For the Love of Food

Sorry that this post is a bit later than I had planned on writing it. I spent the better half of Saturday in the hospital from dehydration from the nastiest stomach flu that I remember having and then spent until now just sleeping. Luckily, it was a quick stomach bug and I am perfectly fine now.

Ok, so on to the winner. I used a random number generator that I came across on the internet and the winner is:

Jeff Blackwell.

I will be sending Jeff my copy of Cooking Green as soon as I get his shipping address.

To the rest of you who would like to read this, but don’t want to spend the money to buy it, I highly encourage you to borrow it from your local library. Or, pool together with some friends and buy it together and take turns reading it.

Ok, Iḿ back to vacation time!

So, as you are reading this, I am in the air on my way home to Texas!

I hope to have some great posts for you depicting my favorite Tex-Mex foods…oh, I can’t wait for some chips and salsa!!

What are your favorite food-memories from home??

A few months ago I received an email from Da Capo Press Lifelong Books letting me know about a new book that they had just published: cooking green by Kate Heyhoe (an Austinite).  I was very intrigued about a book that was going to give me ideas on how to be more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly in the kitchen, but I wasn’t sure it would be worth buying.  I figured it would be full of common sense ideas that I already practiced in my own kitchen.  So, I wrote Da Capo asking them if I could have a free book to review and then give away to someone through my blog.  They agreed as long as they didn’t have to ship it to me overseas, so I had it sent to my in-laws who just visited me 2 weeks ago.

I was sure I would read the book and be able to pass it on without a second thought.  Boy was I wrong!  Not only does the book really go into detail on how you can be more efficient/environmentally friendly in the kitchen, but it goes into detail as to why  what is being recommended works better than what is the norm.  It also has a fantastic recipe section in the back.  And, I have to say that I am having trouble parting with this book.  I have really fallen in love with it.  But, a promise if a promise.

So, I am giving my book away to one lucky person who leaves a comment on this blog post by June 21st at 6:00pm US Central Time. The winner will be picked at random, and I will mail out (or personally deliver the book if you are in the Austin or Houston area while on my vacation) the book as soon as I have your personal info.  And, I will buy myself another book (hopefully in a used book store) and buy some more books for friends and family that I feel would appreciate reading the book.  So far I plan on buying at least 4 of these babies.

Now, a bit more about the book and what I learned: Continue Reading »

Friday I posted about a copycat Tony Roma’s baby back ribs recipe that I tried out. Bellow is the recipe with the bbq sauce that they recommended making. I found it way way to tangy and vinegary. However, this may be because the homemade ketchup that I made this time around was also more tangy than usual…and the fact that I only had light corn syrup and not the dark corn syrup called for.

Either way..my husband loved it. I thought it was good, but it was so tangy that my mouth was burning!

The cooking method for these ribs is really fantastic and quite simple and created delicious succulent fall-off-the bone ribs. You will need 2 days to make this recipe, so prepare accordingly! Continue Reading »

Baby-back ribs are not very popular in Germany – ribs in general are considered a sort of waste product. So, they are cheap. I can get a kilogram of spare or baby-back ribs for €3,00 (about US$4.17). So, when we need a cost-effective meal that contains meat, ribs are the way to go for us.

The other day I came across a copycat recipe for Tony Roma’s baby-back ribs. The recipe included a sauce, which was good (see next week’s Monday post), but definitely did not taste anything like Tony Roma’s bbq sauce. I did however, split the rib recipe in half to try out my new sweet and smoky homemade bbq sauce, and, to my surprise, I had recreated Tony Roma’s bbq sauce!

The cooking method for these ribs is really fantastic and quite simple and created delicious succulent fall-off-the bone ribs. You will need 2 days to make this recipe, so prepare accordingly! Continue Reading »

I dream of going back to Miami one day. But, not for the warm weather, sandy beaches, or delicious Cuban food. I dream of going back to my favorite restaurant: Shorty’s Bar-B-Q. I just salivate thinking of this place. They have the most heavenly tangy (not sweet) meaty bbq sauce and the most buttery corn I have ever eaten. My dream dish: an open-faced roast beef sandwich with a side of fries all covered in an entire jar of their bbq sauce that is served in glass parmesan cheese jars and a side of corn on the cob drenched in butter.

Next year will be my 10-year high school reunion, and even though I didn’t get to graduate from that high school because we moved to Texas, I would like to go back and see all my old friends…it’s been 11 years! So, if I do get the opportunity, this restaurant will not only be my first stop, but my second, third, fourth, and fifth…you get the point. And, i will probably bring a few jars of the good stuff home with me too!

So, in an attempt to recreate Shorty’s delicious buttery corn on the cob, I came-up with this recipe. It is a very simple recipe, but still needs a lot of tweaking before it is comparable to the butter-infused cobs that you can get at Shorty’s. Continue Reading »

We love biscuits. But, sometimes we want small ones. They are great for any meal, but especially for buffet-style meals where there is a lot of food – remember that biscuits are a very heavy bread!

For these I decided to make my own buttermilk since every time I buy some the leftovers sit in my refrigerator taking-up much needed space. It’s quite simple. For every cup of milk add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar and mix it so it thickens slightly – that’s it. Continue Reading »