Monthly Archives: May 2016

My Visit to The Desoto Central Market in Phoenix AZ

The Entrance

The Desoto Central Market opened in April 2015. It opened as a Food Court with few counters of food. The local Arizona Republic Newspaper reported back in 2015 that in the coming months McClendon’s Select Produce, a Butcher Shop and a Bakery were soon to come. I thought that this sounds GREAT! McClendon sells produce. A butcher Shop and a good bakery would be awesome too! However as luck would have it at the time of my visit these places and other local venders haven’t materialized. WTFork? How could this happen in the busy section of Downtown Phoenix AZ with walking distance to the light rail???? This should be a hustling bustling place like the Famous Reading Terminal in Philadelphia.

Appond entering this was the first thing I saw.

An open Machine Age looking Coffee Bar that looked empty at lunch time. It forking reminds me of a movie. I think it was called something like “The Time The World Stood Still.”

I keep walking and pass a small table with raw oysters, a burger window and then I hit my destination called The Larder +The Delta.

The Chef of this establishment formally worked at The Bolder’s Resort in Cave Creek AZ as executive Chef. I tried the food there it was Amazing. Later this chef moved on to a Down Town Phoenix Hotel and was the Executive Chef at the Blue Hound also making a Big Splash in the Metro Phoenix Culinary world serving up Outstanding delicious food. I was hoping for inspirations today and had dreams of tasting some of the best food this area can offer.

The Bar was set very high and so were my expectations.

I thought that this was going to be really good.

To my surprise the menus I read on-line were not the same and only lured me here like bait.

That’s Forked up!

Oh! Goodie…. goodie….. joy and oy.

As wonderful as breakfast burritos, muffin sandwiches and omelet’s can be these are not plates of food I would travel across town for. Nothing is wrong liking that kind of food……but it’s just me and I don’t get excited about breakfast food. When I do eat breakfast food I only eat it at breakfast time not lunch time. Besides the breakfast plate choices they were also offering a Chili Dog and a Chicken Skin Sandwich.

You might not believe me about the chicken skin sandwich but IT’S THE FORKING TRUTH. I note that the chicken skin sandwich might be very good but it’s not what I’m looking for because I like chicken meat with the few times I eat chicken skin. I also note the the hot dog might have been house made and extra high quality but wasn’t something I wanted to eat. Again I don’t travel across town to eat breakfast burritos, French Toast, Eggs or Muffin Sandwiches either.

Fortunately there was one dish that interested me.

It was Cauliflower – pickled celery – smoked ewe’s bleu – and local Homeboy’s hot sauce. It was like what angels would eat if they ate chicken wings. The cauliflower had the lightest crispiest crust. This was tangy, mild spicy, pickled and creamy textured cauliflower that was cut with a scant amount of cheese. It was more delicious than I can make it sound. My husband and I shared it and then we ordered food next door at Adobo Dragon.

The Adobo Dragon serves up a very limited menu of sort of Asian and Latino fusion inspired food. We decide to share a Bao (steamed stuffed bun) Combination Plate of two Bao that comes with a side salad.

We decided to start with the Fish (salmon) Bao. It sounded very interesting and was made with guava chili jam and wasabi huancaina (wasabi cheese sauce). I took a bite. I liked that the bread was fresh made and hot and steamy but the fish inside……

wasn’t spoiled but tasted very fishy.

There wasn’t much fish in the whole Bao and my half was even smaller. A piece of fish fell out of the sandwich and I didn’t even bother to put it back in. But even with all the interesting sounding sauces couldn’t mask the fishiness of the fish in this sandwich.

We bravely go on to try the Chicken Bao.

It was described as grilled chicken, mango salsa, and chimichurri.

Another nice hot steamy bun. Chicken wasn’t awful but it wasn’t good either. Dry and pretty much tasteless chicken. The major taste of this sandwich was something like mango jam. It was very sweet.

My husband was sort of angry that I suggested visiting the Desoto Central Market.

God this forking sucks! Why the FORK did you suggest this Sh*T Hole.

We walk around and don’t see much.

We see an empty community room, a mostly empty dining room and an empty area where the butcher and produce was suppose to be.

Then we go upstairs. I found the restrooms and a whole bunch of nothing but got views of some people dining below.

Then we leave.

And see more nothing.

I do note that I did my visit to Desoto Central Market on a Saturday. I sure hope that they are busier during the week.

For more information of the Desoto Central Market please visit www.DesotoCentralMarket.com

That was my visit to Desoto Central Market in Phoenix AZ

I do note your experience may differ.

The Forking Truth

Dining with Dogs in Metro Phoenix AZ May 2016

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“We’re on our way to Cucina Tagliani in Glendale AZ

Dining with Dogs is not full blown reviews of restaurants. This is a FLUFF story of dining with my dogs.

Many restaurant in the Phoenix AZ area have outdoor patios but not all outdoor patios are dog friendly. It’s always a good idea to call the restaurant and ask if they are dog friendly even if you’ve been there before with your dog.

There are some rules with dining with dogs. Dogs are not to sit on the chairs or eat off the restaurant plates. Dogs are also suppose to stay by your side.

You also should be aware of what foods are dog friendly. Most food you eat isn’t safe for a dog to eat so you should do a quick search of what foods to avoid for your dog.

It’s 92 degrees F today in Phoenix AZ so we go to Cucina Tagliani’s roomy dog friendly patio with misters in Glendale AZ. This is a budget American/Italian family friendly restaurant with the best dog friendly patio in town.

Our server quickly brings water to the dogs and to the humans garlic toast, ice water and large glasses of wine.

I haven’t had the salmon in a while so I go with that.

I got a large grilled piece of meaty moist salmon, a big bunch of thin tender crisp asparagus and spaghetti squash in lemon caper butter instead of pasta.

The dogs were very happy to share the salmon with me.

“Yummy I’m a good girl.” “I want some.”

“I’m forking 15 years old.” You are going to forking give me some.” “Make it quick too because I don’t have all Forking Day!”

“You don’t need all that food.” “Forking give me more.”

My husband had Tortellini in hot sausage sauce.

“ummm…That smells good.”

“I’m pushing my way over to have some tortellini with hot sausage sauce too.”

For more information on Cucina Tagliani please visit www.cucinatagliani.com

“We’re headed to AJ’s Patio and outdoor BBQ”

We”re on our way to AJ’s Patio and Outdoor BBQ. We tried to have lunch there and AJ’s was running late again. Just like last time we didn’t arrive exactly at opening time we come about fifteen minutes after opening time because we always try to dine at off times out of consideration for other guest. We try to miss most of the crowd because some people don’t care to dine around dogs. We called AJ’s and asked what time they open the BBQ and we were told they were open.

“I don’t forking know when we’ll eat at AJ’s Patio again.”

We said the gate was down and was closed. Have no idea how long till they opened so we left and went back to Banh Mi Bistro. This is a small Vietnamese Eatery that specializes in the Banh Mi Sandwich. They also serve noodle bowls, rice plates, appetizers and don’t serve the popular Vietnamese Pho. They are a Pho Free Vietnamese Restaurant.

My Chicken Rice plate was so good last time that my husband tries a BBQ Pork Rice Plate. It comes with a crispy pork egg roll, Lots of tasty BBQ Pork, A big sticky rice ball and a tasty light crispy salad.

I needed to eat lighter so I had the chicken rice plate again. I had plenty of help finishing up the plate.

“Don’t you forking eat all that BBQ Pork by yourself”

“I did alright here.” I love coming to Banh Mi Bistro. “This is a forking great $8.00 lunch!”

For more information on Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery please visit www.BanhmiBistroAZ.com

We are on our way to A Taste of Buffalo in Glendale AZ

Eating local again so we’re on our way to A Taste of Buffalo in Glendale AZ. The specialty of the house is The Beef on Weck Sandwich that is seldom offered in any restaurant outside of Buffalo New York. The roll is a special hard kind of kaiser roll called a kummel weck bun and course sea salt and caraway seeds are applied to the top of the bun. The roll is dipped with au jus and is stuffed with a big mound of tender roasted beef with fresh grated HOT horseradish.

There was plenty to share with the dogs. The beef is tender and flavorful. I’m not hungry enough to eat the whole roll so I just use half and let the dogs share the beef with me.

They forking love sharing the beef with me.

According to my husband A taste of Buffalo makes the best Italian Hoagie around so that’s what he went for this time.

This sandwich not only contains higher quality lunch meat but is also a belly buster. My husband took half the sandwich home.

For more information on this restaurant please visit www.ATasteofBuffalo.com

“We’re on our way to Leo’s Island BBQ in Peoria AZ”

We took the Dogs to Leo’s Island BBQ in Peoria AZ. They specialize in the Hawaiian Plate Lunch and are one of the only independently owned restaurants in this part of Peoria AZ. The Plate Lunch is lots of meat, a double scoop of rice, creamy macaroni salad, steamed cabbage served in a styrofoam container. You have about thirty different choices and the plate lunch coast around $8.00 each.

My husband went with the one he gets most often.

The BBQ Pork and Chicken Combo.

I get the Lemon Pepper White Meat Chicken Today. The chicken is moist and mildly seasoned and caramelized. They always give me a very large portion. I bought home half the chicken home after me and my buddies ate a bunch of it.

“Immmmm…..I’m getting a bunch of Chicken”

The dogs are very interested in the food.

For more information on Leo’s Island BBQ please visit www.LeosIslandBBQ.com

“Where’re on our way to Amuse Bouche in Surprise AZ…ooooh…la…la”

Amuse Bouche is a tiny gourmet bistro that serves up Foods prepared by a husband and wife trained chef team that met in France at a French Culinary School. The menu is small but everything they serve is packed with flavor and also technically impressive. Back when they opened around 2009 they were featured in New York Times as one of the Best New Restaurants in Phoenix Magazine.

I’ve been here a bunch of times over the years and always enjoyed anything I ordered but this is the first time I brought the dogs here. Their Pots de Creme was the fist perfect Pots de Cream I ever tried. Also at a West Valley Food Festival that I attended I remember the most delicious food I tried there was from Amuse Bouche.

Today it was going up to 96 degrees F in Phoenix today but in the shade it still is very comfortable at lunch time. I’ve been living here around a decade now and I will never understand the weather. Sometimes at only 70 degrees F it feels like 100 degrees F in the sun but in the shade 96 degrees F is still comfortable. I don’t think I’ll be taking the dogs out much more since the weather is expected to rise in temperature.

I was craving a nice juicy piece of salmon today the way most people crave hamburgers so I ordered the Salmon Salad.

The greens were fresh and the salmon was fresh tasting, juicy, succulent and crusted with herbed crisp potato. I also liked that the eggs are cooked medium/well instead of chalky. They also served a HOT and Steamy fresh baked roll with soft butter with my salad. This salad was very enjoyable.

Both dogs behaved very well.

Both dogs also helped me eat the salmon.

My husband had the Meatloaf Sandwich.

It wasn’t ordinary meatloaf it was very good and came with a nicely detailed salad.

A community water bowl for dogs sits on the patio that both dogs helped themselves to.

For more information on Amuse Bouche please visit www.AmuseBouche.biz

“We’re on our way to Bahn Mi Bistro”

We haven’t had Banh Mi Sandwiches in a long time and wanted to stay local so here we are at Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery. (minus Pho…they don’t serve pho here) Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery’s specialty is the Banh Mi Sandwich. The roll is a Vietnamese Style Baguette made of both wheat and rice flour. The exterior has some crunch and the interior is soft. This kind of bread seems much lighter from a regular baguette in the stomach. You have ten choices of Banh Mi sandwiches to pick from and they all include pickled radish and carrot, cucumber, jalapeño, fresh cilantro and house made aioli.

We shared a crispy light and refreshing Lotus Root Salad.

The salad was light and delicate and the mint made it refreshing. The dogs enjoyed my portion of shrimp.

My husband had the Shaking Beef Banh Mi Sandwich.

The beef was like really moist tenderloin infused with delicate seasonings.

I had the Chicken Banh Mi.

Suddenly I have lots of friends.

The sandwich is just delicious. I love the sweet, sour, tangy and spicy. The white meat chicken has a nice caramelization and is very tasty but the slightest bit dry when you taste a piece separately from the sandwich. When you eat the sandwich as a whole you don’t notice it anyway. Still a delicious sandwich. I do note the dark meat chicken on the rice plate they serve is amazing with flavor and is always very moist.

“There is a bunch of Chicken there that I am Forking Waiting for.”

“I’m the cutest 15 year old out there.”

“You better fork over some of your forking chicken to me!”

“I don’t have all day!”

That complete’s May 2016 Dining with Dogs in Metro Phoenix AZ. The weather is expected to reach around 110 degrees F by next weekend and that is way too hot to dine outside. But we might be able to squeak one more Dining with dogs in before the weekend.

The Forking Truth

Melon with Preserved Lemon, Lavender and Cream Cheese Recipe

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Melon with Preserved Lemon, Lavender and Cream Cheese

I enjoyed a similar salad out at a restaurant and I thought I could recreate it slightly better and I Forking did! This is a refreshing light delicious salad that’s easy to prepare and looks like something from a very upscale restaurant.

Ingredients for 4 servings

One medium melon. (I used a honey dew but I think just about any ripe flavorful similar kind of melon would do) Remove rind and seeds and cut in halves into thinner slices

1/2 rind of preserved lemon chopped fine

1 Tablespoon of the preserved lemon brine (if you used my recipe…because it’s fresh lemon juice and kosher salt) (as a substitute use 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice and salt to taste)

3 Tablespoons sunflower oil

3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 Tablespoons pure honey

1 Tablespoon fresh mint – chopped fine

2 oz. whipped cream cheese (you might want slightly more to get you pastry bag working but you only use about 2 oz. at the most)

4 pinches of lavender

optional edible flowers broken down a little

Directions

Arrange melon slices on plates and set to the side.

In a small bowl add preserved lemon, preserved lemon brine, sunflower oil, vinegar, honey and mix well and pour over each serving.

Sprinkle the mint and optional flowers over each serving.

Get a disposable pastry bag and a small rose tip. Insert the tip to bag and fill with cream cheese and twist the end so the cheese doesn’t fall out.

Hold the bag and add pressure and make like sort of a hook motion.

Now do a reverse hook motion into what you already did.

Now you have some cheese that looks like a flower bud.

Make several all over the salad.

If you feel like it make a rose in the middle. Apologies for not being able to take good pictures while doing a rose. I found I can’t handle a cell phone a pastry bag and my other hand holding a flower nail very well. But I’ll try to do better another time.

For right handed people hold your nail in your left hand and make a little mountain of cream cheese on the nail.

Now go around the top to make the center of the bud leaving a small hole in the top.

After this it’s easy!!!! Just keep going around making petals starting at the top doing small ones that get larger till it looks right to you and remove with a butter knife.

Melon Salad with Preserved Lemon, Lavender and Whipped Cream Cheese

This is so delicious! The delicate whipped cream cheese doesn’t over power anything so you can taste all the delicious flavors. This really is BETTER than what I tried from some high end restaurants.

This is Forking Awesome and that’s The Forking Truth

Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale AZ is Worth a Fork***UPDATE Now CLOSED for Business

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UPDATE! *****NOW CLOSED for Business

Cowboy Ciao is located in Old Town Scottsdale’s Art District. They serve up American Chow and food lassoed with Global influences. This is an upscale but casual place and the decor is unique. I think you might call this sort of shabby chic and slightly classic and formal at the same time.

It happened to be Restaurant Week and they were serving one of the most intriguing three course menus out there for $33.00.

While we were deciding on what to try my husband had the job of deciding on a bottle of wine from their enormous catalog of wines. The catalog might have been a HUNDRED pages and offered THOUSANDS of choices. You could be there all night if you actually read the whole menu.

I started with the Squash Blossoms.

They were as light as air and seemed oil free. They contained some unusual ingredients like huitlccoche (the mushroomy tasting Mexican Truffle also called Corn Smut because it grows on corn) and the blossoms were nestled in a very tasty pimento coulis. Everything in the squash blossoms tasted very balanced. I have no idea how they made farmer’s cheese taste so good. These Squash Blossoms were delicious I could have eaten a big bowl of them and called it a day.

My husband had the Duck Skewers.

I didn’t taste them but my husband said they were full of interesting flavors but the duck was rare. At this point we weren’t checked on so my husband just ate them.

We shared one of the specialty dishes ($10.00 add on that is on the menu for $25.00) that this restaurant is well known for.

The Mushroom Pan Fry in Ancho Cream over Double Cooked Polenta. This is a Mushroomy Delight that if you slapped it on a shoe it would make an old shoe taste good. Gosh it really is good and the polenta in there sort of soaks it all up.

A slight miss of the evening was when the waiter brings our dinners when we are in the middle of enjoying the mushrooms. My husband says something like I guess our dinners will get cold and the waiter just leaves. I also note that we were at a small table and had to shuffle the plates around to make the dinner fit on the table.

Well any who…..

For dinner I had the Jerk Seared Ahi Tuna.

The Tuna had a really good sear on the exterior with interesting flavors. It wasn’t spicy but it was delicious. This tuna ate like a light clean steak from heaven. It was very meaty but not heavy like a steak made of beef. If I closed my eyes when I ate it I might not know that it was fish because it was so clean tasting. Vegetables were fresh and tender crisp and the plate came with a unique mound of sweet potatoes sweetened with mashed bananas that also had a bit of a tang to them.

My husband had Hanger Steak with Black Garlic Potatoes and Smoky Béarnaise Sauce with Grilled Rapini Gremolata.

The Steak was flavorful and tender. Potatoes were great and all the sauces went well with this dish. Hate to be picky but It would only be better if the gremolata was more spread out more on the plate because in bites it became slightly overpowering.

Lastly is dessert so we picked one of each of the two desserts offered.

The Dessert in the front is the Peach Brioche Bread Pudding with Bourbon Praline Brown Sugar Streusel. I never tried a pudding like this before. It has many different textures of crunch, pudding and sort of a dense rich texture. The flavors were very spot on and were fireworks in the mouth. The perfect balance of sweet to salt good flavors and tang. It was just right.

Didn’t have all the bells and whistles of the Bread Pudding but not a thing wrong with the Brookie (cookie dough baked into a brownie) Sundae. It was delicious and anybody would enjoy it.

Parking is on the street. Don’t fall for the $6.00 parking next door unless you are handicapped or have shoes on your feet that hurt. A free parking garage is only a short block away.

Cowboy Ciao is Worth a Fork!

You might travel across town to dine here. Extensive Wine List, Famous Stetson Salad and Mushroom Pan Fry and more in the Touristy Arts District

You might travel across town to dine here. Extensive Wine List, Famous Stetson Salad, Famous Mushroom Pan Fry and more in the Touristy Arts District

UPDATE*****NOW CLOSED for Business

For more information on Cowboy Ciao please visit www.CowboyCiao.com

The Forking Truth

When Life Gives You Lemons Forking Preserve Them Recipe

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Roasted Preserved Lemons

Perserved Lemons have an intense lemon flavor that will elevate most savory or sweet foods to the next level. Preserving lemons is very easy to do but you need to wait a month for them to be ready to use.

Who has a forking month to wait for preserved lemons?

I just read in Food and Wine Magazine that you can preserve lemons in your oven in about three hours. Mine took four hours but I used regular lemons instead of the sweeter and thinner skinned Meyer Lemons recommended. The recipe comes from ChefBenFord.com. He did his recipe with only three Meyer Lemons. All lemons do come in a variety of sizes from the very small to the very large so you have to wing the time. I used about 18 small lemons total.

Chef Ben Ford’s recipe is called Roasted Preserved Lemons. He does use Meyer Lemons. I can’t find Meyer Lemons right now from any stores in the area so I’m using regular lemons because I want some preserved lemons.

Start by washing them really well. then You basically trim the stem end.

Make like quarter cuts but not all the way threw.

Good Sprinkle of kosher or sea salt

Add about one lemon fresh juice per every lemon in your dish. In short half the lemons are preserved and half are juiced.

Put the dish in a 200 degree oven for three-four hours. You might need to turn the lemons half way threw.

To use you need to scrape out all you can from the rind.

Now you have something lemony delicious that you can use in a variety of ways. The first thing I made with my preserved lemons was a delicious Melon Salad. Can’t wait to do more with the preserved lemons.

Melon with Preserved Lemon, Lavender and Cream Cheese

Who has a forking month to wait for preserved lemons?

This is better!

When Life Gives You Lemons Forking Preserve Them!

The Forking Truth

New Different and Weird Food Out There May 2016

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There is always something “new” “WIERD or “different” out there and I never know WTFork I’ll see. Here are Popchips. They aren’t new but I never seen them in these flavors all in Star Wars packaging.

Organic Sprouted Khorasan Flour sounds very healthy and is new to me.

Don’t remember coming across Black Edamame before?

Cooking Light is a popular American Magazine. Since when do magazines make frozen food?

Jack Daniel’s makes more than Whiskey.

A Mayonnaise like product by the Mayonnaise people ???

It says at the forking bottom of the bottle “Carefully Crafted” does that mean their other products are just “forking slapped together?”

Frozen white bread with hazelnut chocolate spread. Just grab from your freezer and wait for it to thaw. For when your too tired to put forking spread on a sandwich yourself.

Caramelized Onion and Bacon Ketchup might have some appeal to some people but how can they say it has bacon in it when it doesn’t????? (It’s very hard to see but if you look above the “P” in Ketchup you will see a U in a circle that means no pork so that means no bacon)

Salsa flavored Almonds seems weird darn weird to me….wtfork am I suppose to do with this? Put them on my tacos?

The item is with the food so I thought it fits right the fork in.

Crest one of the leading manufacturers of Tooth Paste in America makes a Be Adventurous line of tooth paste. This flavor is Chocolate Trek.

Black Truffle Chips that actually have mushrooms and truffle in them. (insert angels singing)

Popped Bean Chips? Didn’t forking know that you could pop a bean?

Chocolate Covered Jelly Bananas….?

This one sounds weird to me.

Candy called Hamburger Speck???? Not sure what that means? Does it look like Speck Ham? Is it flavored like forking hamburgers?

Artichoke and Quinoa Dip sounds pretty weird…. Artichoke Piquillo Hummus Dip is new to me…

And there’s always new forking Oreo Cookies for you (not me). Here’s S’mores with artificial Graham.

Here’s the New, Weird, Different and Limited Edition Foods I forking saw Recently. There is always something new, weird or different out there. I never know WTFork I’ll see when I’m out there.

The Forking Truth

Tratto Restaurant in Phoenix AZ is Worth a Fork

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Tratto Restaurant in Phoenix AZ is Worth a Fork!

Tratto is a tiny restaurant that serves up true farm to table dishes. The James Beard Award Winning Chef /Owner and staff actually hand picks the produce served. The bread and pasta they serve is made with heirloom grains that they grind. The menu is limited and changes daily.

The atmosphere is energetic with kitchen action and conversation. Farm fresh white interior and Oil Paintings done by the Chef’s Father are proudly displayed.

We decide on sharing an appetizer, sharing a pasta and sharing a dinner. Our waitress suggested adding on two more plates because according to her we didn’t order enough food. She suggest adding on a Farinata and potatoes to go with our dinner so we did.

They bring complimentary house made crusty chewy bread, flavorful olive oil and house prepared salami and produce. The tiny sweet tomatoes seemed just plucked and had this mild tasting flake salt on them that was delicious. Everything on the plates is great.

Our waitress described the Farinata as a chick pea crepe with tomatoes and onions so I thought it would be a light little thing.

It was tasty but the Farinata wasn’t a little thing and also was filling so I only tasted a small piece. It was more of a substantial rich pan-cake made with chick pea flour. We had it packed up to bring home.

Next was Roasted Beets in Fig Leaf with Gorgonzola Dolce.

If you like beets this is a must get dish. The beets seemed just picked and do taste different than beets you purchase from the supermarket. These beets are sweeter and have a more melting texture. The fig leaves infuse another layer of smokey flavor to the earthy beets. Maybe even if you don’t like gorgonzola you still might like the gorgonzola dolce on these beets because the cheese was made sweeter and milder with cream and sugar. It married well with these beets.

Our Pasta Course was called Scarpinocc.

It was a plate of six perfect toothsome raviolis that were stuffed with milky fresh tasting sweet ricotta cheese that sat on nicely seasoned fava beans with crisp sage.

Dinner was a Whole Small Grilled Chicken with Lemon and Bay Leaf raised from Two Wash Ranch and Rosemary Garlic Potatoes.

The tiny Chicken was simplistic but was absolutely perfect. It was moist, juicy, full of flavor and just melted in the mouth. It wasn’t much chicken and I’m guessing I got to eat between 3-and at the most 4 ounces but it really was very good. The Potatoes were creamy on the inside. With a little crisp crust on the outside with essence of rosemary, garlic and nutty tasting browned oil.

No complaints here. Service was attentive. Our table was comfortable and the food was excellent.

Tratto is Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork..... You might Travel across Town to Dine Here because they offer something different you can't find at most places. Where the FORK ELSE are you going to find wonderful Brazilian Food in the Metro Phoenix Area?

Worth a Fork….. You might Travel across Town to Dine Here if you can make it a splurge, are the type that can handle a limited menu, and can appreciate farm to table crafted foods.

For more information on Tratto in Phoenix AZ please visit www.TrattoPhx.com

The Forking Truth

SousVide Boneless Chicken Breast Recipe (s)

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Chicken out of the SousVide and Browned in the Pan

I usually pound chicken breast, then salt and pepper them on both sides, dust them lightly with an unusual healthy flour and then pan fry them in a regular fry pan with non-stick oil. They come out with a nice crust and are very tasty, flavorful and moist.

I had my SousVide all fired up so I thought I’d cook off four already slightly pounded out chicken breast four different ways. This is another way to make perfect chicken breast and you can easily infuse them with flavors.

For boneless chicken breast you need to set the SousVide at 146 degrees F or 63.5 degrees C and leave the chicken in the water bath between two and four hours. I would make three hours as your target if your doing one or two pouches and if your doing more I’d go to the four hours.

You need to add frozen fat of some kind. That can be butter, olive oil or animal fat. Some sealing machines do have a setting for liquids but all sealers can seal with frozen fat. You also need to add things like garlic, onion, celery, carrot, salt, pepper and herbs to make the chicken taste good.

I made up four bags of chicken breast four different ways.

Basic with a few extras- About 1/4 sweet onion, a couple slices of orange, 2 small pieces of apple, 1/2 celery rib cut up, 2 smashed garlic cloves, a small carrot cut in sticks, 1 sprig thyme, small handful of basil, about two Tablespoons of frozen fat (olive oil, chicken fat or garlic confit) , About a teaspoon sea salt and about 1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper

The variations below are similar to the basic recipe just a few ingredients that are different.

Lemon Garlic Dill – onion, celery, carrot, apple, orange, lemon, dill, frozen garlic confit, salt and pepper – This one came out Forking Amazing and was my favorite!

Mexican Inspired – cilantro, onion, orange, poblano pepper, garlic, carrot, celery, frozen chicken fat, ground achiote, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper

Asian Inspired- 2 lime leaves, cilantro, Thai basil, lemon grass, fresh ginger in slices, garlic, orange, apple, carrot, celery, onion, Szechuan peppercorns, frozen chicken fat, salt and pepper

Your finished chicken can be served right away and you can easily brown it in a sauce pan on medium high heat with some either canola oil or a mixture of butter and canola or vegetable oil. Many people like grape seed oil but I never use it because anything grape is harmful to dogs and if you know me then you know that I share some chicken with my dogs. It only takes a minute or a little more time to brown the chicken in a pan.

All the chicken came out great it was all soft, moist and flavorful. However the chicken made with garlic confit was super amazing not sure why. All the flavors were far more intense with a little pop. I will have to experiment using the SousVide with frozen garlic confit more.

To make garlic confit put a bunch of garlic cloves in a baking dish or baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with extra virgin olive oil. Cover. Put in a 350 degree F oven for about an hour or until cloves are soft and tender and whip. I keep some in the refrigerator and freeze the rest in very small salad dressing containers. The garlic confit is also excellent for using in dressings and any sauce you prepare that you don’t cook because you will never have a too strong garlic taste.

That’s a little bit of Using the SousVide with Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast.

Yum yum relish and that's The Forking Truth

Yum yum delish and that’s The Forking Truth

My Forking Opinion on M&M’s Honey Nut and Chili Nut Candy

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Chili Nut M&M’s

Honey Nut M&M’s

M&M’s Candy has an easy to enter contest on Facebook where you vote for the new flavor of peanut M&M’s. The new flavors up for consideration are Coffee Nut, Honey Nut and Chili Nut. You till 6-17-16 to vote on FaceBook and have a chance to WIN $100K.

M&M’s are the famous American candy that is chocolate that’s known for melting in the mouth and not the hand. The candy is chocolate that is covered in a hard sugar shell.

M&M’s were one of my favorite candies as a child and as an adult I have to try not all but most of the flavors they introduce.

If you read my blog you might remember I don’t drink coffee because it usually taste bitter to me and although I LOVE the aroma of coffee maybe my least favorite thing about coffee is the aftertaste that only comes with coffee. So to be honest as I am I can’t review the Coffee Nut Flavor.

I do have to say that these candies are next to impossible to find anywhere. I didn’t actually find them and my husband picked them up for me when he was out.

I start with the Honey Nut. I love honey and I like honey roasted peanuts so I thought these should be good. I taste it and it doesn’t forking taste like honey to me. It taste more like fake maple syrup. I don’t like them. I can’t eat them even though the actual peanuts in them seem less stale than from regular peanut M&M’s.

I try the Chili Nut. The bag gives off a deep chocolatey aroma. The chili nut has a little kick and leaves your mouth with a mild peppery finish. These are actually very good. Just like the coffee nut flavor the peanuts in the candy are a little bigger and seem less stale than in regular peanut M&M’s. I really like them. I was hoping for a little more heat but still these are good.

I voted for the Chili Nut!

That was my forking opinion on Chili Nut and Honey Nut Peanut M&M’s Candy.

The Forking Truth

Fat Free Sweet Mustard Cauliflower Salad

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Fat Free Sweet Mustard Cauliflower Salad

Many years back I tasted the creamy mustardy cauliflower salad on a salad bar at a small gourmet restaurant where I worked at. That salad inspired me to create this fat free version.

Ingredients for 8 servings

1 cauliflower – broken down into florets – boiled in water with 1 tablespoon of salt till slightly tender about 2-2 1/2 minutes depending on size of your florets and the tender-crisp you want. Lift Cauliflower out with a slotted spoon so you can re-use the same boiling water for the carrots and celery.

1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt

3 carrots – peeled and cut in thick slices – boil about 3 minutes till crispy tender with the celery ( I used one yellow, one orange and one purple carrot)

1 celery rib – peeled and cut in slices – boil about 3 minutes with the carrots

1 bell pepper – cut in bite size chunks (I used one orange bell)

1 cup cabbage – sliced very thin (I used purple cabbage)

1/3 large sweet onion sliced very thin

5 Tablespoons yellow mustard seeds

1 Tablespoon mustard powder

1/4 cup sherry vinegar

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup sugar

2 mashed well garlic cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

6 juniper berries ground

good pinch allspice

2 pinch Espelette ground pepper – (a substitution could be one pinch cayenne and one pinch paprika I know most people don’t have Espelette Pepper)

1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Put all your boiled and raw vegetables in a gallon zip lock bag and set to the side. In a medium sauce pan add the remaining ingredients. Bring to boil and reduce to slow boil and let it go about ten minutes. Take off the heat and when the liquid cools down to warm pour the liquid into the zip lock bag with the vegetables and try to squeeze out as much of the air as you can. Wait one day to serve chilled.

Fat Free Sweet Mustard Cauliflower Salad

Delicious and light! I think most people would enjoy this.

Good one and that’s The Forking Truth

TheForkingTruth

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