Taste With Grace

OK first of all I cannot get over this weather in St. Louis right now.  Here we are in February and the past few days have been sunshine and in the 70s. Is this real life? I have decided that heaven is in the mid 70s.  It really is the perfect temperature.  Not too hot and not too cold.  Anyway. On to the real reason you are reading this blog- food.  

I've been cooking some new recipes this week as well as some old favorites.  One of the new ones I enjoyed was the cajun chicken flatbread recipe from the food blog Tastes Better from Scratch.  You can find the recipe here. Aside from this being very tasty, I really appreciated that it was such a quick meal! It was done in no time.  As I've said before, I do most of my shopping at Aldi.  Aldi sells these naan breads that I love to make pizzas on because they are the perfect size for a personal one.  (Or for me to eat 2/3 of one and my husband to eat 1 and 1/3) So I just used those instead of one large flat bread.  The sauce was a cajun spiced aioli.  For those of you that don't know what an aioli is, think similar to mayonnaise.  In fact, this recipe uses mayonnaise for the base of the sauce.  It is then topped with mozzarella cheese, cajun spiced chicken, mini sweet peppers, onion, avocado, and cilantro.  For the chicken you just season with salt, pepper, and cajun seasoning and pan fry until done.  The recipe calls for you to grill it, but I was lazy.  Quick tip for cooking meat: Only flip once! I leave the chicken on one side in the pan until it is almost done and then flip it for a few more minutes to cook out the last bit of pink on the other side.  The flipping once is true of all meats FYI.  That way you don't lose the juices by cutting into it to know if it's ready and what not.  

I also went to Crushed Red this week for dinner.  It's my husband's favorite place to go.  And it has a lot of healthy options because they have really yummy salads.  They make the salads right in front of you and use a mezzaluna knife to chop it all up.  That way all of the bites have an even amount of ingredients in it.  If you don't know what a mezzaluna knife is, you can google it :) I got the farmer's market salad, which has granny smith apples, goat cheese (like I told you, if it has goat cheese, I'm going to order it), craisins, turkey, and sunflower seeds in it.  All with a honey mustard dressing.  Another favorite salad of mine there is the chipotle BBQ chicken salad.  Also delicious.  We also shared a pizza- the gorgonzola chicken.  White sauce, cheese, gorgonzola, chicken, spinach, onion and tomato.  Delicious.  It's a nice casual restaurant.  But not too casual.  So a perfect lunch spot.  They have two locations- we went to the one in Kirkwood. 

I also did homemade ribs this week with sweet potatoes.  I have made these ribs a few times now and it is so easy and they are always tender.  Oddly enough, I found this "make ribs in your oven" recipe and method on wikihow.  If you have never checked out that site, you should.  If you don't know how to do something, that site has the answer.  I have learned multiple things from there.  You can find the rib article that I used here.  I used the dry rub method, but the article shows you different ways to do it.  The best part is how simple it is.  You dry rub the ribs, wrap them in foil and then let them cook in your oven at 250 for 2.5-3 hours.  Perfect.  Then you top with your favorite BBQ sauce.  (Or not, my husband claims to be a purist and doesn't use sauce)  I used Sweet Baby Ray's sweet and spicy.  It's the perfect sauce to me because prior to finding this, I would find a sweet sauce and a spicy sauce and mix them.  Sweet Baby Ray did it for me this time.  For the sweet potatoes, I simply boiled and mashed them and then added a little milk, butter, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and a dash of hot sauce for a kick.  Yum.  The best thing to put in them is a dash of chipotles in adobo sauce, if you have it.  Or putting cream cheese in them is also good.  Or sour cream.  I'm a huge fan of savory sweet potatoes, and I think they go perfectly with BBQ.  You can also do oven baked sweet potato fries if you are feeling adventurous.  I have done this before and they are yummy!

I decided to go out to breakfast on Saturday morning with some girlfriends since my husband was working.  I absolutely love breakfast food and I very very rarely go out to breakfast.  So this was definitely a treat.  We decided to go to a St. Louis favorite- Uncle Bill's Pancake and Dinner House.  And everything was so good.  Just classic breakfast food- nothing fancy.  But that's just what you need sometimes, right? I just got the bacon and eggs plate, which came with hash browns and a stack of pancakes.  I had my little babe with me and he decided the pancakes were for him and ate more than half of them.  But I did get to eat some of them and they were delicious.  Hash browns are pretty much the reason I go out for breakfast and these were cooked perfectly- crispy, but not too crispy.  And the over easy eggs and bacon were great too! I definitely recommend Uncle Bill's if you are a breakfast food lover like myself.  

Last night we had my mom over for dinner since my dad left on a business trip.  We decided to make our go to meal lately- thai red curry meatballs.  I tried this recipe for the first time last summer and have made it once to twice per month since then.  It's that good.  And my husband is always requesting it.  And I'm happy to oblige because I love it too.  It's red curry meat balls (I use ground turkey, even though the recipe calls for ground chicken) in a coconut red curry peanut sauce over brown jasmine rice.  They are sooooo good.  You can find the recipe here. And you won't be sorry.  They have a kick to them, but they aren't too spicy, in my opinion.  Something to note- I have made these multiple times, as stated before and it is realllllly important to use fresh ground meat.  I tried making them a few times with frozen meat and it really did make a huge difference! So go for the fresh meat, if possible.  

That has been my eating experience the past few days/week.  I hope you are enjoying the blog as much as I am enjoying writing it.  I started a cooking club this past month and our second meeting is this week.  So I'm excited to share some fun cooking club stuff with you soon!

Love,

Grace

St. Louis has a lot of great food to offer.  I have lived here most of my life and honestly love the food scene here.  There are always new things to try and old favorites to regularly go to.  Because I'm a local, I often get asked for recommendations on places to eat.  So I figured having recommendations on this blog would be a good way to share my favorites - old and new- and to be able to reference whenever I'm having trouble of thinking of anything.  

So first things first.  I love Italian subs.  I have a few favorites that I like from around town, but my all time favorite, at least for now, is the Hill Boy from Adriana's on the hill.  It's located on Shaw just west of Kingshighway.  It's a tiny little shop that always has a line out the door.  But as I always say- if there's a line, that means it's food worth waiting for.  Adriana herself is always at the cash register (or at least has been every time I have gone) and is friendly and chatty with everyone that enters.  A lot of the sandwiches are even named after her grandchildren.  They do have a Grace- but I haven't tried it yet! My husband and I always get a sandwich and the pasta special and then split them both.  A sandwich is definitely plenty for two people- the sandwich pictured is half.  The pasta sauce is out of this world good.  My favorite red sauce ever.  The Hill Boy has lots of yummy Italian meats, pepperocinis, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and their special sauce/dressing.  Yum.  

For our Valentine's dinner, we went out to Dressel's Public House.  I had never been here before.  Our friends that we went with recommended it, and boy am I glad that they did.  It's a pub atmosphere with tasty food.  We started our meal with the poutine.  It was french fries with a delicious gravy, cheese curds (surprisingly tasty), green onions and pork belly on top.  The pork belly was top notch and probably my favorite part.  I made the mistake of not getting a picture!  For my main course I got the lamb burger, as recommended by our waiter.  It has goat cheese (which is what sold me on ordering it), an apricot chutney and house made bread and butter pickles.  All served with house made chips.  And it was so good! All of the flavors combined were perfect and I would definitely go back and order it again.  

We ended our evening (after a fun time at Casa Loma ballroom) at Ices Plain and Fancy. It is located in the Shaw neighborhood on the corner of 39th and Shenandoah. They make ice cream using liquid nitrogen right in front of you.  Not only is it cool, but it tastes amazing.  It's one of our favorite go to spots- and it definitely helps that it is very close to our house. :) I have been here quite a few times and have gotten a variety of flavors.  I have yet to have one that disappoints.  My husband's favorite is the dulce de leche salted caramel custard.  I do agree that is is delicious, but I like to try new things.  This time it was their temporary flavor "Campfire Smores." It was a toasted marshmallow ice cream with marshmallows also mixed in. Then it was topped with hot fudge, graham crackers, and hershey bar chunks.  They then put a smoked dome on top to give it a smoky campfire flavor.  Not only was it a cool effect to pull of the dome and watch the smoke fly away, but it also added the perfect flavor.  I highly recommend it.  But it won't be there forever, so be quick! If you happen to read this too late- I also highly recommend the nutella flavor- which is on their regular flavors board.  

Last night I was by the loop in U City visiting a friend and decided to finally go and taste Mission Taco since I'm hardly ever in that area.  I had heard from multiple people that this was a good place, so I wanted to try it.  And it did not disappoint.  I ordered two different kinds of tacos.  The first one was the roasted duck.  It was a chile roasted duck, crisp pork belly carnitas, and topped with an avocado serrano sauce.  My pork belly experience at Dressels inspired me to try this one.  And it was very very tasty.  The second taco was the carne asada taco with wood-fire grilled flank steak, baby arugula, queso fresco, and the same avocado serrano sauce.  The sauce was delicious and definitely had a kick to it.  I was a big fan of both and couldn't possibly choose.  The street corn off the cob was also good.  The tacos were definitely the highlight for me though. 

Then for lunch today I went to Lona's 'Lil Eats located on California Ave in the fox park neighborhood.  I went to Lona's for the first time about a week ago (before I started this blog) after hearing rave review after rave review.  And after taking one bite, I'm ready to add another rave review.  Good enough that I needed to go back a week later to take my dad along.  They are the home of the giant rice paper wrap.  You can either build your own or pick one that they have on the menu.  I decided to create my own.  It was filled with grilled chicken, greens, jasmine rice and topped with a thai peanut sauce.  They have lots of tasty sauces to choose from.  I'm also a huge fan of the Lona-Q sauce, which is what my husband got.  Each order comes with a side and I got the peanut ginger lime slaw salad, which was yummmmmmy! I cannot say enough good about Lona's.  I mean I think the fact that I went twice in one week says enough.  

Those are my foodie finds/old favs for this post. Let me know if you have any St. Louis recommendations! Email me at tastewithgrace@gmail.com

Love,

Grace

Hello everyone- my name is Grace and I'm here to welcome you to my new foodie blog.  I come from a big foodie family and am passionate about eating the best food out there.  I'm learning as I go and wanted to share my food journey with all of you.  This journey will include my cooking adventures, my experiences with local cuisine, my favorite kitchen appliances and gadgets and many other things that involve food.  I feel like I'm always in the kitchen making up something and wanted to share it with someone, so why not use a blog to do that, right?

Just a little bit about me- I am from St. Louis, MO.  I currently live here as well.  I moved back home after graduating from college and met my husband, who came out here for medical school.  Now we have been married for 2 and a half years and have an adorable little 10 month old son, Flint.  He is also a little baby foodie and loves watching me cook and eating all of my creations.  I have yet to find something he won't eat! The best part about cooking is sharing it with my family and friends. 

So without further ado, I present to you my first blog post, featuring my Valentine's weekend dinner party this past Friday evening.  There ended up being 3 couples in attendance with little Flint tagging along.  Each recipe was a new one for me and I feel they all turned out great.  

Our first course was a wedge salad.  For wedge salads, I prefer using boston lettuce or big lettuce.  It's the perfect size for a starting salad and the lettuce is fresh and not too hard in the middle, like iceberg usually is.  For the dressing I made a homemade ranch dressing (just according to the directions on the back a ranch packet) in a blender and then added about half a cup-3/4 cup of blue cheese crumbles.  The blue cheese adds a zip that is really delicious.  After adding the dressing to the wedge, I drizzled on some balsamic glaze- which you can find in your local grocery store by the balsamic vinegar and olive oils. This is the key ingredient, let me tell you.  I've had many wedge salads before, usually with the same ingredients.  But it's the balsamic glaze trick that takes this wedge salad to the next level and makes it better than the average one.  I learned this trick from my dad- the guy who raised me to be such a foodie :) Then you top with some sliced grape tomatoes, salt and pepper, bacon crumbles (fried yourself), and blue cheese crumbles.  Delish.  

I try to always have a green veggie at all of my dinner parties and this meal was no different.  My absolute favorite vegetable is brussel sprouts.  At least for now it is.  I feel like it's the only green veggie I eat, but no one at my house is complaining, because they are just that good! And they are so simple to make.  Just put your oven at 400, lay the brussels out on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Then you just roast for 20 minutes.  The leaves will be a little charred- which I really like.  You can always take them out a little sooner if that isn't your thing.  

I saw these heart shaped pastas at my favorite grocery store- Aldi and had to buy them.  They were actually the inspiration behind my dinner party in the first place.  After much deliberation, I decided to use them for a gourmet mac and cheese.  I found this recipe on pinterest and it featured aged white cheddar, gruyere cheese, and bacon.  So I knew it was going to be a winner.  Anything with gruyere cheese is going to be good.  Like seriously. If you are interested in the recipe (and I definitely recommend it), you can find it here. I will say, I ended up using a lot more pasta than the recipe called for.  I'm not sure if it's because I didn't use the shape they asked for, but I probably doubled the amount they called for.  Other than that, I didn't change a thing and it was perfect.  I might try a baked version in the future, but this was definitely good.  

For the main course, I decided to go with chicken cordon bleu.  I wanted to do a comfort food to go along with mac and cheese.  And this recipe (found here) had gruyere cheese inside of the cordon bleu, which I felt would add cohesion since it was also in the mac and cheese.  Prosciutto was also inside which made it extra yummy.  The outside was panko bread crumbs with thyme and melted butter.  The thyme was the perfect addition.  

And finally for dessert, I couldn't decide between two things, so I figured why not do two? My husband got me a mini blow torch for creme brulee a year or so ago and I have been waiting for the right opportunity to make it since then.  And I finally had my chance.  And it turned out great! I was also pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make.  I got the recipe from one of those tasty videos on facebook, which I'm a huge fan of by the way.  You can see the video here.  I think the video called for too much sugar on top of the creme brulee, so in the future, I would probably half it to make the torching easier and take less time.  

The other dessert I chose was a dense chocolate loaf cake from a cook book I got for Christmas.  And it was soooo good.  I was definitely a fan.  You can find the recipe here.  The recipe says to make it a day or so in advance and just let it sit as it gets better with time.  I did that and it is definitely true.  It was so extremely moist and dense.  I couldn't get enough of it.  

So that wrapped up my dinner party.  Thanks for reading and I'll be posting again soon with restaurant recommendations.  

Love,

Grace