Just passing through? A guide to Baltimore eats.

by EP & X


Just passing through Baltimore and looking for something good to eat?  Or a local looking for some new places to try? We've put together this list of great Baltimore eats, some of which you may have heard of or seen on Food Network/Cooking Channel, and some of which you may have no clue about.  That's where we come in: let us be your guide to Charm City noms!

Below is a hodge-podge list of places to check out, ranging from low-brow street food to high-end local and sustainable cuisine.  The list is by no means exclusive and we should probably plan to do a Part II for all the great places we're forgetting.  But until then, check out this list, grab a fork, and get ready to dive into Baltimore's finest eats:

Farmer's Market Goodies - Storage Tips

by Erin

Hey folks! We recently signed up to start contributing to the Slow Food Baltimore blog, so check out our first post how to store farmer's market goodies, including strawberries, mushrooms, herbs, greens, and cheese, to make them last even longer HERE.

Mmmm slow food....

EP & X

Beer + Sausage = Independence

by Erin and Xani



For the Fourth of July this year, Xani and I wanted to have a party. While throwing around ideas one weekend at Blackacre, our parents suggested that we recreate one of their fabulous parties from when they were first married (apparently throwing great parties is genetic): Sausage and Beer party. We loved the idea immediately and started a'planning.

We decided that it'd be fun to try to make our own sausages for the party, so over the Father's Day weekend, we spent an afternoon elbow-deep in pork. Xani brought her Charcuterie book by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn and we tried to follow its directions but we hit a few snags along the way and had to go off-script at some points.

Father-daughter sausage-making on Father's Day!

We decided to make three kinds of sausage: sweet Italian, hot Italian, and chorizo. Seasoning the meat was easy, it was all the steps afterwards that proved challenging. We used a pork shoulder (per the recipe) and Dad bought a brand new gigantic meat grinder. However, the meat had a lot of extra "stuff" other than pure meat and it got all caught up in the grinder. So, we tried chopping the meat up into smaller pieces by hand and then grinding it. Then we tried using the food processor to chop the meat before grinding it. Then we just used the food processor alone. In the end, the best texture came from the second method (food processor and then run it through the grinder).

Seasoned up and ready to go into the grinder



Dad chops the meat after we realized the grinder alone wouldn't cut it (ha, pardon the pun)

Before putting the meat into the sausage maker, we cooked little bits of each kind of meat to make sure the seasoning was right. They all tasted awesome, so we were glad for that at least. Then it was time to make the sausages. We got natural pork casings from a butcher in Federal Hill at the Cross Street Market (thanks Henry!) and soaked them for a few hours to get all the salt off of them (that's how they are preserved). Then we loaded the meat into the grinder and started making sausages! It was pretty easy at that point (HA - easy after hours of seasoning, chopping, and grinding meat). We made both links and large coils of sausage and froze them in preparation for the party a few weeks later.





Flash forward to a few days before July 4: we went to the farmer's market to buy lots of veggies and fruits for the party, and also to buy some back-up sausages from our favorite pork guy in case ours turned out to be terrible. We purchased some brats from him, in addition to some sage sausage. So, in the end, we had 5 flavors of sausage to serve. We were happy that almost everything we served at the party was local/organic - yay us!

We decided to serve the sausages in mini-form (approximately 2-3 inches) with mini-rolls, so people could try more than one flavor without having to commit (?) to eating an entire full-size sausage. To serve with the sausages, we made 3 delicious condiments from this Food & Wine article. We made Curried Apricot and Tomato Ketchup, Quick Mustard Picalilly, and Smoky Pimento Relish.



5 kinds of sausages with the accompanying chart



Condiments!

In addition to the sausages, we served a tomato, feta, and basil salad (we made up the recipe), coleslaw with cayenne and toasted caraway seeds, and horseradish potato salad.



Lovely tomatoes



Tomato, feta, & basil salad (basil from Xani's garden!)



Horseradish potato salad



Coleslaw with Cayenne and Caraway Seeds



Side dishes and accompanying signs

We also made Old Bay popcorn for people to nosh on and we cut up a watermelon (which we served outside so people could spit their seeds on the ground -- or at each other).

For dessert, we decided to make ice cream sandwiches!! We were inspired, as always, by Ina Garten and we made her Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies which she used for ice cream sandwiches. We made a few changes, however: first, neither of us is a big white chocolate fan, so we used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead; also, we wanted the cookies to be more chewy than crispy so they wouldn't fall apart when in ice cream sandwich-form (and they wouldn't stay so solid such that they would force the ice cream to escape out the sides), so we referred to Xani's favorite book, Ratio by Michael Ruhlman, who instructed us to add more butter if you want a chewier cookie. Right, that's just what an Ina Garten recipe needs, more butter. But, we followed Ruhlman's ratio and sure enough, they came out just chewy enough.



Mmmm cookies



All paired up and ready to be made into sandwiches!

Once the cookies had baked and cooled, it was time to assemble the ice cream sandwiches. Now, this is where we differ in our cooking techniques. Erin usually does not mind getting messy in the kitchen, while Xani would prefer to keep a clean work space. Making ice cream sandwiches was, well....Xani wasn't too happy, let's put it that way. We had an assembly line where Xani would put the ice cream between two cookies, and then Erin would roll the sandwiches in red and blue sprinkles and place them in the freezer. This was a melty, sticky, crushed-sprinkles-all-over-the-floor endeavor, but we made it through. And they looked (and tasted) great!



Ice cream sandwich assembly line; note that the ice cream is on a scale so we could put the same amount in each one (nerds!)

Miraculously, for the first time in all of our years of party-throwing, we were done with everything before our friends arrived! It was great. We asked all of our friends to bring their favorite beer, and we planned to give out prizes for different categories of beer, for example: beer from furthest away, beer from closest, strongest beer, "classiest" beer (ahem, Miller High Life), most unique flavor, highest alcohol content, etc. Our friends came through and we had a grand old time and lots of delicious beers!



Food, as far as the eye could see

For contest winners, we gave out foodie tattoos, which were BAD ASS! We had a great time giving them out and I kept mine on for as long as I could. Here are some foodie tattoo pics:













After lots of eating, talking, and drinking, it was time to head up to Xani's rooftop deck, where we could watch the fireworks! We brought the ice cream sandwiches (and, let's be honest, more beer) up to the roof and watched the show on a practically perfect night for it. We may or may not have chanted "USA! USA!" at some point.



It was a great party and the food was awesome (if we do say so ourselves)! The chorizo turned out the best as far as our homemade sausages went - it had the best taste and texture. The condiments were also great - the picalilly was our favorite. It had sauerkraut, mustard, and beer in it - what could be bad? The cole slaw was really tasty, and while the potato salad was good, the horseradish we had was kind of weak so it didn't have that "punch you in the sinuses" effect we were hoping for. The tomato and feta salad was absolutely delicious and fresh and was a big hit. Everyone seemed to really like the ice cream sandwiches too.

Thanks to our guests for coming and bringing delicious beer and snacks (esp. Joy who made a delicious and beautiful 4th of July dessert!), and thanks to Mom and Dad for helping us make sausages and make a huge mess in Kitchen Stadium!

Here are a few more pics from the party:















Joy's dessert - it's nice to be friends with a pastry chef ;)

Happy sausage making and eating,

EP & X

Back to Blogging....

by Xani

It's been a while since I've blogged. After my little accident, I had to put cooking and blogging pretty much on hold. Cooking was almost impossible (I almost cried when I realized I was unable to grind pepper one-handed) and maybe even dangerous (left-handed knife skills? Not so much), and typing one-handed was so frustrating, I pretty much gave it up except for when I absolutely HAD to, for work. It was a sad month. But now my splint has been removed, my bone is all healed, and it's been so exciting to be able to cook (and blog) again! Here are a few dishes I whipped up soon after getting my hand back-- and just as fresh, local produce begins to emerge!



Dish Number 1: Bastardized Panzanella

A simple dinner thrown together on a weeknight. Some pieces of roughly torn Italian bread, drizzled with olive, salt and pepper and toasted in the oven until they emerged as golden croutons. Meanwhile, tossed a small salad of parsley, and little grape tomatoes, minced or grated garlic, vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper. When the croutons were done, I added them, as well as some adorable fresh mozzarella pearls to the salad, tossed gently, plated, and topped the whole thing with some fresh shaved Parmesan and a bit more olive oil. Light, easy, and tasty. Mine had a bit too much garlic, and as summer approaches with delicious heirloom tomatoes and basil bursting from gardens, I would certainly adjust the recipe to include these.


Dish Number 2: Soft-boiled Eggs with Asparagus

This dish seems almost British to me-- why is that? Did I see Nigella Lawson make it long ago on the Style Network? Perhaps. Anyway, it seemed a perfect vehicle for the first local asparagus of the season, which EP and I picked up at our beloved Emily's Produce stand (which reopened for the season just the day before!), on our way home from a brief visit to Blackacre. Hungry for brunch the next morning, I brought some salted water to a simmer, and in went the asparagus and eggs. Four minutes later, the spears were crisp tender and the eggs were perfectly soft-boiled (although at this point I realized I don't have any egg cups or other dishes that effectively hold an egg- add those to my wish list!). I served the eggs and asparagus alongside some toasted thick bread to soak up the yolks, and lots of coarse salt.

Dish Number 3: Calzones from Scratch, Two Fillings

After spending a few nights in Philadelphia for work (and getting a killer migraine that ruined my dinner at Cuba Libre and left me incapacitated for 18 hours) I arrived home to a fridge full of veggies needing prompt attention, and a package of pre-made pizza dough I picked up at the grocery store. My grill is currently being taken over by ivy (seriously, my backyard is like a JUNGLE, and while some think it looks "magical", I bet my neighbors don't. My "I only have one hand" excuse is no good anymore, so I guess it's pure laziness at this point-- it's on the To Do list, for sure), so grilled pizzas were off the table. But calzones seemed like the perfect solution. I invited EP over for a study break, and got started on making the fillings.

Kale-ricotta filling (a twist on traditional spinach ricotta): I didn't have any spinach, but I did have kale, which I blanched in boiling salted water, shocked, drained and chopped. Then mixed with some sauteed onion and garlic, ricotta, one egg, Parmesan, fresh mozzarella, and salt and pepper.

Veggie tomato filling: Another twist on a classic, I omitted the sausage from a traditional sausage, pepper and onion filling and added mushrooms and asparagus to the sauteed onion, garlic, and red, yellow and orange mini-peppers. Once all the veggies were nice and tender, I added about half a can of (GASP) prepared tomato sauce, along with red pepper flakes, oregano, and salt and pepper, and let the whole thing cook together for about half an hour until it had formed a nice, thick sauce-- almost like a ragout.


Once the fillings were done, I started trying to stretch out the prepared pizza dough-- emphasis on the word "trying." I guess it had been sitting in my fridge for too long, because this stuff was a MESS. Unbelievably sticky no matter how much flour I added, wouldn't hold shape, etc. But I already had the fillings all made-- I was screwed!! Or was I...?

Behold: my latest purchase/obsession. Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman, is a fantastic book about how many of the basics of cooking can be reduced to simple ratios. Bread dough (including pizza dough), for example, is 5:3, flour to water. The book stresses how simple it is to make great bread with just a few ingredients (flour, yeast, salt), and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to try out the technique... what else was I going to do with all that filling!?

My other new favorite toy-- digital food scale!

In retrospect I didn't time things quite right-- the dough should have rested a lot longer between initial kneading and stretching into the calzones... lesson learned for next time. The dough wasn't really very elastic and hadn't developed the gluten in a way that gives pizza dough it crispy, chewy texture. But hey, I made dough, and formed it into calzones, and they didn't fall apart or explode or taste half-bad. In fact, they were pretty damn good! EP and I ate well that night. The kale had a really interesting flavor, and the veggie ragout was delicious with the melted mozzarella and Parmesan. All in all, a BIG success.


I'm so glad to be two-handed again. I promise to do lots more cooking (especially with the farmers' market open again as of this morning-- EP and I almost drowned getting there in the today's monsoon, but it was so worth it) and blogging. I've got a few in the pipeline that I'm sure you'll all enjoy. Until then...


Happy eating (and cooking, and blogging),
X