Earlier this week I noticed that a small cheesesteak restaurant had opened on Bancroft near Dutton, and today I had the opportunity to go give it a try. It was an OK experience, it’s a place I’d go back but not rush back to.
Al Attles’ serves hoagies and rice plates, and on this occasion both Mike and I had the steak & cheese hoagy ($8). We also ordered a portion of onion rings ($3.25).
The onion rings were fine. The breading was less flavorful than what I would have liked, and they weren’t served with ranch dressing, which I would also have liked, but they tasted as if they were made with fresh oil. They weren’t greasy, which I did like.
The hoagies were also much less greasy than those served at other local establishment. The meat was mostly lean, the vegetables (grilled onions, green peppers, lettuce and tomatoes) fresh, and the sandwich quite large. It was a bit unwieldy, however, and the meat kept falling off, so I mostly ended up eating a veggie sandwich. The flavor was fine, the meat (when there) was a bit overwhelmed by the other flavors, but all in all, I liked it. It didn’t awe me, though.
Service was very good. The small restaurant doesn’t have anything resembling ambiance, but it’s a cheese steak restaurant after all.
Al Attles’ California Cheese Steaks
571 Bancroft Ave.
San Leandro, Ca
510-639-3458
M-Th 11 AM – 7 PM
F 11Am – ?
Sa 12 – ?
Author: marga (Page 56 of 112)
I had a lot of mint left over from the Balti Lamb with Peas and Potatoes I cooked few days, and I wanted to use it up. So, of course, I went to epicurious.com and looked for a recipe that called for mint. Savory mint lamb chops is what I came up with. It was simple and got great reviews. The only minus is that it didn’t use that much mint.
Well, I made it last night and it was absolutely delicious. The lamb chops were tender and very, very tasty. You couldn’t taste the mint at all, but the marinade really enhanced the lamb flavor. In all, I loved them and I will for sure make them again. This time I served it with steamed broccoli.
I followed the original recipe closely, though I did not include the cayenne pepper, as my kids won’t eat anything spicy. The reviews also suggested that the chops were better without it.
Here is the recipe:
Mint lamb chops
Ingredients
Instructions
Trim the lamb chops of excess fat.
In a small bowl mix the olive oil with the mint, garlic, salt, cumin, coriander and black pepper. Spread the mixture on both sides of the lamb chops. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.
Meanwhile preheat the broiler.
When ready to cook, place lamb chops in the broiler and cook for about 4 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Serve.
As I said before, I’m done buying wines at Safeway. But before that realization, I got a bottle of Firefly Ridge Pinot Gris, which was supposedly 40% or so off (I think I paid $8 or so). Of course, now I know that Safeway gives inflated regular prices to off-brand wines they get in bulk, to then discount them heavily. Scammers.
Anyway, I couldn’t find any information at all about Firefly Ridge winery online. And all I can tell from the bottle is that the grapes come from the Central Coast and the winery is in Livermore and Ripon.
Now, as to the wine. It was crisp, light but with some body to it, easy to drink and with hints of fruit. It was almost sweet and almost bitter, but not quite. Its acidity came forward when drank in conjunction with some broiled lamb chops. In all, not an unpleasant wine, but not particularly interesting. I’d drink it, unless there was a better choice, but I wouldn’t buy it again.
Mike, on the other hand, didn’t like it at all, and was concerned at how much we paid for it. Live and learn.
This morning Michaela wanted to bake – which is pretty amazing because she usually disappears when Camila and I start making anything. She wanted to do it all by herself (or mostly, she still can’t read a recipe) and she wanted to make cookies. I barely had any ingredients – definitely no chocolate chips – so she suggested we make sugar cookies. I found this recipe on epicurious.com (my favorite recipe site), which had the advantage of requiring few ingredients. It did call for cream of tartar, which I didn’t have, but I substituted with lemon juice with perfect results. Indeed, the results were amazing. I loved these cookies and I’ll definitely make them again when the occasion calls for sugar cookies. Do note that they are a bit more crispy than your regular sugar cookie.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 tsp. lemon juice
- Water and additional sugar
Instructions
In an electric mixer, mix the butter with the oil and sugars until well blended. Add the oil and vanilla extract and mix well. Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into the butter/sugar bowl. Mix well. Add the lemon juice and mix once again.
Put the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes, or in the fridge for at least 30.
Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Grease two cookie sheets.
Place 1 Tbsp. of dough in your hand and roll into a ball. Place onto the baking sheet. Repeat until the dough is all used up.
Pour water into a small bowl, and sugar into another. Take a glass with a flat bottom, wet the bottom in the water and then press it against the sugar. Press the glass bottom on each cookie ball, each cookie should be about 1/4″ high.
Place the cookie sheets in the oven and bake until they start to brown, about 15 minutes. Cool down completely before removing.
It’s available at http://www.marga.org/food/int/canton/
My house is a mess. Always. Every day. No matter how much I clean, it’s always a mess. I say this as way of explanation of why I haven’t, and don’t see myself hosting dinner parties in the near future. I just can’t manage to both clean the house and have people over all in the same day.
I have, on the other hand, been very much in a cooking mode lately – so I’ve gone back to my international food project -, only now I’m following it by cooking single dinner dishes for my family. It makes it a little difficult to come up with a full menu – appetizers, main dishes, sides and dessert – but some of the cuisines I’m cooking don’t really lend themselves to mutli-course dinners anyway. I am hoping that by making the project part of my everyday cooking, I will start advancing it on it more quickly than in the past. After all, it’s taken me 8 years just to do 2 letters.
This past week I’ve cooked Balti cuisine and Caucasian cuisine. The former is a style of food cooking and serving created by Indian cooks in England – as far as I can gather, it’s very similar to what we get at Indian restaurants in the US. Next on the menu are Cantonese dishes – my first foray ever into Chinese food. I’ll also be cooking a couple of Awadhi dishes and may indeed go back to some “A” cuisines for which I didn’t have enough recipes to make a full meal.
Balti Menu
Caucasian Menu
It’s blueberry season and the blueberries at the farmer’s market are wonderful – though expensive at about $9 for a pint? a quart? I just know it’s a big bucket. But this week Safeway also has them on sale for $6 for a 2.5lbs box. They are from Canada, but they are just as good as the locals. So I got one of those boxes too. Now I have blueberries coming out of my years! (thanks god they are so good!). Anyway, I thought I’d use some making blueberry pancakes and I found this recipe at epicurious.com. It’s *very* good. The pancakes came out light and fluffy, without that obnoxious metallic taste of pre-made mixes, and they had a great blueberry flavor. The best thing is that it calls for the type of ingredients you have at home anyway. I modified it a little bit, but it’s basically the same as the original:
Ingredients
Instructions
Whisk the f lour with the sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk and eggs together. Whisk in the milk mixture into the flour mixture, a little bit at the time. Whisk in the melted butter.
Heat a skillet to medium and rub with unsalted butter. Pour about 1/2 cup of the batter and sprinkle, by hand, blueberries on the pancake-to-be. Cook until the bottom browns, about 1 1/2 minutes. Turn and cook until that side browns, about 1 more minute. Serve with maple syrup.
Marga’s Best Recipes
I was just in the Alameda Safeway doing some shopping, and decided to see if there were any wine bargains to be had. Last year I got a wine for over 50% off which ended up being pretty good – so I thought I’d try my luck again. I found a deal almost as good – the 2005 Hawk Crest Cabernet Sauvignon was on sale for $10, $15 off the regular price of $25. So I bought it.
I come home to find out that all retailers sell this wine for about $10 – so either Safeway sells all its wines at 2 1/2 times regular retail prices, or just ups the prices of those it wants to put in sale, to make them look like a better bargain. Yes, I feel foolish – but I learned my lesson. I will never buy wine from Safeway again. I hope the wine is at least good.
Last Friday, I made a cheesecake for the first time. I’ve been at home with the kids for a while, and I’ve been having this weird need/desire to bake. It’s weird, because I’ve never been much into baking, or into making desserts, for that matter. But lately, that’s what I’ve been wanting to cook.
So Friday I made this recipe for white chocolate and strawberry cheesecake. I omitted the strawberries, but the cheesecake by itself was REALLY GOOD. Alas, it didn’t taste at all like white chocolate, but it didn’t matter, as it really tasted like cheesecake and I love cheesecake.
So I learned a few things while making it. First of all, cheesecake is freaking expensive! I don’t want to think how much money I spent in buying all the ingredients. Just like with ice cream, it’s cheaper to buy the pre-made stuff. Second, cheesecake is pretty much fat and sugar. That’s why it tastes so good, but I could feel my arteries clogging while making it. I don’t think I’ll make it again, unless it’s for someone else to eat. Third, it’s not hard to make cheesecake, though it can be time consuming.
Anyway, the recipe I linked to is pretty good. If you make it, read the comments. The recipe makes enough batter for 1 1/2 cakes. I didn’t have 2 cake pans, so I put the remaining batter in ramekins and cooked them along the cake on a pan with water. I actually liked these “cheesecake puddings” more than the cake itself. I used chessmen chocolate cookies for the crust, which was good.
Allspice, ground
Allspice, berries
Arrowroot
Bay leaves
Cardamon, ground
Cardamon, pods
Cayene pepper
Celery salt
Chicken Masala (box)
Chili powder (box)
Cinnamon, ground
Cinnamon, sticks
Citric Acid
Coriander, powder (box – buy more)
Coriander, seeds
Cloves
Cloves, ground
Cumin, ground
Curry powder (need to buy more)
Curry powder – mild (box)
Fennel seed
Fenugreek seed
Garam Masala
Garlic powder
Ginger, ground
Herbs de Provence
Mace, ground
Mustard, ground
Nutmeg, berries
Oregano
Paprika
Parsley flakes
Peppercorns, black
Peppercorns, white
Poppy seed
Red pepper flakes
Rosemary
Sage, rubbed
Sesame seeds
Star anise
Sumak
Sweet basil
Tarragon
Thyme (need to buy more)
Turmeric
Cajun mix
BBQ mix
Need to buy
Cumin seed, curry powder, green cardamon, thyme
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