Potato and chard burrito with cannellini refrained beans

Posted on by Brian and Jim

  
Today I found hatch chills for .99 a pound and a new brand of gluten free tortillas and I have farmers market salsa to use (I usually give it until Thursday..)

  
My beans.   They have a touch of olive oil and salsa…they lacked umami so I added a splash or worstershire Tamari and garlic powder…and a few dices of jalapeño and onion.

The hatch chills got stuffed with remnants of my smoked jack

   
 
The potatoes and chard simmered in a different kind of salsa

  
Until wilted and reduced

Tortillas got burner flamed

  

  What was planned to be soft taco became burrito at the last minute

   

Salad topped with a fried egg!

Posted on by Brian and Jim

i love a nice salad topped with a fried egg!

  
This boy has a base of baby butter lettuce from Maggie’s farm

With a few leaves of chopped chard, tomatoes, avocado and cheese…and some sliced sweet pepper

 
Then what would a Brian salad be without beans–black beans because I’m going to use a salsa based dressing

  
The dressing is sherry vinegar and salsa from the farmers market

   
 
The egg is fried/steamed in my favorite olive oil

  
This stuff has a very very nice flavor and this qt last me about a month…you will overpay at whole foods or elsewhere I’ve seen…I have mine on Amazon subscription at a great price

Throw on the eggs

  
Top with dressing at the table

  
She’s done! 🙂

Shiitake jerky round one

Posted on by Brian and Jim

so shitake jerky is like 8.50 plus shipping for two ounces so I’m trying to make my own

These guys turned out nicely chewy but not as flavorful as I’d like.   
Marinating in Tamari and chipotle with a hint of smoke and Worcestershire 

  Drying in 200 degree oven 
Finished

The flavored needs built up…more garlic and more salt (since it was low sodium Tamari)

They are still good 🙂

Farmers Market Finds

Posted on by Brian and Jim

   
  after a break of a couple weeks we hit one of our local farmers markets today and the first thing I found was tiny pea sized eggplants (that I thought I took a picture of but since I can’t find it, I guess it was a fail.
 I didn’t buy them because I was confused if they truly were eggplant but this is some of what I found online:

   

Eggplant varieties
It appears that there are several varieties of tiny eggplant…. Pea sized and green to red in color and usually very bitter (so probably a good thing I didn’t buy).

But my favorite avocado…the reeds are still in season
    
And they had western hole.  

  

 There is still plenty of corn, tomatoes and eggplant to be had.

      
   
  Corn from Underwood family farms

  
  

I grabbed some baby butter and baby romaine lettuces from Maggie’s farm

  
There was also fresh ginger and jujube

    
    
(I did buy some baby jicama that you see next to the jujube)… I’ve yet to try the jujube.

I also did a restock of the cheese supply from Spring hill jersey cheese
And caught up with the owner of our fav fresh salsa stand Salsa Poblanos as mentioned on chowhound. See the chowhound nod to salsa poblanos 

Okay….i think that was it this week.

El queso grande

Posted on by Brian and Jim

yup

The big cheese! Visit their website.

We have gone here many a Friday for a few reasons…

1)  “….where everyone knows your name…” It’s comfortable and the managers and servers mostly know us and know that we have special dietary issues:-)

2) we know exactly what menu items Jim can modify and what sauces he can and cannot eat, etc

3) the margaritas are good and inexpensive

The food is good…it’s somewhere in between authentic Mexican food and white bread Mexican food.

Last night we returned after a break (thanks to Kenvention shenanigans)

Staring off with the margaritas:

   
 
(Yep…he’s taking a pic of his marg)
I always start with a Top shelf which is a Cadillac with premium silver tequila (I’m blanking on the label) no salt

Second round is Grand Don which is a Cadillac with Don Julio reposado 

Last night Jim opted for meat..,carnitas

  
And I did shrimp enchilada

  
Through like 9 years, we’ve sampled all or most of the menu items and now are down to just the regulars that we know we like or that aren’t too huge to consume ( I always clean my plate…that’s ingrained from childhood)

  
Looking at our last trip, got the tres enchiladas (supposed to be one chicken with a sour cream sauce, one cheese with rancheros sauce, and one pork with verde but I modify and ditch the chicken and get an additional pork) and Jim got carnitas again!  Do the pics look the same?

  
Wow!  They are identical almost…that’s consistency….which is why we go back—we know what to expect:-)

Gluten free personal pizzas

Posted on by Brian and Jim

So I found relatively inexpensive pizza crusts that were gluten free at Sprouts yesterday and tried them out tonight …. They were not bad!

Threw together avocado and bean and tomato salad on the side.

  

 
These were 3.99!  Usually like 8-10 dollars for one! Find them at Sprouts

  
A couple sweet pepper rings, kalamatas and jack cheese from  Spring hill that I pick up at the farmers market

  
  
Plus the side salad 

  
So good to be home and back to avocados on the menu daily!

If you have been paying attention you see bean and cheese combos in the meal almost every day I cook at home….dairy and beans/legumes help make a complete set of proteins.

Villagio in rosemont, ill..last Wednesday during kenvention

Posted on by Brian and Jim

im almost caught up.  Nik took a group to dinner on Wednesday to Villagio…. It’s in a mall at the factory outlets And I had low expectations but they really performed!

We ate at the outside patio so the lighting was iffy.

The company was great too–Jim, Nik, Lamanda, lane, Donette, Lisa, Marie, Andy, Jef, and maybe that’s everyone !

  
The elevator ride was a whole other story…

So for starters…

 They called this a new fashion…it had flecks of basil… 

   
  
   Flatbread and bruschetta

  Caprese

  Carpaccio with the most incredible mozzarella

  

  My braised lamb shank which was fall off the bone yummy

  
Oh my gosh….I was bad at capturing pics that night

We also had a great meatball appetizer, calamari, Marie had a nice tiramisu for desert and everyone had really good entrees!

Spinach with eggs

Posted on by Brian and Jim

Well…it worked but not as planned..

  

  
That’s the end result above…

I started with an idea from Bon appetite or somewhere with spinach and eggs and cheese

So today I bought spinach

  
Looked okay but envisioned tomato…but I felt not enough spinach so I added zucchini

  
Then simmered covered

Prepped cheese

  
Preheated over for bread

  
So everything simmered down to much and I had little  

 
So I threw in lettuce and let it wilt

Then added the cannellini

Added in eggs and covered again

  
Served it up with the cheese on top

  
Next time I’ll try with mostly spinach…just a lot more!

Bastardized puttanesca 

Posted on by Brian and Jim

haha

Still haven’t been to the store but I saw basic puttanesca stuff in the cabinet so I added more.

  Frying with the anchovies are some sweet peppers
  
Garden grown tomatoes joined in with sun dried tomatoes…a trio of olives-black kalamata and green.

Added white beans and liquid for their starch and aminoes…

  
Topped off with some micro planed hard Italian cheese and capers.  And it’s done!

And it’s vegetarian and gluten free!

(It would have been perfect with a ten dollar loaf of gluten free Italian bread but…no!)

A post Kenvention dinner

Posted on by Brian and Jim

so straight home from the airport after being gone 6 days/5 nights….

What for dinner?

I have cannellini beans, cabbage, smoked jack cheese, home grown tomatoes, celery, shishito peppers and out came some cabbage salads not quite coleslaw…and roasted shishitos 

   
 
Dinner is served.   The most healthy thing I’ve had since Tuesday.