The Gift that keeps on Giving

For my 30th birthday, my beautiful wife (then fiancee) gave me what might be the greatest birthday present ever given - my very own kegerator. For a lover of beer, there is really nothing more appropriate and appreciated as a device dedicated to delivering cold beer day after day. In the months since then we have enjoyed many kegs of varying flavors and styles, each better than the last. If there's a man in your life who loves beer and you want to make him really happy, give him a kegerator, he will be grateful for years. Thank you Mary!

Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

This is probably the world's easiest way to make delicious bbq. Put chicken in a crockpot, cover with BBQ sauce, cook on low for 8 hours. And thats it, you're done. Ok, you can spruce it up a little bit to suit your tastes, but it's still super easy. This recipe made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts will satiate any craving for you have for carolina pulled pork with a fraction of the fat.

My method, slice one whole onion (I use a sweet onion) and dice 3-4 cloves of garlic. Turn the crockpot on High and pour a couple table spoons of olive oil on the bottom. Cook the onions and garlic covered for about 20 minutes, or until you can smell their wonderful frangrance when you lift the lid. Add 2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cover with a mixture of BBQ sauce (I'm partial to stubbs), beer, hot sauce (chrystal is my favorite for this), paprika, brown sugar and lemon juice. You want the BBQ sauce to be the main driver of flavor, so only add enough beer to thin it out and as much as hot sauce to generate your desired level of heat. If you like your sauce less vinegary, you can skip the hot sauce and add cayenne or aleppo to spice the sauce. Turn the crockpot down to low and leave covered for 6 - 8 hours, until the chicken tears easily with a fork. Turn the chicken every couple hours. When the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pot and shred it with two forks. Return the chicken to the pot and turn the heat to warm. Serve the chicken on toasted buns with cole slaw or avocado. Enjoy!

Aureole

A quick trip to Vegas last weekend and I found myself perusing 2009's michelin star winners along the strip. Since the two and three star winners all posted price tags that could easily hit 4 digits I kept my ambitions to the single starred chefs. We had reservations at Bradley Ogden's namesake restaurant at Caesar's palace, but at the last minute decided that it would be a shame to come to Vegas only to fall back on California cuisine and to skip out on the ostentation that is Las Vegas.

Charlie Palmer's Aureole really seemed like the perfect choice. French elegance combined with a four story wine tower complete with trapeze baristas that hang upside down to retreive your bottle? Yes please!

The reality is that like most things in Vegas the over the top opulence is entertaining from afar, just weird from close up. Let's start with the service. We made reservations but the restaurant was only a quarter full when we arrived at 8pm. They sat us in a dark booth that was directly underneath the wine tower - no flying stewards for this guy. Even on the other side of the table you had to crane you neck to watch the ascent. To their credit, they did ask if we wanted to change tables, but not until we had sunk into our chairs with bread and wine. It was difficult to tell exactly who our waiter is and at one point we got the response, "hey, I'm just the bread guy."

But service aside, the food was pretty delicious, beginning with the bread. We started with a tuna and king crab stack that was centered with an avocado mixture, which was as delicious as it sounds.

The creaminess of the avocado was a great compliment to the fleshy texture of the tuna, and the thick king crab legs were a good counter to the chopped crab stacks I've had elsewhere.

Another plus was the fact that they had wine flights. Being adventurous souls we both chose the soft red flight, which featured a California Pinot Noir, a Temperanillo out of Spain and a Gamay from France. All three were delicious and the price for the flights was pretty reasonable.

For mains we ordered the roast lamb and the beef tenderloin. The lamb had a very good flavor, drenched in a buttery red wine jus. It was a bit red for my medium request, but thats really the way I prefer it.

All in all it was a fun experience. It had all the theatrics, flare and underpar service you would expect from Las Vegas, and it was a lot cheaper than an evening at the Black Jack table. Worthy of five stars? No, definitely not, but a solid 3.5.

Crispy Garlic Kale Chips

San Diego has the perfect climate for winter green vegetables. This year I was a little late to the show, but came home from 10 days away to a lovely patch of kale, chard, mustard and collar greens. While I love the traditional Southern method of braising greens in a stock of bacon and butter, something in my arteries tells me that I should really save that recipe for New Year's day and a few other special occasions.

Greens are great cooked in a number of very simple fashions, but my favorite is probably a little dish I call Crispy Garlic Kale Chips. In this case I wasn't using kale, but it doesn't really matter, all the braising greens taste about the same, particularly when they are covered in garlic! The recipe is the eptiome of simplicity.

First, rinse the greens. Then, tear them into bite size pieces, removing the stems and drop them in a mixing bowl. Add 2 or 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic, two tablespoons of olive oil and a teaspoon each of salt and pepper and stir around so the greens are well covered. Place them in a baking dish without crowding and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, uncovered. The result is a crispy and flavorful snack that makes a good, health conscious substitute for french fries or chips. Enjoy!

(Pictured below with Linguini Ana)

Sopes Rancheros Verdes

Ok, I'm procrastinating studying for final exams this weekend, so what better time to talk about the delicious breakfast we made this weekend?

I've been wanting to make Sopes ever since going to Red O (a Rick Bayless creation) in Los Angeles earlier this year. We had this tapa there of sopes covered in the most delicious short ribs I've ever had and I've been intriqued with the idea of Sopes as a base for other dishes.

Fast forward to last week. I was trying to think of a good breakfast to make on Saturday when I got a craving for Huevos Rancheros. All of a sudden it hit me - why not substitute the tortillas for some homemade sopes?

And that's exactly what I did.

Sopes are simple to make, although I need a lot of practice in terms of shape and frying method. But basically they are just masa harina (a sort of corn flour you can find in most grocery stores), water, butter, and a little flour, baking powder and salt. You pan fry them in vegetable oil so they are crispy on the outside but a moist, delicious corn cake on the inside. Then we topped them with refried black beans (homemade), fried eggs with a nice runny yoke and a salsa verde mixed with sour cream. The result was amazing. The thickness of the sope was the perfect compliment to gooeyness of the runny egg. I can't believe I've never seen the combination in a restaurant before. I think it's the mexican answer to eggs benedict.

Drunken Noodles with Shrimp

Drunken Noodles with Shrimp

A classic Thai favorite--ok, I really have no idea if this dish is even served in Thailand, i've never been there, but it's a popular menu item in Southern California and I love it. Spicy drunken noodles normally consists of stir fried chiles, onions and bell pepper with chicken, shrimp or tofu. Mix in some wide rice noodles and you have a warm and tasty treat that only takes a few minutes to put together. I like a nice cold beer with drunken noodles, Tiger beer is an especially good compliment.

Ingredients
4 garlic cloves
3 thai chiles
1 cup chopped onion
1 bell pepper
1 Tablespoon chili garlic sauce
1/2 pound Shrimp
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Juice of one lime
Wide, flat rice noodles
Bean sprouts
Basil

Cook the noodles per their instructions.
Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil in a wok over medium-high heat until oil begins to smoke. Saute garlic, chilis, onion and pepper until they begin to soften, about five minutes. Add the chili garlic sauce and the shrimp and continue until shrimp are mostly cooked. Combine soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and lime. You can begin adding the sauce to the wok as the shrimp cooks, but be sure to save some for the noodles. When the shrimp is cooked, add the rice noodles and the bean sprouts. Turn the heat down to low, add the remaining sauce adn  continue to cook for a few more minutes, mixing all the ingredients together and allow the noodles to absorb the flavors. Garnish with basil. Serve with a cold lager beer or pinot grigio.

Pizza

Welcome to my Blog!

I thought I'd start things off with something you are likely to see a lot around here - homemade pizza. One of my favorites: pepperoni, mushroom and green pepper. If you don't have a pizza stone you are really missing out. It makes homemade pizza simple and delicious. A 500 degree pizza stone helps to mimic the intense heat you get from a pizza oven in a conventional home oven. Yum!