Aug 01

Watonga Cheese Factory – Perryton, TX

As you drive on US Route 83 from Nowhere, KS to Somewhere, TX with Anywhere, OK in between you will come to the small town of Perryton, TX. I have driven through Perryton, TX many times in the past few years and even contributed to the local police force budget, but have only stopped for gas and coffee. Each time I passed through Perryton, TX; I would see the store sign for the Watonga Cheese Factory and say to myself I will stop the next time I pass through the town. Recently, I did just that and among the High Plains of the Panhandle there is source of locally produced cheese that is worth the stop in Perryton, TX.

Watonga Cheese Factory Store - Perryton, TX

Watonga Cheese Factory Store – Perryton, TX

The Watonga Cheese Factory established in 1940 produces some very nice cheese from the family’s dairy farm which is located near the town. It is not a large store, but in addition to a large variety cheddar cheeses and cheese curds of made locally, there are cheese sold from other parts of the country in addition to locally produced pickled vegetables. I did not notice it at first, but there was a table with a selection of cheese for sampling. I do love free samples. I tried the Sharp Cheddar, the Onion Cheddar and the Cheddar Pepper and went back for seconds and maybe even third samples of the Onion Cheddar and Cheddar Pepper.

Sharp Cheddar Cheese from Watonga Cheese Factory

Sharp Cheddar Cheese from Watonga Cheese Factory sealed in Red Wax

One of the reasons why I had never stopped at the store before was the question of what to do with the cheese that I purchased? It would be at least 18 hours before the cheese could be properly refrigerated. I expressed my concern to the very nice lady working in the store and she assured me that as long as I had the air conditioner running in the car and in the hotel room, the cheeses I selected would not spoil for many days. I purchased a small wheel of Sharp Cheddar sealed in red wax and a small block of the Onion Cheddar and then headed south towards BFE, TX.

Onion Cheddar Cheese from the Watonga Cheese Factory

Onion Cheddar Cheese from the Watonga Cheese Factory

I do not consider myself to be a hardcore Locavore or a diehard supporter of Local Businesses, but I do appreciate the efforts, risk and entrepreneurial spirit of those that dare and produce a quality product whether it is a local brewery, a family run coffee shop or in this case a cheese factory in a small town in the Panhandle of TX. The cheeses produced are very good and when I am passing through Perryton, TX from Nothing, OK I will be sure to stop and make another purchase. For those that do not have the pleasure of driving through Perryton, TX, you can always visit the Watonga Cheese Factory website to order on-line or call to place an order.

Wantonga Cheeses on Ritz Crackers

Watonga Cheeses (Sharp Cheddar, Onion Cheddar and Sharp Cheddar with Garden Grape Jam) on Crackers

 

Jul 31

Homemade Mexican Chorizo Style Sausages

These sausages that Bill and made a while ago are neither Spanish chorizo or Mexican chorizo, but a different style of Mexican Sausage. The stuffing is in the style of Mexican chorizo, but it is stuffed into natural sausage casings to be then cooked like normal sausages. I love spicy food and I thought that this type of sausage would be a great addition to our sausage recipes we have been developing recently. The pungency of the adobo sauce, the smoky heat of the chipotles and the flavour of the tequila all add to the taste of Mexico in spicy sausage form.

Normally Mexican chorizo is made into sausages with inedible casing which are removed before cooking. You could also use this recipe for Mexican Sausages without stuffing it into sausage casings to make your own homemade Mexican Chorizo for Mexican dishes such as Breakfast Tacos, Huevos Rancheros, Taquitos, Queso Fundido, Tortas, Burritos or even a pizza topping.

Grilled homemade chorizo sausages

Grilled homemade chorizo sausages

How to make Homemade Mexican Chorizo Sausages

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs (2.3Kg) of pork Loin and fat (roughly 4 to 1 of meat)
  • 0.25 cups (60ml) of 100% agave tequila blanco
  • 0.25 cups (60ml) of red wine vinegar
  • 2 chipotles and adobo sauce, chopped finely
  • 5 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 tbsp of granulated onion
  • 0.5 tsp of ground cumin
  • 4 tbsp of kosher salt
  • 1 tsp of dried oregano, preferably Mexican
  • 4 tbsp of ancho chilli powder
  • 5 tsp of cayenne pepper
  • 2 tbsp of paprika
  • 0.5 tsp of white pepper
Mexican Chorizo Style Sausage Ingredients

Mexican Chorizo Style Sausage Ingredients

 

Method

Mix together all of the ingredients well and leave for about an hour in the refrigerator for the flavours to develop. Stuff the mixture in to natural sausage casings.

5lbs of chorizo sausage

5 pounds of chorizo sausage

Twist the sausage links about half the size you would do for normal sausages, roughly about 2.5″ (6.5cm) in length.

Chorizo Sausages

Chorizo Sausages ready for air drying

Leave the sausages to air-dry in the refrigerator before using or wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and freeze them. These spicy little sausages are great on the barbecue or as part of a tapas dish.

 

Jul 30

Roq-n-roll-a-mole – Another contender for the best guacamole

Roquamole is a variation on guacamole from the lovely Nigella Lawson. I’ve changed it a little to give it a bit more zing, but the two main flavours are still avocado and Roquefort cheese. If you can’t find Roquefort, then any strongly flavoured blue cheese will work such as Gorgonzola or St.Agur. The changes I made to Nigella’s recipe were that I used fresh jalapeños instead of pickled, added cilantro (fresh coriander) and removed the paprika. Also at the moment I have been using Crema Salvadoreña as sour cream, which is thicker and richer than normal sour cream, and it adds a very creamy taste to the finished guacamole.

Roquamole guacamole with home made tortilla chips

Roquamole guacamole with home made tortilla chips

Roquefort is a blue sheep cheese from the south of France and is similar to Gorgonzola from Italy, but they do have different characters. The mould in Roquefort (Penicillium roqueforti) is unique to the caves of Mount Combalou near Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, and only cheese that is aged in these caves is allowed to be called Roquefort. Roquefort cheese has a very distinct tangy taste, and a strong odour of butyric acid, but the real yumminess probably comes from its high glutamate content (umami – the 5th taste).

Roquamole Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 1.5oz (45g) of Roquefort or other strongly flavoured blue cheese
  • 1 tbsp of freshly sqeezed lime juice
  • half a fresh jalapeño, de-seeded and chopped finely
  • 1 green onion (spring onion), finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp of sour cream, Crema Fresca or Crème fraîche
  • a small handfull of cilantro (fresh coriander), chopped
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Roquamole Ingredients

Roquamole Ingredients

Method

Add all the ingredients to a bowl and mash together to form a smooth thick sauce. Season to taste, but you probably won’t have to add much salt, as blue cheese tends to be quite salty. Serve with tortilla chips.

You will probably have to double or triple this recipe, because it doesn’t last long.

 

Jul 29

Wine for beginners

Wine still has a lot of baggage. By that I mean that there is still a great deal of snobbishness about it, which could be the reason why some people are put off experimenting and expanding their wine tastes. There is also so much choice now in supermarkets and specialist wine shops that it can be intimidating to know where to start. ‘Should I buy the most expensive one‘ or ‘should I buy the one with the old fashioned label and hope that it is a sign of quality‘ are questions you could easily ask yourself when faced with the dilemma of choosing wine.

I remember trying wine for the first time at university. It was a cheap bottle of red plonk, that was just barely drinkable. I’m sure that by holding my nose that would have improved the taste, but being a poor student the alcohol content was more important. It was enough to put you off wine for life. Things have changed a lot over the last 20 years. Wine quality has improved greatly, with the ‘New World’ leading the way and teaching ‘old dogs’ new tricks in how to grow grapes, make and even market the wine. Nowadays cheap wine doesn’t even necessarily mean bad wine, you just have to look at the popularity of Charles Shaw wine, aka ‘two buck chuck’. With a little knowledge about what it is you really like about wine you can easily find very good, reasonably priced, everyday wines between $10 to $15 (£7 to £10)

Tasting WineIn my opinion, one of the most pretentious aspects of the ‘wine snob’ is the habit of saying things like ‘this Chardonnay tastes like a newly cut lawn‘. It makes my blood boil as much as the word ‘foodie’. This alone is probably the main cause of putting people off of exploring wine. If someone is trying to start learning about wine and they hear that a particular wine tastes of something like grass, then they may not have developed their nose and taste buds enough to know what it is they are tasting or smelling, as well as the fact they there are genetic difference in all of us, that means that we can experience tastes and smells differently. Taste and smell are the most subjective of our senses and it takes time to learn the vocabulary of aroma and taste.

To someone who has been put off of experimenting with wine, it is probably only because of the ‘wine snob’. However just by learning the vocabulary of wine aromas and tastes can help push you outside the comfort zone of the couple of wines that you have settled on and maybe find something amazing along the way.

How to begin. To start learning about wine, forget about countries, regions, grapes, wineries, Châteaus, vintages, years, terrior and all the other wine terminology. Learning to enjoy wine is just about teaching yourself the vocabulary of aroma and taste, and finding out what particular qualities that you enjoy in wine. Once you’ve learnt this, you’ll be happier choosing wine blind and having a better chance of knowing that you may like it before you buy.

Wine Aroma Wheel

Wine Aroma Wheel

Since we can actually only taste 5 basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami), a good thing to start with is getting a hold of a Wine Aroma Wheel. There are quite a few out on the internet to buy as well as to download.

Note: remember to have whatever wine you are trying at the correct temperature. Usually, but not always, white wine tends to be chilled and red tends to be served at room temperature.

How to learn about tasting wine

  1. Start with a large mouthed wine glass and pour a little wine into the glass
  2. Swirl the wine around the glass to help release the aromas.
  3. Stick you nose into the glass and inhale deeply.
  4. Look at the centre of the Wine Aroma Wheel and find an aroma that you can detect.
  5. Take another sniff and work outwards on the wheel trying to narrow down what it is that you are smelling.
  6. Take note of this smell and whether you like this or not.
  7. Finally taste the wine and notice if the smell matches or contrasts with the taste. To help increase the aroma within your mouth, try sucking in some air through your teeth. Also once you have swallowed, or spat out the wine, then see if any other aromas are present.
  8. If you are trying lots of different wines without food, then you may want to spit, but this is a waste of good wine. A better thing to do is to rinse your glass and mouth with a little water before tasting the next one.

Don’t worry about trying to identify every smell in a wine. It takes time and practice, and with wine this is a can’t be a bad thing. Also if you try too long to smell a particular wine, your nose will become de-sensitized and you will no longer be able to smell it’s subtleties.

Once you have the words to describe the aromas you are experiencing it will become easier to recognise the features in particular wines that you like. For instance you may find that you don’t like vanilla (oak) in Chardonnay, but you do like the pepper in Shiraz. Your nose is different to everyone else’s, and it takes time and practice to learn the words to describe what it is smelling.

 

Jul 28

Big Bites Burger & Sushi – Katy, TX

In Houston there is a wide range of places where one can order sushi. You can of course sit down and eat sushi at a restaurant, gorge on simple sushi rolls at a Chinese mega-buffet, pick up a selection at your local grocery store and if you are bold purchase the components and make sushi at home. On the west side of Houston, off of Fry Road and Kingsland Boulevard there is another option that falls somewhere between sushi restaurants and take out sushi from a grocery store. The name of the restaurant is Big Bite Burger & Sushi.

Big Bites Burger & Sushi at Kingsland Blvd. and Fry Rd.

Big Bites Burger & Sushi at Kingsland Blvd. and Fry Rd.

You read correctly, a restaurant, well more like a hamburger joint that also serves fresh prepared sushi while you wait. Or is it a small Japanese sushi restaurant that also serves hamburgers? Regardless, of your personal preference, for the price, quality and convenience, Big Bite Burger & Sushi prepares some really good sushi rolls. What I like most about this establishment is that it really is just a simple food joint with nothing fancy in the décor. You walk into the place and order your food at the cash register and then sit down to wait for your food to be delivered. You can either eat in the restaurant or order the food to go. I have done both.

Big Bites Burger & Sushi Inside

Big Bites Burger & Sushi Order Counter

There is ten or more sushi rolls to select from in addition to order in addition to a selection of sushi nigiri. You can also a selection of Japanese style rice bowls and of course the standard fare of hamburgers and other options from the grill.

Selection of Sushi Rolls from Big Bites Burger & Sushi

Selection of Sushi Rolls from Big Bites Burger & Sushi

If there was anything to find fault about the sushi rolls at Big Bite Burger & Sushi it would be that the speed of service is inconsistent, no alcohol for sale and that the sushi rolls are not rolled tight. None of these reasons are important enough not to enjoy the quality and quantity for the price. As far as the prices for sushi rolls, my friend Tony and I ordered more food than we could finish and we spent less than fifty dollars for two grown men. For me, given that I go to sushi restaurants to eat a meal versus having a snack, this is a good price.

Sushi Rolls from Big Bites Burger & Sushi

Selection of Sushi Rolls from Big Bites Burger & Sushi

If you live on the west side of Houston and have a craving for fresh, made to order sushi rolls and do not desire to sit down in a Japanese restaurant, then Big Bites Burger & Sushi is the place to go. Whether for lunch with colleagues, dinner with the family or take out it is hard to beat. Not to mention, for those that do not enjoy sushi, you can always order a cheeseburger.