Spicy Archives - I am a Honey Bee

When Price and I went to visit our friends Natalie and Jason in Austin last year we fell in love with all of the food we had there. Everything was incredible. I couldn’t get enough of the tacos, bbq, agua fresca, and, of course, queso. (Also couldn’t get enough time hanging with great friends, natch.)

Each and everything we ate was amazing for a different reason. The fantastic Mexican we had at Chuy’s, to the BBQ we got to go after a night of drinking, to the chicken on a biscuit from Whataburger immediately after some bar hoping.

But the one thing that was a constant was the queso we had. We had it every change we had and even while we lamented ‘no more queso’ we loved it. I think there really is a limit to the amount of queso/cheese a person can eat in a few days and I think we were fast approaching that limit. But really, worth indulge. Or at least that is what I kept telling myself after dipped another chip in.

Well since this weekend’s upcoming NASCAR race is at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, I figured that I had to share something for my Sprint Cup Snack that I loved so much about my visit to Texas. Now don’t give me any lip about how Austin and Fort Worth are not that close to each other- 3 hr drive or so- because I say what goes on this blog! ha!

Plus any excuse to eat queso is okay for me.

Natalie emailed me her recipe for queso at a moment’s notice. True friends understand the love of cheese (even if she has gone Paleo now). And let me tell you it was fantastic!!

The queso is incredibly easy to make and would be fantastic to whip up for watching any sporting event, a movie, or having friends over for a side splitting night of Cards Against Humanity. << come over, let’s hang and just be ridiculous.

If you can whip up some simple pico de gallo and can melt some cheese in milk, then you are all set. It’s basically that, plus making a simple rue to thicken it all up. So, so much better than the queso you get in the jar that you microwave. Was that even necessary to say?!?! duh!!

Obviously, queso is best piping hot so it’s super ooey gooey yummy. If you have a little crock pot dip warmer then I suggest you use that to keep it hot and everyone happy.

Dig in!!!!

Texas Queso Dip

Makes 8 snack servings

Ingredients

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/4 cups milk, room temperature-ish
2 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Pico De Gallo

3 plum tomatoes
1/2 of a red onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 a hass avocado
2 jalapenos, seeds removed
1 clove garlic
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper

Process

Remove the milk from the refrigerator, set aside.
To make the pico de gallo, dice the cored tomatoes, onion, and avocado. Mince the jalapenos and garlic. Combine together and add the cilantro, lime juice, and a generous amount of salt and pepper.
To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and cook to make a rue, whisking constantly until golden, about 2 minutes. Continue whisking and slowly add the milk. Bring the mixture to a steady simmer, whisking constantly, until thickened, about 2 minutes.
Combine the cheese sauce and pico de gallo together and enjoy!

slightly adapted from my friend Natalie

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{Sprint Cup Snacks Track Facts}

Texas Motor Speedway seat a whopping 190,000+ people to watch a race. Repeat… 190k+. That was about 3 times the number of people in my whole town when I was growing up. Insane. But everything is bigger in Texas!

Besides being big, it’s also fast. It’s one of the fasted non-restrictor plate races in the series with qualifying speeds in excess of 192 mph and corner entry speeds over 200 mph. And in 2006 for the Dickies 500 qualifying, Brian Vickers shattered the qualifying record at Texas with a speed of 196.235 mph. Crazy.

Gotta enjoy this weekend’s race under the lights!

Track: 1.5 miles

Shape: Oval

Banking: 24 degrees in the turns

Surface: Asphalt

Capacity: 191,122… yep a lot of people!!!!

Race: 334-laps for 501 miles

2012 winner: Greg Briffle

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Oh Hell Night, you rocked my world.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending my first Mystery Meet event. This was the 7th event that Mystery Meet organized, and it happened to be at East Coast Grill. If you are not familiar with East Coast Grill, then I should explain that this restaurant hosts an event 2 times a year called Hell Night. What is Hell Night? It’s an excuse for you to burn your mouth, lips, fingers, etc while your man up to a plate of super spicy food.

Mystery Meet provides 5 clues about the restaurant where the event will be occurring so you have a hint of the location when you purchase your tickets, but the big reveal occurs the day before the event. After the first clue “If you can’t take the heat, get your ass outta the kitchen.” I was 90% positive that it was going to be East Coast Grill since it is known for Hell Night and that is the hottest place in the Boston area. It was even featured on Man vs. Food during it’s first season. Hell Night is a major event so it is nearly impossible to get a reservation since they sell out within hours, and this was my big chance to go! In fact, Price and I were driving back form Montreal when the tickets for Mystery Meet were released, which resulted in ridiculous amounts of swearing at the VT mountains that were messing up my 3G connection. Thankfully, AT&T pulled through, and we got tickets.:-)

Prior to attending the event, Price and I met Jacki from Just Add Cheese, her friend Darius, and Amanda from Kitchen Misfit at the neighboring bar, Bukowski Tavern. We shared stories and suggestions of beer, hot sauces, chicken and waffles, pancake places, brunch spots, etc.

The Hell Night menu for the Mystery Meet event did not disappoint. The menu offered several shared appetizers, 2 entrée choices, and dessert. There were bomb ratings after each item warning us of what pain we were going to experience. One thing you can’t prepare for is the Meatball Roulette, the first appetizer. This really is a game of chance, one in which I lost. That spicy meatball provided a deep slow burn that hit the back of my tongue and seemed to last forever. Immediately, my body did not like this sudden jolt and responded with hiccups. Yes, weird.

Next up were the Smokin’ Hot Pork Spare Ribs. These were rated 3 bombs… lie! Our table agreed that this was the hottest thing of the night. However, we did not know this was really miss rated, and were then extremely fearful of the 8 bomb rating that was going to be coming shortly. It was also that this point that we all agreed that no one would wimp out and get milk.

Just when things couldn’t get worse, the Wings of Mass Destruction arrived on our table. Happily, they not 8 bomb hot, even though they had ghost chili oil on them. I managed to eat 3 of them, however the real champ at our table was Frank who ate 5. Frank eat everything quickly and quietly suffered through the pain while the 5 of us made it really clear how much it was killing us. Frank was the champ.

The last shared appetizer was the Korean Fried Chicken Thighs. These were “caliente, not picante” as explained by Darius. I think that I enjoyed these the most because the heat was in the gochujang dipping sauce. Also, the apple kim chee helped cool things off with the contrasting cool crisp fruit.

Price and I got each entrée so we could sample them both. The Latin Spice Grilled Mahi Mahi (2 bombs) was cooked perfectly and provided enough heat without being troublesome. Price’s Jamaican Jerk Grilled Pork Chop (6 bombs) was also manageable because the heat was from a dipping sauce. However, the mashed sweet potatoes still had some kick with some curry so Price had little relief there. There was so much extra of our entrées that he got to relive the heat again today for lunch.

The Mango Berry Crisp dessert was fantastic, but put us over the top on food consumption. Thankfully, the ice cream did help cool things down.

Both Mystery Meet and East Coast Grill did a fantastic time organizing and hosting this event. I really look forward to attending another event, which occurs the second Tuesday of the month.

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