Sweet Home Chicago

Highlights from Jeanine and Jack's trip to Chicago...including their favorite restaurant stops. Did someone say vegan peanut butter cookie dough milkshake?

Having grown up here, it feels weird to categorize this as a “vacation.” Yet we don’t make it back very often and when we do, so much has changed. This trip was part business trip, part visiting family, and part mini-getaway. This is by no means a comprehensive list or a city guide, just some highlights of what we did and where we went this time. follow the jump to continue reading (and disregard that it says “recipe”):

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Dai Due Supper Club

Jeanine shares her experience with the ultra-locally-sourced Dai Due Supper Club in Austin, Texas. Here's to good food and community!

austin

Jack and I have been going to the Dai Due dinners (prounced die do-aay) for a few years now, and it’s something we really look forward to. I usually try to snag tickets once a year in the summertime for one of the seafood-themed dinners. (There are some obvious themes I can’t go to as a non-meat-eater — ie. “The Whole Hog” dinner). The husband and wife team, Jesse Griffiths and Tamara Mayfield, take “local” to a crazy-person level (the good kind of crazy). While they set the dinner themes ahead of time, individual menu items aren’t decided until the last minute due to…

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Austin Restaurants: Contigo

On the far end of east Austin is Contigo, a farm-to-table restaurant with arguably the best outdoor setting in town.

austin

On the far end of east Austin is Contigo, a farm-to-table restaurant with arguably the best outdoor setting in town. Maybe it’s the long drive in the opposite direction of civilization, or the layout of the large communal tables, but the sky just looks bigger here… especially on this particular night when some moody purple & grey storm clouds were just beginning to loom overhead. I love it here in the summertime because the menu is lighter and includes more veggie-friendly options. (In other seasons it can be a pretty meaty-pork-heavy place). But this time the highlights for me were:…

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A Little Spicy Roundup

It's a hot Texas summer, and I have a ton of chiles in my garden, I found some other bloggers with great spicy food recipes to use them up!

recipe roundup

It’s been a hot summer, and it’s going to continue to be around here… in more ways than the temperature (sorry that was corny). I have so many of these little thai chile peppers growing in my garden (as well as a pile of jalapeños to use up). While I was perusing the internet for ideas, these hot pepper recipes caught my attention: Curry Cauliflower Pickles from White on Rice Couple Quick Refrigerator Dill Pickles from A Couple Cooks Jalapeño Corn Bread Muffins (gluten & dairy free) from Tasty Yummies Green Curry Fried Rice from Rachel Cooks Thai Curried Pea Sandwiches with Coconut-Cilantro…

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Austin: Hillside Farmacy

Hillside Farmacy in Austin, Texas

I’ll be back with a recipe tomorrow, but I wanted to share some snaps I took at Hillside Farmacy, a new restaurant I went to last week while Jack was out of town. Few things excite me more than a good restaurant design. I’d even go so far as to say that I think food tastes better while eaten in a cute space. I didn’t catch on while I was there, but the name is a play on words not just a funny way to spell “pharmacy”. The building, at the turn of the century was The Hillside Drug store…

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Spring-y Spring Roll Links

A collection of spring vegetable spring roll recipes from some other bloggers and a glimpse of Farmhouse Delivery's East Austin Urban Farm Tour.

Spring has officially sprung… Jack and I spent last Sunday at Farmhouse Delivery’s East Austin Urban Farm Tour. It was fun to see the four farms where our weekly vegetables come from. It was even more fun to eat and drink our way through the event. Unfortunately we got no snaps of the food highlights because we didn’t have enough hands to balance plates, forks, whiskey drinks, and cameras. But going along with the spring theme, here is a roundup of some yummy spring roll recipes from other lovely blogs…

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Egg-citing Recipes

A roundup of spring egg recipes for easy vegetarian breakfasts, lunches, or dinners!

I hope everyone is having a nice holiday weekend so far. Jack and I are having a really low-key weekend which is our favorite kind lately. We just took a stroll to the farmers market and had a nice lunch… Jack is talking about doing some housework, but we all know that is not going to materialize… We have no big plans for easter tomorrow but I’m thinking of making one of these yummy looking egg dishes that I’ve had bookmarked…

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Lately on Instagram

This was supposed to be my Monday Instagram post, but somehow it became Wednesday already, oops! valentines night: Jack gets in the kitchen exactly once a year to make me a special valentine’s meal. Last week the fancy meal was scallops over corn and zucchini succotash with a white wine jus (yes I said jus… he’s fancy like that)… and then continuing the tradition, we had these. This year, my gift to him was to not photograph the meal, but to sit back, relax, and just enjoy it (while it was still hot). out & about: Last Friday we finally made it to…

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Lately on Instagram

Happy Monday! I wanted to start this section to recap what we did over the weekend… places we went, things we did, interesting things we ate, etc. Although I’m thinking I may have overestimated how exciting our lives are because this weekend we didn’t go anywhere or do much of anything. Jack worked… we cooked… we ate… (we drank)… we ate some more. Turns out if you want to go to any good restaurant the Saturday before Valentines’ day, you should plan that sometime before 8pm when you’re hungry and ready to go. So we headed to the store and…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.