On My Table in M Magazine

In June, I got an exciting e-mail: the managing editor of M, a Milwaukee lifestyles monthly magazine, e-mailed me. She said she found my blog and wanted to know if I wanted to be part of a compliation article on Milwaukee-area bloggers. Of course I said yes!!

We had nice conversation over the phone about a week later. It's definitely different for me to be on the "giving" end of an interview. As a writer, I'm so used to interviewing people that it felt kind of weird to be providing the answers for once! But it's exciting to talk about the blog and something I really enjoy doing. I got to tell her about why I started the blog, what some of my favorite posts and experiences were and more.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the August issue, check out p. 22 (there doesn't seem to be an online site for the magazine). I'm featured along with three other Milwaukee bloggers.

Also, please follow me on Twitter: @OnMyTableBlog.

Thanks for reading!

-Nicole

Sassy Shrimp and Summer Veggies

We got a ton of great vegetables in the last CSA box, and I knew I wanted to use them sooner than later. So we decided to do shrimp and veggie kabobs. Kabobs are kind of my go-to thing when I don't know what to do with veggies.

For the shrimp, we used this Sassy Seasoned Shrimp recipe, which a bunch of tweaks:
-Rather than 2 lbs. of shrimp, we just bought 3/4 lb. raw shrimp and halved just about the entire recipe (except for the juice--I forgot I was halving the recipe, and added all of the juice the recipe calls for).
-I didn't get fresh ginger, and just used about 1/2 teas. powedered ginger.
-Instead of green onions, I used up some of the yellow onion I had on hand.
-I couldn't find mango nectar (juice) at the local Pick 'n Save, so I bought papaya juice. It seemed to work just as well!
-For the chili-garlic sauce, I used Sriracha.
-We let everything set in the marinating bags for about 1.5 hours, rather than the recommended 2.


As for the veggies, I used zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant, all from the CSA. I used this simple Shrimp Kabob Recipe for the veggies. I followed the recipe exactly, figuring I probably had about 1 lb. of veggies. I marinated these for about 1.5 hours, too.



We put everything on wooden skewers we store in the freezer, and we grilled everything on low. First, we grilled the veggies, for about 20-25 minutes, and the shrimp for about 10-12 minutes.

In addition to the shrimp and veggies. we had some leftover black beans I had made earlier in the weekend. The black beans included red onions, red pepper, jalapeno, spices like cumin, coriander and garlic.



Everything was delicious and came together really well. I'd definitely make both marinades again.

Something New: Armenian Food

On Sunday, Nate and I wanted to check out a type of food we've never had before: Armenian food. St. John the Baptist Armenian Orthodox Church holds Armenian Fest each year with delicious homemade food. I saw an article about it on OnMilwaukee.com last week and suggested we check it out.

I'm glad we went. The food was fantastic, and it was fun to try something new. We bought $20 worth of food and drinks tickets, and figured out what we wanted from there.

We tried:

-Lahmajoon, an Armenian "pizza," made with a thin dough that included a mix of meat, spices, peppers, onions, tomatoes and parsley.

-Cheese boreg and spinach and cheese boreg, which is very similar to Greek spinach pie. The thin layers of dough just about melted in your mouth.

-Sarma and yalangee, stuffed grape leaves, meaty and vegetarian, respectively.

-A lemony hummus with fresh, fluffy pita bread.

-Shakerlama, a melt-in-your-mouth butter cookie.

-We split a Kotayk beer.

(Check out the menu for more information.) (Sorry for the silly picture--but you can still get the idea.)

We had a great time, and I'd definitely go back again!

Beer Brownies

About a week and a half ago, we held a beer tasting party. As I've blogged about before, Nate has been busy brewing his own beer since I gave him a homebrew kit for his birthday in December. Since we've been storing beer for months, we finally had a beer tasting party for friends and family. It was fantastic. We had lots of great NathanAle's brews, plus everyone brought a few of their favorite craft or micro brews.

In addition to the beer, we had some great food. I tried to make a few things with beer as one of the ingredients. We made brats which we first cooked in beer and then had sitting in beer for the rest of the day.

In addition to the brats, I made Guinness brownies. Unfortunately, I never remembered to take a picture. But, I can definitely tell you they were absolutely fantastic. They almost tasted more like fudge.

Here is the recipe I used. I followed everything, except I forgot to dust the tops with powered sugar. I'm not sure it was even needed!

Rapid Restaurant Reviews Part 1

This past week and a half, I've done quite a bit of restaurant dining. I wanted to save all of them for one big post, but since they keep adding up, I decided to split it into two posts. So, here's the first of two rapid restaurant reviews.

This post features Pastiche and Blue's Egg.

One Friday, my friend Ann and I checked out Pastiche, a newer Bay View restaurant. Pastiche is a bistro and wine bar, featuring French food. The place is cute and cozy. It's a rather small dining room--it almost looks like it used to be an old house--with a small bar in the back corner.

We had a mixed experience. First, although we had a reservation, we still waited about 20 minutes for our table ... only to have the hostess give our table away to a couple who walked in way after us. Luckily, she eventually realized her mistake (after we gave her some looks) and made the couple get up from the table so we could sit, but still, it was a rather odd way to start things out. The service was good--the server seemed to know the menu pretty well and was pretty attentive--but it was felt rushed, and for the type of restaurant and the prices, I think they moved us a long a little too fast. Also, the place was incredibly warm. I realize it's been a hot summer in Milwaukee, and while I hate it when restaurants crank up the AC so it's freezing, this was incredibly warm. There were a few ceiling fans going, but no air was reaching our table. It was uncomfortably warm.

While the appetizer we ordered wasn't great, our entrees were very tasty. For our appetizer, we ordered pork rillettes, slow-cooked pork shoulder, shredded with cornichons and French bread. Our server warned us that the appetizer was cold, but being as warm as we were, that seemed fine. The pork wasn't bad, but it didn't have much flavor and reminded us a bit too much of tuna salad. (Sorry for the bad picture--I debated not posting it, but even though it's blurry, you can still get the idea of what the dish looks like.)

The entrees, on the other hand, were very good. Ann ordered the steak and frites, which came with a garlic mayonnaise sauce. The steak was perfectly cooked and had a tasty, sort of crispy outer edge.

I ordered the salmon, which had a leek, fennel, red wine and shallot sauce on it. It came with a vegetable, asparagus, and the potato of the day: mashed potatoes. It was very good. The salmon was cooked perfectly, and the asparagus and mashed potatoes worked well with the dish.

At the end of the meal, we said we'd try it again at some point, but wouldn't rush back.

That same weekend, on Sunday, Nate and I tried another new Milwaukee restaurant, Blue's Egg. We had heard a lot about it before, and we eagerly awaited its opening, as we live fairly close. We went for a late breakfast--maybe about 9:00--and sat at the bar since the dining room was packed. We had a great experience. The food was fantastic and the service was good, as well. (Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of anything. I didn't bring my camera, and I guess I wasn't awake enough to take pictures with my phone!)

I started with coffee (they serve Alterra) and Nate had a Blue's Bloody Mary, which came with a Miller High Life shorty. For breakfast, I ordered one of their very stuffed browns, the one with roasted mushrooms, creamy leeks and herb creme fraiche. It was basically--and this is the way the bartender described it--an omelet made with hash browns instead of eggs. In addition to the browns, I got two sunny-side up eggs on the side. It was good, and I'd like to try more of their stuffed browns.

Nate's benedict was fantastic--I think it's the best I've ever had. He got the Blue's Classic, with poached eggs, pulled ham, housemade English muffin and hollandaise. What made it so good was the pulled ham (from my experience, most benedicts come with slices of ham or Canadian bacon) and the hollandaise, as it wasn't too rich. Many benedicts are smothered in hollandaise, but this just had a dollop on the top. It was the perfect amount. For many of the meals, you have a choice of about 15 sides. Nate chose the smoothie, which was really tasty.

We will definitely going back to Blue's Egg for brunch and lunch!

Stay tuned for reviews of Hue, Marchese's Olive Pit and Alem Ethiopian.

Carolina-Style BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

On Thursday, we made another great recipe from the August Cooking Light. This time, it was Barbecue Chicken Sliders. The recipe includes pickled onions. But since I don't care for pickles (although I would have been willing to try them), we didn't want to make a whole batch and have them go to waste.

So, we just stuck with the chicken, made some slight adjustments based on what the grocery store offered and the weather conditions (a huge rain/thunderstorm/almost tornado hit Milwaukee that night, so there was no way we could grill like the recipe calls for).

Here is a link to the recipe. Here's what we did differently:

-Used 1.5 lbs. chicken breast, rather than thighs.

-Instead of using sherry vinegar, we used what we had on hand: we combined some sherry and some white vinegar.

-As I mentioned before, we made the chicken on the stove. We cooked the chicken in some water, and shred it as it cooked.

-Since we had regular-sized hamburger buns on hand, we just used those, rather than slider buns.

-Instead of the pickled onions, we just sauteed some red onions in a pan coated with cooking spray and some pomegranate balsamic vinegarette.

The chicken and sauce was really, really good. We thought there might not be enough sauce for the amount of chicken, but the chicken was coated perfectly.

But if you like it a little saucier, you might want to add a bit more. We also dabbed some garlic Cholula hot sauce on the sandwiches just before eating. Delicious!

In addition to the sandwiches, we made corn on the cob with a recipe for honey butter, also found in Cooking Light. Here's the recipe, which we just halved since we only had two ears. (Also, be sure to either eat corn on the cob within days of buying it or store it in the fridge. We kept ours out on the coutner for about five days. It was pretty dry and chewy. The honey butter was excellent, though!)

Lastly, since we got some collard greens in our last CSA box, we made them on the side. I used the recipe my friend Lisa used for the collard greens she brought to our recent Southern-style potluck.

I really liked what she brought, so I wanted to try making them. Here's the recipe. They turned out pretty good, although they should have cooked a little longer.

I sort of ignored the fact that the recipe said it would take 30 minutes for them to cook. I probably cooked mine for 20 minutes. They were edible, but still a little tough.

Greek Burgers for the Girls

This Tuesday, I made Greek burgers for some girlfriends. Once a month we go to each other's houses, and often, the nights revolve around food (as they should! :)). You all know I love Greek food and Greek flavors, and I wanted to share those flavors with the girls.

I'm sure I've blogged about the Greek burgers and sandwiches we've made before, but I'm particularly proud of these burgers because I mixed them AND grilled them myself. Here's what I did to make the Greek turkey burgers:

-2 lbs. ground turkey

-tzatziki from Olympia Fine Foods.

-1/2 lb. feta from Olympia

-kalamata olives

-red onion

-tomato

-buns

-shallots

-salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried oregano to taste

Chop shallots and add to ground turkey in a bowl. Add seasonings as desired and mix well. Portion out into six burgers (they were pretty big burgers). Grill about 7-9 minutes each side on low, indirect heat. When almost ready, top with slices (not that feta is easy to slice) of feta and grill for about three more minutes.

Meanwhile, saute red onions on the stove with cooking spray. Chop kalamata olives.

Top burgers with onions, tzatziki, tomato slice and kalamata olives.

That's it! It's easy and delicious. We also had a tasty feta, tomato and olive appetizer, and a red onion and tomato salad on the side. Delicious!

Vegetarian Meal with a Bit of Bacon

One of the greatest things about this CSA box of produce we get every week is trying things we probably wouldn't normally buy if we were shopping for produce at the grocery store.

The main components of our meal last Wednesday consisted of two things we don't normally cook: patty pan squash and Swiss chard.

I've made Swiss chard a few times (I probably read somewhere about how good it is for you), but it was never anything fantastic, so we never sought it out. This time, I found a recipe I thought would work well for us.

This recipe, Swiss Chard with Garbanzo and Fresh Tomatoes, was pretty good. It was super easy and healthy. The only thing I really did differently was use an entire can of garbanzo beans, rather than the 1/2 cup it calls for. Also, I added a bit extra salt and pepper, and some Sriracha, of course! (It was also good leftover for lunch a few days later. To make it a little more filling, I added some cooked, shredded chicken and basmati rice.)

As for the patty pan squash, I had no idea how to cook it or what to do with it, so I did some online recipe searching. (It's a little foggy, due to taking a photo of fresh-out-of-the-pan steamed squash.)

This recipe, Stuffed Patty Pan Squash, proved to be fantastic. The squash are stuffed with their own innards, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, bacon (in our case, turkey bacon) and onions. The only drawback was that it was a bit difficult to scoop out the innards since it was so hot. But if you're not going for style points, it doesn't really matter!

We served the meal with some delicious Outpost watermelon. All in all, it was a great, tasty meal.

A Pesto Lesson

For whatever reason, until last week, it never really occurred to me to make my own basil pesto. It's so easy to buy it in a jar and always tasty, too. I guess I never really how easy it is to make. But while it was easy to make, I managed to kind of screw it up. I definitely learned my lesson.

We got a bunch of basil in a recent CSA box, and I have a basil plant in the backyard. It was only appropriate to make basil pesto for the first time.

Easily enough, I found a recipe in my go-to Betty Crocker Cookbook. I only needed five ingredients, and then all I had to do was mix it in the food processor. Here is the recipe I used.

I made it the day before we used it, which was fine ... but then it was cold when I took it out of the fridge to use it with pasta.

We had a package of frozen ravioli to made with the pesto.

It was easy enough to make--just boil water, and cook the ravioli on a low boil for about eight minutes, drain and serve.

Here's where I messed up: I figured it wouldn't be good to serve the pesto cold ... so I tried heating it up in a saucepan. Bad idea! The Parmesan cheese melted, making it a gooey, stringy mess. Over the pasta, it still tasted good, but it was clumpy and the oil had kind of separated from the rest of the pesto.

I later looked up how to serve pesto, and will do this next time--take about a tablespoon of the hot pasta water, mix it with the pesto and pour over the pasta. Lesson learned!

Needless to say, we both finished our plates of pasta and pesto!

A Breakfast Treat: Mini Frittatas

We had a lot of random veggies and things I wanted to use up, and I've been wanting to make mini frittatas to have weekday mornings. I've made a version of them before, and they're so tasty and easy to heat up to eat before work.

I found a random recipe online to base my frittatas on. I ended up doing mostly everything on my own, but I used the basics from that recipe. Here is what I did:

Veggie Mini Frittatas

-8 eggs

-1/2 cup milk

-about 1/4 cup chopped potatoes

-about 2 tbs. green onions, sliced

-about 1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped

-1 clove garlic, minced

-3 Morningstar Farms veggie sausages

-salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

-Whisk eggs and milk in a big bowl. Boil potatoes in water for about 5 minutes. Saute mushrooms and garlic in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Microwave sausage links for 1.5 minutes, then chop into pieces. Combine everything, along with the onions, in with the eggs and milk.

-Pour mixture in muffin tins sprayed with non-stick cooking spray (I ended up with 16 mini frittatas!)

-Store in fridge (or freezer) until ready to eat. When ready, heat for about 2 minutes in the microwave.

Fishy Burgers

I really love just about any kind of burger: beef, turkey, veggie, black bean, buffalo ... even salmon burgers. We've made them a few times before. We have a great Cooking Light recipe for chipotle salmon burgers. But the July issue of Cooking Light featured a new salmon burger we had to try.

Here is the recipe. And here is what we did differently:

-We halved the recipe so we'd only have two burgers.

-Since there was such a little amount of salmon to put in the food processor, we ended up just hand chopping what we needed to chop.

-Rather than buying arugula, we just used the red lettuce we had from our CSA.

-The fourth step in the recipe calls for combining the arugula (or lettuce), onion, lemon juice and oil. We didn't do that. We just topped the burgers with lettuce and onion. Combining everything sounded kind of weird to me, actually.

The salmon patties turned out to be pretty small, but everything together was really tasty.

With the burgers, we had corn on the cob (we usually make them in the microwave--wrap in paper towel and cook two minutes on high per ear) and sauteed zucchini.

Nate's Quesadillas

I'm not sure when we started making them or how it all came about, but I have to say, we--OK, mostly Nate--make some fantastic quesadillas. One of the best parts is that we always make tons of them so we have leftovers for a week.

It's simple enough to make, and they always turn out super tasty. We've mixed up what we include in the quesadillas here and there, but we find we like the chicken, cheese and pepper ones the best.

Here's what we use and what we do.

Chicken, Cheese and Pepper Quesadillas

-1 bag 10-inch tortillas

-2 bags shredded cheese (Mexican variety, cheddar, Monterey Jack, etc.), 2 cups each

-2 chicken breasts, cubed

-1/2 bell pepper, chopped

-1/2 red onion chopped

-hot peppers of your choosing: we usually use 1 jalapeno and 1 can of green chiles, sometimes a habanero, sometimes whatever pepper looks good at the store!

-Non-stick cooking spray

-Oil for cooking chicken and veggies

Cook chicken breasts with onions and peppers in a skillet with a bit of oil until done.

Use hand chopper, and chop chicken and veggies so they're in small bits.

In a large, non-stick skillet, spray cooking spray. Lay one tortilla, top with cheese (any amount, but the more you use, the easier it all sticks together), some of the chicken and veggie mix, and then top with more cheese. Lay another tortilla on top. Heat until bottom tortilla is crispy and brown. Flip the whole thing over (this is why Nate usually makes these--I never flip properly). Cook until that side is brown and crispy.

Finish making as many quesadillas as necessary to use up veggies, chicken and cheese. It usually ends up being 3-4 quesadillas. Cut into quarters, or whatever you want, with a pizza cutter. Top with salsa or guacamole. Serve with rice and/or beans. And a Mexican beer, of course.

Delicious!

West Allis Farmer's Market

I've been a little lax on visiting area farmer's markets this summer. I think it's in part due to getting so much produce each with the CSA and that I've been out of town or busy on other Saturdays.

I've been to the downtown Milwaukee Westown Farmer's Market once during my lunch break. It's a short walk from my office, and there are always some things to try for lunch, plus produce and local products. At that market, I had lunch from Aladdin, picked up some sugar snap peas and also some homemade garlic tortilla chips.

This past Saturday, Nate and I finally made it to one of our favorites: the West Allis Farmer's Market. I like this one because it's pretty close and there is always a lot there. However, we found, based on last Saturday, that the earlier you go in the day (on Saturdays it opens at 1:00), the better. We got there at about 3:15, and some of the farmer's were gone or packing up.

But we still managed to buy quite a bit of stuff. Some stuff we needed for recipes and meals--like onions, shallots, garlic, hot peppers, yogurt and carrots, and some stuff we just wanted to stock up on--like maple syrup and ground pork.

We also got a snack at a vendor I had never seen before--it was an egg roll food truck. We tried one of the fresh spring rolls and Thai iced coffee. Both were delicious!

I'm a big fan of farmer's markets and I like getting as much produce and local products there as I can. I have many more of them to check out this summer. I hope to hit them all!

And, speaking of our CSA, the amount of produce we have been receiving is getting bigger and bigger, and there is more of a variety. This week we got sugar snap peas, pea pods, lettuce, Swiss chard, green pepper, zucchini, cucumber and more.

Southern-Style Potluck

My friend Sun throws great potlucks at her apartment, and I made it to the one she hosted last Thursday. This one focused on Southern foods.

I decided to make Hoppin' John, something I've never made before, and I'm not sure I've ever tasted it, either. I used a recipe from Paula Deen's Lady & Son's cookbook I bought at Lady & Son's restaurant in Savannah, GA, when I was there a few years ago.

It was a really easy recipe:

2 cups cooked rice (I made extra basmati rice when we made the green curry meal).

2 cups black-eyed peas (I used canned)

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

garlic powder to taste

Heat rice and beans; add pepper and onion. Cook about 10 minutes. Veggies should still be crunchy.

I also added quite a bit of salt and pepper and some Frank's Red Hot sauce to spice it up a bit.

Everything else at the potluck was great. We had cornbread, mac and cheese, pulled pork sliders with coleslaw, collard greens, hash browns, pimento and cheese spread with crackers, apple pie, pound cake and sweet tea and/or lemonade and vodka drinks.

Everything was delicious, and I literally waddled out of Sun's apartment!

Fake Meat and Green Curry Meals

Early last week, we made two simple but tasty dinners.

One involved fake meat. I kind of hate referring to it that way, but really, that's what it is. I'm a big fan of Morningstar Farms products, and we often have the chicken nuggets, mini corn dogs and breakfast sausage links in the freezer. Nate seems to like them, too, or at least he appeases me and eats them. :)

We decided to eat up the corn dogs and nuggets that we had (all it takes it heating them in the oven for about 15 minutes). With it, we made our favorite sweet potato fries plus roasted beets--that was the first time I cooked beets, and probably one of the first times I ate fresh beets. I really liked them; Nate was not a fan. With the beet root, we cooked the beet greens, too, which pretty much tasted like spinach or Swiss chard.

For, I cut them in halves or quarters, depending on the size, and put them in foil with a few drops of water and salt and pepper. I roasted them at 400 for about 45 minutes. When they were cooked, the skins peeled right off. For the greens, I sauteed them for about 10 minutes with some olive oil and garlic powder.

Then, on Tuesday, we made green curry with veggies, chicken and rice. We had a bottle of Thai Kitchen green curry sauce from Outpost that we used with chicken and veggies like broccoli, bean sprouts, mushrooms, green onions, sugar snap peas and peapods.

We served it on top of white basmati rice.

The sauce was really good, but it wasn't spicy at all, so of course we added some Sriracha.

Colorado Eats

As I've mentioned before, Nate and I were in Colorado June 24-July 4. It was our second trip to Colorado together, and we had a blast. Nate spent his first 13 years there, so we visited a lot of family and drove around much of the state. Throughout our trip, we got to eat lots of great food. And, of course, we had lots of great beer!

I wanted to post some pictures of the food we ate and mention the places we visited.

In Fort Collins, we tried something we've never had before: Nepalese cuisine. We had the lunch buffet at Mt. Everest Cafe. I can't remember everything we had, but it was all very good. It was very similar to Indian food, but seemed less spicy. I do remember we had naan, vegetable samosas and eggplant curry. The item in the upper left-hand corner, with the peas, was some kind of chicken dish. It was divine!


Also in Fort Collins, we had great, unique pasta dishes at Rasta Pasta. I had the Natural Mystic, jerk chicken and pasta in a pineapple curry sauce. I asked them to kick up the heat, too, and they sure kicked it up! Each dish comes with great garlic bread and a salad. Try the green pepper dressing!



This wasn't a restaurant meal, but great, nonetheless. We packed a picnic lunch to have while we drove throughout Rocky Mountain National Park. It worked out well. We parked at a beautiful overlook and sat looking out at the mountains. Earlier that morning we had stopped for bread, ham, cheese and grapes, and the Sun Chips we had were offered at our hotel the night before.



In Glenwood Springs, we had a huge, greasy and delicious breakfast at Rosi's Little Bavarian Restaurant. The breakfast burrito came recommended, and I'm a sucker for breakfast burritos. This one was great. It was filled with sausage, cheese, hash browns and veggies. I loved that they also had fresh, homemade salsa on every table and Cholula Garlic Hot Sauce (you can find this stuff on just about every restaurant table in Colorado. I love it!).



In Aspen, we ended up at Little Ollie's, a Thai/Chinese/Asian restaurant. We had a great, reasonable meal. We started with pork egg rolls, and then I had tofu massaman curry. It was soooo good.

Back in Fort Collins, we stopped at a great sandwich place for lunch one Saturday. At B&B's Pickle Barrel, I had the "Christy" sandwich, which included Havarti cheese, mushrooms and avocado and I had grilled tofu added to it. I also had Boulder Canyon chips for the first time, which are great. I just discovered they're available at Outpost. Score!



In Grand Lake, we stopped for what we thought we be a nice, light breakfast before hiking. It wasn't as heavy as the breakfast burrito, but filling, nonetheless! Since we couldn't quite decide what we wanted, Nate and I split a lox and bagel and this delicious-looking granola with yogurt, fruit and nuts. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the restaurant.



In Salida, where Nate spent some time growing up, we went to a great brew pub/pizza place called Amica's. We each had a great micro beer, split a house salad and then I had the pizza al pesto, which included pesto, of course, pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and mozzarella.

Again in Fort Collins, we stopped for a quick breakfast at The Red Table. I didn't take a picture of the food--we each had an egg, cheese and veggie breakfast bagel sandwich--but I thought the outside of the place was cute!


It was a great trip, with great food! I'd like to figure out how to make that jerk chicken and pineapple curry sauce ... I'm drooling just thinking about it!