Mothers Day

We met up with Jim's parents and his sisters family. Luckily Matt's El Rancho wasn't super busy and we were seated right away (not sure if we had a reservation or not). The food was pretty good, but I was so hungry (didn't eat much at lunch) that I filled up on chips and queso. The grilled fish tacos were good, but they were way better once you used the spicy coleslaw and rice as taco fillers. We had a great night!

The Family

Ryan.. the super cute ham

This poor guy had the pleasure (or displeasure) of sitting across from me at dinner. Lucky for me, it didn't seem liked he cared that I kept taking photos of this little guy. Ryan had just put a big piece of chicken wrapped in a french fry in his mouth.

Dawson, the oldest nephew

Mmmmmm... queso

Jamie and Dawson

Caden showing me his balloon sword

Artsy fartsy photo.... taken at House Wine. Jim and I went there after Matt's El Rancho to have a glass of wine and to listen to some live music

House Wine
Jim drove home and I was playing with the camera.... damn truck bounced around to much :)

Happy Mothers Day Mama!!!

See that gadget to the left?



That is something I added on the blog because they were nice enough to find me on Flickr, contact me about a photo, and published one of my photos on their website. It was a picture of the Farmers Market, and if you ask me it wasn't even a good photo. And, if you blink you'll miss it because it is in a streaming photo loop. Oh.. and I wasn't paid either. So you might ask why I'm excited... cause I got PUBLISHED. Kinda cool if you ask me. Do I think this is going to lead to other photography jobs or becoming famous.... NO. But I wish it would :)

The website is kind of cool, like a map quest with photos of various events around town as well as a history of the venue, event or area. You can even create a map to share with family, friends or potential clients. Check it out.

Rudys

Ever since I moved to Austin, I have been a fan of Rudy's. Their laid back ordering approach, their fantastic covered patio, breakfast tacos that equal most of the hole in the wall Mexican restaurants, and of course their BBQ! Our favorite meal there is a combination of lean brisket, and the St. Louis pork ribs with creamed corn and potato salad. YUM. SUPER YUM. The ribs are the reason we continue to go back time and time again. They are fall of the bone tender with a great peppery flavor. Sure here in Texas people will argue until they are blue in the face about the various types of cooking methods, whether to use BBQ sauce or a dry rub, or that you have to drive to BFE to get good BBQ. Rubbish. Why drive to the outskirts of town when you can go to Rudys?

Rudy's even saved me one night. When Jim and I got married, we had friends and family over for dinner on the Thursday before the wedding. We had people from out of town and I wanted to spend time with them before the chaos of the wedding began. So I bought a huge 8-10 pound brisket and threw it into the oven to slow cook for dinner. I had all the sides ready to go, but I seriously miscalculated the time it took the huge hunk of meat. About an hour before dinner, while Jim went to the airport to pick up my brother and his girlfriend (who he is no longer with), I checked on the brisket and noticed that it still was oozing blood and moo-ing. Hmmmm NOT good! I went in to crisis mode trying to rack my brain on what to do to feed to many people. Luckily I thought of Rudys, drove over there and picked up the brisket with sauce and had it back home in about 25 minutes. They totally saved my ass that night.

When you have left over pot roast...


make nachos!!! I love making pot roast because it is great as pot roast, but then you can also use the meat for many other dishes! Last week, I was craving nachos so we made a shredded beef (aka Pot Roast) nachos. There was very little work to making these. Make some queso with Velveeta and rotel, chop up some onions, dice an avocado, chop up a tomato, open salsa, jap's, and bean dip. Assemble and eat!!!

My dish of nachos. I forgot to mention that we put the chips on a cookie sheet and heat them up in the oven.

Jim's mound o' nachos....seriously, they were freakin huge.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

A few nights ago I had the urge to make some mac and cheese from scratch. It's funny because my friend Dawn mentioned that she was making mac and cheese a few days later (unknown that I had made some days prior). Maybe there was some type of weird signal sent out over Austin for people to make mac and cheese, even though the temps outside were reaching 90 degrees which isn't exactly hot comfort food weather.

I searched online until I found this recipe from Alton Brown. He is pretty annoying on his TV show, but he knows his shit. I made a few changes to the recipe while I'll notate below. I'm not just tooting my horn here, but this mac and cheese was delicious. Even Jim said it was the best he has ever had. If you get a hankering for some good mac and cheese, and you don't mind that it will heat up your kitchen while you cook it, then you need to try this recipe.

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown

Ingredients
1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced (oops... forgot to add)
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 large egg
12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded (I actually used about 8 oz sharp cheddar and about 5 oz of Fontina)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper

Topping:
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs (I used regular bread crumbs and I also mixed in shredded Parmesan cheese...... probably about 1/4 cup)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes.

Temper in the egg*. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

* to temper an egg, you add a little bit (maybe a couple tablespoons) of the hot milk mixture into the scrambled egg and mix it up. This helps slow cook the egg before it hits the hard mixture. Other wise you might get something that resembles egg drop soup

Cinco De Mayo

Jim and I headed out for some drinks and food on Cinco De Mayo. We were going to start at TGI Fridays to enjoy a 5 cent appetizer BUT the location we went to was not participating in that promotion. So a big Fuck You to TGI Fridays. Their location was practically empty and probably could have benefited from a promotion that would have brought customers to your location. We left TGI Fridays and went to visit the block party down the street. We had a few beers and listened to some live music. Hunger pains settled in, so we went in search for food.

A block party wouldn't be complete without a ass shot from Leslie, the local transvestite. That bitch has a better ass than most women I know.

We decided on getting dinner at Cantina Laredo. It was the closest Mexican food restaurant to where we were. We lucked out because they were offering their Happy Hour specials until 10pm.

We ordered 3 different appetizers for dinner... all were under $5. Steak quesadilla, cheviche and chicken nachos. Their margarita was less than stellar... watered down and no real taste. It was $3 so I'll only complain a little.

One of the vendors at the block party was giving away the cowboy hats :o) On our walk back to the car, we had an impromptu photo session. As you can see, I got a little more into it than Jim did :o) But we did have fun!!

Sunday Wine Crawl



Some friends and I decided to try out some of the wine bars in Austin on Sunday. There are a few wine bars near each other in downtown Austin, so it made it easy to park in the middle, and walk to the different establishments. We went into this with an open mind, because we didn't really know what to expect. Okay, well that isn't entirely true.. we knew we would be drinking wine, we knew we would be laughing our asses off, we knew we would have a good time. And we did all of those.



Our first stop was Cork and Co on Congress (http://www.corkandco.com/). The bar is a decent size with two soft type seating areas at the front of the store near the windows facing Congress. The bartender was helpful with our wine selections based on what we liked. They have a good selection of $5 glasses all day on Sunday.

Jennifer, me, Ashley, Lindsey, Vanessa and Janette at Cork and Co

Our first wine of the day was served over ice with a twist of lemon. I was a little hesistant to try wine with ice, but it was very light and the squeeze of lemon added a nice depth to the flavor.

These gals are hams :o) I ran in front of them and then asked them to give me their best funky pose. I should have done this after the 4th wine bar that we visited... it probably would have been way more fun.

We went to Cru for our 2nd stop. They had a pretty fantastic deal... $15 for a 6 wine flight (3 red and 3 white) along with 6 cheeses to pair with the wine. I didn't really look at their wine menu or pricing... OOPS

Lindsey and Ashley

After Cru we headed over to Taste

one more group shot... so... not really sure what my shoulder is doing but it looks very uncomfortable

Ashley was making a phony phone call and making us all crack up.... yes we are 12, don't judge us

Ashley and Lindsey

Me and Janette

Jen and Vanessa

Vanessa strutting her stuff trying to hail a cab

A dry Riesling from Taste... Taste was okay, but not my first or 4th choice to go to. They were the most expensive out of the places that we went to and we had a super snotty waiter. He got a little sensitive when we asked why they didn't have any specials on Sunday. It is a legit question because the other 2 places we went to had really good specials. He then asked where we were headed to next, and once he heard where it was, he made the snarky comment "oh they get their wine from HEB... gross". Ummmm... I get my wine at HEB, are you saying you are gross? Big dickwad.

After Taste wine, we stopped at P.Terry's and picked up a burger before we went over to House wine. Since P.Terry's doesn't have a lot of seating (which is all outside) House wine let us bring us our burgers... thank you!! The cheese burger was pretty damn good, so were the french fries

House Wine

This was some seriously good Sangria.

This is Tina. Tina belongs to the bartender at House Wine. She is so damn adorable, and I held her for a good hour while we were at House Wine. I didn't want to give her back!

Over all, we liked 3 out of 4 bars that we went to, and we want to head back in the near future! If the boys are lucky, we'll invite them :o) I have added my 2 cents below on the bars that we visited yesterday.

Cork and Co:

Good window seating

$5 glasses all day Sunday (about 20 different wines to choose from)

Cru

Fantastic Sunday deal with the cheese and wine flight's... the selection changes weekly

Looked like they had a good menu

Nice Patio

Taste

Nice and open feel in the restaurant

Has a interesting set up where you can get tasting of wines, but they start around $2 and go up to $8... for a tasting

Out door seating

Most expensive and not sure it is worth it

House Wine

$6 Sangria Sundays... I'm in love with the Pear Mint

Casual atmosphere

I'll be back to check out their other wine

Cinco De Mayo = Mexican Beers in my Belly :o)



Cinco De Mayo is on Tuesday for those of you that didn't know. Here are some events going on around Austin.....

Cuatro's patio (http://www.cuatrosaustin.com/) will have live music and specials on their pork and carne asada tacos, Mexican beer, and selected cocktails. This will be on Sunday for those of you that don't want to venture out on a Tuesday. Jim and I are big fans of sitting on Cuatro's patio and enjoying some beers.

Bars at Roaring Fork and Eddie V's will be offering discounts on various cocktails Sunday - Saturday May 3-9


La Condesa (400a W. 2nd) and Lamberts Downtown BBQ (401 W. 2nd) celebrate Cinco de Mayo Mexico City style with a block party between Guadalupe and san Antonio streets offering BBQ, Mexican street fare such as roasted corn, tacos, raspas, Mexican beers, and margaritas. They will also have live music and moonwalk. Some area shops will participate in the festivities as well FREE! Tuesday May 5 5pm-10pm

Fish City Grill (4616 Triangle Blvd) will donate 15% of its entire day's sales proceed to benefit the nonprofit therapy-dog organization Divine Canines (http://www.divinecanines.org/) Tuesday May 5, all day

TGI Fridays will have 5 cent appetizers (Crispy Green Bean Fries, Fried Mozzarella, BBQ pork ravioli bites, pot stickers and loaded potato skins). The only catch that I can see is that you have to order a beverage from the bar and it is 4pm - 7pm. They are advertising a Blackberry Margarita