Tag: food

A great Breakfast and Lunch Place in Atlanta

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So this morning we checked out the Atlanta Breakfast Club at 249 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd in Atlanta, GA.

When we got there we noticed a whole lot of people milling around outside. They were waiting to get a table. So we went and checked in. They text when the table is ready but one sour note – you have to install the yelp app to see your place in line.

Keyron had the Southern Breakfast – scrambled eggs with American cheese, grits, sausage patties and a biscuit. I had the salmon croquettes with a remoulade and cheesy grits.

Plus we shared an order of Peach French Toast.

All was excellent – the grits, dear non-existent deity the grits were out of this world. The croquettes with the remoulade was fantastic too. All in all for those three it was $52 Not overly expensive but I will tell you the staff was extra friendly and I tipped 22% plus we brought back a couple of sausage, egg and cheese biscuits as bribes for certain folks. Every time we eat out we do that.

The place is in fact super packed – lots of folks. But I’m getting into having conversations with complete strangers and getting known for my profundities down here. It’s fun. Even my friend says it my personality has change since I’ve been down here. It’s true – a place where a) It’s very pretty here b) The food scene here is fantastic and c) The weather was perfect. Those three factors make me really happy.

We’ll definitely return to the restaurant. It was just that good and we both enjoyed it. Plus I looked – in the time we were there it seems they turned over 80 seats twice so 160 times an average price of $52 for two people and you get $8,320 an hour. Now multiply that for the 9 hours they’re open on a Sunday and you get $74,880 a day. Time two days on a weekend and you’re at $149,760 every weekend times 4.33 weeks so conservatively close to $650K a month just lowballing it. Or if you like $7.8 million dollars a year – just counting the weekends. Nice!

Sunday Dinner

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So for dinner this evening I had an 8 pack of skin on bone in chicken thighs. Took the big bone out of the thighs and heated a cast iron pan to medium and in went a little vegetable oil and some unsalted butter. Seasoned the chicken with just salt and pepper and put them in a cast iron pan, skin side down for four minutes. Then flipped over for four minutes.

Into the toaster oven on warm. Then I chopped up some onion, mushrooms and garlic. Onions went into the pan the chicken fried in on medium heat for 5 minutes, then the garlic went in until fragrant then mixed into the onions then the mushrooms. Enough fat in the pan to add a tablespoon of AP flour, and then a little white wine and water. Reduced the liquid to half volume.

Steamed some broccoli and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Plated it up – chicken thighs with the onion/garlic/mushroom gravy and then the broccoli.

Gotta say it, keeping it simple is the best way to cook.

Biases in Documentaries on Food

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So when someone went to the doctor she recommended this video:

I note that comments on the video are disabled. Which is the reason I’m posting this here. You see there’s a strong anti-meat and dairy message in this video. And I have no interest in becoming a vegetarian or vegan.

And the carcinogens – it has something to do with the Maillard reaction when we cook food – it’s responsible for the browning of meat and baked goods. And in the process it may produce a chemical that is in fact a carcinogen.

But take chicken – they recommend you cook it to 165F – but I know through experience 150F for 10-30 minutes is enough to kill most pathogens. This came about when I started with sous vide cooking.

Plus the guy who produces the ‘documentary’ is a hypochondriac. He admits it at the beginning.

Now the thing is – there is lots of conflicting information out there. One that I’m convinced is sugar – look at all the products in your pantry – I guarantee more than 50% will have added sugar. And I’ve posted in the past about Ancel Keys – the one I’d like piss on his bones and then stomp on them. He’s the Son of a Bitch who said fats were evil, and of course he was paid by the sugar industry.

But this video says meats are carcinogenic. Well yeah the way people cook is a big part of the problem.

And people need to understand that humans need fat too – the myelin that coats our nerves is fat derived.

But as the video goes on it’s pretty clear the guy making the documentary dances around the real issue. He discovers to his horror that the ACS, ADS etc. are funded by the food industry. If he could just make the cognitive jump – we need a constitutional amendment that corporations are not people.

And FYI I did a contract at a grocery scoring company – I’ve posted before how broccoli by itself scores nearly 100 points, but add cheese to it and the score plummets dramatically. Needless to say I only spent a few months doing that.

Like I said, only reason I’m posting this is because they disable comments on the video.

Sunday Dinner: Angus Chuck Steak and salad

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So the steaks – I seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Into a 140F sous vide bath for 1.5 hours.

When it got down to 30 minutes I washed some romaine lettuce and tomatoes, then chopped them up and cut some black olives in half. The dressing for the salad was Russian – all it is is mayonaise, ketchup, sweet relish, and a teaspoon of so of horseradish. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Now when you sous vide one thing you get is about 1 cup of juices from the steaks. So I put a little avocado oil and 2 or 3 tbsp of unsalted butter in the pan over medium heat and seared off the steaks. When that was done I added a tablespoon of flour to the pan for about 30 seconds and then the  juices from the bag plus whatever ran off onto the plate where the finished steaks were resting. Makes a nice sauce for the steak.

Plate the steaks, spoon a little of that sauce on the steaks. Put the salad on the plate and top with the Russian dressing. It was fantastic. The dressing was even good on the steaks.

Here’s an image of the steaks after 1.5 hours at 140F. They’re a little odd looking but searing them in the oil and butter did the trick.

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Dinner this evening: Chicken and Broccoli over rice.

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So usually you marinate the meat in soy sauce, then there’s garlic, ginger, broccoli, red bell pepper etc.

I didn’t have the red bell pepper. So what I did was marinate chopped up chicken in soy sauce for about 40 minutes. Cooked some brown rice at the same time.

Once that was done I put down some avocado oil and cooked the chicken. Then removed and put down some chopped garlic and chopped ginger. Then in goes the broccoli along with about 1.5 cups water. Cover and steam – I like broccoli a little crunchy – go at 5 minutes and test until you’re happy.  Then a shake or two of red pepper flakes. Re add the cooked chicken and then the usual mix is soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn starch and chicken stock. I varied it – soy sauce, corn starch, chicken stock and white wine.

Put that in the hot pan and let it thicken and let the broccoli cook a bit more.

It was awesome. I’ll keep this one in mind for the future.

Made a real Paella tonight

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So I had to try. It’s this recipe:

The only difference I couldn’t get frozen peas – had to use canned. I drained them off and mixed them in. Again no photos – we were hungry. But it turned out spectacularly. This time I used low sodium chicken stock, and real Arborio rice. Plus this time around I had julienne red bell pepper.

The process is to saute the shrimp shells and then add the stock and simmer for 20 minutes.

Strain out the shells and set the stock aside. Heat an oven to 375F to 400F – your oven may vary.

Slice up your favorite sausage  – I used the hot sausage from Trader Joe’s but all you need is two links sliced up. Heat some olive oil in a large pan and cook the sausage in that oil. Then add some chopped onion, let that soften for about three minutes and then garlic and finally the Arborio rice. Get it well coated with that flavorful oil. Then in goes the reserved stock. Layer the shrimp over the top and lay out the julienne peppers and into that hot oven for 20 minutes. In my case it was fully cooked when it came out and the shrimp wasn’t tough – it was tasty.

And the thing about this dish, I did not add any salt whatsoever. But it was flavorful – I got the spiciness from the sausage, the sweetness of the shrimp and the pepper. It was awesome. You should give it a try.

Spatchcocked Chicken for dinner

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The other day I was watching an America’s Test Kitchen video on spatchcocking a chicken.

Now I did it a bit differently. I used a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. To that I added a little bit of avocado oil. We’re talking about a teaspoon or so.

Took the backbone out of the chicken (It’s easy with decent kitchen shears) and then seasoned inside and outside with salt and pepper. Into the pan breast side down. It was awesome. Only did 4 minutes on each side over medium-low heat . The below is the result:

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I’d say mine is as gorgeous as the ATK chicken. The pepper is fresh ground and in fact those are the specks you see on the breast. It was awesome too – someone went back for the wings. All that’s left is the carcass which is in the freezer now, and the thigh/drumsticks.

Salad Dressing Part II

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So this evening I put together some Russian dressing for someones salad.

Here’s what was in it:

  • Two heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise.
  • A few tablespoons of ketchup
  • A tablespoon of sweet pickle relish.
  • Half a tablespoon of horseradish
  • 1 Quarter of an onion, chopped fine.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

Really easy to make – much better than the shit in the bottle from the supermarket. Consider no sweeteners added, no preservatives because honestly if it’s this simple to make you’re going to use all of it in one shot.

And the feline resident of approves too – she was observed to be licking the residue of the dressing out of the container that the salad had been in.

So now I have two dressings down – a Vinaigrette and Russian dressing. Ranch is sort of bland and not used in this house but if there’s a call for it, I’m going to make it.

I think we got away from making our own things because we figured we’d be lazy and just shake it out of a bottle. But the thing is, total time to make that Russian dressing and the Vinaigrette was less than 10 minutes. I’m sorry but 10 minutes doesn’t strike me as a reason to forego quality. That’s because what is in the supermarkets isn’t quality, but quantity.

Baking Day Today

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So I baked a couple things today.

First I did my favorite buttermilk biscuits. Pretty easy to make. As evidence:

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Then of course because I was in the mood to bake and had three very ripe bananas I made Banana bread.

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Not a bad looking loaf if I do say so. And I used a non-stick loaf pan and buttered and floured it so I was assured it would come out of the pan. It’s cooling off right now.

It’s just every now and then I like to bake things particularly when the temps get below 40F.