Ropa Vieja: Dirty Laundry

Those Goddamn Cubans!  They got all their dirty laundry all over the place!

What the hell do those Commie Pinkos think they're doing in the kitchen?

Dirty Laundry?  See, I knew them Commies were up to something.  No good Socialists.

Who does their laundry in the kitchen? Someone who doesn't believe in Capitalism, that's who!

Is that red meat?  That's pretty American.  Did they steal that?

What a crock!

Well, if Dirty Laundry is not really someone doing their laundry in the kitchen, then what in the hell is it?

Oh, it's a meal?

A goddamn Socialist Commie meal!  See, you can't just throw everything together, mix it up and share it about.  That's not what we stand for as Americans.

Well, that's pretty tender meat there.  Are you Commies trying to soften me up?

Goddamnit, I knew you Commies were still going to screw it up.  Where did you learn how to plate? Stalin's kitchen?

Austin Adventure

Austin, Texas is one of our favorite cities to lose ourselves in when we want to escape from all the stress and routine of our daily regimen.  There's just something about Austin that really gets us going.

Just don't ask if we go for the festivals.  We don't believe in music festivals.  We believe in enjoying music in it's natural state, not at a single location where everyone is crammed for space and everything is packaged together for you.  Do you go to the zoo and have the same feeling about the experience as you would a safari?

That being said, we love Austin because it has plenty to offer in terms of what makes us happy in life; food, music, drink and good company.  Our most recent adventure had plenty of the four, especially drink, which presented some challenges when documenting the trip.  Sometimes it's hard to take photos when you're too busy having fun.

Here's what was on our camera when we returned home:

The first restaurant we went to when we got in was Moonshine.  Here's the Beer Battered Asparagus.

Alison's Cornflake Fried Chicken Salad.  Too hungry to wait for the photo op.

Bob's Backyard Chicken Sandwich.

Look Mexico on stage at Emo's.  They were great live.  Unfortunately that was our last chance to catch a gig at Emo's since they are closing this location.

Mexican Coke time.  Why do they use cane sugar in Mexican Cokes and Corn Syrup in American ones?  Cane Sugar tastes so much better.

Al's Brisket plate at Iron Works BBQ.

Bob's Jr. Rib plate.  The regular rib plate was a lot of meat.

Nothing bets good BBQ and a cold beer.

Scott H. Biram tearing up the Continental Club.

We're directing the message to Austin.

Here's one of our favorite bartenders from this trip and one of our previous trips, Justin.  He keeps some pretty good tunes going and the Dizzy Rooster d-bag free during the day.

Bob's Chicken Fried Steak at Red's Porch.

Al couldn't wait for photos again before digging in.

Our last watering hole on the trip - The Horseshoe Lounge.

Note: One of our favorite discoveries on this trip was a house turned awesome bar called Icenhauers. There is no photographic evidence of us there because we sipped on pickle and jalepeno infused vodka cocktails all day with Rick the bartender and Matt the barback, who later took us out on the town. 

Tunesday: Scott H. Biram

Scott H. Biram is transcendent yet ordinary.  He seems just like a regular dude, but when he's got a guitar and a microphone in front of him, he's a musical force to be reckoned with.  He can go from utter chaos to introspective and solemn from one song to the next.

We've been listening to him for a while since his music was recommended to us about 4 years ago when we were visiting Austin, Texas.  Just recently we made a visit out to Austin (more about that trip later) and were able to catch Scott H. Biram perform in his hometown at the legendary Continental Club.

We didn't have a chance to catch any of his performance with our Flip camera, so here's a few videos to get you started on SHB.

Also, the dude just dropped a new record, which is worth checking out here.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Noodles!

Alison has gluten allergies.  She's always sneezing, so it's not unlikely for her to fire off about 5 sneezes in a row.  A few years ago, she was told that some of her allergies were tied to gluten, so she has cut a lot of products with gluten out of her diet.  One item which has been stripped from her diet and mine by association, is pasta.

We used to have pasta in one form or another at least once a week.  Now we try and still eat dishes that include pasta, but we replace the noodles with a vegetable.  When Spaghetti Squash is in season, that's always a good substitute for noodles when having sausage with pesto pasta.

We recently found a pretty decent recipe for Lasagna that replaced the noodles with thinly sliced zucchini.  There was a lot of prep and steps that went into the creation of this dish, so we'll let the below photos and captions do the explaining.

We only dice onions when shafts of light are blessing our wine and endeavors.

It wasn't too easy making wafer-thin slices of zucchini.

Browning meat with onions and green bell peppers.

Added the tomato sauce, tomato paste, wine and basil and oregano to the meat mixture.

Here's the egg, ricotta and parsley mixture.

This took the duration of both of these records to complete the prep process.

Here's the fun part.  Layering all the goodies together.  We started with a layer of sauce.

A layer of the thinly-sliced zucchini.

Ricotta, egg and parsley mix in the mix!

SPINACH.

Mushrooms, sir.

Mozzarella cheese?

More meat sauce, meathead.

We've reached the limit of the damn dish with more zucchini!

More? Yes.

Check out those layers.

Here's what that lil' baby lasagna looked like after baking in the oven.  Damn good.