Chompasaur.us

Talked Jefe into letting me make him some latkes for brekkie a few weeks back – forgot I’d taken a snap of it.  Smoked salmon, sour cream, green onions, capers (only on mine), some applesauce and fresh sliced nectarines.  Heck of a way to start a beautiful Sunday.

Grabbed lunch with Mindy the other day at the tiny Mexi joint on the SE of 27th and O – back where that small used car lot used to be?  Really tasty, food priced cheap – especially for the servings sizes! – huge bottled sodas a little spendy, though.  Chips before meal were good, and served with a basic salsa, a salsa verde and some refrieds – first time I’ve seen that at a restaurant.

Does absence really make the heart grow fonder?  Oh, good.

Here for Post 100 I’m going to share my new love, the light of my life, the reason I wake in the morning…my new cutting board.  Ahhhh, it’s so gorgeous I could almost cry when I look at it.  It was hard to actually cut on it instead of just hang it on the wall and ogle it daily, but I did it.  I done broked it in.

It’s made of a combo of woods by woodsman extraordinaire, Chad Johnson (see him here hard at work making beautiful organs:  http://www.bedientorgan.com/meet_us.html)  According to him this board includes: Quartered White Oak, Quartered Red Oak, White Oak, Red Oak, Cherry, Maple, Mahogany, Walnut and Mordillo.  His standard cutting boards are around 9″ x 12″ x 3/4″, which he sells for $18.00.  Yep, that’s all.  I paid a little more for this one since I wanted it larger and thicker, but such fantastic craftsmanship for that price!

He also made this lovely serving board from 100 year old Sugar Maple, with Cherry dados.  Hommina hommina hommina – can’t wait to have a dinner or party and put something special on it.

He would love to make one for you too, and has given me permission to give out his contact information.

email Big Tree Woodworking at:  chadrak123@aol.com

or call: 402.540.2995

ORGANIC batter Blaster is the new craze sweeping the nation and I got caught in the wave. We actually headed out to the deep south Super Target and battled through crowds of uber tanned, designer coffee drinking, botoxed, highlighted, and manicured Jersey shore women in tapout shirts to grab a can of this located next to the eggs.

Nothing screams ORGANIC more than being dispensed from a pressurized can. I was expecting for the batter to come out fluffy and almost like whipped cream, but it was pretty batter like and spread out evenly on the cooking surface. I am not too skilled on actually cooking pancakes and had a few not turn out all that well, but eventually got the temp right and they turned out pretty decent. the edges got a little crunchy which seemed strange, but I am guessing there is a good amount of sugar in the mix. For ease of use this product is awesome, and that is the reason i would buy it again. Squirt and then run the tip under water to rinse. no measuring, mixing, and then having to clean up bowls and the other assorted hassles.

Cocktails of Desperation is a series of cocktails invented by Joshua, because he has a basement full of liquor that no one wants to order, so he has to come up with ways to pour it off and still make money.

Last night my staff was whining that it had been a long night, and they wanted to have a staff drink. Ashley says that every night, but this particular night i was feeling kind, so i decided to give in. However, being of the frugal sort, i decided to concoct something using stuff that never sells. Have to get rid of it some how. And thus was born “Grape Expectations”.

• 1 oz. Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine
• 1/2 oz. Bacardi Razz
• 1/2 oz. Bacardi Grand Melon
• 1/4 oz. of that godawful Limoncello from Iowa that you bought just to get the sales guy off your back for a couple weeks
• 3 oz. Fresh lemon juice*
• 1 oz. Simple syrup*

*You can substitute 4 oz. premade lemonade if you’re feelin’ it.

Shake that stuff up with some ice, and pour it into a cup with some other ice. You’ve got yourself a nice sweet ‘n’ tart drink for sippin’.

I had to run to Open Harvest for some nanners today, and by the checkout they had some new chocolates.  I saw that they were stone-ground and one even had Counter Culture coffee beans ground in with it, soooo…yeah.  I had to get one.

No kidding, this might be the best chocolate to ever melt on my tongue.  It’s rich in a way that doesn’t end up making you feel gross for it, the fruity, cherry notes make my tongue water – literally, water – and the slight grit in the texture is not offputting.  It’s really quite pleasant.

Sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but this tastes like food.   It’s just so utterly delicious that I’m either going to hide it and nibble tiny bits like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or I’m just going to have to buy a whole case online.

BONUS: (from the company website)

Taza Chocolate is completely vegan friendly. It contains no dairy, lactose, soy, soy lecithin, wheat, or gluten. Taza chocolate poses no risk to sufferers of lactose intolerance, soy allergy, or Celiac disease. Our chocolate contains many of the vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health, including iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and the vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E. And chocolate has more magnesium than any other food.

Not to mention, you can warm and drink this, or just eat it as-is.  If you’ve never been privy to the joys of a nice drinking chocolate (NOT instant hot chocolate, that insipid, watery, marginally-related imposter) this would be the perfect product to make your first foray with.  The website has some wonderful sounding recipes, including one with masa, which I’m going to try first.

A good roast beef hash sure fills the soul. Sometimes it is a bit of work to roast a beef, and Theresa would rather use the leavings for hot beef sammiches instead of hash when we make roast. I figured I would try a fast way to make some hash and chose between this prepackaged Hormel roast beef over a couple nice slices of roast beef from the deli.

Went with the plain in au jus one. The roast was flavorful, but was covered in a super beefy goop. When you have been working for years to perfect roasts, this is just not up to snuff.

The goop was just too much. The beef tasted awesome, but the goop made it have that flavor and it was just not up to par for us. Did two roasts over the weekend, in one pot. So we are going to have roast for day 3 tonight hash style. Will post.

Watched the most recent episode of Good Eats and at the end the Chicken Biscuit Pot Pie Alton made looked delicious. After the show was over and we looked at each other and communicated via brain talk that we would be eating that. Headed to our new secret Russeses and got some supplies. They did not have chicken sausage, but they had turkey and I grabbed it. I asked an older gentleman if vitamin A milk is whole milk, he thought it prob was, but prarieland sold whole milk so I was good. Then I spoke with 3 older ladies about aluminum free baking powder, none of them knew what it was and Russeses did not have it. Seems some folkk do not like the aluminum being in there for safety reasons, but it does not make a difference while baking.

We had roasted a chicken the day before and the recipe was pretty simple. Sage cost a lot, but I think it helped or something. We did not use the thyme. We are just not fans of thyme.

A couple weeks ago I finally remembered to mention ham steaks to Theresa as a new meat to work into our meal rotation. It has been in my head from Split Lip Rayfield singing about how many biscuits can you eat this morning? 49 and a ham of meat of course. We picked up a Cooks ham steak from our new top secret Russeses grocery with a box of scalloped potatoes. We are working on simpler meals for weekdays and I do not have to make everything from scratch I have realized. The ham steaks have been a hit and we only made it through 1/2 of one Tues night and I suggested making a hash with the ham leavings and Theresa agreed.

I used the mandoline of death to dice the potatoes really small. Cooked the bacon, wiped the skillet, threw the potatoes in there with some clarified butter and veg oil and started browning them. Onions were added about 5 minutes later, then the pepper, bacon, and ham. A bit of salad and garlic bread and that was one tasty meal in under 30 minutes. take that TV lady who makes sex sounds when she eats.