EXPLORING ARIZONA – PART 3

Hiking Camelback Mountain

This is a very delayed post, but (as I was reminded by my good friend Ana) I have forgotten to mention the last adventure in Arizona. Ana came to visit me there in the beginning of May before we drove to LA (where I flew to the UK, and she flew back to NY). We didn’t have too much time to explore, so we decided Scottsdale was the main area she needed to see.

We started off in Chandler and took some back routes up through the Arcadia area and ended up by the Scottsdale Waterfront. We were getting a little hungry, so we decided to stop for a ‘snack’ at The Culinary Dropout. We needed to kill some time before we attempted to hike up Camelback Mountain and give ourselves a little fuel as well. We ended up sharing a light salad and some ridiculous pork ribs. I’m really sad we didn’t have the time/appetite to stay for a full meal because this place did not disappoint. Culinary Dropout is actually one of the new concepts started by the Fox Restaurant Group. It’s the first gastropub in Arizona whose food scene is slowly becoming more well known. There’s even a celebrity chef on Food Network who is an executive chef in Arizona! (Beau MacMillan, co-judge on Worst Cooks in America, Exec Chef at Elements at the Sanctuary in Scottsdale)

But back to the food! We started with the Artichoke Salad with asparagus, endive and parmesan. This salad turned out to be one of the most refreshing salads I have ever had. As you can see in the photo, it included artichoke hearts, frisee, a little radicchio, zucchini/courgette shavings, chives, parmesan and it was dressed in a very light lemon vinaigrette. Of course, this salad was especially perfect sitting in the hot Arizona sun. But I recreated a version of it here in England and it was just as refreshing. When I did my version, I blanched some fresh (in season) asparagus, made courgette shavings (super easy with a veg peeler) and served it on a bed of mixed greens. For the dressing, I just mixed fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and finished it all off with fresh parmesan. You will LOVE this salad I promise!

Artichoke heart, asparagus, endive, parmesan salad

The funny thing is I just remembered a Giada (Food Network) episode I saw once where she made zucchini shavings, and I’ve just found the recipe. And guess what – it’s almost exactly what you see/read above. Here’s the recipe link anyway!

Now the ribs… So as you’ve read before, my Dad is quite the grill master/cook. He’s also in love with his giant smoker. Not only are my Dad’s steaks amazing, but his ribs.. mmm.. crispy, moist, tangy. As much as I love my Dad’s ribs, the ribs at Culinary Dropout were THE best I have.ever.had. They even beat what I had at the BBQ Festival! Maybe it was the jalapeno, molasses marinade/sauce. Or maybe they just cooked it for longer. All I know is that this meat not only fell off the bone instantly but was also flaky and moist. The flavor was the perfect balance of sweetness, spicy-ness, tangy-ness. Now I am no girly-girl when it comes to eating ribs. I have no shame in getting in there and licking my fingers throughout. But the meat was SO tender on these, it all came off in one bite! Mmm I can’t think about them for too long because I’m pretty certain I won’t be able to find anything like that in the UK. That means it will be a very long time before I get ribs like these again. But here’s a photo for you to enjoy!

Kurobuta Pork Ribs with jalapeno and molasses

I have some serious backlog of posts I have to sort, so stay tuned for lots more to come!

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Exploring Arizona – Part 1

A beautiful Arizona desert sunset

Hi All – Hope everyone had a great weekend. This weekend I had the pleasure of hosting my sister’s good friend Kristen who was in town from Seattle with strict instructions to help her explore the area. After picking her up from the airport Saturday afternoon, the first place that came to mind (within my very limited knowledge of the area) was Sapporo in Scottsdale. I currently live far enough from Scottsdale and Tempe to not be able to go out and taxi-it home (sadly). However, Kristen was staying at a hotel so we went all out. We headed to Sapporo for happy hour. And despite being hungry we somehow got caught up doing sake bombs at the very very crowded bar instead. (It was the end of the Phoenix [golf] Open so the place was rammed). Although we mostly had a couple drinks at this place, I mention it because it’s a great sushi place (and I absolutely looove sushi), with a great happy hour, and a really good scene. So if you’re ever in town, I recommend it! Next time I’ll actually eat and take some pictures. 

I’ll skip through the rest of the night since it didn’t exactly involve a lot of food, but it was loads of fun and filled with dancing and lots of laughs. The next day, however, WAS filled with lots of food – food required to make me feel a whole lot better. We met up with a friend of Kristen’s – Tyler (a local) – who was so nice and gave us a few recommendations in town. 

We ate so much at the first place though, we only made it to one – LA GRANDE ORANGE in Arcadia (suburb of Scottsdale).  We were completely shocked when we walked into this place. First off, it was completely packed on a Sunday early afternoon which is always a great sign. It’s tucked into this really cute neighborhood and just had so much character. 

 I mean who sells little cactus plants at their grocery/restaurant/cafe? Of course this is Arizona… But seriously, this place is amazing. I wish it wasn’t so far away because I definitely would be there every day if I could. So this place looks like it took over two restaurants. The left half is filled with tables and an open area on the right wall where they make pizzas (so probably a former pizza joint). The right half is where you order food and buy mini cactus 🙂  Of course they, in fact, sell a variety of items from cook books, to clothes/aprons/etc with their logo, and loads of specialty grocery items. To be completely honest, I was starving and the amazing smells coming from the open kitchen and the long line prevented me from exploring. Before I get to the food, one last note on this place – the people/crowd were really really surprising to me because it was completely different from anything I’ve seen in my experience in Arizona thus far. There was actually an urban feel to it. Or maybe it was what I would expect at a place on Main Street in Venice? That blend of people from Malibu, Santa Monica and Venice? I saw very little bleach blonde, a lot of no-makeup-laid-back Sunday faces, no cowboy hats and even some dread locks! 

 

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Cooking For One – Part 2

This time around I decided to stop being redundant and put up my recipes first. This way on my posts you can look at the more important thing – the pictures 🙂

Next up in my cooking for one was a spinach salad. Spinach just happen to be on sale the other day, so I bought two huge tubs of it and it lasted me more than a week. Basically I’ve been super loaded up with iron these days. But I never get tired of it somehow. I love it in a salad, or sandwich or sauteed. And I might just stop using frozen spinach if I can help it. The flavor just isn’t the same. Anywho – you can find the recipe here.

This time I tried something a little different and made my super basic balsamic vinaigrette with white wine vinegar instead. As you can see I’m not super creative when it comes to salad dressings. I stick with my basics because normally when I feel like a salad, it’s a last minute thing and I want it to be simple. I also used some of the leftover chicken I bought on sale (and used in the last post). Because I didn’t want to mess up my Dad’s grill, I decided to just quickly pan “grill” it. I pounded it thin since I find it cooks faster and I like to take little bites. Seasoned it with garlic salt, black pepper and chili flakes. After cooking, I sliced into strips, used some in my salad and saved the rest for another day.

Healthy chicken fajitas

Chris arrived the next day and because I had so much darn chicken I decided we were going to have fajitas! In the spirit of being healthy, I decided I would make my own seasoning since it’s pretty easy to look up online and allowed one less ‘store-bought’ thing in our meal. I didn’t really measure and kind of just threw in an assortment of ingredients I found in various recipes online (the basics really). Find the recipe here.

For veggies, I decided to go a slightly different route since I’ve been reading lots about how bell peppers give you heart burn (aka make you gassy, not exactly romantic). Even though it is a summer squash, I’ve recently read about the benefits of eating zucchini (or known in the UK as courgette). It’s low in calories and a good source of vitamin A.

Healthy, homemade chicken fajitas

I also used mushrooms since (1) Chris and I both love them, (2) they also have great health benefits like being low in calories and a good source of potassium, and (3) we were at Costco and decided to get a huge box of them.

As you can see, we had a corn salsa with our fajitas. I decided to omit the black beans and bell pepper this time to make it a little lighter.

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