Monthly Archives: March 2012

NOLA Brewing Easter Keg Hunt 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Saturday, April 7 at noon marks the 4th annual Easter Keg Hunt, which if history is any indicator will be an event not to miss. Last year I dove head first into the Easter Keg Hunt with a few friends. We had an amazing time, so as soon as the details were released we had our team back together for another go at it. Last year we were on our home turf in Mid-City, which made things easy. This year is going to be a bit more challenging for us as the Easter Keg Hunt takes over the Warehouse District. Not familiar with the Easter Keg Hunt? Here are the details:

Enter a team of 2 to 6 players and follow cryptic clues to a post-hunt bash with all you can drink NOLA beers.

You may walk/run/bike/skateboard to seek out clue locations–NO VEHICLES ALLOWED. The hunt will lead you to the after party destination where there will be free NOLA Brewing beer as your reward, and prizes and Easter fun. The Colin Lake Trio will be rocking things again this year 3 to 7 p.m.

Entry fees are $12 a person (for pre registration, $15 at the door) and proceeds go to help the Gulf Restoration Network, which is working hard to reverse the damage done by BP and their buddies. Oh, and that $12 gets you all you can drink NOLA beer when you finish the scavenger hunt. Of course to be eligible for the free beer you actually have to complete the hunt (no free beer for the slackers!).

Round up some friends, get a great name and some outrageous costumes and be prepared to scavenge your way across the Warehouse District. Check the list of rules and stipulations here and sign up here.

What’s Cooking: Strawberry Basil Jam

Posted on by
2

Strawberry Basil Jam on a Biscuit for Breakfast

After the weekend we had, everyone can agree that spring is definitely here.  Along with our love of everything outdoors this time of year come my love of light, fresh flavors from the kitchen.  This Strawberry Basil Jam is ridiculously easy to make and I highly recommend it if you’ve got a bumper crop of basil coming in faster than you can use it.  This recipe calls for a lot of basil, but the flavor really is subtle in the finished product.  You can use other berries if you’d prefer blueberry, blackberry, or even a mixture.  $1.25 just loves anything strawberry, so this was his request.

About 3-4 cups of fresh basil

Bring defrosted strawberries and their juice to a simmer on the stove.

Run basil through a food processor with the juice of one orange, one lemon, and 2/3 cup sugar.

After cooling overnight in the fridge, the jam is thick and set.

Here’s the very simple recipe:

3-4 cups of fresh basil, rinsed

16 oz frozen strawberries, defrosted, juices reserved*

1 lemon, juiced

1 orange, juiced

2/3 cup sugar

Pour the berries into a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer on medium heat.  Place the basil, the lemon juice, the orange juice and the sugar in a food processor.  Pulse until the basil is finely chopped and everything is well blended.  Add the basil mixture to the berries and simmer for about 25 minutes until the mixture has reduced and thickened.  Depending on the berries you use, you may need to mash them with a fork.  I actually just dumped everything into the food processor and gave it a quick spin to break up the big chunks of berries. This is personal preference though, if you like a more “chunky” jam, skip this step.

Refrigerate overnight or until cooled.

* I know I said fresh flavors were perfect for the spring, but I do think the defrosted/frozen berries are key here.  The defrosted berries are much softer and the juices help with the consistency.  If you have a ton of fresh berries on hand, I’m sure you can get the same result, you’ll probably just need to adjust the liquid and cooking time a little bit.  BTW, if you adjust the cooking time a lot, you may want to hold the basil out until later in the process to keep the fresh flavor alive.

Giveaway Winner: Who is going to the New Orleans International Beer Festival?

Posted on by
Reply

The New Orleans International Beer Festival giveaway is concluded and we have a winner. Thanks to Random.org, we’ve randomized the commentors names to select a winner.

Congrats to Chris Vitenas for scoring a pair of free tickets.

Here’s the list as generated by Random.org

Chris V
Milt
Cate
Michael
Lindsay
Anna
Ashley
Polly
Andy
Rebecca
Jane
Maggie
Chris
Kevin
Josieann
Jedd

Timestamp: 2012-03-23 12:38:07 UTC

What’s Cooking: Chimichurri

Posted on by
2

Chimichurri on grilled pork

If you’ve had dinner at our house any time in the last year, chances are we’ve made this chiminhurri sauce for you.  There was a stretch of time when I seriously think I made it every weekend for six weeks straight.  Needless to say, we’re BIG fans of this recipe.  I think we love it so much because it’s incredibly versatile.  It works well on poultry, on steak, heck, it’s even good on some toasted baguette.  You’ll have to do a lot of chopping to get to the finished product, but trust us, it’s totally worth it.  Between the red onion, parsley, garlic, and red pepper, this chimichurri pulls together a slew of otherwise strong flavors into a mellow, savory topping for just about anything.

Parsley, Garlic and Red Onion

The finished chimichurri, marinating

1/2 cup minced red onion (about 1/2 onion)

1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh oregano (I’ve also gotten by with about 1/2 tablespoon dried oregano)

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl.  Season with 1- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.  Add the salt slowly and taste along the way.  Remember you can’t take it away once it’s in there.  Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.

We’ve usually served the chimichurri over grilled flank steak, sliced thin against the grain.  Last night we had it over grilled pork and I think we might have the leftovers tonight on some grilled chicken breasts.  It would also be great with some grilled shrimp with a little extra lemon.  Can you tell we like this stuff??  I do think grilled flavors work best, particularly with the bite of the chimichurri and the smoky flavors from the grill.  But if you find it’s great on something roasted or otherwise prepared, we’d love to hear about it.

Giveaway: New Orleans International Beer Fest

Posted on by
16

Got any plans for this Saturday? Say from 2 to 6? Well, you might now. You see, the folks from the New Orleans International Beer Festival have provided us with a pair of tickets to give to one lucky winner. One winner, two tickets, four hours, 50+ breweries, 150+ beers, unlimited sampling. That’s right, unlimited beer. For free.

So how do you win? Easy, between now and Thursday, March 22nd at 11:59 PM, find the list of breweries scheduled to appear at New Orleans International Beer Festival and the beers they are bringing (hint: click here) and tell us in the comments which beer from which brewery you’d like to try most. We’ll pick the winner at random Friday morning.

Don’t forget to sign in with a valid email address when commenting so we can track you down. And one entry per person.

New Orleans International Beer Festival
Champions Square
March 24, 2012
2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Around Town: Fiesta de Los Islenos Recap

Posted on by
Reply

I’m going to start this post by telling you to grab your calendars and make a note for the weekend of March 16-17 next year to remind you that you really want to go to Fiesta de Los Islenos in St. Bernard. $1.25 and I had the pleasure of attending this year’s festival as a function of our participation in the Festival Fanatics program and we really enjoyed our day. Not only were the organizers and vendors all very warm and welcoming, but they were all eager to share their traditions and history with us at every turn. And you all know we love to eat and drink, so trust me when I tell you the libations at this festival won’t disappoint.

After a painless drive out to St. Bernard, we started our morning with a taste of some Arehucas honey rum. OMG, that stuff is GOOD! We even tried to hunt down a bottle at the Mereaux Quick Stop* on our way home, but it was sold out. From the taste of the rum on, we ate our way through the day. We sampled the tapas plate of assorted spanish cheeses, chorizos and fresh warm breakfast tortilla. Then we tasted gumbo, Shrimp Islenos, fried bacon wrapped bananas, croquettes, paella, shrimp and grits, more chorizo, more tortilla, and some fresh homemade ice cream. We even got to go behind the scenes to watch them make the tortilla and I have a feeling $1.25 is going to be trying his hand at that dish one morning soon. For those of you who don’t know what it is, this tortilla is a delicious frittata-like dish made with thinly sliced potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, chorizo and eggs.

Of course, all that food worked up quite a thirst, so we hydrated with sangria and someone’s secret stash of homemade blackberry wine (shhh…we’re pretty sure it wasn’t “officially recognized” by, well, anyone).

We rounded out the day with a hefty dose of culture, watching traditional folk dances, visiting a few museums on site, and learning about the Islenos culture and population in our state. $1.25 even learned how to shuck an oyster thanks to our friends at the St. Bernard Tourist Commission. We cannot say enough how much we enjoyed the people and the very warm welcome we received from everyone at this festival.

All in all we had an amazing time and really enjoyed the laid back, family atmosphere of the Fiesta de Los Islenos. We highly recommend it to those of you looking to shake up your festival season next year. And, if you didn’t pull out your calendar already, we’ll try to remind you about it again next spring too.

We took a ton of pictures and uploaded them all to Facebook, so click here to have a look.

*We were told that the Mereaux Quick Stop is the only place anywhere near here to pick up a bottle of the honey rum…we’ll be on the lookout for it and if we get a bottle we’ll pass along the info. Apparently the Quick Stop will have more bottles in stock later this week, so if you live in the area, you’ll be able to get some then…but save some for us!

The Cocktail Tour: Help it all get started

Posted on by
Reply

Elizabeth Pearce has an impressive resume, Senior Curator at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, contributing columnist to the Times-Picayune Food Section and Emeril’s online food magazine, and lecturer on New Orleans and Southern cooking at venues around the country, including the College of Charleston, Savannah State University, and Newcomb College at Tulane University. And that is just the tip of the iceberg here. She also does cooking classes, which we’ve featured over on GoNOLA.com before. Clearly not content with all that, Elizabeth has decided to kick-off a cocktail walking tour in the French Quarter. And no, it isn’t the Hand Grenade, Hurricane, Big Ass Beer tour. But, Elizabeth can’t get things started on her own, so she’s asked for help. So watch the movie and if that’s something that seems like something you’d like, click here to help out. In exchange for a helping her raise seed money, you’ll get cool gifts, like free tour tickets, coozies, and membership to the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. Think of it like an NPR or PBS style fundraiser for a booze tour!

Old Fashioned 101: The Only Resource You’ll Ever Need

Posted on by
Reply

Many days (weeks??) ago I learned about this great new website that Martin Doudoroff launched to guide people through the proper making of an Old Fashioned. Thankfully he called it Old Fashioned 101. The guide is about as simple as it gets, even if it clings to some hardcore “purist” ideals. I had grand plans of sharing it with you all quickly, but then I got distracted.

And now one of the blogs in my regular reading (Make it Simple but Significant [née Off the Presses]) has covered it. And done so using words that are way too big to be tossed around in these parts. So without further ado, I’ll skip my wholly simplistic post on OldFashioned101.com (“This is fantastic!”) and leave you with the vastly more elegant words of Robert Simonson.

Everything to Everyone: 12 Mile Limit

Posted on by
Reply

I’m not going to mince words here, 12 Mile Limit is probably the best bar in New Orleans. Especially on a Saturday night when they’re non-smoking (and they mean it). Now, Cupcake will most certainly disagree with me, but a bar can’t be all things to all people.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty that isn’t ideal with 12 Mile Limit: it’s on the wrong side of Banks St., the buzzer entry door seems to be more of a necessity than a gimmick to lend a speakeasy feel to the joint, the building is in need of some serious repair work, and the bathrooms are reminiscent of some of the French Quarter’s finest. But in some kind of perverse way, all this leads to the charm a little bit more. I mean, there is some great amusement to be found in patrons who are trying to enter, but can’t quite figure out the buzzer system. It happens more than you’d think . . .

Fine, so what’s so great about 12 Mile? Basically everything else, and that starts with T. Cole Newton, formerly of Coquette, who owns and runs 12 Mile Limit. Cole has brought his love and knowledge of mixing fine cocktails to 12 Mile, but seemed to arrive without the off-putting pretension that sadly marks many a fine cocktail program. Want a Last Word, Aviation, Corpse Reviver or any other drink you’ll find from a Dale DeGroff or David Wondrich book? Coming right up. Vodka soda more your style? Don’t worry, you’ll still get served here (which is more than you can say at some “mixology” focused places). Want some draft beers in a Liuzza’s style chilled chalice? Hells yeah. Or if you need to up your hipster street cred, cans of PBR are there for the buying. The best part of the bar program here, the rock bottom prices. No $20 drinks here.

I’m pretty much sold just on all that, but 12 Mile has set itself up to get you and your friends settled in for the evening. Patrons aren’t shy about tearing into the huge supply of board games, including many classics from your childhood. You’ll have just as many people wrapped up in conversation as you will clustered around the high top tables lost in intense games of scrabble, scattergories and any number of other games. Conversation or board games not your thing? There’s a pool table in the back and a few TVs up front, including a big screen that has streaming Netflix.

While I always get a kick out of picking the bartenders’ brains about the various drinks and booze on display, there is only so much of that Cupcake and my friends can tolerate. Unashamedly, we’ll turn to the board games for entertainment. Most recently, I dragged Cupcake against her will, but in fairness I had to watch the Oscars. We ordered up a few drinks, headed to the back of the room and whipped out a board game. A couple well crafted drinks and a few rounds of the game, and without even realizing it Cupcake was having a great time. Even the fact that I pulled a Drew Brees-like come-from-behind miracle win in the waning minutes (think Saints v. Texans, 2011), couldn’t get her down. So maybe, just maybe, 12 Mile Limit can be everything to everyone. Probably not, but they’ll sure as hell try.

All these great things, and we’ve not even touched on the BBQ, cupcakes or special events. Look for our thoughts on those in the future.

12 Mile Limit
500 South Telemachus (a block Uptown from Finn’s)