Be My Valentine 2012 Parts 1 and 2

Valentines on a Tuesday called for something special and easy! How about Panko encrusted, Rack of Lamb! I coated the rack with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic, then coated it all with panko. I cooked it on the grill. Meanwhile, I had oven roasted potato slices in the oven, along with Barb's oven roasted asparagus. By the time we finished dinner, it was around 8:30 so we watched a little TV to digest. Barb was wiped out and fell asleep in no time!

For Saturday, we decided to do a Valentines do-over! For menu planning, we borrowed heavily from Ron Carter's Valentine's menu:

• Caramelized Shallot Mashed Potatoes Recipe
• Beef with Cognac Sauce Recipe
• Dessert, we picked out 3 Women and an Oven Babycakes we went with their Kahlua cake!

For the beef, I bought Ribeyes  at Costco and did them in my cast iron skillet. The smell of these bad boys cooking was awesome.

The meal was fabulous!!!!

Beef on Weck - Buffalo Night

Laura and Scott were craving Beef on Weck - the other Buffalo tradition. Beef on Weck is short for Beef on a Kummelweck roll. The Kummelweck roll is basically a Kaiser roller with caraway seeds and kosher salt. I made the rolls from scratch and found some great instructions from King Arthur flour to help me shape the rolls. For the roast, I used a top sirloin, cooking it low and slow. I rounded out the meal with Barb's German potato salad. To wash it all down, Boulevard Brewing seasonal Bob's 47 brew. Delicious!

Beard on Pasta

A few weeks ago the usual crew, (Laura, Scott, Barb and I) plus Megan, went to Lawrence to check out the new Oread Hotel, which was very cool with great views from their 9th floor terrace bar.

For dinner we dined at Genovese  and I had their Pappardelle with Italian Sausage, Chilli Flakes, Garlic, Parsley & Tomato Sauce. It was a pretty good dish and I loved the pasta type.

Fast forward and last Saturday I made my tomato sauce and pasta dough. For the dough I use a recipe from James Beard's, Beard on Pasta. It's his basic egg pasta recipe:

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

This recipe serves 3 for a main course so I ended up doubling the recipe. I pulled a trick out of my bread dough making bag, that is allowing the dough to rest for about 5-7 minutes between kneading. So I mixed the dough on a cutting board by forming a well in the center of the flour/salt mixture and adding the eggs to the well, then beat the eggs with one hand while shoring up the well with the other hand. Once the eggs were mixed, I worked the flour into the eggs and eventually formed a ball. I kneaded the ball for 5 or so minutes until it got really stiff, then covered it and let it rest. I repeated this for 3 cycles and then put the dough to rest in the fridge for 2 hours. The final dough rolled out beautifully.

Chicken Spedini with Lemon Sauce

Here is another one of those family favorites and with some upfront planning can be easily prepared for a tasty week night meal. It won't show in the pictures, but it was about 15 degrees outside while I was grilling. I was hoping to capture the steam rising off the dish but it was too fast of an exposure.

Key West Grilled Chicken Pineapple

Here is one of those tasty and quick meals you can fix during the week. It was good to fire up the gas grill and shake off the recent cold temperatures. We got this recipe from a bag of cane sugar, Florida Crystals. Check out their web site for additional recipes. Just for the heck of it, I added a slice of cheese too.

Key West Grilled Chicken & PineappleServes 3 to 4
1 cup lime juice
¼ cup vegetable oil
6 tablespoons of sugar* 1 teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons for fresh chopped cilantro
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 small fresh pineapple or can of slices


Using a portion of the marinade, marinate 8 pineapple wedges.
Using the rest of the marinade, marinate the chicken. I use zip-lock bags for each.
Marinate each for 6 hours or so.
Grill the chicken breasts and grill the pineapple so they are ready with the chicken

*Recipe is from Florida Crystals Demerara Cane Sugar package so they would prefer you use demerara cane sugar, but not necessary!

Bon Appétit Julia

Finally, we (Barb mostly) made Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon (Recipe). We cooked this the night before and let the flavors mingle overnight. Oh it was tasty! We used a chuck roast from Costco, trimming it up pretty good and cutting it into 2 inch chunks.

Jordan joined us and I told him when he arrived he'd better have on his eating shoes! To ensure my appetite was fully ready, I managed to ride 22 miles on the bike and with the air temparure around 34 degrees, I was really in the mood for some comfort food.

I made a loaf of "no knead" bread, Barb made her chop-chop sald, and steamed green beans to round out the meal. For the wine, we went with Windmill 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel.

This meal capped off a great weekend and you could sure taste the love that went into this dish.

Winter Thaw in Florida

Kansas City has seen more snow and cold temperature than it has in a very long time. Needless to say, Barb and I were ready for our trip to Florida to visit our friends Shelley and John. Fortunately the cold snap that had turned the Florida oranges into popsicles had passed by the time we arrived on the scene. The primary focus of the trip was golf, but of course we had some great eats as well.

John and I started the weekend off right with some pizza and cold Labatt’s from Pizza Di Casa. It’s great to have a little slice of Buffalo right there in Florida.

Grouper, grouper, grouper! I love grouper. I had it two nights in a row. My first grouper dish was at the Riverhouse Reef & Grill. It was grilled with their Lemon Dill Aioli sauce on the side.

Next up was Grouper Oscar at the Beachhouse Restaurant. It’s grouper stuffed with jumbo lump crab & baked, and topped with béarnaise sauce & asparagus. Besides watching the sunset as we dined outside, the highlight of the meal was watching John take a stone crab shower. Perhaps he should have requested a bib! Sorry John, it was hysterical!

Custard, custard, custard! I love custard. The one stop we had to make (okay twice) was to Sweet Berries. All four us agree that our favorite flavor is the Black MacBerry, vanilla custard with blackberries and macadamia nuts. On our second visit, I branched out and tried the Caramel Crunch, vanilla custard, caramel, and heath bar. It was tasty but not in the same league as Black MacBerry. As a bonus a barbershop vocal harmony group gave us an impromptu song on their way out the door, making Sweet Berries all the more sweeter.