Public Kitchen & Bar - St. Paul

After our normal Saturday morning errands Dave and I were looking for someplace for a little lunch.  We though about our go-to restaurants, Cook, Ward 6, maybe Blackdog Cafe or Black Sheep pizza.  We were near the Lowertown area of St. Paul so we decided to check out a relatively new place, Public.

It was about 1:30 on a Saturday afternoon.  I checked out their website on our way there.  They were open and serving their brunch menu but there were a couple of "lunchy" things on it so we were all good.

I think there was maybe one other table occupied in the restaurant.  Obviously this isn't their peak time.  We decided to sit at the bar.  If you know us you know we like to be at the bar getting to know the bar tender.

They have a respectable wine and beer list.  I think the bartender had to stop back three times before Dave finally made a decision on a drink.

There were lots of things on the menu that looked good, both "breakfasty" and "lunchy" things.  The bar tender favored the Biscuits and Gravy.  I thought the Steak and Eggs sounded good and I'm not a big steak eater; top sirloin, smoked jalapeno butter and eggs with house made breakfast potatoes.  The one other table ordered a Breakfast Sandwich so I got to see that as the waitress brought it past us.  That looked good too.

But both Dave and I were in the mood for lunch so we ordered off the "Non-Brunch" (that's what it's called on the menu) section of the menu.

I ordered a grilled chicken club; bourbon glazed bacon, Parmesan cheese, arugula, marinated tomatoes and garlic aioli.  I specifically asked for crispy bacon.  I don't like flabby bacon! I got the salad instead of fries.

Dave ordered the Walleye Po'Boy which had marinated tomatoes, pickled onions and a creole remoulade.  Dave got the fries with his.

First my sandwich.  Sorry about the pictures, I had to use my phone.  I didn't have my camera with me!  The Parmesan cheese was melted onto the bread.  Delicious!  The chicken was perfectly cooked, moist and juicy and almost melted in my mouth!  The garlic aioli was fantastic.  The bacon, well, it was flabby.  I picked it off!  The bartender noticed it and apologized for forgetting to ask for it to be crispy.  No worries. I have that happen to me all the time!

The salad was a simple green salad with a very tasty lemon vinaigrette.  It was nicely dressed, not soggy.

Dave's sandwich was equally as good (we each took half of each sandwich).   The pickled onions were delicious and there was a great spicy mustard on it that was just perfect.  The fish was lightly battered and not overly so.  It was cooked perfectly, not greasy, a very tasty sandwich!  The fries were just OK.  I think had we been there at a busier time maybe they would have been better?  They were lightly battered and they were cooked through but they didn't have a lot of flavor.

Public is having a five-course dinner with beer tastings from Fulton beers.  Yes, we had to sign up for that!  So we'll be back at Public on the 27th.  It will be fun to see the place when it is hopping.  I'll remember my real camera!

Their dinner menu looks amazing so I'm sure we'll be back!  So nice to have so many great restaurants "in the neighborhood."

Sourdough Pretzels!

I love pretzels; hard pretzels, soft pretzels, big ones, little ones, sticks, twists, it doesn't matter.  Coat them in cinnamon sugar and white chocolate, yum!  Dip them in white or dark chocolate, yum.

A while back I found a fantastic recipe for soft pretzels.  These are REALLY good!  And better yet they are really easy to make.  Here's my blog post if you are interested.  

Traditional Soft Pretzels

I also love sourdough.  I make sourdough bread every other month or so.  I make sourdough pancakes.  Have you ever had sourdough lemon pancakes?  If you haven't you're missing out!  I need to blog about those... maybe I'll make them tomorrow!

What piqued my interest about this recipe was not only that it was sourdough pretzels, but that I didn't need fed sourdough to make them!  I could use my starter right our of the refrigerator.

Here is a link to the recipe:

Sourdough Pretzels

The recipe was pretty simple, mix all the dough ingredients and let them rest.  There was one ingredient I didn't have, nor is it one I stock in my pantry, non-diastatic malt powder.  I've heard of this before but really had no idea what it was.  And the recipe said that sugar was an adequate substitute so I just used that.

What is non-diastatic malt powder?  Let's start with malt powder, not to be confused with malted milk!  Malt powder imparts a sweetness to baked goods.  It also makes them browner and shinier.  Diastatic malt powder is allowed to develop enzymes which digest starches into sugar.  This makes sweeter, smoother and higher rises in the baked goods.  Non-diastatic malt powder on the other hand, does not have enzymes but still adds flavor and shiny appearance to baked goods.

So I used sugar.  I mixed up all the ingredients and let them rest 45 minutes.

Here's where I started to question the recipe.  Good bagels get dipped in lye.  These got brushed with sugar water.  Good bagels get an egg wash.  These are brushed in sugar water.  I'm of the Danny Klecko school of baked goods, get them in a HOT oven.  My traditional pretzels are baked at 500 F.  These are baked at 350 F.

After the 45 minutes the pretzels are shaped then put in the oven.

So here is where I diverted from the recipe for half of the pretzels.  Half I followed the recipe.  Half I dipped in my "homemade lye" solution and brushed with an egg wash.  I also baked them at 400 F, a compromise between the 350 in the recipe and 500 of my favorite pretzel recipe.

You be the judge.

I thought not only did the lye dipped, egg washed pretzels look better they tasted better.  The others were bland and doughy while the egg washed ones had great texture and bite.

The verdict?  Well, maybe I need some non-diastatic malt powder?  Maybe that's why the ones in the recipe looked so much nicer than mine?  Or maybe I just stick with a recipe I know works.  It was fun to try though!

Gingerbread Overnight Oatmeal

Gingerbread Overnight Oatmeal.  Doesn't that sound delicious?  Put it together the night before, wake up to oatmeal?  And gingerbread?  Who doesn't like that?  Molasses/ginger cookies are one of my absolute favorites.  I love the gingerbread pancakes at Cook St. Paul.  I was sure I'd like this!

I've seen lots of Pinterest and blog posts about overnight oatmeal.  I've just never tried it.  I've baked oatmeal.  I've even made oatmeal in my crockpot, I just never got around to making it in a jar, in my frig, overnight.  Until now.

Here is a link to the recipe:
Gingerbread Overnight Oatmeal

First I had to whip up some "gingerbread spice."  There is a recipe for it within the recipe for the oatmeal, but it seemed like way too many spices for me.  Cardamom isn't a favorite spice of mine and I didn't have any star anise in the house so I consulted the Google and found a simpler mix of just cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and cloves.  I forgot to throw some black pepper in there!  I love black pepper as a spice.  We use it in our family tradition Christmas cookie, Italian Chocolate Cookies, and I love it!  Maybe next time.  

You just put oats, milk, brown sugar, molasses, the gingerbread spice and a pinch of salt in a jar.  It smells just like gingerbread!

Shake it up and put it in the refrigerator.  That's it.

The next morning it didn't loo too much different, a little darker maybe but still smelled wonderful.

I warmed it up on the stove and topped it off with some toasted pecans and raisins!  

So how did it taste?  Well, there was definitely that gingerbread flavor but to my disappointment there was just a little too much raw molasses flavor.  I was surprised because I love molasses, I really do.  But at the back of my tongue there was just too much of it.   So next time, half of the molasses and maybe even a little less brown sugar.  It was plenty sweet and the gingerbread spice was what really gave it the amazing flavor.  Dave wasn't in love with it either so we'll chalk this one up to experience.

I will probably try an overnight oatmeal again.  It was so easy.  And on these mornings when it's minus whatever Fahrenheit a nice warm breakfast hits the spot!  I just have to find the right combination of flavors!

Can you really make homemade bread in an hour?

The answer is yes!  And I don't mean by thawing some frozen bread dough!

I came across this recipe and just had to try it.  It works!  Now is this "oh my god this is the best bread I've ever tasted" bread?  No.  Is it a decent white bread, yes. 

It makes great toast, fantastic grilled cheese, yummy french toast and, oh yea, a pretty darn good turkey sammich!  And it really is done in about an hour.  And even better the recipe makes two loaves so you can throw one in the freezer.

Here is a link to the recipe.  The author also has a cute video to go with it.
Simple One-Hour Homemade Bread

It's a pretty simple recipe, some bread flour, sugar, salt, instant yeast, oil and water.  That's it.  Yes, get the bread flour, you'll be happier with the results.  Bread flour has more gluten in it and it creates a more chewy bread.  All-purpose flour has a mix of high and low gluten wheats and has a bit less protein than bread flour.  You can use all-purpose in this recipe, but you might be disappointed in the results.

It's also important to use instant yeast.  This is what makes it possible to only have one rise for the bread!

I added the full 4 tablespoons of sugar to mine to get some nice browning!

There's nothing fancy about the mixing.  Mix the dry ingredients then add the oil and water.  The recipe says to make sure the dough is "wet" and "sticky."  The stickier the dough, the softer the loaf.  I added a tablespoon of water the first time I made this, a little more than that the second time.  The dough, after the first minute of mixing, should be somewhat wet and pretty sticky.  This is how it stuck to my mixer paddle!

Mix the dough for an additional 5 minutes.  I was surprised to see the author used her paddle attachment rather than a dough hook!  So if you don't have a dough hook this is the recipe for you!

Spray your board with cooking spray (you don't want to add any more flour to the dough) and kneed 8 or 10 times until you have a nice smooth dough.

Cut the dough in half and shape it into whatever shape you like.  I love my bench scraper for cutting the dough.  Place it on greased (or parchment lined) pans, cover with a towel and go do something else for 25 minutes while the dough rises.

Yes, just 25 minutes!  Yes, it only has to rise once! 

Slash your dough and place it in the oven and in about 25 minutes you have homemade bread!  The recipe says bake until golden brown which was about 25 minutes in my oven.  I always check the temperature of my bread with an instant read thermometer, it should be about 200 degrees.

Like I said this isn't an amazing artisan bread but it is good.  It makes a great sandwich, toast or even French toast!  Next time I think I may do a little egg wash to see if I can't get that crust a little prettier!

Braided Cinnamon Bread

Want to impress your guests?  Make this bread!  It smells wonderful when it's baking, it looks pretty and tastes fantastic!  And guess what, it's easy to make!  Yes it takes a little over an hour and a half but an hour of that is just letting the dough rise.

Here is a link to the recipe:

Braided Cinnamon Bread

The bread sounded good, of course.  But what really drew me to this recipe was the vessel in which it's baked, a (Lodge) cast iron pan!  I love my cast iron.  I love Lodge.  I bake bread in my Lodge dutch oven and make just about anything in my Lodge cast iron pan.

I have a 12" pan.  The recipe called for a 10"  but I wasn't worried that mine was "too big."  I also love that the pan has such high sides.  This is great for things like fajitas or other dishes that require a lot of stirring, things stay in the pan!

Don't have a cast iron pan?  No worries.  A cake pan will work just fine!

The dough is simple, a little yeast of course, sugar, milk (the recipe called for whole milk, I only had skim in the house - it was a last minute decision to make this - and it worked fine), an egg yolk, flour, salt and butter.  The dough is kneaded just a little then put in an oiled bowl to rise for an hour.

Once risen the dough is rolled into a large rectangle and topped with a mixture of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and the scrapings of a vanilla bean.  

If you've never worked with an actual vanilla bean you should at least once.  The aroma is so much better than vanilla extract.  Speaking of which, if you don't have a vanilla bean, or some vanilla bean paste in your cupboard, you can just substitute vanilla extract for the bean, 1 teaspoon of extract per bean in the recipe.

I also love this Vietnamese cinnamon from King Arthur Flour.  Ingredients make the dish!

Roll the dough up and pinch the ends.  Then the fun part!

Slice the dough down the middle, length-wise then twist it, making sure that the cinnamon filling 

Bring the ends together and place the dough in your cast iron skillet then brush it with an egg wash and sprinkle it with sugar.  I used a little vanilla sugar I picked up at Penzey's.

Pop this in the oven for about 25 minutes and out comes this beautiful cinnamon bread sure to impress your friends and family!

But wait, we're not done yet.  Frosting!  The recipe includes a recipe for a simple butter cream frosting.  Note, it makes A LOT of frosting.  I maybe used a quarter of it.  You could definitely half the frosting recipe and still be fine!

This was delicious!  Everything you would expect from cinnamon bread.  Crunchy on the outside, melt-in-your mouth on the inside.  I could have eaten the whole thing!

Chorizo-stuffed Pork Tenderloin

We love pork tenderloin in our house.  We eat it probably weekly, sometimes more.  We mostly love pork tenderloin because of the source of our pork, Otis Family Farm.  Bob Otis is a great guy and a great farmer, and sadly won't be farming anymore.  It's a long story, not a sad one by any means, just a change for the Otis family.  He, and his pork, and his chicken and his turkey and his eggs, will be sadly missed by us!

Bob's pigs are a cross between Duroc and White pigs.  He says that Duroc are fat but not good mama's.  The White pigs are skinny but are good mama's.  So his cross gives him fat pigs that are good mama's.  At least that's the theory.  All we know is, they are delicious!

This recipe was emailed to me from my friends at Kitchen Daily and seemed worthy of my precious Otis Family pork tenderloins.  I only have five or six left!

Here is a link to the recipe:
Chorizo-stuffed Pork Tenderloin

The recipe called for Spanish Chorizo or salami.  Salami?  Really?  All I could think was Ewwwww.  Spanish chorizo is a "seasoned, fully cooked smoked pork sausage."  We couldn't find that in the grocery store we went to so we bought some Aidell's apple sausage.  We thought it would go nicely with the pork.

The recipe also called for smoked or extra sharp cheese.  I wasn't sure I wanted cheese in my pork but since it was the first time making this, I followed the recipe and used a sharp cheddar cheese.

This was easy to put together.  Mix up some spinach, cheese and the sausage in a bowl and set it aside.  Then mix a little fresh chopped garlic and olive oil in another little bowl and set that aside.  To prepare the pork, butterfly the tenderloin, open it up and pound it to about an 1/8 of an inch thickness.

Spread the filling on the pork, roll it up and secure it with string.

The tenderloin is then seared before it is brushed with the garlic and olive oil mixture and popped in the oven to finish cooking.

As this finishes in the oven you can not only smell the pork, but the garlic roasting all over it.

It is a beautiful dish and pretty tasty as well.  I think I would chop the sausage a bit larger next time.  I found I liked not only the flavor of the sharp cheese but also the creaminess it added to the filling.  And the little pieces of toasted garlic added great flavor and texture. 

I served it with a little farro risotto and we had cherry pie for dessert!