Sunday, February 19, 2012

VOTE for our Papaquiles to be served at SXSW.

***UPDATE*** We won! Papaquiles for everyone! We are humbled and honored that our breakfast dish will be served at SXSW from the Today food truck. Thank you to Today Food, our hometown helpers here in Austin, our Seattle auxiliary, all our wonderful friends and family, and everyone on this big ol' earth with a computer and internets that voted for us! We would like to feed you! Exclamation points! (DEEP BREATH.) We'll let you know when the official announcement will be made on the Today Show on NBC, and when we go up on the Bites/Today page on MSNBC.com. Exclamation points! !!! !


Image © Today Food




The Today Show's food page on Facebook has a recurring Home Chef Challenge where recipes are submitted to fit a specific theme. The latest, an homage to Southwestern-style breakfast, was right up our alley. From the submissions, three recipes are chosen as finalists and then voted on by the general public  (you just have to "like" Today Food on Facebook to be able to vote). The winner's dish will be served by the Today Food crew out of a food truck at this year's SXSW Music Festival in Austin. 

I'm a proud papa, because our papaquiles recipe is one of the three finalists. 

So, now we need your help. Click here to vote for the hometown favorite... papaquiles, through Friday, Feb. 24.

But please don't do it just for us. Do it for the hash browns, the salsa verde, the onions and sour cream, and the runny egg that all aspire to be something bigger than they are. Do it for the harried, the hungry, and the hungover of SXSW. Do it because it's an original, and a delicious original at that. Do it because you know it's the right thing to do. 

Do it because real cowboys don't eat frittata. 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The Flemish flourish.

Carbonnade flamande over horseradish mashed potatoes. © Ryan Schierling
The winter weather here in Austin has me supremely torn. I love that I can wear flip-flops, jeans and a t-shirt to the grocery store when it's a seemingly-freakish 70-degrees mid-January. But, there's a part of me that absolutely hates it's mid-January and I'm making salads and agua fresca instead of a fiery chili, a hearty rib-sticking ragu, or Julie's ghetto mac-n-cheese. The rest of the country is in a deep freeze, and we've still got lettuce happily bursting out of the garden. There is no chill to stave off. 

Thankfully, there are some temperature swings and dips here and there, and after throwing a few logs in the fireplace, I take advantage of the kitchen and the cravings that come along with a (slightly) chilly day.

This recipe came out of a recent evening where the temps dropped into the low 30s, and knowing it wouldn't last, I was bound and determined to open all the windows and make chili, or a stew, or some seriously thick, thick soup. I wanted warm and comforting, rich and delicious. I also wanted a familiar feeling, but a little challenge with something I'd never made before. Something foreign. As it turns out, the recipe I needed was The (other) National Dish Of Belgium – not moules frites, but a Belgian beef and beer stew called carbonnade flamande (or a la flamande). 


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Papaquiles.

Papaquiles (the imaginary friend of chilaquiles). © Ryan Schierling
Disclaimer: The name chilaquiles comes from the Nahuatl word chil-a-quilitl, which means "herbs or greens in chile broth. "Papaquiles" is not actually a word. We made it up. That's alright, though, because this concoction bears only a passing resemblance to one of our other favorite breakfast dishes. You guessed it... chilaquiles.

Since our very first introduction to this Mexican breakfast, we've been huge fans. Fried tortillas all sauced up in red or green salsa, with sour cream or fresh crema, a little diced onion and the glorious yellow of yolks spilling from fried eggs – what's not to adore?

One weekend morning about four years ago, after we had been making chilaquiles at home for a few months, I woke up wanting all those delicious flavors. Except, I was in the mood for hash browns... and why not instead of totopos? Barely into my first cup of coffee, I articulated this to Ryan and within the hour he had created a breakfast dish that met my craving with wild success.

It's ridiculously simple, actually. Hash browns cooked to perfection with nice crispy edges, a big spoonful of salsa verde, a dollop of cool sour cream, chopped white onions for their brightness and crunch, and crowned with an over-easy egg. Finish this with a drift of your favorite hot sauce and your day is at once off to a fantastically rich and savory start.

We don't play favorites between roja and verde versions of chilaquiles, but with hash browns the salsa verde has been our mainstay and the best fit in terms of consistency and flavor. While we're still running all over Austin exploring the plethora of amazing chilaquiles at local taquerias, for breakfast at home "papaquiles" remains one of our very favorites.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Double dipping.

Feta and spinach dip... it's what Wheat Thins® crave. © Ryan Schierling
A great many of you hold a special place in your heart (and stomach) for our three-ingredient, 24-hour caramelized onion dip. It was the second-most popular Foie Gras Hot Dog read of 2011 and "Chips, dips and dorks" is still one of my favorite posts ever (though I have formally apologized to Starkey for calling his eating pony-sized horseshoes at D'Arcy's Pint half-assed).

It was exactly this time last year we unleashed that dip, just in time for the big football match. Event? Football game? Game. (Hockey fan, forgive me.)

There aren't too many other dip recipes in circulation in our household. Of course, we do make queso, because if you live in Texas and don't make queso, you run the risk of being branded a communist and the state will come and take your babies away. But that's a recipe for another day, and this is one of our new faves.

Frustrated with countless bad versions of spinach-artichoke hot-mess, I started at zero and made things up as I went along. Now, there is no cream cheese, no artichokes, no gooey, bubbling lava that congeals into a lumpy, grey cheese brick after 10 minutes out of the oven. This is a simple, delicious and easy-to-make recipe with – like our onion dip – only three ingredients. Unlike our onion dip, it only takes about 15 minutes. And, you know what? It's pretty, too.


Feta and spinach dip

1 10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, cooked, with all liquid squeezed out
16 ounces sour cream
12 ounces of the best fresh feta cheese in brine you can find – this will not work with that dry, pre-crumbled crap you buy in plastic tubs at the grocer (we use Bulgarian sheep feta from Phoenecia here in Austin)
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

In a small covered saucepan over medium-low heat, cook the frozen spinach in a bit of water until done. Drain the spinach in a colander and squeeze out all remaining liquid. Put the spinach into a food processor, add the sour cream and crumble in the feta cheese. Add a tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes and whiz until well mixed. Serve with a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes on top and a side of Wheat Thins. (I chose Wheat Thins® because the slight sweetness of the cracker works ridiculously well with the rich, tangy and salty flavors of the dip. If you want veg, carrot sticks work really well.)

Oh, and Superbowl something, something. Superbowl. Whatever
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