Conner's Blog

It wasn’t that long ago that someone called me a prolific local blogger.  Wow, to think that used to be the case. Someday maybe I’ll get back to blogging regularly. Until then I guess I’ll just stick with posting updates like this occasionally.  Here’s a quick taste of some of the things I’ve done the last six weeks or so.

In March I organized a photo walk with some fellow Flickr users. We had a great time. I hosted a small pre-walk at the Car show that was happening that weekend. I took quite a few shots at that walk. The Fairground on the other hand were pretty much a failure for me. Don’t really know why.

More pics from the car show can be found here, the fairground here.

I had a fantastic brunch at Spoonriver. The quiche was incredible.

Made some homemade tacos that rocked, even without award winning guacamole.

Went on a few #bikegangrides, and caught some people playing bike polo near Lake Calhoun.

Went to a game at Target Field, I haven’t made it back but I will be going to several games in June.

Last weekend saw the debut of my friend Erica’s exciting new venture, Foxy Falafel. Seriously, if you like good food you need to go try some of her falafel.

This weekend also saw a bacon themed party, I made a bacon pizza, the highlight of the night for me was the bacon deviled eggs. Yumm

My friend Sarah capped of Saturday by inviting me to her place for a fantastic supper. This was a garam masal cheddar stuffed meatball on a garam masal tomato sauce topping homemade noodles. It was incredible.

They ended the evening with a cheese plate. Lemon Thyme Ginger Raw Milk Cheddar, Domestic Gouda, Merlot Parmesan, and smoked blue cheese.

That’s just of taste of my last few weeks of course, still can you see why I’m never blogging anymore.

First, I should apologize for leaving you all hanging with such a strange and confusing last post. For the record, I’m doing fine, still living life, cooking, and spending more time away from home then at home.

Still, I think I needed last week off, it was good to avoid any self imposed pressure to write. That post gave me the ability to just shrug off any pangs of guilt that creeped into my conscious thinking about all of you readers sitting at your computer hitting refresh every minute or so hoping I would write something new. Don’t lie to me, I know you did this all week.

But after a lot of great conversations with some really awesome friends, hanging out with some of my best friends from college who I don’t see nearly enough, I think I finally at least have a general goal for the next few months in place. As I stated before, I’m working on several projects, all website, that I hope to have launched in the next two months or so. I’m not ready to publicly announce what they are, but if you see me in person and want to know, I’ll give you the inside scoop. I’m really excited about two of them and the third is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I’m not 100% certain I can make it work, but I’m going to try.

I have a few other things I’m working on and also need to do as well, some of which I can post here; others that I have to keep close to the chest for now. Still, I can give you a short list of a few things I’m working on, and am planning on doing in the coming weeks.

• Make ricotta and mozzarella cheese – I recently began getting whole milk from a local farm, and since I don’t drink much milk, I need to work on using up a half-gallon of milk a week. My goal is to try making some different cheeses and see if it’s something I can do weekly.
• The gym – I’ve been awful the last two weeks, and it’s time to remedy that. I enjoy food way too much to not be at the gym three days a week.
• Cook, cook, cook – I’ve been slacking in the kitchen as well and I need to start cooking again.
• Talk to some freelancers – This may be giving somethings away, but I really need to sit down with some people who do freelance work and figure out how one goes about getting started. I have some ideas of what I want to do, I just don’t know what I need to do to do them.

Well that’s a short list, some of which are always on my list, others are new. I like putting things up on my blog because I always feel guilty when I can’t write about how I succeeded. So now I need to get to work on accomplishing some of these things.

Have a great Monday everyone, time to get this week off to a great start.

It’s been a while since I made a pizza at home. In fact, it’s been so long that I had to lookup the dough recipe. Tonight, I remedied this and whipped up a tasty pie. I made a change to my dough and used stone ground flour. It added a bit of depth to the crust and I think I’ll use it again.

I topped this pizza with an onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning blend, a bunch of mushrooms, pineapple, and some whole milk mozzarella. I baked it and once done topped it with spinach. I wasn’t overly happy with how the spinach cooked up, but it was still better than baking the spinach on the pizza.

Looking at the photo it’s obvious I’m still getting used to my new lens.

What would be a good sauce for sweet potato fries? I’ve yet to find one that pairs “just right” with it. I know the answer won’t be Chipotle mayo . . . by emilysaysso

Definitely not chipotle mayo, and not chipotle ketchup either. Smokiness does nothing to enhance the fry.

The problem with this question is that sweet potato fries vary in quality so much. If you get a good batch, the sweetness comes through, but usually you get the fries that have been frozen and they lack a lot of that sweetness.

But that’s beside the point, we need a sauce that compliments the texture, the sweetness of the potato, and the saltiness (since anyone who doesn’t salt sweet potato fries is crazy). Ketchup doesn’t work because it’s already sweet, it works great for potato fries, but isn’t quite right for sweet potato fries. I think you need a savory sauce. Aioli has been done and it’s a just not right either.

Here is my idea, combine the tartness of the tomato from ketchup with the savory of an aioli. I think a sauce using sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, lemon, and cracked pepper. Blend that together and you might have something. It’ll be the consistency of a pesto so you may need to add it to mayonnaise to make it work.

Of course I could be completely nuts and it could be awful.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

I have no idea, I always end up biting. But if I had to guess, I think it’s somewhere around 37.5 licks.

If you started a new blog, what would the topic be?

Well first I should say that I have tried and failed to start many new blogs. Usually it’s an attempt to have a place to write about technology, or politics, or some other topic I convince myself doesn’t belong at my main site. But I generally end up just coming back to Conner’s Blog.

I think if I was going to start a new blog it would be about food. Restaurant reviews, recipes, photography, and other tidbits. Maybe someday I will actually make it happen.

Where would you most like to take photographs? by briannepitt

This is another tough one, there are just too many choices. In the USA I have to say Glacier National Park gets my vote. Of course the fact that I’ve been there a few times kind of sways my vote, I’m sure in two years I will have found at least 2-3 other places I would love to spend time taking photos.
Worldwide, I would have to say the Andes seem like a fantastic place to take photos. I think I would travel to Peru or Argentina if I was going somewhere just to take photos.

If you magically became a chef, which one restaurant in the Twin Cities would you want to chef at?

Wow, this is a tough one. My first instinct is to go for something like La Belle Vie, Vincent, or 2021. After thinking about it for a bit though I think I’m going to have to say Brasa would be my choice.
Part of it is my love of their food, but mainly it’s because I truly enjoying cooking that belly warming comfort food that Brasa makes. I’m not opposed to lighter fare, but when I’m looking for something I know I am going to be happy with, Brasa is definitely in my top two or three places.

Ask me anything.

I’m a bit excited today, I finally got my Christmas present, a new lens. It was delivered to me at work and I spent all afternoon trying to talk myself out of taking the day off and going out and playing. I had willpower and made it through the day. So I got home and what did I do, cooked and took photos of food of course.

I made creamed spinach for the first time, it went pretty well. Not perfectly, I had to improvise a bit at the end to get it to come together, but I’m happy with the results. Taking photos was also a breeze. I love this lens already, it’s a 35mm 1.8 prime and makes taking photos in the lighting of my apartment many times easier.

Recipe*

• Spinach
• Whole Milk
• Flour
• Lemon
• Sour Cream
• Butter
• Olive Oil
• Crushed red pepper
• Cajun seasoning of some sort
• Paprika
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic
• Onion

Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan, once hot add the garlic and onion and cook until the onion is translucent. Once ready, start adding the spinach. Cook in the oil until limp and dark green. Transfer to a cutting board and chop coarsly.

In a saucepan add the remaining oil and butter from the frying pain, add milk and then put the spinach in the saucepan. Cook until heated fully. In a seperate bowl add a bit of milk, sour cream, and flour and whisk until smooth. Add that mixture along with a squeeze or two of lemon and stir. Continue cooking until the sauce is thick. Serve as soon as possible.

*Recipe is a bit generous, I kind of suck at measuring so have no idea how much of anything I put into the spinach.

I’m certain 95% of my readers are planning on watching the Vikings game this Sunday. It starts at 5, and since the winner of the game goes to the Superbowl, it’s kind of a big deal. I don’t know if I’ll watch the whole thing, but I plan on keeping my eye on the score regardless of what I’m doing.

I can’t say I’ve watched much of the Saints this year, but I know they have a killer offense, and what some call a good defense. I expect all the experts are predicting a Saints win, especially since it’s in the Superdome. I disagree, I think the Vikings will pull off a victory, and not a small one either. I think the final score will be somewhere in the 14-31 point range in favor of the Vikings. Why? Well first off the Vikings defense is playing well again, especially their front four. And no matter now good Drew Brees may be, he can’t do anything when he’s lying on his back. Also Brett Favre won a Superbowl in that dome, and regardless of what I said about him in the past, he’s playing at an unseemly level for a 40 year-old and somehow I think he’ll repeat history this weekend. I still don’t like him, but I begrudging have to say I was wrong about how he would impact the Vikings.

But that’s not the only Minnesota related competition happening Sunday. It turns out that the chefs at Saffron were picked to compete on the Food Network’s the Iron Chef. Guess when the show airs? Sunday! It starts at 8 so there might be some overlap with the game, but since the Vikings are going to crush the Saints there will not be much.

So here is the deal, Azia is generously hosting a viewing party for us. The party kicks off at 7 and the show will be on at 8. Along with that, Azia is purchasing a case of Rogue Brewery’s signature Morimoto Soba Ale. So not only do you get to watch some creative cooking you get to drink some creative beer.

So how about it, can you handle cheering for two Minnesota teams in one day? If you can, make your way to Azia and enjoy some good beer, good food, and have a chance to see Minnesota pull off two victories in one day.

RSVP here.

Monday night I attempted to improve on my previous try at making squash pizza. I managed to do this even though I had a few kitchen mishaps.

This time I topped the crust with Alfredo sauce to add more flavor.  Then I added the caramelized onions and topped those with a mixture of regiano cheese and goat cheese.  I topped that with the squash which I had seasoned with cloves, coriander, and nutmeg.  Over the top I added parsley and cilantro.

It came out of the oven looking fabulous, though the crust wasn’t quite right.  I was very happy with the results and intend on making this at least one more time before squash season comes to a close.

The one thing I would change is to add more goat cheese.  The flavor of the cheese mixed with the onions and squash was exceptional and those bites without goat cheese were almost disappointing.

Thankfully it’s Friday and hopefully you’ve already read my Guacoff roundup.  In honor of our win I’m giving a roundup of my favorite guac additions from last night event.

1. Pineapple – Adds a little sweetness and best offset with a three pepper blend.
2. Corn – I didn’t like the way it colored the guacamole but it was a great addition
3. Beans – Flavor and texture
4. Mango – Similar to the pineapple, but the fact that it’s nearly impossible to get a good mango hurt it.
5. Bacon – This actually worked better than I would have expected.  Smoky and delicious.

What happens when you throw together a group of people from the Internet, some booze, an awesome team name, avocados, onions, peppers, limes, salt, garlic, tomato, and pineapple? Shockingly enough, you get the most authentic guacamole at the second annual MetroMag Guacoff.

Last night was the long anticipate guacamole competition.  After hitting up the Herkimer with fellow teammate Doniree, we walked over to Blue and found Kaeti and Emily both ready to go.  The event started at six with the teams beginning to prep their guacamole at 6:30.  We had 45 minutes to prep and at first I really didn’t know if we would be able to complete our dip in time.  Fortunately, Kaeti and Emily managed to cut up 40 avocados in record time, and between Doniree, Doug, and I, we had the rest of the ingredients prepped with plenty of time to perfect our recipe.

Once time was called, the tasting began.  It was evident from the start that we were on to something.  Every person who tried our guacamole walked away nodding their heads in appreciation. It was about an hour and half later when the winners were announced.  We were very excited to hear our name called as the Most Authentic Guac even if it was a bit confusing as how a guacamole with pineapple is authentic, but none of us complained.

Even though I’m going to call Guacoff a success I do have to make a few comments about the event.  First, the space was much to small for the number of tickets sold.  People were packed together like sardines and it was much to warm.  I can’t imagine how bad things may have gotten if it wouldn’t have been a cool evening.  Second, things didn’t seem overly organized.  Our names were not listed at the door so they just had to take our word that we were part of a team, and the organizers at the event didn’t know that salt and pepper were on the list of provided ingredients.   Thankfully, neither of these became an issue.  The only other comment I have is that the chip situation wasn’t planned well.  Considering we were at a guacamole contest the first order of business after time was called should have been distribution of a large amount of chips to each table.  Instead, we had to hunt chips from other locations around the event.  This wasn’t a big deal but didn’t exactly leave a good impression.

Even with my “complaints” I had a wonderful time and would definitely participate as an entrant again.  Thanks to MetroMag and all the sponsors for putting this together.  Michelle Bachman says our Guacamole has a secret plan to annex part of Iraq already has plans for next year.  Granted those plans only include bringing gloves so Doniree and Doug don’t suffer for two days after cutting up peppers, but still plans are plans.

Don't my teammates rock?

The Finished Product

Look at those smiles

The Competition

You can find all the photos here.  Thanks to Andrew for taking some photos while I was prepping.