Shower Time!

Saturday was exhausting! I think I am still recuperating!
The big hit of the day was the cake, made by a friend of mine. Isn't it amazing?
Next up was the BL-Tea Sandwiches. I'll post the recipe at the bottom.


Look at the detail. You can see the stitching.


Yum-Sangria! Hiccup. I may have gotten a bit buzzed at the shower--that's a first for me!


The fruit bouquet my boyfriend got for the occasion. Awesome!
BL-Tea sandwiches. Half on marlbe rye and half on mini-wheat.

Cucumber sandwiches in the middle and chicken salad on the sides. I was disappointed in my chicken salad. I think I've lost my touch.

The other punch--orange-y, pineapple-y. I bet it's good with vodka.


Tortilla roll-ups

And the recipe, with my edits in red.

B-L-Tea Sandwiches

1 1/2 pounds of thick-sliced hickory-smoked peppered bacon (I didn't use peppered bacon. I used thick cut though and made more like 2.5 lbs)

24 (4 ounces) sun-dried tomatoes (I used a 16 oz. jar of tomatoes packed in oil, drained and patted as dry as possible. I then didn't have to soak them in hot water because they were already nice and soft).

1 cup homemade or prepared mayonnaise (yeah, I don't do the homemade!)

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

24 1/4-inch-thick slices of rye bread

6 ounces lamb's lettuce (mache) or other baby lettuce leaves, enough to make about 2 loosely packed cups

1. Heat the oven to 375F with the rack in the center. Arrange the bacon strips in a single layer without touching on 2 baking sheets and bake, one at a time, in the oven for 10 minutes each. Remove and drain off the fat.Continue to bake until the bacon is crisp, another 10 minutes. Drain and let cool on paper towels. Crumble the bacon into small pieces, about 1/2-inch each. Set aside.
I cooked it in my cast iron stove top in 3-4 batches. I cut it up before hand too.

2. Meanwhile, heat 3 cups of water in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Place the sun0dreid tomatoes in a medium bowl and cover wih the very hot water. Allow the tomatoes to soak until they are soft, about 20 minutes. Drain, pat dry, and finely chop. Combine the tomatoes and the mayonnaise. Season generously with salt and pepper. (Hmmmm....think I forgot to add salt or pepper. Oops.)

3. Spread each bread slice with the mayonnaise mixture. Generously sprinkle half the bread slices with the bacon. Arrange the mache over the bacon, sprinkle with pepper, and top with the remaining bread. trim the crust. Slice each in half and serve. (oops. I only put the mayo mixture on one side of the bread. Like it matters :-) )

Makes 2 dozen.

From Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook (Clarkson Potter, 1999)

Beavers Bend Restaurant

This restaurant was located off of 259A----somewhere. It's a loop. If you enter the north loop of 259A, you make 3 left turns and you'll see the restaurant. Just keep turning left as you can.
It's on the river south of the dam of Lake Broken Bow. Beautiful area. It was a little to chilly to sit outside, but we tried. We lasted for about 10 minutes. Long enough for a little squirrel to come check us out and see if we had any food to share. We didn't at that point.

The view from outside.


Anyhow, we were the only people in there, though it was a little early.
We both ordered the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a salad. Yeah, and you've heard me complain about putting on a few lbs. with so much travel recently? I wonder why? That is something I rarely eat, so will order it every now and again. Unfortunately, it's been years since I've had any as good as my own. Unfortunately, I never make it anymore because of a) guilt because I SEE how it's made firsthand and b) I make the world's messiest kitchen when I make CFS. No really. I do. Flour EVERYWHERE. Grease splatters. Ugh.
Anyhow. I think I will just refrain from ever ordering it again, unless I am at the Del Rancho. It's just not worth it if it's not super- super- better- than- mine- good. And it's not. Ever. And this one was about $12. It wasn't really crispy. It wasn't hand battered at least 2 times like I like it. It was OK, but. . . not all that.

Oh, we also each had an order of cake to go. It was homemade and it WAS worth a trip back. Hummingbird Cake, made by grandma. It had pecans, bananas, cream cheese frosting, 3 layers. Yeah, good stuff.

Here's a branch of the river downstream a little bit.

Banh Mi

What do you get when French cuisine collides with Vietnamese? You get Banh Mi--Vietnamese sandwiches and we have a great place for them in OKC! For those of you out there familiar with the Asian district in OKC, Saigon Baguette (Banh Mi Ba Le) is the sandwich shop underneath the Braum's milk bottle on Classen.

The sandwich is comprised of pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro sprigs, sliced jalapeno chiles, pate, and pork or chicken. I had the #1--with everything. This sandwich, with tax, is $2! How amazing is that? I shared it with a coworker. It was plenty for 2. Granted, it's not stuffed full of meat like many American style sandwiches, but it was just enough.

Another one of my new favorites are Vietnamese style spring rolls with peanut sauce. They are awesome! So fresh tasting and light. They had these by the checkout stand, so I had to buy them. I think they were $3. I ate one and shared the others and converted some coworkers with my "weird" food.

Saigon Baguette features six versions, including one with the traditional pate. But don’t think deviled ham; the pate is more akin to thin-sliced bologna. Other fillings include chicken and pork either barbecued, sliced, grilled or in meatball form. Not on the menu but available is an all-vegetable version.

Catching Up!

I am so far behind! I have so many places to blog about, so little time. I really can't remember who I need to blog about next. I think I'll just do one big post on my Broken Bow trip last week. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

So my coworker and I headed to Papa Poblano's for dinner the afternoon we arrived (that is, after getting some wine at Girls Gone Wine winery). She had the tacos al carbon; I had the carne asada. Their salsa is a simple one with just tomatoes, peppers, salt and maybe a touch of onion. We got some white queso and it was Oh so good.


My carna asada. It tasted good, but the very thinly sliced meat was overdone so the texture was akin to beef jerky. Not quite what I had in mind. I was jealous of my friend's al pastor.


McCurtain County (a large county in the southeastern corner of the state) is a dry county. This means no liquor can be served in restaurants. For shame, right? I had to explain this to my coworker, as I grew up in a dry county. So instead of a good margarita, we both had a tecate in a chilled glass with salt and lots of lime juice. So refreshing! The decor of this place was cute and lively.


I was in town by myself the next night, so guess what I had? Yes, I could not get the tacos al pastor out of my mind, so I went back for another beer and a meal by myself. I actually only ate one taco and saved the rest for lunch the next day. If I go back to this place, this is what I'll get. Simply flavorful, spicy pork, garnished with onions, tomatoes, and cilantro and a bit of lime on home made corn tortillas. Simple. Delish. For a while, I have been "sick" of Mexican food. It just doesn't appeal to me like it used to. However, I think I've realized I'm not a fan of the Americanized Mexican food--the enchiladas heavy with cheese and sauces, the fried things, the gobs of rice and beans. I like simplicity. Even with this meal, I could do w/o the rice and beans. Just give me some flavorful, tender meat on a tortilla and garnish it with fresh veggies and I am a happy girl.

Dallas Wrap-up

OK, I need to get the Dallas trip wrapped up, because I have SOOO many other interesting things (OK, I realize that is completely debatable) to blog about.

After the Hong Kong Market, we headed further north to have some dumplings. YUM! Jeng Chi, in an Asian themed strip mall on Greenville in Richardson was recommended to us by my long time Tish. She told us exactly what to order, and I'm glad we listened though we were both so stuffed! We had hot juicy dumplings, potstickers, green onion pancakes, and the big hit--snow pea shoots! The shoots were bright green, tender, cooked in a bit of garlic and delectable! Everything else was good as well, but we just scarfed the green stuff down!

We also checked out some interesting stores in the strip mall. I got some bamboo cheap. Anna picked up some little cat figurines (for which I'm sure there is a proper name, but I'm unaware of). We also saw a Japanese book store that also had a porn selection! We didn't check any of that out though. LOL.

Next up was Central Market, complete with live music!



On a Saturday late afternoon. Yes, we are brave. I love that store. The produce is heavenly. The fresh meats are inspiring (though because of the distance to travel, we didn't get any). I stocked up (haha, understatement) on my beloved tiramisu cordials. They are my big vice, and probably a huge reason I feel like I've gained 5 lbs since that Dallas trip! Haha. My other favorite CM staples are the flour tortillas, olives, their own brand of olive oil, and the bulk food section.

Anna was ready to check out and get her goodies HOME.


Oh, and you have to love cut-outs of bunnies sniffing arses. At least that's what WE saw when we looked at this, so of course I had to get a picture!




We're already talking about the next time....

I love this artwork that was near the check-out. So colorful!


After this stop, we hit one final Asian store in Plano just off of Legacy before coming home. We got home at midnight. A full day--but so much fun!

Some interesting things at the last store follow.

Fruit flavored beef jerky? That just doesn't appeal. At. All.

And tongue flavored cookies? Wow. Maybe next time I make cookies. . .
Various fun treats

A Brief Interupption

I'll do the concluding post of the Dallas Road Trip soon, as well as some reviews on my recent work trip.
For now, I want to share some photos from the Medieval Fair held every year here in town. It's....interesting. Enjoy the pics!
Because there are so many pics, I made them smaller...so if you want the full thing, just click on them.

WHY?

Nice. I love the tail.

I always wanted to wear wings. Maybe I'll try this next year.

She was holding the child earlier. Brave mama!

A joust!

Are those....mouse ears?

Dancers

She looks deep in thought.

The duck is wearing a diaper.

Bridges of McCurtain County (and Pushmataha)

I'll finish the details of my Dallas road trip this weekend. For now, I'm tired. Here are some pictures from my most recent road trip to SE Oklahoma for work.

My favorite: HW259 between Idabel and Broken Bow.

On the to Antlers on HW 3.
I think the next 2 were also on HW 3, but my memory is blurry as to exactly where.

I think bridges are kind of cool.

Our next stops

After our fantastic lunch at Café Madrid, we headed to Half-Price Books to browse a little before making another food stop. In Dallas, there is a HUGE one on NW Highway. It was super busy, and super overwhelming, but we managed to each get some good finds—Anna a bit more than I.

Love this display in the cooking area!

Cookbooks galore! My favorite (that I did NOT buy) was on marijuana cooking, complete with pictures. I had no idea the things you could do . . .



We then headed to Hong Kong Market, near Walnut and Audelia. Next to Hong Kong Market was a super busy (Americanized in the mass production concept) café that sold bubble tea. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting. I’ve had bubble tea before and this was more like a smoothie. At any rate, I like it for the tapioca “bubbles” that float in the tea.





We also noticed an interesting store that said "Herbs" so decided to check it out. We walked in...and it was dark, a bit musty, and appeared to be more of an Asian vitamin store. We spent about 60 seconds walking up and down the 2 aisles and then left. Can you say awkward?

The Market itself was super busy. Unlike the café, we weren’t the only light skinned folks there. I picked up some good finds—what I’m most excited about using are some green tea noodles. I have no idea what I’ll do with them, but I look forward to trying. I have almost 2 lbs. so there are plenty of noodles with which to experiment! I also picked up some essentials—tempura dipping sauce, green onions (.25 a bundle), udon noodles, and tapioca balls for my own bubble tea.

2nd Stop: Cafe Madrid

It was Anna's idea to eat appetizers at various places so we could eat more. With that in mind, I remembered my trip years ago to Cafe Madrid for tapas. I liked it, but never made it back. We arranged to meet my HS friend Tish there for lunch, and I'm oh so glad we did!


We each picked out 2 small plates and then we all shared. Everything was EXCELLENT. I so want to go back here!
We had white asparagus in a vinaigrette. How can you go wrong with asparagus?

And grilled marinated chicken. Yum.



And then the Andalucian Meatballs in Almond Sauce. I expected the sauce to be more flavorful. It was good, but pretty mild flavored. The meatballs were a blend of possibly pork and beef and maybe veal? We weren't sure, but we all enjoyed them.


This was easily my favorite. I forgot to take a picture before I got mine (a little over eager maybe?) Fried goat cheese with honey and caramelized onions. OH MY GOODNESS. Amazing. Really. I'm trying to figure out the "shell" on the goat cheese. I'm wondering if they weren't dredged in flour and then egg white and then flour again and lightly fried? It was a thin crispy coating, not heavy at all. Someone mention phyllo dough, but it was too perfect for that...I think it had to be dipped in something. At any rate, this is something I will recreate.
We each ate one, and then at the end when there was one serving of everything left, Tish said she thought the last piece needed to be split in half. I eagerly said I'd take the other half. Because we hogged the cheese, we let Anna have the last serving of chorizo in wine and garlic sauce, which was also very very good and probably my 2nd favorite item. We also had some papas fritas with a flavorful grated cheese on top. This was the perfect meal for a time we wanted sustenance, but didn't want to be miserable.

Now off to figure out how to do that amazing goat cheese. . .