Fair Food

I recently had the chance to go to the local county fair and try some fair food, which is really the only reason I can think of to go to a fair.  I started off my eating journey by stopping at Big Bubba's Bad BBQ.  Here's a picture of the BBQ stand:

I had a coupon (who knew there were coupons for a county fair) for a free drink with purchase of a dinner so I split the tri-tip dinner with a friend.  The tri-tip had the telltale smoke ring on the meat so I was expecting great things but I found the meat to be mostly dry and flavorless.

Next I tried deep-fried ravioli.  I've had deep-fried ravioli before but it was breaded and then deep-fried.  This time, the ravioli was not breaded and instead was deep-fried as is, then covered in sauce.  I would have preferred to have had some breading on it but the plain ravioli's weren't so bad.  Here's a picture:

You can barely see the round ravioli under all that sauce and cheese.

Then I moved on to bacon dipped in chocolate.  I'm a fan of the Vosges "Mo's Bacon bar" because the saltiness of the bacon works really well with the sweetness of the chocolate.  So I had high hopes of the bacon dipped in chocolate being a crispy piece of bacon dipped in chocolate, much like the Vosges bar.  Instead, it was cold, tough piece of bacon that was coated with sub-par chocolate.  Needless to say, I took one bite and was done.

After my disappointing interaction with the bacon dipped in chocolate, I shared a funnel cake with a friend, which, as always, was pure sugary goodness.  I was pacing myself though, waiting for the piece de resistance - the reason why I agreed to go to the fair in the first place...

Back in 2001, I had the opportunity to go to the Minnesota state fair, which is the biggest fair I've ever been to in my life.  I tried a lot of fun and interesting things when I was there but the one thing that has always stuck with me was when I tried a deep-fried Snickers for the first time.  It starts off with a frozen snickers bar that is then dipped in sweet batter (sort of like funnel cake batter).  The batter puffs up in the deep fryer and the Snickers bar inside melts into a gooey mess of pure decadence.  Here's a picture before I bit into it:

If you're ever in a place that has deep-fried Snickers, I'd recommend trying it.  The stand I went to also had deep-fried oreos (a friend tried those and gave them a thumbs up), as well as deep-fried peanut butter cups.  I'll be trying the peanut butter cups next time.

Gelato

Next year I will finally fulfill my lifelong dream of going to Italy.  In the meantime, I satisfy my cravings for decent italian food by eating a lot of gelato.  One of my favorite places is Sweet Orchid.  The place is owned by a nice woman named Leslie, who also happens to be the gelato maker.  Every time I go in and she's there, we talk about the newest flavors she's thinking up or has already successfully made and she never disappoints.  My favorite flavor to-date has been her cookies 'n cream flavor but I have to say I now have two new ones.  I went there this past weekend and got creme brulee and red velvet cake flavored gelato.  Here's a picture:

The picture does not do it justice, the flavors were amazingly rich and the gelato was perfectly creamy.  I've never had any ice cream that comes as close to the actual flavor as does Leslie's gelato.  Needless to say, even when I move to the peninsula, I still plan to make regular trips to see Leslie and try her creations.

A little light humor...

A friend of mine sent me this picture and I thought it was funny enough to share on my food blog.

Guess I need to quit my day job and stop studying for the bar exam... :)

Mushroom risotto with peas

As I continue to develop my culinary skills, I love taking on a challenge.  A few years ago I decided that I was going to learn how to make risotto, which I'd always heard was hard to make.  Turns out, it's not that hard to make unless you consider having to stir it regularly hard (I don't).  One of the first recipes I ever tried has also turned out to be my favorite (so far), so I thought I'd share it: mushroom risotto with peas.  The recipe I have is out of Giada's Everyday Italian cookbook and doesn't call for as much chicken stock (5 1/4 cups versus 8 cups) but hopefully the online recipe is just as good (I'm too lazy to type out the recipe from the book).  I typically cook this dish when I'm in the mood for some comfort food and I was in the mood this weekend so here's a picture of the dish after it's done:

Another recipe on my quest to become a baker...

My old college roommate and a friend of hers started a cooking blog so I've been blog-stalking it for a few weeks now for some new recipes.  I noticed that her friend had posted a recipe for oatmeal toffee cookies that didn't look too hard to make so I decided to give it a try.  I didn't add pecans because I don't like them and I reduced the amount of vanilla extract because 1 tablespoon seemed like a lot.  Other than that, I made the recipe as-is and the cookies were DELICIOUS!  I'll be adding this recipe to my baking repertoire and will pull it out when I need a dessert to impress.

Breakfast Tart with Pancetta and Green Onions

I love quiche but have never made it myself, even though I've heard it's pretty easy to make.  I saw a recipe for a breakfast tart with pancetta and green onions on one of my favorite Food Network shows and it gave me the motivation to try my hand at quiche.  I didn't have a quiche/tart pan that the recipe calls for but, thankfully, I got one for my birthday.  Armed with that, I was ready to try the recipe.

Here's the tart before it went into the oven:

And then when it came out of the oven:

The flavor of the gruyere and pancetta really add to this recipe, although both are fairly salty so I'd probably not add the salt listed in the recipe and instead let those two ingredients flavor it on their own.  Apart from that, the tart was really tasty and a great way to start my quiche repertoire.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

Lately I've found myself craving the "comfort foods" of my youth and thanks to the reminder by an old roommate, I cooked up one of my favorites - Sweet & Sour Chicken from the "Cooking For Two" cookbook that my mom gave me in college.  It's been awhile since I made it but, after I did, I remembered why I love it so much.  I cooked this a lot with my roommate in college, as you can see from the stained page and pencil notations to the recipe:

Needless to say, it was in regular rotation during my college days.  It was kind of fun cooking it now, many years after I started my cooking journey, to see how I made slight changes to the way I cooked it based on things I've picked up.  For one, I've learned that when you have something that mixes wet ingredients with dry ingredients, you should mix all the wet together and all the dry together before mixing the two.  It makes for less lumps, which was always an issue with this sauce before.  Here's the wet and dry ingredients ready to be mixed:

And then the final product:

I also prepped all the vegetables (I didn't have tomato or pineapple on hand, so I skipped those steps):

The picture above also shows off my super cool (and super sharp) Japanese knife that I got as a gift.  The knives are hand-forged steel with wooden handles and each has the Japanese congi of the person who made it.  It's a great knife, even if I've almost cut off two of my fingers using it...

Then I got the chicken dipped in egg and cornstarch cooking:

The next step is to stir fry the veggies until tender, then add the sauce and bring it to a boil so that the sauce thickens:

The final step is to add the chicken back in and let it simmer for a few minutes, to absorb all the flavors and thicken the sauce a little more.  Here's the final product, which I serve over white rice:

Making this dish brought back so many great memories, I plan to put this back in regular rotation in my cooking schedule.  In case you want to make the dish yourself, I've listed the recipe below.  I usually double the sauce recipe - it's the best part of the dish so the more there is, the better the dish is!

Sweet & Sour Chicken - Cooking for Two
3/4 pound lean pork or chicken
1 egg, beaten
About 1/4 cup cornstarch
About 2 1/2 T oil
1 small onion, cut into 1 inch squares
1 medium-sized carrot, sliced diagonally 1/4 inch thick
1 small clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 small green pepper, cut into 1 inch squares
1 can (8 oz) slice pineapple, drained
1 medium-sized tomato, cut into 1 inch cubes

Sweet & Sour sauce
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 1/2 T packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp fresh ginger OR 1/8 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp dry sherry
2 T wine vinegar
2 T water

Dip the chicken pieces in egg, drain briefly, and roll in cornstarch until lightly coated (shake off the excess).  Heat 1 1/2 T of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and cook, turning constantly until browned.  Lift chicken from pan and set aside, scrape free and discard any brown bits, leaving oil in pan.

Add enough oil to pan to make about 1 T and place over high heat.  Add onion, carrot and garlic, stirring for about 3 minutes, or until veggies are tender-crisp.  Add green pepper, pineapple, tomato and sweet and sour sauce.  Cook, stirring, over high heat until mixture boils.  Add chicken, stirring for 1 min longer, to heat through and coat chicken with sauce.