Sadie

Part of this blog is meant to be dedicated to Sadie, since she is the love of our life! Here is a cute picture of her watching me, waiting for permission to play in the backyard. We are truly lucky to have such a great puppy girl!

Asparagus Risotto with Mahi-mahi

We have been on such a risotto kick! It's one of those dishes that is pretty expensive at a restaurant, but pretty near dirt cheap when you cook it at home! This time we decided to make a slight twist to the usual risotto we make, and add asparagus as a flavor.

For the risotto:
Start by cooking 4 slices of bacon, cut into lardon strips. When the bacon is fully cooked, take out and set aside. Add 2 small chopped onions into the rendered bacon fat and cook until tender (10 minutes or so). Meanwhile in a roasting pan, roast 1 bunch of asparagus (with the ends cut off, but save those)and 3 cloves of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and season with grey salt and pepper. Roast veggies for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Back to the rice, once onions are cooked, add 1 cup of risotto rice and stir for one minute. Next, add one cup of dry white wine. In a separate sauce pan, heat 8 cups of chicken broth. Add the removed ends of the asparagus to flavor the broth. Cook risotto until cooked through, adding 1/2 cup of liquid at a time and stirring until it is absorbed. Once asparagus and garlic is cooked, take them out of the oven, and chop half of the asparagus and add to a blender along with the roasted garlic. In addition to the asparagus, add 1 tablespoon each of parsley, basil, mint, and chived the blender as well. Add a small amount of broth to the blender and then puree. You want asparagus puree to be thick and not too liquidly. Once risotto is cooked through, add puree and 1/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Stir to combine. Serve in a bowl with remaining roasted asparagus, bacon lardons, and additional parmesan cheese.

Mahi-mahi:

Place a 1 pound filet of mahi-mahi to a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Squeeze the juice of a lemon over fish and season with grey salt and pepper. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 15-20 minute or until just cooked through. Just before serving put 1 tablespoon of butter on filet and serve with chopped parsley.

The week of salads, Sunday edition

So like everyone else, we're trying to lose weight in the new year. Vacation and Chrsitmas are not always friendly to the old scale! So in an effort to eat better (healthier and more organic/non-processed ingredients), we are making it a goal to have a different type of salad every night this week.

Sunday night-

On a plate, slice a couple of heirloom tomatoes, alternating colors. Next, top with crumbled blue cheese (we used Maytag, yum!), chopped basil, red wine vineagar, extra virgin olive oil, and cracked pepper. Since it was a smaller salad, we splurged and got really high quality ingredients. It was really delicious :)

Recipe Throwdown: Chicken Milanese

One of my favorite dishes in the world is the Chicken Milanese from Epicure in Sarasota. They do such a great job with simple and delicious ingredients. Since we're trying to be better about eating out, we decided to take on this recipe at home.
We started with chicken breast (boneless, skinless) from Whole Foods and pounded them thin. Next, I did the traditional three-part dredging process before frying (flour-egg-breadcrumbs), and then fried them in about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. On top we served it with arugular, heirloom cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Our's was really good, but Epicure still might have the edge...

NYE dinner update

Here are some pictures from our amazing dinner last night.

For the steak...let the steaks get the "chill off" and put them on a plate with oil, salt, and pepper for about 30 minutes or so before grilling. Every grill is different, but on our's it's about 5 minutes per side for medium rare. Meanwhile, let butter come to room temperature. Once it is softened, mix 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of blue cheese and mix together using the back of a fork. When steak comes off of the grill, immediately top with the blue cheese butter (but let sit for at least 10 minutes before serving, so you don't lose all the juices).

For the mushroom risotto. Cook 4 slices of bacon, cut into strips (we used these same lardons for the salad) in a large pot. When bacon is cooked and fat is rendered, take bacon out and add in 2 small (or 1 large) diced onion. Cook until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped, fresh thyme (or 1 tablespoon dried thyme). Add 1 cup aborrio rice and stir into onion mixture for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of red wine (we used cabernet) and cook for about 5 minutes, or until most of the wine is reduced down. Now comes the fun part, the adding and stirring for about 30 minutes. Add 1 ladle of beef stock about every 5 minutes or so, or until liquid is absorbed by rice. Continue doing so until rice is cooked (it took us about 35 minutes). Just make sure the liquid you're adding is hot (not boiling, but hot). In the meantime, saute whatever mushrooms you like in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and salt and peppper. Cook until mushrooms are softened and carmelized. To finish, add 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese, 3 tablespoons chopped chives, and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme to the risotto. Serve with mushrooms mixed in or on top. Enjoy!!

Recipe throwdown...frisee salad

Last night for NYE dinner we wanted to re-create a salad we had in Savannah at Circa. It is a classic French dish, but we added a slight twist to our's. First thing we did was toss 2 cups of frisee lettuce (sometimes they don't have it at Publix, we got it at Whole Foods) in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Next we put them on a hot grill and grilled them for about 1 minute, until slightly charred and wilted. Meanwhile we made a salad dressing of parmesan cheese, mustard, mayo, white balsamic vineagar, lemon juice, and olive oil. We also cooked lardons (or little strips of bacon) until just crispy. Once the lettuce was cooked we assembled and enjoyed. We may be biased, but both Ryan and I agreed that our salad was the better!

New Year's Eve...

So every New Year's Eve there is the great debate...to go out, or to not go out. We decided to stay in. Who needs to go out when there's delicious food, drink, love, and Sadie at home?

On the menu tonight...

Veuve (sipping Clicquot haha)
Grilled frisee with lardons
Grilled rib eye/strip steak with blue cheese butter
Wild mushroom risotto
Individual apple tartlettes

**pictures and recipes to come!

Happy 2011 everyone!