new food

Our trip to New Orleans began with fast food take out. Look, I know. But waffle fries. C’mon!
Grilled chicken & waffle fries! Nom. New Orleans is only 3.5-4 hours from Jackson, MS. Not bad for an overnight trip. It’s like going to NYC from Albany, only with a slightly more debaucherous air.
I met up with my Brother-In-Law (in-law?), my sis-in-law Maka’s brother. He lives in New Orleans and picked us up from our hotel in the French Quarter to grab dinner at the High Hat, a fairly new restaurant. One of the benefits of tourism is having people drive you to awesome places.
The high hat had a retro feel inside – lots of wood.
Dinner menu was short and sweet, with a few specials on the menu board. The most expensive thing tops out at $14, so you won’t break the bank here.
Specialty cocktail of the night – Albany John got one. Good stuff. I stole a sip. I can’t remember what it was. My bad!
I got the two cat fish dinner. $13.50 for two whole catfish. So good! And a TON of food for one person, but somehow I managed, hehe. Coleslaw as a side, and greens as another side. Greens were nice – zippy collards.

Albany John got an oyster po’boy with okra and tomatoes as his side. Man loves him some okra. I still think it’s pretty slimy stuff, but he really enjoyed this preparation. I really enjoyed the fried oysters. Mmm.

Afterward, my awesome bro-in-law^2 gave us a tour of the area at night – local colleges, and all that good stuff. It was interesting to see how some blocks would start off looking all fancy-dancy, but have a middle section that was run down.

After that, it was time for SECOND DINNER! Bwa ha! We waited in line at Felix’s for some oysters for a short spell.

Bro & Margarita got a Jester – some kind of specialty frozen drink. There were billboards on the drive in touting it as the strongest drink in New Orleans. I stole a sip – reminded me of alcoholic Ecto-Cooler Hi-C.

I was intrigued by these nearly open air bars. You can walk around New Orleans with alcoholic drinks. It’s kind of like Albany on a parade day, but with less rioting.

Albany John held our place in line, and it had scootched up for us to get a neat view of an empty grenade cup.

Oyster shucking!
Menu!
Once we were seated, we ordered quickly – Albany John and Margarita weren’t feeling savory, so they split a brick of bread pudding. Don’t put this on your bucket list. Interestingly spongy.
Bro & I were ALL ABOUT the oysters. We got a dozen char broiled. Holy moly! Order these, they’re awesome! $16 for a dozen deliciously briny oysters slathered in butter with some Romano or Parmesan tossed on top.

If you’re in New Orleans – get these, get these, GET THESE. The oysters themselves were lightly cooked, and oh man. So good. Charred and reminiscent of grilled beef – very meaty and savory things, these. Even Margarita liked them, and she doesn’t really care for oysters.

And a dozen raw! Their horseradish is on the table, and it’s got quite an addictive kick. So fresh, and not as pungent as oysters north of the Mason-Dixon line. Southern oysters grow quickly because of the warm waters, but don’t develop as much flavor. If you’re not a fan of Oysters in NY because of their pungency, give these a try. Same great texture, and a lighter flavor profile.

These all had bits of shell in it, though. Mildly annoying, but easy enough to spit out. No issues with shells in the char broiled variety.

It’s drinkin’ time! Felix’s is located right in the French Quarter, so there’s nightlife all over. These cherry bomb shots were $1. Good lord, I think they were made with a combination of tequila, everclear, and rubbing alcohol. Po-tent! Phew!
Here’s a place called the Rat’s Hole. So, story time:
In high school, my boyfriend’s parents liked going to New Orleans. They’d tell me about this place called the Rat’s Hole that was a fun little shop with Rat-themed shirts and souvenirs. They’d stop by when they visited for souvenirs. This is they story they told me.

Yes, they sold some shirts, but they also sold a whole lot of adult beads, and cheap ass drinks. It was neat to see it IRL-sies, and then be like, WAIT A MINUTE. They were out partying!

As it turns out, New Orleans is kind of a mecca for partiers and drinkers of all ages. We were probably on the younger side of the age spectrum, with a majority of people out and about in their late thirties through mid fifties.

Here’s a picture I snagged of their rat-related drink cups.

This was Miss Allison or Alice… something like that. She was directing traffic outside of two gay bars. And actually doing quite a good job of making sure traffic wasn’t completely impeded by pedestrians, and vice-versa.

We stopped in one of the bars for some people watching from the balconies – good spot to people watch from above.
Then We stopped in for a drink at the Tropical Isle.
Grenades! Albany John got a skinny grenade. Blech. Really artifical tasting. These came with ice or without. Wow, without is one potent drink I’d imagine. I went with ice.
I liked this old signage. Very cute. And hey, you can just barely make out our four shadows. We ended up hanging out/dancing in a clubby little bar called Voo Doo something or other. It was on Bourbon Street, but many of these clubs/bars are pretty darned similar – you can walk in with drinks, buy cheap ones there ($3 shots! Although Bro managed to find a beer for $6.50), and just dance around to whatever they have playing. There are… I wanna call ‘em “hosts” in these clubs. Basically just a guy on stage that sings along into a mic occasionally with whatever song is playing, and act as host/DJ to keep the crowds interested and lively. The songs are on loop after a while.

I liked this smaller bar over a larger one we went to. At the larger bar the crowd was a little rowdier – one guy walked up and knocked Albany John’s drink all over me for no reason on his way out. Thanks, buddy. This smaller one had a little more character and a whole lot of people watching crammed in. Having one or 17 drinks too many is definitely nothing out of the ordinary in New Orleans.

It was quite a fun night out. We had to leave the day of the first parade, so we missed what I’m guessing would be some really wild nightlife, but still – great time overall. I’m not a big club/nightlife kind of gal on most occasions, but in general, the people were all generally happy dispositions. Your hotel might cost you an arm and a leg in the French Quarter, but you’ll break even on the cheapo nighlife and noshes.

The Merry Monk

January 21, 2012

bar, new food, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood

8 Comments

Albany John and I popped in for supper at The Merry Monk (90 North Pearl St, Albany, NY), one of Albany’s newest eateries on Pearl Street. Save your groans, The Merry Monk is worth a trip to Pearl Street.

Albany John suggested we check out either The Merry Monk for mussles, or Pho Yum for pho. Clearly, mussles > pho for me on this night.

Rince Cochon beer on the left. I liked the name and the tap (a big pink elephant!), and they were out of the Ephemere I wanted, but Albany John wisely urged me toward the Palm beer sitting on the right since the Rince Cochon had a 9-10% abv!

I liked the Palm beer. Both were drafts, but boy did that little piggy have an alcoholic kick! The Palm was caramelized and nice for a chilly winter night.
Mussels are buy-one-get-one-free on Wednesday nights. Oh mama. They offer a little over a half dozen types of sauced mussels, and orders are 1 or 2 lbs. We were dainty and went with 1# orders.

Albany John got the chipotle lime mussels. These were my first pick, but he beat me to them, and I’m glad he did – they were thoroughly enjoyable and well prepared (don’t let the blurry picture fool you), but I don’t think I could have eaten an entire bowl of them by myself. Spice wuss that I am. But I happily stole some off of his plate. The sauce was kicky and had a good degree of heat, but wasn’t just a one-note “spicy” thing going on.

Blue Cheese & Bacon mussels! I’ve never seen such a combo before with mussels, so I had to try it. Curiosity got the better of me, and I’m glad it did – these were delicious! As a salt-fiend I loved the flavors going on – salty, strong (from the blue cheese), but still balanced and rich. If you’re watching your sodium levels, you could probably choose a different preparation. Albany John and I can’t wait to go back to try the meuniere and Thai coconut sauces.

The mussels were all well cooked – plump and juicy, and not an overcooked or shriveled mussel among the log. Albany, we’ve got our mussels joint! And prices are great too – $10.99 for 1 lb, and about $16 for 2 lbs. I’m getting 2 lbs.

We also tacked on some fries for an extra $2 with two dipping sauces. I pretended they weren’t mayo-based, hehe. The pesto was really good (again, balanced), and the horseradish had some heat to it.

Here’s where the Merry Monk really stood out for me, though. We’d also ordered one of their app specials – boar short ribs in a cherry sauce. It was $9.99 for the appetizer portion. It didn’t come out before or while we were eating our mussels. When we mentioned it to our waiter, he was really that it didn’t come out at all. He put the order in, told us it was on the house, and asked if we wanted any other drinks on the house. Wow! All over a missed appetizer. Our server apologized a few more times and mentioned the error was on his part. We didn’t order any more drinks, so he took our more expensive beer off of our tab. Dude! This kind of proactive service is in Albany now? I love it!

These were worth the wait – falling off of the bone tender. They were generously covered in pepper. Something I normally wouldn’t like, but it worked really well with the whole cherry sauce thing they had going on. I wonder if they got it from Adventure in Food?

I can’t wait to go back. On a week night, the space wasn’t crowded and was pleasantly different from other Pearl Street bars and restaurants. I really liked their service – not only did they own up to a mistake and go above and beyond to correct the problem, but it was laid back and when I was in there it felt like I was just in a nice, relaxing bar/resto, away from any urgent pressure.

The fact that they went above and beyond to correct something I saw as a minor mistake is something I am just blown away by. It’s a great sign of Albany’s restaurant service evolution. I’ve been to restaurants where the exact same thing has happened, and they just shrug it off (worst-case scenario was they left an item on the bill and then give you stink eyes when you point out you never received an item). Maybe if I were more into having my meal arrive in any sort of order other than as-soon-as-it’s-ready this would be more of a deal to me, but as long as it comes out shortly after it’s made, I don’t care if my appetizer, salad, and entree all come out at the same time (actually, I kind of might prefer it that way, grazer that I am).

Any way, great job Merry Monk – I look forward to many more pounds of your deliciously economical mussels in a relaxed atmosphere.

Garden Bistro 24 for Family Dinner

August 11, 2011

beef, duck, fried, fries, frugal, local, new food, night life, recommendations, restaurant, review, salad, seafood, veal

7 Comments

Bro, Margarita, and Baby Dubs came up from Mississippi for a bit recently. It was so good to see them! Hard it believe it’s been almost a year since I last saw them!

I wanted to do something special while they were up here, and booked a dinner at Garden Bistro 24 for them, my mom, my sister, plus Albany John and me. Oh, and a toddler.

I emailed ahead of time to partially arrange a special meal for my sister, who’d said she’d eat cooked food. So I requested something vegan and gluten-free. Much to my surprise, John Grizzaffi himself responded! Who ever expects the chef and OWNER of a restaurant to answer your emails? (He’s a peach, btw).

They have old fashioneds!So yummy! So potent!

Albany John got a hangar steak. Yum! Cooked med rare. My mom got a steak too, but no sauce. Not sure if she really liked it, she said it was kind of tough. Ah well. I guess I should have considered the cuts a little more. My mom’s more of a prime rib gal. I was hoping she’d like GB24 because they do simple meals, but I guess I didn’t consider the cuts she usually likes.

I got a duck confit special. Came in an amaretto sauce (but not too sweet). Two legs! Woah man – so much food! Really tasty – can’t get enough of their mustard, either.

My sis-in-law Margarita got a Garden Bistro 24 salad with Chicken. She really liked this.

My brother got mussels with the coconut sauce on them. He was like “These are fucking DELICIOUS!” (only add more cursing and it’s all said in caps). If I hadn’t seen the duck special I would have deffo ordered up some mussels!

Here is the special dish John made for my sister. I don’t think she actually ate any of it, since she ordered a salad instead. I guess she decided to switch back to raw food ’cause she got a salad. It was beautiful, though, and full of ingredients I don’t normally see on BG24′s menu. Freshly grilled seasonal veggies, kalamata olives, and organic polenta. The rest of us picked at it – so flavorful. I don’t know, I just wanted to have something she could/would eat with the rest of us aside from her usual greens, but I guess I screwed that one up along the way. I ordered it any way, since I made such a big deal about special ordering it. At least she was nice enough to take it home in a doggy bag, tossing it, I’m guessing, out of my view.

John – thank you very much for the effort you put in this dish (and vegans, put a rezzie here!).

A pic of Albany John’s steak, the special vegan dish, the salad my sis got instead, and a pic of my mom’s frites, ’cause evidently I didn’t snap a pic of her steak.

Service was great (as usual) – really friendly service, and guess what? Kids are always welcome here!

All done!

I always like going here. I was hoping I’d pick a place everyone would like because I like it so much. You can enjoy the food yourself, but you can’t necessarily force others to like what you do too. Or hope really hard. But you can enjoy the company and let them distract you from bluer thoughts ’cause you’re so happy to be with the crazy family you have.

Hunh, and here I thought I just went here for a meal. Instead I come out with some kind of life lesson.

Seasonal Dinner at Ala Shanghai

July 4, 2011

beef, bloggers, Chicken, Chinese, dumplings, fried, frugal, local, new food, night life, pork, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, veggies

4 Comments

What captures a season more than a meal specially prepared for a group of friends? Ala Shanghai is wonderful about preparing specialty menus for a group, and was kind enough to prepare a seasonal dinner for Daniel B., Stanford Steph, Mr. Sunshine, Jess Tanner, Cap 2 Cap & her guy, plus Albany John and me.
App plate with aster salad, wine chicken, smoked fish, and Shanghai-style jelly fish.

The fish was sweet and preserved-y. Not much smoky flavor, but nice texture.
I’ve had the aster salad & wine chicken before – nice and refreshing for the Spring/Summer cusp.

Shanghai-style jelly fish is my new fave summer dish. It’s still got a lot of crunchiness/firmness to it. Flavored lightly, but oh man. Way better than Cantonese style jelly fish (which is more like a noodle-y chewy texture). I want Shanghai jellyfish ALL SUMMER LONG. So good.

Xiao Long Baos for the table, natch. So juicy and porky! Perfect. I know they’re not a dinner dish, but oh man. How can you not order them when they’re an option??

West Lake Beef Soup! The top is covered in a sprinkling of cilantro.

It was more than enough soup for 8 people. Heck, at least 12 people.

This was a great soup for the season. Warm, but very lightly flavored. The cilantro offered some brightness and lightness. A little bit of egg whites and velveted beef. Not a heavy soup at all.
Luffa with shrimp. YUM! I’ve never had luffa. So good. It’s also called the sponge veggie. I’ve read it on Serious Eats but had yet to try it since it’s hard to find up here sometimes, and the season is fairly narrow.

Lanny, the owner of Ala, was telling us that September is the late cutoff for luffa before it gets bitter and unpleasant tasting. August is your last best bet to try this dish at Ala before it goes off of the menu.

It’s like a really light flavor of zucchini/squash and a softer texture.
Chicken with white snow fungus. If you’ve had black wood ear/fungus this is the polar opposite. I was excited to try it since I’ve only had the black versions (heavier flavor) and had only ever seen the white/clear version of it in dessert recipes.

Again, a nice and refreshing dish. Light flavors, great textures.

Tong Bo Pork Belly. This looks laquered, no? The skin is cooked into unctuousness and it’s all quivery and pillowy soft. It comes with some baby bok choy on the sides, but make no mistake – this is no light dish. It’s heavy with layers of fat, and has a sweeter flavor profile. This is a dish that will stick to your ribs.

Sea bass with pine nuts. So lovely and diced! It had a bit of a sweet-salty glaze on it. A bit hit with our table mates. I nabbed a crispy fried fin piece. Yum!

Hello deliciousness and good company!

The softshell crabs with egg yolk were my FAVORITE dish of the night. I think I ate half of the plate by myself (sorry guys…). I mean, you have to eat them soon ’cause fried food only has a finite lifespan. SO GOOD!

Salty, crispy… the egg yolk added a nice rich savory note to the dish. And c’mon. SOFTSHELL CRABS! So perfect.
I forget the name of this dish, but it’s one I’m somewhat familiar with. I’m used to calling it bird’s nest noodles ’cause the noodles are all crispy and the topping is put on top.

Dessert was chrysanthemum jelly with lychees! YAY, lychees!
A really light and refreshing end to dinner. I think this menu showcased Ala Shanghai’s ability to create a well-balanced dinner menu. There weren’t a bunch of heavy dishes, and the lighter dishes they have really are lighter and have very little oil on them. I think this ability to let subtle flavors shine is one of their strongpoints, and one of the reasons Ala is one of my favorite restaurants in the area.

I’m not one to really care about how much fat is in a dish. But there are some dishes that I think are hurt by a heavy hand of oil. A lot of Hong Kong style and Cantonese style Chinese dishes use more oil than I’d like in their veggie dishes. Sure, sometimes it makes them taste rich and buttery, but other times it’s too heavy and you just want pure veggie flavor (or just something light and refreshing). I love that all of the dishes I’ve had at Ala Shanghai that sound light actually come out light and not covered in oil.

Oh, and best of all – dinner was $20 per person, TAX AND TIP INCLUDED! How crazy-cheap is that?! Best of all, if you want a similar menu, you can give them a call or email and you can set up a seasonal dinner of your own. I wish I had more time on my hands to do this every week.

Some of us went out for ice cream after, too

Cotton Candy topping for the win!

The Epicurean

June 1, 2011

beef, French, fries, local, new food, restaurant, review, veal

Ala Shanghai Lunch with Friends

April 15, 2011

beef, Chinese, dumplings, frugal, local, new food, pork, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, soup

8 Comments

The Profussor had suggested a lunch date with Leah the Nosher at Ala Shanghai one day this week. I had just started craving Ala’s soups, so my answer was “Oh hell yeah!”. We met up yesterday, and Albany John was even able to join us. We got some freebie snacks for the table while we waited for Leah – Spicy 8 Jewel on the left (mmm, there was even shrimp in the bite I got!!!), and salty-delicious edamame on the right. Yeah, I tried to be good and follow my holistic Dr.’s orders to avoid spicy and fried food, but… so hard at Ala when the food is so good! And it was just a little spoonfull. Moderation, right?

Albany John and Daniel B. ordered some lunch specials, so they got egg drop soup. Nom – so good. Albany John likes how light and refreshing the corn makes the dish.

Appetizers! In the front are two kinds of cold appetizers on one plate ($9 combo) – Salty Duck is on the left, and Wine Chicken is on the right. Salty duck was good (not crazy salty, just enough) and had tender yet firm meat and wasn’t too fatty.

The Wine Chicken? Oh man, so good. Had a lot of flavor and was very tender and moist. It’s a good spring dish – satisfying, but not too heavy. Also, being kind of sick, it was a good sick people food – I could taste it (yay!), but it wasn’t overwhelming; it was a very comforting dish to eat.

In the background is an order of scallion pancake. I followed my herbalist’s orders and resisted their crispy fried goodness. But man, that was hard. I think I should get an automatic cure on being sick for passing these delicious treats up.

HAR GOW, HAR GOW, HAR GOW!!! Hee hee hee. Mmmm, nothing I love better when I’m sick than sticky, soft, and chewy rice noodles. Shrimp is the icing on the cake. Or maybe the noodles are the icing on the shrimp cake. Either way, it’s a ride to delicious town.

Xiao long bao! We ended up ordering more of these after the first round (good call, Leah!). So, so good. I’m so happy to get XLB in Albany.

Here’s one of the FUSSYlittleCHILDREN. She loves ice, and Lanny (the owner) overheard her asking her pops for more ice to chew on and brough over a cup. What excellent and responsive service.

The service at Ala Shanghai is one of the reasons I really enjoy going. They’re very old school professional – if you drop some silverware, they’ll notice it; if you casually say something to someone at your table (like with the ice) and they can do something, they will. They’re also very child-friendly. While this isn’t a major concern of mine, friends with kids always appreciate that kind of thing.

Mmm, entree time! Albany John got … um, I’m blanking on the name, but I think it was something like spicy beef shanks? It was a spicy beef dish on the lunch specials menu. Daniel B. got the mapo tofu (with ground pork).

I valiantly passed on the mapo tofu, but had to try just a little bit of the beef dish. I mean, beef shanks (so good)! I also ganked some of the bok choy, too. Mmm. Nummy veggies. I was very sad I couldn’t eat any more of the dish, because it was so tasty! Leah thought it could be cooked a touch more. I loved it – the heat really built up. And how can you not love the deep beefy flavor of shanks?

This was probably one of the hottest dishes I’ve had at Ala Shanghai (and not just spicy-hot, but flavorful). I will come back when I am not sick and eat more than one bite of this dish. It was very hard not to eat more.

And the grand finale! Seafood soup ($8)! Holy moly, this was a large bowl! Shrimp, scallops, and squid with homemade lo mein noodles and some veggies. So. Good.

And don’t worry – they will split up the bowl so you can share. They’ll even portion it out so you don’t have to mess around with it. I was glad for this, because I didn’t want to get Leah or Daniel B. sick with my germs.

Just what I wanted. I might have trouble tasting things, but hot, light broth was very welcoming. Soft noodles = awesome. And when can you go wrong with seafood?

That’s how I know I’m at least on the mend – when I want seafood. Does anyone else get sick and not want to eat certain things? Textures and flavors get weird for me when my taste is muted. When I’m really sick, I don’t even want to think about seafood (as we know, this is completely unlike a non-sick Albany Jane) or most dairy.

Anyway, part of the reason I was so looking forward to going to Ala for soup was because their soups tend to be on the lighter side. No slick of oil on top. Just light and… you know, like good soup. It’s nice to be able to go to a Chinese restaurant and not have to ask “low oil”. I’ve had to ask my dad to special order dishes in Chinese before to request low oil, just because sometimes it’s so heavy it takes away from the dish. Not the case here – so refreshing. Sick Albany Jane is happy, haha!

Vegan Pizza

March 16, 2011

cheese, new food, pizza, vegan

2 Comments

You know those fish that you can stick in a tank and will eat pretty much anything, like the algae off the sides of the tank? Those sucker fish? I’ve got to be the sucker fish of my family. If no one wants it, I’ll probably take it and do something with it. My sister bought a ton of Daiya cheese a few months ago when she took a break from her raw food diet. I think she had to, or something like that. She made some gluten-free, vegan pizza, and since then there have been several baggies of shredded cheeze sitting in my mom’s freezer. The cheeze bags got the boot from Mom’s freezer into mine recently.

I figured I’d give vegan pizza a go. Why not? Daiya’s got great reviews online for vegan cheese. And hey, if I can have pizza and call it healthy and good for me, well, sign me right the hell up.

The Daiya mozzarella style shreds vegan cheese looks like shreds of parmesan cheese, and has a kind of cheesey smell. It would be hard to tell it apart from regular shreds of mozzarella (the cheapie bagged kind), or parmesan.

Made a crust primarily of bread flour. Chewy thin crust on a pizza stone. Albany John whipped together a chunky sauce out of canned tomatoes. 550F pizza stone for 6 minutes.

Holy moly – it really melted! It looks pretty much like mozzarella cheese. Flavor-wise… um. It was okay. I think a little goes a long way. It didn’t really taste like mozzarella. The first bite I was like “Woah. This is melty and kinda cheesey. Maybe it’s kind of like mozza-oh no. It’s different.”.
There’s a coconutty-sweet end to it, and it tastes more like a melty/warm sweet cream cheese with extra tang, yet has the pull and meltiness of mozzarella. It was kind of a mind freak for someone who’s used to eating the real stuff. After reading the ingredients label, coconut oil is one of the ingredients, so at least my brain’s not making that flavor up out of no where.

I think Daiya vegan “mozzarella” cheese is really close to mozzarella for people that can’t eat mozzarella and don’t know/remember what it tastes like. If you eat mozzarella, you’ll be able to spot the difference in flavor. If you don’t eat mozzarella for whatever dietary reason but really want to, you’ll be like “Oh, shit! It’s mozzarella! Halleluja, Daiya!”.

I’m still gonna keep it in my freezer, just ’cause I think pizza might not be the best application for me because the sweet flavor is so blatantly obvious (which makes me mildly disconcerted the entire time I’m eating it since I’m like “Hmm. It’s just a little off,”). Truthfully, I hope my sister will be like “I’m not eating raw food on XYZ day,” and then I can be all like “I’m making you vegan, gluten-free pizza, biatch!” in the near future and then I can feed her something that she likes. Okay, and I might have a problem with hoarding things in my freezer, but it’s edible, so how is that really a problem?

Still, I’m really impressed with its melting properties. I think I will try to find a sweeter application to use it with. Have you tried this stuff before? Any suggestions?

Shortrib Ragu

March 1, 2011

8 O'Clock Ranch, beef, cooking, crock pot, Italian, new food, pasta, recipe

2 Comments

Beef Shortrib Ragu’ll cure your winter blues. And if you don’t have winter blues, it’ll make you feel as cozy as a bug. Definitely stick-to-ya-ribs stuff.

I popped 2-3 lbs of beef shortibs into a crock pot with some diced onions, whole cloves of garlic (like, a head in total – garlic cooks up so sweet and mellow. It’s hard to believe it’s so bracing raw) several cans of tomatoes, and some oregano and fresh basil.

Later in the day, I made whole wheat pappardelle.
1 C semolina Flour
2/3 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C AP or Bread flour (I only had high-gluten bread flour on hand)
2 whole eggs
1/4 c olive oil
a few T of water.

Mix them all together, adding some water here and there if the dough is tough and crumbly. Then let it sit for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.

Crock pot! Ugly picture! My shortribs weren’t falling apart and dissolving into nothingness after being crock potted for hours on end, so Albany John shredded ‘em for me. Worked like a charm.

I also remembered I had some hard cheese rinds (parmesan, romano) in the freezer, and tossed those in for good measure. A delicious tip I gleaned from the Profussor. So chewy and melty, and cheesey, and probably not good for you.

The beef shortrib ragu I was gunning for had morphed into something more like a stew. Either way, it was great over pasta, mashed potatoes, and rice. 2.5 lbs of beef short ribs is also kind of a lot for two people (even with bones), so we’ve been happily picking away at this for a few days.

Oh, and that pappardelle was awesome. I figured it would have that dreaded “Whole Wheat Bite”. You know – like when you eat it and all you taste is heaviness, brown, and meh?

There was a bit of bounce to the noodles, and they just had a subtle nutty-wheat flavor to them, along with speckles of color. I am so making these again. Totally not boring whole wheat papardelle noodles. Oh, and they were only pappardelle because I used that roller to cut them out with. These could have easily been whole wheat linguine/fettucine noodles, too. Or spaghetti. Or ravioli.

—Albany Eats!

Documenting the foodings of a local. With a grain of salt.

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