Weekend Eats

Friday evening was a very nice, surprisingly warm night, and I ended up drinking some wine on my patio with a few friends until much later than I'd originally planned. So I made myself a $1 frozen pizza - a supermarket label, and I actually don't remember which. I really enjoyed it, much more than any Celeste pizza I have ever had. (Although I guess I can't actually compare the two until we cook one in Tyler's outdoor pizza oven and blast it with a kitchen torch.)

Saturday was 84 degrees and blue skies, so we decided to have lunch somewhere we could eat outside. But we weren't looking for anything too fancy. Elizabeth suggested Pita Pita, a great idea. (Even though every time I go there I am impressed at how tasty the food is, I always forget about it.) So we went there, placed our order, and took seats on the sidewalk.

I again got an order of "spicy fries." There weren't as many as last time, but it's not like it was a tiny order. As always, they were crispy and full of garlic flavor. I have no doubt you could smell them a block away.

The "spicy sauce" that is served on the side is quite unattractive, similar to how my cat's vomit looks when he drinks too much water then runs around. However, it tastes much better. 

The last time we had lunch at Pita Pita, I got the garlic chicken wrap and Elizabeth had the spicy chicken. We gave each other a bite of our respective wraps and both liked the other person's wrap more. So this time we reversed the process. Elizabeth had the garlic chicken above.

And I had the spicy chicken. I ordered it without tomatoes; when the waitress brought our two plates I saw that my wrap was full of tomatoes. Although I found that amusing - we were the only two people in the restaurant, it's not like she could have gotten confused - I was prepared to just pick out the tomatoes. When she saw me start to do that, she said "Oh, I forgot! I will make you another one," and quickly grabbed my plate and scurried away before I could tell her it was okay. At any rate, since there was no one else in the joint, she returned with my tomato-less wrap in less than two minutes.

Both wraps were delicious and again we each took half home with us. We finished them in the afternoon while watching football.

Saturday evening I was flipping back and forth between the World Series and the USC-Notre Dame game. It was a good night for making something that required little effort. As often happens in these cases, we decided to just cook three Trader Joe's frozen pizzas, all of which you have seen here multiple times: the piadina and tarte d'alsace (Elizabeth's two favorites) and the Pizza Parlanno (my favorite). As always, they were cheap, easy, and delicious, and we had several slices left over for Sunday breakfast.

We also decided to watch a movie. Given that we are getting close to Halloween, we chose Scream 4. I may have seen a worse movie in 2011, but I can't think of what.

On Sunday I went by Burger King because I wanted to try their new "Chef's Choice" burger. I wasn't able to... but for a reason I was not expecting: they couldn't tell me if I they had it.

Seriously. When I was ordering I noticed the sign for the burger had a "Coming Soon" label pasted over it. "Do you have the Chef's Choice burger?" I asked.

"Um," the woman said, "I let you know at the window."

"Can you tell me now please?"

"I let you know at the window."

"Well," I stammered, not quite sure if what to say, "if you don't have the burger I'm going to order something else, so I'd really like to know now."

"I don't know."

I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere. So I ordered the BK Topper in the "Western BBQ Cheeseburger" flavor. I'd seen pictures of this on some of my favorite blogs and thought it looked better than most burgers that BK serves. But when I got up to the window I still asked: "Do you have the Chef's Choice burger?" There was no one in line behind me and I figured if they had it I could still order one. But again she told me "I don't know." So I gave up. It's not like I was asking how many calories are in a packet of mayonnaise or what bakery makes their buns. I just wanted to know if they carried the item that is currently prominently featured on their website. I didn't think I was making an unreasonable request.

At home two minutes later I unwrapped my burger. I will get this out of the way: the bun was terrible. It was stale. But other than that, the burger wasn't bad. Because I really liked the crunchy onion rings and especially the "tangy BBQ sauce." Plus it was only $1.99. I don't like it as much as the (cheaper) McDouble, but I have found something at BK that I don't hate. I still wish I'd gotten to try the Chef's Choice burger, though.

For dinner I went with an old standby: the roast beef and Havarti baguette from the Ralph's deli. As usual, I cooked it on the panini press for a few minutes to melt the cheese and crisp up the bread. The sandwich is supposed to come with a "horseradish chive butter" but I couldn't see (or, more importantly, taste) any so I whipped up a horseradish sauce for dipping, which was a welcome addition. 

I hope you had a good weekend, too. 

Hamburger Helper & Time Warner: An Annoying Evening All Around

I had it all planned Wednesday night: make a delicious dinner, sit on the couch and watch Game 1 of the World Series in glorious, big-screen HD. But I couldn't. Why not? Well, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you can probably guess the answer: because Time Warner is awful and my cable frequently goes out when there is a big event.

Just like the 2009 NBA Finals, 2010 NBA Finals, the 2010 World Cup, 2011 Super Bowl and the 2011 NBA Finals, my cable went out just an hour or so before the event started. Calls to Time Warner were... well, if you've ever dealt with them, you know exactly how it went. If you haven't, you wouldn't believe me anyway; you'd think I was exaggerating how unhelpful they are. (Take a look at reviews of Time Warner in South Pas if you would like some idea of what I'm talking about.)

I thought about going out somewhere to watch the game but I just wasn't in the mood. It's not like I really care about either team. (And it's not like I didn't spend the first 27 years of my life without HDTV.) So I just sat on the couch and watched the game in non-HD - the grainy images, the dull-looking field, Tim McCarver's inane commentary. (Okay, the last one has nothing to do with the picture quality, but it's still atrocious.) It ruined my mood. All plans to make a nice dinner went out the window.

Elizabeth got home and asked if I had anything I planned for dinner. I suggested we go to the store. She saw that it was the 7th inning of a close game. "Don't you want to watch the rest of this?"

"No," I replied.

So we're walking around Ralph's and at one point she holds up a box of - I kid you not - Hamburger Helper's "Mexican Chili Macaroni."

"Is it wrong that I kind of want this?" she asked.

"It feels like it should be," I said, "but let's try it anyway."

I remember most meals from my childhood, be they dinners around the kitchen table, meals at fancy restaurants in cities around the country, or burgers at Bob's Big Boy with my grandmothers. And I do not remember ever having Hamburger Helper. Not once. And yet here I was in my 30s, standing in an aisle at a grocery store while the World Series was going on, holding a box of "chili macaroni," two words that I'm relatively certain I've never slammed together before. (Like "tasty avocado" or "favorite Yankee.") These are strange times.

Back at home the game had ended but the HD had not returned. Elizabeth asked if I cared if she watched "Revenge" and I said no. I was guessing she probably wasn't talking about the 1990 movie based on the Jim Harrison novel, and I was correct. (I only saw a little of the show; apparently it's about pretty teenagers acting insufferably, often with inexplicably wet hair.) I started making dinner.

This is what the contents of a Hamburger Helper box look like. In case you were curious. The directions go something like this: brown a pound of ground beef and drain the fat, add the above two pouches with 2.75 cups of hot water and bring to a boil, simmer for ten minutes, eat. So that's what I did. I thought about taking a picture of the cooking process, but it wasn't very attractive. (Before the majority of the water evaporates, it actually looks pretty disgusting.)

And this is what a bowl of it looks like. Let me say this up front: it was by no means terrible. (Elizabeth actually said she thought it was "delicious" although I think there is a 98% chance she was so hungry she would have said that about anything.) I have certainly had much worse things, even this month.

But it was surprisingly - nay, stunningly - bland. I suppose with the word "chili" appearing twice on the label I was expecting some heat, or at least some spice. There was none. The country of Mexico may be entitled to some reparations for the use of its name. This had nothing in common with even the worst dishes I have ever eaten at El Cholo or Acapulco, other than being bland in the same lowest-common-denominator manner.

I considered what to do. Should I add some cheese? Maybe if I'd had cheddar. But all we had was Muenster and fresh Mozzarella; I didn't see either of those working here. Sour cream seemed pointless; I enjoy a cooling drop or two when it tempers a spicy chili or some nachos, but it would have been just another bland flavor here. So I did the one thing that I thought could help.

I carpet bombed the bowl with Texas Champagne. It helped. A lot. And I finished my bowl, although again, that may just be because I was so hungry.

I can't really say that my first experience with Hamburger Helper was disappointing; that would imply that I had some kind of expectations that were not met. If anything, it was better than I was expecting. But it certainly wasn't good and it's not something I ever plan to try again.

But who knows? Maybe I'll be all set to watch the Lakers season opener this year in 2012 and Time Warner will once again crap out and I'll be in a bad mood and Elizabeth will want Hamburger Helper again and I'll say okay and we'll have it and I will write about it.

Sir Kensington's Gourmet Scooping Ketchup

In the Weekend Eats post a week and a half ago, I showed a picture of Sir Kensington's Gourmet Scooping Ketchup, a condiment I'd picked up last weekend due in no small part to the cuteness of the name and logo. (We're all suckers to a certain degree, and my weakness is for ridiculously-named condiments.) A few people emailed me and asked where I got it; the answer is Whole Foods.

It turns out, the stuff is really good. I stopped being a huge fan of ketchup many years ago. I much prefer mustard and mayo. (The last ketchup I loved was something called Formula 9 Gourmet Ketchup, offered in four flavors, my favorite of which was ginger. But that company went out of business more than a decade ago.)

Still, after more than a week of eating Sir Kensington's, I'm tempted to say I love the stuff. It is full of flavor, whereas most ketchups - especially Heinz - taste only of sweetness to me. In fact, on the official website of Sir Kensington's, they offer a chart to show why their ketchup is better: instead of high fructose corn syrup, Sir Kensington's is sweetened with agave nectar, honey and brown sugar. In place of Heinz's "salt and onion powder" seasonings, this ketchup utilizes coriander, lime juice, allspice and whole onions.

It's offered in two varieties: "Classic" and "Spiced." I'm sure you can guess that I purchased the latter. Here are a few of the things I've been using it on:

The other night I roasted some potato wedges in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. The ketchup complemented those flavors beautifully.

The McDouble is enhanced dramatically with a couple of thick slices of deli pickle and the gourmet ketchup.

Despite not being much of a ketchup-eater these days (in the more than two and a half years Elizabeth and I have lived in our current place, I don't believe we've ever had a bottle of ketchup in the fridge, although, as I mentioned the other day, I have a kitchen drawer full of condiment packets, including many ketchups) there is one time that I often make an exception: breakfast. (I rarely eat breakfast, so it's not really that often.) I love ketchup and salsa on eggs, and I really like ketchup and hot sauce on breakfast potatoes. Usually it's a mix of ketchup and Valentina, or sometimes Texas Champagne, but I enjoy the flavors. Maybe I just like the way it makes me feel like a kid again.

But with Sir Kensington's, nothing is required to supplement the flavors of the ketchup: I added a couple of tablespoons to some Potatoes O'Brien I made the other day. I didn't even feel the need to add any hot sauce, which is quite rare for me at breakfast time.

I took Elizabeth to Popeye's so that she could try the Dip'n Chick'n I wrote about two weeks ago. In grand Popeye's tradition, they were out of the appropriate dipping sauce. (Of course the guy behind the counter didn't tell me that when I ordered - I really like Popeye's, but the company doesn't seem to be making much effort with their promotions lately.) Luckily I was able to pull the bottle of Sir Kensington's out of my Jack Sack.

"Oh my God," Elizabeth said.

I think she was trying to express that I'm a dork. Whatever. The ketchup went nicely with the battered fries and, though it wasn't as good on the chicken as the correct dipping sauce (blackened ranch) would have been, it was still better than any of the sauces that Popeyes was offering me that day.

Okay, this might sound weird, but it was delicious: I mixed Sir Kensington's with Thick Worcestershire, lemon juice, and Parmesan cheese, then used it as a dipping sauce for fries. It was slightly-sweet, tangy, sour and nutty. I probably could have eaten this mixture with a spoon.

The other night I went to Wendy's to get Elizabeth her favorite burger there: the junior cheeseburger deluxe. I decided to get one for myself as well. The Sir Kensington's certainly made the burger better, but not like it did with the McDouble. (Of course I much prefer the latter to begin with, which may have had something to do with it.)

I have not made cocktail sauce with a ketchup base in years, since a friend of mine who is a professional chef overheard what I was trying to do (I actually don't remember what I was trying to do - perhaps make a clone of Black Angus's fiery cocktail sauce) and said "You gotta try using chili sauce instead of ketchup." His advice was as valuable as it was simple. I never imagined in all my attempts at making cocktail sauce that a 79-cent jar of supermarket-label chili sauce was the missing ingredient. But it was. I haven't used ketchup in cocktail sauce since then.

Still, as you've probably figured out by now, I don't view this brand of ketchup as just any old ketchup, so it was worth a shot. I added some horseradish and a squirt of lemon juice. It was a great sauce but I'm not sure if it was a good cocktail sauce; it was so complex and delicious that it made the fried piece of fish (a Trader Joe's beer-battered fish) pale in comparison. The tail was wagging the dog. The fish was the condiment for the sauce.

I wanted to write about more things... but I ran out of Sir Kensington's. And it was my second bottle I've finished in less than twelve days. I gotta go get more tomorrow. 

A Dozen Orphans In Autumn

I'm at the point now where I take pictures of pretty much everything I eat. Since I only write five, sometimes six posts in a week, the majority of the things I eat aren't documented. Most of those things I just don't find interesting enough to write about. Sometimes I do they think they're interesting... but not enough to fill a whole post. So today I will present to you twelve things from the last month that never got their own posts. (Plus it's always fun to title a blog post like it's a Tom Waits song.)

Let's do this in reverse chronological order:

 1

For dinner last night, we were just trying to clean out the fridge. I sauteed some diced pancetta and then cooked a remaining half of a box of rotini, combining the two when they were done. To my pasta I added spicy tomato and basil sauce - I pour the bottle of sauce into the blender then puree it and pour it back into the jar so I don't have to deal with those damn chunky tomatoes - and topped it all with Parmesan. It was a very simple dinner, but that's what I was going for. 

2

The other day I went by my dad's office to do something for him, and it turned out they'd had Pie 'n Burger delivered. He said that pretty much everyone had eaten and there were lots of leftover burgers, so I ate one. It has been a while since I've had one of their burgers - I'd forgotten how much I like them. (But I like the ones I make more.)

3

Okay, this isn't really something that I ate, but I love guest posts - even though hardly any of my friends take me up on the offer to write them. My friend Mick is in Europe right now - he spends at least two months of the year there - and he just emailed me a picture of his dinner the other night at a restaurant in Tours, France: "pig trotters spring rolls." He said they were delicious.

4

Last weekend Tracie went to a baby shower at the Grove, and she parked at the LA Farmers Market. She had to buy something to get her parking validated, so she went to the hot sauce shop and bought me this bottle of spicy garlic sauce. Because she's awesome. I immediately poured some into a spoon and tasted it. It was fantastic. I began thinking about what to do with it.

I decided to get some of the Trader Joe's tempura chicken that I love and, instead of using their much-too-sweet sauce that comes in a pouch with the chicken (to which I always add hot sauce and garlic anyway) I left that in the freezer. When the chicken was ready I tossed it in a bowl with the garlic sauce and ate it with jasmine rice and broccoli. It was amazing. I'm not sure I can go back to eating TJ's chicken with the provided sauce.

5

It is my opinion that any sandwich, no matter how simple, can be greatly improved by throwing it on the panini press for a few minutes. Last week I needed a snack so I placed some rosemary ham, Swiss cheese, Maille mustard and sliced pickles on two slices of bread. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the sandwich if I'd eaten it that way... but after three minutes of grilling, with the bread crisping, the cheese melting and the whole thing getting hot, I loved it. 

6

There were many cereals I really liked when I was a kid: Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms (especially the one time I emptied an entire box, separated out the marshmallows, and ate them in a bowl of milk), Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Frosted Wheat. But there was nothing I ever liked more than Fruity Pebbles.

Almost a quarter-century later, at CVS, I spied a box of "Fruity Pebbles Treats." The price tag could have been anything and I would have had to try them at least once. Thankfully, the box was just over two dollars.

I have not had Fruity Pebbles in I don't know how long - maybe fifteen years? I don't think I've had cereal of any kind in years. But it was like I'd never left. The taste was instantly recognizable. I'm not sure I want to go back and buy any more of these - I could see myself getting into trouble here - but I really enjoyed the ten I ate. Within an hour.

7

In January of 2010 I tried the McDonald's Mac Snack Wrap and proclaimed it "horrible, the worst thing I have tried in quite a while." So a couple of weeks ago, for some reason I can't remember, I tried the Angus Chipotle BBQ Bacon Snack Wrap. The only compliment I can give is this: it was not as bad as the Mac Snack Wrap.

But man, was it bad. 

  

8

Bristol Farms has several varities of ravioli from a company called New York Ravioli. They're a little bit pricey but every once in a while they go on sale and I buy a box or two and stick them in the freezer. Because I really like them. This time, I cooked the "five cheese" flavor and added a spicy-tomato/basil sauce to mine. (Elizabeth never adds red sauce to her pasta.)

I really liked them; Elizabeth absolutely hated them. She ate one and gave me the rest of hers. I don't remember why she disliked it so much, but I do remember that the ricotta flavor was very strong. If you don't like ricotta, you should stay far away from these. (I don't think I'll ever get this kind again; I will stick with my two favorite flavors: the wonderfully vague-namd "meat" and "goat cheese and herb.")

9

Last month, Tim had a couple friends-of-a-friend visiting him from the UK, and he brought them over to my place the night I made meatballs. The next day he took them to La Cabanita and sent me a pic of the mole he was eating. (The previous day, before they'd hooked up with Tim but after they'd picked up their rental car at the airport, they ate at Denny's. This was their first-ever day in America and they thought that looked like a good place to have their first American meal. I won't write anything snarky, but I'll just say that they didn't think much of Denny's and Tim wanted to take them someplace a little more enjoyable the next day.) I made some kind of comment about the mole along the lines of "I would pay fifty dollars to have that in front of me right now."

One of the Europeans, to thank me for making meatballs the night before, surprised me by bringing back a chicken enchilada with green mole sauce for me. (Tim knew exactly what I wanted.) It was, of course, fantastic. ("I've got fifty bucks for you upstairs," I said to her jokingly, before she blurted out "No, no, that's a gift." And I realized it was only her second day in America and she might not have known what a buck is or that fifty of them is enough to buy a dozen of these enchiladas.)

10

Over the years, on our various excursions to Wendy's, Elizabeth has frequently ordered a Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe. So recently I figured I'd give one a try. It was okay. I'm not a big fan of Wendy's burgers, so I actually appreciated the fact that there not very much meat here. And at around one dollar, it's a decent deal. But nowhere near as good as their chicken sandwiches, in my opinion. 

11

I planned to make a scramble of eggs and sausage one morning, but I overestimated how much sausage I needed. (Not that I cared - I like sausage much more than eggs.) So I ended up with pieces of sausage with just a tiny amount of egg. I topped it with cilantro, goat cheese, and chili paste. It was a good breakfast, though the whole was less than the sum of its parts. 

12

I'll never forget my first trip to Catalina Island. I was a freshman in high school and the basketball team took the boat over on a Friday morning to play Avalon High School that night, then we stayed until Sunday. For our first meal a few of us walked down to Antonio's - one of my buddies had been there before - and started with a bucket of homemade potato chips with warm barbecue sauce. It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever tried. (And then I had a barbecue chicken pizza and probably half a dozen Cherry Cokes before playing in a basketball game four hours later, where I recorded five blocks in a victory. Oh to be 14 again.)

One Sunday evening, Tim came over to my patio for dinner and he was telling me about a warm barbecue dip he'd recently eaten. I said "Hell, I can make that, that sounds good." So I went upstairs and got a bag of chips and "made" a barbecue dip - I put the quotes around made because all I really did was mix a bottle of apple cider barbecue sauce with a little extra vinegar and pinch of hot sauce.

We devoured them.

And then I grilled hot dogs. Taylor's wieners, of course. On my dog I added cole slaw, potato chips, and E. Waldo Ward's mustard relish. And ate it with potato salad. This was just as the summer was ending and it seemed like the perfect meal.