Fun With Your Food

I’m probably one of the last foodies from Austin to try Odd Duck.  It’s been open since January 2010 and I’ve yet to officially post on it. You can read other reviews here:

Edible Austin

Foodie is the New Forty

Austin Farm to Table

I should hide my face in foodie shame right?  That’s just me, 6 months late hahaha!

What makes most foodies in town  go gah gah over this place?  Odd Duck serves LOCAL and SUSTAINABLE food. The menu changes from week to week based on what is is season in town. FUN!  They also tend to sell out (especially the veggiw options) every day as well, so get there early! The owner, Bryce Glimore, has worked around town at both Wink and Moonshine.  Bryce has a family linage of food and with local food principals it’s no surprise that this venture is a huge success.

Beet salad with goats feta, baby arugula and sweet onion.

I wonder if they slightly pickled the onion on this one.  They must have because it had such a mild flavor. This was a refreshing take on a bruschetta type dish. The beets were mild and sweet and the peppery arugula was soothed by the creamy feta. It makes me wish Odd Duck had a set menu so I was able to reorder it!

OH. On a side note, I over heard someone else ordering and Odd Duck will modify orders to your tastes (ie remove meat).  Great news for vegetarians, no?

Fellow foodie friend Dining In Austin,  aka Mariah. You have to get those food pictures just right…

Grilled zucchini bread with grilled Texas peaches, goat cheese and ribboned zucchini.

One of the best mild desserts I’ve had in Texas.  At times, desserts can be too sweet and in-your-face for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I nom some triple dark chocolate brownies sometimes but mild sweet is refreshing as well. The balance of the sweet bread, tart, creamy goat cheese and sweet peach was superb.  All for $4 too. Yes, may I please have another? Mmkaythanksnow.

Teddy

I’ll be heading to Southern California for a visit soon.  That means I’ve been avoiding the grocery story like the plague and desperately trying to use anything perishable in my home.  My greens are pretty much gone and I’m left with carrots, onions and an insignificant amount of lettuce.

once the temperature gets above 85, I want spicy food so chili was in order.  I call this an “eastern” chili recipe because I use lentils with my beans and a few non traditional spices.  The lentils provide an enjoyable, more meaty, mouth feel in the chili.  Again no real measurements but the chili included the following items:

Pinto beans, red lentils, green lentils, carrot, onion, homemade canned tomatoes (from a great friends garden!), chili powder, smoked sea salt, Garam Marsala, cinnamon, and red pepper flakes

Unfortunately I made a TON of it. I’m pretty sick of chili even though this is probably my favorite chili recipe to date. Perhaps I should freeze the rest so when I want it again in a month, I won’t have to make another batch haha

I leave in about 48 hours and I think I’ll do a pre packing run through today.  The weather in SoCal is going to feel freezing compared to the 90+ days I’m used to. Lucky for me it looks like a heat wave is coming in SoCal.  It might get to 78 in Huntington Beach for ONE day of my visit.  5 bucks says people complain that it’s too hot hahaha.

Talk to you soon!

Teddy

Blue Note Bakery is a custom cake shop here in Austin.  Mariah, from Dining In Austin,  set up a tasting for local food bloggers and you better believe I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t realize it, but this is where BFF Cara and Mike got their wedding cake. THAT was a good cake.  I must have eaten a 1/4 of it haha (there were a lot of left overs!)

WARNING: SUGAR OVERLOAD begins NOW!

When we first arrived, Angela was setting up everything in the back so the group thumbed through photo albums of past cakes and photographed the display cakes.  Once everything was set up we had a talk about the shop and how it’s different from normal bakeries. ALL cakes are custom made; we saw everything from traditional white wedding cakes to party cakes of coolers with beer and even a RoboCop riding an unicorn cake.  The conversation moved toward the importance of local ingredients and Angela told us that she has her own chickens and she uses their eggs at her shop.  How cool is that? It makes me want a chicken haha She only has about 20 and they roam around her yard.  If she needs more eggs she knows a couple of kids down in austin who take care of chicken and she buys from them.

They also make their own fondant, so it actually tastes good.

Count them- SEVEN.  Seven cakes for us to sample.  I took pictures of each so I could remember what I was eating!

Tie Dye Vanilla, Orange Ginger, Gluten Free Chocolate Hazelnut, Pistachio w Espresso Buttercream and Honey Fondant, Chocolate Orange, Red Velvet, and Chipotle Chocolate with Salted Caramel Buttercream.

PHEW! And those were just the cakes….

The DIY frosting table.

I didn’t write down all the frosting- there were eleven of them! I remember my favorites though.  All are homemade (of course).  My top 3 were- Strawberry, Baileys Buttercream, Peanut butter.  The idea was, grab your cakes then choose the frostings you wanted on each cake.

I was a little overwhelmed with all the choices and eventually just made dots of frosting on my plate so I could try them all on their own.  Some of them didn’t even need frosting IMO.

My two favorite cakes

The Chocolate Chipotle

Pistachio w Espresso Buttercream and Honey Fondant

SALT was all I could think about after eating all that cake.  I wasn’t even hungry but I needed something to balance out all that sugary sweet cake. A group of us went out to TexMex to round out the evening.

What a great nite!

Teddy

Blue Note Bakery

Jalopys is a new trailer that serves sandwiches.  Now most of their menu was roasted chicken so I almost didn’t go because what can I eat, ya know? Luckily, they definitely will be having veggie sandwiches and they whipped up one of their prototypes for me (more on that later).  First, there are a few non food related things that I liked about this new trailer.

1) The owner hired all local artist to decorate the outside of the trailer.  Each artist is provided a section and while they’re not told what to paint at all, there is a quirky  eclectic feel to what I’ve seen so far (they weren’t done when I visited).

2) The sandwich drop. Again, it’s quirky and adorable.  I’ve also been told a free oatmeal cream pie sandwich or two have slid down for some customers!

3) Anyone could have a standard rack-o-chips for people to have with their meal but Jalopy’s has homemade veggie chips with different flavor choices.

Sprinkle on chips fresh from the frier and POOF- homemade BBQ chips

We spiced it up with some hot sauce too (on the chips of course).

Spicy black bean sandwich with fennel salad. Warning, if you don’t like spicy, tell them when you order. I happen to love  spicy. The fennel was my favorite part of the sandwich. I thought of one suggestion though, grated fennel would be easier to eat and still provide that crunch.

So the owner mentioned he’s looking for new vegetarian sandwich ideas. He probably isn’t ready to commit to tempeh or tofu (it IS a roasted chicken sandwich shop).  Any suggestions?

Teddy

Jalopy on twitter- http://twitter.com/jalopyaustin (more…)

If you get the chance to do any berry picking this spring/summer it’s possible you may have TOO MANY berries.  It’s exciting and very easy to be overzealous with your picking. I am guilty of this and thus, I make jam!

Most of the jam recipes I found required a LOT of sugar and that’s not really my thing. I searched for recipes that used agar agar and found that most used a fraction of the amount of sweetener. I went with honey has my sweetener but you can still use sugar or agave.

The amount of strawberries left were enough jam to fill a little more than one jar. I only had a pints worth of overripe strawberries.

Sampling the jam on a gingersnap cookie shaped like the state of Texas

Ingredients

1 pint overripe strawberries (1 FULL cup sliced/hulled)

1 large lemon (juiced and zested)

H20 to cover berries (1/2 – 1 cup)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup chopped mint (or more-whatever you’d like)

2 1/2 teaspoons agar (let this bloom like you would gelatin)

Add all your ingredients except the agar into a pot and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil uncovered and reduce for 10-15 mins or until your strawberries have begun to break down. Add the agar, stir it in well and let boil for another 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.

You can ladle this into sterilized jars or unsterilized ones (these wont last as long but i doubt you’ll have the jam around too long anyway). So far I’ve had this with cookies, in oatmeal, on vanilla ice cream….  I enjoy the tang of lemon and the sweet of the berry in the recipe.  Feel free to make changes and let me know if you like it!

Teddy

Yep, I’ve got a certificate that says I’m a certified natural foods (macrobiotic) chef.  Wow- how’d that happen?! The year and a half has FLOWN by.

Two days before my graduation I helped with a catered meeting of our schools teachers.  I wasn’t able to get a lot of pictures but aren’t these cookies exquisite?

Almond Jewel Cookies (not my recipe)

Teaser recipe!  Sorry, it’s not mine to give out

My big day! One of the graduates made corsages for us out of wild flowers she picked. How nice, right?  Cara and Mike came and cheered me on, too.  Nothing better than a group of great people, nourishing food, and a new certificate.

Graduates strike a pose!

Once it’s on paper it’s real right?  The whole thing is surreal to me still.  I have one more thing to do before I graduate; my cooking demo.  I’ll be making a no-bake vegan version of my grandma’s blackberry and custard pie.  The date isn’t completely set but it is open to the public (so anyone can come!) and I will be providing samples for everyone!  Of course, I’ll send out an invite as soon as the date is set.  I’m hoping a few of my friends can come to help with my nerves! lol

things to look forward this week:

strawberry jam recipe, a new trailer review and MORE

Happy Monday

Boy am I behind on here!  Yesterday I made some strawberry lemon and mint jam with all of my overripe, leftover strawberries.  It is ah-mazing. I’ll have to share the recipe with you; I just haven’t taken photos yet.

PB & J oatmeal

I’ve been finding excuses to use it in everything.  For instance, this mornings breakfast was oatmeal PB and J style. I haven’t had oatmeal since winter.  It’s sooo filling that I didn’t eat lunch until 1.

Lunch:

crustless quiche

These crustless quiches are different from ones I have made before.  They’re a mixture of arame, sauteed onions, and kale.  I had to use the last of the kale I bought at boggy creek and this seemed fitting.  The quiche are so rich that I really enjoyed the freshness of the steamed kale next to it.

I’m still waiting on posting pictures from my graduation because I have it on good authority that one of my classmates has AWESOME pictures.  She promises to put them online soon… (fingers crossed people!) If I don’t have them in a few days I’ll just put up my own.

Look forward to a low sweetener jam recipe!

Teddy

Boggy Creek is a small organic farm that sells it’s produce directly to it’s customers in Austin. While it’s a little pricier than something at a chain grocers, the experience of going to the farm is fantastic.  You can literally see your vegetable/fruits being picked minutes before you buy them.  You can also wander the farm grounds, say hello to their chickens (they sell eggs), or snap a bunch of photos like I did.

What I bought:

Kale is probably my favorite type of green to eat.  I’m also partial to arugula and watercress right now too.

The peppery flavor of arugula is what keeps me going back for more.  I use it in simple salads, on sandwiches, or throw some in at the last minute with a noodle heavy soup.

This was my new experimental purchase.  I’ve had escarole in restaurants but haven’t taken it home much to play with in my own kitchen.  The bitter flavor puts some people off so beware if that’s not your cuppa tea.

I was in desperate need of greens so I went a little crazy.  Since I’m cooking for one, I see a LOT of green meals in my future. After shopping I relaxed and roamed around the farm with my camera.

Hanging garlic to dry. I can’t say I’ve ever seen the process of drying garlic. Pretty neat, eh?

Love the number of gloves hanging from this porch! This is definitely a farm home.

I graduated from culinary school this weekend, attended a birthday party, a murder mystery dinner party, a brunch and was able to make a dish for a potluck.  My graduation warrants it’s own post so I’ll be showing off pictures from that tomorrow.  The herbs I planted a few weeks ago need to be re-potted and I’m excited to go shopping for supplies today. Mondays are always hard for me. I’m so excited for the new week that I plan/try to do a million things at once. My list is already far too long today but I’m optimistic I can make a sizable dent. Hope you mark a few things of your list today too!

Teddy