Gardening isn’t all Vegetables

Fluffy Poppies around mailbox

Mmmmm……Fresh Bread

The Bread came out well today! This is the bread that serves as our “everyday” bread, Grandma Dottie’s Oatmeal Bread. It is a flexible recipe; this batch contains oatmeal, flax seed meal, coarse-ground corn meal, whole wheat flour and white flour. I also threw a handful of pecans in.

I will post the recipe next time I bake it. I was in such a hurry today that I didn’t have time to photo-document all the steps.

Carrot and Fennel Stock

Fennel fresh from the Garden

Back to the “Things to do with Carrots” series! The fennel and the carrots are ready at the same time here in Central Texas, and I have learned how to make this work to my advantage. When you pull up a Fennel plant, the bulb (the part most desired for salads) is but a small fraction of it; there are usually layers of tough, unsightly bulbiness on the outer shell, and then, the fronds and the stick-like tubular parts they grow on. After cutting the Fennel bulb(s) that are lovely and delicate enough for salad out, the rest on the fennel plant (minus the roots) is ready for the stockpot and the recipe for Carrot/Fennel Broth from Didi Emmons book Vegetarian Planet.

This is a fairly simple recipe, but it is priceless in it’s ability to use up the “waste” parts of the fennel plant, as well as whatever unsightly or just overly abundant carrots you have. The stock that results has a delicate but unmistakable flavor that works wonderfully in any recipe calling for stock. Since Mr. Hungersauce is a vegetarian, I usually need a pretty good supply of vegetarian stock to improve soups and rice and various other things.

Step One: Sautee

I like my stocks super-strong, so I use about twice as much of everything as this recipe calls for, and simmer it in LESS water for LONGER.

Cats love the aromas of fennel and dill. This is Molly.

THE RECIPE:

1 T olive oil

2 fennel bulbs or equivalent, cut up in 1 inch pieces

6 medium carrots, cut into 1 inch pieces

2 white onions, chopped

1 head of garlic, skin left on and cut in half horizontally

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

 a gallon of water

1 cup white wine

Heat the olive oil in the stockpot over low heat, and add the fennel bulbs, carrots, onions, garlic, and fennel seeds. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the water, bring it to a boil, and cover. Simmer on lowish heat for an hour. Strain the stock, let it cool, and jar it up for storage in the icebox (good for a week) or the freezer (good for a year).

All done and ready for the freezer

Parkside Food Blogger Happy Hour

Chef Shawn

Chef Shawn Cirkiel at Parkside invited the Blogitariat down to his place for a Food Blogger Happy Hour to showcase an 8-course tasting menu. I have read about Parkside (particularly M.M. Pack’s Review, which interested me greatly) and I knew it’s general location, but I have never been. Based on the tastes of their menu I enjoyed tonight, Parkside completely lives up to the hype; this place is a real contender.

The concept of the restaurant is one of simplicity: like a white plate, the bare-bones decor and airy basic-ness of the rooms serves to put the emphasis on the food itself. Even the descriptions of the “tastes” (“fluke, lemon, almonds”) were so simple that I wasn’t sure whether I was going to taste one thing, or three. I gather that the regular menu is also strangely plain in style.

"fluke, lemon, almonds"

But, on to the tastes! First we sampled “Fluke, lemon, almonds”. It came in a little ceramic spoon, and it was very mild, simple, and delicious.

Next, Crab Balls. These were served with fresh herbs, Greek oregano and tarragon, and a remoulade sauce. I very much liked the Crab Balls, mainly because they had an interesting texture: the outer fried shell was chewy, and the inside rather airy, which made a delightful contrast. 

Crab Balls

Next was the Hit of the Evening: Green Garlic Soup with Duck Confit. Unassuming at first, the creamy, mild soup developed in flavor as it was consumed, and at the bottom of the cup were tiny splinters of Duck Confit, just salty and savory enough to intrigue the palate. Many of us agreed that we would crawl on our bare knees back to Parkside to have it again. This soup is a real triumph!

The Biggest Hit: Green Garlic Soup with Duck Confit

Next, salami with house pickles. This was a perfectly nice little mouthful, but what I REALLY loved were the pickles. Wee slivers of carrot, but pickled with unusual spices, in what I believe to have been Rice Wine Vinegar; I thought I detected the flavor of lemongrass.

Salami with house pickles

The next taste was salmon, green beans and Linguica: this was one of the more entree-like tastes, a fairly substantial piece of salmon. The combination of green beans and the bacon-like flavor the the Portuguese sausage was quite Southern, and the flavors worked quite well with the salmon, which was perfectly cooked.

The Salmon

Lamb Belly in the Blue light of Evening (this is natural light!)

Lamb Belly with sweet potato puree and chili oil was the next taste; “belly” is very trendy right now, and I have had some wonderful pork belly dishes; but this was my least favorite of the tastes, mainly because the lamb belly was quite fatty and the sauce too mild.

Bar Steak with Crispy Onions

Bar steak with mushrooms and onions was next, and it was classic. What can be better than steak with mushrooms and onions and red wine? The mushrooms in question were Hen-of-the -Wood, a particularly awesome and relatively rare mushroom (Kitchen Pride grows them, but they ain’t cheap) and the onions were fresh-fried in skinny, darling little floppy rings, just the way I like ‘em.

Dessert was the OTHER big Hit of the Evening (for me, anyway!) Described simply as “Petite Chocolate Crunch”, I have to say it was one of the best desserts I have had in recent memory: a bar of alternating layers of chocolate and crunchy wafer, melded together so seamlessly that you aren’t even sure what the crunchiness you are experiencing comes from! A very delicate crunch, too, like that of rice crispies, if they were as thin as tracing paper. On top, a tiny scoop of banana ice cream, topped with a disc of chocolate wafer. OUTSTANDING!

Banana Ice Cream melts over the Chocolate Crunch

The dessert chef, Callie Whigham,  is apparently quite a star, and the other bloggers also discussed the excellence of her Donut Holes. Mmmmm. Donut Holes. I am going to have to go back!

Stonehouse Vineyard Luncheon

Wildflowers in Abundance on the drive to the Winery

Every year as part of the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival, area vineyards host Luncheons that feature local celebrity chefs and Texas wines. So far, I would have to say that the Vineyard Luncheons are the most enjoyable part of the Food and WIne Festival; the food is incredible (chefs like to cook for an appreciative crowd, I think) and the settings are spectacular (Hill Country Vineyards in April, at the height of the wildflower season). The price for these luncheons is absurdly low in my opinion ($65); you would pay more for just the wine in a restaurant setting.

Angela Moench, the owner of Stonehouse Vineyards

I chose this year to go to the Stonehouse Vineyard Luncheon, largely because I really like Angela Moench, the lady who owns the vineyard, and I adore their Scheming Beagle Port. Angela won my everlasting admiration the day I met her, at a wine tasting event, when she informed me with a basilisk eye that other vineyards might try to salvage a bad year’s grapes by fortifying the juice with added sugar and making “port” out of it, but that Stonehouse Vineyard’s Port was made PROPERLY.

I am the World’s biggest Proponent of making things PROPERLY. My enthusiasm for doing things PROPERLY has no bounds.  I knew immediately that despite our obvious differences, Angela and I were sisters under the skin.                    

Looking out into the VIneyard

I lucked out in my choice, for the Stonehouse Vineyard event sold out, no doubt because Chef Jeff Blank from Hudson’s On the Bend was doing the entree, and he is one of Austin’s most renowned chefs.

I got seated with Angela and her husband Howard , her dear friend Chef Suneeta Vaswani of Houston, her husband Nanik , and two other ladies who seemed very nice and laughed a lot. Chef Vaswani made the first course, a tandoori cheicken salad.

Chef Suneeta and her Tandoori Chicken Salad

This salad had definite Indian flavor, while remaining light and cooling, and was also fat-free. Delicate early lettuce was dressed with a simple dressing of lemon juice and cumin, then topped with pieces of tandoori roasted chicken and delicate sprouted mung beans and sesame seeds. Crisp slices of jicama added additional coolness, and the pairing of this salad with the Spicewood Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc was perfect. Suneeta Vaswani was practically mobbed by folks wanting the recipe, and fortunately she had her cookbooks for sale at a side table. I plunked down $30 for her Complete Book of Indian Cooking, which I will review here in a few months after I have had a chance to try  the recipes. If they are as delightful as her salad recipe, I know I will wear this cookbook out!

Sausage-stuffed Quail with Cheese Grits and Grape Tomatoes by Chef Blank

The main course was a house-made sausage-stuffed quail, sitting in a pool of cheese grits: an iconic Chef Blank style dish, and I announce to all: the Best Entree I have had at any Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Event so far. Just look at it!

Meringued Cakelet with fresh blackberries by Rebecca Rather

Dessert was a fresh-meringue coated Italian Cream Cakelet, with fresh Blackberries, by Dessert Queen Rebecca Rather, owner of the Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg. A stunningly lovely dessert, and it paired nicely with the Muscat. It was a little on the overly sweet side, but that didn’t stop me from eating every bite.

The tiny April grapes on the vine

If driving out to a gorgeous vineyard in the middle of a flawless April day, and eating the best food area chefs can dream up, impeccably paired with Texas wines, sounds like your kinda day: consider coming to one of these luncheons next year. They are the Best of the Festival.

Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival Swag Bag

This Swag Bag is fairly AWESOME, even more so because I FORGOT mine, and had to go pick one up the next day from the kind folks at GIANT NOISE, who did the PR for the Festival this year. My bag may, for that reason, be lacking some of the things the other bags had in them; I am just glad to get one, seeing as how I was so brain-dead as to forget mine at the St. Cecelia Hotel.

This bag contains:

1) the bag itself, a re-usable Whole Foods shopping bag made out of recycled plastic bottles. The art on it is by Sheryl Crow and if it ever tears or wears out, Whole FOODS WILL GIVE YOU A NEW ONE FOR FREE

2) A bag of 365 Brand cheesy popcorn

3) A bottle of 365 Brand Electrolyte-enhanced drinking water

4) TWO awesome high-quality chocolate bars

5) two coasters, made of cardboard, but I actually welcome them into my home because I need coasters (glasses sweat a LOT in Texas!)

(Note to Swag Bag Fillers: Coasters and also dish towels would be nice items!)

6) A collection of skin care items “for girls”. I am thrilled with these, because the types of products that are intended for the oily and pimply skin of adolescents are PERFECT for my oily pimply 40-something year old skin. Can’t wait to try ‘em!

7) a CD by a Guy

A Gift Certificate to UCHI !!!  YAY !!!!!   My favorite restaurant!

9) three passes to go taste wine for free at the Messina-Hof Winery. Perhaps I am cynical, but I suspect it is free for everyone, all the time! But maybe not.

The Carrot Harvest

Damn near a Bushel of Carrots

I noticed that the tops of my carrots were looking trampled on; I know the dogs NEVER walk in my garden so it seemed mysterious, and I have to admit I thought maybe Mr. Thornberry had inadvertantly crushed them down while he helped me weed one day (sorry, honey!) Well, seeing as how it is after April 15th, I knew it was time to pick the carrots (if not a little late, but it’s been a cool rainy couple of weeks, so no harm done), so I went into the carrot bed with my new spade and got them all out.

And I found out why all the carrot tops had fallen over. PILLBUGS. Pillbugs had eaten the tops of the carrots, and in some cases, entire carrots! About a third of the carrots were damaged. So, I take away an important lesson: if you see carrots looking trampled, when you KNOW they are not, HARVEST THEM. Because it is pillbugs!

So we will now have a series on carrots and recipes that use them, as we did for spinach. I don’t believe any garden ever has too many carrots (or too many onions), so I don’t think it will be difficult to use them all up. First of all, though, I need to use up the damaged carrots, so last night I made Cole Slaw:

Here is the recipe, if you can even call it that:

You will need:

Some cabbage

Some carrots

Mayonnaisse

Salt and pepper

sugar

Chop up the cabbage and carrots in the food processor. You can either use the regular dual blade (for KFC style coleslaw) or the cheese grating attachment (for more normal, old-fashioned cole slaw). When it is all grated up, dump it in a big bowl. Then, using a rubber spatula, scoop some mayonnaise out of the jar, however much seems like a good amount based on how calorie-conscious you are and also how much coleslaw you are making (I usually use about half a cup; but then again, I am usually using a whole cabbage). Add a pretty fair amount of salt, a stingy amount of pepper, and about a tablespoon of sugar. Stir stir stir!! Correct for seasoning and throw it in the icebox. (In a bowl, not with your hand!)

The Saint Cecelia Hotel and the Kick-Off of the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival

The Food and Wine Festival has begun, and naturally I was invited to the Media Party, which was held at the St. Cecelia Hotel. The Hotel used to be just a really FABULOUS house (by Texas standards a mansion) on Academy Drive; it used to simply be a home for the elderly people who owned it, but the property skyrocketed in value over the last few decades, and when it went up for sale, it was priced over a million bux. It was purchased by Liz Lambert, a lady I went to college with who is now a big hotel and general South Austin Business Mogul.

Swank entertaining area with big fireplace and bar

My heart wept when the property went up for sale and I couldn’t buy it; but after I saw what a few million in renovations could do, my soul was face down on the manicured lawn, having a temper tantrum and sobbing. Man, this place is amazing. Word is, the rooms (now that it has been made into a Hotel) cost $500 a night, so this place is now seriously meant to be for visiting Hollywood Types and Millionaires. (Damn you, Quentin Tarantino!)

Here you see the Lap Pool of my dreams

Anyway, back to the party: I didn’t get to stay for very long, but it was extremely well-done and very festive. The hors d’oeuvres were Texas-themed: The Plains gave us Country-fried Quail, East Texas inspired a Watermelon Wedge with pickled onions and goat cheese, The Gulf contributed grilled shrimp on a black-eyed pea cake, The Panhandle was represented by a petite tenderloin bite with blackberries, the Hill Country by Pork Sausage, and The Border by Mini Mixed Mushroom Tacos (I thought this appetizer was the most successful; the flavors of corn masa and sauteed mushrooms are perfectly complementary, which I didn’t know!). Free wine was poured in abundance, and I had a really swell organic Chardonnay and a similarly delicious Merlot, but I didn’t take pictures of the bottles, so I forget which ones they were. They were Texas wines, of course.

It’s going to be an awesome week.

The Squash Experiment

Squash plants enjoying life inside the Greenhouse

Squash, both zucchini and yellow crookneck (and probably every other kind too) have a serious problem here in Austin: The Squash Vine Borer. The Vine Borer lays it’s eggs inside the hollow stems of the squash vine, and the eggs hatch, and these horrid little worms eat your squash plant from the inside out and kill it, and you get no squash (or at best maybe one or two.)

It is very mysterious, this Vine Borer; for you may be wondering, if this happens all the time, why are squashes cheap and abundant at the Farmer’s Market and the Grocery Store? Here is the thing: if you plant ENOUGH squash plants, the BUG ignores the squash plants, as if somehow there is safety in numbers! (If you don’t think that’s mysterious, I don’t know WHAT you think is!) How many is enough? I think it must be something like forty plants, because no matter how many I plant, I never get any squash.

So this year, I had this brilliant idea: To use my $25 greenhouse as a FORCING house for squash, after I emptied it of all the tomato seedlings et cetera. By planting the squash inside the greenhouse, in the ground, my plants would be ahead of schedule growth-wise and might perhaps produce a reasonable amount of squash BEFORE the Vine Borer gets here. Also, maybe the mature vine borers, which look like tiny white moths, won’t see my squash plants from the air. (I also planted a few cantaloupes and watermelons, they usually are bothered by Vine Borers too, though not decimated like the squash.)

I had a major setback, in that we had a VERY windy day one day that ripped the plastic right off the greenhouse and destroyed my experiment (I thought I took a picture but I guess I didn’t.) But by THAT time I was so INTO my squash experiment that I went ahead and rebuilt it (also I had taken to storing my fertilizer in the greenhouse and I didn’t feel like moving it.)

Here’s the payoff picture. See the little yellow zucchini? YAY!

NEWSFLASH!!! III Forks Happy Hour

I rather liked the artistic way this photo looks; one can see the hot, sunny world of the street reflected in the cool, underwater world of the air-conditioned, exclusive-feeling restaurant

High-end steakhouses started to ascend right up into the stratosphere around here, oh, about a decade ago; I used to go to the NightHawk back in the olden days, and have a filet mignon, but that was BEFORE it burned down, you know? (As in, there at UT students walking around campus right now who were not born yet when the old NightHawk burned down.) Among the new breed of steakhouses is Three Forks. I have only heard rapturous praise of Three Forks, but I didn’t think I would ever eat there, given how very, very high-end it is. My impression, gathered from a lifetime of experience in this town and my usual sloppy thinking skill-set, was that it is the sort of place that the members of the Texas Legislature go, when they are being wined and dined by, oh, you know, developers and lobbyists. The place where the Good Old Boys Club is meeting nowadays.

Oh, how very correct I was! That lifetime of experience is getting more and more useful. Three Forks IS that place. So much so, that it feels like you ARE in the Capitol: polished marbles, hand-carved mahogany, lighting so subdued that you could swear you were in a secret dining hall in the basement of the Capitol. The appointments of the restaurant really are heartbreakingly costly and sumptuous, yet, so very Western, as are the horn-handled steak knives, and the antler chandeliers. The Banquet hall is lined with the portraits of the Texas Governors (copies, I assume, of the ones that DO hang in the Capitol).

But before a gas on too long, let me get to the NEWSFLASH! Three Forks has begun having a Happy Hour, and it is TOTALLY AFFORDABLE!! They have put together a new menu of Happy Hour Appetizers, wine, and cocktails, and nothing is over $6. The wines by the glass that are normally $10-$14 dollars a glass are $5 and $6, and the martinis are $5 as well. I have to say that I am stunned that the Happy Hour prices are comparable to the prices at much, much more casual eateries. I had two vodka martinis there yesterday, and they were Perfect: freezing cold, with those occasional crushed ice particles,  just-on-the-verge-of-melting, but not quite able to melt because they are floating in freezing alcohol. With a lemon twist. FIVE DOLLARS.

Banquet room, with double-sided fireplace

I am already fantasizing about walking into this dim, freezing, costly mausoleum of a place, on some ungodly roasting 105˚ Texas afternoon, and downing one of these flawless martinis.

But: back to the food! My favorite of the new Happy Hour appetizers is the Golden Sea Scallop; three perfectly-cooked scallops are delicately seasoned with coconut milk, peanuts, and Thai spices, and served on silver spoons.

The Cured Duck on House-Made Cracker

Next, the Cured Blackberry Duck, in which house made crackers are topped with cured duck and blackberry reduction, and topped with locally-grown microgreens. The Beef Croustades are excellent too, with a nice, freshly toasted croustade (I am so glad so many local chefs are starting with FRESH bread for their croustades nowadays) topped with prime beef and blue cheese. The Tuna Skewers are quite good as well, nice big cubes of sashimi-grade tuna, lightly roasted (still nice and coolly raw inside) and dressed with a ginger sauce. The ginger sauce was a bit strong, but otherwise a dandy appetizer. The final appetizer on the new menu is freshly-fried potato chips, topped with bleu cheese: YUM. Still warm, oily and salty, but whisper-thin and crunchy.

Beef Croustades, topped with Bleu Cheese

The Bar area of Three Forks is really very pleasant, smooth and cool and quiet; it is possible to converse while you imbibe, and that is something I am very appreciative of. Every night there is a pianist who plays a sort of jazzy blues, but it isn’t too loud and the music doesn’t start until 6:30.

Also of note: the Wine storage room is kept at a constant 57˚, and the wine selection at Three Forks is very good, very thorough. At least half of the bottles were familiar to me as bottles I would like to drink (an outstanding ratio!) and, though there are $2800 bottles of wine of their list, more than half of the bottles they sell are less than $40 (and, it goes without saying, those are the bottles that I am familiar with!) Also, there is a private dining room, very small, called “The Poker Room”, done up in a Sinatra-and-the-Rat-Pack theme, which can be reserved for small parties, and (I assume) high-stakes Poker Games (or are those called “Friendly little poker games”?) Note the portrait of John Candy!