Ham Sandwich Indicted!

True to form (and compulsion), Ham Sandwich and family kept it on the foodie tip this Christmas, with several days of festive food and drink. We started off on Christmas Eve with our now-traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes. This year's menu included: Garlic-butter glazed salmon (caught by H.S's brother, up in Michigan) Lemon and herb stuffed whole trout (also caught by said brother) Prociutto-wrapped scallops Sardines in Salsa Verde recipe here , with sardines instead of anchovies Crab cakes Shrimp cocktail Crab salad Salmon dip Farfalle pasta with tomato sauce Assorted cheeses, olives, and breads We also experimented with cocktails from Imbibe! a book of old-tyme drink recipes. And maybe the folks of 1862 had a different idea of what tastes good, but I would argue that Hot Buttered Rum is not very delicious. However, the Vanilla Punch we made on Christmas Day (with brandy, sugar, lemon, and vanilla extract), was quite enjoyable. For Christmas Day dinner, we went with a...

Finally, after years of wanting to try it, your Ham Sandwich, along with two of her partners-in-crime--P and L--jumped on the homebrew-making bandwagon. Above, we proudly present our ESB Pale Ale: Extra Sassy Bitches Edition. It has a rich amber-red color and is made with crystal malt and Target hops in the tea, and dry hopped with Kent Gold. We purchased our ingredients, based on a previously tried recipe, at the Winemaker's Shop , run by the super-friendly and always knowledgeable Scott Francis & Nina Hawranick. Thankfully, I was working with some experienced beer makers--P had made beer in the past with her husband, and L was a former quality control engineer for Anheuser-Busch. My beer experience has been limited to drinking it and slinging it . I failed to take pictures of the first several steps--boiling the tea (malt, water, malt extract, hops, some maple syrup), and the initial fermentation, but did get it together to get some pictures of the latter half of the ...

It started out simply enough: a group of friends with a standing Thursday night date at Buffalo Wild Wings for boneless chicken wings, a few beers, maybe some trivia. Over the course of the year, significant others came and went, but the core group--the Killa B, Big Country, and the H.S. remained. As the summer progressed, the group expanded to a few more regulars (V.Z., Doc Vince, Eddie-O, E.N.), and at the same time the group decided (ok, fine, yours truly, the restaurant geek, decided) that while the discounted boneless wings at BW3s were great and all, it was time to branch out. And with that, the Thursday Night Drinking/Dinner Club (TNDC) was born. Initial forays into other ports-of-call were simple, and stayed close to the sports bar/pub food genre: Brazenhead, King Avenue 5, Grandview Cafe. As the only female of the group for some period of time, and taking into consideration the Killa B's profound affection for BW3s Terriaki sauce, I had to work slowly. It became clear,...

We're continuing on in our series of how to use all those veggies that seem to be procreating in your fridge while you're at work. This week, I found a way to use a whole bag of greens and three of the acorn/carnival squashes that have taken up residence on my kitchen table. Using some turnip greens, hot Italian sausage, risotto, and chopped, dried figs, I created a stuffing for the squashes. The spiciness of the sausage played nicely with the sweetness of the squash and figs. Serve this with a simply dressed salad and it would make a nice dinner. This recipe came together pretty quickly--good for a weeknight--but it is one of those multiple dish projects: You can basically do a lot of things at once, and I think it took about an hour and a half from start to finish. Here's how it breaks down: Ingredients : 3 small to medium acorn or carnival squash, sliced in half from top to bottom 1/2 pound hot (or mild, if that's your thing) Italian sausage 1/2 or so (a bag fu...

It apparently was a good year for greens in central Ohio. I say this because every Saturday for the last several weeks (months?) my farmers at the markets have bestowed upon me giant plastic bags of leafy veggies. For a few weeks, it was swiss chard and kale, but we've been transitioning to the tops of turnips as of late. I'm pretty confident that I've consumed more greens in the last 3-4 months than I did in my entire 31 years prior to this summer/fall. Thankfully, they are delicious, incredibly good for you, and amenable to a variety of treatments; to (badly) paraphrase Gordon Gecko, green is good. It's hard to beat my preferred way to eat greens: fry up some chopped bacon, saute some diced onions and garlic in the accumulated bacon fat, add the greens and cook until wilted. Salt, pepper, maybe some hot pepper flakes. Done. Add some soy sauce/ginger if you're feeling Asian. Lately, though, I've grown weary (heresy, I know) of my traditional treatment an...

It's weird. Sometime in the last three weeks I think I became a runner. I say think, because I'm not sure if I've just stumbled onto some type of lucky running streak, or if I've actually made to to the point where I can run several miles, regularly, without stopping. You know, a runner...who likes to run. I've been training for the upcoming (Sunday!) C olumbus Half Marathon for about five months now. It's actually the third half I've done (Chicago--'03, Columbus--'07), so I've been pretending to be a runner for quite sometime. Pretending, because until recently "running" meant running for a while, then walking for a bit before running again, etc... Back in 2009, I resolved to run a 5K a month, and made it through to May (again with the run/walk paradigm), but it fell by the wayside when I got tired of spending the money, and then summer came, and weekends were busy, and well, you know what they say about excuses. Fast forward to t...

Yeah, I know it's been over a month since I've posted anything--believe me, I've tried, but wasn't quite feeling the inspiration. Don't get me wrong, the kitchens at Ham Sandwich, Inc. have been hard at work the past month churning out homemade BBQ sauce, brandied peaches and plums, an obscene amount of baked goods, and a damn delicious pork shoulder--but writing down my assorted adventures was feeling a bit trite, even forced. It happens. Fortunately for you folks at home, I tackled the new and mildly dangerous land of hot sauce this weekend, and am pleased to say that I survived to post about it, with all my mucous membranes intact. Yay! See that rounded red pepper in the foreground of the picture above? That's a fresh, evil Naga Jolokia Ghost Pepper, one of four given to me by a former coworker as obsessed with food as I am. (Shoutout: Lauren, you'll be sorely missed around here!) See the jalapeño tree in the picture below? If I had a more recent pho...

The results are out on Zagat's yearly fast-food/full-service chain survey. Top finishers included Five Guys (best burger, fast food), Red Robin (best burger, full service), Panera (best salad, fast food), McDonald's (best fries, fast food) Outback Steakhouse (best steak, full service), and Olive Garden (best value, full service). Obviously, there's a lot of room for debate--but having not tried Five Guys yet, I can't really state an opinion... I have, however, had In-and-Out Burger a few times in my life and loved it. Also, if we're looking a little more locally, Graffiti Burger is pretty damn delicious. Check out the complete results here and let me know what you think--where do you go for a quick, cheap burger? Do you secretly crave the Olive Garden house salad every now and then?

Have you been looking for a store where you can buy canned Hungarian goulash, stock up on alligator jerky, browse thousands of types of hot sauce, take home a couple durian fruits, and pick up a 50 lb bag of peanuts? Looking for an obscure cheese or microbrew (or maybe, you're keeping it real with some Genesee)? Would you also like to be entertained by assorted animatronic figures including Lucky the Leprechaun, a talking ear of corn, and a Campbell's soup can on a swing? Then you probably should give up on your plans to get stuff done around the house, jump in the car and head to Fairfield, Ohio to check out the mega-grocery store that is Jungle Jims . The Jungle Jim's empire started as a produce stand, and is now a nationally-known grocery store, events center, and mall complex. Apparently, there's a monorail, too. It's 6 1/2 acres of random food fun--along with a giant produce, meat, and cheese section, there's condiments from every country. (Need a g...

Tacos! They're the darlings of the food world (at least here in Columbus), and Taco Bell has jumped on to the taco bandwagon to serve "high-quality, freshly-prepared Mexican tacos...that combine the traits of authentic street tacos with the familiarity of Taco Bell value." (That's from the website.) Thus, ladies and gentlemen, Taco Bell presents the Cantina Taco. In the spirit of experimentation and not being a bitchy food snob (I try, really, but damn, it's hard to not be one), I made a run for the border after a Clippers game Saturday night, to try these Cantina tacos. The commercials make them appealing enough: two attractive young people enjoying their Cantina tacos on a sunny patio, as a lime wedge with a generic Hispanic accent--yes, a slice of citrus--gives the voice-over, extolling the virtues of an "authentic" taco experience. And god knows I'm a sucker for a sexy-talking lime wedge. For $2.79, I picked up two Cantina Tacos--chicken and...

"I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able--if called upon to do so--to make them a proper omelet in the morning." ...Thus begins Anthony Bourdain's list of Things Everyone Should Know How to Make. I'm just about wrapping up his latest book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook , and you know, I think he's dead on with this one. Chances are, you know Anthony Bourdain. You've most likely watched No Reservations on the Travel Channel, and you possibly also read his first memoir, Kitchen Confidential . Maybe you even saw his lecture when he came through on tour last year. You may or may not agree with a lot of what Bourdain says...he's crass, strongly opinionated, and did manage to annoy at least few Columbus foodies during his recent stop in Columbus for a short No Reservations piece. I, frankly, love the man. I enjoy his self-deprecating humo...

A few nights ago, the family and I enjoyed a fantastic meal at the newly re-opened Whole World Natural Bakery Restaurant in Clintonville. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible blogger (sorry friends), and forgot to take pictures of any of the actual dishes--just two cookies that I saved and ate the next day for lunch. (Which, for the record, were delicious!) Did you know that Whole World is Columbus' oldest vegetarian restaurant (founded in 1978)? Their lengthy menu includes appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, and pizza, all made with fresh veggies in small batches. The daily soup options for the evening I was there included African Peanut, Gazpacho, Unstuffed Green Pepper (a rice-stuffed green pepper, deconstructed into soup form), and Verde (chunks of tender potatoes in a puree of five green veggies.) Among their daily entree items were Truffled Penne & Cheese, a Potato & Brie Quesadilla, and a Red Lentil Burger. I went with the Verde soup--dark green (MUST be healthy...

So, we've already discussed the fact that the Ham Sandwich loves risotto as a vehicle for whatever random ingredients you have lying around your kitchen (see prior Green Risotto recipe). In keeping with the tomato theme of the past few days, my sister and I decided to throw together a dinner that would utilize said bountiful tomatoes. Since we also had a couple of ears of corn on hand, as well as some risotto, the decision was practically made for us. To drink, we cracked open a bottle of what's probably the best dry Riesling I've ever had: 2008 Fireblock Riesling Watervale. I'm not what you'd call a "pro" at pairing wines with foods, but the crispness of the wine really balanced out the richness of the risotto. If you're into wine (or wanting to get into wine), I really, really, really recommend checking out Gary Vaynerchuk at Wine Library . His store, and especially his wine tasting show, Wine Library TV, are some of the best things to come out...

The other day, I picked three--THREE--pounds of small Roma tomatoes off of one plant. I took a picture for evidentiary proof. We're just about to get into no-holds-barred tomato season here in Ohio--the time of year when tomatoes are falling off the tables at farmer's markets and weighing down the branches of your home plants. (Hopefully, anyway.) It's that time when almost every meal has tomatoes in someway or another, and while we're not tired of them yet, we start to wonder what in the hell are we going to do with all these tomatoes? Fear not, because aside from canning and freezing, there is one easy, breezy way to utilize the bounty that you over-bought or over-grew--the gazpacho. If you have a food processor (or a blender), you can throw a gazpacho together in about 15 minutes. Seriously--I made some for lunch before I left for work the other morning. You can tweak the ingredients as you wish--more tomato, more or less hot pepper, maybe some corn kernels...

I've been dying to get this post up all week, but this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write anything--it's amazing how much time a day job takes up! Last weekend, a friend, her daughter, and the H.S. drove up to Petoskey, Michigan to visit another friend and her husband. Petoskey, for those of you unfamiliar with the upper reaches of Michigan, is almost to the point of the middle finger of the "mitten" of Michigan. It's an absolutely charming resort town, overlooking Little Traverse Bay, and chock full of little, independent cafes, ice cream shops, bakeries, bookstores--and did I mention how charming it is? Anyway, it's cherry season in Michigan right now, and the plan was to hit up some of the orchards for bulk fruit to bring home. Lucky for us, my friend in Michigan had also discovered a wild raspberry patch in the forest not far from her house. Thus, the first order of business was a trip to the woods for some sweet-tart deliciousness: ...

"The Heart of Darkness." aka, my tomato plants. All that rain we had seems to have treated them well, as it's just now July and they're as tall as the fence. The Romas are fruiting nicely, as are the Early Girls, but the heirloom Willis Plum I picked up in Clintonville is the slow kid of the bunch. Maybe he's just a late bloomer... The cukes produced their first batch of veggies, allowing me to make a batch of sweet & spicy pickles: I used this recipe, and since I didn't have 24 dried Cayenne peppers on hand, I used some of the peppers from the jungle: We'll give them a couple of weeks to marinate and see how they turn out. Finally, the onion and garlic seem to be lying down on the job: My garlics never produced any scapes (oh, the horror!), got about a foot tall and not all that thick, then decided to give up the ghost. I dug up a test garlic the other day, the bulb was about the size of bounce-ball--definitely not the nice, plump head I was h...