Poutine Mongolian Sauce pineapple glaze

Just to make things silly, we coated some pineapple strips with the poutine gravy turned Mongolian sauce and grilled 'em up on a George Foreman grill!

Was really really tasty! The caramelized bits could make for a good hard candy.

Wait! I have an idea!

Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company... I'm a junkie!

She's heard the stories ad nauseum. Hyperbole on my part? Skepticism is warranted.

This coffee makes me so friggin excited!

My usual order. Three of the most high octane roasts and blends that they make.

For my brother who loves anything and everything Kona.

Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Co.
1330 Pacific Avenue Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (831) 459-0100

This is my favorite coffee place. Period. Central Coast California knows how to roast beans for straight up drip coffee. This is something I really have yet to see in Seattle. Everything is espresso roast here and many places are very good at it, but when I find a light roast here it's always a little sour and, well, kinda nasty.

The Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company isn't the only place in the Bay Area that knows how to roast beans properly. There are probably dozens of places that do it well for drip purposes. Blue Bottle being the one that jumps to mind first.

Blue Bottle Coffee

66 Mint St, San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 495-3394

The thing with both of these roasters and their cafes is that they serve "pour over" cups of drip coffee. It's literally drip coffee. A melita filter is filled up with grounds and hot water is poured over the coffee and into your cup. Gravity, moisture and heat. It really doesn't get more simple than that! And if you want to get yourself very much wide awake, this is the best way to do it. It affords a level of control over your coffee that you just don't get via any other brewing method.

Want your coffee a little weaker? Pour it quickly.

Want your coffee a little stronger? Pour the water over the grounds in small, slow waves.

Here. Watch how it's done.

Onion for breakfast!

So Kasia and I managed to pick up the plague from the niece and nephew. They're so adorable though that we've forgiven them for threatening our lives in a  microbial fashion.

Yesterday we had spicy Mongolian style sauce with fried tofu and curried rice. Today, we're starting out on an equally onion-y, but more raw style.

Tomatoes and cucumbers with sliced raw, yellow onion with black pepper and salt. I literally licked the plate when I had finished this. I love onion!

TOGO'S!

Togo's #9 with extra mustard and pepperoncinis. 

Eating said sandwich on the beach along hwy 1 north of Santa Cruz

Togo's Sandwiches! A California staple. Amply packed sandwiches filled with all the sandwichy goodness you could ever want. When I moved to Seattle, this was one of the first things I began to dearly miss. 

I was a vegetarian from 1989 to about 1997 (thank you Minsk), so my Togo's sandwiches of choice was their egg salad with extra mustard and cheddar or the cheese and avocado. My friend Brendan likes the #9. Hot pastrami with extra mustard and pepperoncinis. That's why the above photos were taken. He's in Oklahoma City now with no hope of having a Togo's #9 within 1500 miles, so I torture him with this.

Now, Togo's doesn't have the best sandwiches going. They are quite good and you get a lot for what you pay. Tasty soft bread, quality ingredients. It's like Subway or Quizno's.... only good.

Peanut butter chocolate soy ice cream!

I ain't screwin' witcha! This stuff is actually quite tasty!

Hazelnut milk!

Where have you been all my life?!?!?!

How to turn poutine gravy into Mongolian sauce

Take yesterday's chicken stock based poutine gravy. Add hoisin and plum sauce as well as soy sauce, red pepper flakes, chopped green onion, Sriracha sauce, red pepper and a ton of black pepper. Add some more stock and bring to a boil so it's no longer a gelatinous blob.

Cube up a bunch of firm tofu

Fry up the tofu in vegetable and sesame oil with soy sauce, black pepper and salt

Cook up some jasmine rice with red pepper, black pepper and curry powder

Fry the tofu until brown and crispy on the outside. Extra firm works better.

Add caption

Pile the tofu on the rice.

Add reconstituted and spiced up sauce and chow down. Make sure to have some sort of milk handy. This stuff was a serious slow burn.