Joe’s Food Truck Hwy 1 South, right side, in parking lot of Bait and Tackle Shop, Florida City

I hadn’t intended for this to be a “food-heavy” week of posts. However, things go their own way occasionally and so it was today. I had an event this afternoon and errands to run prior to that, one of which was to go get fresh fish for dinner tonight. While I was hoping for filets, there was the chance it would be whole fish instead since hubby said he was in the mood to prepare them. Okay, there are two food trucks at the place where I was going to get the fish and hubby said he had been hearing good things about Joe’s Burgers. We’d talked about stopping by a couple of times, but there is only the single picnic table in the sun and unless you’re doing take-out or dining in your car, it’s a bit awkward. Today, however, I was planning to buy the fish right at lunchtime and I said that if Joe’s wasn’t too crowded, I would bring burgers home.

In a word – excellent! The burgers were thick, flavorful, and juicy, and the French Fries are fresh cut – not thin and crispy though. I have no doubt that their other sandwiches, wings, and hot dogs are good and they do, indeed, serve gator bites and a gator Po-boy. Joe, very personable, was originally from Ohio, but has been in South Florida since 1986. He was laid off along with most of the other employees he worked with and in October 2012 he decided to try his hand with the food truck – Joe’s Famous Hot Dogs, Burgers, and More. He gets a chance to talk to people from all over the country as well as foreign visitors as they pause on the way down to the Keys or local folks who know about him. His grandson was with him today helping out, learning the business that he seems to have great interest in.

Joe’s bright red food truck is in the parking lot of the Bait and Tackle store next to Race Track in Florida City right before you hit “the stretch” on the way to Key Largo. His phone number is 305 588-2282 and you can find him on Facebook.

Menu Board at Joe’s Famous Hot Dogs. Burgers, and More

One of the many great things about my husband is that we cook together. He has certain specialties and I have mine and no, I never touch the grill. I don’t even know how to turn it on. That has less to do with gender-typing than it has to do with he’s great at it, so why should I bother? Prior to that, I confess that it just wasn’t something I cared that much about. I do, however, admire women who have mastered the technique. I am only sort of straying from the point. Hubby was a bachelor for quite some time and in the days when he would be invited to those bring-a-dish-gatherings, he didn’t want to be the “typical” bachelor who brought a bag of chips and store-bought dip. So, he has this terrific and really simple hearty chili-cheese dip that he would take. It’s always popular for our parties and several people wanted the recipe.

One can of any type chili, although we use Hormel Turkey Chili with beans; one small can of chopped chilies; one small box of 2% Velveeta Cheese; 1 teaspoon of spice mix like Emeril’s Essence.

Cut the Velveeta into cubes, add in chili, chilies, spice mix and put in slow cooker on high for approximately two hours. At about an hour, stir and stir again after 30 minutes. Once the cheese is melted and blended, stir and turn to low or warm if you have that setting. It will last for hours on this setting, although you do have to stir every half-hour and it will thicken the longer it cooks. Serve with corn chips.

The nice thing about this aside from the taste is that you can go vegetarian if you want to and you can add hot sauce or red pepper to increase the heat if you have that kind of crowd.

Paella and Rioja as a Pairing

Hubby and I have actually made paella from scratch occasionally, although we don’t have the cool specialty pan for it. More often though we use the mix and oddly enough, the store didn’t have either the Goya or Vigo brands that we like. Not that I don’t have faith in McCormick – we just prefer the idea of a Puerto Rican or Spanish brand. We do have a friend who is a paella expert and would probably cringe at the thought of a box. He has multiple size pans and if I remember correctly, he once did a paella party for sixty people.

The idea of this dish though got me to thinking of the Cajun version which is jambalaya, the similarity of risotto where you can use it as a side or main dish, and I’m not certain of which other cuisines have the same type of dish. We usually prepare paella with chorizo, chicken, and shrimp, but we vary that depending on if we have leftover grilled pork for example, picked up an extra lobster tail, or I tell my husband to go ahead and add mussels or clams that I can pick out. Both the Goya and Vigo mixes come with a can of seafood that I refer to as “yucky”, since it has chunks of clam, calamari, and octopus as well as tiny shrimp. He will often set that can aside and save it for one of the times when I am gone, thereby having double the amount of what he likes and I don’t have to deal with it.

As you can see from the photo, we’ll have a Spanish Rioja with the dish, a wine that we find as a good pairing.