...but of course.

Crawfish Boil

My apologies for such a long absence from this blog. Busy-ness at home and work, a "new" church, and a malfunctioning computer are all contributing factors... But now I'm going to try and get caught up... we'll see. 

Starting easy with a pic of a very Texas tradition - a crawfish boil we went to with Rebecca. Money to charity, and you eat a great big pile of crawfish! Not my favourite thing but interesting and fun and worth doing just for the experience.

The video below isn't very good - I had been hoping that the band would be more audible as they were pretty classic - but it gives a bit of an idea of the atmosphere (and the size of the event! We could see them cooking the crawfish from where we sat and they were being brought in in enormous vats...)

Tempting --

 -- but no.

Suburban Deluxe

Houston-style Kolaches

Kolaches are originally from Czechoslovakia (and I believe they have variants in Poland as well), but have been adopted by Texas in general and Houston in particular. The Czech-style ones are sweet, with a fruit filling, but the sort you get here are almost all savoury, with breakfast-type fillings - scrambled egg, cheese, bacon, sausage... and because it's Texas, some element of fireyness - jalapenos or salsa or some other hot sauce.

We really like kolaches, and used to buy them occasionally as a treat, but then we started wondering how difficult they would be to make at home - as with most things, not only is it significantly cheaper to make them yourself, but of course you also get to control the amount and quality of your ingredients. Kolaches will never be health food, but making them ourselves produces an end result that is significantly less oily and significantly more tasty. If you've never tried kolaches before (and it seems it's almost impossible to track down the breakfast-style ones anywhere much outside of Houston), here is the recipe - it's really very easy!

The dough recipe below makes at least 15 - enough for 5 or 6 - so reduce amounts or freeze extra as needed. I find the dough is fine after being frozen for a short time, but is better fresh.

Houston-style Kolaches
Ingredients - Dough
4 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 - 4 tablespoons sugar, to taste (dough here is very sweet; I like it a little less so, so reduce the sugar)
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose/plain flour
2 cups bread flour

Method
Heat water to 100F/38C; add yeast and a pinch of sugar; mix and set aside
Mix softened butter and shortening; add sugar and stir until well mixed
Add egg yolks, milk (also warmed to at least room temperature) and salt; mix
Add yeast and water mixture; stir; add flour
Mix, then remove from bowl and knead for 10 minutes
Place back in bowl, cover, and allow to rise until doubled in size (45 min - 1 hour)

While dough is rising, prepare and cook filling ingredients, as it's best if they're room temperature before you use them. It's really up to you what you use for filling, but some ideas are:
- scrambled egg (four eggs usually makes enough for 6 - 8 kolaches, depending on size)
- chopped bacon (four rashers is usually enough for 6 - 8 kolaches)
- chopped breakfast sausage
- grated or diced cheese
- fresh or pickled jalapenos
- salsa (reduce over heat before adding to take some of the liquid out)
- anything else you like the idea of!

When dough is doubled, gently punch down and press out the air. You can leave it to rest for a short time, or begin to use immediately; if dough is resistant to pressing out, cover it with a cloth and let it rest for 5 - 10 minutes and it will usually become much more pliable.

Pre-heat oven to 425F/220C.

Pinch off pieces of dough that are about the size of a golf ball, or very slightly larger. Press out into a circle - it can be slightly thinner on the edges than in the middle as the edges will form the base, which will be thicker than the rest.

Place filling ingredients in the middle of the dough rounds.

Gather edges together by pulling opposite sides together and pinching edges closed; it doesn't have to be pretty (though it should be sealed!) as you are going to turn them over and place the sealed side down.

Bake for 12 - 18 minutes, until golden brown. Brush freshly-baked kolaches with melted butter (salted is better, though you can easily add a shake of salt to unsalted melted butter for the same effect).

Serve immediately, eat as soon as they're cool enough, with hot sauce, barbecue sauce, tomato sauce, or no sauce at all!

If anyone tries this let me know - I'd love to hear how they turn out :)

An Absurdity of Gagas

If you decided, one random Friday night, to try the new 'Imperia Bar and Grill', located in a just-like-all-the-others strip mall and advertised at the roadside as 'Russian Cuisine', what would you expect?

Well, probably not this:

Eight waitresses, for four customers (including the two of us), all dressed as Lady Gaga. They had her music and videos playing too, and pictures up all over the walls and windows... it was clearly not their usual practice, either, as they spent most of the evening scurrying around admiring themselves in the mirrors, taking photos of each other, and otherwise being amused by themselves... when, upon leaving, we asked what the occasion was, we were told, 'Nothing; we just decided to do this tonight.'

(Dave and I discussed what the proper collective noun for a group of Gagas should be... we came up with, and rejected, 'an excess' and 'a banality' before deciding on 'an absurdity'. Do you agree?)

Ghost Boy

At least a year ago, Dave and I spotted this sad little figure sitting eternally on the bench outside a house on the way to my work. Rain, snow or Hurricane Ike, he sits there, with his dejected little lichened face and his concrete ball which never rolls and can never bounce... early on, we dubbed him Ghost Boy, as it looks like he's haunting the site of some former unhappiness. Or, as Dave says, in perpetual time-out.

We find it incredible that anyone would willingly display such a morose little person in their front garden; we have hatched some wild plans to give him a Santa hat at Christmas, or a basket of eggs at Easter... but when a For Sale sign appeared in front of the house recently, we thought the least we could do was to immortalise him with a photo, before he possibly goes to his eternal rest.

Vale, Ghost Boy. We hope your next life is happier than this one.

BYOP

We were invited to a Pumpkin Carving Party shortly before Halloween - the first time I've ever carved a pumpkin! So for those who have likewise been sadly denied, here's a step-by-step guide...

1. Choose your pumpkin. Make sure it is not bigger than you.



2. Cut out the top (or the base, if you're tricksy, preciousss)



3. Remove the gunky plug of pumpkin...



4. ...and place in a tub (along with all the other innards) so that the seeds can later be roasted and eaten.



5. Mark your design in crayon



6. - or by using a template -



7. and carve away!



8. You might choose a traditional design...



9. ...or something slightly more avant-garde.



10. But with the candles in, they'll all look suitably spooky. (Prizes* for those who can guess which is mine and which is Dave's).

* Some prizes - like esteem, and kudos - are less tangible than others. ;)

Take me out to the ball game

Last night I went to my first baseball game! The Houston Astros vs the St Louis (don't forget to pronounce the 's') Cardinals, at Minutemaid Park downtown. We got the tickets through work - non-profits sometimes get given tickets to sporting events or plays, as a thank you for the work they do. Dave, Anna and I snaffled three of them and were ready, with hot dogs and beer (or Coke, for some of us) at the 7.05pm first pitch.




As far as baseball goes, we hear we had a quick game - all done in just over two hours! Certainly there was nothing of the leisureliness of cricket about it, but it was fun to be there for all the traditions - the national anthem, the seventh inning stretch, the organ music... and the Minutemaid train (those are supposed to be oranges in the back; Minutemaid is famous for juice) which whistles and drives up and down when home runs are scored.


And the Astros won - which apparently they have not been doing, as a general rule - so maybe we brought them some indirect beginners' luck!

Step back in time

One of the things I like the most in Texas is to get out of Houston and drive around in the countryside. You can find such interesting and pretty places, within a couple of hours of the big city, so even a day trip can be great. I know I've blogged on some of these small towns before, but I never get tired of exploring them, so expect more from time to time!

Recently we made a great discovery - the newly renovated Sengelmann Hall, in Schulenburg (Schulenburg features in my Off the Map post, back in 2008 - you can actually see the unrenovated Sengelmann Hall in the first Schulenburg photo in that entry).

Apparently, the guy who bought it has spent many many dollars on it, and the result is a charming blend of old and new:

A big open eating area, with a low stage and what looks like the original backdrop,

walls scraped back to their original colours, and the shop next door turned into the kitchen (the open doorway in the far wall leads into the kitchen),

a Biergarten out the back - with fully-grown trees brought in to grow and shade it...



...and a perfectly reproduced copy of the original, elaborate bar, serving (among other things) a menu of 'Pre-Prohibition Cocktails' (Dave tried the Corpse Reviver #2; I had a Floridita and later a Moscow Mule).



The food is great, German and Czech inspired, and made from local ingredients where possible... and they have regular live music, both downstairs in the dining room and upstairs in the dance hall. Read more about Sengelmann Hall on their website; don't forget to check out the menu, and of course the photos of before and after!

I hereby issue a standing invitation: anyone who comes to visit us will be taken to Sengelmann Hall (time and inclination permitting) and regaled with some of the best food and drink Texas has to offer. Come one, come all!

* Just a reminder that you can click on any of my blog photos to see a larger version of the picture - I know some of the details can be lost in the smaller versions.

The house that Kat built

A couple of weeks ago, I was most excited to receive an invitation to my friend Kristina's annual Graham Cracker House building day. Having never built a graham cracker house before, I wasn't QUITE sure what to expect, but nevertheless looked forward to it... so Sunday saw us gather around the most bountiful table imaginable:


There were the sorts of things you might expect, to build a confectionery house - the graham crackers, obviously, and a bag of icing mixture for everyone to glue everything together; jelly beans and M&Ms and other sweets for decorating; marshmallows and candy corn and pretzels... but Kristina, being the creative type, had also supplied things like plastic army men, bugs and dinosaurs; feathers, scraps of fabric (see what else you can spot!).


What was fascinating was how different everyone's structures ended up:






As for me - I started conservatively enough:

- but quickly put Hansel and Gretel's witch to shame...




So much fun! (And no, I haven't been able to bring myself to eat the house yet; it's still wrapped in plastic on the kitchen table).