mse924's Profile
Fair & carnival food
At the WI State Fair, there's an entire building at the fair dedicated to locally produced food products:fresh grilled cheese, honey-spiked lemonade, maple cotton candy, etc. The winner far and away though is the duck fajitas. Cheesy and delicious. Best followed by a dollar's-worth of $.25/each flavored milk cups (root beer and /or strawberry, preferably)
At Summerfest, the Saz's Sampler: a plate of sour cream and chive fries, 2 huge wonton mozzarella sticks and a giant pile of deep-fried cheese curds. Marinara and ranch on the side.
Honestly, I'm pretty much a sucker for anything that involves deep-frying or cheese.
Milwaukee with 11 yr olds soccer team....casual dinner
If you think everyone would like Mexican, El Fuego on Layton is near MKE and has a nice outdoor patio and casual, tasty food. It's a rather large restaurant so I'm sure they wouldn't have any problem accommodating your large group.
It's not near the lake, but they do have a rather large pond/waterfall in the patio area. :)
Waukesha County, WI - Hounds on the move
Ristorante Bartolotta would be good full-circle for you Shaja. Their Sous Chef is a Lake Geneva native (grew up right across the street from me!)
I'll throw in a recommendation for Good Harvest market in Waukesha, right off I-94 at Silvernail Road. It's a Whole Foods-esque place with a great deli/cafe.
Margaritas in Milwaukee
I've had good experiences at Bel Air Cantina on Water and Humboldt. Varied menu, including both traditional and more creative tacos, such as tamarind-glazed chicken. I also like the fact that they sell the tacos individually so you can mix and match flavors.
Margaritas are great there too. Their Toloache (sp?) one is amazing...hibiscus syrup, pineapple and lemon juices and the Cantina's private label tequila. There is also a "make your own" margarita option.
If the weather's still nice, there is an outdoor patio overlooking the patio as well...
POLL: Can you walk to an actual grocery store?
Milwaukee, WI here.
15 minute walk to a moderate-sized Whole Foods.
5 minute walk to either a family run Italian grocery or an Italian Bakery. 5 minutes in the other direction is a old Polish grocery store that has a wonderful deli/sandwich selection (and an Atari to play while you're waiting for your sandwich!!).
15-20 minute walk gets me to a Pick N Save, a Metro Market (the Milwaukee version of Mariano's in Chicago) and a nice farmer's market in the summer.
Cheese Shops from Chicago to Lake Geneva, WI
Bella Donna, I can't recommend Simple Cafe enough. It's only open for breakfast and lunch and slightly off the beaten "tourist" path in LG (about 4 blocks north of the main drag). Locally sourced, seasonal and a nice variety of different foods (the Korean breakfast bowl and chorizo burrito are personal favorites). Also one of the only places in the area that serves Milwaukee's wonderful Alterra Coffee.
On a nicer scale, the Brissago at the Grand Geneva resort serves delicious Italian food. They fly many of their ingredients in on a weekly basis directly from Italy.
Shaja, that baked brie at Grandview is deeeeeelicious. I could pass an entire day sitting by the windows there, staring at the gorgeous view and eating that sauce with a spoon. :)
What's for dinner? #121 - 2012 Introductory Edition! [old]
Well sheesh, my dinner sounds so boring in comparison :)
Honey soy glazed baked salmon served over noodles tossed in peanut sauce. Blood orange sorbet for dessert. And a nice big glass of wine. Maybe even a whole bottle if I'm feeling crazy.
Rest of the night will be spent making preparations for Rose Bowl-watching on Monday and struggling to stay up until Midnight. :)
Do you have a favorite I'm-alone-now-so-nobody-will-know favorite dish?
Cube sharp cheddar. Wrap in pieces of canned crescent roll dough. Soak in bottled Italian dressing. Bake. Inhale. Repeat.
A go-to comfort mixture from when I was a kid: Instant Quaker Oats (uncooked), mixed with cinnamon, brown sugar and melted butter. Basically just a big bowl of uncooked fruit crisp topping. Sometimes I dip apple slices in the mixture to try to make it "healthy" :)
NYE eats
NYE plans actually fell through this morning so I've been scrambling all day trying to decide on something to cook for myself. Finally decided on baked salmon with a honey soy glaze and a side of soba noodles tossed with peppers in peanut sauce. Will pair with a nice bottle of Rueda I received as a Christmas present. Blood orange sorbet for dessert.
I figure it's a somewhat healthy dinner to balance out the copious amounts of "snacky" food I'll be eating tomorrow and Monday while I watch football for 48 hours straight :)
What cookies are you baking for Christmas this year? 2011 Edition
Super easy! "Toffee" might be a misnomer, but it's what our family always called them growing up. I have a hand-copied recipe from my mom so I'm not sure where she got it from...
1 c. softened butter
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. flour
6 Hershey bars, broken into squares
chopped nuts
-Cream together butter and sugar
-Blend in egg yolk and vanilla
-Mix in flour to form a smooth dough
-Press dough into a large rectangle baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 375*
-Immediately after removing from oven, place chocolate over top of dough and spread to form a thick layer
-Sprinkle top of bars with nuts
I love these because they're easy to mess around with and change up. Different flavored chocolate bars, subbing almond or maple extract for the vanilla, etc.
What cookies are you baking for Christmas this year? 2011 Edition
Somehow I always end up getting roped in to making cookies for our holiday festivities at work. This year's mix includes:
-toffee bars
-candy cane cookies
-cake mix cookies (the only time I ever use cake mix...and the Christmas Funfetti mix is fun!)
-creme de menthe bars
-dark chocolate orange cookies
-maple cream cookies
-sugar cookies (already baked and in the freezer, ready to be iced and decorated next week)
I'm also planning on trying to make Smitten Kitchen's fig and walnut biscotti. If I get too lazy though I'll just substitute some of those peanut butter kiss cookies with the bag of caramel Kisses I already have :)
At last !!! Haagen-Dazs Cranberry Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream:
I'm glad my local grocery store tends to run on the lazy side with stocking their ice cream freezer because I got seriously hooked on that Clusterfluff flavor. PB and caramel are two of my favorite sweet flavors so it was like B&J's found my kryptonite in ice cream form.
Is there a place for proper "Frankfurter" also called "New England" rolls in the Milwaukee area?
Fowler, I'm guessing Exvaxman is talking about Puddle Jumpers. If you're familiar with the airport, it's right next to Final Approach on Howell Avenue. I haven't been there to eat properly yet, but the owners brought cornbread to my nearby office when they opened a few months back and it was pretty darn tasty.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/43/1556680/restaurant/Town-of-Lake/Puddle-Jumpers-BBQ-Milwaukee
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Final Approach
4959 S Howell Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207
Throwing a tapas party: what's your favorite tapas?
-any kind of croquette (ham or cod if you want to be really authentic)
-roasted pepper tarts-I use the small premade pastry shells and fill them with roasted red/ yellow peppers and a simple custard, and then top with any kind of grated hard cheese and bake until firm
-olive and anchovy "crackers" - ripe olives, a can of anchovies, manchego, butter and flour. I have a more exact recipe somewhereif you're interested (I usually just eyeball it). Easy to make a day or two ahead.
Another Spanish drink is "kalimotxo" (pronounced cahl-ee-mo-cho). It's equal parts red wine and cola (traditionally Coke) served over ice. We used to make big bottles for parties when I lived in Spain. Not the classiest sounding drink by a longshot, but super tasty and authentic as a nice variation from traditionaly sangria.
Cost of Fresh Sweet Corn at Farmers Markets
Wowza. I feel spoiled that my FM sells local corn for $0.25/ear or $2/doz. Maybe I should have started a sweet corn distribution business this summer...probably could have made a killing reselling to CH'ers. :)
Food/dish you are surprised hasn't caught on
We had that here in WI too! I was too freaked out to try it, but people who did said it tasted surprisingly not as gross as you would think. It was wrapped in a wonton-type deal and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
And Alliegator, have your friend take you to Culver's in Minnesota. It's a Wisconsin-based chain. A walleye sandwich with a side of deep-fried cheese curds is a pretty accurate representation of upper-Midwest cuisine :)
Food/dish you are surprised hasn't caught on
If you're bemoaning the lack of fried cheese, I'm guessing you've never been to Wisconsin. :)
My favorite fair/festival food when I was younger was to munch a near foot-long stick of fried cheese. It was like hot, deep-fried heaven. And now I want to try it on a bun with sauce. :)
Satan sandwich!
Haven't worked up the nerve to try one yet, but the "Human Torch" sandwich served at Glorioso's in Milwaukee sounds pretty darn satanic to me...
"The trick was in the muffuletta - a mixture of olives, cauliflower, celery, onion, garlic, carrots and several kinds of peppers and in the hot pepper spread, a ruby-colored concoction of crushed peppers, crushed garlic and salt marinated in olive oil for a week to 10 days.
Between the pepper spread smeared on a fresh Italian roll and the muffuletta piled on top, Glorioso layered provolone made from raw milk with slices of calabrese and cappicola sausages."
http://www.mkescene.com/forums/eats-and-drinks/the-human-torch/
Cooking From The Farmer's Markets . . . what's on your table these days?
Prime season here in Milwaukee. Picked up a ton of big sun-ripened tomatoes, peppers, cukes and onions and made a giant batch of gazpacho, which has been a perfect lazy dinner during the steamy weather we've had.
I also tried these charred corn tacos from Smitten Kitchen the other week. DELICIOUS.
http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/07/charred-corn-tacos-with-zucchini-radish-slaw/
Milwaukee: some specific restaurant requests
The namesake brewery (which is right next to the stadium) pretty much holds the monopoly on beer at Miller Park. If you want to avoid the standard Miller and Coors products, try a Leinenkugels Summer Shandy or Sunset Wheat. Miller owns their distribution rights, but the beer is still made up in Chippewa Falls, WI and is pretty darn tasty. The stadium also sells deep fried cheese curds that are made with a Leinie's beer batter :)
ETA: From the Miller Park website- "Leinie's Draft — Sections 101, 106, 120, 129, 213, 221, 232, 411, 434; Specialty Beers — Sections 110, 126, 212, 225"
Not sure what "specialty beers" they sell, but I'm guessing it's something other than Miller-Coors products. Perhaps Lakefront? They tend to be pretty widely distributed in the Milwaukee Metro area.
Also, the Fridays Front Row restaurant in left field lets you buy drinks at their bar and take them back into the stadium. I've never bought anything but Long Islands there but they may offer some other local brews as well.
The truth about your local farmers' market
Even here in urban Milwaukee I feel pretty darn confident that the products I'm buying at the markets I go to are locally grown by the people selling them to me. My confidence comes from the fact that the products displayed each week are seasonal and change throughout the summer and fall depending on what's ripe and ready for harvest. Heck, half the time the potatoes I buy still have dirt on them. I highly doubt any of the vendors are buying veg from the Pick N Save across the street and then rolling it around in dirt to pass it off as their own.
One thing I love about my local FM is the fact that most stands have signs with the name/website/phone number of the farm where they came from. Seeing as most farmers are just trying to make a living, I'm sure they would be more than happy to let you visit their farm so you can confirm their source and feel comfortable buying their products.
High Speed Feery from WI to Mi
Prior to getting on the ferry there's a small snack bar in the terminal as well. Not much more than chips and candy and both cold and hot drinks though.
If you have the transportation means, I might recommend picking up sandwiches or take out from somewhere downtown or the nearby Bay View neighborhood to take on the ferry with you. Keep in mind that the ferry terminal is an the industrial shipping area of Milwaukee and there's not a whole lot nearby (other than the excellent Three Brothers Serbian restaurant...but I'm not sure they're open at that time of day).
Which Brewery to go to for one night in Milwaukee?
Depending on when you get into town (and how much drinking you want to do!), you could probably do the tour at Lakefront and then hit one of the other places to eat. If you only have time for one place though, my vote goes to Milwaukee Ale House. They have a lovely outdoor patio on the river and I've always found their food to be some of the best compared to the other MKE brew pubs. Also, their house-made Pullchain Pail Ale is really really tasty.
Have fun at the concert! The percussionist from Bon Iver is a high school acquaintance of mine and I'm super disappointed I'm not able to make to their show this time around to see them play.
Great outdoor patios in MKE?
I've always been a fan of the patio at Trocadero. A really nice and resonably priced beer/wine list and great food. Their blackberry currant mojito is one of my favorite non-beer drinks in MKE. Technically not "downtown", but very close.
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Trocadero
1758 N Water St, Milwaukee, WI 53202
What are your favorite crackers?
Chicken in a Biskit. No Shame. Such a random, non-chicken taste...but distubingly addictive.
On the marginally more classy side, those cracked pepper and olive oil Triscuits are also quite tasty.
Best Mail Order Apple Pie?
I was ready to hit reply to recommend Elegant Farmer, but never mind. That's insane that they want $100 dollars. I'm spoiled because I live 15 minutes from the place and can get fresh paper bag apple pie whenever I want. :)
The Lake Geneva Pie Company (which is actually located very near to EF) has received a ton of awards for their pies and everything I've ever had from there is insanely delicious. It might be worth a look into their shipping costs. (http://www.lgpie.com)
What's For Dinner - Part 94 [old]
Lazy dinner tonight as I'm still recovering from the effects of a VERY lively tailgate party and baseball game last night...
Black 'n blue burger cooked on the stove top (gasp!) and eaten on a crusty roll with a pile of farmer's market fresh spinach. Also threw together a batch of broccoli raisin salad as a side.
Now I'm trying to work up the energy to make my inagural attempt to make brandy slush. I have to take a batch to a picnic next weekend so obviously I neeed to make a test batch to enjoy at home :)
Food foreigners take back home when they visit America.
When I was living in Spain, my grandmother sent me a giant care package filled with American food such as Kraft shells and cheese, chunky Jif and Double Stuf Oreos. The students at my university went absolutely NUTS for the Oreos. Seriously. All the wonderful pastries and cookies made in Spain and their various native countries (I was in an Erasmus program) and the only thing those kids could talk about for days was the damn Oreos. And just when the excitement died down, my roommate and I taught them about the wonders of dipping them IN the peanut butter...and their excitement began again. :)
Your Favorite Weight Loss Tricks and Recipes
Depends on my mood! I have a drawer at my desk where I keep tea bags and munchies that don't have to be in the fridge. It's usually stocked with:
-sugar free pudding cups (I'll bring in chopped peaches or strawberries to mix in)
-trail mix of some sort (usually the Archer Farms Tex Mex or Sweet Cajun kinds from Target-the chile in it helps to sate hunger pangs)
-whole grain crackers (topped with apple slices and low-fat cheddar)
Your Favorite Weight Loss Tricks and Recipes
As soon as I get home from the farmer's market/grocery store, I cut, prep and portion as much of my food as possible based on what I anticipate eating for the next few days. I usually take a huge salad to work for lunch, so on Sunday nights I'll put all my veggies in a big mixing bowl and portion it out for the week in reusable containers. Same goes for dinner leftovers--separate it out into "meal-sized" servings. It makes it so much easier to eat healthy portions when you can just grab it from the fridge and go. Also, I never EVER eat anything out of the container it comes in. Pour it out into a cup/bowl/plate and put the package away to avoid the temptation for going back for seconds...and thirds...and the rest of the package. :)
My other big thing as been cutting out the mindless eating at work. Bring healthy snacks and avoid grazing when people bring in treats. I've also been known to go so far as leave my wallet locked in my car so I won't be tempted to make a visit to the vending machine/food court at work...
