Brat Pizza

When I have a day off, I like to cook for the next couple days. I didn't have much inspiration except that I didn't really want to heat up the house on an already warm day. I found a new type of Pizza Crust (Golden Home Ultra Thin Crust) at HyVee which had less calories and carbs than most crusts.

The crust I bought actually recommended grilling it so that fit my first criterion. Out of no where, I came up with trying to make a Brat Pizza...it's summer so you HAVE to have brats. That was an awesome idea. It kept the warm temps outside, cooked the pizza super fast (4-6 minutes) and made it perfectly crisp.

I came up with the recipe mostly on my own but I used a little bit of inspiration from this recipe. (I didn't see too many brat pizza recipes). Wisconsin-bratwurst-pizza/

Before the grill

Cooking the Brats:
I cooked a 5 pack of beer brats on the stove in a 12 oz beer, fresh garlic and some sliced onions (1/4th of an onion). Just boil the brats in the beer, garlic and onions and cover around 10 minutes; or longer if you want to get more flavor (Yup, I cooked beer brats in more beer). I know boiling brats doesn't give you the awesome color you get on the grill but my grill cooks hot and usually pops out a bunch of the juice (flavor). Plus, boiling allowed me to cook in beer, onions and garlic.

Pizza:
So decorate how you want. I used a can of pizza sauce, a bag of shredded cheddar cheese, a bag of shredded mozzarella, 1/4th of an onion sliced. I split all of that between the 3 crusts that came with the pizza. I decided I'd make a 3rd pizza that was a little different. I added ham and turkey pepperoni in addition to the brats and onions.

As you can see, I cut the brats in circles, added it with the other ingredients, and threw it on the grill (grill on super low). I grilled for about 2-3 minutes then rotated the pizza and then cooked for another 2-3 minutes. It came out evenly cooked and perfectly textured.

Beer, Brats ,Onion...Merica!

Meat Pizza! (Sorry, cannot figure out how to rotate the picture)

This turned out soooo awesome! The brats had awesome flavor, the crust was just the right crispiness and the cheese was just melty enough. I normally don't like uncooked onions so maybe they could have been cooked a little more. However, I used yellow onions and they cooked just enough to be a little sweet so they weren't bad.

I love meat but I actually recommend the Brat/Onion combo more. Brings out those flavors and the cheese more. Anyone have some other grilled pizza ideas? I plan to do this at least one more time this summer because the crust I bought was so good!

HOQ - Grass Fed burger

As a health nut, and someone that is working towards eating less processed foods, I had to check out HOQ.


http://hoqtable.com/dinner/

I had actually had been wanting to try grass fed beef so I had to go with the grass fed burger. It comes with root fries which reminded me of a mix of regular and sweet potato fries.

The setting is really nice as it sits in the East Village. Very modern and clean. We went on a Tuesday night so it wasn't too busy. All in all, it wasn't bad. You get a good sized burger but it still is $16 for the meal. I don't know how it compares with other grass fed beef burgers but it didn't taste as good as a normal burger. It was prepared well though, just lacked much flavor.

HOQ definitely seems to be a niche restaurant. Meaning, I would only go if my #1 priority was to eat this way. I do prefer to eat at local restaurants and value healthy eating--I just don't see myself choosing that restaurant over others. I love the idea, but the portions for most of their dishes are pretty small and it's pretty pricey. I do agree that eating healthy is an important priority and I hope they are successful.

What do you think of HOQ? What did you get?

Royal Mile - Potato Cake Benedict

Well Royal Mile, you found another reason for me to visit you...breakfast. As if you couldn't take enough money from me between drinks and dinner....now I have to stop by for breakfast on the weekend. Fine! I'll just sign my house over to you.

http://royalmilebar.com/menu

One of the first nice Saturday mornings of the year, I went for a bike ride to the Royal Mile for breakfast amongst friends. They've only had the breakfast menu out for a couple months but I have been eager to see what the breakfast is like. And yup, it's just as awesome as the rest of the food. I went with something unique, the Potato Cake Benedict.

Potato Cake Benedict:

Potato cake with chopped bacon, sliced cheese, 2 poached eggs, choice of sauce, Guinness braised potatoes, choice of toast.

It was really good. I've only had potato cakes a few times and these were probably the best I've ever had (though it helps to be smothered with some toppings like these). The texture is like a fried hashbrown on the outside and creamy mashed potato. Then throw some perfectly creamy eggs and sauce on it and you just won breakfast!

All and all, the breakfast is well presented (especially with real sunlight on the patio) and I can't find anything wrong with it. This was my first breakfast here so I need a few more before I can rank them amongst my other favorite breakfast places (Mullet's and the Farmer's Market). This dish, is a recommended try! I'll be back here soon!

Splash

I don't normally eat seafood but I went to Splash with the fam. What is a safe dish for a non-seafood eater? Shrimp of course! Actually, I've ordered chicken here before and it didn't taste very good--serves me right for not ordering what the restaurant specializes in.

http://www.splash-seafood.com/pdf/menu.pdf

I went with the Sake Grilled Shrimp. It comes with 4 very large pieces of shrimp, sweet potato mashed potatoes, black bean mango salsa. The seasonal vegetable I chose was the Brussels spouts smothered in some butter and bacon glaze--nice!

The shrimp was pretty big and tasted awesome--easily the best shrimp I've had in my limited shrimp experience. The sweet potato mashed potatoes are awesome as I love sweet potatoes. They are super pureed and definitely loaded with some butter and sugar. The sprouts were decent with the butter and bacon combo splash! The black bean mango salsa wasn't bad. Every single thing on the dish offered a unique flavor!

Many of you have been to Splash before but if you haven't, don't come here unless you plan to spend some cash! It's one of the higher end places in Des Moines. Great for a special occasion or if you really want to impress someone! The restaurant setting is multilevel and pretty awesome--reminds me of the 90s for some reason (that could be a good or a bad thing).

What's your favorite thing to order at Splash?

Crockpot Chicken Cacciatore

I got this recipe from the 100 days of crock pot recipes list I've previously blogged about. The recipe is at the below link:

http://www.stacymakescents.com/fix-and-forget-friday-crock-pot-chicken-cacciatore

In the recipe, I used corn starch as I didn't have arrowroot starch. I also didn't have garlic powder on me so I used 1 clove of fresh garlic which turned to be just about right for me. I recommend shredding the chicken at the 7 hour mark also so the flavor will get absorbed by the chicken.

I've actually made chicken cacciatore the old fashioned way before and I think this recipe is very solid version of the same thing, but easier since you are using a crock pot. The taste was pretty good, and the thickness isn't too bad. It could be slightly thicker but I don't think most people would complain. I like A LOT of sauce and I like it thick and this sauce met those needs for me for the most part. The ingredients are simple too!

I recommend this if you want to try to make your own pasta sauce. I've only made pasta sauces from scratch a few times and I think this is a pretty solid recipe to dip your toes into. Of course, if you want to be paleo, you don't want to use corn starch and you would want to find something paleo friendly to lay the sauce on.

Royal Mile - Fish n Chips

This is at least the 3rd time I've blogged about the Royal Mile so you should know they are my favorite place for a beer. I keep finding good dishes here as well.

Shane coerced me into trying the Fish and Chips, which I was told by many people are the best in Des Moines. I never order Fish and Chips...or fish for that matter anywhere. This, however, was really good! I generally avoid deep fried foods but these somehow have a lighter deep fried taste than normal deep fried food.

http://royalmilebar.com/menu

Not much for me to say here other than get the fish and chips if you remotely like fish! I would even order it again if I ever have an urge to have something on the deep fried side--hey, it still has fish in it!

Loaded Paleo Nachos (Sweet Potato Chips)

I love sweet potatoes, nachos and chips. I also am aiming to sparsely use wheat/grains in my diet so this recipe was perfect for me. Special thanks to Karla Walsh for the recipe and letting me use her mandolin slicer.

http://lexiscleankitchen.com/2013/08/24/loaded-paleo-nachos/


I mostly used this recipe for the sweet potato chip idea. The chips by themselves taste good. I used just regular salt on most of them and the taco john's potato ole seasoning on some others (both good!). I decided to make my usual taco beef recipe (1lb of ground beef and 1 packet of Taco seasoning).

I let these cook about 25-30 minutes. Depending on the thinness, some will get done sooner. I left some in longer than 30 minutes and they got slightly burned. They don't have the crisp of a typical potato chip...but these will not poison your body like a delicious, crispy potato chip either so that's a nice tradeoff.

Sweet Potato chips (This is probably about 2/3rds of what I got out of a huge sweet potato)

My rendition of the nachos buried under: taco meat, greek yogurt and salsa.

If you do like I did and just make this recipe just for the chips, I think you will be happy. I may have smothered my chips too much as to where I didn't even notice they were there. I think you have to be careful how much you put on your chips because they are a subtle flavor and crunch. If you do make the other items in the recipe, please let me know how they turn out.