what a roadie eats

I grew a habanero plant on my deck this year. The problem with this is that all of the sudden you have an ass-load of habaneros on your hand. I knew when I planted them that they would produce fruit, why else would you plant pepper plants? However, I guess I hadn’t considered that fact that outside of jerk marinades I really don’t use habanero peppers all that much. The solution: hot sauce! A quick note to my uncle and I had a recipe in hand.

First dice up a carrot and saute´

Then add an onion and some garlic

Throw into blender with some of the devil’s fruit

Back in the pan for a bit to meld

and into the bottle

Sure there were a few more ingredients: lime juice, vinegar, salt, a bit of honey, etc. This stuff is tasty. Thanks to uncle Bob for the recipe. So easy and so good. Can’t wait for the next batch, I’m thinking mangos.

Well it’s been a fantastic summer at home in Chicago. Lots of beautiful weather, quality time spent with friends and family. It’s impossible to jump back into this blog without a bit of an explanation of my absence. Well, here’s the deal, I’m getting married in a few weeks here and so I’ve had to trim the fat, literally. Turns out you can’t be a food obsessed glutton in your 30′s and not expect to carry a little extra weight around with you. At some point on my last tour, not long after my last post in fact, I decided I’d had enough with my puffiness and it was time to get back down to fighting weight for my big show in September. Gotta be able to fit that ring around the finger ya know.

Anyway, I could go on about my diet and how I’ve shed some pounds but it makes for a pretty boring read. And hell those of you that know me (and I think most of you do) have heard the stories already. About the worst thing to do when you are trying to cut calories is think about food and write (hopefully) saliva inducing descriptions of deliciously prepared animals. To be honest, I’ve really missed writing on this thing. However, I haven’t missed it nearly as much as I’ve missed burgers and fries.

Now that my goal has been reached with my diet I have lightened up a bit with my own rules on what I can and can’t eat and have been able to slip some only slightly guilty meals in. Which in turn have gotten the wheels cranking back up a bit on the ol’ blog. Thought I’d throw a few pics of some stuff that’s been flyin’ out of this roadie’s kitchen this past summer and try to jump back into the habit of blogging again. Thanks for reading again and thanks for those that have encouraged me to get back to it.

Mussels w/ White Wine and Shallots

I was made afraid of these dark shelled sea filters after a rotten experience as a kid. My childhood summers were spent in Bar Habor, Maine. My father did research that involved grinding up sea anemones to study and extract their DNA (this information is probably all wrong, Dad feel free to correct me I’m sure you’re reading this). To me, this meant his lab was stinky and full of scary looking sea animals that could probably kill you if you touched them. I think a bunch of these biologist types got together, with their collective lack of smell from grinding up stinky sea critters and running smelly gels all day, and decided that it would be a good idea to pull some of these mussels out of a tank somewhere and go steam ‘em on on the beach. Granted, this is from a child’s memory, but these things tasted like my dear old dad’s lab smelled. I stayed away from mussels for about 20 years after that.

But now that every trendy bar, restaurant, and highway rest area has them on the menu I thought it was time for me to have a go at them myself. I’m an admitted sucker for food trends. Turns out it’s easy schmeezy to crank out a kick-ass batch of these bad boys. Shallots, wine, butter, some herbs and you’re already there. They cook in less time than it takes pull the ingredients out of your fridge and taste fantastic. There’s something satisfying about cooking mussels too, feels sorta fancy but is no work at all. Needless to say my future bride was impressed so this will become a go-to for pulling myself out of future visits to the dog house.

Steak, Arugula Salad w/ Goat Feta and Vinaigrette 

Oh man, this was my first hunk o’ cow since April. This was an official fall off the wagon meal. Paired with a killer Italian red wine and I was in heaven. There’s a reason people love steaks…they are freakin’ awesome. Not much to say about this, it was a perfect slice of med rare bovinian delight.

Deviled Egg

This was kind of a sloppy eggsample (see what I did there?) of a damned egg but it still tasted delicious. I make deviled eggs all the time but never the same way twice it seems. A great canvas for all sorts of ingredients.

Nice to be back on the blog. Hopefully more soon. Man, I’m hungry.