Flip Burger in ATL

I am just getting around to posting some photos from my escapades in Atlanta. I've decided to start from the beginning of my trip and work my way through rather that jump around.

When I arrived Wednesday afternoon Kristen took me to a local burger joint, Flip Burger. This was a fantastic idea to me because I knew that it was Richard Blais' restaurant and Wednesday was the day that Top Chef All-Stars Finale aired.

The strip mall area that the restaurant is located in is apparently a popular spot because they offer valet. Kristen and I opted out of valet, but it took us a good 10 minutes of driving around before we were able to stalk a patron to their car and get their spot; thank you Mr. BMW man!

We started off with an order of fried pickles...naturally.

Anywhere I go that has fried pickles on the menu, Dan and I order them, yum. These were delicious, some of the best I have ever had. They served them with a buttermilk sirancha sauce and I loved the fresh dill on top, perfect touch.

For my main course I ordered "the local"...well done (I'll eat my steak medium but not my burger yet; it's taken me a while to not order a steak well done). The local is organic, grass-fed beef, tomme cheese, beef bacon, lettuce, yellow tomato, red onion, coca-cola ketchup, pickled peach and pecans. It was fantastic...I ate it all...every last bit.

Kristen had the turkey burger...but she wanted it plain Jane...bun, pattie, cheese. I am a sauce girl; I love sauces and toppings, but even plain, the turkey burger had fantastic flavor.

We also split an order of french fries (everything is a-la-carte) with our burgers and after eating all of this we were both too stuffed for dessert...shocking right! I want to go back and try the captain crunch shake. Also, I noticed today when I checked the menu (to make sure that I remembered all of the toppings correctly) that they added a foie gras shake to the menu. Anyone who watched the Top Chef finale will know why!

On our way out the hostess asked if we were planning on watching the finale; we said yes and then she handed us "Team Richard" stickers and a flier for a local watching party. We had plans for the evening but we recorded the finale of course.

Monkey Bread & Monkey-ing Around

Sorry, it has been awhile since my last post. This past weekend we had great weather, so on Saturday Dan and I went to a maple syrup "farm" for an open house on how they make maple syrup.

When we returned, we decided to play with Remi off of his leash in the fields around our house. He usually has a leash on at all times outside, but since we no longer live in a big city Dan wants to start weaning Remi off the leash. For now we try and only experiment when we both are around to coral him in case he gets any harebrained ideas!

Needless to say, Remi had a blast, so there will need to be frequent repeats when the weather is fair; we are looking forward to Spring!

On Sunday night we had plans to head into the city to meet up with some of Dan's co-workers. Thus, I made a late brunch with a monkey bread ring. Now you really need 6-8 people for this thing, because it is a haus of a bread.

My love of this bread began in 2006 when my friend Elizabeth first introduced it to me. She was my co-worker at the time and would bring this bread whenever we had morning staff parties (which were fairly often because we had a large staff).

Everyone looked forward to it, and when she wasn't able to bring it because of time or whatnot folks were crestfallen to say the least. Anyhow, she never had a precise recipe for it; it was one of those recipes you know is right by the way it looks and feels just because you've made it so often.

After we went to the maple farm on Saturday, we stopped by our local library for some new reading material. I was perusing the aisle with the cookbooks and saw an old America's Test Kitchen volume with monkey bread on the cover. I subscribe to ATK so I thought it would be fun to give their version a whirl. Coincidentally, yesterday I saw a whole monkey bread making kit at Target, so clearly it is becoming rather popular.

When you taste it, you too will know why! It reminds me of cross between a doughnut hole and a cinnamon roll; it's good! Even Dan, the hard-to-please-one in our house, thought it was fantastic and proceeded to tell me every time he went to pull off another chunk from the ring "this is really good, you'll definitely need to add this to the recipe box!"

The city pictures below are what you might think, pictures of NYC; these are just from our drive in on Sunday night. I enjoy the architecture of the bridges and buildings.

Over the bridge :)



Monkey Bread Adapted from the "America's Best Lost Recipes" Cookbook

Dough
2 Tbsps unsalted butter,softened,plus 2 Tbsps melted
1 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 pkg rapid-rise yeast
3 1/4 cups AP flour
2 tsp salt

Brown Sugar Coating
1 cup packed LB (light brown) sugar
2 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon
8 Tbsps (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Glaze
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 Tbsp cream
1 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
For the dough: if you are making this in the north and your house is currently holding steady at 55 degrees (like our house) then you will need to preheat your oven to 200; when the oven reaches 200 turn it off (this will serve as a warm place to put your dough to rise). If you are making this in TX where it is 80 degrees right now, you may not need the oven, just put it in a warm spot...use your judgement.

1. Lightly spray a large bowl with cooking spray and butter a Bundt pan with 2 Tbsps softened butter; set both aside.

2. Mix milk, water together in a large pyrex measuring cup--heat in a microwave for a 30 seconds or so, just to take the chill off or until it registers 110F. Add melted butter (which will raise the temp a bit) sugar and yeast. Stir the flour and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Turn the mixer on low to combine flour and slowly add milk mixture. When the dough comes together increase the speed to medium and mix the dough until smooth 6-7 minutes. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead to form a smooth ball. Place the ball into the prepared bowl, roll it around a bit to coat, cover with plastic wrap and place in the warm oven or a warm spot until doubled in size 50-60 minutes.

3. Sugar Coating: While your dough rises mix the sugar and cinnamon in a shallow dish (I used a pie plate for this). Place the melted butter in a medium sized bowl (to compensate for any splashing dipping the dough might cause.)

4. Making Dough Balls: Pat dough into an 8" square and cut the dough with a bench scraper into 64 pieces. Roll each into a ball. Dunk the small dough balls into the butter then roll into the brown sugar (use a wet hand, dry hand method much like you would do for dredging fried chicken). Layer the sugared dough balls into the Bundt pan.

5. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and place in the turned-off oven or a warm spot until the dough balls are puffy 50-70 minutes.

6. Remove the pan from the oven and heat to 350F. Remove plastic wrap from the pan and bake until the top is deep brown and the liquid created from the sugar begins to bubble around the edges (about 30-35 minutes). Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out on a platter and let cool briefly (about 10 minutes).

7. Glaze: While the bread is cooling, whisk the confectioners' sugar, milk, cream and vanilla together in a small bowl until smooth. Drizzle glaze over the warm bread, letting it run down the sides. Serve warm.

Mohonk Mountain House

Last week the Mohonk Mountain House had "Community Week". Mohonk is an old hotel outside of New Paltz and all of the locals had been telling me that I should go visit in the Spring. However, typically you have to pay to get onto the property; something in the ballpark of $15 per person...not per car...per person. I understand the charge; they need to have something in place in order to maintain the lawns and gardens on the property and make sure it is not overrun with tourists.

Anyhow, a few weeks a year they open the property to the community, which means that you can walk around the property free of charge. Considering the fact that I probably ran into 30 people max (including the hotel staff) I don't think it is any coincidence that community weeks likely occur at the least desirable times of the year; half of the grounds were closed for one reason or another so I only really saw the bare bones of the place, but I'm not about to turn away a free opportunity.

Therefore what follows is what I shot while walking around. I'll have to suck it up, fork over the $30 bucks and bring Dan along to see the gardens in the Spring because I'm sure that it's lovely.

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A Coffee Enthusiast's Guide to Good Coffee

A few friends have asked what I have been doing without Peregrine down the street to feed my coffee habit. Well, after a few discussions with some trusted experts on what I can do without having to purchase a fancy espresso machine (basically the only good ones are several thousand dollars and Dan is not ready for me to make that kind of purchase!) This is an overview of my coffee routine. It really is not as complicated as it may look.


Sweetener:

I'm not a coffee purist by any means; my aunt Chottie will totally poo poo this post when she reads it because a purist drinks their coffee black. I am merely an avid coffee enthusiast, a milk and sugar adder to my coffee-er. There was an interesting article in Barista Magazine on this subject this past fall.

Though I pollute my coffee with milk and sugar I am however rather picky about my joe additions. I make a vanilla simple syrup or a vanilla sugar (for the sugar stir together 1 cup sugar and add a Tbsp of vanilla bean paste or more depending on preference; store in the fridge for up to a month), or I'll also use dark muscavado sugar, which is the pile of sugar pictured on the right. The sweetener I use depends on my mood that day.

Storage:

I use a coffee bean vacuum. A friend gave this to me several years ago; this thing runs on batteries and vacuum seals the beans. You can set it to a 12 or 24 hour reseal setting to conserve energy.


Beans:

I have currently been importing beans from Peregrine, but I'll switch to Counter Culture from the CIA or Bread Alone once the last of my beans have been used up. It may not seem like one would notice the sublety in flavor whilst using milk and sugar but there really is a difference between freshly roasted beans and the stuff you get in the supermarket.

Grinder:

A great friend gave me a Williams-Sonoma gift card once (as a note...WS gift card always equals a happy Patricia...just saying!) and I was able to get this little beauty. It takes all of 10 seconds to grind the beans...then I pop those into a filter and set on top of my dripper (which I got at Peregrine).

Milk:

Summer of 2009 my good friend's mom (Dede) introduced me to the little baby above and I've been using it ever since. It is a Nespresso milk frother another WS item; my parents and in-laws think that I am a bit ridiculous when it comes to my coffee (I keep a french press at my in-laws lake house and I brought my frother when we stayed two weeks one vacation.)

Seriously though, this thing is awesome. You add a bit of milk, hit the button and voila, frothy milk.

Dripper:

I use a dripper that I purchased at Peregrine this fall to actually produce my coffee. It is pretty straight forward. You put your grounds in a filter and pour hot water over the top and it drips into the cup below...ta-da...coffee!