Pace yourself. I’m seriously sporting a rather hefty pork hangover, but after a long day of tasting for Hogs for the Cause, I can honestly say it was worth it. The weather was perfect, I got to see a lot of my foodie friends, great music, free beer, awesome judges’ parking and tons of great food. I know we’re known for great festivals here in New Orleans, but this is one that I’m looking forward to next year already.

My friend Rob (@whodak) just sent me this picture above, and I had to take a moment to share it. Let’s all pause for pizza. A moment of silence if you would be so kind….

Now, this is my kind of pizza. You just know that sauce is deep and rich and thick. I can almost taste the Italian seasonings. I see peppers and tomatoes, but what really got me was that cheesy, crumby crust (I’m using both of those adjectives in the best possible way). I’m seriously flipping over this pie. If I’m ever in Youngstown for three days, I know where I’m eating for seven of my meals.

Thanks for sharing, Rob! I sort of hate you right now.

St. Anthony’s Brier Hill Pizza on Facebook, Wikipedia and Google Maps.

You didn’t think I’d do a deviled egg series, and not include a bacon egg, did you? Although it’s the third in my series, it was the first on my list. Even before the classic devil, there was bacon. Being the obvious choice, however, I decided to bury that lead in third.

To make this piggy egg demon, start with the classic recipe, but add a few tablespoons of melted bacon fat, crumbled crispy bacon (4-5 cooked slices) and a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce (it will add spice, but also another smokey layer). Finally, instead of garnishing with paprika, sprinkle over some crispy bacon pieces.

There you have it, Americans, more of what makes us great. Fat in fat, covered in fat and sprinkled with a little fat on top.

In this second installment of my deviled egg series, I’ll tell you why I chose them in the first place. Food blogging is something I love, but Blake Makes has certainly ebbed and flowed over the past few years. Before I started back up (a little over a week ago), I hadn’t blogged since May 2010. I blame it on my old day job, but my new job is all about blogging. In fact, I’m the Director of Social Media, and it doesn’t get more social than blogging.

I chose deviled eggs because I wanted to start back up simply, but also because I found myself surrounded by them. I’m really loving Mondo, Susan Spicer’s casual dining establishment in Metairie, and they serve a deviled egg trio as a starter. I recommend getting them AND something else to start [at Mondo]. They’re good, but slight. Mondo offers three varieties: Classic, Guacamole and Curry. I made a classic rendition, and have a guacamole coming later in the series. Curried didn’t make my list, but it may as a last-minute bonus after a certain boss’ bride expressed an interest (Hi, Ansley). I mentioned being surrounded, and the other egg exposure was from the Barefoot Contessa. She made these Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs first, so to Ina goes all the credit.

I mentioned in my last post that deviled eggs are a cocktail crowd pleaser, and these certainly fit that description. They’re posh, though, so perfect for a snooty soiree. And, the ingredients may set you back a few clams. Good smoked salmon doesn’t come cheap, and see those orange balls up there? Yep. That’s salmon roe (caviar). It’s no beluga, but the tiny jar I bought still cost $20.

If you can stomach the sticker shock (I’m being dramatic), the recipe yields a very special product. The egg filling is smooth and nuanced. Smoked salmon adds a few layers of flavor. First, salmon brininess, followed by moody-gray smoke and then salmon-colored freshness. The chives are a nice, subtle onion bite, and the roe is a universe of orange fishy goodness in a perfect little pearl. It’s Ina, so there’s a little sour cream, a little cream cheese, a little mayo and the yolks. So basically, fat, fat, fat and fat. We’ve got a winner!

Was it worth it? Yes. Would I make them again? Yes. Would I make them for company? Yes. Beez loved them. I loved them.

Barefoot Contessa Smoked Salmon Recipe

I’ve never met a cookie I didn’t like. Of course, there are those cookie occasions when like turns to love, and a dozen or so cookies just vanish in a matter of minutes. The florentines (Clarine’s Florentines) included in the February Foodzie Box were sublime; definitely love at first bite.

Florentines aren’t cookies in the traditional sense. They are made of sliced almonds, butter, honey, sugar and cream. Then, they are baked until they form a brown brittle. Clarine’s takes it a luscious step further by coating the bottom of the rounds in bittersweet chocolate.

Mail-order food can be tricky, especially baked goods, which is why I’m so glad these aren’t your average cookies. I guess that’s why they’re not cookies after all. They’re florentines, cookies’ cousins who’ve been to college, traveled abroad and landed a dream job in their twenties. Oh, to be a florentine. Oh, to be Clarine.

What is it about deviled eggs that always seem to please a crowd? You see them a lot at cocktails parties, but we eat them at Thanksgiving. I’m not really sure why. I’ve always found them to be, well, a little redundant; especially in their preparation. You boil the egg, remove the yolk and then put it back again. Regardless, I love them. I’ve made six preparations of them, and I’ve started with the traditional one.

Ingredients

Serves 8.
8 large eggs
1/3 c. Mayo
1 tbl. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. white-wine vinegar
1 tbl. minced shallot
1/4 tsp. hot sauce
S&P
Paprika, for garnish

Directions

1. Place eggs in a pot, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, then immediately remove from the heat, and let stand for 15 minutes. Drain and rinse eggs under cold water to cool them.
2. Mix all the ingredients together including the cooked yolks you’ve retrieved from slicing the peeled eggs in half lengthwise.
3. Spoon the mixture into the egg whites, and sprinkle with paprika just before you serve them. I prefer Hungarian paprika, it’s spicy and adds flavor as well as color.

Five More Coming Up

I got a little creative, and thought of a few off the wall and out of the box deviled egg recipes. They all turned out to be delicious, and just as easy as this classic take. I’m posting a new one every Monday through the end of March. And, looking a little further down the road, my April series will be all about pudding.

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart’s Creamy Deviled Eggs.

I love plates and bowls. I’ve got tons of one-off pieces that I’ve picked up here and there (mostly from Crate and Barrel clearance) that I use to take all my food photos. I got Beez a set of the Soup and Sandwich Ceramic Bowl Duo (pictured above, obviously) for her birthday. Of course, we don’t call them by their proper names. Instead, we call them plate/bowls. As in, one word. Platebowl.

There’s something very nostalgic about Platebowl. It makes me think of Ball Elementary, circa 1988. Remember, when we were kids, and they served our school lunches in the little compartmentalized trays. There was the rectangle for rectangular pizza. There was the circle for holding circular bowls of soup. There were three equally square squares for holding squares of cornbread, a nice starchy side and a box of milk.

Ms. Eaves, my giant third grade teacher, was a very nice lady. She was really tall, and had a very short hair cut. It was like boy short. I remember her wearing really extreme ’80s makeup. I guess at the time, it was sort of in style, although Ball in the ’80s probably wasn’t that different than Ball in the ’20s, or the ’00s (both 19- and 20-). She had an equally giant mural of a unicorn on her classroom wall. I also remember her sprinkling Miss’ Dash (salt-free seasoning) on her food at lunch. Maybe she was trying to lose weight. She was big, but she wasn’t fat. She was just big. Ms. Eaves, if you’re out there, you were a nice lady. Nice and big. Giant…really.

Thank you, Platebowl, for making me think of my childhood, and Ms. Eaves, and her giantism.

Here’s the couscous recipe.

There’s really not a lot to say about tofu, really. It’s pretty basic stuff. Ages-old and chock full of protein. I wouldn’t call it a staple of our diet, but we have been eating a lot of miso soup for breakers. Tofu makes a cameo in each and every bowl.

This week on Brita’s Filter For Good blog, I created a fruit salad recipe that I’m calling, “Ginger & Mary Ann Salad Snack.” Go check it out, and show me a little comment love.

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I went vegan for a while…

…For about four weeks to be specific. That was just long enough for something to change. Beez and I were watching Oprah about a month or so ago. It was the episode with Michael Pollan talking about his documentary, Food Inc., but Alicia Silverstone also made a cameo pushing her new book, The Kind Diet.

I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted this publicly, but I’m sort of an Amazon.com addict. I’ve got an Android phone and an iPod touch, and both of them have an Amazon app. With it, I can literally find a product in a matter of seconds, and buy it with one click. That’s how I first got my hands on Alicia’s book.

I need to give you a little background.

I sort of needed to go vegan starting late last year. First, there was Halloween and the candy; Thanksgiving and the turkey and pies; Christmas at home with everything covered in gravy; then Christmas in Paris with everything covered in duck fat, chocolate and wine…and gravy; then the Saints won the Super Bowl (and every game leading up) which meant lots of BBQ, chips and beer; then Mardi Gras and all those effing king cakes, plus more beer; but it was when those damn Girl Scout cookies arrived that enough was enough. I had to draw a line in the pecan sandies (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Girl Scout cookies. I can destroy a box of Thin Mints. Those tubes of crunchy, minty, chocolaty discs don’t stand a chance against this gut. But, like I said, enough was enough.

You see how Alicia’s giddy, giggly sales-pitch struck a cord with me? The Kind Diet arrived, and I consumed it. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself. You don’t need to look any further than this blog to see how easily I can be distracted.

By the time I had finished the preachy part of her book (the first half), I was converted. We threw out all the animal protein, and started building vegan menus. We already shop at Whole Foods exclusively, so going vegan wasn’t that hard for us. I could see, however, how veganism, no matter how flirty Alicia may be, is a challenge.

I’m planning to blog more about the veganism later, but suffice it to say that the pendulum has swung back to just left of the middle where we’re eating vegan (about 75% this week), but not entirely.

Here’s where the MiLa post begins.

An opportunity for Beez and I to attend a vegetarian dinner at MiLa (the name a play on the married chef team’s home states, Mississippi and Louisiana) floated our way, and we took it. We’ve eaten at MiLa twice before, and I actually blogged about it on Serious Eats back in 2007.

I’ve always had a great experience at MiLa. I love the low-lit atmosphere, and hip decor. The first time Beez and I went, we were seated in a little booth for two in the back (what I consider to be the perfect table). This time, they sat us in the same place. Good for them.

I was intrigued by what the night might bring. MiLa, like a lot of my favorite places in New Orleans, means meat. Tons of meat, all over the menu, but this meal was vegetarian.

Let’s dive into the menu

Cucumber and Ryals Goat Cheese Cannelloni, Market Tomato Condiment, Olive Petals

NV Gruet Winery Sparkling Brut Rose’, New Mexico

The first course was a play on traditional, tubular pasta cannelloni. There was an oblong, ladyfinger log of mild goat cheese wrapped in paper thin strips of cucumber. A bit of frisee salad with salty, purpley-brown olive petals finished the plate.

As creative as this preparation was, I wished there would have been a protein included in the dish. The goat cheese was also a little too mild, but the textures and flavors were nice. The plate was meticulously crafted, so all-in-all, good first course.

Feliciana Greenhouse Lettuce Soup, Poached Farm Egg, Black Truffle Puree

2008 Ferraton Pere et Fils Cotes du Rhone

If you put lettuce soup on a menu, you have got to deliver. After all, lettuce isn’t like truffles or oysters or apples. There’s not a lot of flavor there. Unfortunately, the soup lived up to the lettuce, and was a little bland.

A sprinkle of salt would have lifted my portion. The poached egg, however, was cooked perfectly; nice and runny. It took me four spoonfuls to discover what I think was meant to be the Black Truffle Puree under the soup. Beez mentioned it wasn’t truffle season, so it really didn’t seem to belong there any way.

Once again, I would have liked some protein on the plate. Something like a crunchy, crusty quinoa cake floating in the soup, supporting the egg would have been yummy. I’ve had black pepper dusted tuna at MiLa before, so what a treat it would have been to pepper-dust the egg. Alas, this course was just fair.

Ravioli of Taylor’s Happy Oaks Farm Greens, Mississippi Shiitakes, Beet Dijon Jus

2003 Domaine Ligneres “La Baronne,” Languedoc

Three big green pasta pillows stared blankly up at us from our course three plates. The lighting was dim, yet the deep purple beet dijon jus was very visible. I sliced into the ravioli, and took a bite. Lots of greens inside. My buds couldn’t find the shiitakes, but I’m certain they were in there.

By plate three, I was still really hungry. I actually asked for another round of bread after they cleared the third course which is something I never do. My belly was full of veggies, cheese and an egg, but it needed something more substantial to feel full. As far as the ravioli, again it was perfectly prepared, but for me, personally, I’d have liked a bit more. A bit more substance. A bit more flavor.

I keep bringing up protein. I’m harping on it because I think vegetarianism/veganism gets a bad rep. When I first told my friends I was going vegan, they laughed, they joked, they looked at me like I was insane. They all got really concerned about my health, but I was convinced that I was smart enough not to kill myself eating, wait for it, whole, clean, organic veggies, fruits and whole grains.

Focus, Blake, focus. Protein. There’s plenty of hearty, filling protein that’s not animal based. Quinoa, beans, rice, bulgar wheat, lentils, nuts, seitan, tofu. See. It’s all there. Thanks, Jesus.

Louisiana Strawberry and Vanilla Mousse Trifle, Ginger Poundcake

2002 Chateau La Rame Sainte-Croix-Du-Mont, France

Last course, fourth course, a beefy portion of strawberry vanilla mousse trifle with ginger poundcake. Forget protein, here’s where the Rushings had been planning to fill us up all night. This was good. SO YUMMY! I loved the spicy poundcake, and the succulent strawberries. Superb.

Chef Slade stopped by right at the end, and told us they planned to do more veggie dinners in the future. I think he may have even mentioned they might become a regular occurrence (every Wednesday night?). That’s exciting because even though this experience wasn’t what I’ve come to expect from MiLa, I look forward to seeing how they evolve.