Baguette House and Texas Bakery

My kitchen is a horror show.  It looks like a band of hooligans came in, cooked a bunch of stuff, and used all our dishes without cleaning anything up.  It turns out that this does not put me in the cooking mood.  I told Colby that we weren't eating at home tonight and we decided on Baguette House.  Baguette House serves up banh mi and an assortment of other Vietnamese dishes, including dessert.  It's seriously one of my favorite sandwiches in Austin and I don't know why we don't go there more often because it's criminally inexpensive as well.

grilled beef - $3.75

grilled pork - $2.75 

It's always tasty.  These sandwiches come with the meat, house made mayo, and vegetables, which include pickled daikon radish, pickled carrots, cilantro, cucumber, and jalapeno all on a ridiculously good baguette.  I get the vegetables on the side because I hate cilantro with the fire of a thousand suns and also because the jalapenos are crazy hot, so I usually only eat one.

On our way out of the shopping center, we noticed a sign for the grand opening of a place called Texas Bakery (no website, unfortunately).  They have an assortment of savory and sweet pastries, along with white and whole wheat sandwich-looking bread.  We grabbed a few pastries for dessert.

coconut bread - $1.39

pineapple bread - $1.39

red bean bread - $1.29

The coconut bread had coconut and raisins baked inside.  The pineapple and red bean breads were both stuffed with filling, though there was no pineapple in the pineapple bread.  If we go back there, I'd like to try the sandwich bread, since the bread part was the better part of both the pineapple and red bean breads (as opposed to the fillings).

Oh... and since I haven't posted a baby picture in awhile, here's Ramona, helping out with the photography.

"Mama, try a different angle on that one."

"Yes, much better!"

Austin Cake Ball

It's the Ides of June and I've only posted once.  It's been busy around here, between trying to figure out the best way to work at home and my ever-growing baby.  As of last Saturday, Ramona weighed 16.5 lbs.  My assumption is that breast milk is magical.  One thing that we have been able to fit into our schedule is trying out different restaurants while Ramona is still content to sleep in her carseat while we eat.

A couple weeks ago, we went to Austin Cake Ball with Dustin for dinner.  The food totally exceeded my expectations.  I started with a chicken and potato curry soup.  It was good and I don't have anything else to say about it.  For my entree, I got the chicken and mushroom crepes, which were tasty and covered in a rich gravy.  The salad was a nice way to break up the extreme richness of the meal.  Colby got the gnocchi alfredo.  These were excellent.  On the salty side, but I like things on the salty side.  Also, (again) incredibly rich.  There's no way I would have been able to make an entire meal of out them without getting sick.  Colby ate a lot of my salad.  Dustin got the roasted chicken with brussels sprouts and bacon.  This was definitely the winner.  If we ever go back there, I'm ordering that.

The cake balls themselves were a bit disappointing.  Every time I have a cake ball or a cake pop, I'm always reminded that I kind of hate the way candy melts taste, so it sort of takes away from the experience.  They're also CRAZY expensive.  At nearly $3 a piece, these cake balls are on the small side.  Dustin said that the peanut butter cake ball was worth the expensive, though.  We'll likely come back here again, but I'll probably skip on the cake balls.

obligatory menu shot

chicken and potato curry soup - $3

chicken and mushroom crepes - $12

roasted chicken - $14

gnocchi alfredo - $13

German chocolate (left) and salted caramel (right) cake balls - $2.95 each

peanut butter cake ball - $2.95

Cakeballs!

Chocolate monsters

microwaved eggs

I love my microwave.  Yes, I know it's totally uncool to declare my love for a machine that makes atrocities like Easy Mac possible, but I'm going to hazard a guess that most people who declare war against microwaves don't have kids.  At least, they don't have infants and can usually eat breakfast before 5:30 PM.

I've read about microwaving eggs for awhile now, but I haven't tried it until tonight.  I really should have done it earlier.  Ever since Ramona's been born, I've basically let myself eat whatever it was that I wanted.  This has actually been a good thing because my milk supply is amazing and the ratio of fats and carbs and protein in my milk has been sufficient to grow a very happy baby who is in the 95th percentile in both height and weight.

Mushroom omelet from the hospital about 20 hours before Ramona was born. I GUARANTEE this egg was microwaved.

This has not, however, been so great for my waistline.  Well, I guess it hasn't been that bad either, I'm down 5 lbs, which sounds wonderful, but isn't when you consider that I'm about the same size as I was before so there's some not-so-great redistribution going on.  Suffice it to say, I should probably start monitoring what I'm eating again and my current plan is to get back to what I was doing for the gestational diabetes and monitor my carb-to-protein intake.  I used to eat a ton of eggs while I was pregnant, but now it's a big process to figure out how to get out a pan, cook an egg, and then eat it all while holding a baby.

Enter the microwave.

2 eggs
salt, pepper, whatever else you put in your eggs
oil

Grease a microwave-safe bowl with a little bit of oil.  Whisk together the two eggs plus whatever seasoning you're going to put in.  Microwave on high for ~45 seconds.  Remove the bowl and stir.  See if there are still wet bits.  If so, microwave for 30 second increments until everything is cooked.

So how do these microwaved eggs taste?  Like eggs.  Their texture leaves a bit to be desired, but they're protein and it's nothing that a little bit of sriracha can't fix.

twiddlerecipe: stuffed french toast

My friend Chris is visiting this week to meet Ramona and to work with me on a project that he'll be presenting at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.  I'm more than a little bit jealous about that.  Chris also likes to cook, so we've actually put my kitchen to its intended use again, as opposed to the baby washing station that it's become.

images from my past fade into the background (i.e., the kitchen aid stand mixer)

Last night we made strawberry and cream cheese stuffed french toast, using uncut bakery burger buns as the bread.  I didn't really note the exact amounts or the time, but the method is pretty simple.

strawberry stuffed french toast

butter

~8oz strawberries, washed, hulled, and thinly sliced

~1/4 c sugar give or take to taste, depending on your strawberries

4 oz cream cheese, room temperature

~1 t vanilla extract

4 uncut bakery burger buns

3 eggs

1 c cream

~1/2 cinnamon

~1 t vanilla extract

~2 t honey

Combine the strawberries and sugar and allow to macerate.  Pulse together the macerated strawberries, cream cheese, and vanilla extract until mostly combined.  It's nice to not completely pulverize the berries, so that there's a bit of texture.

Cut holes into the burger buns, such that a pocket forms.  Stuff the buns with the mixture.  The pockets shouldn't be overflowing, but just filled.

In a large, shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and honey.  Soak each of the stuffed buns in the mixture.  Cook in butter on all sides, rotating the buns so that all six sides are done (so you're not eating raw eggs) and golden brown.

hi again

This is a picture from a really terrible meal that we had last week.  It's actually a plate from a Mother's Day brunch buffet from a restaurant that we've eaten at twice before.  The first time we went was actually for Restaurant Week and it was really good.  I was sooo disappointed, in part, because I wanted to love it and then blog about it.  Unfortunately, the meal wasn't good so I don't really have anything to say and I'd rather not take a giant crap on a restaurant that I think is probably better than what they served up here.  It'll probably be awhile before we go back, but it's never going to close because, even though it's basically empty every time we've been there, it's part of a hotel.

but at least I'm a cute money pit

So herein lies the problem.  I have nothing to write about.  It's not that I don't eat.  I do, every day, in fact. It's just that recipe creation has been tough and given that we now have a giant money pit, we've been trying to scale back the restaurant eating.  We've been going with tried and true recipes.  The one time I tried making something new, it took forever and I felt like I was neglecting Ramona (she fell asleep in her swing almost immediately so it seems like mommy guilt is a natural progression from Catholic guilt) thus, we've stuck with quick cooking meals since then.  So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm here and I'm eating and I just needed to write something so I could remember what it felt like to write a blog post.

24 Diner

24 Diner is by and far one of my favorite places in Austin.  The food is great and the atmosphere is fun.  I always take out of town friends here whenever they visit and even ate Thanksgiving dinner there last year.   I've tried almost everything on the menu and I have too many favorites to count, but my must haves include the (brisket) chili cheese fries, their patty melt (with a fried egg on top), and the applewood bacon and cheddar fritatta.  Colby likes the chicken and waffles and if I keep going, I'm basically just going to list the menu.  I'm sort of surprised that it's taken me this long to write about it, but I finally brought the camera along with us.

So what I'm saying is I'm really craving some chili cheese fries right now.  I'm sort of tempted to make a run downtown to get some, but that would require, unfortunately, pants.

chili cheese fries - $8.95

patty melt w/fried egg and macaroni and cheese - $12.90

Firebowl Cafe

A couple weekends ago, we took Kimchi and Ramona to Firebowl Cafe for dinner.  Colby and I used to eat there all the time when we lived in north Austin, and now occasionally go back when we're in the area. Colby's brother, Dustin, moved into our old apartment complex right after Ramona was born, so we found ourselves in the area.  I've never really blogged about the food there because I categorize it as slightly-fancier-than-McDonalds food that we eat when we don't feel like cooking.  What was spectacular, however, was the combination of natural light and the food setting on my DSLR and the resulting photos.  At least, these may be the best food photos that I've ever taken.

Kimchi chilling with Uncle Dustin

beef bulgogi -  $8.25

crab rangoons (aka my excuse to eat a ton of mae ploy sweet chili sauce) - $5.25