aggiecat's Profile
College Station TX chow- wanna talk?
Mike: there is good food, you just have to look a little further than Texas Ave or off of University Drive. Chef Tai's truck, Messina Hof, Mr. G's, The Lemon Wedge, Cafe' Capri, Madden's, Atami, etc. are just a few of the better known and not necessarily the best out there. The thing is, trying to compare college towns and the number and variety of good-great food options they have with cities that just happen to also have colleges is really unfair and just lazy. Non-College towns have just as many bad food choices as do college town, they just have the populations and incomes to also have a lot more excellent food choices. and the list was really poorly researched. I can come up with quite a few towns that, last time I was there have a whole lotta nuthin' in the way of exceptional eats. But I wouldn't list them because:
a. it's been a while since I was there and I don't know the current scene
b. I didn't necessarioy go there looking for fabu food choices and so since I didn't look I obviously didn't find.
c. the towns I went to are way smaller than BCS and so comparisons are not really fair.
It would be fair to compare simlarly sized cities with and without colleges and NOT fair to compare dissimilarly sized cities, particularly when the smaller cities ALWAYS come out on the bottom, college or no.
What is "American food"?
Yum! black bear is delicious and my earliest lesson in biscuit cooking was from Doc Campbell who insisted bear grease was the best fat and then lard if that was all you could get. Wild game, on the whole is a traditional American food as we never had the widely controlled restritrictions on hunting like they did in England and Europe. If you could shoot, trap or catch it, it was , literally, fair game. Well, now that's changed but, there are still vast areas were public hunting is still permitted. I can't think of anything similar in Europe. Mountain lion is good, rabbit is always delicious. But, the Buffalo went on forever. We fed dang near a whole village before that was finally cooked up. Sure it's good but you do not want a whole one in the freezer.
New job leaves me crunched for cooking time. I need time management tips.
Whatever you cook, whenever you cook it, make double or triple if you have the freezer space. Here's what I mean. We love salisbury turkey steak. I make a triple batch, flatten out the patties and freeze them with wax paper between tightly sealed in in plastic zip bag. Toss frozen patties in pan, make up mashed potatoes, steam a green veg or open up the salad. While the meat cooks, I mix up a simply flour broth basic gravy recipe and dump it and mushrooms in the pan. Cover and finish the sides, let the meat cook through, serve and enjoy. Presto, main dish for 3 nights. Same for the Italian bean soup, shrimp creole (just don't cook the shrimp in the big batch), meatloaf, stroganoff or anything else that will reheat well or thaw and cook well. I go ahead on weekends and dice up the celery, carrots, onions and bell peppers if fresh is cheap, or pick up the frozen when they are out of season so I always have the chopping out of the way. If there is a good buy on fresh mushrooms I'll prefer those, but if the meal is happening towards the end of the week and the mushrooms won't last, there is no shame in canned. Even ground beef or turkey can be cooked up and frozen in bags so be added to sauces, etc. "stew" etc.
Crock pot cooking has it's place but can tend to leave you eating a lot of soupy type meals and the the crisp/fresh flavors are often lost. It's great when you are using winter veggies and its the only way to cook beans. And steel cut oatmeal.
Individually frozen fish filets are great as are non traditional tuna salads. I just served the family a super quick nicoise salad that was pretty much assembled in 5 minutes. I had the potatoes cooked the day before, along with the eggs, the green beens just thawed in the fridge, the olives sat happily in their little container and the tuna can was opened. I mixed it up, threw together a viniagrette and tossed the whole shebang over bagged greens and served with a crusty baguette. The family vote was to leave out the anchovies but, how hard is it to open a tin?
But the best advice I ever got was to double/triple up during cooking. Keep in mind you don't have to cook the frozen meal that week. It comes out next week. If you do that every night for a week you have 2 more weeks worth of meals all ready. Just be sure to bag and TAG what you freeze. I promise you will not be able to tell the difference between the bag of Italian bean soup, the chili, the red beans and rice and the baked beans once they are frozen. sometimes even the sniff test fails you.
Plan on the weekends, have a plan and try to stick to it. My downfall is not looking at the plan the night before and making sure the protein goes into thaw time. But then I can always yank out the bag of italian bean soup, serve up the salad and the bread and hew presto we got a good dinner on the table.
Monthly healthy food grocery bill?
Claranie30 - how much are you spending food supplements and vitamins? If you are eating a well balanced diet of healthy fresh foods, then supplements and vitamins should be totally unecessary . The only exception is if you have some specifical nutirional needs and your doctor has recommended you take a specific supplement. I suspect your nutritional supplements are what is pusing your grocery bill so high.
College Station TX chow- wanna talk?
So, the great chatter of the day 'round here is the chow piece by Joyce Slaton on the 10 worst college towns for chow and...surprise! College Station was on the list. Which, I really think is unfair. Really unfair. Yes we have chains but so do all the major cities which also happen to have large universities. And yes, there is plenty of baaaad food to be found but, there are also quite a few real gems. Latest one I found was the Lemon Wedge in downtown Bryan (jury duty) it was a real treat!
Anyway, I'm seriously considering turning off my Chow account since they seem to be perfectly ok with publishing work which is clearly poorly researched. I don't want to participate in or contribute to a site that is unfairly jugemental and unkindly snarky just for the sake of snark.
Horse Laugh for Joyce's bad bull!
Interesting WSJ story about picky eating as a type of disorder
Well...that would explain a LOT of my niece's eating behavior. ;)
More tipping scenarios - how much, when and how ?
It's a tough call dump123456789
So I just ate at scenario # 2 today, (burger joint) and I left the tip on the table. I'm not going to premptively tip at the counter when they take my order since I haven't yet received the food, don't know how good it is, how prompt it will be, and the drinks etc. are all self serve so there isn't anyone actually doing much of anything other than taking an order and ringing up the tab. So I really don't think a tip is expected or appropriate. If I were placing a harry met Sally order, perhaps. But I don't think 2 cheesburger baskets straight up warrents a tip.
On the # 1 scenario, I'd leave a tip at the table and let the employees duke it out. They probably share tips since it seems as if every server and bus person was involved in taking care of customers. It seems to me that this happens at Restaurants where the staff pool and share since there isn't the consequent sense of table "ownership" and turf wars that develop over customers.
I suspect that the culture of tipping baristas is a consequence of, on average most foo-foo coffee drinks involve a level of customization and skill and technique that the other two kinds of counter service events don't. And never underestimate the power of frequency. You typically see your barista a lot, and they get to know you and it means a lot to have the coffee ready to go when you get to the line before you even order. So tipping in that situation would be expected. My barista remembers that I like steamed soy milk and sugar free hazlenut in the biggest size they have. He's my hero at 7:30 am. And he gets a tip.
Interesting WSJ story about picky eating as a type of disorder
Tatamagouche, I agree with you. As a food intolerant person, it is much more acceptable to say, I can't eat this because I'm allergic rather than have to say, well, I shouldn't eat this; it won't kill me but it will give me explosive diarrhea, flatulance and cramps for 3 days. I gues this is the distinction, the "I shouldn't eat this" rather than "I can't eat this" which is completely on another level from the "I WON'T eat this" camp.
If that makes sense. It may not. I'm hungry. All this talk of mushrooms makes me want a pizza, with portobellos.
Interesting WSJ story about picky eating as a type of disorder
Duppie: there is a gorup of individuals who have an aversion to cilantro because to them it tastes soapy, not cilantro-y. Gotta say, I pity them but, it's not a true allergy with a histamine response.
Family Sues Chinese Restaurant For Death Due To Allergy....
My epi pen came with one real and one "trainer" pen to practice the injection actions so you'd know what it needs to do and feel like so that while you're in the middle of a reaction you aren't trying to figure it out.
ISO : Small eggs
Yes, that's true. Breeds of chickens lay eggs with a fixed amount of shell material. So a small egg has the same amount of shell but in a much smaller egg size. That's why large & jumbo eggs are so prone to breakage. I can't recall if the shell strength affects the gas permeability which leads to quicker aging/freshness loss. Hope your search is sucessful OP.
How do you pronounce "OYSTER"?
Did anyone else grow up calling them crawdads? Sugarland/SW Houston TX? I never heard Craw fish until I was well in my teens. It's still crawdad etouffe', I just can't break myself and it sounds affected when I hear myself say crayfish.
Did I do wrong?
I bought the store cookies as I needed nut free, eggless, gluten free cookies. (one scout has allergies). But, the remainder I baked: chocolate chip, with and without nuts, oatmeal and snickerdoodles. And crumbs weren't a problem since everything was outside, in the the garage and front yard.
Really, I did not have anough flatware to serve pie. I had half my forks from breakfast and lunch and cocoa making pans still in the dishwasher since I ran out of time to run the washer and even though the kids were mostly outside, some of the Mom's, siblings etc. were in and out of the house, using the restrooms, changing diapers etc. I really didn't want to run the dishwasher with guests.
In the future I'll make sure I've got a stash of forks and plates, just in case. But never ever has anyone ever brought something to one of these den meetings and that it was a large, gloppy, unwieldy custard pie just completely flummoxed me. I'll try to do better in the future.
Did I do wrong?
Ok, I've search this board and the site and don't see a recent post on this one so, I'm going to go ahead with the post.
Did I make a major cultural faux pas? We are the den leaders for our son's Cub Scout pack. A while back we hosted a pinewood derby car carving/den meeting as we have a good size garage, tools etc. and, we're nuts to boot.
I made and bought cookies (nuts, no nuts, choco, no choco, eggless etc.) and cocoa and lemonade for the boys and akelas (moms, dads or guardians.) A Mom who I believe is Chinese, but I'm not positive surprised me when she showed up with a whole, ginromous, pumpkin pie from Sam's. Now I'm not dissing the pie source, but I was completely surprised that what was clearly intended as a hostess gift was a whole custard pie.
I offered profuse thanks, and discretely put the pie on the counter and then continued to help wrangle big and small boys with sharp tools. When snack time came, I put out the cookies and thermoses of cocoa, ptucher of lemonade and paper cups and napkins. I didn't serve the pie as, I don't have that many plates and forks to serve 20 people pie unless I plan ahead and have bought disposables or borrowed from family. Seriously! I have a fairly well stocked kitchen but serving up a gift pie was simply not on my radar.
Of course she didn't say anything but, now I'm wondering if I've committed a cultural oopsie. I don't think that I would have changed what I did, unless I knew in advance that I was committing a major mistake. Communication/language difficulties are also a factor here since I'm an English and Spanish speaker and not even a dabbler in the Asian languages.
FWIW: this was offered as a regular den meeting and never in the past has anyone been expected to bring anything unless they had signed up in advance for snacks or water. Granted those had typically been at school or at the park and this was our home. But still, I'd like to know for the future. So I can do better next time. And if she invites us to her home I want to be sure I don't show up without the appropriate gift or bring something that would be inappropriate.
Ok, we served the pie later that weekend for a family dinner and it was pretty awful. And my ingrate hubby said the cocoa was too rich!!! Yes, he did end up doing all the dishes for that one. I wasn't aware cocoa could be too rich. Too sweet yes, but too creamy?
Need help with large quantity of iced tea
Easiest way to make in quantity is to brew a strong concentrated base the day before, chill and store overnight in the fridge. Then the next day, you can make up pitchers as needed by diluting the tea with cold water and ice and serving. If you use the gallon jugs of filtered water you can brew in a large soup or stock pot, cool and pour back into the gallon jugs to store in the fridge. Or if you are running out of fridge space, on ice in a cooler. Coolers are the unsung heros of large gatherings, especially if you are looking to keep something at fridge temp and not freezer temps. If space is at a preminum, get some cheapo styrofoam disposables and see if the local food bank, a church or hospice, or charity can't use them when you are done - if you haven't any room to store them.
Yes, refrigerating does matter for both food safety and taste reasons.
Bring the pot of fresh water to a full rolling boil, turn off the heat and add tea bags immediately. Stir well, let sit for 4-5 minutes then remove the bags. Letting tea steep much longer won't necessarily procude stronger tea, just more bitter tea. Same thing for squeezing the bags, just use a clothespin to pin them to the side of the pot until they've given their all and toss.
You can, of course, use loose tea and it's wonderful however, you need to remove the leaves after steeping and the tea is probably too hot to manage in a large 10-16 gallon stock pot. I mean, pouring just off the boil hot tea into a filter & funnel just doesn't seem like a wise idea. So even if you use loose tea, put it in cheesecloth to facilitate taking the tea out without messing about with straining gallons of scalding hot water.
Earl Gray is wonderful iced, as is Irish breakfast. Lousianne makes a very good family size bag that's ideal for brewed tea. Your guests will enjoy the "house wine of the south." If you are going to prepare sweet tea and unsweetened, then while the tea is warm, but not truly hot is the time to add sugar. It's warm enough the sugar will dissolve nicely but not so hot that you won't get a good idea of how sweet the tea actually is. The beatuy of this method is that you can really control the strength of your final tea so that it is just right. Offer sweet tea with mint along with the juleps and your guests will love you! let us know how the party goes.
Taco bell hot sauce!!
Ok, this may only be in our local supermarkets but I have actually seen Taco Bell hot sauce for sale in jars. I haven't tried it and don't know if it's the actual same stuff as what you get in your taco bell, but, you could try asking your supermarket to stock it. Or google taco bell hot sauce and there are several online sources for the jars of sauce as well as the taco seasoning mix and not a few recipies for the sauce. So give it a whirl.
Public Service Announcement: Kitchen Essentials
Or they may have an expiration date if they don't have a guage thingy. Yep, call the landlord. Living in a college town, there's at least one apartment fire a year and usually more. So check the fire extinguisher and the smoke detectors. At least one fire is someone leaving something on the stove forgetting it and...surprise kitchen flambe'. Which isn't funny since down in Houston there was that horrible day care provider who went off and left a pot of hot oil on the stove which caused a fire that killed 4 poor children. But that's a whole 'nother issue.
Public Service Announcement: Kitchen Essentials
Contact your local fire department, they often have hands on demonstrations and classes complete with practice fires in controlled settings (usually a metal wastebasket). It really makes a difference since you know what the extinguisher will feel like and even though it's totally practice you will still a quite a jolt of adrenaline. So it's good to see what that feels like, try shooting out the fire and have a sense of what will happen in the real world. However, don't try to do this on your own or you might end up with a real fire in the backyard or driveway etc. Which really messes up your day.
Oh and make sure that extinguisher has a guage that shows if it's still up to pressure or not, they don't last forever.
Public Service Announcement: Kitchen Essentials
Now THATs a job that would give me satisfaction. I can DO that job!
Public Service Announcement: Kitchen Essentials
Can I banish individuals who insist on leaving cabinet doors and drawers open? If I never have another bruise on my hip or scrape on my forehead I will die a happy woman.
College Station TX chow- wanna talk?
Meerastvargo: I thought Taz was pretty decent. It's much better than Spice Bowl and as the only place for Indian food, unless you travel to Houston, it's better than nothing. I think Chuy's was waaay overrated. I'd never eaten there and thought, well, it's been 2 hours wait to get in - let's give it a shot. I just thought the food wasn't very good and the supposedly fresh New Mexico green chilie just read as hot without the wonderful fruity flavor that really good NM green chilies should have. I should know I'm a native New Mexican. I've had better green chilies on a my Blake's Lotta Burger. Whoops, had to wipe the drool off my keyboard.
We enjoyed the food at Tutta Pasta however, the kitchen service was really off...Everything came out at different times and while it was all delicious if we hadn't been dining family style that night, each eating from everyone elses plates, the meal would have really been a bummer as my son's pizza came out first, then my salad and then my husbands pasta with fish. So the food itself was very good but the service was very poorly timed. Although, I'd much rather have it fresh than have it all sit under a a heater until it could be served together. And that isn't an option as it's an open kitchen. However, they are brand new and getting the staff all on the same page is a learning experience. So I'm trusting that over time things will level out.
What are your thoughts on the Bar-B-que situation in town? How did Fargo's compare to other places nearby?
And Tlegray I do like Messina Hoff but it's usually on in our price range for everyday eating. And it's hard convincing my 8yr old nibblet to clean up that much for dinner. If he could vote he'd do Blue Baker pizza or tomato basil bisque in the bread bowl every night.
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Spice Bowl
2501 Texas Ave S Ste 111C, College Station, TX 77840
Blue Baker
809 University Dr E Ste 216, College Station, TX 77840
am I a SNOB?
Ruth L - exactly! Snobism is a zero sum game, by definition: I am more than and your are less than because of...well whatever it is you use as a diferentiator. Usually it's superficial and meaningless. I don't think the OP is being snobbish at all. They merely want to know if the jarred variety of something will perform equally, adequately or not at all as well as a fresh product. The generaly consensus is that they could perform adequately to not at all as well as fresh. However knowing that the application will matter as well as the time and cost constraints that will affect the acceptability of a substitution should be helpful to the OP.
College Station TX chow- wanna talk?
So, those of use who live in and around College Station may have noticed a restaurant building boom. And now that the end of the semester approaches and the exodus of the students means we might actually have an opportunity to eat at the local restaurants I thought it might be time to have a fresh look at the chowing choices in the greater Brazos Valley metropolitan area ;)
I've checked out Maggie's Taqueria on Texas Ave again recently, the new Indian place Taz, and the new Italian place Tutta Pasta, all of which have good points. Also, I've eaten at the newish food truck, Chef Tai's mobile gourmet.
We still can't manage to check out Chuy's (yes a chain I know) but with wait times of 2-1 hours on each attempt, I gotta wonder if it might not be worthwhile to try it out anyway.
Tony Roma's looks to be opening soon and there will be a new brew-pub next to Chuy's
If I get any takers, I'll be happy to post specific reviews and would love to hear from you. Also, the City of Bryan is talking about changing their food truck 21 days restrictions, what are everyone's thoughts on this?
And I'd love to know, if you drive anywhere for good chow, where? And why? What's worth it at $3.50 per gallon these days?
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Maggie's Taqueria
1311 S Texas Ave, Bryan, TX 77803
disgusting, I know, but.....I need a jello "salad" recipe....
Wow....just...um.. wow.
What to do with a wild goose?
Folks the goose is cooked! and it was delicious. So I went with the Poule au vin variation. it went for 8 hours in a crock pot with:
8 sliced of cooked crumbled bacon
12 oz of pearl onions (I use frozen 'cause I hate to peel those things) leave them frozen
12 oz baby cut carrots, freeze them if they aren't already frozen
2 c brown mushrooms quartered
2 c red wine (cabernet sauvingon from Messina Hoff a Texas winery)
1 c chicken stock
1 whole goose, kinda, partially thawed
1 bouqet garni w, bay leave, thyme and parsley, salt and peper to taste
So the whole bird, liquids, herbs and veg (except mushrooms) went into the crock and cooked for 8 hours. I pulled the bird out when I got home, rinsed the mushrooms added them to the pot and turned it up to high. Meanwhile I picked the bird and made a flour slurry with some more red wine, added it all back into the post and let it simmer happily while I got the frozen loaf of "artisan" bread cooked.
The whole family loved it and the 8 year old said yum! so notes about prep and results:
previous experience with the crock pot has taught me that even though they say you shouldn't, some thing just turn out better if they go in frozen. Vegetables like onion and carrots are like that as they will otherwise cook to mush. I wasn't going to be able to get home at lunchtime and start the crock then so I had to figure out a way to delay the cooking process. I used the whole bird because even though it was in the fridge for 2 days it was still too frozen to cut up.
The meat was still a trifle stringy and any parts left out of the brasing liquid dried out very quickly. There was a definite gamey hint to the meat but it was by no means pronounced or a problem. I know why those French farmwives choose this method to cook up the old hen that's been running around the farmyard for a while, it's dead easy and results in a heavenly, flavorful dish. Yum. Now I'd really like to try it with an elderly farm bird and see how the taste differs. Or a duck, duck might be good too.
Oh and no hating on Texas wines, you need to try them and see some of our areas produce superior wines.
Wooden Spoons and Mineral Oil
Yep, chemicalkinetics has it dead on. I use mine often and am not really concerned about a lovely patina but that they don't absorb water, tastes or get splintery. I lightly wipe with mineral oil about once a month. But about every six months I take a fine grit sandpaper to them and then rub mineral oil all over. After the sanding I put the liberally oiled spoons in plasic wrap and let the oil really really soak in, then wipe and use. For polishing up I use a scrap of blue jean material. It's very finely abrasive, absorbs excess oil and can be used for final knife honing as well.
I beg you, can we stop all this hand-wringing and snobbery about cast iron
Yep there also an issue with the protein film that can form on surfaces, especially when hot water contacts the surface. It's the scrubbing and water that abrades the dirt, protein, contaminates that does the good work of reucing pathogen load. Prions and the wasting diseases are fascinating things. Absolutely terrifying and fascinating. They aren't truly alive just mere pieces of proteins.
So let's all scrub our cast iron with sand and wash well with water and we should be good to go. Salt is good too.
I beg you, can we stop all this hand-wringing and snobbery about cast iron
I always wondered what that sticky residue was, now I know. Thank you Candy! Now I can go fix that dutch oven that's all dusty, and grotty from the last camping trip. I do have a nicely seasoned el-cheapola CI griddle that I can do pancakes on without any more than a swipe of oil at the start. That's a beautiful thing. And using the oven self-clean cycle mentioned by another poster - genius!!!! Rusty, rough CI, sand paper and steel wool baby. I use sandpaper a lot in the kitchen for cheap wooden spoons too. They end up lopvely and smooth, finished with mineral oil...ah.
What to do with a wild goose?
I never in a million years would have thought about a gumbo, but it makes sense. Although I made a red beans and rice yesterday with a smoked venison sausage that curiously didn't work. We decided that the smokiness of the sausage competed with the other flavors of the red beans and rice. They couldn't take the sausage competition and our usual pickled pork would have been better. I wonder if that would be an issue with gumbo and wild goose, will they play nicely together?
