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Posts Tagged ‘brunch’

Not that I’ve spent my life in search of the perfect Bloody Mary, but I found it at the Todd English P.U.B. in Vegas.

A mix of tomato juice, horseradish root, sriracha sauce and olive juice, Todd’s Sssinful Bloody Mary had the perfect amount of kick to it. Meaning that it’ll be too spicy for some people.

The few Bloody Marys that I have consumed inevitably got their spiciness from a dash of Tabasco sauce. The flavor never made me come back for more, perhaps because Tabasco is the go-to hot sauce of the Gulf Coast and the flavor simply begins to blend into the background after a while.

The sriracha sauce (better known as rooster sauce to many fans) in this concoction, however, gave it a bold, unapologetic heat that I am compelled to try to reproduce. I haven’t been able to find any Todd English-specific Bloody Mary recipes, so I’m going to start with the Sriracha Bloody Mary Recipe published on the White on Rice Couple blog.

Since the Bloody Mary is, after all, a breakfast drink, I ordered a brunch dish to go with it: corned beef hash, poached eggs on toast and asparagus. (Full disclosure: I ordered the brunch mostly because it came with the Bloody Mary, which would have cost $15 by itself. For only $7 more, I got food too — a bargain basement price on the Strip.)

Delicious. The eggs were poached to perfection (again, compelling me to tell myself that I should really learn to poach eggs), and the corned beef was surprisingly delicious. Apparently, the corned beef that I had several times as a teenager, which was so overseasoned that it almost made me gag, is NOT the norm.

Even the asparagus was delicious. (And I say “even” as if properly cooked asparagus isn’t one of the tastiest things ever.)

I will test and update. In the meantime, if you have any tips on making an awesome Bloody Mary, send them my way.

And be sure to check out The Oatmeal cartoon illustrating the glory that is sriracha sauce.

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I’m about to say something that may just break Pinterest: I think recipes that incorporate Nutella may be overrated.

I know, I know. Who hates on Nutella, that rich, delicious hazelnut spread imported from Europe?

I don’t want to hate on Nutella, but I do have to suggest that it may just be too much trouble and/or too sweet for a lot of recipes.

The first Nutella recipe I tried, Nutella Cookies, were delicious (although, honestly, a tad on the sugary side), but they didn’t age well. The cookies that we didn’t eat within 12 hours of baking had to be tossed.
The latest experiment, Nutella Banana Bread, was delicious, but it was also entirely too sweet for my taste. It was reminiscent of a brunch the husband and I once had at Max Brenner in Manhattan, a brunch which will forever be referred to with the catchphrase “Would you like chocolate with your chocolate?” Because the husband got banana pancakes that, I promise you, came with chocolate syrup, and may have contained chocolate chips. I don’t remember exactly what I had, but I do recall eating a sugar-dusted biscuit topped with chocolate gravy.

Admittedly, my tolerance for sugary foods has gone down over the past few years as I’ve reduced my sugar intake. The less sugar you eat, the more intense sugary foods taste when you do eat them.

Nutella’s also a bit of a pain to use. The opening isn’t designed to allow you to measure out large spoonfuls. (I’m using the extra big jars from Costco, BTW – anything smaller will bankrupt you when baking with Nutella because you’re going to use A LOT.) And it’s a gloppy, messy ingredient, with a consistency somewhere between peanut butter and molasses.

So, I’m going to stop trying to make Nutella into an ingredient and enjoy it as is, spread on a graham cracker, a banana or apple slices. Or, perhaps, melted and poured atop a sugar-dusted biscuit because CAN’T YOU JUST IMAGINE?

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