add the white parts of the bok choy and cook until fully cooked through and translucent. Add beans and spices to taste. Sauté for about 2 minutes. Add stock and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add sliced leafy parts of the bok choy, stir and bring back to a simmer. Serve with crusty bread and strong stout or porter. Makes about 2 bowls. Easily doubled. Use other beans or greens. Mix and match. Freezes well, but reheat slowly in a bit of water.

Winter White Bean Stew

Recipe requested by D.G.

  • 1 large yellow onion chopped
  • 1 large or 2 medium sized baby bok choy, white parts chopped, greens leafy parts sliced
  • 1 can of white beans rinsed
  • 1 cup of stock or water or more for thinner soup
  • 1 TB olive oil
  • Black pepper, salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, red chile flakes, and garlic powder.

In a dutch oven or pot, sauté onion in olive oil until beginning to caramelize. Add the white parts of the bok choy and cook until fully cooked through and translucent. Add beans and spices to taste. Sauté for about 2 minutes. Add stock and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add sliced leafy parts of the bok choy, stir and bring back to a simmer.

Serve with crusty bread and strong stout or porter. Makes about 2 bowls. Easily doubled. Use other beans or greens. Mix and match. Freezes well, but reheat slowly in a bit of water.

“  A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors-in all likelihood, a couple of dozen-and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh.” — Waldo Jaquith on the impracticality of a cheeseburger via Kottke

Grade B

Making the Grade: Why the Cheapest Maple Syrup Tastes Best - Yoni Appelbaum (The Atlantic)


If Pigs Had Wings

On pig wings, John T. Edge for the New York Times:

Like butchers, cooks and restaurateurs before him, Mr. File believes in the power of euphemisms to popularize culinary oddballs. Mountain oysters sound more appetizing than calf testicles. Picnic hams sell better than pork shoulder roasts. And would Applebee’s be selling millions of riblets if they were more accurately identified as the transverse processes of lumbar vertebrae left over from the boning of pork loins?

Filed under there is no TGS.


Does Wisconsin Require Apple Pie to Be Served with Cheese?

Nope. But…

The 1935 Laws of Wis., ch. 106 came close; it required serving a small amount of cheese and butter with meals in restaurants (effective from June 1935 to March 1937). … that was the first Wisconsin law with a sunset provision, i.e. a legislated ending time.

BTW, Apple pie and cheddar cheese is awesome.


Kindle Cookbooks

I noticed that Amazon has a handful of Cook’s Illustrated Kindle cookbooks priced between $5-10. Not a bad thing to have in your pocket.


Eating Social Media

AJ Bombers, Milwaukee Institution.

I mean to post about and go more to AJ Bombers than I do (this post has been stuck in the queue or a while). The restaurant’s success serves as a predictive example of how online interactions can help what seems like a simple old-fashioned brick-and-mortar business (selling hamburgers) by generate face-to-face interactions for profit.

Everything is an internet business now. Everything is socially networked. Some nodes just have out degree centrality scores of zero.

Alright, that was geeky. The burgers are tasty. If you’re from Milwaukee and you’ve never been, go there.

See also owner/innovator Joe Sorge’s book #TwitterWorks and Wikipedia entry.


McOatmeal

Mark Bittman on a “bowl full of wholesome”:

Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin.


Black Bean Soup

2 small-medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1 small can diced green chiles
1 small can sweet corn with liquid
1 large can black beans, rinsed
~ 2 cups stock or water
1 bunch green onions, sliced
2-3 TB cilantro, chopped
Sour cream for garnish

Sauté onions slowly until edges brown in plenty of olive oil. Add garlic and cook through. Add chiles cook 2-3 min, then corn+juice and beans.

Season with pepper, white pepper (1/4 ts) garlic powder (1/4 ts), nutmeg (1/8 ts), cayenne powder (1/4 ts or to taste), and cumin (1/2 ts). No salt though. Cook and stir well 2 minutes.

Add stock and water until bean mixture is drowning. Aggressively simmer until desired consistency is reached, 15-25 minutes. Add more or less stock. Adding 3-4 cups stock and cooking longer does well too as long as stock isn’t too salty.

Stir in green onions and cilantro. Turn off heat. Serve warm in bowls with a dollop of sour cream (or crema or creme frache), a few cilantro leaves, and tortilla chips. Makes about 2-3 main course portions. 4-6 small portions. Easily extended by serving over rice or doubling, tripling recipe.