PetitChef... Another Foodblogging Community

Our networking has really picked up in the last few days since we joined Foodie Blogroll... Last night we were also approved for and listed on PetitChef, a French-based food blogger community as well. We've also started linking posts to Foodista.Com, so we're breaking out of our shell little by little. We look forward to further networking and more cooking posts once we get back home to Ohio this weekend!

Foodie Blogroll... A Legitimate Recognition of the C.C.?

You may have noticed a new addition to the blog of late (I'll give you a hint... it's in the sidebar and has a tomato on it).

We've been accepted, after undergoing a manual review process over the past few weeks, to be listed on the Foodie Blogroll. We've decided it would be nice to both network with other bloggers who share our interests and to see if we can't exchange some ideas along the way. If you're interested, check the new widget to look at some of the other blogs listed and to view current foodie-centric articles.

We hope you like the network and look forward to exploring it ourselves!

Where the Heck We Are

Howdy, guys.

So it's been a crazy few weeks lately... Torry, Matty and the rest of the family headed to Maine in early June, I headed to Missouri with Erin to do some mission work at a north St. Louis church for a few days, and we then proceeded to travel by way of Boston to now reside in northern Maine ourselves. It's been a lot of traveling but definitely a lot of excitement as well.

I must apologize, as a result, for the lack of entries you've seen lately. I've been on the road, Deering's been working in his chef-ly capacities, and Matty, well, Matty hasn't done much to be honest. I'll get on him about that.

The good news is that we haven't been totally useless... we have been cooking pretty regularly and have a few entries in the works - we simply haven't written them up. I'll hold up my end and write about the stuffed peppers Erin and I made and I know Deering will be writing about a surf and turf creation soon, anyhow.

In the meantime, I am currently working on making possibly our favorite, definitely our most re-created dish so far... the brussel sprouts that don't suck currently. They've been widely successful whenever we have served them in the past... today (being Independence Day - Go USA!!) we will be sharing them for the first time with the members of my mother's side of the family that live here in Maine during our July 4th celebrations. I have no doubts it will be a shockingly different taste for some... even if they don't enjoy them, however, I know I will *shrug*.

Thanks for bearing with us through the tumultuous last few weeks... we'll get back on the writing horse and not get TOO comfy during our vacation. Happy 4th of July!

Maintenance

Hey all.

You may have noted we haven't been around and that our blog template (again) took a plunge into the abyss and the site has been a wreck lately... hence the change in the way things look around here.

We think we've fixed everything, but Blogger has undergone some changes of late that ought to give us more leniency with multiple pages, profiles, and so forth. We're still exploring these changes may continue to be tweaked for a few days yet... we'll see. Thanks for your patience while we've battled through our technical ineptitude.

The good news is that Matty (finally) has something French to share with you! Standby...

~ Luke

What an Incredible Smell You've Discovered!

Never ever EVER volunteer to help clean refrigerators. Especially ones with vacuum condensers.

Fried K-sausage?

This, my friends, is my first post as a legitimate Conquistador but some of you may remember me as the man who brought you the "This Salad Don't Run" Hotdog Salad. Ironically enough, my first real project, a sort of impromptu idea as most all of our ideas are, again dealt with completely processed beef, prepared in a pan with the potentiality for usage on a grill. It was not complicated. It was not very unique. In general, it was not very great. Unless you really like hotdogs and want to try something different from your average cylinder of packed meat. We took a large roll of Hebrew National "Beef Salami", which was much more like Hebrew National "Processed Balogna", and decided that it was pretty bad so why not fry it?

We took an adorable little egg pan, put a slab of regular butter in it on the stove on medium to high temperature, and threw a piece of this salami on top. Within minutes, it began to brown a bit and smell a whole lot like a hotdog. After flipping a few times, it was done and ready to be tried. In my opinion, it was really just a big slice of hotdog with much more of a salty and flavorful nature than your average ball park frank. The salty nature of this food becomes an issue though, as in recent news, sodium has been under attack by health experts as one of the major factors which makes the childhood obesity (and adulthood obesity rate for that matter) constantly on the rise in America. In today's issue of TIME magazine, I came across the statistic that a single Hebrew National Jumbo hotdog will take up over 1/3 of the recommended daily value of sodium of an average person, at just over 2,300mg per dog. Really, the fact that I noticed a definite increase in sodium taste, which makes this slab of meat much more delicious than if it were not packed with salt, just makes this dish one more fatty snack to try. In general, not amazing. Just a fat hotdog. mmm.

Culinary Conquistagloriousalsa!

Since it would have been entirely too convenient for me to share a Cinco-de-Mayo-related recipe with you before the holiday had come and gone, today I'm going to fill you in on how I celebrated on Wednesday and how our most recent culinary endeavor played into the festivities.

As you may or may not know, next Friday is my last day at the P.R. firm at which I have been interning since the beginning of the year. I've learned much more than I've earned, but I've had a great experience and am definitely coming out of the internship with a good bit of personal and professional development to show for it. It'll be a sad change in a lot of ways, but once you know that you are not going to be hired for financial reasons, it is time to move on.

Anyway, Wednesday (Cinco-de-Mayo) was the day of the Third Annual Salsa Challenge at the firm and I got talked into competing. I have never made salsa before, thus it seemed like a perfect challenge for a Culinary Conquistador... I couldn't just be that guy with a food blog who decided he didn't feel like competing.

In true last minute fashion, I went to my golf lesson on Tuesday at 7pm (realizing upon my arrival that they had scheduled me incorrectly and thus I ended up practicing on my own for a while) and then headed on to Heinen's at 8pm. Armed with a recipe which I had apparently cut out of a 2007 Gentleman's Quarterly issue and stuck in a cookbook, I was about to gather up the required fresh ingredients (plus a few additives of my own) and make it out before the store closed at 8:30.

When the GQ recipe page fell out of the cookbook that my mother was reference, I was excited for two reasons. First, I've generally had good luck with GQ-originating recipes in the past. Secondly, I thought to myself, "boy, writing this blog post ought to be easy... I can totally find it online and not have to type it all up!"

Guess I was wrong on the latter part.

For whatever reason, like a ghost-riding phantom drifting across the Mexican border to impart delicious, cryptic, tomato-centric knowledge upon me only to disappear forever into the sunset, I should have known that I'd never see so much as a mention of the recipe after the fact.

Well, alright, maybe that would have been a stretch. Regardless, I  have the original page of the bygone magazine issue and thus with a little extra effort can still relate to you the steps I took to make our salsa.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Roasted-Tomato Salsa" modified to become...
THE CULINARY CONQUISTAGLORIOUSALSA!

Serves four to six (if that is all you're eating)

Ingredients

• ~1 pound of on-the-vine tomatoes, cored
• 2 Kumato tomatoes (they are brownish in color)
• 6 Campari tomatoes (smaller, but larger than cherry tomatoes)
• 3/4 lb. of tomatillos
• 8 serrano chillies, stems removed
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (plus a little extra)
• Salt
• Sugar
• 1/4 white onion, chipped
• Handful of cilantro, stemmed and chopped
• 1 lime

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Toss tomatoes (all) tomatillos, chilies, garlic, and sliced (red) onion with a small amount of oil in a roasting pan, season with salt, and then roast until soft and wilted (about 30-45 minutes... check @ 30 min). If you want a bit of char on the vegetables for added flavor (you do), roast the tomatoes, tomatillos, and chilies in sperate pans over high heat before placing them in the oven.

3. Once the ingredients are roasted (again, they should be soft and somewhat wilted), let them cool a bit then puree in a food processor, slowly adding the 1/2 cup of oil. This will help to emulsify the salsa. Season to taste with salt and a pinch or two of sugar (I went heavier on the salt as I like the taste).

4. Mix in the chopped raw (white) onion and cilantro. Cut your lime in half, juicing half and mixing the juice in with the salsa. Cut the other half into 6 wedges (see picture) to be used by individuals who may want to further flavor their salsa... besides, it looks cool as a colorful decoration.

5. Serve with warm tortillas or good-quality tortilla chips. Preferably cold beer or margaritas as well.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And that's what I did. It took a while... it was a bit more... viscous than anticipated and was also orange vs. the red salsa in the picture for one reason or another. The taste, which was the important part, was great.

The office shut down at 4pm on Wednesday and the "Creative Team" area became a Mexican eatery. We ended up having 13 entries in the competition and Lisa's husband came and tended bar with top shelf tequila-made margaritas and Coronas. It was a blast; all of the salsas were very different (ranging from chunky mango ones to smoky fine chipotle blends) but all very good. Everyone had a chance to submit one vote for their favorite of the thirteen... I'd say 25-30 folks voted.

The Culinary Conquistagloriousalsa did receive a couple votes for best salsa, however the top award went to a woman named Kris who used special smoked peppers from a brother-in-law in Arizona and herbs she'd grown in her own garden. Where my salsa was orange, hers was a deep brown and tasted as smoky as it looked. It deserved the win... and the festive giant chili pepper plate that went with the title.

Looking at my salsa, I have to say I was pretty happy with the results. I'll warn you now that it is pretty spicy... serrano peppers are up there in the heat index. Not TOO spicy; some sauces or chilies that I've had over the years leave a lingering, hurt-your-tongue burn. This chili has a crescendoing heat effect... You eat some and feel nothing at first, slowly gaining a "kick" over the first 15 seconds or so. The spiciness lingers for a minute or two, but recedes as quickly as it came. I nice touch, but nothing to lament afterward.

The taste was interesting. While the texture may have been less "meaty" than I had expected, the salsa was full of flavor and complexity. Everyone was very complimentary of it while sampling all the salsas, and Matty / the rest of our family was quite impressed when they tried it the next day.

In the end, I am glad that I competed. It was a chance to make a vegetable-only dish, use the freshest of ingredients, and come out with a big success on the first try. If you're looking to try your hand at a from-scratch salsa anytime soon, give strong consideration to the Culinary Conquistagloriousalsa.