I’m going to make this one short and sweet.

THIS is what I want to go back to Sully’s Side Bar for: SMOKEY GUACAMOLE with sweet potato chips (annnnd maybe some tequila too- hehe). They’re salsa was fresh and flavorful as well. Most of the appetizers are vegetarian friendly and can be seen here- Sully’s Side Bar Menu
I love me some Texas beers and Sully’s slings some of my favorites with 512 and LiveOak on tap. Gauc, sweet potato chips, tequila and beer; sounds like the beginning of a great happy hour to me! I await their announcement of their happy hour with baited tequila-longing breath

Teddy

Thrillist Review here
See what the Statesmen has to say here

I’ve had quite a few pickling cucumbers in my produce boxes from my Sunday farmers market and while I LOVE dipping them in hummus, I will NEVER turn down a good cucumber salad. This cucumber salad does not use any vinegar. I know that’s probably odd for most people but I like to use salt and muddle my cucumbers instead of dousing them in vinegar. One other note, if you haven’t toasted your own sesame seeds, PLEASE DO. There is such a tremendous different in flavor plus you do toast them in batches so you’re set for a couple of weeks (depending on how much you use). I wish I could do a side by side tasting via this website right now to prove my point. Try it once, you won’t by pretoasted ones ever again. *end rant*

The single serving recipe for this cucumber salad is as follows

2 small pickling cucumbers (you can use larger ones and increase all the ingredients if you’d like)
4-6 cherry tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon of salt (aka a pinch)
2 inches of daikon radish (can sub. w red radish)
1 teaspoon home toasted sesame seeds
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2-3 Lime leaves (can sub. lime juice about a teaspoon)
Cilantro

Grill the tomatoes whole. I grilled them for 3 minutes in a George Foreman grill. You do NOT want them to burst; they should just soften up. This can be done in a frying pan or skillet as well. When they are just about to burst, let them cool a minute and cut them in half. Thinly slice the cucumbers, sprinkle them with salt and muddle them lightly in a mixing bowl. Add in thinly sliced daikon, julienne lime leaves and cilantro, halved cooked tomatoes and the sesame oil. Sprinkle the top with toasted sesame seeds and it’s done.
As with all cucumber salads, the longer it sits the more the flavors marry but I didn’t intend to let this sit at all and that is why I muddled he cucumbers and grilled the tomatoes (so they’d still release their juices). Hence the “5 minute cucumber salad”.

Feel free to modify this recipe as you’d please but please, do enjoy!

Teddy

Thought I’d post a new recipe I made tonight just because I liked it SO much. I recently went to our local Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai market and picked up some Kaffir lime leaves. They are slightly different than regular lime leaves; they’re more potent and I LOVE them. This dish was my take on a Thai version of hummus. Now, I HIGHLY doubt this would ever exist in Thailand BUT it utilizes some signature Thai flavors/ingredients that most people adore.

Thai Flavored Hummus

1 1/2- 2 cups of garbanzo/chickpeas
1 Heaping Tablespoon all natural peanut butter (literally nothing but peanuts ground up; no salt, nothing)
1 Hot hatch chili (you can use any chili you’re comfortable with for spice. Hatch are abundant here now)
3-5 Lime leaves (if you’re using Kaffir only 2 are needed)
water (about 1/4 cup)

Add all ingredients except water into a food processor and blend adding water until you get to a thick hummus consistency. Done. Easy, peasy lemon squeezey.

I know it sounds odd but trust me, it’s worth a shot.

Teddy B

Shake in my beloved (512) TWO glass from their 2nd anniversary.

Taco Shack- Potato Egg Cheese taco with both their red and green salsas

Monday Lunch
No photo but I had fried tofu with a orange ginger soy sauce, brown rice and sauteed kale

Tuesday Lunch

Pumpkin Sage Macaroni

Wednesday/Thursday Lunch

A Chipotle Pinto lasagna (use corn tortillas instead of pasta)

Friday Lunch

I like to go out on fridays (or at least once a week) to get out of the office for a bit. This week I went to Lucky’s Puccias. They have amazing sandwiches on homemade bread using olive oil from the owners olive trees in Italy (forgetaboutit bc it’s SO good)

Friday night means Happy hour for me and I like to try new spots as often as possible. This week was HUGO’s. While the tequila selection was massive and the food looked good, it all seemed a bit pricier than I was used it for happy hour. They didn’t have an actual happy hour menu so you had to ask what was on special. I’m not even sure if there were any specials on food. The margarita I ordered was good and not too sweet (tho it was a different price than the website says). I’m glad I got to try some great tequila but I don’t think I’ll be rushing back for happy hour. There was nothing BAD at all. In fact, it was all pretty tasty. I just think that since there are places like la condessa in town, this place doesn’t compare. I suppose go here if you’re interested in trying tequilas (they have flights starting at 10 bucks) or if you want to try somewhere that is downtown but has it’s own parking lot.

Bar action!

I’ve not gotten used to taking dinner photos. We’ll how that works next time

I know no recipes have been included but for now I’m just happy to post again. If you want recipes feel free to let me know, I’ll probably start posting them again soon.

Teddy

Vegan Ceviche: hearts of palm, tomatoes and endive served by Whole Foods at the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival

I’ve been wanting to try them for a LONG time now and luckily WorldsBestFruit asked if I’d like a sample.

This little package contains tablets with 3 berries worth of freeze dried pulp. I have yet to try them but apparently you dissolve a half (or whole) Frootie on your tongue and everything you eat will be sweet. It look’s like the effect lasts from 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending mostly on what you eat.

I just wanted to hear MUST try tasting suggestions… Do y’all some? Ever tried them?
Any out of the norm ideas? (the only ones I’ve got are lemon, apple cider vinegar and Guinness)

Love to hear your thoughts and hope to try these with friends asap!

Teddy B

Anyone remember this SUPER old post from *GASP* 2006?!
HOW TO PEEL A GRAPEFRUIT
I’ve been enjoying grapefruit related dishes for a LONG time. I was invited to FINO to taste how they prepared grapefruit and I would have been crazy to turn them down. Funny enough, most of the people who attended all commented that they already had grapefruits at home.

A 5 course menu was set before us and I was surprised to find quite a few items were vegetarian friendly.

1st a Tomato-grapefruit gazpacho. Mine felt a little salty for my taste BUT this is something I’d love to recreate in the summer months. It gets so hot here in TX that I have to find motivation to do ANYTHING, including eat.

A salad of beets, grapefruit, burrata (Burrata is a fresh soft mozzarella), arugula, basil and drizzled with olive oil. WOW, right? Hands down the best part of the meal. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Apron Adventures has already recreated this salad at home.

The next few dishes involved meat and if you want to learn about them you can see them here. However, I’m skipping straight to desert and drinks.

Each dish was paired with a cocktail that utilized grapefruit in some way and there was even one wine served.

This was great wine. It was my favorite drink of the evening. * Note, FINO makes great cocktails and perhaps that’s why the wine stood out. I expected a great cocktail or two, not the wine.

rio star grapefruit & campari sorbet with honey and sea salt. I know it was just to cleanse my palate and it was SUPPOSED to be only a bite but I WANTED MORE.

Last course: vanilla panna cotta topped with a Rio Star grapefruit bitters gelee. I had the opposite problem with this dish, I couldn’t eat all of it. I WANTED to finish it, it was impossible. Not because it wasn’t delicious but because it was super filling and heavy. I’m not sure anyone finished it but most loved it.

Thanks FINO and Rio Star Grapefruit for starting me on a new grapefruit obsession!

Teddy

Can you believe it? The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is already coming up this year. I went a couple of years back and had a FABULOUS (if not a little muddy) time.
See?

I was able to attend a media launch of this year’s new logo at whole foods with my good friend, The Smart Kitchen. She’s got some great photos that you should check out from it, here.

Italian cream cake ball.

Austin Cake Ball will be part of the festival this year and after talking with them I was happy to hear a *RUMOR* that they will be coming out with a NEW cake ball for summer… The ROOT BEER FLOAT. They’ve only made it once before for another media event but it was such a HUGE hit it *may* come back again. Keep your fingers crossed, I am.
There was plenty of texas wine to be had but this was my favorite sample/sip/bite.

Unique spoons of adult jelly shots with muscadet, fresh grapes and goat cheese pearls. They we’re like a whole wine and cheese course in one bite.

The Texas Two Sip Blind Tasting.

As you can see, the bottles were covered. One was a texas variety and the other was non-texas. I chose the Texas varietal for all samples but one I believe. Even with the blind taste test my favorite TX winery won: McPherson.

Great event- yum

The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Events are March 31st – April 3rd

You can buy Tickets HERE

Busy day here.
Feel free to flip your lid over this foodie photo…

Pumpkin Spiced Austin Cake Balls from the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival Media Launch

http://www.austincakeball.com/

and

http://texaswineandfood.org/

*I should note my mom was worried about my plans to visit. By this point in my travelling career my mom has gotten the idea that most countries I go to have revolutions soon after I leave… so far she’s right. Apologies for the stress mom!

Wood-fired Egyptian flat bread

Woman making bread

Kushari from Abou Tarek. Yep, Anthony Bourdain went here and so did I.

(Youtube footage of Tony at Abou Tarek)

Rows of spices at the markets

Sweet potato (or yam, I’ve forgotten) fresh from the cart at the market

Tea with mint (Shai)

Me enjoying Shai

Nubian aged cheese and molasses with flat bread. I have to say I HATED the cheese but the molasses made up for it.

My BIRTHDAY cake. This is the first time I celebrated my birthday outside of the states and the fact that I still ate cake thrilled me

Zalabia- warm fried dough soaked in honey. If there were a perfume that smelled like this dessert, I’d wear it.

Buffet of appetizers including tahini, olives, cucumber salad, garlic dip (? didn’t catch the name), hummus and probably a couple other things I’ve forgotten.

Full yet?

Teddy B