Little Goat Diner, Chicago, IL

We have some over achievers among us.

I began searching for where we would eat while in Chicago possibly as far as a month beforehand.

But there's no shame in my game.

I like to eat, and I like to eat well. Scrambling to find somewhere amazing can end up a few different ways, ranging from okay to good to great to sometimes even amazing food, but it most certainly will always end up in my hunger demon making an appearance.

Girl and the Goat jumped off the list of restaurant choices, and I knew it needed to be part of our Chicago dining plan. Only, when I went to make the reservation (a week in advance, for a Wednesday at 5:00 pm) they were booked.

Sign of a good restaurant choice right there.

I didn't want to pull my Giada card, so when Little Goat Diner came up as an alternate choice, I went with it. After looking over the website, and the obvious connection with the restaurant I had been dreaming about, I decided it would do.

Now that we've been there, I'm so glad Girl and the Goat had been booked.

Little Goat Diner is the perfect place for not only a quick bite, but an extraordinarily flavorful bite. The menu spans breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all of which are served all day long (their hours are from 6 am to 2 am!). Even though I have a certain unexplainable love for everything breakfast at any time of the day, on this particular day I needed dinner.*

*But don't Crumpets (with chorizo maple syrup) sound divine? How about Bull's Eye French Toast (with bbq maple syrup)?

Hubby ordered the Goat Chili Cheese Fries which I immediately dubbed as the table's appetizer. The fries were skinny, which sometimes can mean that they will be too dried out, but in the case of these fries it meant that there was a more cheese to goat to fry ratio.

By the way, goat is my new favorite meat.

Hubby and Joel both ordered the Goat Almighty burger. That's a goat burger, with braised beef (extra because they were out of the bbq pork that usually tops the beef), pickled jalapeños, salsa verde, onion rings, and cheddar cheese. I was pretty busy with my own meal, but I managed to snap a few pictures of their attempts at eating these gigantic burgers.

Mallory ordered the Veggie Chap Chae which consisted of fal veggies, tomato, goat feta, cashews all served over rice pasta. and I'm not going to lie, I wrinkled my nose at her non-meat choice, but when I tasted it I was blown away at the flavor combination.

I ordered the Marinated Skirt Steak. Skirt steaks are slowly becoming my favorite cut of beef.* They are tender, thin, and go nicely with veggies, rice, or pasta. What really moved my dinner choice was the salted goat's milk caramel sauce that was poured over the meat. (I promise, there is a healthy serving of the sauce and meat underneath the abundance of greens you see.

*Don't worry filet minon, you will always have my heart.

Though the thought of eating more was inconceivable, somehow we managed to allow the thought to fester when handed the dessert menu. I couldn't resist the Little Goat Coffee, a latte made with goat's milk and love.

We all shared a sundae, because who can resist a little vanilla gelato smeared with chocolate sauce and whipped cream?

I certainly can't.

More Fruits and Veggies, Please!

We've reached week three!

The three completed weeks haven't passed without their challenges. As I said at the start--- I'm trying. Trying with the realization that I will occasionally fail. Like when I was nibbling on a Twizzler the other night and realized, Wait a minute, I'm pretty sure that Twizzlers have 'Low fat' printed on their packaging. And sure enough, there was "LOW FAT" printed bold for all the world to see.

I'm finally reaching a point where I am truly listening to my internal cues and stopping eating when I feel full. There are only two times I still struggle with this: 1. When eating pasta, and 2. When eating out.

I don't think I need to explain the deliciousness of pasta. The issue with eating out is that I know the leftovers won't taste the same reheated and, chances are, I probably won't end up eating them anyway. If I don't eat the entire meal, or a major portion of it, I feel as though I've wasted my money.

This is a mind over matter battle that I'm fighting.

Week Three: Eat a minimum of two different fruits and/or vegetables with every meal.

Week three was a toughie, too. Mostly because it required buying a lot of fruits and veggies and making sure those that needed prepping were ready. Our breakfasts and lunches are pretty much grab-what-you-can-on-your-way-out-the-door. This doesn't work too well when you need to have two fruits or veggies as part of your meal. We had carrots, but they needed chopping. We had mangos, but they needed slicing. Two days in, I went to the grocery store and grabbed a bag of clementines and a bunch of bananas. At least they work with the grab-what-you-can approach.

Though I love fruits and vegetables, the issue I've always had with them is their short life span.* Of course there are ways around this, i.e.: canned, frozen, etc.**, but again, I haven't been the model planner over the course of the past three weeks of challenges.

*Of course, I realize, that means they are actually natural--and good for you!
**Yes, these would also be ways around all the chopping and slicing barriers I faced. Don't judge me.

The thing I love about fruits and vegetables is their low calorie count. I've started tracking what I eat in My Fitness Pal, again. I did this about a year or so ago and lost about 15 pounds. When I have a meal that consists of mostly fruits and vegetables, I find my calorie count is usually slashed in half.

This gives me extra calories for coffee and chocolate.

I'm kidding.

Okay, maybe not.

While every single meal I ate last week didn't always have two  fruits or veggies on the side---Valentine's Day was this weekend, after all---I certainly ate more of these two food groups than I usually do.

For a better part of the week, I either skipped breakfast (the horrors, I know) or ate a clementine and a banana. Lunch was the most difficult meal to incorporate two fruits or veggies, and again, if I had been a better planner it wouldn't have been. Most often I ended up having another clementine and a small leftover portion of veggies from dinner as my two fruits or veggies.

For dinner I wanted to make a major effort to incorporate two fruits or veggies, but I also wanted it to be in an out of the ordinary way.

Here are two of the most unusual combinations:

This melon salad with Parmesan and prosciutto was the edgiest dinner. Luckily, Hubby ate it without complaint! The steak I served with it was a little tough, convincing me that some exploration in the world of steak is a necessary part of my future.

The below salad pushed the limits of our usual at home salads. We aren't fancy salad people, at least at home. I love the varieties and flavor combinations that I've tasted in salads in my foodie travels, but at home some romaine, cucumber, tomato, and a little vinaigrette is about as far as I usually take it.

This salad consisted of mixed baby greens, diced pear, cheddar cheese, and a cranberry dressing. The cranberry dressing called for a few tablespoons of cranberry sauce. Since I knew that there was cranberry sauce in the dressing, it was a little difficult for my brain to push past that as I ate the salad. The flavor wasn't horrible, it was just a thicker texture than is expected in dressing. Next time I think I would boil some cranberries until the liquid reduces and use that as my cranberry flavor. It would certainly give the dressing a thinner consistency.

Having two fruits or veggies with every meal isn't an easy transition for someone who usually averages one or two fruits or veggies in an entire day. My goal is to at least have one with every meal and to really focus on making dinner more fruit and vegetable oriented.

Recipe #57: Migas

One of my New Year's goals for this blog is to blog better.

I know it sounds like a cliche goal, but both of my blogs began because of my passion for writing. This blog simply mixes that passion with another: my love of food and everything food related.

However, I find that sometimes I fall into the blogger mentality of just trying to get SOMETHING posted that I'm not always putting out writing that is of the quality that I want to represent.

No longer.

That said, hold on to your butts for the final five posts of my Pioneer Woman Cooks recipe challenge and then the final summation.

Recipe: Migas

Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Time: 1 hr

Ease: 3

Taste: 5

Leftover Value: 4

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep in the Strainer

I like this recipe. 

I know, great way to start off better blogging, right?

Yet, it must be stated.

You must understand that I really, truly did like this recipe before I go any further because, unfortunately, for as much as I like this recipe, I also dislike it.

At breakfast time, I am not ordinarily coherent enough to be giddy with excitement over a meal that has more than three steps. 

There are several, as in more than two or three, vegetables that require dicing for this breakfast.

Then, if all the dicing weren't enough, there are eggs to be mixed and corn tortillas to be fried and then cut into strips.

While dicing and frying aren't quite so complicated, (and I fried the tortillas in the same pan I eventually made the migas in--so there wasn't a too-many-pans issue) it is all very time consuming.

For breakfast.

Early in the morning.

With a cranky chef who would rather be still ducked under the covers than getting to work chopping, dicing, and frying.

Naturally, the veggies need time to soften a little.*

*Right here, right now, I'm going to rat myself out.  There are no red peppers in this dish.  There are supposed to be.  The rule was no substitutions, but red peppers make my heart throb and pound in my chest--and not in a swoon! type of way.  So, I used extra green pepper.

Here is the even more time consuming part of this dish:

After spending all that time dicing, after frying the tortillas, after waiting for it all to cook together, the eggs are poured over it all, gently mixed, and left alone to set.

I'm the type of person that stands over a pot of water as if my presence will make the water boil faster. 

That said, by this point, I couldn't contain myself and had to help the eggs along a little bit by mixing them a little and raising the heat a tad.

I made these on Christmas Eve Eve and Hubby had work to get to so I may have been a little anxious and served the eggs a little too soon.

They weren't horribly runny, but they could have gone a little longer.

The cheese, which is added at the very end, adds a nice punch of flavor to the mixture.  The dollop of sour cream was absolutely necessary and I'm not too proud to say that I added another heaping scoop to my bowl after I snapped this picture.

All in all, this was a fun way to experience eggs. I was afraid the jalapeno would be overpowering, but it added an interesting little kick to the eggs without too much heat. Hubby ate his eggs with the sour cream and hot sauce.

My only note would be to make these on a morning where you have a healthy hour to spend on breakfast.

Recipe #5: Katie's Roasted Corn Salad

Recipe: Katie's Roasted Corn Salad

Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Time: 1 hour

Ease: 3

Taste: 10

Leftover Value: 7

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

This recipe is kind of special for The Orange Strainer.  In my very first post where I introduced the blog, I briefly wrote about Katie's Roasted Corn Salad, specifically, the beauty of its remnants.   

Because I said no substitutions, I gritted my teeth together and bought a red pepper instead of a green one.  I swore off red peppers for a long while because I was convinced they gave me the most lethal heart burn.

But I decided to forgive them and try again.

Most importantly, I decided to stick to the rules.  

I'm going to say this is hands down my favorite way to enjoy vegetables.  This corn salad is so amazing that people flock from all corners of the house the moment it is finished being made.

Since I have yet to learn to grill on the outdoor grill, I decided to 'grill' my veggies in the broiler.  This works just as well as an outdoor grill, and saves on going in and out of the house.  I was able to put one item in the oven while chopping up another.

The chopping, that is the painful part of this recipe.  There is oh, so, so, SO much chopping do be done.

But again, oh, so, so, SO worth it.

The veggies involved in this mouthwatering corn salad are: corn, red onion, yellow squash, red bell pepper, and tomatoes.  

The dressing is as simple as olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, salt, and garlic whisked together.

If you have a fancy gizmo for getting corn off the cob, then I applaud you.  However, this is the only recipe I have where I need to strip the cob of its corn so I refuse to purchase something to help me do it.

Although usually two cobs in, when my table, bowl, and floor are covered with kernels, I regret this stance.

  

Hidden underneath this pile of tomatoes, squash, and corn, I promise, is a red pepper and a gorgeous red onion.

Let's take a moment to consider why they even call a red onion red.  I really think purple is getting a raw deal here.

Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh!!!  This salad is perfection.  Please, please, please, do yourself a favor, and buy the Tostitos scoops to go with a salad like this.  Those chips were made for this salad.  Or...this salad was made for those chips.    

And here is my favorite part.  You can eat it right away and it will be a little lukewarm or put it in the fridge and let it chill for a few hours and eat it cold.  Either way it is delicious.  Both ways it is a completely different experience.

And, have I mentioned, I love it so?

Knife Skills

Last week hubby and I took a class at our local community college on knife skills.  When we first decided to take a venture into cooking classes, hubby looked at the available classes and pointed out three or four he'd be willing to take.  I firmly decided we'd start with only one.  The other classes were for making specific meals or working with a specific type of food.  While I was interested in probably all of the choices, I had been wanting to first take a class on the basics in the kitchen.

Knife skills doesn't get any more basic.  We all of course can use a knife, some better than others, yet we all make it happen.  Yet, there is obviously a better way to do all things.  This class helped me learn that better way.

This would be where I would spend three hours of my Saturday morning.  It went by (surprisingly) very quickly.

We were first taught the basics about knives and then received a knife that came with the purchases of the class.

Not a bad deal if you ask me.

The handle of this knife is my favorite part.  It puts me in a very western mood.  I'm convinced that knife handles during the days of gunslingers had to of looked like this.

If they didn't, that's just a rootin' tootin' shame.

We started by learning how to properly cut up fruit.  The chef showed us all kinds of fancy things to do with fruit.  Like that awesome bird I made in the center of the tray.

Okay, fine, I didn't make it.  I did try, but failed miserably.  I'm blaming stage fright.

I did slice these sweet little strawberries.  They were so much more complicated than the apple bird.

After making fruit salad for an army, we got to sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Get it?  Fruits of our labor?

Because we cut up fruit.

Okay, sorry.

Then it was onto vegetables which I knew would have to be a million zillion times harder simply because vegetables are a million zillion times harder in general.

Try to make sense out of that statement.

I triple dog dare you.

Some of my pictures are blurry because I was using my phone to take them.  I had thought before hand to bring my camera, but then thought I'd look silly with it and changed my mind.

Then I ended up looking silly anyway by snapping pictures with my phone.

Lesson learned?  Always go with your gut.

All in all, I think hubby and my tray of veggies came out looking very nice.  And, we were one of the few groups of students to remember to slice our onions and place them in a separate dish.  Because who wants to eat onion flavored carrots?  Am I right?

Alright, in all honesty, I think hubby did the best at knife skills.  He diced pretty good.  I continued to second guess myself and lived in fear of the knife.

Here is where I bested him though.  We both made an attempt at a tourne cut with carrots.  Above is hubby's.

Wow.  Just wow.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, a tourne cut is a method of cutting vegetables like carrots and potatoes, usually with a paring knife.  You are supposed to be able to make only seven cuts and form an oblong, football type shape.  The problem, and reason why you don't see this so often, is that you waste a lot of the vegetable in creating this shape.

Despite nearly slicing my hand (and in front of the chef to boot!) I think my tourne cut came out much closer to the real thing.

I just won't tell you how many cuts I put into it.

It definitely wasn't seven.

Our teacher really made the class a success.  He explained everything clearly and did his best to check in on each student (which was pretty difficult for him considering we had 14 students in the class).

I went home and instantly ordered the knife skills book he recommended and then set off to continue practicing the art of dicing an onion.  Other than the apple bird, this was the hardest skill taught.

Now that I have the concept down, my goal is to increase the speed and ease at which I do it.

We start with an onion.

Shocking, I know.

Leaving the root on, chop off the tip of the onion.

Cut the onion in half from root to tip.

Clear your work space!  Aside from the awesome cutting skills I learned, I took two other things from this class.

1. Don't give the finger.

In other words, in your hand that holds the knife, do not allow your pointer finger to point into the air or separate on the knife from the rest of your hand as you cut.  Make sure that all your fingers are grasping together onto the handle of the knife.

2. When you are cutting something up, remove everything from your work space (cutting board) that you are not currently working on.

Stopping giving the finger wasn't so hard to do (although the chef did call me out on it one time), but clearing my work space was something I had to constantly remind myself to do.  And it will be something I'll have to constantly remind myself to do at home as well.

Lay half of the onion flat side down.

Based on how small you want to dice your onion make a few slices into it horizontally.

The most important thing to do here is to keep the root in tact.  After trying this out about four or five times I have come to the conclusion that if you want to do it right you just have to practice it over and over.

And over and over.

A crazy concept, I know.

After the horizontal slices have been made, cut the onion vertically now.  Again, make sure to keep the root in tact by only cutting up to it, not through it.

Last, and of course, not pictured (because that would make life too simple), cut the onion across the vertical slices.

Discard the root end and then give your onions one final rough chop.

This is the easiest, most effective way I have ever chopped an onion.

That alone made the class well worth it's cost.

Ratatouille

Recipe: Ratatouille
Source: The Orange Strainer, inspired by a combination of Anne Burrell's Ratatouille:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/ratatouille-recipe/index.html
and Emeril's Ratatouille:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-essence-of-emeril/ratatouille-recipe/index.html
Time: 35 minutes total
Ease: 3
Taste: 6
Leftover Value: 4
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

Don't worry, despite all my posts about food made by other people I have still been cooking at home.

Earlier this week my friend, Anita, came over and brought me a basket of fresh veggies from her garden.  She has the most brilliant garden I have ever seen.  First, she has a concord grape vine that is lovely and a little bistro table and chairs set up looking directly towards her garden.  There is a windmill in the center of her garden and a even distribution of vegetables, spices, and flowers.  Every time I walk through it with her I say that I'm going to start one of my own, then I never do.

My goal next summer will be to change that.

I got quite the assortment of veggies and fruit from her.  The zucchini that is hiding under that tiny squash was super huge!

To mix things up a little and make my life a little more adventurous, I decided to try to make Ratatouille.  Of course, I've been wanting to make Ratatouille ever since I first saw the movie by the same name.

Seriously, who didn't want to make Ratatouille after that movie?

Here's what you need:
-Olive oil
-1 Onion, diced
- 1 Tsp garlic
-1 Green pepper, diced
-2 Medium sized tomatoes, about 1 cup, diced
-1/2 Cup water
-1/2 Tsp parsley
-1 Cup zucchini, diced
-1 Cup squash, diced
-4 Basil leaves, cut chiffonade

*Both Ratatouille recipes called for red pepper and eggplant.  I did not have an eggplant, therefore, no eggplant, and I get heart burn from red pepper so I chose not to suffer.  If you choose to add these two items, add about a cup of each.

Begin by drizzling a little olive oil in a pan over medium high heat.

Dice the onion into 1/4 inch pieces.  Fry the onion in the oil for about 7-8 minutes.  Season with salt.

Add 1 tsp of garlic to the onion.  Fry for about 2-3 minutes.

Toss in your green peppers. 

Yes, mine are frozen.  And no, I did not have a full cup worth.  Don't judge.

Allow the green peppers to fry for about 3 minutes.  Anyone who at this point would seriously consider stopping right here and tossing all this on top of a hot dog, Italian sausage, or cheese steak, please come over my house right now.

And bring the meat with you.

If you decide to carry on with the recipe instead, add the cup of tomatoes and 1/2 cup of water.  

Sprinkle in the parsley.  Allow the tomatoes to cook for about five minutes.

Toss in one cup of zucchini,

one cup of yellow squash,

and the basil.

Sprinkle in a little salt,

and pepper.

Allow this to cook for 15-20 minutes.

Pop on the movie, "Ratatouille", and fast forward to the scene where the food critic, Anton Ego, is enjoying Remy's very own Ratatouille.

Then smile, and make the same pleased face he makes.