shizzling - (mis)adventures in food

Road Trip Planning - Some Texas BBQ joints that we may well visit

I've been looking in books and trawling the web for Texas BBQ joints to visit on our Road Trip in March.

First off, I found this clip on Youtube that shows some of the Texas BBQ joints around Austin.

Featured in the video are:

• Smitty's Market, Lockhart Texas, 
• Blacks Barbecue, Lockhart, TX, 
• Vencil Mares, Taylor Cafe, Taylor, TX 
• The Salt Lick Driftwood, TX.

 

Road Trip Update - Going loopy

The planning is moving along for my US Road Trip that will take place in late March.

The original idea was to head from New Orleans through Texas and New Mexico to Albuquerque and then up over the mountains to Las Vegas.

When I looked in more detail I came up against 2 problems:

1. There is a large additional fee for renting a car in one location and dropping off in another. 
2. The journey from Albuquerque to Las Vegas is very long - realistically requiring an overnight stop - and there's not much that I want to explore from a food point of view.

Garlicky Pulled Pork in a Slow Cooker recipe

I had some leftover roasted garlic puree in the fridge so I thought I'd use it as the basis of a coating for a pork shoulder joint that I am slow cooking to make pulled pork.

Be the first to hear about Shizzling chilli products

I'm going to be test marketing some chilli based products this year and I'm looking for people to bounce ideas off while I develop the product range.

If you think you'd be interested, please fill in the form below. 

Chicken Stacked Green Enchilada recipe

Serves 2

Prep: 20 mins. Cook: 50 mins

This is a variation on the Chicken Green Enchiladas I wrote about recently. Rather than roll up the enchiladas I wanted to try stacking them, almost lasagne style, to make a dish that sits up on the plate more. 

Road Trip - In Search Of Spice & Smoke

In mid March this year I'm going to the USA for a trade conference for my 'proper job'. By coincidence, we have a family holiday with friends in the USA starting on April 2nd, a week after the conference ends.

Looking at the logistics, it didn't make sense for me to return to the UK, get jet lag, pay for another air fare and return to the USA a week later to get jet lag all over again - so I've decided to stay in the USA for that week and head off on a ROAD TRIP.

The idea is to leave New Orleans on March 25th and travel through Texas, New Mexico, maybe Arizona and Nevada to get to Las Vegas by April 2nd to meet my family at the airport. 

I want to use the time to explore Texas BBQ and authentic Tex Mex and Southwestern foods. I might even head over to Hatch, the Chilli capital of the USA to see how they grow the chillies and which seeds they use. 

So far it looks like I have 2 companions for the trip. My American friend Ren, who hails from San Antonio, will travel as far as San Antonio and and English friend, Chris, will probably travel all the way to Las Vegas. I'm planning to take video camera(s), a decent audio recording unit and a laptop so that we can document the journey and post a series of blogs / vlogs about it. 

I'll be posting bits of the research / planning phase of the trip in the blog over the coming weeks. 

 

Chicken Green Enchiladas recipe

Makes 4 large enchiladas. 

Preparation time: 15 minutes. Cooking time: 45 minutes. 

An American friend of mine was kind enough to share this recipe for Chicken Green Enchiladas with me. They are easy to make and the taste is phenomenal. 

There are 2 ingredients in the recipe that are not that common in UK supermarkets: Monterey Jack cheese (I managed to get some from my local Sainsbury's cheese counter) and tomatillos (I buy these from specialist retailers like MexGrocer UK. 

Chicken Green Enchiladas straight from the oven