Blue Cheese Dressing, BJ's Brewhouse, Chef Josephs, The Lockerbie...

We've had a couple of really fun cooking adventures recently.  Actually, I've had more than Connie.  He played bridge while my friend, Stacy, and I fixed a German meal.  But, that's not what came first.  The truffle came first. 

It'd been another of those killer weeks.  Monday I was sick.  Like come home from the office at 10:30 and go to bed sick.  Tuesday I had to feel better since I was teaching a Social Security class in the evening.  By the time everyone left the office about 9pm I was ready to collapse.  Fortunately, we'd taken along Cobb salad fixings so we'd had a good dinner before class.  I'd used my favorite blue cheese dressing which I discovered, much to my consternation, was not on here.  Now, we first made this in 2006 long before I'd thought about blogging.  Consequently, there's an image of a recipe with no attribution.  And a REALLY old photo...  So, here it goes:

Blue Cheese Dressing

Ingredients:
2/3 c crumbled blue cheese
1/3 c sour cream
2 T mayonnaise
1 T milk
1/2 t Worcestershire
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 t ground mustard
1/4 t garlic powder

Directions:

The original recipe calls for whirring all of the above in a food processor.  I prefer to take about 1/4 c of the blue cheese and hold it out so I get nice, chunky dressing.  I also tend to double/triple the ground mustard, Worcestershire and garlic.  This is so easy to make and so much better than the jarred/bottled stuff!!!

Back to our adventures...

Wednesday it was time to meet our friends Pete and Shirley for dinner.  Pete had decreed that he wanted us to try his favorite brew pub - BJ's Brewhouse.  Neither of us was excited.  It's a chain, after all.  And, it's in a mall.  But, it was Pete's turn to choose so we showed up at the appointed hour.  Were we ever wrong!!!  We had about the best mac and cheese ever.  A little chipotle and bacon and a perfect sauce. 

And, the pulled pork sandwich was almost as good.  That's turkey club in front of the pulled pork.  It was good but not worthy of a special trip. 

Let me tell you, if there's time that mac and cheese is going to be lunch when I'm in my Greenwood office!

Thursday was a wine dinner at Chef Joseph's.  We got to sit with our friends, Steve and Colleen so had a lively conversation and great time.  Joseph did his usual amazing dishes.  The most incredible was dessert.  Goat cheese flan with lemon and pink peppercorns.  Yeah, it was beautiful and tasted amazing.  The evening was also a fund raiser for Little Red Door.  They offer loads of services for cancer patients.  We wound up with tickets to Theatre on the Square and a gift basket of wine and beer to go along with some beer signs and such. 

Friday night after work we headed downtown to Goose the Market to pick up our truffle.  We splurged and spent $23 on a fresh truffle.  Home it came.  Wrapped in a paper towel in a sealed container.  We opened it and took photos and sniffed. 

Didn't smell much like truffle.  So, I shaved off a little piece.  Kind of like eating a little nibble of wood.  Not much flavor and very dry.  Hmmm, maybe it'd be better cooked...  So we made steaks with a cognac/truffle sauce and mushroom risotto with shaved truffle on top.  Again, not much truffle flavor.

 

 

 

So, we tried again Saturday evening and made truffled scallops and crabmeat over butter lettuce and roasted beets.  This time I put truffle oil and the dressing and viola we had truffle flavor.

Sunday we were meeting Chef Joseph and his partner, Juan, for lunch at the Lockerbie Pub.  Time for some pub grub.  Here are two photos from a couple of months ago when we flew by the Lockerbie and picked up tenderloins to go:

I took along what was left of the truffle along and handed it to Joseph.  Was it good?  Well, this time of year they are hard as rocks, he said.  If you want to get some real flavor out of it, soak it in some brandy.  Ok, now I know. 

Sunday evening we were both still stuffed from our pork tenderloin sandwiches.  I put some short ribs from Goose in the dutch oven and let them simmer away.  I'd planned to make truffled mac and cheese but decided plain old smashed potatoes would be better.  We nibbled at the short ribs and left most of it for lunch later in the week.  That's ok.  It'll reheat REALLY well.  And, with the leftover hangar steak for another lunch and the leftover sauerbraten for yet another, we'll be having some fabulous lunches!

It looks like I'm running out of time and creating a monster post before even talking about our German feast  So, let me say to be continued...

Clean Out the Freezer for Two

We're trying to clean out the freezer so there's room for all the party food the first week of January. Gads, it's only a month away! Tonight I decided it was time to finish one of the last of the pork tenderloins. They'd been marinated in soy sauce, bourbon and brown sugar then grilled. I made the spicy cranberry sauce and warmed the tenderloins up in that. Then, made some couscous and tossed in a handful of dried cranberries as it was cooking. Alongside, I served broccoli with sesame seeds. That was fabulous. Absolutely a five! We gave the cranberry sauce and couscous a four. It was really good too, but could've used a bit more ginger flavor. Next time I'll try adding a bit of ground ginger.

Spicy Cranberry Sauce

One can jellied cranberry sauce
1 T country Dijon mustard
2 t soy sauce
1 T brown sugar
2 T finely minced crystallized ginger

Melt the cranberry sauce in a saucepan and add the other ingredients.



Roasted Broccoli with Sesame Seeds
Preheat oven to 450. Separate broccoli into florets. Put them in a baking dish that’s large enough to accommodate them without being crowded. Drizzle broccoli with olive oil. Roast until browned – about 20 minutes. Toss with a drizzle of soy sauce, a small splash of lemon juice and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.

About a week ago I made some risotto. Trying to clean out the massive quantities of homemade chicken stock in the freezer... Since John Marvel doesn't get mushrooms at home and he was going to get to share the risotto, that was the flavoring. Now, risotto is one of those things I didn't even have until a few years ago. I loved it at first bite. It sounds pretty intimidating to make but is really quite easy. And, you can pretty much put in anything as long as you've got the wine, stock and onion.

Mushroom Risotto

Heat 5 cups of good quality chicken stock. Saute 8 oz of mixed mushrooms (button, cremini, shitake...) in 3T of unsalted butter. Set them aside. Saute one small onion, diced, in 2 T butter and 1T olive oil. Add 1 1/2 c Arborio rice and stir until slightly golden. Add 1/2 c dry white wine. Once it's absorbed, add the stock 1/2 c at a time, stirring frequently. Once the rice is creamy and the stock has been absorbed, add 1/2 c grated romano cheese, about 2t of white truffle oil (optional,) salt and pepper and the reserved mushrooms. Serve with more grated romano.