Author Archives: cssmith

Places I’ve Been + Midland Moments

September 29, 2013

Well sh*t. I officially went to Chili’s on a Friday night. After having a casual binge drinking outing on Friday afternoon with some girls, our husbands decided they would pass on joining us for dinner, leaving us on our own to figure out where we would stumble to. Cut to us walking across the parking lot to Chili’s, where there was a line out the door of Midland’s finest singles and more Rascal scooters than I care to see. We walk in, and knowing that the wait would be well over 2 hours, I decide to tell a little lie (shocker). I walked up to the hostess and told her I had put myself on the list and gave her my name and phone number. She couldn’t find it, and apologized. I was a sweet girl, and told her not to worry–I’d “called” 40 minutes ago, she could just add me to the list. Boom. That ended up not making a difference, since we sat in the bar anyways. After politely declining a drink from a gentleman with a tattoo sleeve and knock off Ed Hardy shirt, I joined the ladies at our table. I kid you not–I ordered a cosmo, and was served Tequila and Cranberry juice and almost puked. I asked the waitress for a cosmo with vodka, and she went to go grab it, but had to turn around and take my martini glass from me–they were fresh out. Score. Well, a round of skillet queso, a triple dipper and some soft pretzel later, we were ready to roll out. Literally, roll. I was so full I almost had to snatch a rascal ride back the the car. And guess what? Chili’s DID. NOT. SUCK. I hate myself for loving it.

On an unrelated note, I bought my dog a Tommy Bahama shirt.

AND…. When I wen to H-E-B, there was literally no one there. If you live in Midland, you know how incredible this is. I was in Fatty Heaven (and tried all the samples).

Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken + Corn Salad + Faux Fried Okra

September 29, 2013

Final Product

Stuffed Chicken rollups

2 chicken breasts (or 4 chicken cutlets)
Goat cheese
1 jalapeño
½ shallot, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Long toothpicks or skewers

Pound out your chicken breasts to about ¼ – ½ inches. Cut each in half so that you have 4 pieces. In a food processor combine the goat cheese, jalapeno, shallot and garlic until it is blended together. Spread on the chicken and roll them up and stick the toothpick in and put on a baking sheet. Bake in a 425 degree oven for about 25-35 minutes.

Sautéed Sweet Corn salad

3 ears of fresh corn on the cob
2 tbs butter
2 tbs cotija cheese
Handful of fresh bell peppers, chopped (I had an orange one on hand)
3 leaves of fresh basil

Cut the corn off the cobs. Melt the butter in a sauté pan. I added some garlic and shallots, but you don’t have to. Add in the corn and sauté for about 8-12 minutes, I like mine a little brown. Add in the bell peppers and cook until soft (3 minutes appx). Turn the heat off and mix in the cotija cheese and chopped basil.

Faux fried okra

As much okra as you want
Cornmeal
Spices
1 egg
½ cup buttermilk

Cut the okra up in pieces the size you want. Whisk your egg together with the buttermilk. Soak in buttermilk mixture for about 5 minutes. While it’s soaking, add some spices to your cornmeal. I used a little bit of garlic salt, some cayenne pepper and paprika. Totally up to you. Toss the soaked okra in the cornmeal and place on a baking sheet. Bake in a 425 oven for about 15 minutes, flip and cook another 15. Check them at this point and make sure they are crispy. If they aren’t, don’t be a bozo and take them out—let them cook longer. I served my okra with a mixture of equal parts ketchup to sriracha. Also—my cornmeal was stale and this okra actually tasted like sh*t, but I know it will be good next time. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions!

Austin Weekend

September 24, 2013

Welp… I guess the Longhorns officially suck less. While they were busy winning on Saturday, I, on the other hand, was busy making poor life decisions that would render me somewhat useless until this morning. Thank God for espresso and Adderall. (And other things right now, but really, coffee + amphetamine salts= my answer to save the world today).

I’ll give you a recap of my poor life decisions, most of which involve copious amounts of cheese and margaritas, followed by a bit more cheese and Michelob ultras. I got to Austin on Thursday and was flying solo for the night. What I really wanted to do was put on my robe and order Fleming’s to my room–a nice little filet and cab for one, but somehow I still had some dignity at that point. So I decided to go the take out route…chips and queso from CVS and the nicest wine available from the Hampton Inn convenience store… it was an all around fail and I just woke up HANGRY the next day.

Dinner Fail. So ashamed…

The next day I woke up, ready to conquer downtown Austin shopping and restaurants, only to find that there was a small monsoon happening in Austin. I figured I am basically waterproof, so I braved the rain. Fail #2. Tried walking home with a to go salad from Leaf. Fell 3 times. My salad was in some sort of biodegradable paper box with no bag, so it was going to suck in the first place, but sucked even more after it got rained on. Austin needs to chill with their tree hugging hippie sh*t. It’s annoying, and no, I don’t want paper, I want plastic.

Awful salad.

Wet rat. Defeated. Only thing I had left at this point is that bottle of Zantac on the counter.

Friday night was much better. We went to Parkside and it was delish. Started with Sav B and oysters and then went the light route for dinner. A nice ribeye with grilled onions and some other delicious accompaniments that didn’t matter at the time. Their French fries rocked and we left drunk and happy.

Delish Steak.

Crawford’s Lamb Chops

Saturday was a general day of debauchery. Starting a day at Doc’s with two bad influences (No, I do not want a floater in my marg, it’s 11:30) was a wise choice of course. Had already eaten Cisco’s–see images below, but won’t pass up a fried pickle. They aren’t the best at Doc’s–mainly because I wasn’t willing to wait for them to cool, and burned the sh*t out of my mouth. Well, I’m officially bored with myself, and my coffee got cold, so I’ll just post the rest of the pics and make you jealous.