Victory Over Shrimp & Grits

Okay, it doesn't take much for me to declare victory but I have to say that last weekend, I made shrimp & grits my bitch.  My husband, Big Steve, loves shrimp & grits.  It's one of his favorite dishes but, alas, is almost always disappointing wherever he orders it.  He's tried shrimp & grits at just about every place in Dallas that serves it (Grace, Screen Door, J. Blacks, Dodie's, etc...).  The only place where he had S&G that lived up to his high expectations was at Nola Restaurant in New Orleans.  Nola is one of Emeril's restaurants so we assumed it would be overhyped and mediocre in execution.  Well, we have now been to Nola at least 3x and everytime, the S&G (and all our other dishes) have been phenomenal.

Steve says that the best thing about Nola's S&G is the Spicy Abita Beer BBQ Glaze that is on the shrimp. Well, I finally found the recipe for this dish and made it last week.  It was awesome.  It did take several steps to make  but the end product was worth the time and effort.  To be honest, the glaze itself was so simple to make that it was laughable.  Basically, it's beer, ketchup, crushed red pepper, brown sugar and Abita Amber ale that you cook on the stovetop for about 10 minutes and that's it.  I found the recipe on Food Network.com of all places.  Go figure.

I also made an appetizer of some fried oysters (used Zatarain's fish fry mix) on field greens topped with a horseradish cream sauce.  I hate to toot my own horn (not really) but they pretty much rocked.

Evidence of said victories is below.

Oyster Appetizer

Shrimp & Grits with Abita Beer BBQ Glaze.  Boo.Yah.

New Grill - Searing Feature - Test One

Last weekend my husband decided to test the "searing plate" on our new grill.  For those of you that haven't used one before, it's basically a porcelain plate with a grate over it that replaces one of your grill burners and heats up to an ungodly temperature (circa 1200 degrees).  It's supposed to immediately sear your steak to lock in the juice and flavor.  Our google research indicated that your steak should be placed on it for about 20-30 seconds before the quarter turn for the cross hatch and then flipped for an additional 30 seconds and then finished on the regular grill burner for about 5 minutes.  We had mixed results but it was our first time using it so I think that with more practice, it can work really well.

Here are the finished steaks.  As you can see, one steak got a nice cross hatch on it but the other one, not so much.  You really have to get them both right on the mid-section of the plate, which can be tricky b/c it's 1200 friggin' degrees.  In fact, when you start heating up th searing plate, it begins to glow in an unearthly way.  When you open your grill, you would swear that it's about to unleash the Balrog demon that Gandolph fought in first The Lord of the Rings.  You almost want to stand in front of the grill and strike the ground with your staff while shouting "You shall not pass!"

At any rate, the searing plate is going to take some more work and practice.  Both steaks came out a little underdone. 

Gym Etiquette

About 10 months ago I embarked on a serious "get my fat ass in shape" program at my local gym with the help of a trainer.  After months of torture and self-deprivation, I came out the other side with a much more svelte physique and renewed sense of self confidence.  Unfortunately, the reality soon hit me that this was not a one time thing and that if I want to eat food other than egg whites and plain oatmeal then I would literally have to work out 5 or 6 days a week in order to avoid weight gain.  So, I now spend quite a bit of time at the gym, which has really opened my eyes to a new subculture of freaks, roid heads and narcissitic weirdos.  There are a lot of strange people that work out.  Over the past few months, I have developed some basic etiquette rules for people working out at the gym and if these rules were followed, we could all have a much more pleasant exercise experience.  See below.

• Please don't speak loudly into your cyborg phone headpiece while working out.  It's annoying and just because you tell your lame-ass friend on the other end that "I'm working out, girl!", you really aren't.  If you were really working out, you wouldn't even be able to draw enough breath to have that conversation.  So, shut up, girl.

• Guys this is for you.  I know that sometimes you need to adjust your package and there are discreet ways to do so.  Here is what not to do while walking through the middle of the gym:  (i) Don't pull up the bottom of your T-shirt and put it in your mouth thereby exposing your flaccid, hairy stomach, (ii) don't use one hand to pull your shorts several inches away from your body and (iii) don't plunge your opposite hand into your scrotal region and start rummaging around down there. No one needs to see that. 

• Ladies, please put some fucking clothes on.  First, the vast majority of you (including myself) don't look nearly as good as you think you do.  Yes, you have recently lost 15 lbs, so congratulations and all, but when you started out weighing 195 and you're 5'3, it's kind of like a chip off Mount Rushmore.  A t-shirt is needed.  Second, for those of you who do have the figure for it, please keep in mind that you are wearing a sports bra.  The key word being "bra" which means that it does not qualify as a shirt.  Also, chances are you still have cellulite on the back of your thighs so there's no reason to wear shorts so short that your butt cheeks hang out the bottom.  Try to have some dignity, please.  Plenty of men will be looking at you later as you slide down the pole and grind the floor at your evening job. Your mom must be proud.

• Yes, weights can be heavy but if I can hear you groaning from the complete opposite end of the gym over the sound of the shitty techno music coming through the loudspeakers then either you are trying to lift too much weight or you're trying to draw attention to yourself.  Either way, you're an idiot.  The sound of your groaning is not a mating call so don't expect women to come running down there to watch you lift a 50 lb dumbbell. No one cares.

• Finally, don't talk to me.  If I have my headphones on, that should be the universal sign of "fuck off" to you.  If I don't, you should still assume I have no interest in speaking to you.  If I smile and say "good morning" that is not an opening for you to begin telling me about how awesome you are at flag football and how much you can bench press.  It just means I was in a rare good mood and had a fleeting moment of kindness and love towards my fellow man, which you just ruined.

There, I think that sums it up pretty well.

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

Given that we're now on consecutive Day #31 of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, our weekend beverage choices seem to be on a steady rotation of frozen margaritas, white wine or light beer (aka, domestic swill).  Now, I know that some people believe frozen margaritas are a bastardization of the real deal and I do agree with that.  To my tastebuds there is nothing better than Rick Bayless' simple margarita recipe of high quality silver tequila mixed with freshly squeezed lime juice, a teaspoon of agave nectar and served on the rocks with a bit of salt on the rim.  However, when it's 104 degrees outside, sometimes you just need more damn ice in your drink.

We recently finished building (or I should say, having a team of sweaty construction workers build for us) an outdoor kitchen. It was just finished last Friday afternoon and it's pretty awesome.  My husband is referring to it as his fully operational entertainment area deathstar.  The new kitchen also gives us extra storage and additional electrical outlets, so I gave my spouse the go-ahead to buy a contraption that he's been eyeing for about 3 months now - the Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker.

Here it is in all its Margaritaville trademarked glory. Is there anything that Jimmy Buffet won't put his name on these days? You have to hand it to the guy - he does more marketing and branding than Mel Brook's Yogurt character did in Spaceballs The Movie.  It's impressive.

Despite the cheesiness of it, I have to give this product high marks.  It pretty much bitchslaps regular blenders when it comes to creating a frozen alcoholic beverage.  It works differently from your average blender.  You put the ice in the top and put your tequila and lime juice or mixer in the carafe.  Then, you flip a dial to set how many drinks you want it to make (who are you kidding?  Just set it to the highest number) and it shaves the ice, dumps it into the carafe and then blends it to make the perfect margarita or other frozen concoction.  If you decide you want more ice, you can just turn on the shave feature to dump more perfectly shaven ice into the carafe.  It makes the perfect, fluffy frozen margarita with no hint of unprocessed ice chunks that I get with my normal blender and that get stuck in my straw creating a margarita blockage which pisses me off.  So, this product is getting an A+ from me as far as functionality. I'll deduct a point or two for the corny marketing ploy, though.

We found it for sale at Macy's for $299.  Sur la Table used to carry it but seem to have dropped it now.  At any rate, if you like frozen drinks, it's pretty kick-ass in that department.