It’s hot outside and what goes better with a hot summer afternoon than watermelon. Well, there are more than a few ways to enjoy your watermelons. We recently bought a large watermelon that was bigger than we expected. Our housekeeper suggested that we make watermelon water, which we did.
Once we tried the watermelon water, we knew we had to try it in an adult beverage so we tried our hand at a margarita and we both think it turned out great.
Ingredients
4 cups seedless watermelon diced
1/2 cup lime juice
2 cups water
2 tablespoons agave nectar (you can substitute honey)
1 cup tequila,
1/4 cup triple sec.
2 cups of ice
1 jalapeno, cut into 1/4 inch licked
12 to 15 fresh mint leaves (you can substitute fresh basil)
Instructions
Mix the watermelon, lime juice, water, agave, tequila and triple sec in a blender and blend until super smooth. Stir in the ice, half the jalapeno slices and half of the mint leaves. (Do not blend the jalapeno slices, just stir them in with the ice) The remaining jalapeno slices and mint leaves are to garnish your drinking glasses. Stir very well and serve.
If you want your drink a little sweeter you can stir in some additional agave or some sugar. You can also taste your watermelon before you start mixing it. If the watermelon isn’t very sweet, you can throw in a few pieces of cantaloupe to add some natural sweet flavor.
Our pantry has over a dozen containers of mixes for meat runb but we’re still always on the lookout for something different. One of our go-to runs is the Ring of Fire rub. We recently had a brisket that we wanted to try something different with. When we looked online, we found a recipe that looked like a great starting point.
Most of the meat rubs we have lean towards the sweet side but this one has some noticeable heat. It’s not going to burn your mouth but it’s definitely going to tingle your tongue.
When we mixed this the first time, the recipe didn’t specify whether to use regular paprika or smoked paprika so we used 5 teaspoons of smoked paprika. That was WAY too much. Cutting it in half with regular paprika gives this mixture a better balance. I’ll also admit we increased the cayenne from 2 teaspoons because we like the heat. If you don’t want it as hot, cut it back to 2 teaspoons.
A final note, the original recipe says 1/2 cup of brown sugar is optional. I think it really needs the sweetness to be authentic to the flavors of Texas and to balance out the mixture. However, that was too much so we cut it in half. As you can see, this is all very subjective and you can play around with the ingredients to find the mix that’s right for you.
Ingredients
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 1/2 tablespoons smoked paprika
3 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon hot chili powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
Directions
Mix everything except for the brown sugar very well. Then add your broken sugar. You can use a spoon or whisk but, if you have trouble feeling it mixed well, try putting it into a mixer or coffee grinder.
You can store this is a cool dry place with you other spices and it will last for months.
If you live in the south, you probably have some sort of black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. These little peas are supposed to bring you good luck in the coming year. Legend has it that this tradition comes from the Civil War era when the Northern army didn’t burn the fields of peas as they swept through the South.
I hope you don’t just eat these peas on New Year’s Day because they are really good and should eat them year-round. I have another recipe for black-eyed pea soup but it’s a lot more complicated. For this one, I wanted to make a soup with less steps and just a lot easier to make. I basically start with our favorite soffritto mixture of onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bell pepper, and jalapeno. Yes, these are more items than in a traditional soffritto but we like the flavors.
As for the meat in this dish, we happened to find a spiral sliced ham at our local HEB grocery store that was on sale after Christmas so we had to get it. We parted the ham up and used the bone from the ham. The last half or so of the ham wasn’t sliced so we cut up these pieces into bite sized chunks and used these. Without this ham, I would have used sausage and some bacon.
Now, let’s talk about spicy, as in heat. We like it hot! I think a spicy soup is perfect all year round, but especially on a cold winter day (like New Year’s Day). Therefore, we put in 2 jalapenos and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. You can definitely cut back or even eliminate both ingredients if you don’t want it spicy. However, I’d at least put in 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. we buy jalapenos by the dozen and grow our own during the summer so we always have plenty on hand.
To start, get all your vegetables ready.
Vegetables for the soffritto to go into the black-eyed pea soup.
Cook your vegetables in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.
Vegetable cooking for black-eyed pea soup.
Once cooked, add your black-eyed peas, liquid, ham bone and ham chunks.
Black-eyed pea soup starting to cook.
Let it simmer for a couple of hours and then it’s ready for you and your family!
Black-eyed pea soup simmering
It’s become our tradition to make a black-eyed pea soup on New Year’s Day afternoon while we’re watching college bowl games.
Ingredients
1 pound package of black-eyed peas, sorted and soaked overnight
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped (you can cut back on this if you don’t want it spicy)
2 cups of chicken broth
2 cups of water
1 ham bone
1 cup ham pieces
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (reduce the amount if you don’t want it spicy)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
The night before you want to make this, rinse your black-eyed peas and then place in a large pot and cover with an inch of water.
The next day, drain your peas and rinse them again in a colander to get out any remaining grit from the peas. They should have swelled up over night.
In a large Dutch oven, heat the olive oil on medium-high heat and then put in your onions. After 2 minutes, add the garlic and cook for 5 more minutes. Next, add the carrots, celery, bell peppers and jalapenos. Stir well and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, until the onions are translucent and the other vegetables are tender.
Add your beans and chicken broth and water. Then add your ham bone and ham pieces. Next add the cumin, cayenne pepper and Worcestershire sauce. If all your ingredients aren’t covered with the broth and water, add additional water until fully covered. Then bring to a boil. After it starts boiling, reduce your heat to low, put the lid on your Dutch oven, and allow the pot to simmer for at least 2 hours, until the beans are tender, stirring occasionally. If the water starts to evaporate to the point that it no longer covers the peas, simply add enough water to the pot to cover the peas while they simmer.
We saw this recipe on America’s Test Kitchen and it sounded great. We knew we had to try it and used it for some steaks we cooked on the grill. We don’t usually put any sauce on our grilled steaks but we just really wanted to try this recipe out and see how it was.
The main thing we did differently is we used homemade dill pickles rather than the cornichons that the recipe called for. I don’t know if it would make a difference but we liked the way it turned out. So, I wouldn’t go out and buy a bottle of cornichons if you have a supply of dill pickles in your refrigerator.
As a side note, this is the only version I found online that includes the pickles and capers. I thought they were the star of the show, but I love capers so that’s what appealed to me at first. One article from Canada says this Persillade Relish (or sauce) is a distant cousin to the Argentine Chimichurri, Spanish Salsa Verde, German Gruene Sosse and Mexican Salsa Verde. I could definitely see the similarity to chimichurri and Spanish salsa verde but not to Mexican salsa verde. We make the Mexican version all the time and it’s got a lot more liquid to it. I’ve never made the Spanish salsa verde but it is something I’m adding to my list of things to try.
My final thought is that without the pickles and capers this relish/salsa is very similar in ingredients and texture to an Italian pesto. We’ve made pestos from basil, of course, but also with parsley, arugula (one of my favorites) and cilantro. I think you can definitely play around with this and come up with your favorite combination for your family.
Ingredients
3/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons minced dill pickles (or cornichons)
1 teaspoon of the brine from the dill pickles
1/4 cup capers, rinsed and chopped coarse
1 scallion, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
You can put this into a food processor and give it a few pulses but we just mixed it all by hand.
You can put this relish over any meat or even use it on crackers. It’s really tasty and simple to make.
We’re sitting at the end of 2018 with a day to go before New Year’s Eve and I’ve been craving a stew. It really hasn’t been that cold in Austin to warrant making a stew, but the past couple days have been grey and chilly and I really started thinking a stew would be perfect.
You should know by now that we don’t follow recipes step by step and luckily it always turns out well. We’ve realised most measurements are only suggestions since when grandmothers would make the recipes they didn’t pull out a measuring spoon to get exactly 1/4 tablespoon of sugar or 1 teaspoon of thyme.
So, with that in mind, we set out to find a stew recipe that we wanted to loosely base our creation on. This is our second attempt at documenting our stew making process. A couple of years ago we made a pot roast stew with beer and paprika and many more vegetables. To be honest, almost all of them were so similar that I think it just comes down to using good meat, vegetables and simmering for a long time. The proportions of the different ingredients will change the ultimate flavor but I was pretty sure it would turn out great regardless of how you combined them. In the end, we selected a recipe from Once Upon a Chef as our primary source for inspiration into this afternoon project.
Ingredients
3 pounds of boneless beef chuck roast, cut into 1 to 1 1/2 cubes
2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large yellow onion, cut into 1 inch chunks
8 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2 cups of red wine
2 cubs of beef broth (we used beef bullion)
2 cups of water
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch slices on the diagonal
1 pound potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes
1 stalk celery, cut into 1 inch pieces
Freshly chopped parsley (optional)
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 325 F and put a rack in the middle.
Pat your beef dry with a paper towel and generously season with the salt and pepper. Using a large Dutch Oven, heat one tablespoon of the olive oil over medium-high heat until hot. Then in 3 batches, brown the beef in the olive oil for about 5 minutes per batch. Turn the beef while browning with tongs and don’t crowd the beef while it’s browning. You can add a tablespoon of oil between batches if there isn’t enough grease in the Dutch oven. Once each batch is brown, transfer to a separate dish and place aside.
Once you finish your last batch of beef, put the onions, garlic and balsamic vinegar into the Dutch oven. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to scrape off the brown bits from the bottom of the Dutch oven. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Add your tomato paste and cook for another minute.
Add the beef and juices back to the Dutch oven with the onions and garlic mixture and sprinkle with the flour. Mix this together until the flour is dissolved, about 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the beef broth, water, wine, bay leaves, thyme and sugar to the mixture and stir it all together. Bring to a boil then cover the Dutch oven with a lid and transfer to your preheated oven. Let it cook in the oven for 2 hours.
At the end of two hours, take the Dutch oven out of the oven and add your carrots, potatoes and celery. Stir in the vegetables and then put the lid back on the pot and place simmer for at least one hour over low heat. Cook for an additional hour, until the vegetables are tender and the meat is fall apart tender. You can place the Dutch oven back in the oven as it was done in our source recipe, however, we needed the oven to make bake some bread so we finished it on the stove top. It turned out fine.
Serve warm.
Here are a few pictures of our process along the way.
For best results, cut your beef into 1 to 1-1/2 inch cube pieces.
Brown the beef cubes on each side.
Here are the beef cubes browning.
Here is the picture of right after we added the beef and it’s juices to the onions and garlic.
Here is the stew right after we added the beef broth, wine and water to the pot.
This is what it looks like after 2 hours in the oven braising.
Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas dinners deserve a grown-up dessert. That’s why we knew we had to try this recipe when we found it in the monthly newsletter that our realtors send to us. Of course, it wasn’t as fantastic as it could be so we modified it for some extra wow factor. The original recipe is for a Bacon-Maple-Walnut pie. The first thing we did was added the bourbon. We got this idea after watching a cooking show where bourbon was included in a couple different ways into desserts. The pie was great but we couldn’t help comparing it to a pecan pie, so we knew that was the next upgrade for this recipe. We are in Texas after all, so the pecan is always our nut of choice when it’s an option.
Since I mentioned them above and they’re the inspiration for this recipe, here’s the shout out to our realtors, Doug Jacobs & Jeff Mikeska, who sold us our house 18 years ago and still send us their newsletters and calendars. The newsletter they sent back in 2016 had this recipe in the holiday section. Of course, it caught our attention and we had to try it. I’ll also add that they’re great guys that we highly recommend them if you need a realtor in Austin.
Ingredients
Bacon – 4 ounces of thick cut bacon plus the bacon fat, separated
save 2 to 3 tablespoons of bacon fat for the crust dough
put the crumbled bacon in the pie
Ingredients for the Pie Crust
2 to 3 tablespoons of bacon fat, from the 4 ounces of bacon (see above)
5 tablespoons of vegetable shortening
1 cup of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of very cold water
1/2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
Ingredients for the Filling
3 large eggs
1 cup of dark maple syrup (grade B or 2)
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup of packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of bourbon (go for the good stuff here!)
4 ounces of bacon, crumbled into small pieces (see above)
2 cups of pecans – crushed or halves
Instructions
Instructions for the Crust
NOTE: we usually don’t get as much bacon fat from the bacon used for this recipe as the original recipe calls for. Therefore, we usually use some bacon fat that we have left over from earlier. In case you’re wondering, yes, we have a little container like my Granny used to have where we collect bacon fat anytime we cook bacon. If you don’t have as much as the recipe calls for and you don’t have your own backup reserve, go ahead and substitute with additional shortening.
Fry your bacon in a skillet on medium heat until the bacon is crisp (about 3 to 5 minutes). Transfer the fried bacon to a paper towel.
Save 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the pan (you’ll put this into the filling), then measure the rest of the left over bacon fat and put it into a heat-safe measuring cup. Let the bacon fat cool for 10 minutes. Then add enough shortening so that you get a total volume of 6 tablespoons (this is also 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons).
Pour flour into a bowl and add the bacon fat from the measuring cup, cutting it in with a fork until it resembles coarse cornmeal.
Mix the 2 tablespoons of cold water and the vinegar and then add it to the flour mixture until it forms a soft, non-sticky dough. Form the dough into a ball, dust with flour and roll into an 11 inch circle. Place the dough in a pie plate.
Beat the eggs, maple syrup, sugars and vanilla extra into a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed. Mix in the reserved 2 tablespoons of bacon fat.
Crumble the bacon into small pieces and put the crumbled bacon into the bowl. Stir in the pecans until incorporated and pour into the pie crust.
Bake pie at 350 degrees for 55 minutes, until puffy and brown. There should only be a slight jiggle in the center of the pie when it’s finished cooking. Let pie cool before slicing.
Here’s a tip for a practical and easy way to roll out you pie dough. We’ve seen this used on cooking shows where they use two sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap. It was a great idea but it seemed like a waste of wax paper or plastic wrap so we thought, why can’t you just re-use a plastic grocery bag? It turns out, you can and it’s a perfect way to re-use these bags.
Now, you want to make sure the bag is clean. For this reason, we don’t use the plastic bags they give you at the check-out counter. You can use these bags but make sure it’s really clean. Instead, we use the clear bags that you bring home your produce in. You know, the kind in the produce section that you use to hold your vegetables while you shop.
First, clean the bag and let it dry completely.
Lay the bag out flat and then cut down the two long sides of the bag and the bottom side. You’ll have two plastic sheets of the same size.
Place the pie dough in the center of one of the sheets.
Place the other sheet over of the dough ball.
Use your hands to start flattening the dough ball and then roll out the dough.
Place your pie pan over the dough to confirm the dough has been rolled out enough to fill your pan.
Check to see if your dough is sticking to the plastic sheets. If it’s sticking, place it in the refrigerator for a few minutes to make it stiffer and less sticky.
Remove the top layer of plastic.
Turn the dough over and place into the pie pan.
Gently, pull back the last layer of plastic and you’re ready to fill your pie.
We roast vegetables all year-round; however, I’ll be honest that I always look forward to fall when the squashes come into season. This is our first time for this year to use an autumn/winter squash and we’re using a Delicata squash this time. These squash are creamy and the skin is so soft that you don’t have to peel the skin off before you bake them.
Roasted autumn vegetables
Ingredients
1 Delicata squash – seeded and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 to 3 carrots – peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices on a bias
2 Russet potatoes – you could also use red or gold. Cut into 1 inch cubes
1 Fennel root – cut into 1 inch pieces
1 Sweet Onion – cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
1 pinch to a teaspoon of red pepper flakes for a light kick!
Instructions
Heat your oven 400 degrees F.
Cut all the vegetables into one inch pieces. The delicata can be cut in half lengthwise, then in half crosswise. Scoop out the seeds, then cut slices about 1/2 inch. Then, cut these slices into about 1 inch pieces. The main thing is to keep the size of all the vegetables approximately the same so they cook consistently.
A trick to the potatoes is to rinse them in cool water to help them brown easier in the oven.
Mix all the vegetables into a large bowl then add the olive oil, salt, black pepper and pepper flake. Mix well.
Put the vegetable mixture into a large oven roasting pan. If you want to cut down on the amount of ingredients, you can probably fit them all onto a baking sheet. We line the bottom of our roasting pan with foil to make it easier to cleanup when we’re done.
Bake the vegetables for 30 to 35 minutes until all the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
I’ll note that we intentionally under salted so that the vegetables don’t sweat too much. You can sprinkle a little extra salt over the cooked vegetables if you want or add it to your taste at the table.
This should make enough for 4 large servings or 6 side dish servings.
Variations: Depending on what fresh herbs you have on hand and what you’ll be serving this with, you can add some herbs to this. We like to add parsley, sage, rosemary, and/or thyme. Yes, I couldn’t resist the music reference but it’s true. They all work really well with these vegetables.
This sauce came about because we wanted to find a way to use some fajita ingredients with pasta. A really good friend gave us a huge basket of jalapeño peppers from her garden and we used these in the smoker. We’ve been making a Doña sauce for years and this is a variation of the Smoked Doña Sauce. The primary difference is the sauce we made tonight wasn’t intended to be used like a salsa, it’s more a base for something else. It’s definitely much spicier and intense than the doña sauces.
Blanch the peppers and garlic in 2 cups of water for 20 mins
Put everything in a blender and process until smooth, adding a teaspoon of kosher salt.
Makes a spectacular dipping sauce and base for a pasta dish! We mixed it tomato sauce then added it to pasta, fajita beef and grilled vegetables – it’s definitely worth a try!
Here is our story about our experience comparing semolina flour versus all-purpose flour when making homemade pasta using goose eggs.
It all started a couple weeks ago when we went to dinner with some friends and one of them had just bought some goose eggs from a local farmer. We all decided it would be fun to have a dinner party and everyone pitch in to make pasta. We had this dinner last Sunday and it was a fun evening of wine, pasta, and good company.
Last Sunday, Steve used a recipe he found online that used a combination of goose eggs and chicken eggs. His recipe also called for a mixture of semolina flour and all-purpose flour. I can’t find the recipe he used but it had all the elements of a standard pasta recipe: eggs, flour, salt, olive oil and water. When the dinner was over, Steve sent us home with some goose eggs so we could try them out ourselves.
Since we had never used semolina before, we picked some up at the grocery store so we could try using it in our own pasta. Yesterday we decided to make two batches of pasta to compare using the different flours in our pasta. The first batch is using a goose egg with semolina flour and the second batch is using one goose egg with all-purpose flour. We really are just doing this so we can do a side-by-side comparison of the two flours.
Something to know about goose eggs is that they are very large and have large, bright yellow yokes. The ones we got seem to be about the size or 2 or 3 chicken eggs. We had to compensate a little with the flour quantity to get the right texture for the dough but we’ve made enough dough to be able to do so without much trouble.
Pasta from Semolina Flour and Goose egg:
For the first batch of pasta, we used Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Pasta Flour that we bought at our local grocery store. If you can’t find it in your store, you can buy some online. Since we hadn’t made any pasta like this before, we used the recipe on the package.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup of semolina flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs (we substituted 1 goose egg)
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pasta from All-Purpose Flour and Goose Egg:
For this batch, we used regular all-purpose flour but we didn’t have a recipe to use for comparison. I went with a recipe from one of my favorite TV Chefs, Lidia Bastianich. The proportions are slightly different, but basically the same recipe.
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 large eggs (we substituted one goose egg)
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons of cold water
Instructions for both pasta recipes
Since we wanted to compare the two flours, we used the same mixing process.
Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. In a second bowl, add the egg and beat it to mix it up then add the water and olive oil. Next, add the egg, water, and olive oil mixture to the semolina flour and salt. Mix in the bowl until you have a stiff dough. Then move it onto a floured counter top and knead the dough for 10 minutes. Then, put the dough into a zip-lock bag and allow it to rest for at least 20 minutes.
After resting the past, we used our pasta roller to get down to the 2nd thinnest setting and then used the linguine cutter on the pasta roller to cut the pasta in a consistent manner.
Summary of our comparison:
We really wanted to taste a difference in the two pastas, however, we really didn’t taste a difference. There was a slight textural difference but I don’t think it was enough that I would have noticed it.
When we were mixing the pasta and kneading it, the semolina mixture was grittier and stickier so I was a little concerned. The all-purpose flour mixture was very silky and smooth and seemed like it was exactly what you wanted.
However, after resting, the texture was reversed and the semolina was not near as sticky and it went through the pasta roller without any trouble. The all-purpose flour had become stickier and we to add some flour to keep it from sticking to the pasta roller as it went through.
Cooking the pasta seemed to be identical in time needed to cook them. We cooked it in small batches for about 3 minutes per batch.
The taste of the final pasta really was indistinguishable. I couldn’t tell a difference when it came to taste.
The final texture is where we saw the biggest difference. Even though we rolled both pasta mixtures the same way and to the same setting, however, the semolina flour seemed thicker, even though it should have been exactly the same thickness. Once cooked, it held onto the seemingly thicker status and seemed more substantial and toothsome. The semolina pasta also seemed more structurally stable. However, I don’t think it was enough to have noticed if you weren’t intentionally doing a side-by-side comparison.
I would like to try this comparison again using regular store bought chicken eggs just to see if it was goose eggs that made the difference.
Here is Ryder checking out the pasta as it was resting.
Ryder checking out our rolled pasta
Just for fun, here are some pictures from our first experiment using the goose eggs last weekend. This first picture is one goose egg in a bowl. You can see the two chicken eggs in the background for a comparison of the size.
Goose egg in a bowl
Here is a picture of the bowl with 2 goose eggs (on the left side) and 2 chicken eggs (on the right side).
Mixing bowl with 2 goose eggs and 2 chicken eggs
Here is one of us using the chitarra to cut the past.
Here we are using the chitarra to cut the pasta.
This is Curt breaking open the first goose egg. You can tell by his voice that he was surprised at the size of this egg.
Finally, here is a clip of Steve using the chitarra for the first time.
Our Austintatious Life 