Leena Eats, Gourmet Communication ... Food, Travel, Gastronomy

LeenaEats
LeenaEats

Leena Eats: Hoosier Mama Pie Company…and 40 slices of pie.

Leena Eats: Hoosier Mama Pie Company...and 40 slices of pie.
A slow-starting Chicago spring bringing you down? Drown your sorrows in PIE!

Not too long ago, I was browsing some local Chicago food blogs and podcasts when I came across an article about a Chicago pie shop. The shop itself had only been open for a month or so, but the pie company had been selling delicious and popular seasonal pies for a few years. In spite of the cupcake shop craze, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that such a shop existed within the city limits. Then I saw a photo of the owner and pastry chef, and it turned out to be the pastry chef I used to work for years ago! And the name was Hoosier Mama Pie Company. I knew I was gonna like this place. I also happen to like me some pie. I’ve been known to take a few down without breaking a sweat. It’s very impressive, let me tell you. Sort of an homage to the hard boiled egg scene in Cool Hand Luke. Read the rest of this entry »

April 29th, 2009
Posted in Chicago, Leena Eats | View Comments

Leena Cooks: Strawberry Brown Butter Tart (with a side of bitterness)

Leena Cooks: Strawberry Brown Butter Tart (with a side of bitterness)
Check out my strawberry brown butter tart of bitterness, I MEAN–love. LOVE. My freaking love tart.

Happy Monday! Happy wake-up-to-find-out-your-gas-is-being-shut-off-even-though-you-thought-you-were-paying-the-bills-and-your-work-colleague-has-bailed-on-you-again-day! I think of all the days that exist, this is my most favoritest day of them all. And with delicious photos of fruit tarts to boot, too. Whoa. I’m a lucky gal. The cool thing about me is, 1)I’m not bitter. Like, at ALL. Totally fucking fine. And yes, my leg has always shaken neurotically like that…And 2)I’m not one of those passive aggressive chicks that likes to write a blog post that is supposed to be about a fruit tart but instead uses it as a chance to bitch. RIGHT. Read the rest of this entry »

April 27th, 2009
Posted in Leena Bakes, Pastries | View Comments

Gastro Fridays: My Dad Rocks

Gastro Fridays: My Dad Rocks
Yes. My dad is almost ALWAYS this happy.

Dev Trivedi didn’t accept free pizza. It didn’t matter to him that at the tender age of 10, the only thing more exciting to me than “food” was “free food”. Nope, my dad didn’t care that we had already waited 20 minutes and were starving, and it certainly didn’t upset him that the kind folks at Pizza Hut had made our first pizza wrong, which would force us to wait another 20 minutes for the correct pizza. Or that I was starving. Did I mention I was starving? Cuz I was. (And I’m pretty sure I reminded him every five minutes.) Read the rest of this entry »

April 24th, 2009
Posted in Gastro Fridays, The Gastronomical Leena | View Comments

Leena Eats: Frontera Grill Brunch

There are very few things I would do bad things for. Okay, maybe there are more than a few, but I think most of them can be summed up to all things pork.Chorizo is one of those things. Case in point–the queso fundido ($7.50 USD) @ Frontera Grill.

Leena Eats: Frontera Grill Brunch
Queso fundido @ Frontera Grill

Read the rest of this entry »

April 23rd, 2009
Posted in Chicago, Leena Eats | View Comments

Leena Cooks: A big-ass leg of lamb

Leena Cooks: A big ass leg of lamb
If you never knew food could be sexy, you’ve never met my charcoal-smoked leg of lamb. I’m sorry.

So…I like lamb. And I think you know this, because I’ve made it once or twice before. When I lived in Australia, spring was the time to hit up the Central Market for some new season leg of lamb at dirt cheap prices. The lambs were mostly raised in the local wine regions, the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and such, and they were delicious, grass-fed meat. My husband figured out how to charcoal smoke a leg of lamb on a basic kettle grill using his smarts and this website. The lamb always came out juicy, slighty smokey, and just about the most addictive piece of meat you ever will see. Read the rest of this entry »

April 20th, 2009
Posted in Leena Cooks, Mains | View Comments

Gastro Fridays: Marshmallow Week

Gastro Fridays: Marshmallow Week
The makings of teenage crack, aka rice krispy treats and s’mores.

For this week’s Gastro Friday, I’d like to chat a bit about marshmallow week in my food studies class. If you read this week’s Leena Eats post, you’ll remember that I don’t have the best history with making marshmallows from scratch. Thankfully, I did not try to make marshmallows with my class. The stress alone would shut me down for the rest of the year. It is interesting to note how many different ways Americans commonly eat marshmallows–roasted over campfires and shoved into s’mores, browned on top of sweet potatoes, spread on a sandwich with some peanut butter, mixed with puffed rice cereal to make the most awesome snack of all time, no matter what country you live in (like I pointed out in this old post). We roll them in sugar and shape them like bunnies and chicks for Easter…Americans love marshmallows so much, it has been said that we purchase 90 millions pound of marshmallows annually! Read the rest of this entry »

April 17th, 2009
Posted in Gastro Fridays, The Gastronomical Leena | View Comments

Leena Eats: Chelsea Grill

Wine. Red. NOW, damn it. Thanks.

Leena Eats: Chelsea Grill
Our lovely Pinot Noir from California’s Santa Maria Valley.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 15th, 2009
Posted in Chicago, Leena Eats | View Comments

Leena Cooks: Marshmallows…pretty damn well, too.

Leena Cooks: Marshmallows...pretty damn well, too.
My homemade passion fruit and toasted coconut marshmallows. Gangsta never tasted so fluffy.

So once upon a time, around, oh, 4 years ago, I was a pastry chef. My boss told me to make marshmallows. I had never done this. 30 minutes later, I had successfully broken the whisk attachment on a 30 qt. mixer. I was also wearing more marshmallow than the Stay Puft Marshmallow man and was curiously sticking to any stainless steel surfaces I stood near. Needless to say, those marshmallows were a big, fat FAIL. Oh, and for future reference, before you send ANYONE off to make mallows for the first time, you might just want to tell them that leaving the mixture in the mixing bowl for longer than 30 seconds turns it into candy CEMENT. Just a thought. Read the rest of this entry »

April 13th, 2009
Posted in Leena Cooks, Mains | View Comments

Leena Eats: Chicago, a Food Tour

Not too long ago, my old friend Misty came into Chicago and man, was she hungry. She demanded Chicago food, REAL Chicago food, so I had to deliver. I had to. Look at her–she could totally take me down.

Leena Eats: Chicago, a Food Tour

New food tour with an old friend.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 8th, 2009
Posted in A Leena-made food tour, Chicago, Leena Eats | View Comments

Leena Eats: Elotes

Leena Eats: Elotes
The cart that makes dreams come true…and wicked good tamales.

Whoa. WHOA. I’ve been eating. A lot. Some might say I am regularly eating my weight in food, which is sort of my job. Other might say that gastric bypass surgery hurts. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. Come friends. Come see what I have eaten. Read the rest of this entry »

April 5th, 2009
Posted in Chicago, Leena Eats | View Comments
« Older Entries

About | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact | 2010 LeenaEats.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

View in: Mobile | Standard