Pistachio Macarons

Another flavor I did for my friend's wedding was Pistachio.  

If you are lucky, you can get some pistachio meal in the bulk aisle in Central Market.  If not, you can easily grind them up, just have to do a very fine ground.  Alot of people use a coffee grinder to get the job done.

I mixed it with the dry ingredients, to give the shells more flavors.

Mix and mix...

Add the dry stuff with the egg whites.

Piped out nicely...

came out nice and pied... no crack!

The filling has white chocolate and the reminder of the pistachio.  So melt the 3 oz of white chocolate with 1/3 cup of heavy cream.  Add a tsp of melted butter, I added a tablespoon of the pistachio meal, mix it all together.  And chilled it overnight, cover it with saran wrap and make sure the wrap kisses the top of the mixture to avoid skin forming.  I piped it with a star tip and it comes out wavy.

Ruggle's Green GF Pizza

This time back to Ruggles Green for Gluten Free Pizzas.

This is the GF margherita pizza.  It looked a tad sparse.  As though someone formulaically put the tomato and basil leaves on there... 

This is their GF Pepperoni Pizza.  While I'm super happy to see that this is more meat on the pizza than the other pizza.  This time this is super oily, thanks to the pepperoni.  Definitely more meat on it than the other one... 

Overall the pizzas are pretty good, the crust is thin and definitely good.  I do wish that the margherita has more stuff and the pepperoni is less oily but otherwise, they both taste great.  And I think I'm ready to try the other flavors too.

Ruggles Green

2311 W. Alabama

Houston, TX 77098

713-533-0777

http://www.rugglesgreen.com/

Chatter's Cafe

The other day a friend of ours was just saying how they're opening up a business in the Heights, we were thrilled and also thought about places to eat in the area.  Is he kidding, there's tons to choose from.  

We haven't been to Chatter's for a while, so it's just as good as any time to bring a new person to the place.

This is one of my usual, the gyro plate.  They gave you way too much meat, which is good.  And not enough rice, which you just naturally want to mix them together.  Every time I go, I ended up taking leftover home, this can easily become two meals.

They do serve a little of everything on the menu, but the best thing is their Happy Hour, most day they have food specials, but Wednesday they have 1/2 price bottle of wine.  That makes all happy hour happier.  They have great service and they can do takeout too, not a bad idea to sit out at the patio on a good night too.

Chatter's Cafe

140 S. Heights Blvd

Houston, TX 77007

713-864-8080

http://www.chatterscafe.com/index.asp

Paleo Dinner

Word has it that the authors of Rich Foods, Poor Foods were stopping by on their way to a cruise in Galveston.  So they stopped in Houston to host a Paleo Dinner.

Here's their menu... it was kinda funny because their Ceasar salad came with croton, which is not paleo friendly...  but the food was prepared by Bruce Molzan, formerly of Ruggles fame. 

This was our 1st course, aka salad course.  It's the Farmers Market Greens, it came with a slice of watermelon and a a slice of the parmesan crisp.  The salad has jicama, dried mango, greens and honey mustard dressing.  It was pretty good and a great mix together.

Spring Snapper on a bed of summer squash, it has grapes, orange slices, and carrots and drizzled with salsa.  Lovely combo, and they give you 2 big patties of snapper, it's tons of food.  Wish they offer that more often.

For dessert, we had paleo brownie ala mode.  The vanilla ice cream match with the flourless chocolate cake perfectly.  They should have that on their menu permanently.

Overall, the dinner totally catered to the low carb, high fat crowd, the gluten free crowd, and the paleo crowd.  That said, food is good no matter which crowd you fall under.  I wish some of the items offered here would be offered more frequently.  Hope that's a message to the chef to keep that around.

Corner Table

2736 Virginia St.

Houston, 77098

713-568-9196

http://cornertablehouston.com

Jenni's Noodle

I have some colleagues came in from California, and since we worked till very late, we settled for a quick bite at Jenni's Noodles House.  Fast, good, and did I mention fast?

We had the Disco  Pork Dumplings to share, pretty dumplings, too bad we were hungry and devoured you.  It was good the sauce is good too.  Does anybody know why it's called Disco and why there's only 5?  How do you split the last one???

I tried the Ginger Ramen noodle.  Obviously, it's more like a homemade noodle dish than a true ramen. I think for a true ramen experience, you really should ask for the Miso Ramen, because that's the only 'ramen' dish that is miso broth based.  The rest of the 'ramen' are all soup based, which reminds me alot like the pho soup based.

As you can see, it has pieces of chicken, snow peas, sprouts, scallions, you can add chili oil if you'd like, I can't do too much spice, so I skipped that.   I think the egg noodles are more for wonton noodles you can find at Chinese restaurants not like the real ramen.

I'm not a traditionalist on ramen or anything.  There is a group that is dedicated to that cause... you can go to Ramen In Common and sign up.  It works like the Sushi Club does.  As a matter of fact, it's run by the same guy, Carl Rosa.  Can't wait to go to one of their events and learn about the real ramen difference. 

Jenni's Noodle House

3111 S. Shepherd 

Houston, Tx 77098

713-Noodles

http://www.noodlesrule.com/

Chocolate Macarons

So in working on the wedding macarons, this is the 3rd flavor.

In case you couldn't tell, it's chocolate... keep in mind that chocolate powder dries up the batter much faster than normal shell batters.

For the filling, I got some nice chocolate from the store.  I, again used 1/3 c of heavy cream, with this chocolate bar (chopped to tiny pieces), 1 tsp of butter.  Again mixed it all in and let sit to cool. 

It dries out and you can tell when you pipe, because those little tips won't fall as a 'wetter' batter would. Not only that, since I used the Trader Joe's Almond Meal, it takes a little shorter time to bake.

I did about 9 mins instead of the normal 10 mins with normal almond meal at 320 degrees.  Keep in mind the chocolate powder is already drying out the batter.  If you kept at 10 mins it will burn and crack your shell.  So adjust accordingly.

At the end it doesn't look too bad, as a matter of fact, it's the first ones to go.  So I'm quite happy with the turn out. ^_^

Kubo's Cafe

I had a day off the other day, and was all excited for a bowl of ramen.  So I drove myself out to Chinatown to Kubo's Cafe, since I remember seeing noodles when I was there last time. 

Except, to my disappointment, they only serve ramen after 5pm on weekdays.  Weekend, I believe they have it all day long.  Sigh... will have to try again another time.

The trip was not totally wasted.  Instead I got one of their bento box.  This is their Yakiniku Bento Box, which has sautéed beef with onions.  As you can see, they were quite generous with the rice.  A side salad with the ginger dressing.  A fried dumpling, some edamame and a broccoli both unfortunately is a tad cold.

They are very much order and sit-down style.  Very casual dining, but the food is good nonetheless.  Good variety, great food, fast service.  I highly recommend it and definitely going back for that ramen!

Kubo's Cafe

9889 Bellaire Blvd
Suite 234
Houston,TX 77036
713.995.4200

http://www.kubos-sushi.com/kubos_cafe/index.html