Mexican-French Fusion is what's on the Menu for our Saturday June 23rd Pop up. The event begins at 6 PM, and will consist of a complimentary cocktail, 2 wine parings, and a five course dinner. Vegetarian options are of course available upon request. We also encourage our guests to bring a bottle of wine if they care to drink more than is provided. Tickets are $45 and are available though our pay pal account below or through square anytime you see us using a VISA, MC, AE, or DSCVR. Thank you to everyone for your support!
To Reserve your spot and make a donation use the button PayPal below. You don't need a PayPal account, you can use any credit card, just click the link that says "Don't Have A PayPal Account?"
Friday, May 25, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Food Stamp Survival Meals
I saw Mario Batali is doing a "Food Stamp Challenge", in which he feeds his family of 4 for a week on the amount of money food stamps would provide. I think its a great way to highlight the financial hardship so many families are facing and counter the ridiculous argument you hear from republicans so often that the poor in America are living a life of luxury on the public dole. In any case, just happened to make a great, simple dish this week with some leftovers from the Pop-Up that fit with this low price, great flavor idea.
The key to inexpensive meals is very often thing like bean, lentils, or cheap cuts of pork and beef. These items are can produce great flavors, along with some simple spiced, but can be time consuming. To take pork shoulder or a beef chuck roast tender usually takes hours of braising. And many dried beans have the same problem. So for low income people who work all day, this presents a problem. You can't come how at 6 and start a 4 hour braised beef stew. But what you can do is use a pressure cooker and cut that cooking time down to 30 or 40 minutes with almost 0 prep work.
Basically, water can only get to about 212 degrees because once it starts boiling all the heat energy gets carried away in the form of steam. This keeps cooking times high. A pressure cooker, as the name implies, keeps the pot contents under pressure. This raises the boiling point, allowing it to get much hotter and cook much faster. You can get a tender, delicious stew or chicken soup in about 40 minutes.
So for this recipe I really just looked in the fridge to see what I could clear out and we had Kale, cherry tomatoes, a red onion and cubed pork shoulder and chops. The pork chops and should I just threw right in the pot. You could sear them first to develop some browning and flavor, but you really don't need to. This recipe will provide a lot of flavor without it. I chopped the kale and onion and threw that in with the whole tomatoes. Next I added a few cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, 3 dried bay leaves, some hot sauce and a bag of lentils. Then I put in one cup of canned beef broth and water to cover everything. You could also throw in potatoes or any other vegetable you have on hand. You could use a whole chicken, or beef or whatever. That's the beauty of this type of stew. Anything on hand can be substituted.
Then on with the pressure cooker top, high heat till it starts to steam (maybe 10 minutes) and then turn the heat down to medium low and let it continue to cook for 30 or so minutes. If you had a really big single piece of pork or beef you can do 45 minutes. Then hit the release valve to let the steam exit and you're all set. A really delicious, hearty and healthy soup which can feed a family for very little cost.
The key to inexpensive meals is very often thing like bean, lentils, or cheap cuts of pork and beef. These items are can produce great flavors, along with some simple spiced, but can be time consuming. To take pork shoulder or a beef chuck roast tender usually takes hours of braising. And many dried beans have the same problem. So for low income people who work all day, this presents a problem. You can't come how at 6 and start a 4 hour braised beef stew. But what you can do is use a pressure cooker and cut that cooking time down to 30 or 40 minutes with almost 0 prep work.
Basically, water can only get to about 212 degrees because once it starts boiling all the heat energy gets carried away in the form of steam. This keeps cooking times high. A pressure cooker, as the name implies, keeps the pot contents under pressure. This raises the boiling point, allowing it to get much hotter and cook much faster. You can get a tender, delicious stew or chicken soup in about 40 minutes.
So for this recipe I really just looked in the fridge to see what I could clear out and we had Kale, cherry tomatoes, a red onion and cubed pork shoulder and chops. The pork chops and should I just threw right in the pot. You could sear them first to develop some browning and flavor, but you really don't need to. This recipe will provide a lot of flavor without it. I chopped the kale and onion and threw that in with the whole tomatoes. Next I added a few cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, 3 dried bay leaves, some hot sauce and a bag of lentils. Then I put in one cup of canned beef broth and water to cover everything. You could also throw in potatoes or any other vegetable you have on hand. You could use a whole chicken, or beef or whatever. That's the beauty of this type of stew. Anything on hand can be substituted.
Then on with the pressure cooker top, high heat till it starts to steam (maybe 10 minutes) and then turn the heat down to medium low and let it continue to cook for 30 or so minutes. If you had a really big single piece of pork or beef you can do 45 minutes. Then hit the release valve to let the steam exit and you're all set. A really delicious, hearty and healthy soup which can feed a family for very little cost.
Monday, May 14, 2012
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