Last Friday was the official start of Spring, and with some good weather finally sweeping in, it was time to celebrate. Nothing says sunny days and lazy afternoons like fruity sangria. I’ve dubbed the recipes below “Springria” in honor of the new season.
I've included recipes for both white and red wine based sangria. Enjoy some sangria with your friends and enjoy the start of spring!
I really love olives and I really love dips. So I wanted to create a recipe that used olives, and lots of them. Several recipes I have tasted, have olives in them, but they were more of just a dip with olives rather than an olive dip. I wanted to create something that tasted Mediterranean but still was using common ingredients, most importantly, lots of olives. It has the texture of a tapenade, but a lot more flavors. I have made this dip several times and heard some good comments from my fellow olive lovers.
Reubens are simply delicious. The combination of sweet/tangy dressing, salty corned beef, sauerkraut and rye bread is just divine. The Reuben isn't a terribly complicated sandwich, but making a proper reuben requires a little work. Nothing too strenuous, just round up the ingredients listed below and you've got yourself the king of the deli sandwiches... We recently made some pretty killer Reubens and I thought it'd be worthwhile to post the recipe and a few pictures. After all, it's almost Saint Patrick's Day and what's more Irish than corned beef? Well, potatoes and a Guiness I guess... but on short notice I'll settle for a Reuben and a cream ale. 
I don't eat much seafood. I'm not sure why, it just isn't my favorite thing to eat. I used to eat quite a bit of fried fish as a kid... hey, who doesn't like crispy batter and tartar sauce? But even now, I opt for chicken or beef over fish. Over the last year there have been a few times when I've had fried calamari or salmon that I've really liked but it hasn't really changed my opinion of seafood. This past week we made shrimp, which is probably my second favorite type of seafood, right up there next to fried. Don't get me wrong, I do like shrimp quite a bit. I like my shrimp simple though, nothing fancy... So that's what I made - a simple garlic and butter shrimp dish with a killer side. More on that after the break.
It may have been a little ambitious for a couple of amateur foodies, but last Saturday we decided to develop our own pork chop recipe. After thumbing through tons of online recipes, I couldn’t find a one that seemed just right. I was frustrated that there were really only two options for pork – marinated or breaded. I was frustrated because I wanted both in one chop! So I took some of the best things from all the recipes I read, evaluated what was already in the fridge, experimented a little and ended up with the recipe below for Beer-Marinated, Pretzel Encrusted Pork Chops.
I don't consider myself an adventurous beer drinker, and I'm certainly not an authority on the subject. I've only been drinking beer for about five or six years but I do know what I like, and I can be a little particular about the styles of beer I drink. I don't think I'm a snob when it comes to beer but I suppose I can see why one might think that... After all, I do tend to write about the beers I like and I don't drink multiples of the same beer at home very often. I try not to be picky when it comes to beer, I just enjoy drinking what I appreciate and think is good beer. Here is the first draft of my top ten most enjoyable beers. It's not just a 'top ten' list of beer, it's more about the experiences I had with each beer.
The Omnivore List was something put together by a British blogger recently. It states that there are 100 different food items that any good omnivore should eat at least once in their life. It seems a little odd that a Brit would be any kind of authority on the the subject of food, but whatever. I do agree with some of the items on the original list, but I think there is room for improvement... Living in the twenty first century we can skirt a few of the old 'peasant' foods. I'm talking about the butcher's leftover pie type of shit people had to eat back in the day when outhouses were all the rage. In an age of refrigeration and bioengineering, the world might be better of if people stopped eating crap like brains, haggis and pig's feet.
The Chinese government has finalized it's official English-language menu for tourists and, more importantly, restaurant workers. The goal is to westernize some of the names of traditional Chinese dishes so fat Americans visiting Beijing for the Olympics will be able to feed themselves. This article sums it up nicely. You may enjoy eating General Tso's Chicken, but would you know to order it if it were on a menu as "Our most exalted leader's happy tummy hen pieces with brown flavored delicious sauce?"