All posts by Nate

Nate is the Techie / Barbecue-y half of the House of Annie team. Born in Hawaii, his favorite hobby is surfing...WEB surfing that is. Visit my Google+ Profile

Roast Chicken with White Bean Stew

Beans, beans
Good for your heart
Beans, beans
GREAT for your heart!
— from the “Bean Cafe” skit on SNL

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We had finished gorging on the heavenly porchetta from Roli Roti at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. Now we came to the real reason for going to the market – Rancho Gordo‘s heirloom beans :

After talking with the Ranch Gordo bean evangelists, Annie bought several packets of different kinds of beans, including kindney beans, Navy beans, and their most popular seller, Cannellini beans. We brought them home, and Annie found a recipe on Epicurious that she decided to adapt. Continue reading Roast Chicken with White Bean Stew

Does My Blog Look Good In This? Compilation

Now that Tastespotting.com is gone, Even though Tastespotting is back, where do all us food porn addicts go for our fix? Sure, we can surf to our favorite sites like La Tartine Gourmande, Rasa Malaysia and Steamy Kitchen, but how about finding new sites and sources? I don’t think there was a better site than TS for compiling all the freshest, tastiest, most drool-inducing photos on the ‘Net.

I hope somebody will soon figure out how to duplicate what Tastespotting did without drawing the ire of the wrong people. Maybe there’s already a site that is already fitting the bill. If YOU know of a good site, PLEASE, leave a comment!

Until then, I’m just going to have to satisfy myself with old galleries of “Does My Blog Look Good In This?” photos. What is DMBLGIT, you ask?

Continue reading Does My Blog Look Good In This? Compilation

Mi Lindo Yucatan (San Francisco)

We were planning to head up to San Francisco to buy some herbs (no, not that kind of herb 😉 ) and spices at San Francisco Herb Company (more on this later) in the Mission District. Since we were going to be there around lunch time, I thought, why not look for a good Mexican place to eat in the Mission? Searching Entertainment.com, I found a couple places that looked promising and chose Mi Lindo Yucatan. Printed out the 20% off coupon, and off we went.

Contrary to popular belief, Mexican food isn’t just about tacos, burritos, enchiladas or fajitas. (Fajitas, by the way, aren’t even Mexican – they’re Tex-Mex). Taco Bell has as much to do with Mexican cuisine as Panda Express has to do with Chinese cuisine. Mexico is a large country with a very long and varied culinary history. Mi Lindo Yucatan features cuisine from the Yucatan Peninsula in Southern Mexico. Its main cuisinal (is that even a word? <flips through dictionary>) influence is from the Mayan culture as well as French and Spanish cuisine.

What new flavors would we find at Mi Lindo Yucatan?

Continue reading Mi Lindo Yucatan (San Francisco)

Roli Roti Porchetta (San Francisco)

What’s the best roast pork you’ve ever eaten?

I’ve eaten a lot of different kinds of roast pork over the years, from Chinese roast pork, to char siu, to Hawaiian-style kalua pig, to pulled pork barbecue, and many others. I’ve even had some awesome roast pork knuckle (I didn’t even know pigs had knuckles) from a restaurant in the state of Kedah in Malaysia.

And then, I discovered porchetta. Ever since reading this article on Eating Asia, we’ve been wanting to visit the Roli Roti rolling rotisserie vendor at the San Francisco Ferry Building to have some of this delicious roast pork. One fine Saturday morning, we had occasion to drive up to San Fran to shop at the Farmer’s Market there and, of course, buy some porchetta.

Continue reading Roli Roti Porchetta (San Francisco)