Great Taste Coaster

I saw ugly tomatoes at the grocery store for the first time the other day. Apparently they are quite controversial and have been in the news lately. Somehow I had never heard of them before.

It’s been a cool wet spring here in South Central. Here’s what’s good to buy locally now

• Rhubarb, you either like it or hate it. If you like really tart tastes, rhubarb is for you. I like to stew it with just a small bit of butter and sugar. It looks like brownish phlegm when I’m done, but man is it good.
• Leaf lettuce, when it gets hot, most leaf lettuce will go to seed and get bitter, but for now it’s really good. Green leaf, Red leaf, Butter crunch, all good now.
• Asparagus, good asparagus should still be stiff, not limp, and have no slime at the tip. Keep it in a small pool of water in your fridge until you’re ready to eat it.
• Radishes, they are sweet now and will get spicier and hotter as the weather gets hotter.
• Sugar Peas and snow peas, the peas in the pod will soon get too big so enjoy them now.

Never one to pass up a chance to celebrate a French military defeat, I made a Seven Layer Mexican Dip to share on Cinco de Mayo.

The recipe I used is the one linked above from Cooks.com. Nothing fancy, but I made the same dip last year and it was quite a hit. Plus, you can make this one the night before and it’s better the next day.

Went to Prudhomme’s on Tuesdays and it looks like crawfish season is upon us. We were informed that “buckets o bugs” were available, “alive until we kill ‘em,” and that was an offer we couldn’t resist. Started out with some hush puppies, natch. When the crayfish arrived we went to town. Not a lot of meat in those suckers. Like a tiny lobster, the tail is where it’s at.

All in all, it was a fun experience. I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it, since you go through a bit of work for a small payout, but if you’re looking to try out some fresh crawdads and live anywhere near Columbia, PA, I highly suggest stopping by Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen and chowing down on some mudbugs.

Those who know me know that I am on a continual quest for the world’s best Reuben sandwich, so when we went to the Starlite Diner the other night I decided to order one of theirs. Being no stranger to the Starlite, I wasn’t expecting much. It’s a decent diner with excellent breakfasts, but I’ve found the rest of the menu to be hit or miss.

It was served open face, heavy on the cheese and heavy on the dressing. A little light on the corned beef if you ask me, but overall quite good. Although, with the Round The Clock Diner a mere 2.7 miles away (East on 30), I’d probably rather just go there instead.

As a side note, it would appear that the Starlite will be changing owners and will become the Nautilus Diner.

Got any Reuben suggestions for me? Post them in the comments.

These are big in England but not so popular here. Read more »

I was thinking of all the hoagie’s I want to try out there. Almost everyone has some kind of legendary hoagie place that’s a hole-in-the-wall-hidden treasure. I’d like to find as many of those places before I die. By hoagie I mean anything that comes on a hoagie roll. This includes cheesesteaks, subs, grinders, cubanos (if in hoagie roll), torpedoes, po’ boys, etc. Here are places I like so far.

• Captain Gus’s in the triangle of W. Orange St. and W. King St. Lancaster. The cheeseburger sub is my favorite, the steaks are good there too. The Captain is an amazing dude, you gotta get him to tell you a story sometime.
• Campus Deli on Harrisburg Pike and Mary St. Probably best Philly style hoagie’s in Lancaster. Great selection of Italian heart burn producing meats.
• Montgomery Lunch in Norristown, PA . This place has been in Norristown forever, the previous owners sold the restaurant and the recipes to some Mexican brothers. So Montgomery Lunch has all the classic menu items on the front of the menu (great chili dogs), and an awesome Mexican menu on the back. The cool things are their “mash-ups” of the two cultures. I got a chorizo hoagie there, that was a life altering experience. It came on a great Philly style hoagie roll as long as my forearm. It was filled with chorizo, fresh jalapeno slices, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayonnaise. I had heart burn for days, but well worth it.

So here are some places recommended to me that I’d like to try this year. I’d also like some company to help me objectively evaluate these hoagies.

• Smith’s Hotel in Columbia, PA. This place does the “shifter” which is a traditional sandwich that only exists in Columbia, and they do a Lebanon Bologna Hoagie?!?!
• Smiley’s Deli. Just heard good things.
• That Vietnamese place on Queen St. Lancaster that has “Vietnamese Subs” written on their shop window.
• G&G’s Deli (I just met the owner), and apparently they have a good subs

Post up your recommendations and we’ll try to get a review of all of these places this year.

I’d say 90% of cooking is starting off with good raw ingredients.  Really the rest of cooking is about not screwing up those ingredients.  That being said, all food is best when it’s processed and shipped as little as possible, and local food is where it’s at.  Eating seasonally is great for you because, humans like most animals aren’t designed to eat the same thing all year round.  Seasonal eats forces you to eat things you normally wouldn’t and once you get tired of it, the season ends.  In addition seasonal, local food has more nutrients and better taste.  So enough with the soapbox, here’s what you should be finding and eating now:

• Watercress, I love this stuff and it doesn’t stay around for very long.  It’s best served on soft bread with cream cheese or a soft cheese like wemsleydale.  Trim the crusts on your sandwich and eat with tea in the late afternoon.
• Early spring greens, a lot of growers around here are using poly tunnels.  They are essentially quick and dirty greenhouses, set up over the fields.  I’ve already started getting some mesclun from some local growers.
• Winter Root Vegetables, they’re on their way out, but still good.  Potatoes, parsnips, and beets.
• Lambing season is coming soon.  So get that Easter leg of lamb!

I’ve always heard how chefs rave about duck fat and it’s properties. I never quite understood it until I finally got the nerve to buy some duck confit at market from Carr’s. Duck confit is a ridiculously time consuming and messy three hour process of cooking and preserving duck, and I would never want to do it at home. Fortunately for me Carr’s has great chefs who do it for you. So I got myself a duck leg (very affordable by the way), and took it home. Read more »

So what do two people do with four loaves of bread? Apparently they open up How To Cook Everything and make some awesome French toast!

According to Mark Bittman, French toast is best made with Brioche, but I think it turned out perfectly fine using slices of the simple French bread boules that I made yesterday. The bread’s tough crust and firm interior kept it from getting too soggy after a dip in the egg mixture.

It’s notable that this recipe includes some vanilla extract. I’ve never used that when making French toast in the past, but it is supposedly a quite common addition. I’m now a big fan.

Mark Bittman’s French Toast

2 eggs
1 cup milk
dash salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp (or slightly more) ground cinnamon
Butter as needed
Slices of firm, crusty bread (stale bread works great)

Beat eggs very lightly in a large bowl and stir in the milk, salt, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Dip bread slices in mixture (soak if you like soggy toast) and transfer to pre-heated skillet with melted butter. Cook until browned on each side, turning as necessary.

If you need to hold the toast for a while, you can keep it warm in a 200° oven for about 30 minutes.