Heights Eats

Ohio City Burrito is a new addition to the “convenient Mexican” options in town, and Sarah and I were definitely happy we tried it for lunch lately.

The space is small but playfully decorated, and we already felt we’d made a good choice just by the aromas as we entered.

I ordered the Brother’s Burrito with shredded chicken, rice refried beans, tomatos and hot salsa ($6.15). Sarah had a chicken taco with sweet salsa ($2.25).

The burrito was huge with every ingredient adding a nice flavor to the party. The chicken was marinated in a piquant, slightly spicy red sauce, and every burrito comes with fresh guacamole at no additional charge. I could almost live on refried beans and wish more places in the Heights served them. The hot salsa–which was added sparingly on the advice of our friendly counterperson–definitely has a kick. I didn’t get any in my first bite and made the mistake of adding roasted habanero sauce (from Narrin’s Spice at the West Side Market) for good measure, … continue reading

Sarah and I recently won a gift certificate to a Viking cooking class from Live to Cook at Homeand Heinen’s. We’re looking for uses for our upcoming bountiful crop (hopefully), so we took the From Farm to Table class.

Viking has a very nice kitchen complete with envy-inspiring Viking appliances everywhere. All of the students sat around a large granite counter with the instructor at the end.

The class started with a mini knife skills course as there’s plenty of chopping when you’re using fruits and vegetables. Our instructor, Jen, was very helpful in showing us how to do this. I’d already taken a Viking Knife Skills class, so I helped Sarah a bit while we were chopping.

Our first task was chopping everything we’d be using for the whole night. This was both for the sake of mise en place and so we could start on the wine (for obvious reasons it’s not brought out while people are … continue reading

Sarah and I have a subscription to The Sun, and their subject this month is food. They have some great quotes on the last page (a section called “Sunbeams”) and I thought I’d excerpt my favorites:

I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.
Johnny Carson

Nutrition is a young subject; it has been kicked around like a puppy that cannot take care of itself. Food faddists and crackpots have kicked it pretty cruelly.… They seem to believe that unless food tastes like Socratic hemlock, it cannot build health. Frankly, I often wonder what such persons plan to do with good health in case they acquire it.
Adelle Davis

To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
… continue reading

Sarah and I bid on a “kid’s movie night / parent’s night out” for our church auction and, as the hosts lived in Twinsburg, we decided to visit Blue Canyon.

The restaurant is really cool looking, even on a rainy day (which it was). The raised barn ceilings add an open feel, and there’s a beautiful view of grassy hills and sky outside the restaurant’s huge windows. A visit during warmer weather when the patio’s open would have been even better.

For our starter we ordered the cast iron cheese bake ($9) with king crab added ($4).

This was more than enough for five people, let alone two. The mix of cheeses excellent–gooey, garlicky and salty–and the portion of crab was very generous. We took about 2/3 of this home with us and happily polished off (almost) a few days later.

Sarah ordered the Mediterranean Brick Oven Chicken Salad with Israeli Couscous ($15):

The chicken was perfectly seared and tender, and … continue reading

We’ve taken up a new hobby — gardening! This year we’ve planted a vegetable garden in our back yard. Because our yard is small and sunshine is not plentiful we went with the Square Foot Garden technique. We’ve got three raised beds, each with sixteen squares. Two of our beds are on concrete and one is on grass.

After spending much of the early months of the year looking through vegetable seed catalogs we settled on heirloom seeds from Bakers Creek and Seed Savers. We’re going to attempt to grow:

a variety of lettuces
onions
carrots
red and yellow beets
a variety of tomatoes
a variety of peppers
peas & beans
cucumbers
strawberries
watermelon

So far we’ve got the lettuce, strawberry plants and sugar peas planted. The tomatoes an peppers are still inside under the grow light.

We’re optimistic about this garden as we’ve never put this much thought into the process. In previous years we’ve … continue reading

Monthly Archives: May 2010

Ohio City Burrito

Viking’s Farm to Table Class

Food Quotes from The Sun

Blue Canyon

Our Garden Project — April