Author: emily (Page 19 of 20)

Savory Choice’s Beef Ribeye and Vegetable Stew

Ok–so we were a little lazy this week in tracking down a soup from a decorated Chef or other interesting personality, but thank goodness for Savory Choice’s selection of wonderful soup recipes. We even found one that goes nicely with this week’s Whet Your Whistle, “The John Wayne.” Enjoy our little Western-inspired pairing, just make sure you set some timers if you’re cooking AND drinking…and make sure your smoke-alarm battery is still good.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 pounds boneless beef rib eye, trimmed of visible fat and cut into 1-inch chunks
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 2 carrots, cut into 1/4-inch dice
  • 2 garlic cloves, very coarsely chopped
  • 1 large Yukon Gold potato, cut into 1/4-inch dice
  • 1 large onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup dry red wine
  • 2 cups water
  • 3 pouches Savory Choice Beef Broth Concentrate
  • 1 t dried thyme or 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup frozen peas 

 
Heat a large skillet. Add the oil and heat until wisps of smoke appear. Add the meat, season generously with salt and pepper and brown on all sides over moderately high heat, about 4 minutes total. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to a plate.

Melt the butter in the skillet. Add the carrots, garlic, potato and onion and cook until lightly colored, about 3 minutes. Stir in the flour. Add the red wine and simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add beef broth concentrate, water, thyme sprigs and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over moderately low heat until the carrots and potato are fork tender, about 6 minutes.

Add the peas and the meat along with any accumulated juices, cover and simmer until the meat is heated through and medium rare, about 3 minutes. Discard the bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Season with pepper.

 Click Here for More Soups of the Week

The Weekly Whet: The John Wayne

Last week on the radio, Heidi invited one of the Dining On A Dime girls over to play. Since Julie was too busy tearin’ it up at the Greek Festival, Emily had to make an emergency appearance in the studio.

Still jittery from all the delicious caffeine she consumed at Village Coffee Roastery a few WEEKS ago, Emily waxed nostalgic about the layered espresso shot (and House favorite) she enjoyed at the great little joint.  The shot is called “The John Wayne” and it comes with guns a-blazin’!  In its honor, we offer up this cocktail by the same name. It might not make you feel like pushing your car home (in fact, we insist that you leave the operation of ANY heavy machinery to one of your fantastic, non-drinking friends), but it might make you want to kick back, relax, and enjoy an evening of spaghetti western films in the safety of your home.

Ingredients

  • 2 oz Bourbon
  • ½ oz Amaretto
  • 2-3 dashes Bitters
  • ¼ oz Orange Juice

Pour all of these ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake thoroughly and strain into a glass. You can garnish this drink with an orange slice, but John Wayne would probably make fun of you.

Coffee 101: Plantation to Palate

By William Taylor Hytinen

For younger generations, it is difficult to remember a time when there wasn’t a coffeehouse on every corner. A world without cappuccino machines in every convenience store seems unfathomable, and waiting in line at the grocery store would be a much greater imposition if it weren’t for the rack full of tabloids covered with photos of strung-out movie stars sucking down iced coffee-concoctions. But while coffee seems to have only become a national addiction in recent years, it has long been lurking in the shadows, waiting for Americans to recognize its delicious potential if selected and brewed correctly.

Coffee beans have a long journey from plantation to palate, but for the benefit of all you non-baristas and coffee-novices out there, we’ll keep this journey as straightforward as possible.

All coffee beans share a similar beginning because coffee only grows between 23.5° North and South latitudes, and at elevations between 1,500 and 5,000 feet. While there are over 900 species of coffee, the two that we most commonly encounter are Arabica and Robusta. Of these varieties, Arabica is by far the better-quality product. Independent coffeehouses and retailers usually use Arabica beans, while major corporations (you know—the coffee that comes in a big can?) use Robusta.

Now that we have established where coffee comes from geographically, we can take a closer look at th e coffee-plant itself. Many people are shocked to discover that coffee beans are actually the “pit” of the coffee berry which ripens to a vibrant red-color. These berries are harvested, and the beans are extracted from the pulp of the berries through one of two methods—wet processing and dry processing. In countries with high levels of humidity and rainfall, wet processing is preferable. It includes dumping the berries into huge vats of water. The ripe, good coffee sinks to the bottom of the vat, while the defective beans float to the top. The good beans are then stripped of their outer-layer of pulp and dried by the sun or in huge dryers. The dry-process method consists of laying the berries out in thin layers on large concrete slabs. They are frequently turned and separated with large rakes to aid in the drying process and separate the high-quality, big beans from the small beans. In either instance, when the drying process is complete, the beans emerge a dusty, white-green color with internal moisture content of 10%.

Ripe Coffee Berries

The dry beans are now ready for roasting. This is perhaps one of the most important parts of creating great, flavorful coffee because the heat causes the starches and amino acids in the bean to react and caramelize, adding nutty, chocolaty notes. The Maillard reaction takes over at the end of the roasting when the beans are hottest, imparting that full, distinct, bitter flavor that makes coffee—well—coffee.

Bean roasting is done by one of two main methods. These include drum-roasting and the fluid-bed roasting. Most local roasters are drum-roasters. In this method, the green coffee beans are dropped into the drum of the machine and roast for somewhere between 12 and 17 minutes at the preferred temperature of the roaster’s operator. In a fluid-bed roaster, the beans are heated and kept in constant motion by jets of air and pressure that “lift” or “float” the coffee. Fluid-bed roasters are preferred by some coffee-sellers because they decrease the roasting time of the coffee and may increase the rate that the finished beans are ready for market.

And now we have reached the final leg of our journey of the coffee-production process—brewing! There are a number of ways to make a cup of coffee and what you choose depends entirely on your personal taste. For simplicity’s sake, I will focus on the three most popular: Drip, Espresso, and French Press.

Drip coffee lets gravity do the work and if done properly, produces a ground-free clean brew. The general ratio of coffee grounds to water in this process is 2 level tablespoons of ground coffee to 8 oz of water. The water should be in contact with the coffee for about 5 minutes, though it varies depending on the fineness of the grind. Finer grinds require less contact time while larger grinds require more. Water temperature is also important. An ideal water temperature for brewed-coffee is 205 degrees, but you don’t need a thermometer! Just boil water in a kettle, take it off the heat, count to 5, and your water should ring in at just around 205 degrees.

 

Espresso shots with a perfect, foamy head

Espresso is a special treat most of us can only enjoy at a coffeehouse. It is a pressurized extraction in which water is forced through finely ground coffee at a specific rate and pressure to extract the yummy flavors and leave the acrid, bitter flavors behind. Espresso should only be served in a small demitasse, and have a nice thick, creamy head similar to a Guinness. 

Finally, my personal favorite, the French Press, is great for making top-notch coffee at home. The French press allows the coffee grounds to be submerged in water for a short time, and then when pressed, the grounds are pushed to the bottom of the pot, the finished product stays at the top, and the coffee is ready to serve. The press does not have a paper filter, but instead relies on a fine mesh screen to separate the water from the grounds. This method of straining leaves a considerable amount of total dissolved solids in the cup, but the coffee generally has a heavier or more robust mouth feel. The other perk of the French Press is that you make the call on the strength of your coffee because you control the water’s contact-time with the grounds. Is a stronger brew more to your liking? Let that puppy steep longer.

A French Press

 

So that’s coffee in a nutshell—ahem—berry (as you should have learned by now). There is plenty more to come on this subject, but we thought we’d provide you with some of the basics. Stay tuned to intotheSoup.com for more articles on coffee brought to you by Village Coffee Roastery in Scottsdale, or better yet, enjoy them with a cup o’ Joe in-store (they have Wi-Fi!).

For more information on Village Coffee Roastery, Go to the Website

Or just walk right in:

8120 N. Hayden Rd. #E104, Scottsdale, AZ 85258

Also, follow them on Twitter: @villagecoffee

And find them on Facebook!

 

 

 

 

Heather Netzloff’s “Pearly” Coconut-Banana Soup

The newest member of our Intern Entourage is a dessert queen! Some of us have gained 5-10 pounds just by being around her. Her first contribution to ITS was submitting this is a very different but very refreshing Vietnamese dessert soup.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups water
  • 1-14.5 oz can coconut milk
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar (depending on ripeness of banana—for riper bananas, use less sugar)
  • 1/4 cup minute tapioca
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 2 tsp toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

Serves 4

Bring water and coconut milk to a boil in a medium sauce pot. Stir in sugar, tapioca, and salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring frequently. Slice bananas into quarters, lengthwise, then chop into 1/2-inch pieces (you should have about 1-1/2 cups total). Add the bananas to the tapioca mixture at the end of cooking, then cover and let stand for 15 minutes.You may serve the soup warm or at room temperature. The soup may also be put it in the refrigerator, chilled for 3 hours, and served. Note that the cooler the soup is, the thicker it will become.

Garnish each serving of soup with sesame seeds.

For more Soups of the Week Click Here

About Heather

Heather is originally from McClusky, ND (try to find that on a map!). She just graduated from the Art Institute of Phoenix with her baking and pastry associates’ degree. Most people don’t realize that Heather also has a B.A. in Chemistry and Math, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, and has spent time in Australia with the Department of Energy doing computational chemistry research. To make a long story short, there is a lot of chemistry in baking. In the future, Heather is interested in pursuing the research and food-science aspect of the culinary arts and would like to participate in recipe development for major corporations.

 

Adventurous Appetites: Exploring My Heritage in Flagstaff

By Emily King

I am not afraid to admit that I am jealous of Americans who hold true to their cultural backgrounds. They just seem to have so much more fun than “the mutts” that is, those of us who claim wacky fractions: “Well, I’m about a quarter German, an eighth Welsh; I think like another eighth Turkish…or is it Romanian?”  

Sadly, I am one of those Americans living with a heritage-identity crisis. I’m a red-head, enjoy a good Irish whisky, and can pull-off green; so despite the fact that my parents have only acknowledged that Celtic DNA may be part of our genetic make-up, I have decided to embrace the culture as my own.  

This is how it came to pass that I headed up to Flagstaff, AZ to be with “my people” at the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival a few weeks ago.  As usual, I called up my trusty sidekick, J, and convinced him that there is nothing better than bag-piping and corned beef in a cool climate.

Upon our arrival in Flagstaff, we went straight to the old town where we were greeted by live music in Heritage Square. We strolled around listening to the bluegrass band, people-watching, and basking in the wonderful, homey feeling of the small-town.

Later that night, J and I decided that we wanted to experience Flagstaff’s nightlife. This turned out to be more difficult than we had anticipated with the college crowd gone for the summer. Finally, after much wandering and listening intently for the hum of voices and loud-music, we discovered that the place to be that night was at the Flagstaff Brewing Company. While neither of us is particularly crazy about country music, the combination of the energy from the locals, the passion of the musicians, and probably the drinks in our hands moved us to get involved in the most fun “rockabilly” dance party I have ever seen.

The next morning, we headed back downtown for a quick breakfast at Le Creperie, an outdoor crepe stand J saw the day before. He was insistent on returning because he saw that several of the crepes contained Nutella. Let’s just put it this way, if Nutella were a drug, J would need to be in rehab. Luckily, Nutella is a perfectly legal and delicious substance and the crepes at Le Creperie are the perfect canvas for Nutella and the array of other toppings available. Tucked away in the northwest corner of Heritage Square, Le Creperie is a little taste of France. We sat under an overhang and listened to a man sing French songs as he strummed his acoustic guitar. Sunday mornings don’t get much better than that.

After visiting “Little France,” we decided that we should get a move-on to another part of Europe and our reason for visiting the little mountain town in the first place: The Arizona Highland Celtic Festival. We had a fabulous time ducking in and out of tents full of leather and scary-looking weapons. J was set on buying a kilt until he found out that they aren’t exactly the thrift-store deals he is used to. We watched a family, or should I say “Clan,” of Celtic performers play fiddles and dance. This was by far the highlight of the festival in my opinion. These young men and women would rotate between playing their fiddles and dancing and were outstanding at both. I will even admit that their rendition of “Amazing Grace” brought a tear to my eye.

Our next stop was the bag-piping competition. This was incredibly exciting to J because the pipers were in full, traditional uniforms (yes, it was an army of kilts). We watched the teams march and play their songs as the judges weaved in and out of the pack taking notes. Again, we were frozen in amazement. My people sure are talented!

With my cultural cravings fulfilled, it was time to fill my stomach. I smelled corned beef in the air so I made my way over to the food area. I ordered the corned beef platter which consisted of sliced corned beef on rye, pickled cabbage, cheese, and the standard side of potato chips. I couldn’t care less about the bread so I dove into the succulent corned beef and came out with a satisfied tummy and some very greasy hands.

Unfortunately, we missed the formal competition of men in kilts throwing heavy metal objects (trust me, I’m still in mourning), but the festival itself was worth the 2-hour drive from the valley. I have to say that although I have traveled this planet and this country far and wide, Flagstaff remains one of my favorite destinations. Aside from its small-town charm and the rugged beauty of the surrounding natural wonders, it is one of the most artist-friendly communities I have been to.  Whether you’re pining for the warmth of a small town, looking for an outdoor adventure, or want to bask in a community that embraces the arts and diversity, Flagstaff should be an entry in your vehicle’s GPS.

And so my friends, until next time, live well, eat well, and keep your appetite for adventure.

Emily

Adventurous Appetites: Yoga, Ice Cream & Climbing in Vortex City

by Emily King

Since I haven’t been to Sedona for quite some time, I decided that it was a good destination for my first bout of northern exposure. You see, if you have never been to Sedona, you haven’t experienced the power of the Red Rocks which seem to attract yogis, psychics, and good-old hippie types. I love these people and their off-the-beaten path approach to life. If I had my druthers, I would join them. Who doesn’t like a good vortex after all?

To get the uninitiated up to the speed; Sedona, Arizona is considered one of the most beautiful places in America due to the magnificent mesas and red rock formations. Sedona is also haven for New Age culture. The idea is that there are several natural centers, vortices or vortexes, that provide positive energy. If you hang out in one of these vortexes, you will feel great for days. Boy could I use that. Of course, it ain’t easy. They tend to be at the top of the rock formations.

We began our journey early on a Sunday morning with the goal of making it to Sedona for a 9:30 yoga practice. I was still weary from a late night of scrubbing floors and cleaning the kitchen (yes – I work at a restaurant), so my friend “J” and I decided to stop to fill up on caffeinated beverages and gasoline at a local gas station.  Ok, I know what you’re thinking: “Don’t Yoga-people look down upon ‘fake’ energy?” But I think tea is okay, which is what I got, but I’m sure taurine is frowned upon which is why we will just pretend that I don’t like Red Bulls at all. Shhhhh.

At the gas station, a very nice Jehovah’s witness approached us and gave us some literature to read in the car. We very much appreciated this gesture. Clearly we were in for a very spiritual day.

We made it to Devi Yoga just in time for the class. Our instructor, Soni, was everything we could have hoped for in an instructor. She was enthusiastic and told us what every pose was doing for our internal organs. Her class was so rigorous, I think even my kidneys are more limber now. It was an absolutely fantastic 90 minutes. “J” and I walked out of the studio feeling strong and centered if somewhat inadequate on the yoga front. We might be stars at the local L.A. fitness, but we were seriously put to shame by the vortex elite in Sedona. Apparently, the laws of gravity do not apply to all people equally.

We were famished after our intense yoga session and began our desperate search for sustenance. We agreed that after such a spiritually cleansing experience, it would be a heinous crime to put anything unhealthy in our bodies, so we were set on finding some vegetarian food. As is generally the case in Sedona, the planets were aligned in our favor, and we found D’Lish.

As soon as we walked through the doors, we knew that we had found some of the freshest fare in town. The best part about the little joint was that it was sensitive to food allergies and had a great bakery section full of treats for every possible intolerance. I ordered the grain bowl which included stir-fried vegetables over the Chef’s choice of grain (in this case, Quinoa) while “J ordered the grilled veggie wrap. “J” enjoyed the sun-dried tomato pesto spread and would have liked to have more. We also ordered the house Hibiscus Iced tea which is a light refreshing tea cut with fresh apple juice. It proved to be the perfect beverage for two thirsty people on a warm, sunny day.

Renewed from our light-lunch, we headed off to Cathedral Rock because I had read that it was the site of a vortex containing positive, female energy. I have a pretty positive outlook on life, so I could only imagine that this vortex would infuse me with so much optimism that it would explode from my aura like fireworks.

Word to the wise: Do NOT attempt this hike if you ran 6 miles the day before and just performed a full lower-body workout. Some of the rock-faces are very steep and require Spider Man-like climbing abilities.  “J” was very patient and waited for me to scale the rocks while I cursed myself for the damage I was doing to my quadriceps and hamstrings. I am proud of the fact that I managed to make it to the top where the view quieted my screaming thigh muscles. There is something other-worldly about the rugged red rocks of Sedona. I’m not sure that I am a believer in the power of vortexes, but I am a firm believer that the breath-taking beauty of nature evokes a spirituality and feeling of peace of its own.

It was an especially warm day for Sedona (almost 90 degrees), so after our Cathedral Rock adventure, “J” and I decided that we needed some ice cream and more water. We headed downtown where we found Black Cow Ice Cream Shop. The shop greets you with the intoxicating aroma of vanilla. Like patient little boys and girls we waited in the enormous line until it was our turn. I ordered chocolate and vanilla frozen yogurt while “J” decided to try the classic root beer float with homemade vanilla ice cream and draft-root beer.

In retrospect, I should have ordered the prickly-pear ice cream. It seemed to be a top-seller, and “J” was pleased with quality of his root beer float because the ice cream was rich and delicious.

Word to the wise: when it comes to ice cream, eat the full-fat stuff. The occasional splurge is completely acceptable especially when it comes to homemade ice cream.

Unfortunately, 4:30 P.M. arrived too quickly, and it was time to return to the vortex-free Valley of the Sun. We rolled up the windows, turned on the air conditioning, and grudgingly made our way home. As I drifted off to sleep enveloped in artificially-cooled air, I couldn’t help wondering, “can I pass off ‘over-stretched’ kidneys as a legitimate excuse for a sick day from the restaurant?”

Word to the wise: Don’t even try.

 

Click below for more on:

D’Lish in Sedona

Black Cow Cafe Reviews

Hiking & Climbing Cathedral Rock

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