It seemed like the best way to reheat my leftover ravioli from Pasquini’s was to fry it up in a little olive oil. I don’t have a microwave. Cold ravioli sounded terrible. I think frying ravioli is a no no, but I’m not 100% sure. Nevertheless, I’m kind of a sucker for fried dough. It was delicious.

Okay, just to get it out of the way, neither of us got the 72oz steak. We weren’t planning to. Just figured the steak oughta be decent. So, here’s what happened…

Firstly, we learned that the Big Texan is a real-honest-to-goodness Route 66 attraction. And even at 8:30 at night in the middle of nowhere, the parking lot was full! We went in and put our name on the list for dinner. While we waited, we could play slots, browse the gift shop (of course!) where I found a tequila-flavored lollipop with a worm embedded in the sugar, and entertain ourselves at the shooting gallery. Seriously. We both took a turn shooting laser guns at old-time western zombies and skeletons.

Now, on to the dinner! We split an 8oz steak dinner (yes, there are normal sized portions), and the steak was delicious. The sides (corn, mashed potatoes, fried okra, fresh bread) were okay, not nearly as good as the steak. And all this time during dinner, we had a seat very close to the stage. The stage is where the folks who want to try for the 72oz FREE steak sit, complete with a timer, web cam and all the (potential) glory. So, about this FREE steak: to get a free steak, you must eat the entire dinner (steak, potato, bread, shrimp cocktail) in less than an hour. You sit on stage and the BigTexan.com web cam broadcasts you to the world. The pink Winners chart had a list of the winners from the last week or so.

These guys from Santa Fe went for it that night. (Note the timer, they were 19 minutes, 36 seconds in.) We aren’t sure if they got through the massive dinner in less than an hour, but I think the guy with the blue shirt might have gone all the way — he was making good progress.

I know, I know, there should be a law or something. But it’s Texas. Everything’s bigger in Texas!

Driving through Texas, my man and I stopped in Clarendon looking for dinner. We scoped the town of about 2,000 and chose the Nuttin Fancy Cafe because the parking lot was jammed with cars. (Well the parking lot was full of trucks really, which seems to be what everyone drives, except for one guy on a vintage motorcycle.)

I ordered the fried catfish dinner. It came with a dinner salad, hand-battered fried catfish, fried okra, fried sweet breads (those long skinny tubes on the plate). It was delicious! And the service was great too.

So, rule of thumb: when in doubt, pick the place with the full parking lot, it’s where the locals go.

Ingredients:

• 2 salmon fillets with skin on one side
• 1 cup fresh pineapple cut into small chunks
• 1/2 cup barbecue sauce (I used Annie’s Smoky Maple BBQ sauce, but you could use your favorite, or make your own.)
• olive oil
• cayenne (to taste)

Directions:

1. Combine barbecue sauce, pineapple chunks and cayenne. Mix and set aside.
2. Clean and oil your grill grate.
3. Rub a little olive oil on your salmon fillets.
4. Cook fillets over medium-hot heat for a 3 minutes on the non-skin side, putting meat directly on the grill grate.
5. Flip the fish over skin side down on a piece of foil for the rest of the grilling.
6. Top each fillet with your pineapple-barbecue combo.
7. Close grill lid and cook on medium-high until done to your preference.

The foil is used so the fish doesn’t stick to the grill as the BBQ-pineapple sauce will carmelize and drip off the side (yum!). So for the long cooking portion, we put the fillets on sheets of foil and then put the pile of pineapple BBQ sauce on top. And then when cooked to perfection, you can use a thin metal spatula or fork to remove the fillet from the skin (which will probably be carmelized and stuck to the foil) and serve this gorgeous salmon dish!

Ingredients:

• 4 green onions (chopped, use both whites and greens)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1-2 tbs lemon pepper
• 1 1/2 cups lightly steamed asparagus chunks
• 1 strip crispy bacon crumbled
• 10-12 large grilled shrimp
• 4 tbs fresh chopped parsley

Saute the onions in olive oil. Add the white wine, half the parsley, and lemon pepper. When blended add the asparagus. Take off heat, toss in shrimp and pasta. Mix well. Serve garnished with bacon crumbles and chopped fresh parsley. This served two with a side salad.

Meat Sauce:

• 1/2 yellow onion diced
• 1 lb lean ground beef
• large can tomato pieces (with basil)
• 1/2 cup red wine
• large chunks of dried basil from my garden, could also use lots of dried, or chopped fresh
• 1/4 cup kalamata olives (sliced in half)
• 1 – 1/2 cups grape tomatoes (sliced in half), you could also use cherry tomatoes
• salt and pepper to taste

First, put the tomato pieces, wine, basil in a pot and warm to steaming, but not boiling. Meanwhile, brown the meat and onions together, keeping the meat in big chunks. Add the meat and onion mixture, olives, basil, tomatoes to the red sauce. Mix together and serve atop al dente spaghetti or your favorite pasta.

Stock Ingredients

• 1 turkey drumstick
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 2 carrots chopped in halves or quarters
• 3 stalks celery cut in half
• lots of water

The drumstick went right in a large pot covered with water, and I added water as it cooked when the water level dipped below the top of the drumstick. I made the stock over the course of about three hours, skimming off the funk on top periodically. Then, I strained the stock, discarded the vegetables, and set aside some choice meat from the turkey leg.

Soup Ingredients

• 6-8 cups stock
• 1/4 onion thinly sliced and chopped
• 1 carrot thinly sliced
• 1 stalk celery thinly sliced
• 2 tbs fresh parsley
• turkey pulled from drumstick

I combined the above ingredients. I didn’t have any white meat turkey on hand, but would definitely recommend it, if you make your own turkey soup.

Dumplings

• 1 egg
• generous 1 cup flour
• cold water

Finally, I kneaded the above ingredients into an ever so slightly sticky dough ball. When the turkey soup was hot (but not boiling), I dropped in chunks of dough. After about 3 or 4 minutes, the dough was cooked and turkey soup was served!

Tom Kha Soup:

• One can of Thai Kitchen Tom Kha soup, they call it “Coconut Ginger Soup” on the can, with subhead Tom Kha.  (This soup is excellent. It comes loaded with spices/flavors, but you do have to fish them out, or eat around them. In just this one can, there was one whole red chili, several large chunks of ginger, lemongrass chunks, lime leaf bits.)
• We added some extra veggies (baby corn, asparagus tips, fresh grape tomatoes).
• We pan-fried some jumbo shrimp and tossed them in at the end.
• And added a little extra heat with thai green chili paste.

Spring Rolls:

• These were baked at high heat in the oven and they came out deliciously crispy.
• The brand was called Lucky (all natural, vegetarian, no MSG).
• A very nice counterpoint to the heat of the soup.

Ingredients:

• tuna steak (I used a frozen steak)
• olive oil
• green onions (chopped, white part separated from green part)
• shiitake mushrooms (sliced long ways, from top of cap to bottom of stem)
• tamari
• cilantro

How I made this happen:

First off, non-stick skillet is the way to go. Put in a little olive oil and the white part of the green onions and put the skillet on medium-high heat. Add the tuna steak. Sear the steak until one side is fully cooked, then flip. Add the shiitakes, and green parts of the onions on side of pan to cook. When tuna is nearly finished, pour in a large splash of tamari, this will sizzle like crazy, but just the finish you need. Serve the tuna steak topped with mushrooms, then garnish with cilantro.

• grilled sirloin, topped with garlic herb butter, served medium rare
• steamed broccoli (to balance out the richness of everything else)
• redskin mashed potatoes with olive oil and parsley, topped with real smoked crumpled bacon

We enjoyed this with an inexpensive red wine from Cable Car — strong cherry flavor and a hint of black pepper.