Texas Pinto Beans

Last night I made pinto beans FROM SCRATCH for a campfire cookout with my friends. It was kind of a last minute idea (the night before we realized DH had the evening OFF WORK for ONCE!) and I had been meaning to make pinto beans from scratch in order to try out a cookbook I was thinking about reviewing, BEAN BY BEAN by Crescent Dragnwagon from Workman publishing.

SADLY, a few weeks ago I laid the cookbook in a casserole dish on the stovetop, which got transferred to the kitchen table…and, YOU GUESSED IT: a cat PEED ON IT. But because it was sitting in a casserole dish, it just sat there soaking up cat pee. The cookbook got completely ruined. I cleaned it up the best I could, and dried it out, but it is just unusable. Nevertheless, I held it out at arms length to see if it had a good recipe for Texas Style Pinto Beans. And it DIDN”T! I am a big fan of Workman Publishing, but seriously: no recipe for ranch style beans?

But I did use the BEAN BY BEAN cookbook to get some information about how to cook dried beans. SO FAR in my life, I have mostly used canned beans because I have not been able to detect a flavor difference, and they are so much more convenient. But as I was reading the BEAN BY BEAN cookbook introduction (BEFORE the cat peed on it), it really waxed poetical about the superior flavor and especially texture of beans made from scratch.

(I have made fresh pinto beans, which for one week a year you can get at the Farmers Market and HEB. Fresh picked beans are so awesomely delicious, I am surprised they aren’t sold frozen instead of canned or dried. Maybe this will change?)

BEAN BY BEAN gives a great deal of information about cooking dried beans, and also, how to “de-musical” them. The number one suggestion is to soak the dried beans in water overnight, drain off the water, and cook slowly. The second best method is to heat the dried beans up to a rolling boil in filtered water (or well water…I wish), then turn the heat off and soak for an hour. THEN pour off the excess water and cook according to recipe.

So that’s what I did. I got three scoops of dried pinto beans at Whole Foods for….three cents or something…..dried beans are CHEAP. I covered them in filtered water, brought them to a rolling boil, turned off the heat, and let them soak for about an hour. I drained off the water (it was kind of tan).

Then, I added:

2 large organic white onions, chopped

2 large not-very hot Poblano peppers

2 red Fresno peppers (for color)

One can organic crushed tomatoes with peppers (like Ro-Tel, but it was from Whole Foods so it was a different brand)

I put the drained beans, all of the above, and water to cover in the dutch oven on the stovetop, and simmered for about 2 hours. Then, at the last minute, I put in a few shakes of dehydrated garlic (because I had forgotten to put in fresh chopped garlic) and a big handful of fresh cilantro leaves from the garden (probably about a cup loose or half a cup pressed together).

After simmering on the campfire for an hour they were just perfect, and pretty tasty. If I had to do it again, I would cook them in vegetable stock instead of water; but the peppers and cilantro made them perfectly tasty if you don’t have stock.

Elizabeth St. Cafe

Tonight I discovered that IT IS A PERFECTLY CROMULENT walk from my house to Elizabeth St Cafe! Which means by extrapolation, it is also a perfectly cromulent walk to 1) La Reyna 2) Fair Bean Coffee 3) Thai Fresh 4) Sugar Mama’s 4) The BarBQ Place 5) most other destinations on SOFI. (When South Congress started to be called SOCO, that is when I figured out that South First would be SOFI. Which also kinda sorta means “wisdom” (sophia) or possibly couch (sofa).)

But of course I mean, perfectly cromulent in the COOL season. I am not sure that I would care to make that trek when it is over a hundred out. It was cool and rainy when I walked it, but not so rainy that I got wet. I was wearing a raincoat and rain hat.

In other news, there was just a H*U*G*E flash of lightning, and a H*U*G*E blast of THUNDER ! I guess we might finally get one of those thunderstorms we have been promised. I guess I am glad I went early.

Going early is DE RIGOUR when you try to go to Elizabeth St Cafe, because, just like KOME, they are already jammed packed to the gills with an hour wait every second they are open, except in the afternoon. I have been getting there around 6 PM, and it fills up right behind me, and then everyone else has to wait for a table. FORVER!

I am disinclined to wait for a table, ever, because I hate waiting and I CAN go early, so I do (usually). ANYWAY, I am glad I went yesterday and especially today because, my first visit there was awful. I came away from that experience thinking, “Mediocre and Overpriced”. But then I talked to my Best Friend Brian and HE said that he and his wife Valerie went there and it was perfect and awesome. SO when I went back I ordered EXACTLY what they ordered (the Green Mango Salad and the Short Rib Pho), and it was very very good. Thank goodness I get to go more than once! Tonight I purposefully didn’t eat all day and then had my appetite-sharpening walk (It is really POURING out now! YAY!) and the dinner I ordered tonight was EXQUISITE.

The cold spring rolls were Good, and served with 2 good and one fair sauces. THe julienned sticks of pork inside them were OK, they could have been more flavorful IMO. But the Beef Carpacchio!! IT WAS SO PERFECT AND ORIGINAL AND GREAT! It was a fair portion too, but the best part was the grilled peppers that adorned it..they really made my evening. SO DELICIOUS! It was also dressed with marinated mushrooms, which I personally thought were OK but would have been G*R*E*A*T if they were broiled in butter rather than soaked in vinegar. Marinated mushrooms just lose all their mushroom flavor. They might as well be radishes. In fact, I would like marinated radishes MORE, because, TEXTURE.

Then I had the SHAKING BEEF. I discovered, or rather suspected, that this dish MIGHT turn out to be the FAVORITE dish that I L*O*V*E “Beef Chunk With Lettuce and Tomato” that I used to get at Saigon Kitchen. And it WAS! And it was fantastic. You know, I should try a little harder to write well when I write here, because this isn’t good writing. If I won the leathery, I think I might go to the Iowa Writer’s workshop and learn to be a better writer with all that competition. OR, I could just PRETEND I am in the workshop and write better! But then I don’t get the PRAISE and stuff that I really like.

THEN I had the Profiteroles, which were the best dessert type thing I have had there. Very Very good.

Now I want to go back and try the BUN again, since my first experience was so blah. Maybe they are using the RIGHT (IMO) kind of rice noodles now? And serving them at the RIGHT (IMO) temperature?

Little Brick Area

A Cleared Space In Front of the Barrels

Over time I have “stolen” loose bricks from…places where loose bricks have been left in seemingly-unwanted ways. I don’t have a lot of them, but altogether I have collected about a wheelbarrow-full. (Recently they tore down a church in my neighborhood, that had a brick front, and I went in the car at night to steal bricks, but they were all still stuck together and I couldn’t lift them. So they ended up going to THE DUMP! Whatta waste.)

One day when I was standing in the mud in front of my REVISED water collection tanks, I thought that it would be a great idea to make a little brick area in front so that when I get water out of my barrels, my shoes won’t get muddy.

So I got around to doing it yesterday. First, I tried to make a level area. I did not use a level, because I am lame. I mean, I THOUGHT about it, but it sounded exhausting to go in the house and get one.

Weed Barrier Cloth Laid upon the Ground

THEN, I put in a double layer of Weed Barrier Cloth. The Weed Barrier Cloth really cracks me up, because on the package it says “Lasts 7 years!”. In ONE YEAR, on the floor of my $25 greenhouse, it completely disintegrates. I thought about writing to the company and demanding that they change the labeling to: “Lasts for 7 years! (except in Texas)”. ANYWAY, two layers of cloth.

Then, I arranged some of my found bricks in an attractive and workable pattern. There you are! Next time I go to The Dirt Store I am going to get some decomposed granite and fill in the cracks.

I have plans to make a walkway like this across the front yard to the front walk. I would need to BUY bricks though. I would rather repurpose old ones though! Stupid Church with its stuck together bricks! I wonder if Habitat for Humanity re-sells old bricks. Most of the ones I have came from an old BQ pit that was dismantled.

Another View....I still have to get some decomposed granite to fill the cracks, but essentially I ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING!

Lunch at KOME

Kaki Fry Teishoku-deep fried panko oyster with tar tar sauce

I went back to KOME for lunch on Friday; lunch hours are 11-2, and I got there at 1:30, feeling a little guilty about maybe extending the server’s hours. I might as well have saved my compassion: they still had a wait! This is one place that really doesn’t even NEED the PR of a CHRONICLE review! They are just packed all the time.

And seriously, with good reason. As a dinner or sushi snack destination, KOME is very good; as a LUCH destination, they are AWESOME. I need to have a new category for my reviews: “Can’t Wait to Take a Friend”. That is how I felt about KOME after having lunch there.

What makes a great Lunch place/ Well in my opinion, it is just this: a lot of great food for a reasonable price. Imean, sure, sometimes, if the food is awesome enough, you don’t care about the price all that much (especially if it is a Special Occasion; I used to take my Mom to Jeffrey’s for Special Occasions and my only sorrow is that I didn’t take her MUCH more often. It is a REAL SORROW, too. At the time I felt I couldn’t afford it; but looking back, I wish I had maxed out my credit cards taking her nice places.)

But at LUNCH, you kind of need it to be reasonable. I went to lunch at a place that shall for the time being remain nameless, and the bill was $60. SIXTY BUCKS! For two people. For lunch, that is just too much in my opinion.

But at KOME, lunch for two people came out to $27. For one person, a totally reasonable $15. Of course, I am a freelance artist of various kinds (songwriter, food writer, painter, gardener, and I am thinking about writing books) and I work at home, so I usually eat a homemade lunch. If I go out for lunch, it is usually a fun social event where I am catching up with a friend, not an everyday thing. So $15 seems like a fine amount to pay, but most especially for SUCH AN EXCELLENT MEAL!

First, a glass of excellent iced tea and a bowl of (mysteriously) flavorful soup that seemed to consist of a colorless broth, a few noodles, and sliced raw mushrooms. Not as hearty as the Miso soup I had at nighttime. But still, just delicious; how do they make the broth so flavorful when it is colorless? My homemade stocks are always densely colored, even the vegetable stock.

Then, I had the fried oysters, which were served with one of the best salads I have had in the last year. Seasonal and local and perfect and memorable, the greatest salad ever. Beet greens (BABY beet greens), shredded fresh young cabbage, watermelon radish sliced paper thin, and sweet cherry tomatoes in a light gingery sesame dressing. I asked about the OBVIOUS local/seasonal quality of the salad, and I was told that they work closely with HausBar Farms for the salad fixings. What could be more perfect?

The oysters were fresh and plentiful, but to be really picky, the breading was too heavy and they were, to my taste, a bit overcooked. But I would totally order them again and enjoy them again, except I would request they be UNDERcooked. But if they came out overcooked again, they would still be pretty good and I would still enjoy them. They were served with a magnificent “Tar Tar” sauce, made with mayonnaise, chopped harbored egg, and tiny pieces of carrot and parsley and Japanese pickles. On the side was served an order of sticky white rice and a tiny dish Japanese pickles; these pickles seemed to me to be salty and fermented and reasonably interesting.

For dessert I tried the Red Bean Rice Cake Balls, and I liked them, though they are strange; gummy balls of rice, gluey really, with a very slightly sweet dark paste on the top. I am struck by how the Japanese fare I have tried is very relaxed about fat content (lots of fried stuff, plenty of mayonnaise) but very, very light on the sugar. Compared to Western sweets, the Japanese don’t even HAVE sweets! The Red Bean Rice Cake Balls were indeed, less sweet than many savory American dishes, such as  BBQ meats or “Northern Style” cornbread.

Japanese people must think it’s AWFUL that we put sugar in out tea!

Kusa Dango- Red Bean Paste Rice Cake Balls

The Garden Planters Project

Side View of Planter Form

SO, what happened was, my garden got totally AWAY FROM ME in 2010. I think that year I was sick a lot and had these never ending ear infections, plus it never rained…other than that I sorta forget, but ANYWAY, at Xmas of 2010, my garden was just a bunch of weeds and I felt overwhelmed and frustrated, especially by the Bermuda grass.

Bermuda grass is considered “A Pernicious Weed” in that, it reproduces by seed, rhizomes, and by sending out these long “feelers” both under and above ground. In other words, you are NEVER going to win against this weed. I felt like I was spending MY LIFE digging out Bermuda Grass roots 4 times a year from every bed. I daydreamed of winning the lottery, hiring some stonemasons and digging giant garden planters, lining them with masonry, and filling them with good soil. But, it was just a fantasy.

Plywood Planter Form Close-Up

THEN I SORT OF SNAPPED and decided that, I COULD do it, if I used (cheap) concrete, because Darden Smith told me he made some planters like this and they cost only $60. Each. I mean thats reasonable, right? Thus the GARDEN PLANTERS PROJECT was born.

Like ALL my projects, it proceeded at a glacial pace (it still does!) in the Spring of 2011, we got ONE planter made. Or should I say summer? because I think it was JUNE before it was done. It was hot, anyway, and everything I planted in it died except for 2 eggplants that were little more than bare sticks (because a green tomato worm got to them), and three Thai Basils because, those Thai Basils don’t give a shit, a hundred and sixteen degree? BRING IT ON, sez they.

Twenty Eggplants per Plant

But in the FALL of 2011, when it began to “cool off” (be under a hundred sometimes), the eggplants CAME BACK (the two sticks) and in their new, Bermuda Grass Free Forever concrete bed (I designed them to be IMPERMEABLE to Bermuda Grass, by making them FOUR FEET DEEP!! I KNOW. ITS INSANE), full of “real” dirt from “The Dirt Store”, both of those eggplants became COVERED in eggplants, like, twenty eggplants on each wee bush!

OMG its AMAZING what actually fertile soil can DO! In Fertile Soil, my garden doesn’t need to be so BIG!

So I planned another planter to be completed in December. This time, the glacial slowness was improved, and we got it done in January. I mean, that’s not too bad! This time, we hired handyman Santiago to help us dig the hole and mix the concrete, so it COST more, but I think I am going to stick with hiring Santiago because I have never seen a more beautiful hole. He used A LEVEL on the bottom to make it LEVEL. Seriously.

The Completed Planters

The original planter is now planted with Broccoli and Kale, ensuring that we will have enough broccoli to get totally sick of it (that is how much I like to grow!). The New planter in planted with leeks, lettuce and Rapini. (Getting Rapini starts is iffy; if I could get them, I would just plant Rapini because it is the best vegetable there is! But at The Dirt Store, they can never tell you when or if they will be getting things in. No one ever knows. If they act like they know, they are usually wrong.)

I also have a thriving regular bed of cilantro, ensuring a good supply through the year (I freeze it). In 2011 I had to use STORE BOUGHTEN cilantro, and guys, I am telling ya, that shit BLOWS. Apparently they plant it really thickly, and every stem has three tiny leaves, you have to clean a whole bunch to get like a half cup of leaves. The home grown cilantro has twice the flavor and ten times the leaves.

I plan this year to do as I did last year: buy Early Girl tomatoes around my birthday (February first, which is when The Dirt Store says they will have them), plant them in giant plastic tubs in my green house, and get tomatoes while the getting is good (Tomatoes won’t set fruit if it is over 70˚ at night. In Austin, that means, no tomatoes after like May 15th). MAYBE, just MAYBE, if I complete another planter in time, I will plant some tomatoes in it; more likely though, I will plant peppers. It is VERY unlikely that I will get more than one more planter done before hot weather.

All I can say is: I wish I would have done this ten years ago, as in, IN THE FIRST PLACE! These planters are so Low maintenance it is UNBELIEVABLE. High Yield and Low Maintenance. IT’S A MIRACLE!

Leeks, Lettuce, Bitter Greens

LARD!

In my avid reading of old cookbooks, I have so many times come across recipes that say, “For best results, use lard.” But I wouldn’t touch industrially-farmed lard with a 12-foot pole.

But now! Richardson Farms is selling PURE, pastured Berkshire LARD. I bought a jar the instant I saw it, But I haven’t decided what to MAKE with it yet! Since DH is a Vegetarian, I can’t use it in beans or cornbread (I mean unless I want to eat them all by myself, which I don’t.)

Maybe in the dough for meat-filled empanadas?

KOME Birthday

This is a little mechanical guy whose arm goes up and down. Both times I have been to KOME I have been seated right in front of this toy, so now it is the KOME emblem for ME

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! I went to eat at KOME on Airport Boulevard by myself, because DH is doing a TRIPLE today.We are going to celebrate my birth later in the week when we are BOTH off.

ANYWAY: I had this RADICAL idea that, instead of trying hard to write with mental discipline, instead I will just gas on spastically here on my BLOG, you know, to HASH IT ALL OUT, and then later I can glean over my musings to write my ACTUAL, PUBLISHED restaurant review. I can probably get away with this for a long time, because NO ONE reads my Blog anymore because I forgot to post for most of last year. (Oops!)

Iced Tea and Miso Soup: BOTH E*X*C*EL*L*E*N*T !!

Here are some unrelated thoughts about KOME: The head chef or owner or something used to be the head sushi chopper at UCHI, so, folks are excited about this place! Because for one thing, it is WAY cheaper than UCHI, and I am sure there are many people who would like to have an UCHI-LIKE experience without paying the BIG BUX.

But I say, NAY, NAY! There is no point in comparing KOME to UCHI, and I think I will avoid that in my published review. Because it is really, as they say, apples and oranges. KOME has set out to be ” Japanese HOME COOKING”, not FANCYPANTS JAPANESE CUISINE.  KOME is really not trying to do the same thing at all. Sure, they have sushi and sashimi, but even that is quite different from Uchi’s.

My new Neat-O change purse that is sort of like a birthday present

So anyway, I am going to compare them a little HERE, but I have decided NOT TO in the REAL review. The food at KOME has more: mayonnaise, sauce, avocado, it is shinier in general (though that might be partially the lighting). What I am trying to says, it’s FATTIER. (But not in a bad way!) The food doesn’t have the ethereality nor the Lyrical-ness of Uchi or Uchiko. But they aren’t trying to be ethereal! So never mind.

Here is a very important thought about COMMUNICATION: TALK TO YOUR SERVER! One of the reasons I USUALLY have positive experiences at places is that I know, from BEING a waitress, to ASK THE SERVER what THEY like on the menu. If they are at all invested in where they work, they will have an opinion. ORDER WHAT THEY TELL YOU TO, if you can possibly do so.

I asked two different staff members what they liked, and BOTH of them said they loved the Cabbage and pork omelet. Frankly, it sounded like exactly what I did not feel like having. But I ordered it, because of my POLICY of ordering what they recommend.

Oh

My

God

It was so awesomely delicious.

The very Best thing so far!

The combination of flavors was sublime in this dish, which (I was told) is a popular street food. In a Japanese city that I can’t remember which one. Along with the exquisite flavors of the caramelized cabbage and breakfast-y pork, there were delicious notes of ginger and scallion and a lovely dusting of bonito flakes. I think this dish is the EPITOME of what KOME has to offer: For REAL japanese home cooking.

More on Kome tomorrow!

Lazy Bed Potatoes

Cleaned Ground for the LAZY BED

So remember how I said that my garden got away from me? Well it really did and everything was just Bermuda Grass everywhere. During the hot summer last year, it was too hot to work outside, literally (over a hundred and five degrees, and really, you are courting DEATH) plus, DROUGHT, so I just let the weeds hold the soil down because I am a smartypants that way. (REMEMBER THE DUSTBOWL??!?!?)

Sulphured Potato Eyes

But it HAS been raining this winter, and weeding is feasible. I weeded a bed and planted ONIONS; then later, I found a russet potato (in my kitchen) that had started to sprout because I forgot about it. As I looked at this sprouting potato, I thought: “you know, I have nothing planted in most of the garden because I am re-doing my whole garden with THE PLANTERS. So I have these fallow beds just full of Bermuda grass. I could PLANT THIS POTATO.

I have never planted potatoes before because, Texas really isn’t the right climate for potatoes and frankly, they are pretty cheap. A big bag of organic potatoes from Whole Foods is only like five bucks. But this potato! It was sprouting! And that empty bed, it was just sitting there.

I had read in my favorite cookbook of all time THE TASTE OF COUNTRY COOKING by Edna Lewis, about how the black farmers of Freetown planted their potatoes in what were called “Lazy Beds”. (They got me at “lazy”!). What you do is, you clear off some ground, and you put a bunch of potato eyes on it, and then cover it with straw. A LOT of straw, The potatoes grow up through the straw, and then when the plant part dries up, the potatoes are ready, and you just clear away the straw and there they are for gathering, “like eggs in a bird’s nest”.

Potato Eye Chunks laid upon the Clean Ground

Feeling too lazy to go and get the cookbook and refresh my memory about the technique, I googled it and ended up spending an entire evening reading about the Irish Potato Famine and Irish Immigration to Amerikay and how to grow potatoes in Lazy Beds, apparently a Irish Innovation (Blood will tell! After all, I am Irish, and that term “Lazy Bed”, that really appealed!) According to THE INTERNET, you don’t have to use straw, you can also use LEAVES, and according to some, MULCH.

Cartful of Glen's Leaves

So, on Saturday I cleared the weeds from the bed (the dirt was surprisingly nice underneath the 12 inches of mulch that I had covered the bed with to stop the Bernuda grass. It didn’t STOP THE BERMUDA GRASS, of course, the grass LOVED the 12 inches of mulch and grew right through it. But the mulch broke down over time and improved the dirt, so that’s something.)

Then on Sunday I cut my Sprouting Potato into bits (and also a few other potatoes I bought on purpose: some yellow fingerlings, a Yukon Gold and a Peruvian Purple) and dusted them with Sulphur as I was instructed to do (the black people of Freetown didn’t use sulphur, they just air-dried the eyes) and then laid the chunks out on the ground, and then covered them all with a lot of leaves that my neighbor Glen Turner gave me (he gets some potatoes if this works!)

The COMPLETED LAZY BED !!!

Typical Farmers Market Haul

Kitchen Table, Scout, and MARKET HAUL!

I thought I would take a picture of my market haul, partly because it is so pretty (and partly because Scout the Cat and Algernon the Cat are posing in amusing ways): A big bunch of CELERY (which does not “grow here”, but one farmer managed! A nearly impossible feat, as celery requires a LOT of WATER, and a cool growing season 9 months long. And this is Texas, where it was over a hundred and five for 2 months, over a hundred for three months, and we are in the worst drought ever in the history of recorded time. The farmer in question told me: “I love celery and I have to have it so we just watered the shit out of it.”); A head of broccoli (this DOES grow here, but the broccoli in my garden isn’t ready yet); a package of flout tortillas and a BIG BAG of coconut-oil fried corn chips from Blanco Valley Farms; a bundle of shockingly beautiful Swiss Chard, a small cabbage, and a bag of multicolored carrots from Johnson’s Backyard Garden; a Mango Drinkable Yogurt, a pint of whole milk, and a  Strawberry Greek Yogurt from Texas Daily Harvest; a bag of chicken thighs from Dewberry Hills Farms, A Pineapple Cream Cheese from Full Quiver Farms, A pound of German Sausage from Peach Creek Farms (their German Sausage is the BEST IN TEXAS!); a jar of LARD from Richardson Farms; A dozen eggs from Opa’s (Ottmer’s) farm; Three packages of Puppy Pate (its FOR dogs, not made of dogs) from Peach Creek Farms; and a bunch of green onions.

Algernon looks cute too!

Water System Redesign!

The Completed System with Glen Turner and the Hand Pump

After studying on it for about a year (during which it did not rain), I decided to buy a water pump to get the water out of my rain water barrels. I had been using a siphon, but the siphon didn’t work on the water in the very bottom of the barrels.

So that water never got out, and started to smell and be gross with algae and also rotting chinaberries, which were small enough to get into the system. Some of the water turned black and it really smelled. When you siphon, you have to SUCK on the tube to get it started, and, GROSS! Smelly Black Water in your mouth!

Glen Turner does the PVC Magic

My Neighbor Glen Turner had built the system for me in the FIRST pace, and he saw my new pump and we discussed the whole situation, and he suggested that we do it all over again. One of the barrels really needed to be replaced, because sunlight got in and made algae REALLY badly. Also the tubes going INTO the barrels were getting clogged with chinaberries because they were too small.

SO: we put a screen over the mouth of the rain gutter to keep the chinaberries out; then we dismantled the system. We leveled the ground, and then used old bricks to make a level platform for the barrels. The barrels, this time all the same size, were placed on the bricks, and then Glen did ALL the PVC work to make it all work, INCLUDING making special plugs so that my new Hand Pump could be moved from barrel and barrel as needed.

See the brick platform?