by Sam Tackeff | Nov 17, 2014 | Travel
Happy Monday to you! After blogging non stop in Savannah on vacation last week, I realized how much I love organizing my travel photos (and how rarely I actually do this.) So I spent this weekend flipping through my pictures from my Labor Day Trip to Texas, celebrating my best friend Caroline’s birthday. Here are some of my favorites!
Some of the highlights of the trip:
Central Market. Hatch chile season. Fresh lime juice in a bottle, no, really fresh!
Grocery shopping with Gail – Brunch for 10, Dinner for 12.
Lunch at Ouisie’s – a Texas Crab Cobb Salad. They have a great bread basket!
Sonoma Wine Bar (drinking: Idlewild Rosé, eating: the charcuterie plate)
Meeting: Cory! Brad, Jill, Andie. Justin. Austin! (Finally!)
Teacher errands. Beyoncé Chicken at Mo Ranch. Caroline’s Classroom.
Barnaby’s for the Chile burger on a salad.
Getting to hang with Sadie and Priscilla. Having two cute dogs underfoot is bliss.
Dower reunion: Caroline, Heather, Sam and Jean.
Second lunch at Taco Cabana. Just because. Queso! Tacos! Fresh tortillas!
Topwater. We were going to take the boat, but it was bad weather. Shrimp. Sinkers. Bobbers.
Caroline’s birthday brunch. Cantaloupe soup. Sausage on sticks. Breakfast tacos. Amazing large tiffin.
Coffee from Starbucks. (Did you know that you need to order the carafes in advance?)
Tempesta, our worthy ship. Weather. Dolphins. DOLPHINS, YOU GUYS.
Gail + Mike’s Guestbook in Kemah
Spending time with Erin + Thomas, Julia + Hector in the flesh.
Swimming.
NASA! Mission control. Orion in 2030 – seems so far away.
Plasma rockets exist? But they can’t get them to stop yet.
*TCYC, remembering Tom Hutcheson, neighbors and friends here for decades.
Mike’s Birthday Dinner Party (the stories…). Salmon tartar. Avocado soup with citrus, red pepper and shrimp. Salad with watermelon, basil, cucumber and tomato, ricotta salata and a balsamic vinaigrette. Fish. Crab sauce with cream and mushrooms. Cake. Amarula and Limoncello shots.
Spending as much time on the boat as humanly possible.
Breakfast at Classics. Eggs Benedict on a biscuit. With grits.
Driving the boat! Navigating between red and green poles.
More swimming.
Dinner at WiFi-less Cedar Creek. (Minus Hector, who had to select his draft picks.)
Farmers market chocolate and cheese samples, cheerful bands.
Kolaches with Jean: ham egg and cheese, and poppyseed.
Cold brew coffee tasting (Chameleon and Cafin, didn’t really love either?)
Tortillas. I took home two dozen in my suitcase.
Dear Texas, I hope to come back soon.
–– Sam
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 16, 2014 | Meat
Tonight I cooked bratwurst from the freezer. I flipped through some of my cookbooks for inspiration, but ended up loosely following Olga’s recipe for bratwurst, cabbage, and sauerkraut on Sassy Radish. I always really love her writing, and her recipes are always on point. I had most of the ingredients for this late fall dinner. I used the last of my sauerkraut, and ended up drinking the little cup of brine as an aperitif. I could have put a little vodka in there, and it would have been an excellent cocktail.
bratwurst, cabbage, and sauerkraut
serves 2
bratwurst, 4 medium sized
olive oil
onion, 1 cup, chopped
paprika, 1 teaspoon
mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon
cabbage, 1/2 head of green cabbage, sliced
sauerkraut, about a cup, two if you have it
tart apple, 1, peeled, cored, and sliced
stock, beef or chicken, 2 cups
Brown the (fully cooked) bratwurst in the skillet in some olive oil. Add the chopped onion, and cook until softened, and just slightly brown. You want the onion to get a little color to help flavor the cabbage. Add the spices, cabbage, sauerkraut, and apple, and stir. Pop the sausages on top, so they are sitting on the cabbage. Pour over the stock, and cook on medium heat, partially covered, for about 45 minutes, until the cabbage is soft, stirring every so often to help wilt the cabbage down.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 15, 2014 | Meal Planning
Happy Saturday! It took me a week to recuperate from my little race-cation, and I’m ready to start eating a larger percentage of real home cooked food in my diet again. Next week I’m starting an off-season triathlon training plan (which should be interesting, because I don’t really stick to training plans during race season), and my goal is to be as prepared as possible so I can fit in work, life, and other things without losing my mind.
Given that I’m starting the off-season, naturally, I registered for the Cambridge Yulefest next month. It’s a 5k in Cambridge, and you get sweet winter hats, and good beer at the finish. People dress up, it’s festive. I haven’t done a 5k for a few months, so it’ll be interesting to see if my off-season training actually speeds me up a little bit.
Today started several hours later than planned – I’ve been sleeping like a small child since my big race, clearly my body needs it. We made a fruitful trip to Guitar Center, and got a lot of work done around the house. I spent some time on some freelance projects. We watched How We Got to Now – Sound on PBS, and had some take out sushi.
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Week of November 15th
My week is full of evening activities, so the focus for dinners is things I can prep in advance, or make very quickly. Things to use up in my kitchen: polenta, eggplant, onion, italian sausage (cook for lunches), feta, eggs, wild rice, sweet potatoes, beef stock, cabbage, and bacon.
I’m also planning on making a pot of applesauce, to make use of some sad apples on my countertop, and eating my way through the pumpkin butter. I’ll stew the eggplant to make a punjabi eggplant curry for my lunches. There’s about one slice of kringle left, but I don’t think that’ll make it through until tomorrow.
Saturday: Japanese takeout. Our typical order at a restaurant that specializes in rolls includes a snow mountain maki (tempura shrimp topped with crab, avocado, and mango), a trio of spicy rolls (tuna, salmon, and california), and a volcano roll (california with spicy mayo).
Sunday: bratwurst with cabbage and sauerkraut. I haven’t quite figured out what else to do with the massive cabbage sitting in my fridge. It’s been there for a month.
Monday: working late (dinner out). We’ll be each fending for ourselves on Monday, because I have some later evening engagements.
Tuesday: Eggs with feta. We have a band recording at the house, so I like making some late night breakfast for dinner. This concept is still just as exciting as an adult.
Wednesday: spicy chicken sausage, roasted sweet potato, and sautéed greens with garlic. This is another one of the use the freezer meals, because my meat share arrives, and I’ll need some more space! (I get a once monthly meat share from Walden Local Meat).
Thursday: wild rice bowls with cabbage and bacon. Another late night because of the WCAB Board meeting. I haven’t quite pieced together how to actually make this meal, but it sounds like it’d work.
Friday: out! Likely our regular date night restaurant. I usually order one of three things – chicken piccata, a lamb burger, or crab cakes.
And that’s a wrap! What are you eating this week?
–– Sam
PS: there it is. Last bite of almond Kringle. Didn’t even make it through the writing of this post.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 14, 2014 | Restaurants
Yeah, that’s right, Home Depot. Romance! We’re waging war against some tiny grey fuzzy terrorists, and needed to get some extra weaponry. If anyone has any great solutions for dealing with mice (other than getting a cat), please share your wisdom in the comments! I also picked up some of those hand warmers (great for skiing, or running on a cold morning), a space heater, and entirely too many Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponges. They really are magic!
We at dinner at Strip T’s. It’s been some time since we had been in there – they went through a weird period after Ribelle opened, but it was nice to stop by and get some good dinner tonight. We split a wicked small caesar, and french fries. I had the lamb sandwich, and Devon had the meatball. Dessert was rice pudding with sour cherry compote and caramelized nuts, and a slice of dense chocolate cake with caramelized white chocolate icing and pretzel crunch. It was a two dessert kind of evening, and I saved some of the rice pudding for breakfast tomorrow.
Almost as good as home made rice pudding for breakfast.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 13, 2014 | Baking, Shopping
If you happen to see a large white rectangular package the size of a record at Trader Joe’s this week, buy it immediately, take it home, and have a party. A KRINGLE party! For some reason, probably because Kringle are shockingly delicious, Trader Joe’s has it seasonally stocked, and I’m here to tell you that you must purchase it. Your life will be better for it. The heck with the party, just eat it all yourself.
{I found this picture on the internet searching for O&H Danish Pastry Kringle, and marveled at those excellent Movember mustaches. And then realized that this picture was probably from the early 80’s, and that was just how facial hair was done, back in the day.}
Kringle, for those uninitiated to the delicacy, is a buttery, flaky, layered pastry, filled with marzipan, and topped with icing. In Denmark, the Kringle was a pretzel shaped pastry (the Danish symbol for a the baker’s guild), but when immigrant bakers moved to Racine, Wisconsin, they reshaped it into an oval. The Kringle is now the official state pastry of Wisconsin. There are two Kringle factories of note: Racine Danish Kringles, and O & H Danish Bakery. There is also a company that makes a Kringle Cream Liquor, which I have not tried, but might taste delicious stirred into morning coffee.
You can enter the contest on O & H Danish Bakery’s website to win a kringle, but if you happen to see one at Trader Joe’s, buy it right away, and thank me later.
West Coasters, apparently they sell Kringle in Solvang. The last time I was in Solvang was on one of our very first date vacations. Our first evening we had the pleasure of eating Stouffers meals that we purchased at the supermarket, and heated in the hotel – because everything in the town closed by seven pm.
