Baked Stuffed Avocado- Unsat. Fatty Acid HEAVEN

For those of you who are afraid of fat or trying some idiotic low-fat diet, this post is NOT for you. But I do have some suggestions. Stop dieting and being afraid of food and start EATING. Just eat less. Duh.

The inspiration of this recipe is from a cool little bar and grill off of Congress St. in Austin, TX. (I may live in Dallas but I’ve always belonged in Austin or FTW). The place is called Doc’s Motorworks. I loved it. Laid back, nice patio for my fur baby, menu with something everyone could love, decent specials, great location. Check the website here: Doc’s Bar and Grill.           SM Links:  Doc’s on FB      Doc’s on Twitter

So Kim(The sister) and I stopped in on a sweltering summer day to grab a nice lunch with our dogs. We stopped at Doc’s because of the misters (as in water, not men, unfortunately) on the patio and their dog-friendly appearance. We decided to get a couple 50cent tacos and the Chicken Fried Avocado. ohmigod, heaven. Avocado mixed with chicken and cheese, then battered and fried, served with tomatillo cream sauce. Serious business, people, and not for the faint of heart.

Ever since I’ve had the best of intentions to recreate this recipe. So now, let me introduce you to MY VERSION of this avocado deliciousness in a way that can be enjoyed more frequently than once a year without the threat of an instant stroke. In fact, all these unsaturated fatty acids can LOWER your risk of heart disease and IMPROVE your LDL cholesterol levels!! There IS a dietitian in me somewhere!

Step One: Cut up chicken, then saute with whatever seasonings you like. Cumin is a standard, and I added salt, pepper, minced garlic, and onion. Little tip, make the chicken chunks as small as possible. You can also choose to shred if you prefer that texture to chunks.

Step Two: Halve the avocados. Try and keep the shells as intact as possible, you will use those to bake the filling in later. Remove the pits. Remove all flesh and chop. You can mash up the avocado if you would like but we prefered ours to remain chunky.

Step Three: Mix all ingredients with cooled chicken and avocado. Make as elaborate or as simple as you like. Knowing that these would not be battered and fried, I opted to not add the cheese and save that as the topping. I mixed in half of a can of drained tomatoes with green chilies (Rotel, for all you brand loyalists out there) and half of a can of these ridiculously good pinto beans Kim and I obsess over. They are canned pinto beans that have pickled jalapenos mixed in, great flavor.

                               

Step Four: Stuff the avocado shells. Top with cheese. Place in oven at 350 degrees until heated through and the cheese is melty. Yes, that’s a word. Anyone that enjoys food knows what melty is.

Step Five: Eat!! I top mine with sour cream (of course) but you can always use any thing you like! I only ate one half because they are REALLY filling. Serve with a side of corn on the cob or Spanish rice!

Yum! Let me know what you think!

Ssahm Korean BBQ Truck- Get Ssahm!!

I’m pretty stressed and un-inspired today so hopefully writing about my favorite food truck will get me going.

So lately I’ve been obsessed with food trucks. The people who run them, the foods they sell, the idea behind them. Small, local businesses just trying to survive doing something they love and believe in. It inspires me.

I do have a heart. See?

Anyway, one of the first Big D food trucks I stumbled across was Ssahm Korean BBQ. I attended Taste of Dallas this year (which is fun, but NOTHING compared to Taste of Addison. Sorry, Dallas, but if you expect nothing else of me at least expect me to be honest). They had quite the buzz, and line, going so the sister and I decided to spend some dolla dolla bills (y’all) and give some Korean-influenced food a try. I have never had Korean food and I don’t know any Koreans so I was getting all kinds of cultured and I was liking it.

We decided to go with the Kimchee Fries which were getting all SORTS of attention as well as a Korean Taco. We felt like we had to order a taco, it’s a taco truck, so I think ordering a taco is kind of a rule. We’ve been completely enamored ever since. Ahhhh the memories…

Thankfully, with the technology of Twitter and Facebook, I’m able to stalk Ssahm BBQ and visit them as often as possible. I work in Addison so when they visit there it makes me EXTRA excited because it takes my mind away from the boring confines of my office. I was granted one such reprieve not so very long ago….. and in true form, absolutely HAD to order Kimchee Fries and a taco (the rule, remember?!).

      The fries were perfect, as always. Tasting of fresh-cut potatoes with a nice crisp bite, the perfect shade of brown like you expect fresh potatoes to have. Not that weird, beige yellow color like par fried frozen over-processed sugar-coated “potatoes” you get from some other places. Slightly reminiscent of In-N-Out’s Animal Fries, these are covered in spicy mayo, your choice of meat (the pork=yummy), kimchee (duh), onions, and cilantro. So. Effing. Good! They come in two sizes; the “small” for $4 and “Large” for $7. The small is pretty damn big, easily satisfying both my sister and I. Before you even ask, I took this picture in the car at a stop light because I could absolutely not wait to eat them. That good.

This is the taco. Also delish. Nice size and only $3. Once again, your choice of meat, kimchee, sesame soy vinaigrette salad, salsa roja, cilantro, and onion. Delicious… but it’s hard to focus on anything besides those fries!

I’ve already got friends raving about the food and stalking following them on FB and Twitter, so you should too! They’ve got plenty of other awesome stuff that I haven’t even tried yet.. so.. yea… I’m gonna “get Ssahm” that and let you find out for yourselves how wonderful Ssahm can be!

Support small business!

Ssahm BBQ Website   @ssahmBBQ Twitter feed   Ssahm BBQ Fb page

Carolina Style Slow-Cooker Pork Butt

What can I say, I’m an ass girl. Give me a nice, tight butt in a perfect fitting pair of wranglers… oh.. hell.. wrong blog.

Seriously though.. pork butt (which is actually from the shoulder region of the pig, betcha didn’t know THAT) is kick butt (no pun intended) slow-cooker material. It’s also stupid easy to do. Really, any slow cooker recipe is stupid easy. And really.. how lazy do you have to be to not even use a slow cooker.

I’m a firm believer that one of the main contributions to obesity in America is Americans utter lack of ability or desire to cook real food. (Paula Deen is one example of how cooking real food is EXACTLY the reason for obesity, but seriously.. she has a mac and cheese recipe that called for four sticks of butter. She had it coming)

Focus, Heather, FOCUS.

I was raised in Kansas City (Go Chiefs! Err… anyway). Yea, a BBQ destination. However, I’m not ashamed to admit one bit that I prefer the vinegar-y flavor of Southern styles of BBQ sauce. KC’s is just too sweetly thick. Thus, the Carolina Style Slow-Cooker Pork Butt (or really any large cut of pork) was born cooked created.

Step One: Place Pork Butt (bone-in) in Slow Cooker

This was a big fucking pork butt so it barely fit. You can opt to cut yours in chunks if you’re having the same problem I did. Or you can just be like me and bend the pork to your will. I do the same thing to most men in my life.

Step Two: Mix seasonings/cooking liquid.

1.5 cup vinegar (I used garlic red wine flavored), some brown sugar, salt, and pepper (who measures these days? Not this girl). Whisk these together somewhat, then pour over pork in slow cooker.

Step Three: Put on High, Put lid over slow cooker, and walk away. Seriously.

     

When it’s done it will look like this. The meat will fall of the bone, as you can tell by the bone that has no meat on it. That should be in about… oh.. 8 hours sounds good. Give or take a few hours. Oh, what is that you say? You work 8 hours a day? How fucking convenient.

Step Four: Allow to cool. Grab Forks. Then torture.

Significant other pissing you off? Kids being little shits? Great. Grab some forks and just go to town on that cooled pork butt. And believe me, you’ll want it to cool. Fingers do not enjoy being turned into burnt ends (haha, food joke).

Now it can be enjoyed in a variety of ways, such as:

Turn it into a hot or cold sandwich, add it to a quesadilla, put it in some soup, eat it plain with a fork like my fat ass did because I couldn’t wait, wrap it up in a taco, make a nice little salad. Just don’t feed it to your damn dogs because it tastes way too good for that kind of treatment.

Now, run along, go impress all your friends with minimal effort.

SouthWest Lettuce Wraps, you know, cuz I’m in the SouthWest

I fancy myself a pretty damn good cook. I know I could never be a baker or pastry chef because my style is more “Hey, what the fuck is in the fridge.. oh, that, and that, and yea let’s just throw it in a skillet” kind of cooking. Not to brag or anything but the mess that is in the skillet usually tastes fantastic. Usually. If you’re one of the unlucky souls who is on the other side of that usually and has tried one of my rare, less-than-amazing dishes, now is NOT the time to speak up.

So here’s a smathering (may or may not be a “real word“, but if UrbanDictionary says it is I’m going with it. However, if you are faint of heart and don’t like awkwardly sexual terms I suggest you get off UrbanDictionary AS SOON AS POSSIBLE) of pics from my most recent experiment which got rave reviews from my hippie friend Mike and his hippie girlfriend who were on this cross country camping trip thing. I’m not sure how discerning either of their palates are but the aim of a chef is to please their customers, which I accomplished, so I’m going to give myself a fucking A+.

So here goes!

Step One: Get those sweet, sweet onions carmelizing

So worth the breath afterwords. And hey, if someone doesn’t like you because of your breath, were they ever your true friend anyway?!

Step Two: Sizzle, Mushrooms, Sizzle!

I like mine chunky. Take that however you would like.

Step Three: Mystery Meat Mixture

I sautéed ground turkey but you could always go with beef or chicken, it’s whatev really. Then added in some canned corn, pinto beans, and pickled, sliced jalapenos.

Step Four: Put in all of above in Lettuce Shell. Stop talking and shove in mouth.

Add whatever condiments you want. I personally have a love affair with jicama so I add it to everything, raw. You could also saute it to bring out some of the natural sweetness. Big cilantro fan so I put some fresh greens on top. Not pictured, my favorite condiment, sour cream

If you don’t like it, get the fuck outta here cuz they were uhhh-mazing.

And so it begins… with some damn good Sliders!

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and so here it is. I’ve been dangling my toes in the theoretical blogosphere ocean for a while now, mostly just bitching about all the stupid stuff people find to write about.

Time to dive in that ocean head first.

And what better way to do so than with Easy Slider Truck (click here to visit their website and be prepared to drool)?! It represents all that I’m passionate about. Good food, people who love what they do, small business, local and sustainable meats and produce, from scratch cooking. It’s like me, but formed into mini (But in NO WAY TINY, people. Believe me..) burgers. Flavorful, cute, and beefy. Or.. maybe they’re not like me at all. If I ever get called beefy YOU WILL see legit aggression. I digress..

Ok, Heather, Focus.

This is a new truck on the scene, having just run their soft opening at The Double Wide bar in Deep Ellum on Dec. 22 , 2011. There is definitely a lot of excitement surrounding this truck as I waited in a 20 minute line for these beauties. Worth. Every. Second. I wavered on a couple different menu items but I’ve never been one to turn down anything that involves Blue Cheese (I could die happy laying on a slab of Gorgonzola. Ok, that’s kind of gross) so of course I ordered the Black and Blue. Huge beef slider patty, nice soft bun, crispy thick bacon, and a truck-made blue cheese slaw. These things were so thick I couldn’t get my whole mouth around it (before you get the chance, that’s what she said). Very juice and flavorful on it’s own. The bacon added great texture and smokiness without overwhelming the beef. My one complaint is that the slaw, though perfectly crispy creamy and cool, could have used more blue cheese. I know, it has a tendency to overwhelm the palate, but I was left wanting more of that sharp, tangy, salty bite from good blue cheese. I will say that the colors were great and I’m glad they opted out of including purple cabbage from the slaw recipe,  the soft white shade of the slaw complimented the burger as a whole.

And folks, with this much tastiness, one is NEVER enough.

This next one I was nervous about. I went out on a limb and got the 7 layer. Generally I like simplicity in a recipe, the fewer the ingredients the better. But I also can tear up some 7 layer bean dip on the regular so I just went for it. I thought to myself, how can they put so much deliciousness on one small burger? And how in the hell am I going to eat it without getting anything on my shirt/pants/shoes/hair/phone/anything, really? The mess was a perfect decision and turned out to be no mess at all, thankfully (I do have a job I need to be somewhat presentable for). The same delectable beef patty was covered with salsa, guac, black beans, shredded cheddar, and FRITO CHIPS. Crazy, I know. I didn’t taste the black beans, maybe I didn’t get any on mine (or maybe they just really don’t contribute much anyway). The salsa was nice and tangy, the guac was colorful and a cool addition to the warm burger. The cheese was nicely melted and didn’t divert attention from any of the other ingredients. I personally think it could be left off entirely. The frito chips added a great saltiness and texture to an otherwise soft bite. I consider myself pretty spicy and definitely would have appreciated some jalapenos (fresh or pickled) or even pepperjack cheese instead of cheddar, something for a kick.

All-in-all, totally pleased with the visit and CAN’T WAIT to try the sweet and lowdown. My friend got it and said it was AWESOME but was a stingy asshole and wouldn’t share his mini burger on the basis that it was already mini so WHY would he let me make it any SMALLER. Grr. Men.

Go follow them on Twitter @easyslidertruck and check em out on facebook! DO ITTTTTT