Vacation Issues but dogs make work better!

Our trip to New England has been good overall, but it has not been 100% satisfactory. The weather has been much more like what I would expect from April (cold and wet) and our RV has had a few small issues.

Issues: I am going to treat this like a laundry list of complaints.
1) the weather just plain sucks, we haven't been able to spend more than a few minutes outside of the camper because its cold and rainy.
2) The microwave/convection oven broke lose from it's mount on the drive up here and I had to fix it so we could use it. Luckily nothing actually broke it was just that the utterly brilliant mouth breather who put the screws in securing the top to the cabinetry thought that screws going between the cabinet (yes between not INTO) and a piece of wood stapled (not screwed, stapled. I pushed these back in wish finger pressure) to the back side of the cabinet top, would hold. It didn't.
3) Did i mention the rain? Coming from Austin now rain is a welcome sight, even if its to much in a short period of time we always need more water in our lakes(rivers with dams, there are no natural lakes in central TX but that is another topic for another day) and streams. This is a bit much though.
4) The heatpump/Air conditioner unit is having issues working correctly. We do have a propane furnace for when it gets below the heat pumps operating temperature but its may, that should be in some of the time, not most every day. So we have heat but when we get home the RV needs warranty work already. Disappointing but not unexpected when you buy something "Made In America" I am unsure why as a nation we put up with half ass workmanship for top dollar. There are a lot of people out of work right now and it seems to me like it would be a good time to clean house and make sure that everyone who DOES have a job takes some pride in the final product they are producing, I know that if I started slacking off and producing crap at work I'd be replaced in a heartbeat by 3 recent college graduated from Brazil or India. I hate offshoring work but it certainly does make me conscious about the quality and quantity of my work output. Maybe it's time we legalize some of the Mexican labor in the country and train them to do automotive work and let the lazy ass bottom feeders (this include the plant managers who are more concerned with their bonus than the quality of their workers output btw) pick lettuce for a couple dollars an hour for awhile. The end product might not be anymore reliable but it would certainly be cheaper to produce and thus more accessible to the folks who do work hard to buy luxury items. Okay that was a rant I didn't mean to go on but there it is...
5) have I mentioned that it's been raining?

Now off to the positive side of things. Another list because I am apparently into lists today.
1) lobster rolls are awesome, expensive these days but awesome.
2) Having a dog snuggle your feet while you work makes every work day better.
3) Even if it is rainy the rolling hills and little mountains of New England are beautiful and the air is cleaner.
4) Dunkin' Donuts beats the snot out of Krispy Kreme (if you don't agree, you are wrong and you know it even if you aren't willing to admit it to yourself)
5) Why can't someone in Texas learn how to make good Pork fried rice and chicken fingers with duck sauce? It's obtainable here even in my small valley in the middle of NH.
6) Rain is a wonderful thing (in moderation)


Okay, thats all I have for the moment, some ranting and a few things I have been enjoying. The vacation has been good and the ability to work remotely is just awesome. I love that my job allows me these kinds of freedom. IBM has grown as a company in many ways over the years and adapted, i can't say that I always agree with some of the changes but I am certainly a very happy IBMer right now.

Tchau!

A trip!

All 2 of my readers already know this but here goes, to summarize recent events.

We went to the Noble Pig a lot. Ate a lot of TexMex. Cooked at home very little. Went to a couple of Noble Pig Sandwiches Dinners. Went on a precrawl BBQ crawl that was really a full on crawl but if you don't understand that well, we went to 4 BBQ restaurants in one day (for those of you not in TX a a BBQ restaurant isn't hotdogs and hamburgers its a type of food that is generally smoked slowly over a long period of time resulting in meat ambrosia). Had a BBQ. Signed up for what amounts to a second mortgage.

We bought a Class C RV a few weeks back and have driven it to NH on our first real vacation in a couple of years. The drive to NH usually takes about 3 days and covers about 2100 miles. This time it took 4.5 and was closer to 2500 because the middle of the country got flooded and with the RV I decided to stay on major highways as much as possible. We got to see way more of Arkansas and Missouri than I had planned. The drive went well otherwise though the roads in Indiana are probably the worst I have driven on in a long time considering we were on a major Interstate highway. The RV gave us the opportunity to stop a lot more for rest and we did spend 3 nights sleeping in it along the way. That made for a much safer drive in many ways but I still pushed way to hard a couple times and pushed Michelle and myself into a state of being so tired we were ready to strangle each other over the dumbest things. Food was a lot more healthy but still could have been better. Only actually ate fast food once though there was some snacking on Munchos that was probably a bad idea, the second bag of them was definitely a bad idea.

Now that we have been at my parents house for a couple days and have recovered it's time to start to get back to my normal foodie ways and hit a few restaurants in the area and report back on them eventually but it will likely be a somewhat subdued food adventure series because we just paid for gas at $4+ a galllon over 2400 or so miles for a vehicle getting between 7 and 8 miles per gallon. Some cheaper food is likely to be the price of driving a small house across the country. Luckily cheap doesn't always mean bad or even not interesting. I suspect we will be searching out some inexpensive but very fresh and tasty seafood very soon.

For those of you who haven't already found it Michelle is keepping a much more detailed and better written blog at: miceblank.blogspot.com

Persian, Birthday, A noble Tragedy, Korean and Hatch!

The weekend started off nicely with a dinner at Shandeez Grill (http://www.shandeez.com/) after Michelle went Climbing for a little while at Main Event's Rock Gym. The foos was excellent (if a bit on the cool side for grilled meats). We got a family platter that was supposed to be for 3 (they did not have one for 2). Will definitely be going back to explore their menu further.


(from their menu: SHANDEEZ FAMILY PLATE #2 [Serves three]
Combination of skewer of chicken kabob, 2 ground beef kabob, and steak kabob charbroiled, served with grill Tomatoes and fluffy basmati rice [white, Baghali Polo])


The next morning we got up early enough to make breakfast at The Noble Pig. We don't do this every weekend but It's a good way to start a Saturday. We had been warned that they got a writeup in the local paper and were extremely busy Friday but we went anyhow. At 10am they weren't busy at all and we got a leisurely breakfast and conversation with the staff. We had sent a message to a friend suggesting she meet us but she was to lazy to be awake at that awful early hour. Here is the blog post mentioned Tragedy. When this friend did finally drag herself out of bed later in the day The Noble Pig was closed... because they ran out of bread. Apparently they got busy after we left. Score one for being out of bed before noon!


Fried Egg potato and cheese sandwich with Sausage and a side of bacon. (I added the bacon as a bday present to myself!)

Saturday evening we have standing plans with friends that range from Pizza (most of the time) to Thai or Korean. This week we went to Korea House (http://www.yelp.com/biz/korea-house-restaurant-and-sushi-bar-austin) and had a great meal including sushi and Korean bbq. An excellent day!

The weekend feeding frenzy was capped off by the oh so usual but not mundane trip to Chuy's (http://www.chuys.com/) for a large dose of Hatch Green Chile with friends. As usual the food was good but we sat on the patio and it was really quite cold. They have heaters and curtains but their patio is designed such that the curtains leave a huge gap for cold air to come in. Did not make for a pleasant meal in some ways but there was Hatch so it can be overlooked.

I couldn't decide what to eat so I got Soup and an appetizer plater.

Review: The Noble Pig

The Noble Pig has been a destination for breakfast and lunch for Michelle and I for the past few months. We go there on average about once a weekand have gotten a chance to chat with the staff quite a bit. Their friendly attitude is outstanding.

As the name would imply, most of the sandwiches have a pork theme. The signature sandwich "The Noble Pig" is so amazingly flavorful my biggest complaint is that it might have to many meats on it. The BLT is not your typical crunch back lettuce and tomato but a gourmet sandwich on homemade bread with fresh tomatoes lettuce and 16 hour slow smoked pork belly. The meat reminds me more of a smoked brisket in cut and texture than bacon, but the flavor... This is probably the best sandwich on the lunch menu that involves pork. The other gem in my mind there is the deviled egg sandwich. They toast their homemade bread and serve you deviled eggs as the main ingredient. As much as I love their lunch menu I generally get breakfast. There is nothing special about putting together a fried egg, cheese potato and sausage sandwich unless you do it the way that they do at the Noble Pig. This is the best breakfast sandwich I have had. Michelle usually gets their oatmeal for breakfast which again sounds mundane until you dig in and taste the spectacular blueberry compote that they serve on top of the mug of oatmeal and the 5-spice twist in the oatmeal itself with a little bit of melting butter is fantastic.

Their soup changes as they run out and have to bring in a new pot so I can't tell you much about what there might be there at any given time but so far I have to say that the soups are amongst the best I have had in Austin. I was particularly in love with the tomato basil that was available on out last visit.

If you find yourself in North Austin and hungry this would be my first stop. They are a bit out of the way and hard to find thanks to a couple of trees in the small parking lot but the hunt is well worth it.

One more thought before I save this... 16 HOUR SMOKED BACON!!!!!!!!!!!

Been awhile...

While making dinner last night I realized that I was making the same recipe (sort of) as my last blog post and couldn't remember when that post had gone up. I put off looking it up because I was busy and as usual a bit lazy. I promptly then forgot about it in after dinner digestion bliss from a very satisfactory version of the Puerco Guisada, tortillas, chips and various salsa dips. On the way to work today I thought about it again and decided to check it out when I got to work. Gah! that was last March! I am not a big fan of people updating their blogs just because it's time to update... but this is pushing the limit and makes my blog stale. Instead of posting a rehash of the last recipe (which wasn't exactly the same but was very good) I thought I would bring the blog up to date with happenings from the past 10 months... New Job (same company).. interesting work yay! New Mexico visit. Lots of work. Cancel trip to NH/Mass due to conflicting work schedules between Michelle and myself. Job still interesting. Michelle's mom visits for Thanksgiving. Did I mention there was a lot going on with work? Xmas in New Mexico. Hmm that pretty much covers all the highlights. I also cooked a few meals in there and went to a few great restaurants. Here is a partial list of the restaurants in no order other than what my foggy brain can dredge them up so I guess maybe a slight bias to how memorable.

Austin Area:

The Noble Pig

The Emerald

The Noble Pig

O'Leander Cafe (they just reopened over the holidays, yay!)

The Noble Pig

Fogo De Chao

The Melting Pot

The Noble Pig

Kerby Lane Cafe

The Noble Pig

Albq. NM area:

The Range

The Standard Diner

La Hacienda

Twister's

Flying Star Cafe

Hmm did I mention The Noble Pig in Austin TX on 620 a little north of Anderson Mill? Perhaps that will be my first review.

Puerco Guisada - sorta...

This recipe came about because I wanted to make something with a lot of flavor and slow cooked so it would be tender. I had just made beef tips last week so I decided to go with pork. I have wanted to make carnitas for awhile but the amount of oil used puts me off. This comes out with a similar texture and I think more flavor. Is good shredded on a soft flour tortilla or over rice... or just on a fork.

Ingredients:
4 tbs flour
2 tbs green chile powder (hard to come by..)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbs cumin
2 tbs minced garlic
4lb Boston Butt Roast (cut into 2 inch chunks)
1 large onion chopped
1 1/2 cup roasted hatch chopped
1 small can crushed tomato
2 cups broth (chicken.. pork.... vegetable)
4 tbs oil (not extra virgin olive, canola or peanut works well)


pork and spices


My preferred chicken broth.



Best canned tomato product I can find.


Chop roasted hatch. This is from my freezer. I roast and freeze my own green chillies from New Mexico every fall.


Onions and garlic



Mix the dry spices and flour and rub all over meat chunks.


In a cast iron dutch oven, heat up the oil and brown all the pork chunks.


Pork all browned and set aside briefly.


Saute the onions in the leftover oil and add the garlic.


Add the tomato.


Add the broth slowly and bring up to a low boil.




Add the pork back to the pan and move to a 300 degree oven for 90 minutes.


Pork halfway through cooking process.



Add the hatch and stir in gently. You could add the Hatch at the beginning and then cook for full 3 hours but I like to keep some of the structure to the Hatch in the finished product. Put back into the oven for another 90 minutes.



Finished Puerco Guisada.


One piece of the finished pork. Fork tender and ready to eat. Wish I had photographed the tacos we made out of this.

We made tacos from this meat shredded with a little bit of the gravy/sauce some crumbled queso blanco (a fresh mexican cheese that crumbles like feta but tastes more like mozzarella) and some raw onions that I had mixed with lime juice and cilantro.

Enjoy!

Beef Tips

Beef tips were my favorite meat at Dot's in Pflugerville, Texas. Dot's closed today because Dot the woman who owned it wanted to retire after 30 years of making some of the best southern comfort food I have ever had.

Ingredients:
Chuck Roast
Beef broth
onions
butter
garlic
corn starch
salt
pepper
celery salt
gravy darkener (Gravy Master or Kitchen Bouquet)



I got chuck roast that was already cut into "country rib" strips and the garlic i used was fresh minced in a plastic tube from the veggy section at the grocery store.


Chop the 3 onions (I saved half of one onion for a side dish).



Cut the meat into chunks that are sort of cube like. The length of cooking we will do will take care of any size differences.


Brown the meat on each side as best you can.


Stir the meat every few minutes. This might take several batches. Move the browned meat to a plate and save the drippings.


Add the onions and saute for a few minutes on medium heat.


Add the salt, pepper and celery salt.


Add about 2 tablespoons of fresh minced garlic.


Stir in the browned meat and drippings. Preheat the oven to 350.


Add the broth and bring up to a boil. Once the broth is at a heavy boil, stir well and cover. Move to the oven for 1 hour.


Remove the cover and leave tips in the oven for another hour.


Remove from the oven and with a slotted spoon take the meat out to a holding dish and cover while you make the gravy.


If, like me you reduced the liquid to much, add a couple more cups of broth or however much you need to make the desired amount of gravy.


Bring the broth up to a boil and add the browning sauce and some cornstarch slurry. Bring back up to a boil and remove from heat.


Add the cooked meat back to the pot and stir in gently. Set aside for 10 minutes or so to let the gravy and meat flavors develop more.


Beef tips ready to serve. Dot's always served this over rice and I cooked some rice to serve with it tonight as well though I also served Boiled Butter Potatoes and Bacon Green Beans.