went to Sarasota for the Easter weekend. Along with the requisite trip to El Toro Bravo for Santa Fe style cooking, we also made a couple of new stops – just to scope out the territory. My parents visited us for Christmas and brought giant cinnamon rolls thickly buried in frosting from Troyer’s Dutch Heritage Bakery. I hadn’t been there before and we made a brief stop to check out the bakery and gift shop. It is an Amish style restaurant, one of five or six in the Sarasota area-apparently the winter hotbed of Amish-Mennonite warmth seekers from Lancaster County PA and beyond. They gave us samples of orange cream pie and provided our Easter dessert of raspberry pie.
We also made a stop at Yoder’s Amish Village to browse their farm stand. I was impressed by the variety and price points. They had everything from Florida sweet onions to fresh chick peas still in their shells alongside Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer. jellies and local honey.
We didn’t see any horses and buggies but there are a lot of ladies in plain clothes with the white small bonnets associated with the sect shopping in local stores.
Category: travel
chipotle corn soup
this is a favorite recipe from a little place in Santa Fe called the Blue Corn Cafe. Years ago I went to Santa Fe with my parents for a little getaway from school. It was spring time and boy it was cold. It was raining solidly and sort of mixed with snow. We stopped for lunch at the Blue Corn where I ordered a bowl of this soup. It is super spicy and comforting. We made a pot today with only the air conditioning to keep us cool.
1/2 cup red onion – diced
3 chipotles in adobo (freeze the rest of the can)
2 cups water
4 cups heavy cream
6 ears of corn
husk the corn and lightly rub with oil and salt – broil turning frequently until some of the kernals black and pop. About 15-20 minutes. Once cool cut the kernals from the cob.
Add onion, adobo and water to stockpot. Puree using immersion blender. Add 3/4 corn and blend. Add cream and balance of corn. Heat to boiling and then reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes to reduce and thicken soup. We shallow fry flour tortilla chips and toss in cinnamon sugar to round out the meal.
not quite summertime
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| the livin’s pretty easy though |
stone ground white corn cheddar grits
we bought the dried grits at Piggly Wiggly in Charleston, SC while we vacationed there in the fall. Last night I took the two hours needed to cook this dish. Because of the amount of time I took on the grits I took the easy way out for the rest of the dish… Aidells Chicken Sausage and jarred roasted red peppers which I heated in a tiny splash of olive oil in the last ten minutes of cooking and a cup of balsamic I gently boiled until it reduced by half to spoon over the top.
stone crab
we went to my parents new place in Sarasota over the weekend. They just moved to Florida from Colorado to get away from the snow and have a nice house on a cute little lake. My mom is busily cleaning up after the previous owner and has appliances being delivered this week so we ate out dinner and lunch.
Dinner was at Z’s favorite crave, El Toro Bravo which is a New Mexican hole in the wall where it is love at first bite and that’s no toro!
Lunch was both new and old tastes at Philippi Creek Village Oyster Bar. My mom, dad and I had fresh stone crab claws. The server told us that Stone Crabs are harvested by breaking off their claws and cooking them immediately on the boat while releasing the crabs back into the water. Wikipedia says they are a ‘delicacy’. The meat was served cold or hot and we chose cold with a lime aioli. The meat was sweet and firm and kind of a lot of work. We enjoyed it along with our Sunday lunch of crabcakes, mahi and grouper bites.
My Urban Pantry 