If you replied “What is Becker Vineyards?” you’re the champ. Bonus points if you’re also dressed in your Italian peasant clothes or happen to own a Lucille Ball curly red wig, ‘cus Becker is also hosting their annual Lucy Ricardo Costume Contest on September 4 at 3 PM. Contestants will be judged by three criteria, according to the vineyard’s website: “1) Stomping Ability, 2) Costume, and 3) Enthusiasm!” Bring your best Lucy impressions and nice, clean feet to stomp to the beat of music by Brian Mullin.

If you’re busy on the 4th, don’t fret! You can come the day before (Sept 3) between 10 AM and 6 PM for a grape-smashin’ good time (though no prizes for your whining to Ricky about how you wanna be in the big show).

"Kim's grapes" from Becker Vineyards' Grape Stomp (photo by Flickr user aavarnum)

For those who prefer to tiptoe through the tapas, enjoy a gratis gastronomic tour of Spain at Con’ Olio Oils & Vinegars (10000 Research Blvd, #130) this Tuesday, August 30. Olive oil, wine and paella will be served from 6 to 8 PM. While you’re there, invest in a nice, fresh bottle of EVOO so you can re-create the experience at home for your besties, using the “perfect paella” recipe from Ginny’s Austin.

And don’t forget to say “gracias” to your gracious hosts, lest you be branded a cheapskate. We may be on a budget, but we Shoestringers aren’t freeloaders, am I right?

But for those of you who—like us!—are pinching pennies, rest assured there are great-tasting budget wines that will charm both your palate and your wallet.

Here are two of our most recent discoveries:

Gato Negro

Gato Negro (that’s “Black Cat” in Spanish, for all you gringos) is a Malbec from Argentina, one of our preferred wine countries. The 2010 variety is quite good, and at only $3.99 (at Randalls) you might pass it up for being TOO cheap.

Don’t let the bargain-basement price fool you! This is a great choice for pairing with any spicy dishes like our homemade tacos or Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans, or anything with red meat (Bleu Cheese Bacon Burgers) or tomato sauce.

Sea Ridge

A California Chardonnay, Sea Ridge‘s 2009 variety is also an amazing $3.99 (again at Randalls). As the back of the bottle describes it, “This is a full, ripe Chardonnay with hints of tropical fruit, citrus, and butterscotch.” Celebrity Intern and I tried it with shrimp last night (see his “hot damn, shim does shrimp!” post at diet-of-insects for the recipe), and it was a great accompaniment.

I would also recommend pairing it with grilled chicken or a Caesar Salad.

More Cheap Thrills

Looking for something special for Thanksgiving, or a great gift for the holidays? Wine.com is currently offering some “spooky deals” over Halloween weekend. Check out their site for more cheap thrills, as you can save up to 50% on selections you won’t find anywhere else:

Ye Kendall Inn, front view (photo via Ye Kendall Inn)

Ye Kendall Inn is an historic landmark for both Texas and the U.S. at large, having put a variety of famous people up for the night, including rebel shit-disturber leader Jefferson Davis, atom-bomb opponent and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and southern Civil War general Robert E. Lee. First purchased for only $200, the Inn was built by a couple named Erastus and Sarah Reed, who rented out spare rooms to stagecoach travelers of the 1850s. The Inn itself is built of solid limestone, 20 inches thick, which keeps things cool in the summertime (though they’ve now got A/C like any modern hotel deep in the heart of Texas), and there are several independent cabins and suites that give the hotel a very old-timey appeal.

The room we stayed in was called the Carriage House, and was a free-standing structure behind the main Inn. Surrounded by 3 other cabins and a former church (the St. John’s Suite), it was almost like being plunked into the middle of an Old West town, complete with rocking chairs on the porches, a tin roof and little “Welcome!” signs on each door.

Carriage House, interior (photo via Ye Kendall Inn)

Inside, the cabin was a mixture of old fashioned furnishings and modern comforts. The vintage dresser was topped with a high-definition flatscreen TV, and there were both uneven limestone floors and free wifi throughout. The bed was plumped with decorative pillows, and was nearly tall enough to require steps to climb into it. In the bathroom was a fabulous claw-foot bathtub, perfect for soaking in after our long drive, as well as a vanity furnished with Neutrogena bath products. Nice!

Reading the guestbook, we found that the ice machine was housed in a white gazebo off the Inn’s suites, so we stocked up on ice, uncorked a bottle of red wine, and chilled a few beers (and our complimentary bottles of water) in the sink. Cranking up the A/C, we clinked our glasses and kicked back with a few episodes on the Food Network and Discovery Channel.

Eventually, it was time to dine in the Inn’s award-winning Limestone Grille, whose menu we’d perused online. I had already selected the Prime Rib Wednesday special (which includes soup or salad, Porcini Four Cheese Potatoes, and Peach Cobbler for dessert) but Celebrity Intern was gunning for the special of the day, which turned out to be Sea Scallops in a mango sauce with couscous on the side. Torn between red and white wine, we decided to order by the glass, with a red Meeker “Roller Coaster” for me and a white Gary Farrell chardonnay for Celebrity Intern. Yum!

Limestone Grille (photo via Ye Kendall Inn)

We both started off with their Wild Mushroom Gorgonzola soup, and were ready to lick the bowls clean. Delicious doesn’t do it justice: the mushrooms were tender, the Gorgonzola tangy, and the creamy soup was fantastic. Homemade bread and butter was also well received, and used to mop up excess soup. Cus we’re classy like that.

Our main courses arrived, to much oohing and ahhing. My prime rib was tasty, crusted in sea salt and served with horseradish dip on the side, into which I dipped modestly, preferring to savor the meat itself. The four-cheese potatoes were decadent and delicious, but ultimately I couldn’t finish them all. Dare I utter the unthinkable? There was too much food! And I still had dessert?!

Celebrity Intern was happy with his jumbo-sized scallops, but was nevertheless a bit peeved that the waitress had promised 5 and he had only gotten 4. Despite the mixing of savory and sweet (the mango chutney sauce), he enjoyed the dish and studiously avoided the couscous carbs.

Dessert was meant to be a Peach Cobbler, but I sneakily asked for a substitution and got the Aztec Brownie instead. The waitress did warn me that they kept on changing the recipe, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for the enormity of the brownie presented, nor the overwhelming volcano of cherry coulis. Drizzled? This thing was drenched!

As the table behind us, full up with Old Money jackholes, began tossing out nonsensical topics of conversation such as “Obamacare is going to ruin us all,” and “Why haven’t they impeached that n***** yet?”, we decided to retire to our cabin both to avoid stabbing them in the eyes with our forks and to prevent our own deaths by chocolate. We paid the bill (after gift certificate and including a tip, totalling $20) and brought the brownie with us for later consumption.

Waco Cabin, exterior (photo by Celebrity Intern)

Despite clueless, small-town nincompoops and their racist remarks, the dinner was quite delightful, and if I ever have a couple hundred bucks collecting dust in my account, I’d definitely return. The Inn and restaurant overlook the nearby Cibolo Creek, and when we checked out the next day, we saw staff setting up for what appeared to be a wedding party. Definitely a sweet place to retreat after your big day, and the St. John’s Suite is even described in hotel literature as perfect for honeymooners.

All in all, I’d recommend both Ye Kendall Inn and their Limestone Grille to anyone in the Boerne/San Antonio area needing a little getaway. Guest rooms don’t come cheap, starting at $109 a night, but if you’re in the mood for a romantic getaway, this would be a great place for it. Heck, we didn’t even get a chance to try out their Texas-sized hot tub, but that right there is reason enough to hit up this historic inn.

Texas-sized hot tub at Ye Kendall Inn

1. Get good beef. What does this mean? Don’t buy the non-specified mystery meat; if they don’t tell you it’s ground round or ground chuck, you’re getting lips & assholes. Buy the good stuff: Angus beef (at least here in Texas) doesn’t cost that much more, and it’s so worth it.
2. Baby your beef. Don’t handle the meat too much when you’re actually forming the burgers into patties. Pat it into a roughly rounded shape, but don’t try to make it perfect. The more you handle the meat, the more moisture you press out of it, and the more dry your burger will be.
3. Searing-hot pan. Make sure your pan is hot and ready to go before you put your patties in. It should be hot enough that when you put in a pat of butter, the butter will melt but not turn brown before you put in the beef. (And yes, you are using butter to grease your pan. None of this Pam or margarine or olive oil horseshit. BUTTER!)
4. Set it and forget it. Put in your patties and leave them be. Do not slide them around, press down on them, or otherwise meddle with the beef once it is in the pan. Let them brown for between 4 and 5 minutes before you flip them over. Do not mash them down once you’ve flipped them! Just let them do their thing. This is the secret to moist, delicious burgers.
5. Use a thermometer. You’ll know your burgers are ready based on their inner temperature. Insert a meat thermometer and take your burgers off the heat when they’re around 130 degrees F. (Don’t worry; although most recipes will tell you to cook ground beef to 165 degrees, we’ve been eating these regularly with no ill effects, mostly since they’ll eventually get that hot even without the help of the stove. You may want to abstain, however, if you’re knocked-up—just to be on the safe side.)
6. Cheese and cover. Put your bleu cheese on top of the burgers, which are still resting comfortably in the pan, and then cover the pan with a lid. Let the burgers sit, cheese slowly melting, for at least 5 minutes before plating them up. Use a good quality bleu cheese; we like the Salemville Amish Blue Cheese (available at Randall’s), which has been aged for 60 days. Delish!

Those are the basic steps to great burgers, even if you’re not big on the bleu cheese idea. But if you are, let us also recommend additional toppings (which you really MUST do) of bacon strips (easy to make in the microwave!), some romaine lettuce, and a bit of mashed avocado. Pure decadence, pure bliss.

Wine pairing: a delicious ($5) Chilean wine, the Frontera Carmenere, tastes fabulous with this bleu cheeseburger. Yum!

There should obviously be a tasty and succulent photo of our burgers here, but we were salivating too much to take pictures and gobbled them up before a photo shoot could be arranged! We’ll try to get one eventually, but no guarantees.

I grew up watching Jeff Smith’s Frugal Gourmet program on PBS, so I knew from previous exposure that the book was going to be a good bet, but I never realized how truly awesome some of the dishes really are until I actually started cooking them at home. After all, anything can look great on TV when a professional is doing the cooking, but how will those same dishes stand up to the test in a not-so-tricked-out home kitchen?

As a home cook, I’m a big fan of recipes that involve minimal specialty ingredients, as well as anything that will have multiple servings I can freeze and reheat in the future. The recipe below for Chicken and Chickpea Stew from the “Spain” section fulfills both of my requirements, and as an added bonus it can be made on a weeknight if you make some of our quick ‘n’ easy substitutions. Check this out:

Shoestring Austin’s Simplified Chicken & Chickpea Stew
(based on a recipe from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine)

Ingredients:

• 2 cans chickpeas, drained
• 3 T. olive oil
• all the meat from a store-bought rotisserie chicken, torn up into bite-sized pieces
• 1 slice whole wheat bread
• 1 large yellow onion, peeled and sliced
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
• 1 slice bacon
• 2 c. chicken stock (preferably from a can or carton, rather than made from the bouillion cubes)
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
• 1/2 c. dry sherry

Directions:

1. Heat a large frying pan and add the oil. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides and remove from the pan.
2. Fry the slice of bread in the remaining oil. Remove it and set aside.
3. In the same pan, sauté the onion, tomatoes and bacon. Cook until the onions are clear.
4. Place these veggies into a big (6-quart) lidded Dutch oven, and add the chicken pieces and chickpeas.
5. Deglaze the frying pan with a bit of the broth (i.e. pour in some of the broth and scrape any browned bits off the bottom of the pan). Add the pan drippings and all the stock to the pot, along with bay leaf, salt and pepper.
6. Cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the chicken is tender. (The original recipe required about 45 minutes, since you only browned the otherwise uncooked chicken, but since you’ve just browned pre-cooked chicken, this shouldn’t take as long; probably 10-15 minutes).
7. In the meantime, crush the garlic into a small bowl. Break up the fried bread and add to the garlic, along with the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs. Mash the mixture with 1 T. of the sherry, creating a garlic/egg yolk paste.
8. Chop the white of the eggs.
9. When the chicken has been simmering for 10-15 minutes, add the garlic paste, chopped egg whites, and remaining sherry.
10. Stir the pot carefully and simmer for another 10 minutes and you’re done!

The Frugal Gourmet recommends enjoying this dish with a light red Rioja wine on the side, which sounds great to me. I’ve made this dish the “long” way, with a full chicken, and even that doesn’t really take too much prep time. You just have to keep an eye on the simmering pot and stir it every once in a while, since it’s on the stove for 45 minutes. If you’ve got the extra time, I’d definitely give it a try that way to see how you like it, but our weeknight version with the pre-cooked chicken will shave off quite a bit of cooking time, getting your meal on the table faster, and will still give you a lot of the original recipe’s great chicken stew flavors. This is a great wintertime dish to warm you up, and if you like you can serve it over rice as well. Enjoy!