Happy Hour at Rain Lily Farm : a perfect evening out

When Elizabeth Winslow from Farmhouse Delivery invited me to be the chef for the happy hour evening at Rain Lily Farm, I jumped at the opportunity. Stephanie Scherzer and Elizabeth Winslow started Farmhouse Delivery in February 2009. Every first and third Wednesdays, they host a farm stand happy hour where you will get to tour the farm, buy freshly picked produce, eat some good food, taste some great beverages and just hang out. This is a super kid friendly event.




For the evening, I made Thai Beef Salad w/ cucumber, green onions and red onions from Rain Lily, some microgreens from Bella Verde. Those cucumbers were just amazing, I mean AMAZING.





Darrell brought some mixed micro greens to the farm that same evening and we mixed them in our mixed greens, the results? The most delicious beef salad I ever made. His micro Arugula are the best. They are so pungent and spicy. Every time I bit into it in the salad, it always makes me want some more. If you haven't tried his greens in the salad, you are missing out. A little will go a long way too.




We grilled some Sirloin from Bastrop Cattle Company. Their Sirloin Steak is just perfect, very lean and tender. I ate five servings of the salad that night.




I had a great time, my son had a great time. He ate three (or more) cucumbers and two peaches with a few pieces of grilled beef, we were one happy family. See you again at the next happy hour.

market finds into easy stir fried

Last weekend, I went to Austin Farmers' Market, the first time since they changed the lay out. I loved it. I was looking for something fun to cook for Thai Fresh. I got some specialty squashes, golden zucchini and zephyr, from Harvest Time Farm Stand, and some peaches from Gundermann Farms. I made the squashes with shrimp. The peaches will be our ice cream of the week. The recipe is from David Lebovitz' Perfect Scoop. The squash dish turned out beautifully, the taste and the look of it.



the recipe, or no recipe, is from the previous post

I used fish sauce instead of soy sauce. Either sauce will be just fine. Serve it over rice.

fried pork ribs

First you have good pork ribs ( in my case,it's Berkshire from Peach Creek Farm) and then you fry them, not much can go wrong between those two. The marinade is super easy and super delicious. This was the dish I made for the Austin Food Blogger pot luck party at our very own David Ansel's house from the Soup Peddler. There were so many amazing foods. A recap of the day is on Addie's blog. I had a great time. My son enjoyed his swimming too.He was in the water for two hours and his lips were blue. A chocolate cup cake, or two, saved his hunger.

Here is no recipe recipe for these amazing pork ribs.

Cut up the ribs to about 2 inches long, add oyster sauce, any kind would do. Splash a little fish sauce to taste and sprinkle a pinch of coarse salt. I also minced the end of cilantro stems and threw that in the marinade. Keep refrigerated for about 2 hours and deep fry.

Fry chopped garlic, add freshly ground pepper to the fried garlic and mix in with fried ribs. It's ready to serve.

tea party

Yesterday, I had a chance to host a tea party at Thai Fresh. It was just an informal gathering that Nathan does at his house every Friday and he thought he would bring it to Thai Fresh. Of course, I said yes to the opportunity to learn more about tea. Suhan (I think I got the spelling right) from Jade Leaves Tea House was here along with a few other tea enthusiasts. We tried about 5 teas.
We tried Pu-erh aged tea. It was from 2007. The first brew was a little bitter but the later brews got better and better. Then we tried White Jade Rabbit tea.

It was a spring pick from last year. This tea was so delicate. Suhan said this is the best pick he tasted for this tea. I absolutely loved it. We then tried some Oolong that Nathan got from Taiwan when he visited.

My favorites were Jin Xuan and Gaba tea. I like the Jin Xuan because it reminds me of Japanese Sencha tea that I love. It has a little bit of sweetness and a little bit of savory side to it. That was my most favorite. The Gaba was a nice finish because of the calming effect it has as you drink it. You can just tell by the first sample cup of Gaba that it relaxes you. Although it was just too much tea in one sitting and I stayed up all night last night, it was so worth it. It was my first experience so I went all the way. We spent three hours just drinking tea and learning about it.



Brewing tea is an art. Water is very important. Good spring water will bring out the flavors of the tea, or in other words, it will not affect the flavors of tea. The temperature of the water also plays an important role in brewing tea. If you are brewing green tea or oolong, too hot water can burn your tea leaves.

These teas were hand picked and the leaves are so full. As we finished brewing each tea, we poured the leaves out from the tea pot and those leaves are just fully open.



You can chew tea leaves just like you chew tobacco. Not that everybody would know how to chew tobacco, but just chew them slowly and enjoy the taste of the tea leaves.
We are hoping that we will have this gathering as somewhat regular event and invite more tea enthusiasts around town to join us. Of course, we will definitely invite our very own Dr. Oolong, Jeffrey Lorien from Zhi Tea.

If you have a chance to stop by on Friday afternoons, join us for a cup of tea.