Nibbles

Pumpkinfest, Unexpected Muffuletta, and the Splits

Nibbles

There was a metric ton of fun things going on this past weekend in the Tallahassee area–wine events, local festivals and farm tours abound.

After weighing our options we finally settled on nearby Havana’s Pumpkinfest.

Pumpkin Patch Barn Photo Op at Havana Pumpkinfest

This little barn made a cute photo op for families on the hunt for pumpkins and the perfect fall picture of little ones.

A great thing about small towns is that they go all-out for their festivals. The Pumpkinfest may have been small but Main Street is also lined with all manner of antique stores providing ample browsing opportunities along with the craft booths, festival food booths and people watching these sorts of events provide.

Instead of availing ourselves of the food vendors on the streets we opted to stop into Joanie’s Gourmet Market and Fabulous Cafe. Now, normally I’d snark about setting yourself up pretty high for putting Fabulous in your name but in this case I just can’t do it: they are pretty Fabulous.

Joann's Gourmet Market and Fabulous Cafe

Not only do they have a charming selection of gourmet food items and wines, they have a short and sweet menu that was so tasty, I wish I lived a little closer. Todd ordered the Chicken Quesadilla and I had the Muffuletta Wedge. In fact, seeing Muffuletta on the menu posted at the front door was what sold us on stopping in for a late lunch.

Chicken Quesadilla from Joanies' Gourmet Market Muffuletta Wedge

The key to a good Muffuletta is the olive salad. Their house olive salad isn’t the same as what you’d get in New Orleans, but it’s very good on it’s own and certainly made for a good sandwich–it featured capers, which is not something I would normally include but it was an interesting choice. And there was so much olive salad on there that it was falling out of the pressed sandwich. Not that that’s a bad thing–you can be sure I didn’t let it go to waste.

They also had fabulous old-fashioned bottled sodas. Todd enjoyed his Vanilla Cream soda and I could have taken a nap in my Root Beer, it was that wonderful. Oh, sorry: Fabulous!

On the way home we started to crave something a little sweet. So I suggested a stop into Lofty Pursuits for some delicious ice cream. We were happy to see they were in the midst of a mid-afternoon rush (always good to see your favorite places busy) and happily perused the extensive menu to decide what we wanted to top off an already fun day.

Chocolate Banana Split from Lofty Pursuits

That, my friends, is a Chocolate Banana Split. Wanna know what’s in it?

  • 3 scoops of Deep Dark Chocolate Ice Cream
  • the requisite banana
  • chocolate, marshmallow and butter caramel sauces
  • chocolate whipped cream
  • chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips, a waffle-cone sail
  • and a trio of cherries on top! (there’s another one hiding behind the sail)

It was perfect for 2; might have been a bit too much to try and tackle singly.

Did you do anything fabulously foodie this weekend?

Crazy for Tapas!

Nibbles

If you’ve ever gone to dinner and decided to order several appetizers and “graze” your way through the meal rather than eat a single entree selection, you may be a fan of tapas, too!

Tapas, a series of appetizers or snacks originating in Spain, have become a bit of a trend in recent years but one I’m happy to welcome. They can consist of both hot and cold items and, I think, are perfect for a communal supper among friends with plenty of wine or cocktails.

In it’s country of origin, tapas are usually small hors d’oeuvres-size portions, one or two bites, and frequently served on a piece of bread. In the U.S., of course, the traditional has given way to the idea of small plates with small portions, enough for a single snack or to share. We have a local restaurant/lounge (101) that features a fairly robust tapas menu in addition to larger appetizers. It’s fabulous for a girls night out or a late night supper after a movie.

Our best tapas experience, though, came in Jacksonville, Florida, on my birthday where we lucked into a table at the small but mighty 13 Gypsies. And when I say lucked-into I mean it: the couple at the table next to us had been trying to get a reservation for 6 months!

Honey-Garlic Hummus from 13 Gypsies The exterior of 13 Gypsies, Jacksonville, FL Garlicy Green Beans from 13 Gypsies
Quixote Style Beef from 13 Gypsies Coconut Mango Curry Chicken from 13 Gypsies Shrimp Piri Piri from 13 Gypsies

While 13 Gypsies does offer full-sized entrees, we were in a grazing mood and ordered a series of small plates, 6 in all, that added up to an amazing dinner with each plate better than the last. We went for both simple pleasures, like Honey-Garlic Hummus and Spanish Peasant Bread, to the more exotic Quixote Style Beef and Coconut Mango Curry Chicken, rounding out the meal with Shrimp Piri-Piri and crisp, fresh steamed Green Beans (gotta add a vegetable somewhere). Had we limited ourselves to a single entree a piece, I think we’d have short-changed ourselves. Washed down with glasses of Spanish wine it was a dining experience we’ll not soon forget.

In fact, it was so good that when Todd and I started discussing our wedding reception, I began the campaign for a tapas-style spread and meeting no resistance from the groom-to-be. Now all we have to do is find someone to carry it out for us!

In the mean time, I’ll be doing more research and experimentation on tapas (and the cousin-cuisines of the Middle Eastern mezze).

Have you tried the tapas craze, yet?

That’s a White Sauce of a Different Flavor!

Nibbles

Up until recently, I thought of white sauce in two ways: Bechamel and Veloute.

This past month, though, I’ve encountered a different sort of white sauce  on two separate occasions and I’m thrilled with this new addition: White Barbecue Sauce.

Unlike traditional white sauces which start with a roux and are thinned by either milk or stock, this white sauce has a totally different base: mayonnaise.

And I adore mayonnaise.

It all seems to have started in Decatur, Alabama, at Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q and several versions of the recipe are available online. For those who dislike the gloopy, giggly texture of my favorite emulsion, have no fear as this spicy sauce is thinned to the consistency of heavy cream or ranch dressing. And, sure, mayo ins’t the healthiest food ever, but it’s a condiment–a little goes a long way!

To make your own, you’ll spice the mayonnaise of your choice with horseradish, black and cayenne peppers, adding sugar or corn syrup if you prefer a little sweet in your spice, and thinning with vinegar (white or apple cider seems to be the most common) or water to the desired consistency.

I’ve had this, now, on both pork and chicken and it’s been amazing on each. We’re planning to barbecue for this year’s Pumpkin Party and this might need to be available as a topping option!

Have you ever tried White Barbecue Sauce–what did you think of it?

Hasselback Sweet-and-Spicy Potatoes

Nibbles

Faced with yet another batch of sweet potatoes from the farmers market, as I made the menu for last week I wondered what I could do with them that wasn’t the same old same-old. As much as we love sweet potatoes, it’s easy to fall into the baked or mashed rut with them.

Hasselback Sweet Potatoes

Enter the Hasselback.

Hasselback potatoes have been making the blog rounds with a variety of toppings. But they all feature skin-on potatoes cut into fans, crispy edges and lots of flavor. The most enticing I’ve seen include slivers of garlic slipped between some of the potato leaves.

What I hadn’t seen a lot of (though they do exist) are versions using the yam or sweet potato, but I saw no reason to let that stop me.

I did see one potential obstacle: the skin. While eating regular (brown or red) potato skins isn’t a problem, sweet potato skins can get quite leathery and unpleasant when baked–not exactly appetizing. And, yet, the skins help keep the fanned potatoes from falling apart. My solution was to peel 3/4 of each potato, leaving only the bottom of each au naturel. Since sweet potatoes tend towards irregular shaping, finding each’s natural base before peeling helped.

Semi-peeled sweet potatoes

After that, the procedure was the same as any other Hasselback potato:

  1. Slice
  2. Season
  3. Bake

When it comes to slicing, the idea is to slice almost all the way through. The best tip I’ve seen for this calls for using a guide–like a pair of wooden spoons or even chopsticks–to keep you from cutting all the way through the potato. This worked so well, I can’t imagine doing it any other way.

Cutting the sweet potatoes with wooden-spoon guides

For the seasoning, instead of garlic, I placed 3-4 slivers of fresh ginger into each potato, drizzled with some olive oil then mixed up some Demarara sugar, cinnamon, chili powder and salt (just eyeball the proportions) and sprinkled it all over. It doesn’t hurt to spread some of the leaves apart and make sure some of the seasoning makes it way in.

Sliced, stuffed and ready to season sweet potatoes

Finally, an hour at 350° F and the potatoes were ready to eat.

Finished Hasselback Potatoes

After stuffing, one potato didn’t want to sit nice and pretty, so it got a foil cradle but otherwise the rest behaved quite well. The end result was lovely coins of sweet potatoes that peeled away from the remaining skin without too much effort and were definitely the sweet and spicy flavor I was after.

Ode to a Toaster Oven

Nibbles


It started back in college life

Those heady days all on our own

When catching meals was full of strife

And home cooking did we disown

 

But to prep frozen pot pies was less than your due

Though what else could you really produce?

The years without you were not found wanting.

Until, that day, when we were so blue

No response from the range could be seduced

And our dinner plans so needed rescuing.

 

And there you were like a dutiful wife

Your element hot as a missile’s nose-cone

Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife

Saving us from take-out via phone.

~~~

After two and a half weeks without a working oven, Todd’s little toaster oven that could got us through several dinners. And even though it was small, it was mighty in it’s timely cooking of everything from steaks to hash brown casserole, so I decided it needed a little tribute all it’s own.

[Image via Amazon.com; line 13 of the ode borrowed–with all due respect–from Meat Loaf (which is sorta fitting if you think about it!)]