All posts by Nate

Nate is the Techie / Barbecue-y half of the House of Annie team. Born in Hawaii, his favorite hobby is surfing...WEB surfing that is. Visit my Google+ Profile
Spanish, Vegetables

Pimientos de Padron: How to Escape the Heat

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A Bag of Happy Quail Farms’ Pimientos de Padron Peppers

 

Happy Quail Farms' Pimientos de Padron

These little peppers may look sweet, but eat the wrong one, and you might be grasping for a glass of beer or a chunk of bread, your mouth on fire. Allegedly, one in ten of these peppers a tongue-scorcher. Chez Pim calls eating a mess of Pimientos de Padron “Culinary Russian Roulette”.

I’ve had these before, and my taste memory of them didn’t include searing pain and vigorous fanning of air onto my extended tongue. Of course, I only had a couple of them at the time. So when I read on Foodista and on We Heart Food that Pimientos de Padron were on sale again, I knew I had to get some. I convinced Annie to go to the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market and pick some up

Happy Quail Farms Pimientos de Padron Peppers on Sale

 

happy quail farms pimiento de padron peppers on sale

  Continue reading Pimientos de Padron: How to Escape the Heat →

Bay Area

Peppers, Pimientos, and Pervs in Palo Alto

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Sweet peppers from Happy Quail Farms, Palo Alto Farmer’s Market

 

happy quail farms sweet peppers

I have a taste memory of savoring Pimientos de Padron peppers at a tasting a couple years back and being amazed at how delicious they were. They’re so addictive, too! It’s like eating really good potato chips or french fries – you can’t stop at just one. (That is, until you hit the hot one…)

We tried to grow them in our garden last year but didn’t have any luck. So when I read that Foodista got some Pimientos de Padron earlier last week, I knew I had to seek them out. After all, the grower, Happy Quail Farms, is in East Palo Alto, just a little bit up the Peninsula from us.

Happy Quail’s web page said that they were going to be at the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market on Saturday, so I convinced Annie that we needed to make the drive up to get some pimientos.

Continue reading Peppers, Pimientos, and Pervs in Palo Alto →

Mexican

Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas: It’s Easier Than You Think

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homemade whole wheat tortillas done

Don’t you just hate it when you want to make something, and you find that you’re missing that one ingredient that is indispensible?

We had some shawerma meat leftover from a birthday party we attended, but didn’t bring home enough of the soft lavash bread to wrap it all with. No matter, there are some flour tortillas stored in the freezer that we could use in a pinch, right?. Lemme check the freezer… DUN DUN DUNNNN!

No tortillas.

What to do, what to do? Do I hop in the car and dash off to the store for one measly package of tortillas? If you read the title of the post, you know the answer to that question.
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Fruit, Mexican

There’s More Than One Way to Dice a Mango

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We were at Costco the other day when Annie noticed that there was a large group of people congregating in and around the fruit aisle. They seemed to be especially thick and frantic around one particular fruit. Curious as she always is, she went over to investigate and found what everyone was so excited about:

Mangoes

Mangoes

Apparently, there was a shipment of mangoes that happened to be particularly sweet, and all the folks were busily opening the plastic six-pack containers of mangoes to find the absolute best ones. If there were any mangoes in the pack that didn’t look as good as those in another pack, they’d swap them out. (Come on, I know you do it too, just like you do for egg cartons!

Annie snatched up three six-packs and put them in the cart. All the way home she was dreaming of what to do with these luscious, oblong fruit. Of course, we’d be eating them straight off the skins, but she also had something else in mind for these mangoes.
Continue reading There’s More Than One Way to Dice a Mango →