Food Lush

Portland Food Carts: My Latest Culinary Obsession

By Amanda

Portland is starting to get a bit famous for its cheap eats, which makes sense. It's a working class town with a beer budget, worldclass local ingredients and champagne expectations. It's the kind of town where for fifteen bucks a day, you can eat like a king if you play your carts and your happy hours right.

How is it then, that I only JUST had my first official food cart experience?!?

Because I am an EEEEEDIOT. That's why.

My first venture was to a cart pod in North Portland. We were on the hunt for breakfast sammiches, but that cart was closed for the winter, so I ended up going for Guamanian BBQ at Six, Seven, One instead.

This is a decision I will never regret.

Right there? That's some marinated chicken thighs with shrimp fritters and seasoned rice. That may or may not have been the best chicken I have ever ingested. I'll let you know as soon as I try it again.

MOUTHGASM.

That same morning, Liza (the baldman's daughter) ordered breakfast from a wonderful, gluten-free cart called Rock, Paper, Scissors, where rock is a creative, deep fried rice ball, scissors is spicy enough to burn your hair off and paper looks something like this:

There are over 200 food carts in Portland open any given day of the week.

So how did I manage to come across the Brunchbox cart?

BECAUSE I AM OBSESSED WITH CHEESEBURGERS.

I ordered the I Can Haz Cheeseburger because DUH. Obviously.

Yes. That's two texas-toast grilled cheese sandwiches with meat and produce between them.

No. I didn't eat the whole thing.

But I TRIED, people. I gave it my college best.

There's rumored to be a cart on Belmont with a $10 foie gras on the menu. I promise to try it and report back. 

You know. For RESEARCH.

Now I'm curious. Does your town have food carts? I've heard not all municipalities are copacetic with the street eats. If you're local, what should I try next?!?

Recipe for Tillamook Mac & Cheese

This dish is a bit of a challenge to post because I make it at least once a week and I haven't followed an actual recipe in YEARS. But here goes!

Ingredients:

1 pound pasta, cooked al dente (fresh is always best!)

1 enormous block of the sharpest, whitest, most aged white Tillamook cheddar you can find

Heavy cream

Butter

Salt & pepper

Freshly ground nutmeg

Parmesan cheese

Fresh garlic

Butter

I always start by boiling my pasta in a big pot while I melt some butter in my stainless steel saucepan. Then, just as the butter starts to bubble, I press about two or three cloves of garlic over it and then add in a generous dash of nutmeg.

I never EVER chop garlic. I prefer to mince. I love the juice that slips out the sides of my garlic press right into the pan. Mmmmm delicious fluid gold!

I cook the garlic for a VERY short time before adding about two cups of heavy cream. While the cream heats up, I get busy shredding cheese.

DO NOT BOIL THE CREAM.

Trust me on this.

Once it starts to simmer just the TEENSIEST bit, start slowly whisking in your cheddar. It should be hot enough that it melts and disappears almost instantly. Keep adding the cheese until your sauce is nice and thick.

This is a flourless cream sauce. Did I mention that?

When the texture is just right, add some parmesan cheese and then salt and pepper it to taste before mixing it in (GENEROUSLY) to your pound of fresh-cooked pasta.

I promise that men and children alike will love you for this one.

(Just don't blame me for the heart attack!)

Enjoy!

The many meals of Christmas...

By Amanda

First there was mac n cheese.

This was literally the only thing I made for Christmas dinner. It was just me and the kids - no grown-ups - so I went with their favorite.

The next morning my mom and I went to brunch at Fenouil.

She sketched my portrait on the tablecloth while we waited for the world's most perfect eggs benedict.

That night was Meet The Parents and Joel picked the restaurant: Paley's Place. 

Mom got the sweetbreads.

I got rabbit raviolis.

My dad got the Kobe Beef sushi. If you've never had steak tartar, Paley's is the place to try it.

Joel got the halibut with black truffles. 

Food aside, the meet and greet went great.

Then I made some scallops.

We went out for a Japanese lunch at Sinju.

Genoa wasn't a fan of the "Monkey Brains" my mom ordered, (which was mostly raw tuna.) but Alex loved the noodles.

 

It was quite a week, foodwise.

HOWEVER.

The highlight?

The party in my mouth that I can't wait to repeat?

CHICKEN FRIED BACON at Slappycakes.
You can take the bacon from my cold, dead hand. One of my New Year's resolutions is to eat there every week.

A week in the life: Dinner Edition

By Amanda

On Monday we went to happy hour at a new restaurant that just opened exactly ONE block from the front door of my apartment. I was SO SO hopeful that this place would be awesome and that I would finally have my own neighborhood Cheers bar from which to toddle home inebriated at 2AM.

But no...

Sadly, the food looked beautiful, but just like so many pretty things, it lacked substance. It was hot, stupid and not at all satisfying.

On Tuesday, we made up for it with a trip to Whole Paycheck and a homemade dinner...
That's pan-seared Buffalo sirloin with bacon-fried portabello mushrooms, roasted brussels sprouts and fingerling potatoes.

Apparently, I make a certain bald man crave red meat. So red meat it was! He seared the steak. I did the veggies.

And it was gooooood...

On Wednesday, we took a certain bald man's daughter to Happy Hour at Roots Restaurant in Camas, Washington.This has been my favorite joint for a loooong time. Long enough that the bartender and I are on a first name basis and he gets a glint in his eye every time I show up with a new date. The dude's name is RANDY and I haven't once made a dirty joke about it. Self control: I haz it.

We ordered a lovely sampling (which was so cheap and affordable that it's almost ridiculous) that included a Roy Rogers, white wine and a cosmo, Fish & Chips, Tillamook cheddar pasta, Caesar salad, Fondue and fresh Mussels. Not a bad bite in the bunch. Their food is always spectacular.

On Thursday, Joel took me to a party where the food was so good, I momentarily thought about climbing over the table in my 4-inch WWJSD? boots (what would Jessica Simpson do?) just to make out with the caterer. Of course Joel took all the photos, but let's just say that the hour we spent talking with the chef was time well spent. He had me at "cheese stuffed risotto balls." The chickpea fries were just frosting.

On Friday there was cashew shrimp.
Which I made for Joel's daughter. She didn't love it. (It came out too salty! Shrimp has more natural salt than chicken does and I neglected to adjust my recipe.) But she ate it anyway like a trooper!

On Saturday, we were invited to a Greek dinner party. Can you say RICOTTA STUFFED BELL PEPPERS FTW?

On Sunday, the food worship took a turn for the cult-ish. And Joel would know! He used to belong to one! (long story...)

The bastard made me a cassoulet! (And by "me" I obviously mean ME and fourteen of our closest friends.)

Cassoulet is French for either "Pork and Beans" or "THE ENTIRE FRICKING BARN YARD." (If you're a vegetarian, you may want to stop reading right now!) It started innocently enough with some white beans...
And quickly (over the next 17 hours) devolved into duck confit and pork tenderloin and tri tip steaks and a ham hock and French and Italian sausage and GOD. It's not like I wasn't attracted to the jerk BEFORE he took over my kitchen, but now...

Dayem.

He may have thrown in the whole barn yard, but in the end, his cooking brought this girl to HIS yard. And I hate to even say this out loud because it's 100% pornographic, but he totally cleaned my kitchen while I was at work the next day.

I take credit for the croutons. He gets credit for my shit-eating grin.

Not Yo Momma's Brussels Sprouts

By Amanda

Y'all, I had never even TRIED a mofo brussels sprout until maybe two weeks ago. They just sounded so GROSS. So archaic. And anyway, aren't they the most-hated vegetable of all time?

But lately I've been forcing myself to try new things. Like red wine (which I never thought I liked before!) and oysters! So when I was out with a certain bald, bespectacled writer and came across brussels sprouts on the menu at a fancy restaurant, I ordered them.

And they were ... delightful. Imagine my surprise!

So the next time I was at Trader Joe's, I bought some.

Instead of following the microwave-in-bag instructions, I decided to do my own thang.

My thang, naturally, involved BACON.

Here's the recipe:

A bunch of brussels sprouts, rinsed
2 Tablespoons bacon grease
2 Tablespoons butter
I Tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Adjust your oven racks so one is on the bottom position and one is on the top.

Place sprouts in a shallow bowl with a tablespoon of water and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave for 2-3 minutes. You probably won't notice a difference after this step, but it seems to make the sprouts more tender after the roasting.

Melt the butter and bacon grease in a microwavable bowl and then add the olive oil. Brush a thin layer of this mix over your thinest single-layer baking sheet. (NOT an air-filled baking sheet!) Sprinkle the sheet with salt and pepper.

Slice the brussels sprouts in half and place cut-side down on your baking sheet, like so. Brush the rest of the bacon-butter mixture over the tops and dust them with salt and pepper. Bake - ON THE LOWEST RACK - for 10-15 minutes. Once the bottoms are nice and brown, move the tray to the HIGHEST rack and bake for another 5-10 minutes.

Voila. Not your momma's brussels sprouts!

You'll notice this is pretty much the exact same recipe I use for my roasted cauliflower (which is equally delicious) only with the addition of bacon grease. Because everything is better with bacon.

Recipe: Pistachio Pesto

Pistachios are pretty much my favorite nut. Put a bowl in front of me and I can never seem to shell them fast enough to achieve my ideal pistachio consumption velocity. I need a pistachio shelling coach or something.

I'm always looking for ways to use them and this is by far my favorite recipe.

PEA AND PISTACHIO PESTO

1 Pound of pasta

1/4 cup of ricotta cheese

1 1/4 cups frozen peas, thawed

1/2-1 cup unsalted pistachios, toasted and chopped

1/4 cup parmesan or romano cheese, grated

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint

1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1. Cook pasta

2. Puree ricotta and two tablespoons of hot pasta water in Cuisinart until smooth. Add half of the peas, half of the pistachios, and all of the remaining ingredients and puree until smooth.

3. Stir pesto into pasta until well coated and then fold in remaining peas and pistachios. Salt.

4. I like to serve mine with shaved parmesan and an extra shot of lemon zest over the top as pictured above.

Group Therapy: Pecan Pie Edition

By Manda

Admittedly, I am no fan of pecan pie. I don't really like pecans all that much and the filling has always looked about as appealing to me as gelatinous diaper fillings. I'm just a pumpkin pie girl. There's no other way to go.

But lo! Pecan pie seems to be the favorite dessert of the bald, handsome, writerly set. Two out of three nerdy, bespectacled men prefer it! (I've taken a poll.) And so I set out to teach myself a new recipe.

I started with one from the New Basics Cook Book and I modified it (see below).

4 eggs
1 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup (I used 1/2 cup light and 1/4 cup dark)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup melted sweet butter (I used salted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1.5 cups shelled pecans, chopped
9-inch unbaked pie crust
1 cup shelled pecan halves

I made the following additions to the egg mixture:

1 tablespoon of flour
1-2 tablespoons of scotch whiskey (I used Glenlivet only because it's what I have. I'm sure Jack Daniels would be equally tasty.)
1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Beat eggs well in a large bowl. Then add all remaining ingredients except the pecans.

3. Sprinkle chopped pecans in the unbaked pie crust. Pour egg mixture over pecans. Arrange pecan halves in a circular design on top of the egg mixture. Like so:

4. Set on the middle rack of the oven and backe for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and back for another 30-45 minutes or until set.

5. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature before serving.

My end result was the following pie:

 

Not bad for a freshman effort, if I do say so myself. I actually ENJOYED it.

But...

It wasn't perfect. I think it was too sweet. It basically reminded me of a butterscotch square from See's Candy. Next time, I would brush a whisky glaze over the decorative pecans to get that flavor to pop more. I'd use all dark corn syrup and omit the light. I'd reduce the sugar and increase the butter.

Any other suggestions? This was my first try, so I'd love to hear about your perfect pecan pie recipe. (As long as it doesn't contain anything I'd find in a diaper.) What works? What should I change?

Basically, my pie recipe needs to work its feelings out in a group session. Who wants to go first?

Culinary Adventures: My First Oyster Shooter

By Amanda

I'm not sure how it happened, but I somehow managed to make it all the way to the weary, decrepit age of 34 without ever ingesting a single raw oyster.

I know, right?

It just wasn't a food my parents ever ordered at restaurants (they were too busy stuffing their wasabi-holes with sashimi) and there was certainly no way in hell my ex ever would've tried one. So I just.. never did.

Until last Monday.

I had a date with a fellow writer, blogger, food lover and wine lush who we can go ahead and call "Joel" because that's his name. Here's Joel in his natural habitat, a sweet, third-story, brick-walled loft so sexy it makes me want to do really bad things. Like write romance novels. Or become his writing assistant. Or let him take me out for oysters.

After a tour of his office that may or may not have involved a movie kiss on his casting couch, he took me to a lovely little restaurant called Montage. We missed happy hour (see above, re: couch), but wine is half off on Mondays, so it was ON like Donkey Kong.

Unlike some of us, Joel actually knows his way around a wine list, so he ordered up a bottle of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, which was light and crisp and delicious. See also: half off! So we could drink twice as much. That's how the wine math works. (Don't worry, I checked.)

I'm not sure when it came up in our conversation, but as soon as I admitted to Joel that I'd never tried an oyster shooter, he flagged down the waiter and insisted I pop that culinary cherry immediately. So he could watch.

I'm glad he did.

The oyster shooter at Montage is served:

IN A SHOT GLASS WITH CAJUN COCKTAIL SAUCE, LEMON, AND CREAMED HORSERADISH!

I didn't take a picture (I was too busy calculating the wine math), but I think it looked pretty much like this photo. (Courtesy of Paula Deen's Oyster Shooter Recipe on foodnetwork.com.)

 
I let Joel go first so I could learn the procedure. You basically throw it all back in one spicy, slimy, delectable gulp.

Bottoms up, beeyotch!

I was delightfully surprised. Oysters have a fresh, salty-sweet taste and as long as you don't let yourself get too heebed out by the texture, which is slimy and rubbery and light all at once, you'll probably love them as much as I did. Basically it's a trip to Hawaii in your mouth. On a yacht.

I think it helped that 1) I was already lubed up on Italian wine, 2) I was sharing the experience with a really good date (Oysters are widely known aphrodesiacs!) and 3) I was sitting in a relatively dark restaurant. I find the same thing to be true of a good bloody steak: I enjoy it more when I don't have to look at it too closely. I get to focus on the taste and turn off that part of my brain that says: THIS FOOD ISN'T COOKED.

So yeah, I'm a fan of the oyster shooter! Next time I'll order one with a little vodka thrown into the shot glass for an extra kick.

Next week Joel and I have plans for Foie Gras at Le Pigeon, so whet your vicarious palates and stay tuned for a heady description of that inevitable mouthgasm. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your oyster experiences, good or bad.

Halloween Lush: Spooky Punch Bowl

By Amanda

Here are a couple quick and dirty Halloween party tricks.

First up on the left is a set of screwdriver shooters made with Blavod, a specialty black vodka that is perfect for Halloween. You simply pour one part orange juice and one part Blavod into a shot glass and encourage your guests to drink up.

The punch bowl on the right is even simpler since it doesn't involve ordering booze off the Internet. It's two parts fruit punch, one part vodka, all poured over a block of dry ice. I buy my dry ice at Fred Meyer, but it's widely available at grocery stores and your local Baskin & Robbins. The best part is that there's something about dry ice that gives your cocktail punch a certain bubbly joie de vivre that regular iced punch can never quite beat. It's always a huge party hit and if you make a booze-free batch of punch for the kids, you'll be the neighborhood hero. I promise.

My favorite cup of coffee: Tassimo Pods

By Amanda

I'm in California this week visiting my parents and tooling around the Bay Area with my brothers. It's the first time I've traveled sans munchkins, and I have to admit that traveling alone has a lot to recommend. Like when you're in San Francisco and you just FEEL like getting off the muni and you CAN because there's no agenda. And then you can run around Haight and Ashbury looking for Mad Men-themed halloween costumes. Red Joan Holloway dress FTW!

The only thing I haven't loved about this trip, sadly, is the COFFEE.

Don't get me wrong; my mom is a coffee afficianado with exotic beans and a fancy machine, and my brother made me French press this morning.

But, I miss my coffee maker!

I have one of these:

It's a Bosch Tassimo machine that brews coffee in these little pods. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers! PODS! (Actually, the official name is: T-Disc, but PODS is way better.)

My favorites are their cheapest pods:

You can even buy them at Target! Of course, my taste in coffee runs rather pedestrian. My favorite thing on earth is DENNY'S coffee with two Splendas and a big shot of 2% milk. Not fancy. Not dark. Not full-bodied or flavorful or imported on the backs of Costa Rican farmers.

But it's my perfect cup.

What's yours?

{All photos courtesy Tassimo.}