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TastyUp Trailer Tour Recap

Admittedly I don’t get out to the Austin eateries as much as I’d like, so when I heard about the TastyUp Trailer Tour I was excited for the opportunity to try a bunch of new places in the span of a few hours. The lovely Addie Broyles and Jodi Bart put the event together, working with 16 of Austin’s trailer food establishments to create an experience we won’t soon forget. (There’s already clamors for another!)

I wasn’t able to hit all the places I wanted to go (read: all 16) but here’s a recap of those I managed to survive the lines for.

La Boite

The day started at La Boite, a cute little coffee shop housed in a recycled shipping container. (Incidentally, my friends are friends with the owners, and I was invited to the opening but I was in San Francisco for Foodbuzz Fest.) Along with our free French press, we picked up a mini chocolate croissant, a mini almond croissant, and a fleur de sel caramel macaron.

All three were wonderful. I loved that the almond pastry is doused in almonds instead of just having an almond paste filling like most I see. The chocolate croissant was a perfect bite, and the macaron was just wonderful. My son loved it. It makes me wonder why macarons are so hard to find here. Surely we can move past the cupcakes and open a few more macaron shops, right?

On the same lot is The Texas Cuban, where we picked up a quarter Cuban sandwich with plantain chips. To be honest I was kind of disappointed in this place. After placing my order it took a very long time for my sandwich to be made - I could see inside the trailer and they had to keep stopping to slice meat, etc. I think while I was waiting they even ran out of bread and couldn’t take any more sandwich orders! Considering this was an event that was planned, with over 400 people RSVPing on Facebook, it seemed strange that the were so ill-prepared to sell sandwiches longer than 1 hour.

The sandwich was good and so were the chips, but it seemed expensive ($4 for half the size they normally sell, usually $7) for a sandwich that didn’t stand out.

From there we headed to Gourdough’s, Brevita, and Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, all located in the same lot.

We decided to get two samplers Gourdough’s was offering for the tour, but next time I’m definitely getting the Funky Monkey (grilled bananas, cream cheese icing and brown sugar baste). Directly after ordering I hopped into the line that was already forming pre-opening for Odd Duck, so by the time I got back to the table I missed out on the bacon doughnut hole and the strawberry off another one. What I had was good, and it was nice to have sweet stuff between the savory.

I was looking forward to Odd Duck ever since I started seeing fellow Austin bloggers tweeting about it. Not surprisingly, the place ended up having to close its lunch service and only open for dinner, as the crowds that began appearing made the little restaurant run out of food! They were nice enough to open at 2 for the tour, and we were eagerly anticipating it.

Everything on the menu sounded great, but considering we had more places to visit after this, I just ordered the quail and the grilled ham and cheese. The small portions make it easy to order a bunch of food to create a fabulous meal, and I’m definitely going to be coming back here. I was so excited to try the quail that I forgot I was a blogger for a moment and began cutting into it before I remembered the camera!

Now this is a nice slice of ham on a cheese sandwich! No “deli-thin” here.

We didn’t buy a drink at Brevita but they were kind enough to be passing out samples. Which explains why today at work I had a mad craving for a dark chocolate mocha.

By this time my husband was getting tired from chasing our son around for three hours straight and we decided to visit just one more place before heading home. Luckily Franklin Barbecue is on the way, and it was far enough from the rest of the tour to be free of lines.

Sadly the guy ahead of us got the last of the brisket, but we made do with the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw for me, and the Tipsy Texan for my husband, which was chopped beef with sausage. Man, I love barbecue, and I love how many options we have in Austin! Franklin Barbecue was great and their variety of sauces was interesting. Apparently they will be bottling them soon, and I’ll be picking up some of that espresso sauce. Mmm.

And what does one do after they stuff themselves silly with all of this?

I took a nap.

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Sassy Squash Soup

Seeing winter squash at the HOPE Farmer’s Market on Sunday made me squeal a little. Winter squash is one of my favorite things to eat, and I was so sad when my fledgling butternuts died due to my late planting and a freeze. At the market I grabbed two big hunks of the squash and wondered what to do with it.

I blame Cheryl of 5 Second Rule for this recipe, but it’s not like that is a bad thing. She posted about sriracha earlier this month and it got me thinking. And then I realized I had those huge hunks of squash sitting in my fridge, with no particular plans for them. So one night after dinner, I made up some soup.

This soup has a nice heat that warms up your throat but doesn’t burn off your tongue. It has been the perfect thing to eat with all the chilly wet weather we’ve been having here. Feel free to add more sriracha, but I really suggest starting out small and going from there, or better yet - having the bottle at the table for the heat lovers.

Sassy Squash Soup
serves 6

2 tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
5 medium carrots, diced
4 celery ribs, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups winter squash, diced
1 pear, peeled and diced
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp sriracha
1/2 cup cream or half and half

In a large stockpot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and carrot, and cook until onions are translucent. Add salt and pepper and mix well, then add rest of ingredients through sriracha. Heat until bubbly, then simmer for about two hours. Using an immersion blender, blend thoroughly and return to heat. Stir in cream and simmer an additional 30 minutes, until thickened to desired consistency. Serve with a swirl of cream.

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Menu Plan: February 8

Last week was kind of weird because I didn’t plan well enough and we had to shuffle things around. Plus one of our cats was diagnosed with diabetes and there was a bit of running around because of that. Thankfully the cat doesn’t mind getting the insulin shots, although our other cat is pretty jealous about the special food.

This weekend I spent some time setting up my Facebook fan page. I’m slowly adding links and photos, and I hope to have daily discussions and special content. You can become a fan right here!

Monday: Sassy Squash Soup (recipe posting tomorrow)

Tuesday: Hawaiian Pulled Pork (adapted; I don’t use the silly teriyaki packet)

Wednesday: Pulled pork potstickers, veggies and rice

Thursday: Pulled pork pizza

Friday: Pre-Valentine’s Day dinner at Parkside

Saturday: Pumpkin Pasta

Sunday: Black bean sausage soup (recipe coming!)

I’m really excited about Friday’s dinner at Parkside. We don’t like to go to dinner on the actual day of Valentine’s (not to mention how hard it is to find a sitter then!) and I’ve been wanting to try this place for a while, so we just moved the date up.

For hundreds of other menu plans visit

Pizza Friday

Why are you not making your own pizzas yet?

It’s not like I’m the first person to talk about all the benefits of making pizza at home, but another voice doesn’t hurt. It does take a little bit of prep time, but you can easily make batches of dough and have it on hand in the freezer. I’ve never tried freezing an entire pizza, but I bet that would work too!

Having Pizza Friday is a great way to end the week. Not only do you not really need to think about what to make, but you can top the pizza with whatever you have on hand - no need to go to the grocery store for specific toppings! This week I used some gouda that had been languishing in the cheese drawer, yellow onion that I caramelized, and some wonderful venison sausage I had purchased at the HOPE market from Dai Due. Yum!

Our Favorite Pizza Dough
adapted from Mark Bittman
Makes enough for one pizza

3/4 cup AP flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 to 3/4 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Slowly stir in half the water, the olive oil, and the garlic. Add water a little bit at a time until you can work the dough together into one ball.

Toss it onto a flour-covered counter and knead for about 10 minutes, until dough is smooth, but not sticky. If it gets sticky just add a little bit of flour.

Clean and dry bowl, then grease with a small amount of olive oil. Put dough in bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for about 2 hours. Unroll and top with your favorite ingredients, then bake at 450 for about 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Do you have a pizza night? What are your favorite toppings?

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Turning Life Green

Although I’ve been interested in farmer’s markets and eating locally and organically for a while, I didn’t really push myself to do it until last year. Before that I’d been doing things here and there, what I would consider token changes. Organic cereals and vegetables that were to be pureed for my son. But now I am trying for our family to make the shift to eating as much as possible from local sources. We’re so lucky to live in a place where we can get fresh fruit and vegetables all year long, not to mention the fantastic sources of meat, eggs, and dairy. However, eating only local and organic foods is a bit of a problem.

This is the face of a child who wants bananas every single day. He won’t quite understand that Mommy doesn’t want to buy bananas anymore because they come from very far away and really bad things are connected with banana harvesting. While sometimes you can easily explain that the bananas are all gone, other times this answer results in a 20-minute screaming tantrum.

The kid likes his bananas.

Another issue is my husband, who never manages to buy the organic milk, buys apples all year long, and doesn’t understand that “napkin” means the pile of cloth napkins at the table, not the roll of paper towels on the counter. He also seems to get upset about the amount of money we spend at the market, no matter how much food it ends up buying. If I’m stocking up on meat half the time I don’t even get to check out the produce stands before he says, “I think that’s enough.”

It’s pretty frustrating to hear that we can only eat local if it doesn’t disrupt his habits.

There was a recent article in the New York Times that discussed this problem - the green gap between couples. We’re not to the point of therapy, but it’s interesting to see that this sort of thing isn’t just happening in my house.

We’re working with baby steps, I know. Changing behavior is a lot harder than changing what is available - obviously if I only stocked the house with local and organic ingredients we’d be eating on goal. But that doesn’t mean the next time we run out of something there won’t suddenly be Jif, Diet Coke, or Doritos in the house. I already have the “nothing in the house” problem when we’re actually stocked full - just not of the ready-to-eat things my husband is used to.

So much of it boils down to education. People are told to eat local, eat in season, but they don’t know what that means. They go to the grocery store and it is stocked full of everything you could want, year-round. Sadly, too many people actually don’t care where their food comes from or what’s in it. I’m working to change that, starting with my own family.

Do you and your housemates have differing ideas about food? How do you deal with it?

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TastyUp Trailer Tour Recap

Sassy Squash Soup

Menu Plan: February 8

Pizza Friday

Turning Life Green