Category: food

DFWBlogs Cocktail Event – September

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

The DFWBlogs Cocktail Event for August was held at the Tipperary Inn on Live Oak St. It’s an Irish-style pub, and the interior bars were even made in Dublin and shipped over (!).

Being that it was a Wednesday evening, it wasn’t very crowded — which I thought was a good thing. With fewer people, it’s easiler to have conversations with other people. Still, the sound still easily reflected off the many flat surfaces such as all the polished wood. But, that was only a minor issue (especially comapred to sitting next to the large glass windows at The Hurricane Grill).

I ordered a bacon-cheddar burger and a Kelly’s Cider. The burger had a good amount of meat to it, probably 1/3 lb or more. Pleasantly, it also had that char-taste that comes from a properly flame-grilled burger (mmm). The burger was $8. And, it was very good. But, was it $8-good? I don’t know about that. Maybe $7-good ;).

The fries were “very warm” but not quite “hot”. And, they were crispy-style fries with almost a crunch to the outer skin. I don’t see that fry-style much these days, and it was a nice change of pace.

Before I ordered the burger, I selected my drink. When I asked our waitress what they had on tap, she rattled off an impressively long list of beverages. I heard “Newcastle” among them — definitely one of my favorites — but my ears perked up at the mention of “cider”. I didn’t even hear what brand of cider it was, but I knew that it was one that I hadn’t previously tried.

It turns out that the cider was Kelly’s Irish Hard Cider (an Irish brand, no surprise there). As I write this, I’m having difficulty putting into words the delicousness of Kelly’s Cider… It was full of distinct apple flavor, but not oversweetened, so it remained very dry and crisp. It was fantastically delicious and highly refreshing.

Though Savanna Dry (only available in South Africa, as far as I know) is still officially my favorite cider, Kelly’s now takes the crown as my favorite-cider-actually-available-in-North-America.

Omelette Disaster

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

As planned, I made an omelette this morning. However, it didn’t quite turn out as planned.

Re-reading the directions, I’ve already realized one of my errors. I thought that they said to make the pan as hot as possible (‘As hot as you dare’), then add the butter, then add the eggs. However, they actually say to heat the pan, add the butter, then to turn up the heat really high.

What happened with me is that, because the pan was on full-heat, the butter boiled off and became brown almost instantly :(. So, I turned down the heat (but only a little), and added some more butter. That lasted a bit longer, but was becoming brown very quickly. So, I poured in the eggs that I had pre-mixed, and they cooked almost instantly. Well, actually, the bottom of the eggs cooked almost instatly (almost to the point of burning) while the top remained runny.

So, I quickly added the filling (tomotoes and cheese). I let the omelette cook just a bit more, in an attempt to halfway-cook the top side of the eggs. I remembered from the directions that “an omelette will go on cooking even on the plate&rdquo, so I transferred the omelette to the plate before the eggs were completely cooked.

But, I may have had too much filling in there — four tomato-slices diced, plus cheese — so I ended up with a crumbled omelette. And, it was nearly burnt on the bottom-side, but a touch raw on the top side.

Next time, I’ll be sure to only turn up the heat after the butter has melted. And, I’ll also use more eggs (I used just two eggs this time around, which underwhelmed the filling).

Omelette Making

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

I’ve had a hankering for an omelette, and I think I’ll make one tomorrow (that is, Sunday). As I’ve never made one before, a search on Google brought up a couple hits for directions on making an omelette.

This omelette-HOWTO probably makes the most sense to me. There’re no pictures (bummer there), but the words themselves are clear. As a bonus, it also includes several suggestions for fillings (in particular, “diced pears, blue cheese, and pecans” sounds fabulous).

Then there’s this how-to-make-an-omelette page from Delia Online (which also has an extensive selection of how-to directions for foods). It’s a nice touch that pictures are included, but the recipe given seems more complicated :-/. Specifically, step 4 confuses me:

After this time a bubbly frill will appear round the edge. Now you can tilt the pan to 45 degrees and, using a tablespoon, draw the edge of the omelette into the centre. The liquid egg will flow into the space, filling it. Now tip the pan the other way and do the same thing. Keep tilting it backwards and forwards, pulling the edges so that the egg can travel into the space left — all this will only take half a minute. […]

Eh? The draw-the-edge part is what gets me. Does that mean that I’m supposed to be curling up the edges of the omelette? Or does that mean that I’m supposed to be pushing the yet-uncooked part of the eggs into the center of the omelette?

At any rate, I’ll give omelette-making a try. I have both tomotoes and shredded colby/cheddar cheese in the fridge, so I'll make use of those for fillings. Incidentally, I figure that sun-dried tomatoes could be good in an omelette — but what section of the supermarket would I find those? Would that be with the produce, or in some other section?

Cottage Cheese & Fruit?

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

While I had my mid-afternoon yogurt (a fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt, as I have every day), one of my cow-orkers suggested that I could try those cottage-cheese-and-fruit combos (for instance, “Cottage Doubles”). At 150 Calories and 12g protein each, they’re pretty healthy — though it’s fair to say that yogurt is generally healthy to begin with ;).

Has anyone tried these, and are they any good? I may just buy a couple, but they cost about twice as much as those little yogurts ($1 instead of about 50¢). And, I’m a bit concerned when Kraft’s press release says that “it satisfies you without weighing you down” — could that just marketing-speak to say that they’re not filling?

Gala Apples

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The other day, I shopped around for apples at Sam’s Club. Apples in general are fairly low-calorie — a entire apple only has about as many calories as a Rice Krispies bar (80 Calories vs 90 Calories). So, I figured on having half an apple with my breakfast sandwich, and the other half with lunch.

Anyhow, I bought some Gala apples. I don't know if I'd call it the “best apple I ever had in my life”, but it was still tasty. It had good overall apple flavor, and a crisp texture. I was especially pleased that it didn’t suffer from the thick and bitter skin that can plague Red Delicious applies.