The CookingBites recipe challenge: brown sugar

caseydog said:
So, life in Texas wasn't all bad, eh?

CD
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Well, nothing’s ever all bad (or all good). Gruene was where we ate at a restaurant called The Gristmill, which was full of old artifacts from when it was a working gristmill, and old photos on the wall, and millstones here and there, and the woman waiting with us in the bar looked around with her eyes wide open and her jaw dropped, and excitedly asked her husband…., “Look at all this stuff! I wonder what this place used to be?!” 🫤

We’ve also been to Floore’s Country Store!
 
Teaser:
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Another one:

Recipe - Honey-Glazed Ham

This is an unintended entry, but putting it together, I realized there was a substantial amount of brown sugar in it, so here it is:

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This was for our Easter Sunday meal, and it was very good. Nice and sweet and sticky, and it smelled great in the oven, with the aromatics in there.
 
TastyReuben said:
Well, nothing’s ever all bad (or all good). Gruene was where we ate at a restaurant called The Gristmill, which was full of old artifacts from when it was a working gristmill, and old photos on the wall, and millstones here and there, and the woman waiting with us in the bar looked around with her eyes wide open and her jaw dropped, and excitedly asked her husband…., “Look at all this stuff! I wonder what this place used to be?!” 🫤

We’ve also been to Floore’s Country Store!
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I know you didn't enjoy living in San Antonio, but you were in the military at the time.

OMG, there is so much good food in Central Texas. There is also so much natural beauty in the area around San Antonio. When I worked for Texas Driver Magazine, I used to lead a group of motorheads on a tour of the Texas Hill Country called The Bluebonnets and Barbecue Tour. I would be happening this week if I still did it.

The tour was all about driving fast on twisty roads, looking at amazing sights, and eating the best BBQ in Texas.

I would love to revive that tour, but in 2023 I would have to get insurance that I can't afford. Someone rolled his car trying to keep up with me in one of the twisty segments of the tour. He blamed himself, but could have sued me and the magazine into bankruptcy if he was a Millennial or Get Z D-Bag.

I stopped doing that tour. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw nothing, and knew this wasn't going to be pretty. Thankfully, the driver and his wife emerged from the upside-down car with no injuries. I Feld terrible, but they were very cool about the whole thing.

Oh, this was supposed to be about Central Texas food. I hope you ate a lot of good food when you were stationed in San Antonio. If not, you have only yourself to blame.

CD
 
caseydog said:
I know you didn't enjoy living in San Antonio, but you were in the military at the time.
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I don’t think one had much to do with the other.

The two main things we liked about SA were the cost of living (very cheap) and the food (very good, frequently very cheap).

Also, Texas is by far the cleanest place I’ve ever lived, and with the best-maintained roads I’ve ever seen.

The downside was the attitude, which was split into two parts:

1. The ass-smacking-little-lady-why-don’t-you-fix-us-men-a-cup-of-coffee good ol’ boy persona that we encountered way too often

2. The I-think-we-can-all-agree-that-Texas-is-better-in-every-way-to-everywhere-else-even-heaven attitude

Those both got kind of tiring after the first couple of days. The weather was also horrible, at least for me - either scalding hot or drenching, flooding rain…and still hot. Felt like god was pouring boiling water on everything.

caseydog said:
I hope you ate a lot of good food when you were stationed in San Antonio. If not, you have only yourself to blame.
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We did. We got around a lot the 18 months we were there. Castroville, San Marcos (they had a World Football League team) Kerrville, South Padre Island, Galveston, Brownsville and all around SA/Bexar County, and Shiner, Fiesta Texas theme park (does that still exist?).

Lots of good food, from the no-name Mexican place around the corner from our apartment, to what’s still one of my favorite memories, The Old San Francisco. It was themed like a raucous 1890’s saloon, with a comely young miss swinging back and forth on a big swing over the bar (“The Girl on the Big Velvet Swing!” - something like that), but besides having excellent food (including giant wheels of cheese on each table - probably wouldn’t be allowed today), I liked the fact that all the waitresses were dressed sort of risqué like, like Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, but if there was any one of them under 65yo, I never saw her. For some reason, I loved that.

They’d stir your baked potato for you with a little tiny spoon. The potatoes were massive, and you could get any combination of the standard (US) stuff, like chives, bacon, sour cream, butter, and cheese, and whatever you ordered, she’d roll out the potato cart, dress it right there, and then produce a little baby spoon and stir the potato flesh, until it was all homogenized, and (don’t judge me) the whole time, her finely aged cleavage would be moving every which way. I can still picture every single waitress we had, and that was 1990-1992. :laugh:

Lots of good German/Czech food, so we were always happy with that. I think we ate out more living there than anywhere else, even the UK.

MrsT was the director of fund-raising for the South Texas chapter of the MS society, and one of her big fundraisers was The UGLY bartender contest, UGLY meaning Understanding Generous Lovable You. Bartenders all around the area would solicit extra tips and donations from patrons, which counted as “votes,” and whomever won, they got some pretty good prizes.

Well, SA being a military town, there were a lot of gentlemen’s clubs (aka strip clubs) around, and the performers would hold fundraisers for their bartenders by hosting topless car washes around the back of the clubs. MrsT would always encourage me to contribute to whatever bar we happened to be frequenting for work stuff, and she had to bite her tongue over me going and getting my truck washed at all these different clubs!

That’s another thing I miss - every gas station included a free car wash (well, more like a car rinse) with at least $8 in gas, so I never paid for a car wash in my life (except during the UGLY bartender fundraiser).

…and back to brown sugar - I do have one more planned, for tomorrow. I already have the ingredients.
 
TastyReuben said:
Another one:

Recipe - Honey-Glazed Ham

This is an unintended entry, but putting it together, I realized there was a substantial amount of brown sugar in it, so here it is:

View attachment 98664View attachment 98665

This was for our Easter Sunday meal, and it was very good. Nice and sweet and sticky, and it smelled great in the oven, with the aromatics in there.
Click to expand...

Just as an idea and if you like raspberries, my mother was gifted that raspberry liquer that comes in a dark round bottle with gold trim, can't remember name right now for the life of me, and she didn't drink, so she used that and brown sugar, and I don't remember what else to make a glaze for ham. It came out fantastic.
 
TastyReuben said:
I don’t think one had much to do with the other.

The two main things we liked about SA were the cost of living (very cheap) and the food (very good, frequently very cheap).

Also, Texas is by far the cleanest place I’ve ever lived, and with the best-maintained roads I’ve ever seen.

The downside was the attitude, which was split into two parts:

1. The ass-smacking-little-lady-why-don’t-you-fix-us-men-a-cup-of-coffee good ol’ boy persona that we encountered way too often

2. The I-think-we-can-all-agree-that-Texas-is-better-in-every-way-to-everywhere-else-even-heaven attitude

Those both got kind of tiring after the first couple of days. The weather was also horrible, at least for me - either scalding hot or drenching, flooding rain…and still hot. Felt like god was pouring boiling water on everything.


We did. We got around a lot the 18 months we were there. Castroville, San Marcos (they had a World Football League team) Kerrville, South Padre Island, Galveston, Brownsville and all around SA/Bexar County, and Shiner, Fiesta Texas theme park (does that still exist?).

Lots of good food, from the no-name Mexican place around the corner from our apartment, to what’s still one of my favorite memories, The Old San Francisco. It was themed like a raucous 1890’s saloon, with a comely young miss swinging back and forth on a big swing over the bar (“The Girl on the Big Velvet Swing!” - something like that), but besides having excellent food (including giant wheels of cheese on each table - probably wouldn’t be allowed today), I liked the fact that all the waitresses were dressed sort of risqué like, like Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, but if there was any one of them under 65yo, I never saw her. For some reason, I loved that.

They’d stir your baked potato for you with a little tiny spoon. The potatoes were massive, and you could get any combination of the standard (US) stuff, like chives, bacon, sour cream, butter, and cheese, and whatever you ordered, she’d roll out the potato cart, dress it right there, and then produce a little baby spoon and stir the potato flesh, until it was all homogenized, and (don’t judge me) the whole time, her finely aged cleavage would be moving every which way. I can still picture every single waitress we had, and that was 1990-1992. :laugh:

Lots of good German/Czech food, so we were always happy with that. I think we ate out more living there than anywhere else, even the UK.

MrsT was the director of fund-raising for the South Texas chapter of the MS society, and one of her big fundraisers was The UGLY bartender contest, UGLY meaning Understanding Generous Lovable You. Bartenders all around the area would solicit extra tips and donations from patrons, which counted as “votes,” and whomever won, they got some pretty good prizes.

Well, SA being a military town, there were a lot of gentlemen’s clubs (aka strip clubs) around, and the performers would hold fundraisers for their bartenders by hosting topless car washes around the back of the clubs. MrsT would always encourage me to contribute to whatever bar we happened to be frequenting for work stuff, and she had to bite her tongue over me going and getting my truck washed at all these different clubs!

That’s another thing I miss - every gas station included a free car wash (well, more like a car rinse) with at least $8 in gas, so I never paid for a car wash in my life (except during the UGLY bartender fundraiser).

…and back to brown sugar - I do have one more planned, for tomorrow. I already have the ingredients.
Click to expand...

Okay, you passed the Texas living test. The old San Francisco Steakhouse was in Houston and Dallas, too, and was every bit as cheesy as you described it. :laugh:

I am happy to hear that you enjoyed the Czech food. As for German, Texas BBQ and chicken fried steak were the products of German immigrants to Texas Hill Country.

And yes, Texas being the buckle of the Bible Belt, we have a lot of "Gentleman's Clubs. Lap dance Saturday night, take the family to church Sunday morning. Be sure to tip the old black man in the men's room at the classier strip clubs. He's there to remind the rich white guys that for that night that "colored" people still know their place, and of course, the abundance of Strip Clubs in the Bible Belt makes sure that young "girls" still know why they exist.

CD
 
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