Meat Loaf

Yes, you read that right, Meat Loaf.  Last week I started a new job rotation at a lubricants plant 20 miles outside of Houston in the heavily industrialized town of Galena Park, TX.  With limited options and time for lunch, I thought it was time to start bringing my lunch again, so I thought it fitting to go old school and break out my mom's meat loaf recipe to create the base for cold meat loaf and mustard sandwiches for lunch!

Meat loaf is incredibly simple to make, and for this recipe you'll need:

• 1 pound ground beef (we used 93/7 lean)
• 1 egg
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup of milk
• Salt & Pepper, to taste
• 1 cup of Rice Krispies*

*Note-the Rice Krispies can be substituted for bread crumbs, saltine crackers, or any other grain binder that you'd like.  But for me, it's Rice Krispies all the way!

The first step is to pre-heat your oven to the standard temperature of 350 degrees.

All of the above ingredients go into a large mixing bowl, and are to be well combined with a wood spoon.  The mix then goes into a loaf pan & is smoothed out.

The meat loaf bakes for approx. 1 hour.  At 15 minute intervals, I recommend pulling the meat loaf from the oven and draining of the liquid fat that pools on the top & sides of the pan.

We ended up using a meat thermometer to ensure the meat had a hit a final temperature of 170 degrees before calling it done and letting it cool in the pan before we transferred it to a plate by placing a plate on top of the loaf pan & flipping the pan over before flipping the meat loaf right side up.

Admittedly, the meat loaf is not much to look at, but give it 24 hours in the refrigerator, a healthy dose of mustard, and 2 slices of white bread, and you've got the ultimate down home sandwich!

Tiny Boxwoods

After a long day of work, eating in nor driving far for dinner sounded good, so it's nice to have options like Tiny Boxwoods in your backyard. 

While Tiny Boxwoods looks like it sits in someone's backyard, it actually is a restaurant tucked in the middle of a garden nursery.  

We started dinner with two glasses of malbec wine and an order of the pumpkin gnocchi. 

The gnocchi, lightly fried was served with an apple bacon sauce & lightly fried sage leaves.  The sauce was a nice balance of sweet Fall apple & salty bacon while the inside of the gnocchi was filled with creamy pumpkin. FANTASTIC!

Elizabeth had a beet & pancetta pizza, topped with golden & red beets, honey, goat cheese, and pancetta.  The crispy thin crust proved to be a nice foundation for the tasty toppings which paired surprisingly well, and made for a great snack days later!

I ended up trying the Texas redfish & grits, served with avocado pico and poached portobello mushrooms.  The dish didn't make it home because it was a hit.  The fish was cooked just perfect and the avocado pico, abet a weird topping, paired extremely well!

It's that time of the year where we "fall forward" and our daylight gets shorter, but it's nice to know that when we don't feel like cooking, there's a cozy bistro right down the street!

Halloween in NOLA

Since moving in July, Elizabeth & I hadn't been back to NOLA, so we thought Halloween was the perfect excuse to head East for a weekend of friends, fun, and FOOD!


Stop # 1:  Domilise's Po-Boy and Bar

This hole-in-the-wall is located in Uptown, situated in a collection of streets referred to as the Isle of the Nile for the area's ability to withstand flooding in the event of a hurricane or levee failure.  

Dom's is the epitome of old-school, and up until 5 years ago, was simply a neighborhood standby until the Food Network, the Travel Channel and Tony Bourdain featured it on their shows.  

We started our visit with the coldest beer I've ever had in my life!  $2 at Dom's gets you an icy chalice of Coor's Light, or if you're like my Grandpa Glenn, a Miller High Life.  After a 6 hour drive, to say the beer was refreshing is an understatement!

Life is full of choices and this equally true at Domilise's.  If you're curious what the brown bags are under the wall menu, they're actually 3 ft. long and filled with fresh baked French bread.  


Side Note:  The history of New Orleans French bread is rather interesting; despite the French influence on baking in the city, the properties of the local water combined with the humidity of the City has created a French bread unique to New Orleans.  If you've ever had it, you know it's crusty tough on the outside, but airy & light on the inside, thus making it the perfect bread for a wet, soppy po boy.  

If you thought your kitchen was small, check out the kitchen here!  However small in size, the quality of the food it puts out is HUGE.

Elizabeth went with the roast beef po boy dressed only with lettuce, tomato, and pickles (no mayo or brown gravy on this one!).  The meat was sliced thin, but very tender and flavorful.

The kitchen crew at Dom's was more than happy to put Elizabeth's brown gravy on my shrimp & oyster po boy, dressed with hot sauce, lettuce, tomato, mayo, & pickles....AND BROWN GRAVY!  I politely asked to leave the ketchup off because in my book, ketchup has very limited purposes.


The sandwich that made Domilise's famous is their shrimp po boy with brown gravy, an off-menu secret.  I thought that sounded great, but also thought that oysters make anything better.  Elizabeth & I both agree I was right on this one.


Brown gravy appears to be a theme at Dom's and oddly enough it shows up everywhere, including their money!

Stop #2:  Herbsaint

It's futile arguing over whether one Donald Link restaurant is better than another, but let me tell you, Herbsaint makes a strong case for the #1 ranking.

We started dinner with a flight of "Interesting" French reds, complete with funny descriptions written by the Herbsaint manager.

None of the appetizers jumped out at us, so I decided to try the duck & andouille sausage gumbo, complete with very little (read:  the perfect amount) Louisiana rice.  The gumbo was awesome to say the least-the sausage was fork tender and the duck gave the soup a rich taste similar to tender chicken skin.

Elizabeth opted for a peppery heirloom arugula salad with Burrata cheese, beets, and lightly dressed with a walnut vinaigrette.  The cheese and beets provided a nice contrast to each other and made for a great salad!

For an entree, Elizabeth decided on the night's special, a lightly dusted fillet of flounder atop a savory sweet potato hash.  In the back of our minds we were a little leery of the corn meal dusting, but the fish was cooked perfect and tasted light.  The sweet potato hash was full of bacon and umami flavors, and is currently inspiring a sweet potato hash we're making for dinner as I write this!

What's that beautiful piece of meat on top of those lovely butter beans Drew?  Well, that's a lamb neck, and in short, it was phenomenal!  I wish I would have ordered another one for dessert!  Fork tender, crispy on the outside, and covered with a feta/mint chutney, the lamb neck tasted like the world's best gyro x 100!

Alas, we did not have another lamb neck for dessert, but rather the warm chocolate pudding cake with salted caramel, cashew ice cream & cocoa nib caramel corn!  Good, but certainly not great.  The cake was moist and oozed rich chocolate sauce, but the real winner was the homemade ice cream and caramel corn.


Stop #3:  Pat O'Brien's French Quarter Bar


After dinner we headed to Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter to watch the St. Louis Cardinals take on the Texas Rangers in Game 7 of the World Series, and as the Cardinals came closer and closer to winning, I thought it only fitting to drink a red drink, so I switched to Hurricanes.

During some time long ago when the City of New Orleans was under rationing, the only way a bar could get a bottle of whiskey was to purchase a case of rum.  Thus with an influx of rum, Pat O'Brien's got creative and created their signature rum punch to sell off the glut of rum.


Stop #4:  Stanley's

Saturday started off with a stroll through the French Quarter & a stop at Stanley's for breakfast.  Elizabeth elected to go with the egg & cheese sandwich while I went with the Eggs Stanley, 2 pairs
 of cornmeal crusted fried oysters served atop an order of standard eggs Benedict.

Stop #5:  Central Grocery

Always packed, but always worth the wait is the best way to describe Central Grocery, which is actually an old-school Italian grocery store selling cheeses, meats, and spices.

But the star of the show is their muffuletta sandwich, consisting of their famous marinated olive salad, capicola, salami, and provolone inside of a seeded Italian bun.  The whole sandwich, cut into quarters, can easily feed four.

The store is a state of organized chaos, which is probably why they store their olive salad in these....here's to hoping they're sanitary!

Stop #6:  Drago's

We were ready for a mid-afternoon snack as well as long walk, so we Gumped it over to the Hilton near Canal St. for a plate of char broiled oysters at Drago's.

One dozen shucked oysters, placed over an open grill, drowned in garlic butter, and topped with cheese.  Served with crusty French bread to sop up the butter, the oysters taste eerily similar to steak.  However, I think that the char broiled oysters are better at Acme Oyster House, but I know that I enjoyed not having to wait in an Acme long line to get some oysters!


Stop #7:  Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse

The Brennan name is the gold standard for fine dining & great food in New Orleans; some of their restaurants include Commander's Palace, Brennan's, Ralph's, and of course, Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse.


With a Halloween party looming in a few hours, we opted to sit in the bar, but the food & service were not lacking at all.  

We started with the BBQ Shrimp, which consisted of large Gulf shrimp sauteed in a myriad of spices, Abita beer, and garlic.  I honestly can't think of a better way to eat shrimp!


Not wanting to be overly full for our night out, we split an order of rare-medium rare prime rib and a chop salad with kalamata olives, red onion, feta cheese, and tomatoes.

The meat was literally a hunk of prime rib & seasoned nicely with a mix of Cajun/Creole spices, and the salad, with it's balsamic vinaigrette, hit the spot!


Stop #8:  Squeal BBQ

You know you're on to something good when you can smell it before you can see it or taste it, and Squeal has that down pat with it's smoker hanging out at the entrance of it's site, a converted residential house.


For our final meal in NOLA, we split brisket tacos topped with cilantro, red onion, and house made hot sauce & our absolute favorite, pulled pork nachos with house made tortilla chips, melted cheese, & black beans.

The tacos were good, but the nachos, actually a half order, hit the spot, and as quickly as our trip started, it was time to head back to Houston, but leave a light on NOLA, we'll be back!

Coppa



The Houston restaurant & bar scene seems to ebb & flow, especially along the Washington Avenue corridor, so it peaked our interest when a local hit restaurant, Catalan, closed and in its space opened a new Italian restaurant named Coppa.

As you can see in the above picture, the outside space at Coppa is quite enticing to sit outside and sip wine; however, despite 80 some odds days without rain and being in the middle of a drought, Houston is currently under siege by swarms of Flood Water Mosquitoes, which have the capability to bite through fabric, thus rendering patios off-limits. 

The dining room of Coppa is an interesting cross between an ancient Italian villa, full of stone walls & chandlers, and a "Euro-Club," full of obnoxious pastel colors and eccentric music. 

Dining room asthetics aside, the service and food at Coppa was simply outstanding!  Giving credit where credit is due, Chef Brandi Key is the culinary rockstar behind the recent success of Coppa!

Brandi came to Coppa after a stint as the Head of Reserach & Development for the Pappas Restaurant Group, which owns a variety of ethnic-themed restaurants that each include Pappa in the name (Pappadeaux, Pappas BBQ, Pappacitos).  According to an article in the local paper, Brandi won the job based on her Pasta Carbonara, a peppery pasta with pork & egg.

We kicked off our meal with a pair of glasses of Pinot Noir & an order of crispy chick peas, and were pleasantly surprised with generous pours, a nice touch by a new restaurant trying to build a clientele!

The chick peas came out dusted with a heavy coating of a good quality paprika & were mixed with fried sage leaves.  The dish was only ok.  However, our other appetizer, the octopus carpaccio (yes, you read that right) more than made up for the chick peas.!

I personally really like the flavors of octopus, and typically only see it a Mexican seafood cocktail, so octopus carpaccio caught us both by surprise & left us wondering what it would look like.  We were presented with a razor thin piece of octopus covered with argula, chopped green olives & roasted red peppers, fingerling potatoes (that were almost as amazing as the octopus), and lightly dressed in a lemon-olive oil dressing. 

The dish was a home run, tender and balanced well with just a enough acid and salt.  I could have made a meal out of a bowl of argula topped with the octopus and dressing!



Liz went with the Capellini, angel hair pasta dressed with garlic olive oil, crushed tomato, & basil.  On the menu I'm betting the dish gets overlooked due to it's simplicity, but it was far and away the best dish of the night!  I've never had tomatoes, cooked tomatoes for that matter, at a restaurant, that tasted like they came out of a garden hours before they ended up in the dish! 

Hearing that the Head Chef won her spot based on her Pasta Carbonara, I had to try it.  I was served a dish of pasta topped with minced salami, black pepper, shredded Parmesan cheese, and egg yolk on top; on the side was a saucer of cream sauce.  The dish was a decedent delight!  Contrary to it's name, the dish was pretty mild, and the egg yolk really helped to emulsify all the flavors together, and somehow, unbeknown to me, the dish, complete with such rich ingredients, was not heavy!

The beauty about pasta is there almost always some to take home!  And with a to go bag in hand, we departed a restaruant that we'll be sure to head back to in the near future!