Chicken Fried Gourmet

Lemon Garlic Chicken Picatta with a twist

Recipe and Details coming soon.................

Cochon Butcher & New Orleans again.......

This past weekend we were in New Orleans so that I may try out for a new reality cooking show on FOX (more on this in the next post). As usual we made a trip to one of our favorite spots - Chef Donald Link's & partners Chef Stephen Stryjewski & Chef Warren Stephens Palace of Swine : Cochon Butcher. You can see a previous post on our visit HERE.

The last time we were here on a Saturday afternoon we pretty much had the place to ourself but this time it was pretty packed. This was also the same weekend as the NFC Championship between the Vikings and the Saints....... WHO DAT....... Super Bowl Bound. We didn't stay too long but long enough to grab some stuff to take home and of course the obligatory Abita Amber. I was back in New Orleans on Tuesday for a 2nd interview with the producers but due to time constraints was unable to meet up with my sister for lunch at Butcher,stupid clock...........Check out the rest of our visit below as told by the pictures.

 

Pasta Carbonara

 
 
 

Fresh Red Pepper

Bacon

Rosemary

Parmesan Cheese

Egg yolks

Pasta

a touch of milk

Garlic

salt and pepper
 
 ALSO it ws brought to my attention that there is a new food blog here in Shreveport (we are a minority) Savoring Shreveport. They have a few posts up and mainly cover restaurants and local foodie events. The writing is good (a lot better than mine) and I look forward to what they can contribute to our little part of the food blogosphere. Check them out when you have a chance.

Playing around with Sous Vide - Steak

So last weekend we went down to Lake Charles,LA to my parent's second, soon to be permanent house. When we got there I noticed Thomas Keller's book Under Pressure sitting on a shelf in the kitchen so I asked my dad about it seeing how everything I have ever done that involves cooking outside of the norm is met with huge skepticism. He said " oh your mother and I got that at a party in New Orleans, she doesn't want it because it makes no sense." Needless to say the book ended up being given to me as a gift :)

 

I do not have an immersion circulator (yet) since they run about $1000 although there is a new unit for home cooks called the SousVide Supreme for about 1/2 that price (courtesy of Richard Blais). I knew steak does not take as long as some other (tougher) cuts of meat so I could use a regular stockpot and thermometer to regulate the temp and try my hand at sous vide cooking. I started with a small strip steak(since Ann was out of town) and seasoned it generously. I vacuum sealed it in two bags* using my Foodsaver and put it in a pot of water heated to around 139 degrees. I let this cook according to the book for about 40-45 minutes. I monitored the temp throughout and if it got too hot I just added about a cup of ice cubes to bring the temp where it needed to be. Once done I heated up a skillet on high and pan seared the steak to get the color and the crust I was looking for.

I paired it with green onions that were blanched in salted water then sauteed and some carrots I steamed. I made a pan sauce with butter and lemon for the steak as well. WOW this was so good and tender. This was fairly easy to do with the limited equipment I had. I can only imagine how much better it would be with an actual immersion circulator and what else I could do with it (hello Pork Belly).

Created with flickr slideshow.

 

  * I used two bags because the foodsaver bags I have seem to have a somewhat porous side so I switched the second bag around to ensure no seemingly porous sides were exposed. I also sealed it twice on both ends in case the first seal ruptured.

new cookbooks

Here are the cookbooks I have received over this holiday season......

lot of reading and experimenting to do

Chicken Wings (deboned) braised in Budweiser & Garlic with Blue Cheese Sour Cream and celery

My contribution to a pot luck dinner for New Years Eve.  Cooked Chicken Wings then deboned. Marinated in Budweiser,fresh garlic and thyme. Glazed with Budweiser marinade and cane syrup. Served with diced fresh celery and blue cheese sour cream.

Parmesan Sphere with Nutella Powder and sea salt VIDEO ** UPDATE **

Trying something new here. This is a video I made in preparing a dish consisting of a Parmesan Sphere with Nutella Powder and sea salt for a recent dinner party.

 

** UPDATE **

Here is a video for the Beer Cheese Soup I made for the same dinner party

Let me know what you think and if you would like to see more of these.

Meatballs are for Sundays

I love making a big batch of meatballs and spaghetti sauce on Sundays to eat throughout the week. Whether you are eating straight up meatballs and spaghetti, making meatball subs, grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced meatballs (provolone and parmesan cheese btw) and just eating the Sunday night leftovers for lunch, you just cannot go wrong with making a big batch to start out the week.

and YES I know I have posted twice in the same day, must be the end of the world or something..........
   

Whoopie Pies ...... a childhood memory from the holidays

As a kid we routinely made "whoopie pies" around the holidays. We would make them in big batches and freeze the remainder to be eaten at a later time (usually they only lasted a couple of days though). I had all but forgotten about these until recently and decided to make them this year for Christmas. We had family and friends over for Christmas Day Dinner and these were meant to be the dessert course but with all the other food prep I had going on they were not made till the day after Christmas. I guess in the back of my mind I didn't want to share :)

Created with flickr slideshow.

A Christmas Dinner potluck with friends

Here are my contributions to a potluck dinner at our house last night :

 
Beer cheese soup with rosemary

 
Duck,turnip popcorn puree,roasted beets blackberry and piquillo pepper,turnip popcorn soil

Nutella powder with parmesan sphere

New Orleans in the afternoon: Cochon Butcher, early evening, and the next morning

This post on our last part of our trip to New Orleans this summer is looooonnnngggg overdue so here it goes.

After a great lunch at Boucherie we headed over to Hansen's Sno-Bliz on Tchoupitoulas St for a refreshing snack. The line was out the door but the wait was well worth it on a hot summer afternoon in New Orleans.

After checking into our hotel in the Central Business District we went walking around, more particularly towards the warehouse district. Two years ago when we came here we had a great meal at Donald Link's Cochon. This time we wanted to check out his butcher shop/wine bar Cochon Butcher or as some call it the Swine Bar.

This place was great and I wish we could have spent some more time here. If you ever find your way down here please stop by Cochon Butcher, you will NOT be disappointed.

And on this note, I feel that my writing cannot fully capture all the details and the great time we had this trip so I am going to let the pictures (hopefully) tell the rest of the story,enjoy.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Kiroli Park in West Monroe LA October 2009

Dinner party with the Killians

This past Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) Blake Killian of BlakeMakes and his wife Bridget were in Shreveport as they were passing back through from visiting family in Arkansas. We planned a small dinner party for them and here are the results. I would have done more, maybe something a little more elaborate but being the day after Thanksgiving I was a little tired of cooking :)

Carrot and Pasilla Chile Soup

Miso Caramel Wasabi Apples

with a great wine brought by Bridget

Spicy homemade Pork Rinds

( I had some leftover skin from a pork belly dish I had cooked earlier in the year)

Rosemary Skirt Steak, Baby Spinach with Grapefruit Vinaigrette and Granny Smith Apples

 recipe included in an earlier post

Soft Chocolate Ganache with Cocoa Coffee Soil and Tangerine glaze

Aftermath

 
 showing Candice an Alinea video while Ethan is being ..........well Ethan..................

next one is on your turf Blake :)
 
 
 
  

Turkey Day.........

 

Rosemary Grilled Skirt Steak with Baby Spinach, Granny Smith Apples and Grapefruit Vinaigrette

This was our dinner last Sunday night. About a week before we bought a two pack of Skirt Steak from Sam's Wholesale Club ( like Costco) and we made fajitas with the first one. I marinated the second in a mixture of rosemary, garlic, red pepper, olive oil and dijon mustard and vacuum sealed it and let it sit for about 5 days. On Sunday I grilled it, sliced it against the grain and plated it with spinach, diced granny smith apples and a grapefruit vinaigrette.

 Download Grapefruit Vinaigrette
 
 
 

New Orleans, lunch at Boucherie with Blake Killian and Robert Peyton

 I have had trouble writing this post for the past couple of months. It's not that I am hesitant to write it, it’s just that I do not feel my writing style, my words, can do justice to what a great lunch we had at Boucherie in New Orleans. We typically try to get down to NOLA at least a couple of times a year, we are roughly about 5 hours away here in Shreveport. Although New Orleans is in the same state it is a totally different atmosphere once you hit I-10, some say it is another country in itself. We love it....not the New Orleans you see on Monday Night Football and during Mardi Gras. We still partake in some of the "tourist-y" things that are synonymous with the "Big Easy" but there is soooo much more to it, a history, a vibe a definite energy you feel while there.

We arrived in NOLA right around lunch time and had plans to meet up with fellow food bloggers Blake Killian of Blake Makes and Robert Peyton of Appetites. We had met Blake and his wife Bridget in person for the first time last year when we had lunch at La Petit Grocery, this would be our first face to face meeting with one of the first real food bloggers in Louisiana - Mr Robert Peyton. I chose Boucherie because it was somewhat new, eclectic and I had heard great things about it. 

Lily.......

I have posted about this pretty much everywhere but here but 3 weeks ago my fourth child was born - Lily Elizabeth O'Boyle 9-25-2009.......it been a little busy these past few weeks :)

a Nut

We were in West Monroe this weekend visiting my parents and took the kids to Kiroli Park. I snapped this picture while we were walking on one of the raised trails. Obviously the remnants of a squirrel's dinner. Do you think animals find beauty in the leftovers of our cuisine, somehow I think not.

Potato Beer Cheese Soup - Amuse Bouche

I cannot believe I haven't posted this yet. I made this back in late August in one of our last trips to West Monroe before the baby was born (traveling any distance was hard on Ann). This was a last minute idea for a family dinner. I had wanted to make a beer cheese soup for some time but it just didn’t seem to make much sense in this humid hot Louisiana summer. I decided to make it a one bite dish, an amuse bouche as some say. This was one of those things where it made sense in my head and hopefully would translate well to the final product – it did. I am not real good at writing recipes and sometimes assume that everyone knows exactly what I mean so if you have any questions feel free to email me or leave a comment.

 

Created with flickr slideshow.

Download Recipe : Download Potato beer cheese soup

A trip down South in July - Part 1 Baton Rouge, Perkins Rowe and the Schmo

I know I keep saying this every few months but I have been really horrible about sitting down and writing a blog post. I guess I contribute it to everything going on this year – moving to a new house, getting ready for the new baby, job situation and of course the “project” I am working on that I really cannot speak about right now. Back in mid-July we were able to take a 3 day vacation to visit Ann’s sister at LSU in Baton Rouge and of course head further south and go to New Orleans.

There is so much to write about this trip and I think that is one of the reasons I have been putting it off. We had a great time, great meals and I finally got to meet one of my fellow food bloggers face to face after 3 years of conversing via email and our websites. To make this easier on me, as well as really showcase each experience I am going to split this post up into three different posts Hopefully after this one I can post the other two in the next week/weeks or so.

Post 1 – Baton Rouge, Perkins Rowe and the Schmo.

Post 2 – New Orleans, lunch at Boucherie with Blake Killian and Robert Peyton

Post 3 – New Orleans in the afternoon: Cochon Butcher, early evening, and the next morning.

Hope you enjoy……

Baton Rouge, Perkins Rowe and the Schmo

We left Shreveport early on Friday after dropping Ethan off at daycare (Ann’s parents picked him up just in case you are wondering), after a 4 hour trip that included a coffee frappucino being slung everywhere, numerous bathroom stops and Natchitoches meat pies for breakfast we arrived in Geaux Tiger land (that is what Ethan referes to it as). Ann’s little sister, the Schmo, attends LSU and the lucky little heifer lives right down the street from Whole Foods. For my readers who don’t live in a city with a  Whole Foods you will understand my jealousy. We picked up some to go items from WF and ate at the front of the store (inside). The reason for the stop in BR was to help the Schmo get furniture for her new apartment. After driving all around BR and being in the middle as what I can only describe as a Honk-a-Thon on Perkins rd at 3pm, love the traffic btw, we decided to check Craigslist for deals on furniture. By the third call we had a winner, a fairly new couch for less than $100 and only two blocks from her new apartment. Score!!!

Created with flickr slideshow.

For dinner I wanted to try the Wine Loft in Perkins Rowe, a fairly new development off of the aforementioned slowest moving road in america in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday. The three of us split a cheese course, a wine flight and each ordered an entrée with the intention of sharing with each other. It turns out the only thing we shared was the cheese course. I cannot remember what everyone had even though I have the menu somewhere around here, but I do recall my entrée – a grilled flank steak with chimmichurri sauce alongside a salad of arugula,jicama and a citrusy dressing. The place was somewhat quiet, the server was very knowledgeable about the wine pairings and we all loved the food. If Shreveport had a better downtown scene I could see a place like the Wine Loft doing very well here but as of now, not so much. We do however have the excellent Wine Country Bistro on Line ave if you are looking for the same kind of atmosphere and cuisine.

We called it an early night so we could get up at the crack of dawn and start our trip south to New Orleans……….

Up next : Post 2 – New Orleans, lunch at Boucherie with Blake Killian and Robert Peyton