Citygirl Bites: Taqueria Durango

Oh. My. Lord. Do you see that? It's a sandwich. That's right, a sandwich the size of a smallish plate. This, friends, is your intro to Taqueria Durango.

On a cold and snowy night near the end of December, HUBS and I ventured out to one of St. Louis Magazine's best cheap restaurants in the area. We'd never been before, but we'll definitely be back. Everything was amazingly good and plentiful. Let's talk details.

It took a while for our waitress to get to use once we sat down, but she brought us lovely homemade chips and three different house salsas, so all was forgiven pretty quickly. We ordered the above appetizer because it was something different. These are the $9 Papa Nachos. They are, hold your breath people, nachos made of crinkle cut fries instead of chips. HOLY GOD. Chicken, fries, cheese dip, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream. It was...AHMAAAAAZINNNGGGG. I was fully planning to nibble a little and then leave it alone so I'd have room for my entree. I couldn't. Neither could HUBS. We ate all of it and I was tempted to lick a plate in public. Yes I was.

We'll start with this, the Torta Ahogada, which is what I ate. The above photo is a closeup of the giant sandwich in the first pic. It's pork tips and grilled onions on a bun that's covered with a spicy sauce. I know, sauce on top of a bun sounds like a bad idea. Trust me, it. Is. NOT. This was sooooo gooooood. The meat and onions were crispy. The bun was a bit sweet and tender. And, there was just the right amount of sauce on top to make it different but in no way soggy. Awesome! You should also know that there was enough food here for three meals. I literally ate off of this $7 sandwich for three days.

HUBS got their Burrito Majado. Meat, rice, beans and lettuce wrapped in a massive tortilla smothered in red sauce and cheese. I don't remember what type of meat HUBS got, but I remember that it was GOOD.

You know how you find the perfect meal and you're eating your face off and then you start to get full, but the food is so good that getting full makes you sad because you know it means you have to stop eating. That's what eating at Taqueria Durango is like. If you like Mexican food and you ever hit St. Louis, don't hesitate, just go.

What was the last really good thing you ate?

Sunday Dinner: Multi Use Steak

Fall is prime comfort food time. Everything warm and gooey is good to eat when the weather gets chilly.

Last week I made steak. It's so easy to cook things exactly the same way, but a tiny bit of effort will usually get you something you want to eat again and again that's also different enough to keep you interested.

My easy-way steak includes a simple salt and peppering, maybe some onions and a good stint in the oven. But, I found an easy recipe in Real Simple that I was able to turn into something that I think was even better.

Multi Use Steak

1 steak
pineapple juice
low sodium soy sauce
salt & pepper
1 medium onion, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
1 pound or more baby carrots, halved lengthwise
about a 1/4 cup butter or margarine
about a 1/4 cup whole wheat or regular flour
rice or pasta

Salt and pepper your steak and marinate it in equal parts soy sauce and pineapple juice, enough to at least cover the sides of the steak. Marinate for at least two hours, turning over half way through.

Bake, with juices, covered with foil on 350 degrees until done. For my medium sized steak it took 40 minutes.

Drain juices into sauce pan, add butter and heat on medium until melted. Stir in flour until you get a thick gravy. Cover and take off heat.

This can be eaten by itself with mashed potatoes, but you can get more creative. I sliced onion and green pepper and sauteed them with a bit of cooking spray until they began to caramalize. While that was cooking I roasted some baby carrots with olive oil, salt and pepper. Slice the steak thinly, add it to the skillet and you can pour this, with the gravy and carrots over cooked rice or pasta.

Or, (and this is how my husband ate it) you can add cheese sauce to the pepper/onion/steak mixture, put it on some hearty bread and have cheese steak sandwiches.

See? One steak easily gives us three different meal options. Not bad, huh?

What foods do you cook and reuse in different ways for multiple meals?

Sunday Dinner: Veggie Chowder

Sometimes procrastination and avoidance really work in my favor. I was passing time one night, and found a couple of episodes of The Barefoot Contessa on Hulu. Seeing as how I was taken with her show back in March while stuck in a hospital bed, I started watching. And, wouldn't you know it, I immediately saw something I wanted to make. Her East Hampton Clam Chowder looked divine. There was one problem, though. I detest the idea of clams and clam juice. Obviously, those are two main components of the dish. So, what did I do? I improvised.

Not to brag, but I grew all of these onions and some of the carrots I used. I rock! OK, that sounds like bragging, doesn't it?

Take out the icky clam stuff, add more veggies and you've got my all-new Veggie Chowder. It turned out really good; and I was able to get rid of some veggies that were starting to go south due to my lack of desire to turn on the stove or oven when it's hot outside. Try it, I think you'll like it.

Don't lie. You can tell these are homegrown. Look at that mutant carrot on the left!

Veggie Chowder

2 tablespoons butter
2 cups onion
2 cups mixed sweet peppers
2 cups carrot
4 cups potato
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme or Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cracked pepper
1 quart chicken stock, homemade if possible
1/2 cup flour, whole wheat if possible
1 stick melted butter
1 can of Mexicorn
1/2 cup sour cream
shredded cheese

First off, you melt the two tablespoons of butter in a big pot, add the onion and cook for 10 minutes. Add the carrot, potato, thyme/Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and cook for another 10 minutes.

Add your chicken stock and sweet peppers and let things heat and mingle as you prepare your thickening agent. Melt a stick of butter and whisk in the flour. Add a cup of hot soup to that and stir it until all the flour and butter is incorporated. Put that whole gravy-like glob into the larger pot of veggies and stock, stir it up and get your chowder thick.

Put your corn in with the sour cream, let it heat and add some shredded cheese of your choosing. If you like, the cheese can be added to the bowls when you serve it instead of the larger pot. You could also add in chunks of ham or shredded chicken if you need some meat, but I like it just the way it is. Feel free to serve this lukewarm if the idea of piping hot soup on a 105 degree day drives you batty. Or, just set your A/C on 60.

Dig in!

What have you cooked lately that you loved?

Citygirl Bites! Dave & Tony's Premium Burger Joint

I've been so obsessed with pre-vacation planning and post vacation settling in and talking about what we ate in Philly that I completely forgot to let you guys in on Dave & Tony's. HUBS and I went there a couple weeks before we headed out to Pennsylvania.



It's located in a Creve Coeur strip mall store front and had only been open a few days when we went, so it still had that new restaurant aura around it. We got there a few minutes before close, so there was only one other couple there and it was nice and quiet except for the piped-in tunes over the speakers.

What you see above is my Hawaiian Burger with cole slaw. There was a crispy steakburger, ham, grilled pineapple, caramelized onions, BBQ sauce and sharp cheddar on a pretzel bun. As someone who's religiously avoided Auntie Ann's (despite many I can eat that! No, I'll feel too guilty. moments) since 2003, I'm not ashamed to tell you I got this burger mostly for the pretzel bun. It was awesome. Moving on.

And, man. It was good! I ended up taking my ham off, because it felt like overkill, but the combo of salty and sweet is almost always a winner. The cole slaw was nicely creamy and a bit sweet, but I seem to remember that the veggies felt a bit too crunchy. I know, everything's raw in cole slaw. It's supposed to be crunchy. Still...



This is HUBS' Steakhouse Burger and the chili cheese fries we shared. Let me start with those, because, do you see how there's a cup of fries, a cup of cheese and a cup of chili? I'm divided about this. On one hand, the fries stay crisp until you're ready to smother them. On the other hand, you have to assemble your side item. Don't we go to restaurants in order to get away from food assembly?

Well, at any rate the fries were good, the cheese was good and the chili was so thick you could barely scoop it up with a cluster of fries, we needed utensils. I wish there had been more chili and cheese, but I suppose a little forced portion control isn't a bad thing sometimes.

HUBS loved his burger. It was covered in Gorgonzola blue cheese, iceberg lettuce, onion rings, steak butter (which is something like this, I guess) and steak sauce, plus it was on a rye bun.

Now, if none of that sounds good, just take a look at the menu. They've got seven signature burgers, a ton of salads and a gazillion toppings so you can craft your own burger creation.

Final verdict? I'd be willing to go back, especially since HUBS feels the need to eat burgers all the time. The only thing is that they are a couple bucks more expensive than, say, the most expensive McDonald's fare and since the only location is in Creve Coeur, it's a bit out of the way for us. But, as soon as we are more financially stable, we'll be back.