I’m not one for a mixed drink. I have a few issues with them, mostly the alcohol content tends to be high and I’m a lightweight when it comes to drinking. I like my wine and know how much I can have without issue. Mixed drinks can sneak up on you, especially if made really well.

So Bob and I went out to dinner in St. Pete the other weekend just to get out. We needed something a bit different and that worked. While out at dinner, Bob had a drink that was surprisingly good. So good we decided we needed to figure out how to make it at home. We didn’t have any of the liqueurs at home, so the next time we went out looking for beer for Bob, we picked up the three that we needed. I’m a big fan of St. Germain, so this was not the hardest decision to make.

The question became – the ratios. Exactly how much of each should we use. I decided to try a basic 2-1-1 as a starter and surprisingly it worked.

So – our at home Menage a Trois or a French Twist as I like to call it.

• 2 tablespoons orange vodka
• 1 tablespoon St. Germain (or other elderflower liquor)
• 1 tablespoon Chartreuse (green is what our store had, and it gave it the correct color, so I would not necessarily look for the white)

Pour ice into a shaker and add the three liquors. Shake really well and strain into a small glass over new ice. Sip and enjoy.

This is a sipping drink and not one that can be quickly consumed. I didn’t end up finishing mine as it was a little strong, but it is a nice change for a warm afternoon.

It has been a while since I posted anything food related. Ok, it has been a while since I posted anything (as I am writing this on the same evening that I posted the last post). Between work, school and getting sick (hazard of working with kids) the month of January passed me by. But … I have a sandwich.

Bob and I tried a new French Cafe near us last month. This cafe has been in Sarasota for years, but only recently opened a second place closer to us. We decided to stop in one day for lunch and I had the most amazing sandwich that I decided I needed to recreate at home.

This is based on the sandwich I had at the cafe, but there are plenty of differences. I don’t have a good French baguette at home, but my grocery does incredible ciabatta bread. I like pesto, but I find kale pesto much better – something about the added peppery taste. I also have no idea how they actually made the sandwich, but I think I got the basic concept.

Roasted eggplant and tomato coated in balsamic and a little olive oil. Roasted red peppers, kale pesto and a pecorino cheese. This.  This makes a perfect sandwich.

It’s not fancy and it won’t win any awards, but I could eat this for lunch as often as I eat a tomato mozzarella sandwich. For the record, that is really often.

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Even with a little time off I can’t seem to get it together enough to update the blog before Christmas. Oh well, these things.

While I generally don’t eat meat these days, I haven’t given it up entirely because I’m a fussy eater and I like options. This means that every now and then, Bob gets a meat dish at home because I really want to try to make something. This week that was steam buns. My Asian market didn’t have the buns when I went to look for them. I looked in every section, on every shelf, in the freezer section, in the chilled shelves, etc. Nothing. No steam buns. None of those delicate pockets of goodness waiting to be filled. I did find steam bun flour, so I picked up that and decided to try my hand at making my own. 

The package directions were … unusual to say the least and not entirely written in English. To combat this, I also scoured the web to see if I could find a good set of directions for making steam buns and found one recipe that looked easy enough to follow. I didn’t follow either the package directions (such that I could make them out) or the BBC recipe exactly, but sort of combined them to come up with a dough that looked right.

Complicating my desire to make steam buns at home – I don’t own a steamer. I thought about baking them, I thought about trying to steam them in the oven, but in the end I came up with a method to steam them that actually worked. It’s my soup pot (or pasta pot or whatever – my large pot) with a thing I use to cook vegetables on the grill and a large glass lid. Much to my surprise, this actually worked!

For the filling, I went traditional – kind of. I had made pulled pork a while back when we had Mom and Dad over for lunch, and I still had half of that in the freezer. I went with a basic hoisin/soy sauce combination for the meat and did a quick pickle on some vegetables – red onion, carrots and cucumber. Quick pickle the vegetables, heat the pork with the sauce and add to the home made steam buns.

The verdict? The buns themselves were really close to the package ones, but definitely not as pretty. I also need to alter the recipe a little, such as using water instead of soy milk, and I may try the regular flour with yeast version. For the filling, I liked the sauce, but I need a little less meat for the amount of sauce I made (I used half of the pork I had in the freezer). So, it tasted good, but I wanted more sauce. It is all about the sauce. The quick picked vegetables were perfect – crisp, tangy and really well balanced with the buns and the meat. This was a really good first attempt, but something that I do need to alter, just a little, to get exactly right.

You can tell which are mine and which are Bob’s by the ratio of pork to vegetables in these. I have a little pork with a lot of vegetables while he has more pork and fewer vegetables. I’m thinking of using some of the leftover General Tso’s tofu that I made Christmas night (yes, we had homemade Chinese for Christmas dinner) as my filling for lunch today and leave Bob with the pork.

I am going to wait to post the steam bun recipe itself until I can perfect it, but the sauce is pretty simple:

• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

Mix well.

For the quick picked vegetables I used:

• 1 tablespoon mild vinegar (rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar)
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• pinch of salt

Mix well until sugar and salt are fairly well dissolved. Add vegetables (I did these as separate) and mix to coat. Chill for about ten to fifteen minutes.

Bob told me I can’t call this chili, but I disagree. He claims chili is more liquid-y and doesn’t have as many chunks in it. I understand where he is coming from, Texas style chili is almost all meat, cooked down to a very thick soup and spiced. But I grew up with a different kind of chili, one where meat, beans and peppers all played a big role in the texture and flavor. I know, there is a lot of debate about chili and what it technically is, but I’m calling this chili in large part because the recipe it is based off called it chili.

We had a cold front come through, complete with a very cold rain that felt a little like icicles falling on your skin. This didn’t last, but it did get me in the mood for winter type food, and chili is definitely a winter food. I thought about making Bob super happy and making a traditional meat chili, but that would not make me very happy (and he is already getting hosing pork buns as soon as I manage to make it to the Asian market). I found a Jamie Oliver recipe for sweet potato chili and thought it looked interesting – minus some of the seasoning, the black beans and flour tortillas for the chips. But receipts are a suggestions, a starting point, so that is what I did.

I started with the basics of his version and changed a few things. Rather than use a dried or fresh chili and garlic, I went with chili garlic sauce. I really dislike blackens, so I substituted pinto beans. I like cheese on my chili, so I added that. Corn tortillas made great chips, so I swapped them for the four ones he recommends. I didn’t have smoked paprika on hand so I used regular paprika and two drops of liquid smoke. It worked. I really loved this chili. It may become my new go-to chili. And maybe, since I love this one so much, I’ll make Bob a meat chili so he can have his own.

Recipe:

• 2 scallions
• 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
• 1/2 pepper – orange, yellow or red
• 1 sweet potato (small to medium)
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 2 drops liquid smoke
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin seed
• 3/4 cup diced tomatoes
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth
• 1, 7.75 oz can pinto beans, drained
• 2 tablespoons plain greek yogurt
• 1/2 lime
• 2 corn tortillas
• 1 teaspoon chopped cilantro
• shredded cheese mix
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• rice for service

cook rice per package directions

Heat over to 350. Roll tortillas into a log shape and slice to create threads. toss with a little bit of oil and salt and bake for about 8 minutes – you want them crispy but not burnt.

Slice scallions, separating white/light green parts from dark green parts. Dice the pepper and grate the sweet potato.

Heat 1/2 teaspoon oil in a pan. When hot, add white/light green scallions, paprika, chili powder, cumin seed, chili garlic sauce and liquid smoke.  Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly, about two minutes.

Add pepper and sweet potato. Stir to combine with spices. Add tomatoes and broth and mix well. Season with salt and pepper then bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low/low and add beans. Mix and cover. let simmer 15-25 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add dark green scallions, yogurt and lime juice. Mix well.

Layer – rice, chili, chopped cilantro, tortilla strips and cheese. Serve hot.

*recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Sweet Potato Chili. (I forget where I found it originally.)

And just because they are cute ….

After almost a decade in Florida I have finally had success with the garden. For the first time since I left Jersey, I have actual home grown vegetables that I can eat. It is so exciting to me that I got a little giddy. Yes, that tells you something about how exciting my life is that I get giddy about vegetables, but there you have it.

I really missed good tomatoes. The kind of tomatoes that actually have flavor. The ones that taste like sunshine – you know, Jersey tomatoes. These are not Jersey tomatoes, but they have actual taste, actual flavor and there are more on the vine! I didn’t get a ton from the first picking, but enough that I decided to make a quiche.

I was pretty excited to have enough vegetables to make stuff with and I decided that the kale and the tomatoes would make a great brunch dish. I picked all the vine ripe tomatoes I had (just a handful, but that was enough) and a few kale leaves and combined that with a small shallot to make the filling for the quiche.

I stuck with a basic recipe and didn’t try to do anything fancy with it. Soften and slightly caramelize the shallots in a little butter, add the kale and cook until bright green and wilted. Season with salt and pepper and add the tomatoes.

I started with my basic pie crust, par baked for ten minutes to prevent the dreaded “soggy bottom” that always gets contestants on the Great British Bake Off in trouble. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, go you-tube and search … warning, the show is addictive.) Once the crust was baked I added the vegetables to the crust, topped with some grated gruyere cheese and then added the egg/milk mixture and baked. The results were fantastic!

Bob and I had the same reaction – we wanted to find fault with this. We wanted it to need something like bacon (or eggplant bacon in my case) but it just didn’t. It had a really good depth of flavor, a good bit of egg taste, the sweetness from the cheese and the freshness of the vegetables. We both went back for seconds.

Recipe:

• handful cherry tomatoes
• handful of kale (maybe 2 ounces??)
• 1 shallot
• 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
• 4 eggs
• 150 ml milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pat butter
• 1 pie crust
  • 1.5 cup flour
  • 1 stick salted butter
  • 3-5 tablespoons water

To make the crust, mix flour and half the water in a food processor with a dough blade. Mix and add butter, one pat at a time until incorporated. Turn out onto floured surface and form into ball, adding more water if needed. Roll out into large enough circle to cover pie plate, press into pie plate and place in freezer until over heats.

Heat over to 350 degrees. Once hot, par bake the pie crust, ten minutes. Be sure to fork the crust to prevent air pockets.

While crust cooks, thinly slice the shallot and kale, cut the tomatoes in half. Heat one pat of butter (1/2 tablespoon) in pan and once hot and melted, add the shallot. Cook stirring until soft and slightly browned – three to five minutes – over medium heat. Add the kale and cook, stirring until soft. Add salt and pepper to taste (add more than you think you need so you don’t need to add more to the egg mixture). Toss in tomatoes and mix together.

Spread the kale mixture into the crust, forming a relatively even layer. Top with 1/2 cup grated cheese. Mix 150 ml milk with 4 large eggs and beat to combine. Pour egg mixture over the cheese and kale mix and return to the over. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, covering after 25-30 to prevent the crust from burning. Check that the eggs are cooked by using the toothpick method. Remove from oven, let sit for a few minutes then slice and serve.

*recipe for the quiche adapted from Food.com basic quiche recipe.