Baked Pesto Eggs

Lightly butter ramekins-one egg per-and place the ramekin in an oven-proof dish.  Fill the baking dish (not ramekin) with warm water about half-way up the side of the ramekin to create a bath of sorts.  Crack an egg into each ramekin, sprinkle seat salt and black pepper atop the egg.  Next add grated cheese (I prefer a sharp white cheddar but any melty cheese that you enjoy will do) on the egg in one corner (see above photo), a heaping tablespoon of pesto in the other.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375, depending on your preferred egg temperature.  Store bought pesto will do, but if you have herbs handy and one of those mini food processors, it's super easy to make your own and extra delicious.  

 Serve with a slice of toasted baguette or whatever kind of bread you have on hand.  Eat.  Yum!

Pesto

1  1/4 cup toasted pine nuts 

      1 clove garlic

·     1/2 tsp. sea salt

·     1 cup (packed) fresh cilantro or basil leaves

·     1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

·     1/8 cup olive oil (more or less oil depending on texture desired)

·     4 Tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place all items in small food processor and pulse until ingredients are chopped to your desired texture.  Pesto is all about your personal taste and consistency and the ingredients are meant to be a guide where you adjust to and from.

Ode to the neglected "Blog"...

My poor, poor neglected blog.  I keep making promises to contribute to your existence and I keep failing you.  I'm going to try again, there really is no reason I shouldn't except that I hate your inconsistent formatting especially pertaining to fonts.  I've wasted hours on you trying to get things right and it's frustrating, Blogspot.  Please get it together?

My Zackarys-esque Pizza Experiment

pizza dough
4 teaspoons sugar (or honey)
4 teaspoons salt
16 oz. warm water
4 teaspoons olive oil 

1 packet yeast

32 oz. flour

Dissolve sugar and salt in the warm water in a large bowl then add the yeast and wait for it to ferment, usually 5-10 minutes.  Add the oil to the water mixture in the bowl then finally the flour and mix well with a wooden spoon until dough has formed into a ball. If the dough is sticky, add a little flour, it shouldn't stick to your hand.  If it's too dry, add a tiny bit of water.  All flours are different so you might have to adjust a bit on your own here.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl (olive oil) and cover with a dish towel, in a warm and dry place in the kitchen.  Allow dough to rise until doubled in size, your timing will vary.  Once the dough has risen, divide the dough in half and then each half into two pieces for four dough balls total.  One piece should be larger than the other (roughly 2/3 of the dough can be formed into one dough ball, and 1/3 formed into another).  Repeat with the other portion.  Wrap dough balls in plastic wrap and put them into a large zip lock bag or tupper-ware and refrigerate overnight (remember to use large enough bags or containers to allow for the dough to double in volume). 

The dough recipe is on par with the online recipe and it's killer.  I wouldn't dare to change it very much if I were you.  Where I deter from the recipe completely is my red sauce...I'm pretty keen on my recipe and have tweaked it over the years and it's pretty much my ultimate comfort foods. In other words, I stand by it.

red sauce 

One small sweet onion (white is fine if you can't find it) chopped

2 large garlic cloves chopped

3/4 cup "big" red wine (zin, cab etc) plus a little more for color to follow

Oregano

Dried Chili Flakes

Salt

Pepper

1 can organic diced or crushed tomatoes

White Sugar to taste

Sautee onion and garlic until they sweat, about 5-8 minutes on medium heat.  When they are translucent add the wine and cook all the way down until there is very little liquid left.  Season to taste with spices then add the tomatoes.  Simmer for 1.5-2 hours on low temperature.  With an emulsifier (I use the Oster hand held) puree the red sauce until your desired texture.  I prefer puree, but you could leave some tomato chunks if that's your thing.  Adjust flavor and color with a little more red wine, salt, pepper, oregano, chili flakes and a little white sugar if it tastes to acidic.

Remove one large and one small dough balls from the refrigerator and allow to warm for a half hour or so as you let your red sauce cool down slightly.

 Roll out the larger dough ball, eye-balling it to be slightly larger than your cast iron skillet (or pizza pan if you have one), with the edges hanging over.  Add your main "topping".  I parenthesis because it's not really "topping" in this style of pizza, it's "bottoming".  I used oven roasted chicken for the one pictured.  Four or so pieces of deli sliced provolone cheese on top of the chicken, plus fresh spinach and sliced mushrooms next plus finally a layer of Mozzarella cheese.  You can get creative with ingredients here.  
 

Roll out the smaller dough ball, it needs to be very thin, almost translucent.  Stretch it across the top and tuck it underneath the over hang, it should fall easily to cover the thin dough top.  

Spoon red sauce atop the pizza and bake at 475 for 25-30 minutes. 

Enjoy!

[The dough was adapted from a posted Zackary's pizza recipe on the Bon Appetit blog.  I doubled the recipe to throw some dough in the freezer to save time in the future, you can half the dough if you like but the sauce recipe makes just enough for two pizzas.  It's also great on pasta and it freezes well.]

Salmon with Spinach + Strawberry Salsa

Photo credit: me [taken from iphone]

Baked Salmon with Spinach and Strawberry Salsa

I added sauteed shallots to the spinach and cut this recipe in 1/2 to feed 2.  

It was incredible, can't wait until it's actually strawberry season to try it again!

Dirty Ashtrays

Photo credit: me/iphone

DIRTY ASHTRAY, the drink.
Ice cold Tecate(s)
Fresh limes cut in 1/2
Course sea salt (to taste)
Freshly ground (or not) pepper (to taste)
Tapatio or Tabasco (to taste)

Do not open the Tecate, squeeze a lime 1/2 atop.  Sprinkle salt and pepper and a few dots of hot sauce [be careful, too much and our lips will be on fire for hours].  Open can.  Drink.

Enjoy.

[this is not my idea, but these are my proportions.  Thank you, to the New York posse for many days and many nights, many laughs and maybe a cry but most definitely for introducing me to this doozy!  SADF and see you in April for AJ's Funeral!  Can't wait.  HA! <3 ]

Pineapple Upside Down Cake for the Queen...

I recently made this fantastic Pineapple Upside Down Cake that I found on Food Blogga for Queen Jeffrey for his birthday.  I also made Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes and substituted crushed pineapple for the rings which worked nicely.  Since Pineapple Upside Down Cake is Jeffrey's favorite cake, Jeffrey was pleased.  Thanks for the excellent recipe, Food Blogga!

photo credit:  me/iphone

Recipe

SXSW 2012

I'm getting excited for my annual SXSW party:

Friday March 16th

The third annual And So... SXSW Party at Spider House featuring bands and comedians from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denton, Austin, Detroit, Brooklyn, Washington DC, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Calgary, Vancouver, Mexico City, Paris, London, Melbourne...

Music : Thee Oh Sees + The Strange Boys + Kid Congo Powers + Sleepy Sun + Mikal Cronin + Bare Wires + Football + Blind Shake + Duchess Says + Dirty Ghosts + Grave Babies + K-Holes + Aaron Blount (Knife in the Water) + The Ketamines + Chapter 24 + Burnt Ones + Xray Eyeballs + Terrible Twos + Young Prisms + Laura Gibson + Kishi Bashi (Of Montreal) + The Darcys + Mean Jeans + Carnivores + Los Headaches + The Wrong Words + Throwing Up + Chains of Love + The Mallard + Magnetix + Lily Taylor + Blasted Canyons + Shimmering Stars + Adam and the Amethysts + Pets with Pets + Gardens  + Far Out Fangtooth + Dead Ships + Maus Haus + Guatanamo Bay Watch + Habibi+ Carletta Sue Kay + Boscoe DelRey + Sea of Bees

Funny Shits Comedy Stage: Chris Thayer + Anna Seregina + Nick Flannagan + Casey Ley + Chris Garcia + Denver Smith + Cameron Vannini + more TBA

Spider House is one of my favorite venues in Austin and I feel fortunate to get to have my party there again this year. Come early, get one of their fantastic bloody Marys', mimosas and/or some tacos. Ruby's BBQ is right next door and is incredible. Shake the night before off while you sit on the patio with a mellow early afternoon of beautiful music from Lily Taylor, Shimmering Stars, Habibi, Aaron Blount (Knife in the Water). Stay all day and see some of the best bands from all over the world that Austin has to offer you during SXSW week- on four stages within the Spider House. Almost a festival within the festival with 2 outdoor stages and 2 indoor; the beautiful 29th Street Ballroom, the large outdoor hatch shell, the garden/patio stage and the new indoor cafe stage. The venue has benches and seating, trees and is across the street from Adams Park if you need a siesta, to take a call or a meeting. Spider House is just 10 minutes from downtown; easily accessible by bus or taxi and decent parking if you are driving. In other words, it's the best!

Please note that the comedy show will be on the garden/patio stage from 9:30pm-12:30am.

And So... Friday, March 16th. No wristbands. No badges. No RSVPS. All Ages. 4 Stages. FREE.

Spider House + 29th Street Ballroom. 2906 Fruth St. Austin.

See you there!

[poster coming soon from Idiot or Genius?]

Facebook invitation 
https://www.facebook.com/events/100257953429697/ 

Panache (where I work) has 3 events each year (that will be announced soon) plus Michelle Cable's's annual Hangover Party each year on Sunday the last day of the festival at Beerland, another great Austin venue.   

: Carmelized Chicken [Clay Pot Style] :

Carmelized Chicken
[made in a small cast iron skillet]
½ lb Chicken Thighs

Sea Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

4 tablespoons Soy Sacue

2 tablespoons Water

1 teaspoon Rice Wine Vinegar

Juice from ½  Lemon

1 teaspoon Sugar

¼ cup dark Brown Sugar

2 tablespoons Fish Sauce (or more to taste)

1 small Shallot (sliced)

½ of a small Jalapeno (chopped)

Garlic to taste (minced)

Dried Thai chilies (chopped)(optional)

Cube chicken, add salt and pepper and set aside.

Combine Soy Sauce through sugar and set aside.

Place brown sugar in a small caste iron skillet and heat to boiling, careful to keep an eye on it as to not over cook.  Carefully add the fish sauce and still, immediately add the rest of the ingredients and cook to combine for a few minutes.  Add chicken and cook through.  Remove chicken with a slotted spoon and set in a serving bowl and reduce sauce as desired.

(Definitely inspired by Slanted Door's Chicken Clay Pot I've enjoyed forever from the first restaurant on Valencia, to the first Embarcadero location to the current Ferry Building.  If you haven't been to this restaurant, must go immediately)

Serve over steamed white rice.

Serves 2

Enjoy!

(annie)

Welcome back, Cooker: Dinner Party!

And... we're back!

Sorry for the lapse in BlogDollYa postings, I got distracted by too much (mostly great) stuff over the past 2 years. Technically, it is Chinese New Year today, so I don't feel I've let too much of this first month of this year of the Dragon lag . In some cultures, I'm exactly right on time for my resolution phase to begin, so I'm not feeling too bad for wasting the first 22 days of the year failing miserably at sober january. I've been urged/asked/encourage by a number of friends to blog about my exploits in cooking, traveling, music (three of my many passions) so here I am. I've also put out the word to a few friends who might want to contribute so you may be seeing a post or two from them.  Hit me up if you'd like to contribute?

==========

I've been craving a meal from one of my all time favorite restaurants anywhere in the world, Avalon (in Maui, Hawaii), specifically the whole Opakapaka served with a spicy Indonesian style black bean sauce for a quite a while and wanted to try a hand at re-creating it. As a former employee of the restaurant, I was fortunate to have chef/owner Mark Ellman send me the recipe via a facebook chat a while back, but never got around to utilizing it. I had an adventure around procuring some of the ingredients, fortunately sourcing obscure ingredients for uncommon dishes is one of my hobbies, so it wasn't all bad times. After the high of finally finding fermented black beans at Duc Loi , I ran into the problem of my timing this particular meal with my favorite local fish store, Sun Fat closing to observe the Chinese New Year. I looked around the Mission at a few other seafood stores but nothing compares to the clean, fresh array of seafood from Sun Fat. After walking up and down Mission Street, trying to find a suitable seafood store option, I decided to take a minute (and a much needed bathroom break) at one of my favorite bars, the 500 Club where Rachel Cohen made me a killer Bacon Bloody Mary and my attitude got the adjustment it needed. Since one can count on Whole Foods to have safe, clean and fresh fish and since the alternate Mission Street seafood options had the potential of poisoning my house guests (which didn't seem to be a very hostly thing to do) I caved and bit the bullet. I had to substitute Tilapia (which worked out fine) for the Opakapaka/pink snapper I was after but it was all fine in the end.

I invited a couple of friends over for dinner Saturday night and we started the evening with Lillet and fresh orange rind, Burrata stuffed Peppadews, Vietnamese shrimp and crab spring rolls with Nuoc Cham and Romaine Lettuce then moved onto Cauliflower soup shots before the main whole fish course. For dessert, I also re-created Mark Ellman/Avalon's Carmel Miranda, a fantastic light, fruit laden way to end a meal. It starts with a large dollop of freshly made caramel on the bottom of an oven safe plate, fresh fruit come next (I used pineapple, mango, blackberries, strawberries), plus few pieces of good quality chocolate strewn about on top of the fruit. Broil for 5 or so minutes then top the plate with a good quality Vanilla based ice cream. I looked high and low for Macadamia Nut Haagen Daz but settled on the Creme Brulee since I was out of luck on my first choice. It was fantastic.

I didn't take any photos, but it was my first go with all these recipes and will revisit them again soon!