A Tale of Two Clubs

I.
Behind its back, my Book Club is referred to, disparagingly, as "Wine Club."
It's true, there is wine...but there is also food and lovely ladies and excellent conversation and most importantly, there is the book - the book we devotedly read and discuss for hours. (Or minutes, depending on the book.) We started meeting for our book club over three and a half years ago, and in that time we've read over forty books together, eaten more than our fair share of crackers and cheeses and tried out countless recipes with each other as guinea pigs.
Food for book club ranges from pre-made to homemade, with a few freshly opened bags of candy and soy crisps thrown in for good measure. I take a ridiculously serious approach to it, thinking about what I'll bring nearly a week ahead of time. The pressure is always self-imposed, however, as the ladies don't care who brings what, as long as there is enough food and, of course, bottles (or boxes) of wine. I've made cheese puffs stuffed with olives, cheese balls, meatballs, more dips than I can count on all my fingers and toes, focaccia, flat bread pizzas, and tapenades.
This month we read The Sea by John Banville and munched on an impressive spread of fruit, vegetables, dips, cookies, and salty things. E baked wonton cups and scooped black bean salsa and a little sour cream into each one. J threw together a yummy crab dip. My offering was like a pimento cheese, but spicy - served with blue corn chips. It was another awesome evening.

Cold Cheese Dip

1 lb sharp cheddar cheese
2 c. light mayo
2 T. chopped chipotles in adobo
1/3 c. fresh jalapenos, seeded & diced
1/2 c. pickled jalapenos or banana peppers, diced
1 8 oz jar pimentos, drained
1/2 cup scallions or red onion, diced

Mix together cheese and mayo until creamy. Fold in remaining ingredients. When well-combined, cover & refrigerate for at least two hours. Overnight is best. Serve chilled with tortilla chips.

II.
Awesome would be one way to describe Bacon Club. Artery-clogging would be another.
After discussing it for close to a year, the men in our group decided that it was about time they started a club of their own. The focus was clear from the beginning: bacon. They split the cost of membership to the Bacon of the Month Club, which makes them the proud recipients, each month, of two pounds of artisan bacon - with varieties like garlic (ten cloves!), dry cured, honey smoked, honey sea-salt cured, and more to come. Being the true bacon devotees that they all are - the two pounds of bacon is not nearly enough. They buy more bacon, regular old grocery store bacon, and throw together bacon-inspired entrees and appetizers. Pasta carbonara. Smoked bacon-wrapped goat cheese jalapeno poppers. Candied bacon. The favorite to date, however, has to be Paula Deen's Bacon Crisps. Club crackers, topped with cheese , and wrapped with bacon? Oh, yes. Most definitely.

Paula Deen's Bacon Crisps
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan
1 sleeve Club crackers
1 lb. sliced bacon, cut in half

Place 1 tsp of the cheese on each cracker and wrap tightly with a strip of bacon. Place the wrapped crackers on a broiler rack on a baking sheet and put the baking sheets on the oven rack. Bake for 2 hours at 250 degrees. Do not turn. Drain on paper towels.

If you're in a hurry, you can bake them at 350 degrees for 40 min.

Present

If you haven't signed up yet for Present Magazine to be delivered to you via email, this is as good an opportunity as any to do so.

psssst....while you're there, check out my contribution to the September issue! it's beeriffic!

Cheddar Dill Scones

Cheddar Dill Scones
Originally uploaded by noodletown.

The weather is turning cooler, so I'm thinking quite a bit about breads and baking and my general aversion to baking things that aren't cookies or brownies. I've decided to risk failure and bake - bake things that I've always wanted to bake, but things I've just not quite gotten around to yet. Tarts. Scones. Biscuits. Really flaky piecrusts. Croissants.
This morning I tackled a scone recipe that I've been deliciously savoring for, um...seven years. They were my ideal scone, in theory - a little cheesy, studded with fresh herbs, and perfectly flaky. They were a little challenging today, with the humidity, but I know the importance of cold butter in flaky baked goods, so I just kept things refrigerated until needed.
These are the Cheddar-Dill Scones from the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. They taste as good as they look.

Cheddar-Dill Scones
4 c. (plus 1 T.) all-purpose flour
2 T. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
3/4 lb. cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 c. cold heavy cream
1/2 lb. extra sharp cheddar, small-diced
1 c. minced fresh dill
1 egg, beaten with 1 T. water or milk, for egg wash

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine 4 c. of flour, baking powder & salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add butter and mix on low, until the butter is in pea-sized pieces. Mix the eggs & heavy cream together & quickly add them to the flour & butter mixture. Combine until just blended. Toss together the cheese, dill & 1 T. of flour - then add to the dough & mix until they are almost incorporated.
Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead for 1 minute, until the cheddar and dill are well distributed. Roll the dough 3/4 inch thick, cut into 4 inch squares, and then in half diagonally to make triangles. Brush the tops with the egg wash. Bake on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, until the outside is crusty and the inside is fully baked.

Teocali

Some of my very best lunches end up being ones I didn't intend on having. The lunch I was supposed to have today involved You Say Tomato at 28th & Holmes, but on Fridays no one should allow me to drive anywhere because I'm distracted and ready for a nap and bound to turn a full three blocks before I am required to. This distracted miscalculation brought us to 25th and Holmes where we saw that Teocali didn't look too busy. We'd been meaning to eat there eventually, so, figuring this to be just another happy accident, I hurried up and parked before we ended up in Gladstone or on the moon or something.
Teocali is a great little mexican place in one of my favorite areas of the city. The exterior of the restaurant is bright and welcoming, and the inside, while small, is very clean, well decorated, and open. Lunch prices are exceedingly reasonable - ranging from $4.99 to $7.99. And while I normally resent having to pay for chips and salsa, they were so fresh and the salsa was actually spicy, so it made the $1.99 price tag seem like no big deal. The Sopes (little masa patties) were topped with refried beans, shredded white meat chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream. The Sincronizada was like a ham and monterey jack quesadilla, smothered with a tomato sauce that had a sweet and savory bite to it. Both were served with rice and beans.
The next time we end up at Teocali I feel quite certain it will be because we're driving to Teocali...possibly for breakfast...maybe even tomorrow.


Teocali
2512 Holmes
816*221*4749
open Mon-Thurs 7am-10pm
Fri 7am-1:30am
Sat 10am-1:30am

Northward

Somehow, every year, we manage to be tied up in something the weekend of the Ethnic Enrichment Festival. This irritates me to no end, because it's a festival of food, for crying out loud. What could be more perfect than that?? One year we couldn't attend I managed to catch part of it on local television, which is the absolute worst way to experience a food festival, unless you attend the festival while fasting, which would just be plain stupid.
This year was no exception, with my cousin's wedding last weekend propelling us northward seven hours or so. The wedding itself was beautiful, with an outdoor reception overlooking the meeting of the St Croix and the Mississippi rivers from a hillside in Wisconsin - it was a perfectly clear and cool night with bright stars, an open bar, and a beautiful chocolate cake.
While up North, we got a chance to visit my Aunt's cafe and wine bar in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. Marine is a perfectly charming little town right along the river where we would always stop for ice cream when I was a little girl. My Aunt is a co-owner of the most lovely and relaxed little spot - a spot where locals stop to talk and drink strong coffee and eat freshly baked pastries. We had little individual hash brown quiches with slices of banana bread and fresh fruit with big cups of hot coffee. When we left she fixed us mango guava smoothies to go, which put each and every one of my smoothie attempts to shame. They were amazing.
We bought flowers, kohlrabi, onions, and tomatoes at the local outdoor market, and stopped in at the General Store for their freshly baked bread. The loaf of sauerkraut rye was pungent and perfectly soft. The car still smells like sauerkraut rye, so I guess I had a good food weekend after all.

Record Bar

We go to the Record Bar for the music, not the food, as I am usually not one to mix my drinking establishments with my eating establishments. It seems like when I go out with friends, we typically hit places where the food is horrific at best, merely passable at least. McCoy's Public House is the bright shining exception to that rule - and I guess the exception list just doubled now that I've had pizza at the Record Bar.
The pizza was a do-it-yourself affair, with a great list of ingredients that you can apply to making your own antipasti platter, sandwich, pasta, or pizza. Of course, there are three pizzas on the menu to choose from, if you're more comfortable leaving your choices up to someone else, but with ingredients like capicola, gongonzola, or pepperoncinis...you might as well get creative.
The '45s are the perfect size for one, and mine - with grilled chicken, pepperoncinis, and red onion, was loaded with ingredients on an excellently chewy and flavorful crust. Try it out on a Tuesday night, when they have the Honky Tonk Supper Club with Rex Hobart, which starts at 7.

Record Bar
1020 Westport Road
816*753*5207

Sloppy, but tasty.

In celebration of the heat receding a bit, we had something for dinner that was not a salad! Gasp! Okay, we did still serve a little broccoli salad on the side, but the main dish was warm! It required cooking, for which I am ever-so-thankful.

I tinkered around with some sloppy joe-type recipes last fall and came up with one I'm really happy with. The leftovers are especially good on a hot baked potato in the fall, but I enjoyed mine tonight on a soft bun. It was eaten right out on my back deck, where I did not melt into a giant puddle. Fall is approaching. I am celebrating with a messy meat sandwich.

Sloppy Turkey

1 lb. ground turkey
1 large yellow onion, small diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. paprika
2 T. grill seasoning (we use Stubb's Chile Lime spice rub)
1/4 c. fresh chopped parsley
black pepper to taste
for sauce:
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
2 T. worcestershire sauce
2 T. spicy mustard
2 generous pinches brown sugar
1 T. hot sauce (or more, to taste)

Brown 1 lb ground turkey (also good with chicken) in a large pan for 5-6 minutes over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, paprika, freshly ground black pepper, and grill seasoning and cook until meat is fully browned.
In a small bowl, whisk together ingredients for sauce. Pour sauce over browned meat, stir in with fresh chopped parsley and cover, allowing meat and sauce to lightly simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Scoop over soft rolls and serve.

Fervere

fervere
Originally uploaded by noodletown.

We had a very food-centered Saturday, starting at the Bluebird for breafast and ending at Tarantino's for calzones. Those places all by themselves are entries for another day, because today I'm enjoying the cheese slipper we bought at Fervere.
It's not greasy like other cheese breads, and it isn't overwhelmingly cheesy - instead it's like the perfect marriage of cheese and bread - soft, chewy and slightly salty. I've brought home the orchard bread, fat with dried fruits, and the polenta bread, which had the best texture, but you can go and try for yourself all the available varieties from the generously cut samples on the counter. There's even olive oil for dipping.

Fervere
1702 Summit
Thursdays & Fridays, open 11 to 7 (or until sell out)
Saturdays, open 9:30 to 7 (or until sell out)

Limoncello

10 lemons worth of peels makes for something beautiful, summery, and yellow. And letting those beautiful peels flavor vodka for a couple of weeks is truly worth the wait.
We saw Giada make this on the food network last year, and she charmed us right into it. It is delicious ice cold in a highball glass in your backyard. Do you have a porch swing or a hammock? Any comfortable chair will do, but go ahead and pull it under your umbrella. It's hot outside.

Limoncello

10-12 lemons
1 (750-ml) bottle vodka
3 1/2 c water
2 1/2 c superfine sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the peel from the lemons in long strips (reserve the lemons). Using a small sharp knife, trim away the white pith from the lemon peels; discard the pith. Place the lemon peels in a 2-quart pitcher. Pour the vodka over the peels and cover with plastic wrap. Steep the lemon peels in the vodka for 4 days (or longer) at room temperature.

After four days, stir the water and sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Cool completely. Pour the sugar syrup over the vodka mixture. Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight. Strain the limoncello through a mesh strainer, discard the peels, and transfer the limoncello to bottles. Seal the bottles and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours and up to 1 month.

I Scream

From the summer of ice cream (2006), I have the following recommendations.
(I've been doing my best to try to step away quietly from the Chocolate Flake Fromage, which I may have been addicted to.)

Four flavors you should absolutely try without hesitation when you go to Murray's Ice Cream:

Honey Ginger
Cinnamon Graham Cracker
Grape Nuts
Zabajone (egg, honey, spices, wine)

Maui Express

In an attempt to try to eat in Johnson County at least once in a while, I tried Maui Express last week. I'm normally leery of eating at establishments that leave coupons on my car, but I've been doing lots of things that are outside my comfort zone lately (filling in on the Walt Bodine Show, appearing in the Star...), so I figured that one more thing really wasn't going to hurt. I'm slowly discovering that my comfort zone is not really the most exciting place to be.
Maui Express was completely empty at 8:20 on a Thursday, but the food was made fresh and the service was still cheerful. At the counter, we ordered Teriyaki Chicken (with the spicy house-made teriyaki sauce, rather than the mild) on noodles and Teriyaki Beef on steamed white rice. The meats were tender and grilled, the vegetables were still pleasingly crisp, and they had Sriracha sauce on the front counter to pump up the spice a bit. The Maui Roll was like grocery store sushi but ice-cold and served with a wasabi soy sauce. The food was quick, healthy, and very tasty.

Maui Express
8750 Santa Fe Dr in Overland Park
913*649*6284

Alton Brown

I have a giant foodnerd crush on Alton Brown.
I can't help it. I know he has his detractors, for being anal-retentive, for endlessly overanalyzing recipes and food and the how and where and why of everything, but I love his enthusiasm and I learn something new absolutely every time I watch him. We caught up on his new four-part series on the Food Network tonight (Feasting on Asphalt) and I was pretty much glued to the couch for two straight hours. The rules of his cross-country trip (starting in South Carolina, ending in California) included no travel on major interstates, no chain restaurants, and no whining.
They got to St. Louis at the end of the second episode, visiting Ted Drewes Custard, but KC, unfortunately, was not on the coast-to-coast itinerary. It started me thinking, though - what are our best road food establishments? Sedalia has the Wheel Inn (home of the Gooberburger)...I thought of Harold's, but it isn't on a highway...any ideas?

The Recipe for Cool, part deux

I must add to the list:
Paleteria Chihuahua
7769 Quivira in Lenexa

So many tasty flavors to try - I went out on a limb with the Tamarind-Chile Fruit Bar.
It was...interesting. Unique. Not for the faint of heart. Good.

Thanks, Kara, for the recommendation!!

Death by Salad

So aside from the copious amounts of frozen treats that I've been ingesting, I decided to try out a new salad dressing. Helpfully, my new Cooking Light arrived this week and gave me some inspiration.
The salad itself was basic - we tinkered with the recipe and came up with something easy using lots of fresh ingredients from the market, a can of black beans, and the leftovers of a rotisserie chicken. We lined the bowls with smashed bits of tostadas and then layered on the dressing, which I decided hadn't been hot enough in the initial recipe. The dressing itself was a whisked-together affair of light sour cream, lime juice, chile powder (I used chipotle chile powder from Planter's), cumin, fresh chopped cilantro, salt, and pepper. Oh wait - I forgot the chipotles themselves. The recipe called for one, small diced, but I added two. Two big ones. We like heat, and sweat cools you down, right?? I had yet to add chipotle peppers to a recipe and regret my decision.
As we started to sweat through dinner, I had lots of time to rethink my tinkering. It was nearly inedible. Delicious, but painful...like when you order the Vindaloo from a curry shop and keep thinking: I'll eventually get used to it. It's just too tasty to stop eating.

It was nearly the death of me, this salad. But doesn't it look pretty??

The Recipe for Cool

It's just too hot to do anything but eat popsicles and drink lots and lots of ice water. I've been stockpiling Edy's Frozen Fruit Bars in Lime and Lemonade flavors. Here, to help you cool off, are FIVE excellent places (in no particular order) for frozen treats for when your brain starts to feel melty...

Murray's Ice Cream and Cookies
4120 Pennsylvania
816*931*5646

Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard
6235 Brookside Blvd
816*523*2520

Paleteria Tropicana
830 Southwest Blvd
816*221*0192

Balsano's Gelato Cafe
428 Ward Parkway
816*931*4010

Sheridan's Frozen Custard
Locations all over metro area...