Hello to all my fellow foodphiles, gadgetgeeks and funfans, and greetings from the Great State Fair of Texas!
That's Big Tex, the legendary host of this moveable feast.
We spent a rainy Saturday afternoon wandering and pondering two especially fun thoughts:
1. At its core, a state fair is about food, from pasture to plate. Livestock, pumkin carving, butter sculptures, the vitamix man, deep fried everything, luminous jars of jams and preserves, honeybees busy under glass, turkey legs and pressure cookers. The midway is a wonder, the shows (pig races!!!) are a blast, but the whole thing is built around food. It's pretty much wonderful.
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2. Food wrapped in food! A phenomenon that transcends culture and geography, and reaches a pinnacle at a state fair. We saw stromboli, empanadas, spanakopita,corn dogs, strudel, tamales...and that was just inside the main food hall! It's uncanny. Once you start looking for it, you'll see that food wrapped in food is EVERYWHERE!
So, now I'm curious. I'd love to learn more about food wrapped in food traditions from around the world. Everything from pigs in a blanket to beef wellington, pirogies to pasties. I wish I could try cooking and tasting them all!
And so, my globe trotting friends and my friends nearby, deepen my knowledge- tell me your favorite foods-within-a-food-type foods. Firm definitions so far have defied me, and I'm not exactly sure where to draw the category lines. Do tacos, sandwiches and sushi count? Hmmm.
Adding to the list of this week's food discoveries? The filling of the mexican stuffed peppers.
What an incredible find!!
The stuffed peppers themselves were pretty good (the home audience says "sure" to the idea of repeating them) and I'd made some extra filling mixture, planning to use it to top a quick weekend salad. But the day I'd thought would be a salad day turned out to be one of our very first genuine soup days of the fall. A gloriously cool, gray, drizzley day.
So, salad turned to soup, just this easily:
I sauted half an onion in some olive oil, and added some tomatoes. (Canned would've been best, but after a fruitless pantry hunt, I raided the fridge for a few fresh ones.) I poured in a box and a half of chicken broth, a couple of cups of the pepper filling, and heated the whole thing up. A few leftover taco shells crumbled in, a little cheese sprinkled on, and there it was- a really nice 10 minute tortilla soup.
I've put the rest of the filling in a freezer bag. If it freezes well, expect to see it in the soup and stuffed peppers, quesadillas, burritos, enchilada casseroles, maybe even chili.
I hope this weekend, or maybe next weekend, you too find your way to some autumn fair or festival. I hope you see acrobats and stiltwalkers, pumkin carvers and midway barkers,and that you treat yourself to something fun to eat. And don't forget! Take time to pet the goats!
Menus and grocery lists posted late Tuesday night!
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