Fat Tuesday

Even though I have only been to New Orleans once, and that was just this past December, I have always loved the city, the culture and of course, the cuisine, Mardis Gras has always been a fascination of mine & despite the fact that my husband half grew up in Louisiana, we have yet to go to Mardis Gras together!!

Every year though, I like to go all out for Fat Tuesday!  While traditionally Fat Tuesday symbolizes the last days before lent begins, I am not Catholic (although my husband sometimes is!), so I use the day as an excuse for making as many Cajun foods as possible!  It doesn't hurt that Cajun food is one of my favorites, or that my dad has been making it for as long as I can remember...

This year, I decided to make Gumbo using an Instant Roux mix we bought at the Winn Dixie in Destrehan.

While I would normally make my own roux (butter and flour), I was really excited to try out this new item!  

Quick Review on Tony Chachere's Creole Instant Roux Mix:

I thought it made a really nice, dark roux; darker normally than I use, so if you like thinner gumbo, I would use more water or less of everything all together...  The downside to the mix was that just for one pot of gumbo, I had to use almost half of the canister; so really the mix cost me about $4 and I used $2 for one meal.  Cost wise, it would be much cheaper to just use butter and flour, but the mix is quick and if you aren't comfortable with making a roux, the mix is definitely a good choice for you!  Another downside is that except for that Winn Dixie, I have never seen the Mix in any other stores.

Chicken, Sausage & Okra Gumbo

Ingredients:

1/2 green bell pepper, sliced

1/2 white onion, sliced

10 cups cool water

1 cup Ton Chachere's Instant Roux

1 roterrise chicken (original)

1 lb smoked sausage

1 Tbsp garlic powder

Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning

Directions:

Saute bell peppers and onions until tender.

Make the roux: Whisk together 1 cup mix and 2 cups water.  Bring to boil.

Chop up the chicken and the sausage (our grocery store didn't have andouille, so I had to use a-not-as-good kind of sausage; this really does make a difference!)

Add the remaining 8 cups of water, the chicken, sausage and the okra.

 

 Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning (aka the best seasonings ever!)

Serve with steamed white rice.

For dessert, I did a take on a New Orleans classic, Bananas Foster (a personal favorite).

Sauteed Bananas in a Brown Butter Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 stick of butter

1 cup of sugar

4 bananas

Vanilla Ice Cream

Directions:

Brown the butter.  Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.  Add the sliced bananas to the butter and sugar mixture.

Spoon the hot mixture over a few scoops of vanilla ice cream!  So delicious!

When we were in New Orleans a few months back, we picked up some cheap Mardi Gras decorations, so we put them up!

Valentine's Day

For some people, Valentine's Day can be a painful day if they are single or are away from their significant others.  Then you have those who prefer to hate Valentine's Day and instead of just ignoring it, make it their goal to ruin it for everyone else.  If either is the case for you, you should probably stop ready this post right now....

For those of you who like Valentine's Day or are couldn't care either way, by all means, keep reading...

Last year, my husband was still stationed in Virginia and it was a little hard being away from him, especially since we had spent the previous six Valentine's Days together; but this year, he woke me up with a glass of sparkling grape juice (he said he had wanted to get wine, but decided against it, after all it was 9 o'clock in the morning), a long-stemmed rose, a box of chocolate, a card, a chick flick that I love (and he can't stand.. that's true love) and then when I went out to the front porch, a pot of tulips (my favorite flower) were sitting there waiting for me.

He deserves gifts also, so I got him five days of playing video games without my complaining (a great sacrifice on my part just so you know), chocolates, sunflower seeds (there are like cigarettes to him) and mini bottles of Jack Daniels (I thought he might like that more than flowers).

For our Valentine's date, we went to eat at Tokyo Steak House in San Antonio; it's this great Japanese cooking table restaurant that is in a terrible location.  The part of town isn't a bad one, but the restaurant is part of a huge building that houses at least one other place, and that is all hidden behind other shops.

Since we went sort of early, we were one of the only parties there and that meant we had the whole table and chef to ourselves.  While that made for less awkward small talk with strangers, it also meant more awkward
small talk with the chef (usually we prefer to appreciate the cooking process in silence, while the other people talk).

The salad was good, but different from the last time we had eaten there.  We like the dressing to have more ginger than it did this time.  The soup was also good, but different and the fried onion they put in it was almost too much.

The main meal was so good that I didn't even have to add soy sauce and if you know me at all, I add always add soy sauce.  But this time, the food was so flavorful I just didn't want to ruin it.  I also got a virgin strawberry daiquiri because the one with alcohol was too expensive and I'm cheap..  It was really good and sweet, with a sugar rim that make the whole thing taste like a strawberry pie!

We were so full halfway through it that we took plenty of leftovers to go..The meal was great, but at the same time, it also made us miss this place that we use to go to in Virginia.  It was called Sakura, and if Tokyo Steak was a cheeseburger, Sakura would be a filet mignon!

Afterwards, we went to see a sneak preview (out just for Valentine's Day) of the new movie, "This Means War", that comes out on Friday.  That movie is hilarious and it doesn't hurt that starring in it are two very pleasing-to-the-eye guys who like to kick butt!

Also in the spirit of Valentine's Day, my mom made these cute cupcakes 

 

and I made some Valentine's Day Marshmallows (which I will be posting about very soon!)

All in all, I had a great Valentine's Day, as I hope everyone else DID as well!..and if you didn't, remember, you have a whole year until the next one!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

To Austin!...Again: Cougar Town & Salt Lick

As a part of the Cougar Town U.S. Tour, the show's creator and some of the actors came to Austin to hold a viewing of three episodes of the upcoming season of the poorly named, but really hilarious show, "Cougar Town" starring Courtney Cox. 

My husband found out about the event from, where else, Twitter and signed us up right away! 

They held it at the Alamo Draft House on Lamar and the entire thing was free including the T-shirt (see pic) and two drinks each.  The husband got two beers that I can't even remember the name of, but they were, of course, the most expensive ones on the menu!  I got a mimosa and (lame) a Dr. Pepper; in my defense it was huge and I was really thirsty!

The episodes they showed were hilarious and afterwards they did a Q&A and some of the audience was able to play Penny Can (if you don't know what that is, find out) and answer trivia questions for autographed scripts, Penny Cans and other memorbilia.

We didn't have great seats, but it was still really fun

Afterwards, we got to meet two of the actors.  They were really nice guys!

Not a great picture of either of us, unfortunately

Darn them, that's a good picture!

 Afterwards, the Cougar Town people were holding an after party at this bar next door, but we were being an old married couple and decided just to go eat and head back to the hotel.. Hey it was almost 10 o'clock!

So we drove over to Congress and since I had been craving Mexican food in a bad way, we ate at this restaurant called Guero's.  I'd been there before a few years ago and really liked it, but it wasn't anything like I remembered.

My husband got a huge burrito!  And he said that while it wasn't bad, it just didn't have a whole lot of flavor.

I got the fish tacos with corn tortillas and lack of flavor was my dish's biggest killer as well.  I was bummed because the fish was actually really tasty, especially with the lime on top, but the rice and tortillas were just bland.

My favorite thing about my meal was, without a doubt, the guacamole!

Guero's
1412 South Congress Avenue  
Austin, TX 78704
(512) 447-7688

The next morning, on Sunday, after we went to the city wide garage sale (which was pretty awesome), we went and had lunch at The Salt Lick.  We've been there before, but a couple years ago. 

Now it is huge!  and  packed with people.

They had two dining areas, which were full to capacity, an outdoor picnic area (which is where we ended up because the wait for a dining table was an hour and a half!), a band playing, a gift shop, a huge to-go area, a lemonade and popcorn stand and of course their own winery and tasting area.

This was the band.  Their name is Aimless Gun and they are really good!

I got the turkey and brisket plate with cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans...

 bread and pickles.

My husband got sausage, brisket, green bean casserole and a peach cobbler.
We split a lemonade.

The food was amazing!  The barbeque sauce was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten and if I could drink that stuff, I would! 

The BBQ Pit

  

We had such a blast at The Salt Lick!  The food was great, the band was really good and just the environment was exactly what I love about Texas.  You can't eat barbeque outside in January in Virginia!

The Salt Lick

18300 FM 1826

Driftwood, TX 78619

http://www.saltlickbbq.com

Austin Trip- Part 2: Threadgill's

Over the past week or so, I haven't had any time to get on the computer and write.. I've been dealing with school work, real work, and both my husband and I got sick..again.. 

Anyway, now that I've explained my absence, I'm going to pick-up where I left off with my last posting...

The day after our dinner at Fran's, my husband had his final day shooting "Trusted" in Austin.  I dropped him off at the location and heading back to the hotel to get some more sleep, after all I had stayed up late to read the entire first Hunger Games book.  After leaving the hotel, I stopped at Target and got the next in the series, "Catching Fire" and headed over to the coffee shop, Dominican Joe's, that Trusted was using as their "set".

I had every intention of just reading my book while the movie wrapped up, but they needed an extra to fill in the background and read a book and drink coffee.. which was what I was doing anyway, just now there was a camera involved.  Three (charged-to-the-production of course.. you know, just perks of the job..) iced coffees and what seemed like fifteen-million takes later, they were finally done.

By this time I hadn't had anything to eat since the continental breakfast at the hotel and it was already 5 o'clock.
We ended up at this restaurant called Threadgill's; turns out it has a long history in Austin, including being "home" to Janice Joplin's career.

I thought the food was pretty good, but my husband thought it was great, so I have to say thanks again to my cold and my stupid lack of ability to really taste my food.

Both of us hungry, we ordered a lot:
  

He got their "World Famous" chicken fried sirloin with mac and cheese and creamed spinach.

I got their "World Famous" chicken fried sirloin with mashed potatoes...

and a garden salad with their amazing homemade Chipotle Ranch
dressing ( which I will have to try to duplicate!)



Homemade Salsa (perfect amount of heat) & Tortilla Chips



Dinner rolls and (I think, cheesy) cornbread and
Hibiscus Tea (which wasn't sweet enough)

Threadgill's is located at:
301 West Riverside Dr
Austin, Texas 78704
http://threadgills.com/

Our Trip to Austin - Pluckers, Fran's, Hey Cupcake

I just love the city of Austin!  Everything about it is so, for lack of a better word, cool.  The music, the buildings, but most of all... the food.


My husband had to come up here the weekend before last to finish up a movie called, "Trusted", that he had worked on back in November.  Not wanting to get left behind, I decided to tag along.


We left our house at 4:30 in the morning, on a Saturday (blasphemy!) to make the 2 hour drive to Austin.  After I dropped him off at the location that they were going to be working at all day, I of course began in my pursuit of finding breakfast.  Now it's been a good two or three years since I drove around Austin by myself, and although I use to live there, I began confusing the road names and directions and everything else!  I mean, I've spent the last three or so years navigating my way around northern Virgina and D.C. and just so you know, their highway systems are completely different than ours; no access roads!


Anyway, after about an hour of, "Oh, I think this is it", I began to remember where the heck I was!  By that time my stomach was no longer growling, but roaring at me to eat some food.  Not knowing what was opened, I stopped at a Marie Calendar's and got their waffles.  Awesome.


I preceded to spend the rest of the day driving around, killing time, until I could check into the hotel and get some sleep.  Unfortunately for that whole sleep idea, I started reading the Hunger Games.  That is one great book!


For lunch, I stopped at Pluckers, a wing bar that started on Rio Grande in Austin and has spread out to over 12 locations, including one in Lousiana.

picture source: http://www.gorillachallenge.com/

I got 10 wings; 5 mild, 5 garlic parmesan.  I am proud to say I ate them all, and they were delicious.  However, I'm not that proud to mention that I got wing sauce on my book while I was gobbling it up (figuratively), just as fast as I was with my wings (literally).


After I picked up my film making husband, we went to find dinner.  I would like to point at that it was at least five hours between my wing binge and dinner, thank you very much.


We went to Fran's Hamburgers.  Now if you have ever been to Austin, the chances of you having eaten at Fran's is probably pretty high; more than likely you've at least seen it.

 It was even on an episode of the (awesome and really missed) television show, "Friday Night Lights."

I got a cheeseburger, everything on it but onions, while the husband got a double cheeseburger with bacon, and we split an order of fries and a Dr. Pepper.  Thankfully it was filling, because I thought it was a little pricey for a couple of burgers, but then again I'm cheap, so what are you going to do?

This was my sandwich.  It was good, I really liked that how the burger was cooked, but my bun was way too mushy and everything just tasted a little off.  But my husband said it was probably just my tastebuds being stupid thanks to a cold I was getting, because he said his...

(This is his.) ...was one of the best burgers he ever ate.  So there you go.  Just look at all that greesy, cheesy, goodness!

Fran's Hamburgers is located at 1822 South Congress Ave, Austin Texas.  If you ever want to go; which you should... I'm just saying..


After we left Fran's, we walked across the street to a bunch of food trucks.  We got dessert at the Hey Cupcake foodtruck.

We split a cupcake because they were huge and they were $3 and you know I'm cheap (see above).  The cupcake we got was called the "Michael Jackson", a chocolate cupcake with white frosting and then we had it stuffed with whipped cream.

We wanted to sit at one of the picnic tables they had, because there were these really pretty lights and Congress is just such a cool street, but it was cold so we ate it the car.  The cake itself was really great, but I thought the frosting was a little too sweet... still it was a darn good, messy, cupcake.

Heaven...

After dessert we headed to the hotel, my husband fell asleep in his clothes on top of the covers.  I finished The Hunger Games, which I had started that morning and went to sleep myself.  It was a great day.