Fervent Foodie

Restaurant Roundup—Paco’s Tacos & Local Loaf {Charlotte, NC}

June 18, 2013 1 Comment

Paco’s Tacos & Tequila is one of Frank Scibelli’s four major restaurants in Charlotte, along with my beloved Mama Ricotta’s, Midwood Smokehouse, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. Paco’s (Spanish for Frank’s, get it?) features Tex-Mex cuisine with a large chunk of the menu dedicated to TACOS. There are ten types to choose from, including brisket, calamari, chicken fried steak, crispy shrimp, gringo beef, and whitefish. The flour and wheat tortillas are made in-house (or you can opt for low carb or corn tortillas), and you can add a stuffed jalapeno to your taco for a buck fifty. Fajitas, enchiladas, and quesadillas also make an appearance on the menu, as well as a handful of Tex-Mex inspired entrees, and over eighty-five tequilas. Taking a cue (as in barbecue) from its sister restaurant Midwood Smokehouse, Paco’s recently added a smoker to their kitchen artillery. Currently, the pitmaster will smoke one featured entrée each night. On my last visit, I tried the smoked brisket taco, and as the Midwood Smokehouse self-declared number one fan, I feel confident giving Paco’s smoked brisket the Fervent Foodie stamp of approval. It is my favorite Paco’s Taco to date. Other menu favorites include the chopped salad with cojita cheese and chipotle ranch, gringo nachos, potato mushroom & cheese flautas, and “The Margarita with No Name,” featuring El Jimador Blanco, 100% blue agave tequila, and house made sour. Of course, you can’t go wrong with any of the tacos. Paco’s also makes the desserts in-house, and I strongly recommend both the Tres Leches and Chocolate PB Pie.

Local Loaf: Located uptown in the 7th Street Public Market, Local Loaf is the new home to Chef Adam Spears (previously with Heist Brewery). Local Loaf offers freshly baked Artisan Breads daily, including their hand-rolled baguettes, brioche, ciabatta, fruit and nut loaves, 9 grain, and biscuits. In addition to the bread, Local Loaf also offers breakfast and lunch. The “brunchwiches” are served all day, and include a fried chicken and poached egg biscuit with chipotle Cheerwine glaze, a steak and egg baguette, and a monte cristo served on a brioche liege waffle. The lunch menu includes eight sandwiches. My favorites so far are the ham and brie (topped with local Lucky Leaf microgreens and mango chutney) and the Local Dip (think French dip with red wine braised sirloin and caramelized onions). Other enticing options are the Veggie with creamed corn and fried green tomatoes on jalapeno focaccia and the Cuban with pickled cucumbers and fried pork rinds. Soup options will change daily, but keep an eye out for the tomato bisque–it is AWESOME. If the tasty sandwiches aren’t enough to make you love Local Loaf, the heavy emphasis on local sourcing will surely tug on those ole’ heartstrings. Locally sourced goods include meat from Meat & Fish Co., produce and dairy from Homeland Dairy Farms and Greeneman Farms, and coffee grounds from Not Just Coffee.

Recipes, Video

Peanut Butter & Jelly Snack Bars {recipe video}

June 13, 2013 2 Comments

Remember that super fun video recipe project I’ve been telling ya’ll about? Well, one of the four videos we shot was for a recipe I specially developed for Tropical Foods. To get my creative juices flowing, Tropical Foods hooked me up with a sack full of their bold nut mixes. After trying them all, the PB&J mix stole my heart. PB&J triggers feelings of nostalgia for most of us, but the funny thing is, I didn’t eat it much as a kid. In fact, I went through a rebellious phase during which I vehemently swore I didn’t like the taste of PB&J. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I was lying through my teeth in hopes of getting something toasty, like a hot grilled cheese or tuna melt, for lunch instead. Sometime in college, I rediscovered the pure pleasure of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I’ve been making up for lost time ever since.

Hope you enjoy my recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly Snack bars! I know my Guinea pig coworkers did!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Snack Bars Recipe PDF

Make sure you enter the Tropical Foods Bold giveaway below! Three winners will receive one bag of each of the following How Bold Can You Go mixes:

Honey Roasted Buffalo Nuts
Ranch Buffalo Nuts
Blue Cheese Buffalo Nuts
Sweet Heat
Cajun Harvest
PB&J Mix
Mango Tango
Sienna Cream Crunch

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Recipes, Video

Behind the scenes of a recipe video shoot + Fall-n-Fire Wontons {recipe video}

June 10, 2013 8 Comments

When asked if I’d be interested in shooting some recipe videos for Tropical Foods, I said YES without really thinking about how much work goes into preparing, planning, and executing a video project. I said yes before I had a chance to think about standing in front of a camera and how sweaty that might make me. I said yes, because, well, for better or for worse I have a hard time saying no to opportunities, and honestly who could say no to the chance to work with a large, well-established Charlotte-based company like Tropical Foods?

To prepare for the shoot, I did what any self-respecting accountant would do: I input all the recipe ingredients into an Excel spreadsheet. There were columns for the description, quantity, recipe to which it related, and the corresponding grocery store aisle. Organization was key. Each recipe was cooked and tested three times prior to the shoot, and each round began with a massive grocery shopping trip. After I had my initial practice round with the recipes, I used the second and third go-arounds to verbally talk myself through the steps. “Ok, now we’ll melt the butter. Mmm buttterrrr.” “Give it a good stir.” “It’s ok if it looks like poo, it’ll still taste great!” I also found myself asking questions. I know Rachael Ray always de-stems her chard… but why? What’s the stem taste like anyway? What’s the difference between black and red grouper? What if I can’t find wonton wrappers at the grocery store? I jotted down questions as I went, and spent a lot of time researching ingredients and cooking processes.

The night before the shoot, I measured all of the ingredients into small containers and labeled what was what, then loaded each recipe’s ingredients onto a separate sheet pan. Even with all this prep, it took us about five hours to shoot all four recipe videos!

Recipes

Spaghetti with roasted sprouts and cherry tomatoes {recipe}

June 5, 2013 3 Comments

I’ve realized lately that the kind of food I enjoy most is food that is uncomplicated. Sure, it’s awesome to tackle a difficult recipe, but there’s something to be said for the simple satisfaction of grabbing fresh ingredients from the fridge and transforming them into a great tasting meal without consulting a recipe every five seconds.

One night, while wandering up and down grocery store aisles, searching for something that might satiate me, I became increasingly agitated. It was mega-mart overload. I set my basket on the ground and considered abandoning the whole thing and ordering a nice hot pizza. After a short silent debate (during which time I’m sure I got a couple woah-crazy-lady looks), I took one final lap of the produce aisle and grabbed the things that looked best: cherry tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, a hunk of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano (which the uptown grocery store conveniently keeps in the middle of the veggies), and a bottle of red wine. I had no recipe, just a bunch of things I eat often and love.

These days, we are inundated with recipes. They are everywhere. And if you’re like me, you’re constantly clipping and pinning and bookmarking things to try. The recipe pool is big and bottomless, and while these are great qualities for a mimosa, I often find myself completely flummoxed when I try to decide which one to make for dinner. I call this recipe paralysis. We’ve all become so reliant on recipes, we’ve forgotten how simple cooking can be.

When I got home from the grocery store, I poured a glass of wine and cranked the oven and some tunes (and by tunes, I mean NPR, of course). I put the halved Brussels sprouts and cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan along with a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic, drizzled on some extra virgin olive oil, and seasoned with salt. I roasted the veggies in a 425 degree oven for twenty minutes, during which time I cooked some whole wheat spaghetti (or was it linguine?) on the stove top. Saving a mugful of the starchy cooking liquid, I combined the drained noodles with the hot roasted veggies, a drizzle of evoo, red pepper flakes, some salt, a little of the cooking liquid, and a generous grating of the fresh parmesan. Dinner was served without the guidance of a recipe (what?!) and it was delicious.

Features, Food Articles

Sous-vide, say what?

June 3, 2013 10 Comments

Cooking meat is hard. At least it is for me, the girl with a perpetual fear of eating and/or serving meat that’s slimy and pink in the middle. When cooking meat on the stove top or grill, I stand over it like a micromanaging boss, constantly assessing the doneness. Once the meat appears that it might, just maybe, be cooked through, I’ll give it a few gentle thwacks with my spatula to test for meat solidity. If it’s not too jiggly, I cut one of the pieces in half to check for pinkness. More often than not, this process continues until all pieces of protein have been cut down into quarters and the exterior of the meat is slightly overdone. This is not an exact science, and as an anal Type A, I hate that. Long ago, I declared the oven as my preferred method for cooking whole pieces of protein. It’s not perfect, but with a meat thermometer and a steady oven temperature I can get the meat done to my liking most of the time.

The problem with the oven, as with other traditional cooking methods, is that the heat source blasts the food from the exterior. Even when executed well, these cooking methods leave a small window of time to reach your desired doneness, and by the time the center of the meat comes to temperature, the exterior is often overcooked. Sous-vide (pronounced soo-veed) is an innovative cooking method that eliminates all of this guesswork by utilizing a low-temperature water bath. French for “under vacuum,” the much buzzed about sous-vide cooking process starts with sealing fresh meats or produce in air-tight single-use food-grade plastic bags, which are then immersed in a water bath and cooked low and slow.

This process enables the heat to move evenly around the food, slowly cooking, as it brings the entire food item, outside and in, to a consistent temperature. Since the food is vacuum sealed in its bag, no juices, flavors, or nutrients are lost during the cooking process; the food is infused with its own natural juices and sugars as it cooks, resulting in a final product that’s juicy, tender, and evenly cooked throughout.

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