Monthly Archives: June 2013

Weekly Menu — 6/08/2013

Posted on by

Week of June 8th

Saturday:

Tonight is our Supper Club and we are playing host and hostess. The theme: All American BBQ. My husband and I are providing cocktails, burgers and dessert. Our guests will surprise us with the rest. Trust me, if you are the burger-type (hell, even if you aren’t — like me), you will adore these babies. The combination of caramelized onions, blue cheese and spicy mayo is outstanding.

——————————————-

Sunday:

——————————————-

Monday:
  • Farmer’s Market fish (whatever looks good)
  • Roasted or grilled Farmer’s Market vegetables

——————————————-

Tuesday:
  • Leftover andouille burgers 
  • Green salad

——————————————-

Wednesday:

——————————————-

Thursday:
  • Leftover saffron-crusted chicken
  • Simple green salad

——————————————-

Friday:
  • Something very light & super quick. We are teaching and performing at a pre-wedding rehearsal dinner dance party tonight. Not only do we need to rush over to the event after work, but I’ll need to don a slinky dance outfit and remain light on my feet. I wouldn’t want my dear husband to tip over. 

Husband To The Rescue

Posted on by

Poaching eggs in blisteringly hot, spitting oil is the kind of thing that seems like a fabulous idea, until it isn’t.  All sorts of things can happen, it seems, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll escape without experiencing a shower of flaming hot oil. There’s also a very good chance that:

A: your smoke detector will start shrieking, sending your kitties into a wild-eyed, freakish sprint back and forth across your hardwood floors

B: your hot oil will go up in flames, potentially searing off your carefully waxed eyebrows (thankfully I avoided this)

C: your kitchen will be covered in big fat goblets of greasy oil. These fatty goblets will continue to appear for days afterward in the most unlikely places. Sometimes with bits of egg attached.

D: if you are lucky enough to end up with one good egg, it will get cold and mushy while you are trying to tackle the second egg.

Spitting Oil & Egg Mishap

Spitting Oil & Egg Mishap

Actually, my first egg did taste heavenly — crunchy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside — but the mess and the burns really didn’t make up for it (at least not on a work night). Perhaps I will attempt the dish again on a weekend when I have more time and patience. Thankfully, my husband and go-to breakfast cook whipped up his famous fried eggs for us instead, which we plopped over plates of prosciutto drizzled with olive oil. Paired with a caprese salad, dinner was saved. Yeah for husband!

Caprese Salad

Caprese Salad

Fried Eggs Over Prosciutto

Fried Eggs Over Prosciutto

 

Risotto with Strawberries, Blue Cheese & Toasted Black Pepper

Posted on by

My husband and I both swooned over this risotto at Cinghiale last week. It was the kind of dish I just had to re-create at home, which is exactly what I did last night. Success! Wow was this ever delicious. I will be making this risotto every spring when the strawberries are perfect. I made it up as I went along, but I did manage to put together a basic recipe for future reference. See below:

Risotto with Blue Cheese, Strawberries & Black Pepper

Risotto with Blue Cheese, Strawberries & Black Pepper

Ingredients:

1 cup arborio or other risotto rice

1 cup dry white wine

3 to 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth (get this hot on the stove. It needs to be hot as you incorporate the liquid into the risotto)

1 cup or so of fresh, ripe strawberries, halved or quartered if large

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper (I used quite a bit, about 1/2 TBSP, as I love the combination of berries and black pepper, so you’ll have to play with the quantity).

Blue cheese (pick a soft type so that it melts seamlessly into the risotto. I used Point Reyes and it was outstanding, certainly a gorgonzola would also be delicious). I used about 3/4 of a cup, but would definitely go with a full cup next time as the blue cheese flavor was very light.

2 TBSP olive oil

1 TBSP unsalted butter

Fresh basil, chopped

Preparation:

Heat olive oil in large sauce pan over medium heat. Add plenty of freshly ground black pepper and stir, allowing the pepper to toast, about 2 to 3 minutes. Dump in all of the risotto rice and stir, allowing the rice to toast slightly, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the cup of white wine and stir until it evaporates. Immediately start adding the hot broth to the risotto 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until liquid is incorporated before adding additional broth. Keep adding the broth slowly and stirring the risotto until the grains become tender, creamy and al dente, about 20 minutes total. (You may not need all of the broth). Once risotto is done, lower the heat and stir in the butter until incorporated, then stir in  all of the blue cheese until melted and incorporated. Add salt and additional pepper to taste. Remove from heat and fold in most of the strawberries (save some to add on top of each bowl once plated). Scoop risotto onto plates, sprinkle with reserved strawberries and chopped fresh basil. Serves 4.

Monkey Turds, Meat & Whole Fish (not necessarily in that order)

Posted on by

Monkey turds aside, there is nothing like having out-of-town guests to make you fall even more in love with your home city. We played tour guide and tourist all weekend as we whisked around my visiting mother-in-law and her boyfriend in an attempt to charm her with Charm City.

So was she charmed? Hell if I know. But I certainly was.

MEAT

The weekend kicked off at Jack’s Bistro on Friday night for dinner and half-priced bottles of wine. Whoo hoo! The conversation went something like this:

Mother-in-law (MIL) “So, what do you recommend here?”

Me: “The Guinness-braised steak is probably the best steak I have ever had in my life.”

My Husband (MH): “Get the steak. It’s amazing. We come here for the steak.” (My dear husband has actually said he prefers this steak at Jack’s to the traditional bistecca Florentine we wolfed down in Italy — whhaaatttt????)

MIL: “Hmmm, maybe I’ll get the mussels or the duck. I wonder if they are any good? I wonder how they are prepared?”

MH: “Get the steak mom. It’s seriously good.”

Me: “I crave this steak once a week. We like to come here on Sundays for steak night. This steak is out of this world.”

MIL’s boyfriend: “Sold. I am getting the steak.”

MIL: “Hmmm. I wonder what I should get. Is there anything else you recommend?”

Me: “It’s hard to go wrong here, but it’s also hard for us to come and NOT order the steak. It is truly THAT GOOD.”

We went round and round like this for awhile. Ultimately, the three of us ordered the steak and swooned at the first bite. She, on the other hand, ordered the duck and then proceeded to frown at the poor waterfowl all evening. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the duck, she said, it was just that after sampling the steak, she just couldn’t believe how utterly delicious it was. It was by far “the best steak” she had ever tried. She wished she had ordered the steak. HELLO?

Moving on …

MONKEY TURDS

Saturday afternoon we ventured down to Lexington Market  to try what are supposed to be Baltimore’s most famous crab cakes at Faidleys Seafood Market (something that has been on my Charm City To-Do list for the entire 8 years we have lived here). Once again, we had my mother-in-law and her boyfriend in tow.

If you have never been to Lexington Market, please go. It is truly a slice of old school Baltimore and is jam-packed with family owned stalls selling everything from fried chicken parts and huge vats of fruit salad to raw oysters, whole fresh fish, deep-fried turkey necks and every type of baked good imaginable. Not to mention the numerous stalls of prepared foods such as sushi, gyros and, of course, crab cakes.

But I digress. We made our way to Faidleys and briefly contemplated the very short menu as we stood in line to place our orders. They offered 3 types of crab cakes: a basic cake at 4 bucks a pop, some sort of back-fin cake at around $8 or so and their “award-winning” jumbo lump at $13. It took us 8 years to get to Faidleys, my husband and I were each getting a jumbo lump. My mother-in-law’s boyfriend was getting the jumbo lump. What did my MIL choose? The $4 version. Of course she did.

The three of us tucked into these gorgeous cakes packed full of rich, delicate crab meat. My MIL, once again, frowned at her food. Four bucks bought her what looked exactly like a constipated monkey turd — small, round, crusty and hard.

“Get the jumbo,” we all said. “It’s on us. You will likely never be back again.”

Nope, she went with the monkey turd. One look at her crusty brown ball and that familiar sour, dour look on her face rapidly returned. Lucky for her, her boyfriend grudgingly gave her a few forkfuls of the good stuff as she certainly wasn’t getting anywhere near our plates without sustaining a plastic fork injury. So please, if you wish to try a Faidleys cake, trust me, spring for the famous version. You won’t be disappointed.

WHOLE FISH: 

After the crab cake adventure we picked up whole fresh red snapper to bring home for dinner. I stuffed each fish with fresh herbs and lemon slices, rubbed them down with olive oil and salt and my husband grilled them to perfection. Delicious! All in all, it was a fabulous weekend in Charm City, monkey turd incident included.

Whole Red Snapper

Whole Red Snapper