Our Next Attempt

I follow this guy on Facebook.  His latest post was the stuff dreams are made of.  Hoping to try this when all the kids are home this month. BTW, I think the name (Fatty) is what we will turn into eating this stuff. 


http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/145925/my-take-on-a-surf-and-turf-fatty-pic-heavy

A bit o' the Irish

Kathryn was unpacking and found her Irish Coffee mugs and said we should do Irish Coffee.  So she went to the liquor store and the guy there steered her toward the Jameson's Irish whiskey.  Said it was smooth and versatile.  I said we should have an Irish dinner and make it a theme night, so we decided on loaded baked potatoes and Irish beer.

Went to Fred Meyer to get some beer and the guy stocking the shelves asked what we needed and then spent 10 minutes or so looking for Irish beer and making suggestions. Finally settled on Killians, even though I was skeptical about a red.

It was hot and we didn't want to heat up her house, so we googled how to bake potatoes on the BBQ and found this link:

http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/potatoes/baked_potatoes.html

We thought were wouldn't want to wait 90 minutes to eat, so we cooked them for 5 minutes in the microwave first, as he suggested to save time.  We then changed out her kitchen faucet and it took us 90 minutes, so the potatoes were slightly overdone but still a perfect baked potato - creamy on the inside and crispy chewy skin.  We cooked up some dead mushrooms I had, some bacon and added cheddar, chives and sour cream.

 

Ate it on her front porch - perfect!  Then it was time for Irish Coffee.  She put in coffee, a half tablespoon of brown sugar and a jigger of the Jameson's.  Topped it off with whipped cream sweetened with a little powdered sugar and salted caramel vodka.  She even heated the glasses as directed.  It tasted so good, we had to have a second.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/follow-that-food/original-irish-coffee-recipe/index.html

 

I think I could get used to theme nights......

Ninja Pig

Went to LaVelle to pick up my wine shipments.  Yummmm.  Chardonnay and their Trilogy blend.  Ended up getting a bottle of Pinot Gris to drink, though.  It was hot out and the Gris was light and refreshing.  The food cart that was there was this funky old VW bus that said they served tacos, which sounded delish.

 

 

The tacos on the menu were odd, though.  Scallops with strawberries and basil, melon with something weird, so I decided to get the Ninja Pig sandwich.  Roasted pork with hoison BBQ sauce and kimchi slaw.

 

 



 Very messy, falling apart deliciousness!   They had music there - one guy on a guitar who was singing.  Mellow, not too loud, wide variety of songs.  Jerry Zybach.  I would definitely go to listen to him again.

Sauce!
In doing baby back ribs try Sweet Baby Rays Hickory and Brown sugar sauce. I have a batch marinating and will cook them up tomorrow. The sauce tastes great (so far) and I don't like BBQ sauce as a general rule.
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Baby Back Ribs

I've been wanting to make ribs for quite some time now, and since having some at Dad's house awhile back, (Curly's pre-cooked and sauced - available at Costco - Delish) I thought I would run to Costco and get some for dinner tonight.  Well, I was babysitting Annie and needed to go to the grocery store, too, so I didn't want to push it by going to Costco as well, so I just picked up some baby back ribs. 

Got home and found this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baby-back-ribs/

I followed the suggestions of a few of the reviewers and cooked them for 4 hours at 225 and opened up the foil the last half hour and sauced them again.  I then turned on the broiler for about 8 minutes.

They turned out tender and falling off the bone.  Delish!

Crepes

Last night we made crepes for Kathryn's birthday.  I found the crepe recipe here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?recipeID=16383&origin=detail&servings=4&metric=false

Jerod took over the cooking of them and did an excellent job.  We wanted chicken and asparagus, and I found this recipe for the filling:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_535720_RECIPE-PRINT-FULL-PAGE-FORMATTER,00.html

We added mushrooms because they are delicious, and used chives and parsley for the herbs.  I grabbed a can of beef broth rather than chicken by mistake, but used it anyway, and we kind of liked the added heartiness.  I think the sauce was a little thin, and will probably use cornstarch to thicken next time.

 

 

We doubled the recipe and it made this pan plus an 8 x 8.  We had some filling left over, so I froze it.  I think it will be excellent baked with ziti.

 



For dessert we made chocolate crepes filled with berries and whipped cream sweetened with some salted caramel vodka.  I found the recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_8544_RECIPE-PRINT-FULL-PAGE-FORMATTER,00.html

I thought the crepes were a little flabby and would have preferred a little drier, cakier texture, but they were wonderful none the less.

 

Banana Rum Cake

I was about to leave to go camping last week when I realized I had two bananas that wouldn't make it through the weekend in my 80 degree apartment. So I knew I had to use them or freeze them. Since I was off to a weekend of eating and drinking, I figured I would combine the two and make a banana rum cake. I've made rum cake before and had mixed results depending on the recipe, but this one turned out really good.

I took the recipe from http://www.food.com/recipe/bahama-mama-banana-rum-cake-373477, but I used a combination of butter and margarine since I was out of butter, and I didn't quite use the amount of rum it called for (I ran out, not an hour after I got back from BevMo!). I used my silicon bundt cake pan, which I'm pretty sure was bigger than the pan they called for, and it made a TON of cake! I still have over half of it left. I was also too lazy to put the glaze on correctly, so I just poked a bunch of holes in the bottom of the cake and slowly poured the glaze over the bottom, letting it soak in overnight.

It's kind of ugly in the picture, but I didn't remember to take one until I had already cut it into quarters to put in the bags to take with me.

The cake turned out to be delicious, with some really rummy areas, and some that tasted like banana bread. It was really rich, but had the bite from the rum to tone it down a little. And I did get the sugary crust it was supposed to have, but on the bottom of the cake, which was fine since we were just grabbing chunks out of a Ziplock bag anyways.

I might just have this for dessert tonight before I freeze the rest of it, with a little glass of Zaya rum on the side. Yummm...

Ruby River Steakhouse

On the 4th of July, we were in Reno and wanted somewhere special and delicious to go to dinner with Brandon and Roni, since it was their anniversary.   We had tried Ruby River Steakhouse when we were there before and like it, so we took everyone.  Delish!!

Two things stood out for me - the lemon half that was served with my halibut was in a cute little wrapper that kept the seeds from getting on my fish. 

The other really cool thing was their "jacketed" potatoes.  Basically I took that to mean they baked it, then battered and deep fried.  Yum!





 

And it came in a sweet potato version.  Who knew you could eat sweet potato skin?

Ruby River is a Utah chain with only a few restaurants.  Should you run across one, definitely consider eating there.