Great Food 360° Featured on Univision

Our good friends at Great Food 360° were recently featured on Univision! Take a look below (roughly at 2:16). Nicely done, Adriana!

Patatas Bravas

About 15 years ago, I was fortunate to spend a good chunk of time eating in Spain - from Barcelona down the Costa del sol to Granada, and then inland up to Madrid. You can do pretty well in the US, too. Spanish cuisine is pretty great, in my opinion, and tapas (their small plate/appetizery dishes) are among my favorite foods. Given that these are often salty foods seasoned liberally with garlic, paprika, cumin and olive oil, I guess it shouldn't surprise any one. For my final meat-free dish, I'd been planning to recreate a couple of my favorites - gambas al ajillo (shrimp in a garlic sauce) and patatas bravas. I ended up with an amazing garlic sauce complementing badly overcooked shrimp, and a pretty funky oily potato mush with gross sauce. Not our finest hour here at B&P HQ. We remain undeterred by failure here (mostly because we fail a lot), and gave the patatas bravas another go. Also, after some travel, I had potatoes, onions, goya chorizo, and canned tomatoes in my kitchen, and not much else.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody! Hope you're all looking forward to a sweet 5772!

Crab Tater Tots!

In the final days of our Meat Hiatus, my office hosted a pot-luck lunch in honor of an associate expecting her first child. This is always pretty awesome, because in our research-based setting, we've people from a diverse selection of cultures - and everybody does a pretty good job. I usually make meat, and when pressed to volunteer a dish, I promised crab cakes. I'd ever actually made crab before, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. So, I decided to refer back to my cookbooks for some ideas, and the only one I had available electronically was Michael Symon's Live to Cook. Lo and behold, there was a recipe for something called "Crab Tater Tots." I was sold.

Smoked Brisket! Pastrami!

As you may recall, one of the first things I'd planned to do post meat hiatus was test out my stove-top smoker with a pork butt or brisket. And true to my word, the first chance I got, I picked up brisket to get started. Unfortunately, that first chance I got was late night at the end of  a long round trip drive to Motown immediately following from a weeklong conference. I was tired. I was a little surprised to discover the next morning that I had picked up a corned beef brisket.

Oops.

Then it occurred to me: When you smoke corned beef, you get pastrami. I can work with pastrami.

French Fridays with Dorie – Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar | Great Food 360°

French Fridays with Dorie – Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar | Great Food 360°

So, our good friend Adriana at Great Food 360° is a member of French Fridays with Dorrie - a group of intrepid food bloggers cooking their way through Dorrie Greenspan's Around My French Table. Each Friday, they post their interpretation of that week's recipe. As it happens, this week's recipe was Salmon and Potatoes in a jar - fitting in nicely with the B&P Meat Hiatus. Adriana asked if I'd like to fill in, and I happily obliged. How did I do?

Well, go take a look!

Smoked Shrimp

After my first experiment with my stovetop smoker was successful, I've been searching for new and exciting things to use it with for the duration of my meat hiatus (1 week left, for those who are counting). As it turns out, people have tried to smoke pretty much everything. As it also turns out, shrimp work pretty well. I wouldn't have expected this - shrimp cook quickly, and smoking is a famously  "slow and low" cooking method. But after doing a little digging, I found an interesting looking preparation apparently used by the Taco Sisters of Lafayette, LA. After giving this a shot, I'll be sure to drop in next time I find myself by Lafayette.