Eating in a box

I was invited to The Trailer at Gibson, an unassuming bar located on south Lamar. I didn't really know what to expect, was it another trailer restaurant? was it a bar? Anyhow, I was very happy to get a chance to see my food blogger friends. As always it was a pleasure to chat and catchup on their latest culinary adventures or new hotspots that they've uncovered. Ok, so a bit of explanation let's clear up the confusion. Gibson is the actual bar it's got a cool vibe, going for that NY neighborhood dive bar (kinda nice for a dive bar). Dark interior with some outside seating. The windows face lamar so you can go in for a quick happy hour and wait out traffic. Now The Trailer, is actually a trailer on the side of the bar that serves all the food for the bar. They just opened it during SXSW and have been open full on for six weeks. So to answer my question, it's both trailer and bar and I think it works. Our hosts tonight were Shag (pictured above) and Jourdan a couple...

Sorry for the intermission last week. I meant to post something but it was my birthday and my intended substitute post didn't happen because I decided to be lazy. It was an enjoyable birthday but it's good to be back. Anyhow, on with the show. I went with a light box this week I feel like I've jumped off the healthy rails a bit too far recently and this is my attempt to bring it back in. It's easy to get carried away since I no longer have a real mandate to cook healthy. But part of the challenge I laid down when starting this blog was to provide interesting, low priced, healthy meals. Our main protein today is a tarragon herbed chicken breast cooked sous vide. My other experiments with sous vide chicken breasts yielded some wonderful juicy chicken. I went on to quickly brown the outside (30 seconds per side) and got different results. Although still juice it wasn't the same texture difference. I think my preference is to go ahead and leave the chicken as is (witho...

Ok today's bento was brought to you by the fine folks at Heinz . I was sitting in a meeting and saw a little ketchup packet that proclaimed, "The worlds best meatloaf". I thought to myself, "that's a bold claim my little friend" which lead me to this link containing a small archive of Heinz ketchup based recipes. Flipping through various links, I was fairly impressed with what all was being made with ketchup and when I landed on the peanut butter cookies (yes made with ketchup) I knew I had to build a box around it. Not much in the way of tweaking this time around (only a bit in the soup) I didn't want any mishaps to be blamed on my tweaking, let the ketchup shine through! Ok I was going to go into a case between Catsup, Ketchup and the origins of both in terms of word and sauce. This appears to be very diffcult to ascertain and give correct information. There's various citations on the spelling of Ketchup (catsup, catchup) by 16th and 17th century ...

Whew a long winded title, I know. Ever since I bought the Sous Vide Supreme, I knew it was inevitable that I would try my hand at the Three day short rib. (I'll post on that more separately) the problem is that it's not a theme on it's own. I freely admit this bento was built around the fact I needed to make some short ribs that took three full days to cook. Heck even wedging the thing into the box created a layout nightmare for me. Fortunately I persisted in my endeavor and hopefully my eaters will enjoy. I needed to try to keep my bento some what light. I borrowed a recipe that I found from Paula Deen on Roasted Beets with feta. I really am intrigued by beets, I didn't grow up eating (read: forced to eat) beets, I find their slightly sweet flavor and texture to be quite nice. I understand that they are some sort of bain to the typical American kid, I cannot imagine why. The dish called for pitted olives and feta that provided the necessary salt to a typical variation...

Ok, so I broke down and purchased a Sous Vide Supreme some time back and I've used it on a couple of bentos (one coming up this next week). And as with all of my gadgets I wouldn't be doing it justice if I didn't put up a post / review on the device. As a disclaimer: No I didn't get this thing for free, I purchased it with my own hard earned money (yes I had to save up for it). I'm writing this based of my opinion and personal usage no one paid or asked me to do so. No, I'm no professional chef, I just like to cook (a lot), play with toys, and be a general science nerd. I would hope that my idol (Alton Brown) would appreciate and approve of this exception I'm making for a single use tool in my kitchen. Down to business! Sous Vide what is it? This is actually a very lengthy topic and I could go on and on about it, but you could just go here and read the reliable details and do a lot of google searching. Here's the elevator pitch: If you want a medium rar...

Today's lunch is a collection of vegetarian items that I've had in my notebooks that I had been meaning to try. It just so happens that they all had a Latino flair to them so today's "Vegimex"/ "LatinoVeggie" theme happened to fall in my lap. This is actually a fairly low calorie/low fat, gluten free lunch . As with most vegetarian dishes, there's a lot of interesting flavors and spices used to make up for a lot of the flavors that animal fat and protein bring to the table. Also, there's a lot of attempts to bring meat like texture (some successful, some not so successful), probably to help out the new vegetarians with the transition. I've always been perplexed of this mock tofu duck breast that was sold at a buddist monastery, is not eating a fake duck in spirit the same? It seems like it's a question of intent to me. Anyhow I'm sure I'll get some flame in the comment for saying that. Let's get on with the description. Fir...

Sorry about the drought in posts. I took a week off because I had family visiting, and it's a bit hard to cook for a crowd when you've got people underfoot. Today's offerings coming from cooking for a dinner party last week. I had all these fresh spices from the Indian grocery and I felt I should churn out another Indian themed bento. Lindsay from Apron Adventures once Grapefruit fairy now brings me a nice bag of Ataulfo Mangos. This of course played into my bento theme nicely and basically fixed my dessert. Big thank you to her for the beautiful mangos! It's very liberating cooking for my new audience. I've gotten a lot of restrictions lifted and my adventerous coworkers even requested to be hit with something spicy. Hopefully I don't disappoint with my Beef Vindaloo. I cobbled together a few versions and came up with this spicy dish that I slow cooked for eight hours. The beef was fall apart tender and the heat from the 40 thai bird chillies gave a kick that e...