It never fails, about once a month or so my wife is scrolling through our shared photo directory on Amazon Prime where our phones back up their photos and she says "there's a lot of food photos in here". It should come as no shock to many of you that I like food. I like grilling food, I like photographing food, I like talking about food, I like eating food.
At one time HIVE seemed to like food a bit more than it does now as well, but unfortunately, many of those communities have fallen off or dissolved. I still have my grilling and smoking community, but even I haven't posted in that in quite some time because honestly, how many times can I tell you how I grill chicken?
I keep taking the photos however, because as I said above, I like talking about food.
I started to realize a while ago that there are certain things that I just prefer to have at home. It's pretty rare (pun intended) to find a place that has a steak better than anything I can grill myself at home. The cost to benefit ratio just isn't there. On the other hand, there are things that restaurants do really well.
As much as I live the grilled pork chops that you see in the opening photo, I just can't seem to get mine as tender as the local pub down the street. They do something magical with their pork chops that make them so tender you can cut them with a fork!
Along with talking, photographing, grilling, and eating food, I also like thinking about food. Which leads me down a long and winding journey through my brain that serves as the inspiration for this post. @mrsbozz is an amazing cook. If I haven't said it before, I will shout it loud right now. She probably doesn't think so, but I certainly do. However, there are a few things she makes that I feel stand above the rest.
Things that I occasionally tell her, if I had a restaurant, this would be on the menu. One of them is a tortilla soup that at least in my head seems like it would be fairly easy to replicate on a large scale. You throw a bunch of chicken and other stuff (jarred or fresh salsa, chicken stock) into a pressure cooker, let it cook for ten minutes or so, then add some other stuff (fire roasted veggies, cream cheese), shred the chicken, and boom you are done.
It's rich, flavorful, and amazing!
Given our work schedule, we also eat a lot of casseroles. @mrsbozz puts them together on the weekend and puts them in the refrigerator. Then we just need to pull them out on weeknights, heat them up, and dinner is served. There is one that uses ground chicken, bacon, an egg, and some other stuff that basically is a chicken cheeseburger casserole sort of thing. It's amazing, and I was thinking the other day, if I had a restaurant, this would be on the menu.
Which led me to ask the question why more restaurants don't have casseroles on their menu.
Google to the rescue again, and after a few minutes, I had a handful of answers.
Let me break them down:
The first reason was attributed to the general belief that casseroles are seen as "peasant meals" or not high class or fine dining. While I don't argue with the belief, I do argue with the basic premise. First of all, plenty of restaurants serve meatloaf and that could also be considered peasant food.
The fact is, if your chef is good enough, they should be able to transform or elevate what would normally be a "basic" dish into something absolutely amazing. Meatloaf being a perfect example of that. I have had some pretty amazing meatloaves at establishments all across the country. There is a lot of wiggle room in terms of protein, seasonings, binders, etc. You can really elevate a standard meatloaf into something phenomenal.
The second reason on the other hand, I can understand a bit more than the first one and if that had been the only reason given, I probably would have accepted it. It was posited that the main reason restaurants don't typically serve casseroles is because the overhead is just too high. You can only get a pan so big to make a casserole. Plus, you basically have to bake off the whole thing and then what if only a handful of people order it that night?
You are suddenly sitting on a whole lot of wasted product that you can't necessarily serve again the next day. That's fair. I understand the bottom line is important and I can respect that very valid point.
However, I think done properly, a restaurant could potentially thrive on scheme like this.
My wife makes a breakfast casserole where you can cut it up into individual servings and then heat those up one at time for a serving. I think if they specialized in casseroles like that where you can individually fire them, then dress them with some herbs and maybe sauce at the end, it might be a winning concept.
Of course, I think they would have to stick to just three or four different casseroles to keep things simple and do those handful of things very well. It's possible though...
What do you think? Would you eat at a place that serves elevated casseroles?
Thanks for taking this long winded trip through some of the things I spent my brain power on. If only I could focus that into something more worthwhile, I could change the world!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced