Potato Latkes

Hope everybody had a fun Hannukah! While the festival of lights is probably less important holiday than Hallmark would have you believe, it's a favorite for many, and is notable for my favorite traditional jewish food: Potato Latkes. They're easy, and while everybody's grandmother has her own special recipe, they are uniformly delicious. Here's how made mine this year:

Andouille and Cornbread Stuffing

As promised, here's one of my all time thanksgiving favorites: Andouille and Cornbread Stuffing (provided by the good people at epicurious). Mom found this recipe about 15 years back, and I haven't let a thanksgiving go by without it. Even two days before Balls' wedding, when his mother-in-law was hosting most of the wedding party for a traditional thanksgiving dinner. It''s stuffing, and it has two kinds of pig in it, what's not to like?

Courtesy Wikicommons.

So, it's pretty straightforward. First of all, make sure you have good Andouille. Good Andouille is really important to me in general. It should be well spiced, heavily smoked (and you should be able to tell by looking at it), and coarsely ground. You should be able to see be able to see chunks of pork in the sausage. Look at the pretty picture to the right, and you'll see what I mean. I try to go to my local market for fresh Andouille made by local butchers, but in a pinch, Aidell's sausages are easy to find at supermarkets and makes decent tasting dishes.

The Thanksgiving that kept on giving.

The Balls and Pie family was fortunate to spend a nice, quiet Thanksgiving together in a cozy cabin outside of Hamilton, MT. We were more fortunate to sit back and have our Thanksgiving catered by Executive Chef Toby McCracken. It went something like this: At around 3:30 thanksgiving day, food starting showing up at our door. Enough salad for 10 people. Brocolini and squash for 10. Turkey for 15. And then for good measure, roast Ham for about 10. Similar quantities of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, warm rolls, butter, gravy, stuffing. Then, the hors d'oeuvres show up: a cheese plate including brie, smoked bacon cheddar, and pepper jack, a sorpressata and prosciutto plate, vegetable crudités, and orzo with poached shrimp.

And pumpkin and pecan pies. 

There were five of us. And a baby.

Housekeeping

Just a couple odds and ends before the Balls and Pie family thanksgiving retreat:

First, thanks to everybody for checking us out and supporting us so far. More to come on our excellent friends.

Second, keep an eye out on the recipes pages, where copies/links of all the great (and not so great) things we make and like and come with will be cataloged. We'll get it cleaned up and cross referenced soon.

And lastly, I wanted to point you at a couple excellent places in particular:

Brussel Sprouts Can Be Good?

This is what I discovered when I was out at Avalon Restaurant last winter. Of course, the brussel sprouts were fried, which in my mind equals delicious, but still, I was surprised. Recently, I tried to make them at home with very tasty results. The recipe is simple enough that even Brian could handle it, without burning the house down this time. It has replaced asparagus as my go-to side vegetable. Seriously, check out how easy this recipe is below.

I know, I know, they look kinda ugly, but try them and you won't be sorry!

Thanks to Amanda for the Sweet Logo

Pie-centric restaurants: I'm drooling already!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/dining/17pies.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=dining

Almost Fish Tacos

So, while I feel like my first non-intro post should be about something either ball or pie related, the things that finally got me off my ass to get something on the web were the fish tacos I attempted to make yesterday. As it turned out, my surprisingly tasty whole wheat flax seed tortillas were moldy, but I was very pleased with the fish.

I used (and generally, unless I've really got myself together, I use whatever I've got around the house):

Mahi Mahi

Flour

Corn Meal

Black Pepper

Cajun Seasoning (Joe's stuff)

Cayenne Pepper

Olive Oil

Lemon Juice

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Kosher salt

Salt

Hot Sauce (Cholula Chili garlic, in this case)

Paprika

Chipotle Chili Powder

Also, I made tomato/onion based salsa, and some brown rice, which were fine, but nothing special, and probably easily replaced with your favorite fish taco toppings.

I cut the mahi into 7 strips - about 1/2" - 3/4" thick, and 3" long or so. 

For a fast marinade, I mixed about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil, with a couple tbsp lemon juice, and a tsp of hot sauce, then spiced with some liberally with chipotle chili powder, black pepper, pinch of kosher salt and just a bit of cajun seasoning. 

You may have figured out by now that I'm not real big on precise measurements.

After blending thoroughly with a fork, I tossed the mahi strips in the marinade (just enough to cover the mahi strips with a nice layer), and let sit at room temperature for about 25 min.

Then, I made a  light dusting for the fish - 2 parts flour to 1 part cornmeal (just under a cup, total), with a couple tsps each cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, paprika and a pinch of salt. Each fish strip was taken from the marinade and rolled them through once to coat lightly. 

Lastly, I sauteed on both sides for about 3 minutes total (golden brown all around).

The results were surprisingly tasty - nice textured crust which complemented the spicy, slightly tart flavors underneath, and the firm, mild mahi that held up nicely. I got just a little hint of a saucy layer between the fish and crust, which was a nice surprise. Next time I try this, I might think about using a  little lighter fish like cod, and probably smaller pieces - to be a little more taco friendly. 

Welcome to Balls and Pie

So, welcome to Balls and Pie. If you're looking for what  interesting and exciting sites I can only imagine your unfiltered search engine pointed you at based on the title: sorry, we're a PG, food-only blog here. There's a story behind the name, which is probably only interesting to myself and my brother (hereafter referred to as Balls), but suffice it to say, we're particularly fond of food in ball and/or pie form, and the Balls and Pie venture has been percolating in some form or fashion for a few years now.

This is mostly a space to talk about food - making it or eating it, or whatever. I hope to see Balls and his lovely wife making an appearance, as well as an assortment of guest posters. We'll try to collect good (original) recipes easily available up here, and point you at our favorite meals out.

A bit about me: I love to eat, and I love to cook. I don't claim to be particularly good at the latter, but it's a lot of fun to try interesting things in the kitchen when I can find the time. Around the time I was old enough to be trusted in the kitchen, somebody sat me in front of the old Jenn-Air range with some raw tiger shrimp, Paul Prudhomme's Seafood Magic, and a pan - and have been going ever since. I own three cookbooks - Chef Paul Prudhomme's Lousiana Kitchen, Nobu: The Cookbook, and Michael Symon's Live to Cook, which probably tells you more about where I like to eat than what I cook. And do I expect anybody to really read this? Probably not, but it's fun for me, and will hopefully provide a good reference to my more successful experiments.