Lunch With Beth at Buckhorn Grill

Beth had a BOGO for the Krispy Chicken & Avocado Salad (crisp romaine tossed with honey lime dressing, topped with crispy chicken, avocado, tomatoes and bleu cheese crumbles) at Buckhorn Grill so we decided to give it a try. These salads are currently $10.99, so this was a great opportunity to check it out at a reduced price.

As you can see, these salads are well worth the price.  Everything was very fresh, and there was a lot of everything. The tomatoes are minis, so if you can't finish the whole salad, they won't make the leftover salad soggy.

Buckhorn has several locations that you can check out, including the basement of Westfield Mall. We went to location on Drumm Street.

Beth's Salad With Dressing

J.K.'s salad with dressing on the side

Lunch With Beth At Chipotle

Due to their recent problems, Chipotle has mailed out coupons for one free burrito, burrito bowl, salad or order of tacos. They come with another coupon good for a free order of chips and salsa with purchase of another item. The coupons are good through May 15, but we decided to use them before we forget about them.

I ordered the salad, which is a bed of lettuce with a choice of meat. Then there are the toppings. I declined beans and chose mild salsa, corn salsa, cheese and guacamole.

J.K.'s Salad

 Beth's burrito came in the usual foil, which makes it easier to eat. In addition to rice and beans, she loaded it with barbacoa (marinated and slowly braised beef) and guacamole.

Beth's Burrito Before Unwrapping.

However, she cut it in half so you can see how substantial it is, and had to start eating with a fork before being able to pick it up.

Once, Angela froze Chipotle barbacoa burritos and took them as payment (bribe) to Hawaii when a friend let her stay with him on Oahu. So you know it's good when a person is willing to accept frozen, well-travelled food instead of waiting years longer to get back to the mainland. What are your crazy Chipotle stories?

Chile Pie x2

Pie. Ice Cream. Hand Pies. Sweet, savory, Chile Pies (and Ice Cream) has it all! You can visit them at their NOPA locations, or hop over to their Green Chile Kitchenette. Both are easy to get to by public transportation and also have street parking available (perhaps not ample, but if you have to lot lizard around a bit you can just meditate on your reward of pie a la mode).

Tea Time visited their NOPA location first. It's a medium sized resto with an ice cream counter (Three Twins, Yo), plus a great pie station as well. Tea Time was hungry, so we got lunch before dessert. It's a nice bonus that Chile Pie serves savory pies as well as traditional fruit pies, cream pies and nut pies. (Oh, don't forget the Frito Pie!) We settled upon a hand pie with side salad. This meal was filling even though we shared a plate. We really enjoyed the salad, it was a a great counterpoint to the hot pie.

Chicken hand pie and Beet salad on kale  with a yummy biscuit.

Hand pie cross section.

Pies, glorious pies! Whole to-go or by the slice.

Tea Time had spied on all the pies prior to ordering, and we settled on a winning combo. We'd eat this duo again and again.

Berry Pie with 3 Twins Chocolate Ice Cream-FTW!

The Green Chille Kitchenette was calling our name to check it out too. So after a little bit of wandering the Castro J.K. and I were ready to eat! The kitchen-ette is a place to get a quick bite, with fewer tables and less space. However, they still had plenty of pie. We let our stomachs do the ordering and ended up with leftovers! Our cup of savory sausage soup came with a biscuit and side salad, plus a shot of sour cream to tame the minor heat in the soup. We also got a full order of the beet and kale salad (which was just as tasty here as at the first resto). Finally we ordered the Pulled Pork Sandwich with slaw. (J.K. took home half a sammie and lots of salad-it was a large serving!)

Cup of soup with side salad and yum-o biscuit

So nice we had it twice!

Pulled pork sammie with slaw-fritos on the side

This peanut butter pie with a chocolate cookie crust was very tempting...so we gave in. Of course we got it a la mode, can't resist those Twins! If you love peanut butter, this is the pie for you. J.K. and decided we prefer the berry with the chocolate ice cream, but that's just our taste buds talking.

Peanut Butter pie with Three Twins Chocolate ice cream

Even though the holiday rush is over, you may still find an occasion for pie. If you don't have the time/inclination to bake, head on over to the Chile Pies nearest to you (or just give them a call!) and grab what strikes your fancy. Don't forget to get some scoops to go on the side. Ice Cream is this years hottest accessory for baked goods.

Dahlia Bakery- Cook the book for November

November is here! Wait, it's gone.

The holiday season can sometimes seem to fly by since everyone is trying to pack in parties, baking, vacation with family, not to mention shopping for presents (or making presents)! J.K. and Angela stepped outside the hustle bustle one day to enjoy our simple lunch inspired by our Cook the Book for November, The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle.

Our goal was a warming and nutritious lunch to sustain us through an afternoon of Chocolate making. We were ready to try out our new silicone molds. The only soup in the Bakery book, Tomato Soup, uses ingredients you can find in the pantry! So it was an obvious choice to add grilled cheese sandwiches to the menu as well. Angela had to buy some canned tomatoes (she's so spoiled by California produce, she usually uses fresh or none), but everything else was at hand. In fact, Angela was a bit skeptical of the recipe, it seemed so simple. However, it was delicious! Next time Angela is visiting a relative and we don't know what to do for dinner...Dahlia Tomato Soup!

 We skipped the croutons since we were having grilled cheese. J.K. made a sourdough rye in her bread machine, using yeast and Ready Sourdough from Seitenbacher. At first the dough looked much too wet, but the finished loaf, while not very tall, was very tasty. We ended up making one sandwich and splitting it. We were good and resisted the bacon (and avocado) suggested as a variation recipe, although J.K. did ask, "Did you bring some?" when Angela asked about the recipe. This sandwich recipe calls for shredded cheese, and due to that, the cheese did fall out a bit on the way to the pan, so maybe we'd form it into a loose patty instead of just piling it on the bread and tomato on next time? Lunch was rounded out with a nice salad dressed with Balasmic vinegar (presented in a vintage bowl).

Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese (with Tomato) Sandwiches

Seitenbacher products make tasty bread (for the grilled cheese sandwiches)

While we didn't get a lot of pictures from lunch, JK was ahead of the game and ready to show off her lovely new baking pan featuring the Chocolate Banana Bread recipe from the Dahlia Cookbook. They're a perfect match to make a lovely and delicious hostess gift. She also gives a picture tutorial on making custard, just add ice cream maker.

Creme Anglaise

Strained over the chopped chocolatae

Melted Magic, ready to go in the ice cream maker.

Created perfect frozen custard.

J.K.'s prepared new loaf pan

The pan was just the right size for the recipe

The strip around the pan kept the top of the loaf even.

And the banana bread unmolded perfectly.

Dessert was much later, featuring the chocolate chunk banana bread (Very good) from the cookbook, served with Chocolate Frozen Custard (Belgian style). That Ice Cream maker is getting a work out this fall. Thanks to Cook the Book from August for making J.K. get it out of the mothballs!

Chocolate Banana Bread with Chocolate Frozen Custard

Meg from Grow and Resist and Briggs from OhBriggsy have inspired a lot of good cooking this year and introduced us to some new cookbook authors. It makes us feel like next year we need to cook our own books, the ones we buy that inspire us but then sit on the shelf for a while waiting to be cracked open, spilled on and loved. One more cookbook is on hold for Tea Time at the Library... check in next month (or maybe look under the tree) for the fruits of our labors.

Happy Holidays from Tea Time!!

What's cooking in Jerusalem? September luncheon

Cook the Book September (yup! it's nearly the holidaze!) was Jerusalem, co-authored by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Angela must have been living under a rock, because this was a cookbook she's never heard about before cook the book. Turns out the hype is for real. Check out this cook book if you want salads with few ingredients but big taste. Plus the amazing full-page pictures are a treat as well. If you're intrigued about what we ate for lunch, read on!

J.K., as usual, made dessert, a semolina, coconut and marmalade cake. This is very different from her usual cakes. No chocolate, to begin with, and not too sweet. No frosting, either. This is more a quickbread than a cake.

A lot of ingredients, though

First, combine the wet ingredients.

Oil, juice, zest, eggs and marmalade.

Mix until the marmalade dissolves. If you don't have a silicone paddle, use a whisk for this step.

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Don't forget to prepare your pans. J.K. uses cake strips to keep the edges from baking before the middle, so she doesn't get a cracked dome in the middle of her cakes.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and pour evenly into the prepared pans. The recipe said to use two one-pound loaf pans, so she did, but one would have been enough.

The cakes didn't rise enough for two pans, but they were delicious and had a nice texture nonetheless.

After baking, the cakes get brushed with as much orange syrup as they can hold.

J.K.'s cake rounded out our veggie meal nicely! Angela made three salads from the cookbook (although there were a lot more recipes that inspired her, she used the tried and true cook the book method of sticking with the recipes that grabbed her attention during the first scan of the cookbook.) They were Baby Spinach Salad with Dates and Almonds, Burnt Eggplant salad and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Fresh Figs.  We loved them all, and they were great to mix and match. They were supplemented by olives, hummus and pita and lots of pomegranate seeds. For our drinks we had a lovely light Sparkling white, provided by an absent friend which Angela gussied up with Brandied Cherries (also made by said friend, thanks G!)

Cook the Book Jerusalem Luncheon–the mystery jar contains soft cheese!

You can make this–simple, beautiful, delicious–here.

This recipe revamped the spinach salad for Angela.

Choose small eggplants to shorten the cooking time for this dish

Angela chose to serve up J.K.'s cake with the suggested orange blossom water flavored Greek yogurt (tip: make sure your "Greek" yogurt is not thickened with cornstarch–or something more ominous!!) roasted figs and more more more pomegranate seeds. It was a light and flavorful ending to the meal.

cake, yes please!

Have you found any favorite cookbooks through friends? Or do you page through them at the bookstore/library? Maybe you just search the internet (Angela found lots of recipes from Jerusalem online, but few blog posts/articles had the amazing photos and historical background provided in the cookbook–unless they were quoting it directly of course.)  J.K. has so many cookbooks (mostly dessert) that she needs to start a cook the book a week club just to make a dent!

Chocolate for lunch! Cook the Book July

If you know one thing about the Tea Time Adventurers it should be that we Love Chocolate*. So lunch this month shouldn't be a surprise. I will admit that this months tome is the most daunting one we've perused for Cook the Book thus far. First of all,  Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America is big (even the name). Oversized and Thick. This plus the fact that the print is sepia tone (not a sharp contrasting black) and there are few full color photos meant I had to delve deeper to find recipes that spoke to me. But they are there!!

You'll see from our photos below that we ate well and heartily. Our drink from Costa Rica (Costa Rican Hibiscus Wine p339), our meat from Argentina (Short Ribs in Black Sauce with Chocolate and Cacao p713), San Salvador style pupusas (Basic Pupusas p402), Rolls inspired by tropical flavors (Garifuna Coconut Bread p593/4), and a cocktail "dessert" from Mexico (Spicy Prickly Pear Cocktail p376). Stephanie rounded out our meal with a Shrimp Louie salad and Gabi brought some wine. The four of us talked and ate, savoring both the meal and each other's company.

Ribby Ribs Ribs. Chocolate Ribs! Lots of tender meat with rich flavorful sauce perfect for dipping.

HIbiscus wine

Coconut bread rolls baked, not grilled.

Frying up the cheese Pupusas--second batch

I learned several things cooking these recipes. Highlights below:

1. Meat can be expensive! (but there was lots of leftovers for lunches)
2. Pupusas fry better after the batter has set up for a while. (I made the rest of the batch after our meal had ended and the rested batter did not leak the cheese like the first go round.)
2a. Latin America makes some good cheese. (Also, I am glad to have the big bag of Masa, because making pupusas is so simple, just add cheese/veggies, fry, eat!)
3. The Hibiscus wine recipe will go in my recipe file so I can use it to mull my wines and make sangrias! (This recipe is a keeper!!)
4. I have now "mastered" the cactus plant as food. Next challenge vegetable please! (Last month we ate the leaf and this month the fruit as dessert.)
5. I like an unknown cookbook to have photos. (This seems not to apply when I buy them from library book sales or thrift stores though–perhaps it is a time frame connundrum?)

Lunch plated pre salad.

I was particularly excited to try this Prickly Pear "cocktail," but I decided to serve it as dessert instead of an appetizer (Maricel E. Presilla, the cookbook author, suggests serving this with a shot of aged tequila.) I felt like it needed a little jazz added in order to pass the dessert muster, so I garnished the martini glass with fresh ripe blueberries and a dollop of honeyed greek yogurt. The sweetness of the blueberries and the smooth dairy contrasted perfectly with the slightly spicy, slightly crunchy, and very limey cactus fruit. This dessert would be great for a special occasion as it's simple to prepare, but looks beautiful. If you wanted to add a Mexican cookie I think it would be a tasty addition too.

Dessert 2.0

Dessert

We've become the ladies who lunch, thanks to Cook the Book. Are you ready to get together with a group of friends over food? Do you plan potlucks or take turns hosting the meals? You can join us in cooking the book next month if you need some food for thought and inspiration!

Welcome!

Grab some salad and a glass of wine.

*Although considering our recent eating habits, perhaps we should rename our blog "Anything Fried with Cheese is Good" Opinions?