Catch Up and Reviews

Welcome back. I know it's been sometime since my last post, and I would like to thank you for not forgetting about me. I certainly haven't forgotten about you. During this time away, I've come across and made some pretty damn good food. In fact, so much so, it couldn't possibly fit into one blog post. So, what I have for you this time around is sort of a high-lite reel of what has been happening. Before I get to that, it's time for me to get a little personal.

For me, blogging is something I purely want to do. This isn't a need. I'm not getting paid from this, nor do I have lofty dreams of becoming some sort of writer. I do this because I love food and sharing it with others. Even if I only get 10 views a day on my page, I'm happy knowing it's out there for the world to look at.

While the thrill of having my food and thoughts floating around the internet does get the blood rushing, it also drives me crazy as well. When it comes down to it, I'm a control freak. Maybe it stems from being a chef, but I feel like if I'm going to put out a product, I want to be proud of it. I don't know how others do it, but it takes me a couple of hours to get down 1 post. The writing itself takes the longest. Then I attempt to proof read it. Then I make sure I have all the right pictures in the right places. Then I make sure I have all the necessary links set up. THEN, after all that, I publish it. That's when I have all the work of advertising on the numerous social media sites I'm plugged into. All this stuff takes time. And this, as they say, is where the plot thickens....

My time is extremely limited these days. Between work and family, there just isn't enough time in the day. I have to almost make a reservation with myself just to get on the computer these days. Lately, even when I do have the time, I might not even be in the mindset to sit down and write. I want to enjoy this, I don't want to write in a shitty mood. Even now, as I'm sitting here at the dining room table at 12:30am, I'm not in my usual frame of mind for writing. It feels a bit forced, to be honest. Forced or not, I'm doing this now, because I feel like my blog is slipping away. Plus, it's a good way to let my few readers know I'm still alive and kicking.

So, without further ado, lets get this freak show started! And what better way to kick things off than with a food FAIL!

That's right, I messed up some kind of way with the dish at the top of the screen. I was attempting to make a dish called Mofongo. To sum it up, Mofongo is a savory fried plantain mash. Guy Fieri goes nuts over this stuff on Triple D, so I figured I would give it a shot. I found what seemed like a good recipe and tried to follow it. When I was done making it, I just didn't like it. Maybe I over did the plantains, or maybe I added too much garlic. In the end, I just threw it out and chalked it up as a learning experience.

Speaking of Guy Fieri, I recently got the chance to go to a restaurant that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. The name of the place is called Momma Cozza's.

Before going, I had heard mixed reviews about this place. Some people liked it, some said the food was bland. Before I tell you my opinion, let me show you how the meal started:

Before the drinks even got to the table, this thing was plopped down in front of me and my lady. No ranch to go with it. No oil drizzled on it. Nothing at all to accompany these tired, worn out slices of vegetables that were probably cut the day before. Honestly, this is a goddamn shame.

The rest of the meal? Bland. I ordered some pasta with a vodka meat sauce and a small pizza. The sauce was very bland, needing every spice and condiment on the table to make it taste decent. The pasta itself was cooked perfectly. The pizza wasn't bad either, but there are better pizza options in the city.

Sorry Guy, I wasn't impressed with that place.

On a better note, I did have some bomb-ass food from Romano's Macaroni Grill.

The name of this dish was...sweet potato 4 cheese tortale-whatever-the-fuck. I can't remember. Plus, Italians keep renaming their food every few years to hide the fact that they haven't come up with anything new in CENTURIES! Sorry Italians, I had to spill the beans on that little secret. Please do not get mad to the point where you need to track me down and throw empty olive oil bottles at me. A simple hateful comment at the bottom will suffice. :-)

I also had a bowl of soup at a Corner Bakery. It was like a Loaded Potato soup. Some good shit! I would order it again!

I also tried a couple breakfast offerings from Taco Bell.

I didn't try both of these the same day, and my stomach and colon are happy I didn't do that either. I can be a glutton sometimes, but I have my limits.

The breakfast wrap is just aight. Not alright, ahh-ite! The one I got, I think they fucked up on. The hash brown was crispy as all hell! Normally, the center will still be a little soft with a crunchy exterior. The whole fuckin' thing was crispy, inside and out! It felt like they dropped it in the deep fry and forgot about it for a couple days!

The waffle taco may not be a pretty sight, but it didn't taste bad at all. They give you a side of syrup with it, but I just dipped the taco in the syrup as opposed to pouring it over the taco.

Like I said, the taco tasted good. Not great, but definitely not bad. My only gripe was that it was really greasy.

It's not the best pic, but my hand was glistening with grease! No driving and eating with this one!

That's about it for this one. I have to admit that my mood is much better now than when I first started writing this post. I hope I can get that feeling back a lot easier for next post. And let me tell you, I got some doozies lined up that will make your sphincter take notice! I'm not sure if that last sentence made sense, but I wanted to get the word "Sphincter" in here somewhere!

I'm out.

p.s. SPHINCTER!

Cooking Show Review: Heartland Table

Welcome back! What I have for you today is a review for a show that has quickly become one of my favorites on the Food Network. On a station filled to the brim with douche bags like Bobby Flay and Alton Brown, it's nice to see a bright spot every now and then. This time around, the bright spot is Amy Thielen.

When I first saw the commercials for this show last year, my thoughts weren't exactly good about it. "Just fuckin' great! Some mid-west, country bumpkin white woman tryin' to teach me how to cook. That's exactly what I need in my life right now! Thanks for nothing Food Network!" I had written this show off before it even premiered. So, how did I come around to putting this show on my blog? Well, it all had to with collard greens. Let me explain...

I have a tendency to just turn on Food Network and let it run, as long as the host isn't too annoying. One morning, I had the station on and this show began. I was on my phone and wasn't paying too much attention to the tv to begin with. That is, until, I heard on the tv she was doing a dish with collard greens. I put my phone down and hit the rewind button on the remote. Did my ears deceive me? Is a tv chef actually using a leafy green that ISN'T kale? It was true. IT WAS TWUE! Yes, that is a Blazing Saddles reference.

The other shocker(giggity) about this is the use of collard greens. Outside of the south, you don't see them used that often. With the host touting her mid west upbringing, again, I started to have doubts. "What dafuq this country bumpkin know about collards???" So, I quietly watched the episode, waiting for her to get to the greens with an anticipation filled with mixed emotions. Half of me was honestly curios to see what she was going to do with the greens. The other half of me wanted to see her fail miserably just so I could feel right about my early presumptions. I know that's not right, but it's where my head was at that time.

To start, the whole episode was about butter. I love butter, so in my view, the show was already off to a good start. When she got to the greens, and what she did with them, BLEW...MY...MIND!! To start, she melted the butter and cooked it with a bunch of spices. Then, she strained the butter from all the spices and cooked the chopped greens in the butter in a screaming hot pan. When the greens got tender, off the heat they went. She then plated the greens and added dollops of fresh ricotta to them. Simply amazing.

All my life, I've only seen collards cooked in a big pot with ham hocks. To see the greens treated this way was a serious eye opener. A week later, I tried the recipe myself and fell in love. Not with Amy Thielen, but the greens. They were absolutely divine! The spiced butter brings so much flavor to the collards. I didn't add the ricotta, but I didn't feel like I was missing it either.

The funny thing is, when I made it, I didn't even do it right. When I was preparing to write this, I looked at the original recipe and realized I was using a spice that wasn't even in the original recipe. Plus, I wasn't using spices that were in the original. Oh well. In any case, the technique is bomb! Remember that!

Here is a link to the original recipe.

I ended up watching that whole episode and was hooked after that. Each week, she comes with real recipes alongside great technique. Plus, she's not a bitch who can't stop smiling or has a head the size of a watermelon. She brings the skills without the gimmicks. For me, it's hard to not appreciate that.

She also has a cookbook out. I just found out about it, so I can't give an opinion on it, But I would like to take a look at it.

They recently started season two of Heartland Table. It comes on Saturday mornings. Be sure to check this one out!

I'm out.

The Arzak Egg

What I have for you today is something I had wanted to try for some time. I'm not sure what finally got me off my ass to make this, but I'm happy I did. So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to The Arzak Egg.

If you are wondering what the hell an Arzak egg is, don't worry, it's not some freakish egg pooped out by some endangered animal. It's really just a poached egg. The reason I'm using a different name for it is because the technique was made famous by Spanish chef Juan Mari Arzak.

So, what is this technique? If you want to get technical, it's like the sous vide process. In simpler terms, you are cooking the egg in hot water while the egg is wrapped in plastic wrap. Let me show you what I'm talking about.

The first thing you do is layout some plastic wrap. From here, you can rub a little butter in the center, approximately where the egg is going to be. You can add salt, pepper, and any other herb you want the egg to cook with.

From here, line a small bowl with the plastic wrap, making sure to get that buttery area at the bottom. Drop in the egg and proceed to close up the plastic wrap around the egg. You want to get as much of the air out of the pouch as you can. You can tie off the pouch with either cooking twine or another piece of plastic wrap. I just made a string out of plastic wrap and tied it off.

Now that my pouches are set, it was time to get started on the rest of the plate. As much as I like eggs, I needed a little something else to go with it. And what goes hand in hand with eggs? BACON, OF COURSE!!

Honestly, with the plate up I had in mind, I only needed 1 slice of bacon. But who in the fuck only cooks one slice of bacon? Not this guy!!! Don't worry, the other two slices found a happy home...in my belly!

While the bacon was cooking, I chopped up some Thai basil, chives, and a little roma tomato.

At this point, the only things I had left to do was to poach the eggs and make the toast. The toast would only take a minute or two, so I got going on the eggs.

While a traditional poached egg takes about 3-5 minutes, the Arzak egg takes about 5-7 minutes. When the water got to a warm simmer, I dropped the pouches into the water. They both sank like rocks to the bottom. I didn't want to play with them, so I just let them sit for about 3 or 4 minutes before I moved them a little.

While the eggs were going, I went ahead and made the toast. I cut the crust off of a slice of bread and toasted it in a pan with butter and dried sage.

At about 5 minutes, I went to pull the eggs from the water. I used tongs to grab the loose plastic from the top of the pouch. I lifted one out of the water to give it a squeeze and test how firm it is. It still felt a bit soft, so back in the water it went. When I tried the second egg, it fell right out of the plastic! My initial reaction was simply yelling "FUCK!" at a fairly loud volume. Then, I realized that the egg was holding it's shape and no yolk had spilled into the water. So, I just proceeded as planned and finished at 7 minutes.

With the eggs done, it was time to plate up. Before I get to that, I do have to mention that there was one item I made the night before and didn't get any pics of. That would be a chianti reduction. What I did was pretty simple: Take one cup of chianti wine and about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and slowly cook down the wine until it reduces to a syrup. That's it. If it's too thick when it cools down, just add a tiny bit of more wine or water to it to thin it out.

When plating, I started by drizzling the sauce on the plate first. Then, I sliced the toast square in half to make triangles and set those on the plate. Herbs, tomato and bacon pieces went down next.

Now it was time for the star of this show, the eggs. The eggs sat atop the toast. On top of the eggs, I put a tiny bit of salt & pepper, with a thin drizzle of EVOO. Lastly, the chives on top of the eggs. And that's it!!!

The real test is to see if that yolk is nice and runny. I wasn't too nervous cutting into it, but I wasn't 100% either. When I cut into it, this is what I saw:

It came out exactly as I imagined in my head. I took a bite with the egg, toast and sauce, and it was awesome. The chianti reduction was a little tangy and a little sweet. It added a nice balance to the richness of the yolk and buttery toast. The Thai basil and tomatoes were great co-stars in this wonderful production. The crispy bacon bits gave that nice element of crunch and saltiness. And the chives....shit, you can't go wrong with chives!

I felt like I really made an idea turn into reality with this one. It doesn't happen often for me, but when it does, it does feel good. What felt even better was some of the reactions I got when I posted this on Instagram(my handle is @chefjmiller726). A few people asked if I made this or if I ordered it at restaurant. To me, that's a huge compliment. While I try not to fish for compliments, it's always nice to get positive feedback.

In the end, I like this technique for poaching eggs. If you have ever had trouble with poaching eggs the traditional way, give this a try. You might just like it. A lot.

I'm out.