I would jump right into describing how much I enjoyed these hoe cakes, but there is a bit of a backstory that needs to be discussed first. A few weekends ago Alex and I went to Kentucky/Cincinnati to visit his family. We did a lot of things when we were there - we visited with family, saw some fireworks, made about a billion gallons of chili (vegetarian and beef in case you were curious), ate some really delicious upscale Mexican food at Nada in downtown Cincinnati, took lots of pictures of the pig statues that are all over downtown Cincinnati (see below - I was a little obsessed), sampled Graeter's ice cream and also visited a town in Kentucky called (I kid you not) Rabbit Hash. We happened to visit Rabbit Hash during their Old Timers Festival. There was live music and food, plus there was this guy with a hundred year old corn/grain mill selling freshly ground cornmeal and grits. I couldn't resist - I bought two big bags (one of yellow cornmeal and one of grits). Along with his cornmeal he offered two recipes, one for cornbread and one for hoe cakes. Now I wasn't born and raised a good Southern girl like Paula Deen so I had never tried a hoe cake before, but I decided to give it a shot. And they were awesome. Speaking of Paula Deen, she has a whole post about hoe cakes (including several recipes) on her website. Anyway, I liked that the hoe cakes were texturally a cross between a pancake and cornbread. I also liked that they were just slightly sweet and somehow manage to avoid the heaviness and sleepiness that pancakes always evoke.
While in Cincinnati I also shocked Alex's family members with my ability to eat spicy food by accidentally dumping a heaping amount of dried chili on a pizza and then eating it all. Incidentally, my tolerance for spicy food can be blamed on my mother, although it really took living in China for me to embrace truly spicy food. I grew up with hot sauce on the Thanksgiving table to be served with the turkey and a planter of Thai chilis in the backyard (which was discarded after my parents learned that having kids near Thai chilis when they can touch the chilis and then rub their eyes is a terrible idea - many tears ensued). Alex's uncle John grows his own hot peppers and makes his own wonderful dried chili powders (we are currently in possession of tiny apothecary-esque bottles of dried Hungarian wax, hot and medium banana peppers, habanero, cayenne, jalapeno and a spicy blend of several different chili varieties. We haven't figured out exactly what we are going to use them for (although we have a couple of ideas), so stay tuned for some spicy recipes in the near-ish future! Thanks John!
Recipe and more pictures after the jump!
In case you haven't noticed, there haven't been very many posts on the blog lately. Sometimes the blog suffers from neglect because I am busy with work and sometimes it happens because I am traveling too much. This quiet patch was due to the fact that we haven't had a quiet weekend in NYC in quiet some time. Two weekends ago (Labor Day) we were in Cincinnati for Riverfest (which, incidentally included the most impressive fireworks display I have seen in quite some time) and last weekend we were in Chicago. Thankfully we were in town this weekend and I carved out a few hours today to cook breakfast, post about our travels and to tee up some posts about the relatively few meals we have made recently.
I had a large to-do list for our trip to Chicago and we somehow managed to do check quite a few things off our list. We saw the Bean (pictured above) in Grant Park (which was pretty spectacular), we visited the Art Institute of Chicago and Navy Pier, we did the Chicago River architecture tour, we laughed our way through Second City, visited the Chicago beach at Lake Michigan and then we ate and drank a whole bunch. We probably walked a good 10 miles over the course of the weekend. I really wanted to go to The Girl and the Goat during our visit, but it was impossible to get reservations and we were only there for a short period of time so we skipped it. But I checked out the Eater 38 for Chicago and added a few other restaurants to my list - two of which we managed to hit while we were there. There was one other restaurant from the Eater 38 that I really wanted to visit while we were there, but it was kind of far away and given the time constraints we didn't make it there. But the next time I visit Chicago I am hitting Urban Belly because the menu just looked so phenomenal and I will be making reservations at The Girl and the Goat insanely far in advance just to make sure that I get to eat there.
More pictures, etc. after the jump!
Fall is here (or almost here)! And with fall - apples, pears and the very beginning of squash season. This is my favorite time of year at the farmers' market because you still have a lot of the great summer produce (although fresh corn and basil will be disappearing shortly), but honeycrisp apples and acorn squash are making their debut. It is so exciting. To celebrate I decided to make this pear salad for breakfast along with some hoe cakes. There is a story that goes with the hoe cakes, but you are going to wait until we post them to hear that particular story. Anyway, I thought this salad was really interesting - the juxtaposition of sweet pears and basil with salty, nutty cheese totally worked for me. It made a really nice breakfast/brunch dish. We made the pears with hoe cakes, blending an Italian salad with a very traditional Southern dish, but I think it totally worked!
P.S. Alex pointed out that you can see the reflection of the building across the street on the plate in our picture. Living in an NYC apartment means that we don't exactly have a lot of options for taking pictures of our dishes, particularly not when we want natural light. Our choices are basically the windowsill (like this picture) or the coffee table. But I think this is the first time that we caught a reflection like that!
Recipe after the jump!
Ok so first things first. I know exactly what this looks like. And it doesn't look appetizing. When we first mixed the dish together I had some interesting thoughts - and few of them were good. The one exception was that the smell of the spices (particularly the cumin and the coriander) was very nice. But once you get over the texture, which is similar to baby food, it's not bad. I would love to say that it's amazing, but it wasn't there for me. Maybe it was the texture or maybe it was something else. I just don't know. I wish our dish had looked anything like the original on Steamy Kitchen, but clearly we messed something up there. But let's be honest, even if the texture had been perfect it still would not have made it to my list of dishes that I love and can't wait to make again. Oh well. At least we tried!
Recipe after the jump!
I am of the opinion that most things in life are not improved by the addition of mayonnaise. I know that BLT's and other sandwiches need at least a touch of mayonnaise to be palatable (otherwise they are just too dry) and you need a little mayo in tuna salad. But I can't really think of anything else that is improved by the addition of mayonnaise. I have heard that you can use mayonnaise instead of butter when making grilled cheese sandwiches to help the outside of the sandwich toast up golden brown but I haven't tried it out so I can't speak to that. But when Alex wanted to add mayonnaise to our Korean chicken salad I was very skeptical. I think I made stink face at him when he brought it up. And again when I tried it. Had I been about two decades younger I probably would have thrown in an "ewwwww - mayonnaise!" But it was really good with just a touch of mayonnaise! The kewpie mayonnaise somehow pulled it all together - it thickened the dressing a little and gave it body, plus it balanced all of the flavors out somehow and added some sweetness and a touch of tartness/acidity. It was yummy and it made the chicken salad (which was already pretty good but missing something), just that much better. I heart this chicken salad, which by extension might mean I heart kewpie mayonnaise. But let's not be too hasty.
P.S. The chicken by itself was really delicious and would make an excellent entree, or you could use the meat for sandwiches or soups or other things. I was set on poached chicken breasts because I think their gentle chicken flavor and texture works really well for chicken salads, but Alex prefers roast chicken breasts (hence Alex's Roast Chicken Breasts). Since he was cooking he got to choose the cooking method and in this instance, I might have to agree that he was right as I think we will be making those chicken breasts again in the future!
Recipe after the jump!
I don't know how this happened, but I am currently obsessed with the idea of kale caesar salads. I know we have made a few on the blog before, but I think saw a reference to kale caesar salad on NY Magazine's website a few months back and I have been thinking about it ever since. Of course now that I am thinking about it I can't find the reference, but I am going to blame NY Magazine anyway. Mature, right? Anyway, I found this version of kale caesar salad on Serious Eats (which seems to have recently replaced Epicurious as my go-to source of recipes/inspiration). If only we had made some homemade croutons I think it would have been kickass. The salad was pretty good, but I think the buttery flavor and crunchy texture of the croutons would have taken it to the next level. The dressing has some serious kick (which you will notice if you try it on its own), but you need a dressing with some real pizazz to jazz up the kale.
Recipe after the jump!
I am going to start this post off by giving a brief shout out to Alex. Last weekend we went to Cincinnati to visit his family. We were supposed to make these green beans Wednesday night, but we had tickets to a show and too much going on to make them before the show, so it didn't happen. Then we were going to make them Thursday night, but we had laundry to do and we just totally forgot. Friday morning I looked in the fridge and realized that we had forgotten to make the green beans, but I had to run off to work. So poor Alex got to hang out at home and make them that morning. And they were way more labor intensive than I had realized. Oops. Thanks (and sorry) hon! Actually, I end up doing that to him a lot - giving him a recipe and having him prep and start dinner for us while I rush home, only to realize that I never really read the recipe in the first place and it is way too labor intensive for a random Wednesday night when I don't get home until 9:00 pm. So thanks for being such a good sport!
Now, back to the green beans. I really wanted to like these green beans because the recipe sounded so promising, but they were a little too harsh for me. The vinegar flavor was just really strong, although the flavor that really lingered on your palate after the quick burn of the vinegar was the sesame oil. Alex says he wishes they had a little less sesame and a little more heat. The write-up on Serious Eats was just so complimentary that I really expected to love the beans, but they left me feeling a little lackluster when eaten on their own. We have another jar in the fridge that I think I will use as a garnish for soup or noodles. We had a noodle dish while ago at Mission Chinese Food (see our post here) that combined soba noodles with radish, pear and cilantro that I thought was mighty tasty. Perhaps we could make our own riff on it and use the remaining green beans? Maybe it was a little silly on our part to expect them to stand entirely on their own...
Recipe after the jump!
