In my ongoing love affair with all things Southern, I made three jars of Hugh Acheson’s recipe for Bread and Butter pickles. He has a chapter in ‘A New Turn In The South‘ called ‘Pickles, Put-Ups and Pantry Items.’ Honestly, I’m kind of obsessed. I want to make ALL THE THINGS! He doesn’t even give great direction for canning them. He just writes these interesting little recipes for pickling and ends each with, ‘follow your jar manufacturer’s directives for canning.’ So, I looked in other books and made my best guess–ten minutes in a hot water bath should do it. So, a year or two ago I would NEVER have dared to guess how long to process jars. I would have been sweating at the mere thought of combining two recipes. I must be getting better at this canning lark. Three beautiful blue Ball jars later and I have three pints of Bread & Butters with a fun addition that is celery leaves. I can’t wait to whip up some southern delight like cheddar waffles with fried chicken so I can use them for a garnish or maybe just on hotdogs. Can’t wait! Oh wait, I still quake a little at the mere thought of making fried chicken. Hot dogs it is.
***tasting note. So, we opened up a jar of these crazy things. They don’t taste like anything I can put my finger on. Definitely very cheffy. A little bread and butter. A like tart. A little je ne sais quoi. They are very layered in their flavor and seem to have more flavors than I added in. Also I found out Hugh Acheson just published a small book on canning. If, I was that girl I’d say squee. Good thing I’m not.
Epcot Flower & Garden
Last weekend we hit the 2014 Epcot Flower & Garden Festival and also a long held goal of making it to Le Cellier. Le Cellier is located in ‘the cellar’ of the chateau in the Canada pavilion at Epcot. We had wanted to go there since eating at the Canada stop at the Annual Food & Wine Festival but had never made the effort to get the hard to get reservation until we were encouraged to go by our friend Karin’s dad. He said, “You gotta go. They bring that beef in from Canada!” Based on his encouragement I sat on the Disney website and (patiently) clicked through dates until I could get a reservation. It turned out to fall during the Flower & Garden Festival so a day trip was born.
The festival is a fun yearly event at Epcot showcasing all things backyard. There are extra playgrounds for kids based around Cars and Monsters Inc themes, a butterfly house filled with tiny handmade fairy houses and flickering butterflies and a TON of flowers, topiaries of favorite Disney characters, displays on water conservation, vegetable gardening and in the last two years fresh food kiosks based on these garden grown specialties. This is definitely not as elaborate as the Food & Wine Festival and the portions are somewhat larger-well sometimes. We didn’t want to eat much because we knew we were in for a giant steak dinner but we did stop and pick up some cheesy stuffed pasta in Italy. It wasn’t really anything too special although it tasted good. We also stopped for our lunch in the American Experience at the Smokehouse for some bbq and a cupcake. Z had some brisket with collards and cornbread. He didn’t really comment on the beef but he did comment on the collards. Up to now they were one of two foods I’ve heard him say he doesn’t like and wouldn’t eat. Kraut being the other. I don’t know why he went for this dish in light of that–but he did. At some point while eating he said the collards were good. So, chalk one up for Disney. I can’t believe it. I didn’t try them and am not all that convinced myself. I had a Pulled Pork & Slaw Slider. It was really big enough to be called a full size sandwich. The pork was smokey and salty and tasty with the slaw being pretty standard but providing sweet crunch. Random side note. I tried to get some of the squirt-on sauce from the napkin/sauce stand and it was so slippery from millions of hands that it fell in my sandwich. The staff gracefully traded me for a new sandwich and I skipped the sauce. That said, it wasn’t dry or unflavorful although I didn’t dare to try the sauce again. Sandwich trade-ins going only so far. Anyhow, all that said and I still say I’d eat it again. I also ordered a ‘Piggylicious’ (for Miss Piggy and the new movie) Maple Bacon Cupcake. They weren’t joking. A yellow cake (yum) cupcake filled with lardons of sliced cooked smoked applewood bacon. Kind of intense. I don’t love that baconcandonowronginallthings although I always want to. The maple frosting was delicious and covered with a fresh (read that as crunchy) pile of pretzel chunks. The cupcake was large enough to share and feel like you got a fair amount.
We had fastpass+ the ride ‘Living with the Land’ in the Land Pavilion. Seems funny but we really like this ‘ride’ where you sail through some fantastic experimental gardens where they encourage me to grow things at home. They are growing all manner of things in a giant greenhouse and in really creative ways. They’ve got everything from Brussels Sprouts (see the photo-they are amazing!) to 9 pound lemons to enormous suspended tomato, pumpkin and other vines. I really want to grow more food. It’s not easy though and I need to figure out where to gain some help with that. We have a whole empty backyard beckoning. I think stand up beds may be in my future.
We took an afternoon break by riding Ellen’s Energy Adventure. Seriously, have you ever been on this ride? 45 minutes in a giant car driving around a soundstage with dinosaurs interspersed with Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye teaching about energy. Soo random and funny. Somehow we never heard of this ride before. It had kind of a fantastic dinosaur thing in the middle with fire, animatronics, water, etc. You should ride this ride although timing is key here because it is 45 minutes and we walked in with no wait which was ideal. Using the park daily guide would help with this.
Dinner. We headed over to Canada a bit early to catch the Oh Canada 360 show featuring Canadian funny guy Martin Short. You enter the sort of mine shaft by walking through a high walled Rocky Mountain experience of high walls and a rush of water and exit by walking out through an exhibit of more flowers similar to how they look at Butchart Gardens in BC. I’ve been there (BC) many times and this really does have that feeling which for me is like home. We walked into Le Cellier which is in the bottom or cellar of some French looking hotel style building. We were shown to our table after a short wait and took some time to read over the menu. Our Canadian (super friendly I must say) server asked if we needed help with the menu but for your average foodie it is fairly standard steakhouse/cheffy type food-the only thing I questioned was ‘poutine’, which was in quotes. So, ‘poutine’ in quotes at Disney is fries with stuff on top. Since I pretty much always want fries with stuff I ordered those to go with our meal and they arrived smothered with super-sharp Canadian Cheddar, shaved black truffles and a small pitcher of red wine reduction. I actually don’t love truffles and could have done without them – but that cheese and wine sauce-delicious!!!
We started out with their bread basket and butter. The butter was super fresh and sprinkled with maple sugar. Love that. The basket included amazing pretzel sticks-big, soft and salt flecked-so great I wanted more! There was also a nice sourdough roll that was really sour and a multigrain roll that we skipped-I mean really. You have the draw the line somewhere. We ordered a super porky pork belly starter. I am getting over my …hatred of fatty textures but this one pushed me. Super fatty. How do you get past that chew? Only by super taste. My main course was short ribs and this was as good as any I’ve had, super tender and a huge portion really. Some pearls of carrots and an unidentifiable (really) spherified whitish/yellow ball along with garlic chips and pickled veg on top. This is one of the dishes I long to make at home but is just never as good as fine dining no matter how much work I put into it. So good. Z had a filet with mushroom sauce that was super rich and almost, he said, ‘too truffly.’ That’s saying something because black truffles are a flavor he likes a lot. We were so stuffed we passed on dessert. This was a really solid meal. It had a pretty hefty Disney tax but they also worked it really hard. We weren’t rushed and the service was friendly and good. If you can get a reservation and have a couple of spare Disney Dining Plan meals (the way to go for this one!) or just want to go all out it is definitely worth while. I suppose you could also hang a left at that great big Epcot ball and head north too but this is worth the shorter trip. If you are local and have a chance to hit the Flower & Garden show, it runs through May 18th.
Runza
If you know Z at all you know the joy the word runza inspires. Digging deep I can figure out what inspires me if I let myself. Lately I’ve been inspired by some of these things: ice – television – words – creative thinking – chocolate – tulips – positivity. That isn’t an exhaustive list but it isn’t bad either. Kind of shameful it would seem – to be inspired by tv but not really either. I have been watching a new series on Food Network called Heartland Table. The tv presenter is Amy Thielen, a one time NYC chef returned to her Midwestern roots and how they inspire her life and cookery. She loves butter, good meat, produce, and regional producers. I got her cookbook for Christmas. ‘The New Midwestern Table’ – Now, I’m not sure whose table this really is but I recently read that it won a James Beard award and it is lovely reading. She makes real food – rustic and refined all at the same time. It isn’t fast food by any mean and each recipe is fairly complex in terms of flavor but not ingredients. It’s homey but not the home I grew up in. So, my first recipe out of the gates, Runza. There was a Runza place in the mall where I lived in high school. 
I can’t remember ever eating there so I don’t have anything to judge my Runza’s on except our happy tastebuds. This was another recipe where I took a shortcut. I’m finding I do that more often than I realize. I need to make things quickly and with as much ease as I can or I will never get dinner on the table. I bought pizza dough. After carefully reading her headnotes to the recipe I’m sure that the flavor was not the right one but they tasted pretty good to us. Basically, calzones filled with ground beef and onion and a bit of thyme. Z thought maybe they needed cheese but I like the plainess of them. They were easy flavors and thanks to my store bought dough, a fairly easy dinner. Would I make dough from scratch? Sure. Maybe.
*fun sidenote I noticed as I downloaded the photos. I made a spicy sweet heirloom tomato ketchup last summer from a friends summer tomatoes. I think she gave me a pound or so and I cooked up just two tiny jars. I remembered it was in the pantry and we enjoyed this not too hot and sweet sauce alongside the Runza’s. They totally made the meal. Thanks April!
smoke & pickles
Ok, you actually get a break from all these pickles even though you’d never know it from the title. Smoke & Pickles is a beautiful cookbook by Edward Lee, a Top Chef alum. He is a Korean American writing on new Southern cookery and living in Louisville. He maintains a few interesting and thoughtful things. One is the Southern and Asian foods are similar for reasons of smoke & pickles. Kimchi=Southern Pickled Things. He maintains that smoke is the sixth flavor and says that his ‘recipes are filled with smoky flavors and pickles, but the also reflect the people who raise (his) animals, shoot wild game with (him), boil sorghum, pray and sing, and make moonshine. For me it’s a challenging cookbook-full of things I want to love but would be more comfortable cooking than eating. So, I start out easy with a recipe I am surprised didn’t come from Jamie Oliver and a British sensibility-Curry Pork Pies. What is that? Shortcrust pastry pies made in a muffin tin and filled with a luscious bacon and pork curried gravy filled with ginger, carrots, and peppers. Small pies that were filling and comforting even though they were foreign in flavor. Not your turkey pot pie but something more. More challenging and more flavor for sure. I will wind my way through more of these recipes but I am sure it will take me some time and a step away from my comfort zone. 
Throwdown!
So, you know Bobby Flay doesn’t really fail us often but one of the things that I really truly like about him is that he ‘competes’ with the small local big guy and often loses. I think he loses by design. The premise of the show is this. Small local guy doing one dish really great that they are known for. Bobby challenges them to a ‘throwdown’ to see who does it better. Bobby creates something that is that thing in essence but in a modern or tweaked out kinda way. They are both judged. Depending on the judge, but most often, the classical presentation (the Local folks) win! A few weeks ago Z picked out a recipe from the Throwdown Cookbook for our 52 Cookbooks dinner and it turned out to be out of Throwdown. A recipe for green chile queso burgers. So, in essence, we were going to use his recipe to beat someone making a Hatch green chile burger. I seriously love me some spicy Hatch chiles.
True story and side note. My final year of college and I decided to go home for Spring Break. My parents decided we should road trip down to Santa Fe for some good eats. Not our first rodeo to this destination. We hit the road and about six hours later (from Denver) we were there in the freezing cold spring slurry rain of Santa Fe. We were there to eat breakfast burritos smothered at Tia Sophias, Chile chowder at the Blue Corn and not less than one sopapilla (think beignet with honey instead of powdered sugar) at Thomasitas. Oh, and see art galleries on Canyon Road. It was pouring down rain and I had to buy a hat because I was cold-still have the hat and the memories of a really nice visit. I hope that I can someday take Z there because he would enjoy every minute (except probably for the art galleries.)
Anyhow, back to the burger. He chose this burger and I have to say, it’s solid. First I pickled some red onions using Bobby’s recipe and only letting them steep as I made the dinner-they were perfect and tart crunchy. I made a pepper jack queso-easy, thick and a little spicy. I made beefy patties and toasted the buns For good measure I crisped a couple of slices of bacon and made some tots. So, here’s where I went sideways and made my own life easier. He gave a great recipe for roasting the chiles and steaming them to remove the skins. Honestly, my grocery store doesn’t have great produce. So, I used canned green chiles. Dumped them on there and Bob’s your uncle (and mine coincidentally) dinner is served.
This cookbook is fun and self deprecating and modest which is usually how I find Bobby Flay to be. He is good but he doesn’t say, hey, I’m good. I like that about him. He may not be real but he definitely feels like it. We use this book as a jumping off place to create and mod our own things, just like this burger. Our muffaletta comes from here initially but we’ve made it our own. That is a good place to be.
My Urban Pantry 