Fennel Frond Chicken Salad (Try 2)

So a little less fennel fronds, and no diced fennel added to the salad.  This led to a more balanced dish over all.  Maybe a few more sprinkles of the fronds.  But much better then the last time around. 

Braised Chuck Tacos

So I got a hunk of chuck from Big Boy Meats , cut it into cubes, and cooked it with some onions, tomatoes a bit of beef broth and a helping of cumin and dried jalapeno.  I put it in my pot and braised it slowly for 6 or so hours.  At the end I was able to just grab the bones and shake them a little and all the meat fell off.

A little spice and heat, a good tasting over all, It was a nice, juicy way to add meat to the taco portion.  We topped it with the normal accompaniments.

On a side note here, I picked up a bag of Jalapeno peppers from Table Top Farm.  This is of note, because of the last few times I've picked up the peppers from my local grocery store, they've been bland, had no heat whatsoever and have been making me generally pissed.  I was happy to have a return to heat.

Roasted Hatch Chili and Braised Chuck Pizza

So at the family reunion we had taco pizza (among many others) at Mabe's Pizza.  Now apparently this is a midwest thing, and I do have fairly fond memories of eating this from several places in my youth, but as far as that goes, why does it have to be the way that it is generally presented (ground beef, onions, black olives, sour cream, tortilla chips, etc.).  One could certainly use similar ingredients from something that actually resembles a taco, and combine them to make it taste good on a pizza.

So I took some of the purposefully leftover Braised Chuck (normally it would've ended up as a midnight snack or breakfast), some roasted hatch peppers (from Juan's)  and a diced jalepeno from Table Top.  I thought about adding some more things, but I thought about just keeping it simple to start.

So what you have is a bit of spice, a bit of vegetation and some beefiness on top of what is generally your normal pizza.  I suppose I should've swapped out the mozzarella with Queso Fresco or Queso Blanco, to get a more of taste, and swapped out red pepper flakes with something else, but to many changes leads to confusion.  I only wish to replicate this wouldn't be so relatively time consuming.  But I will have to try again.

Over all, I'm still pretty pleased with the way that this came out. 

Crooked Gap Pork Burgers

nom

Crooked Gap Brats

nom

Tomato and Onion Pasta

I picked up a bit of Graziano Italian Sausage to round out the dinner and it worked out pretty well.  A lot like last time. 

Side notes

So we got around to eating the peach ice cream, overall I was generally disappointed.  Though I didn't follow my modified Jenni's method (mashing up Cook's Illustrated and Jenni's Splendid, by following Jenni's but then taking a segment and freezing it to re-add to the base when churning, to get it colder and freezing faster to hopefully make smaller ice crystals).  The flavor could've been beefed up a bit too.  But I did divide out a segment to add to the Iced Tea, so really that was probably my own fault.  Anyways, I'll have to try again on something else while it's still warm out.