Breakfast in a glass.

Hey everyone, decided to use some of the frozen fruit that has been occupying space in the the freezer this morning so I opted for a smoothie type of concoction.Throw some ice, orange juice, protein powder and frozen berry mix in the blender and blast away. *POOF* Creamy frozen perfection!! Great for summer heat too, especially if it had a little vodka in it, but since its 9am, I will refrain for now. Enjoy!!

Brisket Round 2

Time for our second attempt at a brisket. We changed things up a little this time. We marinated it overnight in a different marinade and then put a nice dry rub on it before putting it in the roaster to slow cook on Sunday. We reduced the liquid marinade down into a barbecue sauce to put on the brisket when it was done cooking. It was extra smokey this time, YUM!

This piece of meat was about half the size of last time so it didn't take nearly as long to cook. I grilled up corn on the cob that had soaked overnight in sugar water, which may sound odd but once you've had it, you won't think so. Soak them, slap them on the grill and let them get some grill marks, mmm mmm mmm.

As the brisket got closer to being done, we sauteed yellow squash and zucchini in some olive oil and herbs de provence with some salt and pepper until they were translucent and soft. Then toasted a dark olive bread until it was nice and crispy.

This brisket was much better than the first. I think it was the extra smokiness, you can never have enough smoke taste. It had a drier texture without being dry. More of a sliced brisket than a fall apart roast that the last one seemed more like. Don't get me wrong they were both good, this one was just better.

I think we will be giving it one more try before the 4th of July to lock down any little changes we need to make, stay tuned!! Thanks for reading. Hope I made you hungry.

If there is anything that you think of as too difficult to make, send me a comment and let me know. I think we are up for any challenge. Plus, once we have made it, we can share any tips and tricks we discovered while we made it. C'mon, I dare you to challenge us.

Brisket... Plain and Simple!

As we all know, barbeque season is upon us and in preparation for the 4th of July festivities, Richard decided it was time to test run the brisket. So enjoy this quick peek at test 1 of summer brisket.

Marinating

Went to Kroger and found a nice 12lb brisket and picked that bad boy for our own. Bought it home and made the marinade and dry rub and let it soak for about 36 hours. Gotta let all that flavor soak in good and deep. Richard got the recipe from an old college professor of his. Apparently, it was quite the hit whenever it was presented.

Bright and early Monday morning, it went into the oven to spend the next 12 hours of its life cooking LOW and SLOW!! I flipped it once at the halfway point, but other than that it was the kind of cooking that you just ignore. The less you fuss with it the better it is. The only downside to doing this was having to be in the house smelling the amazing aroma coming from the kitchen but hey, I'm the kind of guy who will make a sacrifice like that in the name of brisket!

Flipped at half way

We can fast forward to 6:30pm and the removal of this work of art from the oven. What I thought was an amazing smell throughout the day, was replaced with an new and intense nose-gasm after opening the foil and letting it all out. It was fall apart on its own tender and we served it up with some red potato salad and baked beans or course. What better choices, except maybe some grilled sweet corn on the cob. Guess that will have to wait for next time.

We enjoyed it immensely and have come up with a few things we really liked and a few that we didn't like as much and have made some mental adjustments for next time. I think we are starting a great journey towards creating our own culinary Texas style barbecue!! Keep watching for info on our next trial.

All done!!

Comment below on what you do and don't like in your brisket! Thanks for reading.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.....EAT IT!!

So the newest culinary adventure for us this week is DUCK!! I have been wanting to make a duck for quite awhile and just never knew where to find a fresh one. Well on my recently mentioned trip to our local Asian Supermarket, I noticed that they had them for sale in their meat department and I made a note of it for when the time was right. And that time was Tuesday.

I went to the market and bought the duck and noticed in the store that it did still have its head, an even bigger surprise when I took it out of its bag, was that it still had its feet too. I opted to leave the picture I took of the whole thing in all its headed and footed glory out of this post so those of you who may be squeemish don't have to see it. Feel free to leave a comment though if you want me to text or email it to you. So like the Queen of Hearts, it was off with her/his head and feet and into the bowl as seen here.

To go along with this marvelous bird, I made a stuffing of brown rice, onions, pecans and fresh sage. There is such an amazing smell you get from fresh sage. I recommend that you all run out and buy some. I didn't do much to the outside of the duck, just a little salt and garlic pepper for some flavor. 

I pulled out the trusty turkey roaster which now has a new purpose besides just roasting the Thanksgiving bird and put this fully stuffed little beauty in at 375 degrees for about 2 hours. Once it was done cooking I pulled it out and let it rest under a foil tent for about 20 minutes to let the juices settle so that Richard and I could work on the remaining portion of the meal.

Richard whipped up a wilted spinach and onion salad with some aged balsamic vinegar. This salad has become a staple in our menu because it is so darn easy and so darn tasty. I worked on a sauce for the duck consisting of honey, balsamic vinegar, red wine and cherries. I slow simmered it until it was a little saucy, could have gone longer but all this food looked so amazing that we couldn't wait any longer. 

We plated our salad, pulled the stuffing out of the duck and carved that little bird for all we were worth. Authors note, duck is a horrible bird to carve, the meat on it was certainly less abundant than we were expecting but after some finagling we got enough. Added some of the warm cherry sauce on top and *POOF* we had dinner. All in all a very delicious meal that I would try again at some point for sure. Definitely one worth trying different variations to see what we can create! Thanks for reading and be sure and leave comments!!

Yeah the cherry sauce makes it look really raw but it wasn't

Something Smells Fishy

So last night we opted for something different. We decided that we would do a burger, but with salmon instead of beef. What a great plan this was. Super healthy and super easy, doesn't get much better or tastier than that.

It was simply salmon, red and yellow peppers, panko, egg, garlic, soy sauce and salt and pepper.  Mix it all up and form patties. Simply slapped those patties on the Foreman grill and about 7 minutes later they were hot and ready. We also made a delicious sesame mayonnaise with mayo, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil which went great on the toasted buns. Simply add some lettuce tomato and avacado slices and you have one heck of a simple and relatively healthy meal. Pair it with some chips, cuz burgers always need chips and some red potato salad and you got yourself a meal.

This would be a great one for anytime of year and I think also a good alternative or addition to your next beef grilling session. Definitely one we will do again!!

Teriyaki Chicken with Udon Stir-Fry!

Well, we broke out of our Italian mode and switched it up for this meal. We had an amazing Japanese inspired meal of teriyaki chicken breasts with a vegetable stir-fry and udon noodles.

This transition out of Italian cuisine started awhile back when I ate an udon noodle bowl at the farmer's market. It was so delicious and I think it stuck in the back of our minds after eating it. So I made a trip to the local Asian Supermarket and was blown away by all the stuff they had. They had amazingly cheap produce, including tons of things I have never heard of, great fresh seafood and meat and then every other thing under the sun. This store has already inspired one of our next exotic meals but I will leave that one a secret for now (maybe I will include a clue in here somewhere).

I made my own teriyaki sauce from soy, mirin, sake and sugar and used it to glaze the grilled chicken breasts. It also made for a great time to use my marinade injector to get this delicious marinade all inside the breasts as well. I was just glad to finally have a use for the darn thing. The udon noodles were fresh and just required a quick few minute simmer with a little miso pasted added for some flavor. Richard worked on the stir-fry of carrots, celery, snap peas, shitakes, water chestnuts onions and garlic. The smell in the kitchen of all these treats cooking was amazing.

Here is the final product, it looks great but tasted even better. There is nothing quite like having prepared the meal yourself to add to the enjoyment of a great meal. Until next time, thanks for checking in on me here. Feel free to comment or leave suggestions for things we should try. I welcome it all.

Pigeon Anyone?

Not really, but amazingly enough a lot of people think of that when they hear the words "Cornish Hen". Here in the States, a Cornish hen, also known as  a poussin , or a Rock Cornish Hen, is a hybrid chicken sold whole. This was always one of those foods I wanted to try, but never really stuck in the front of my brain as something to put on the short list of meals to make. However, I was at the store the yesterday getting some chicken and I saw these little guys staring at me and I finally just jumped on the chance to buy them.

Here they are all dressed up!

I did a little research since I had no idea the best way to prepare the little buggers and ended up with a Roasted Citrus and Herb Cornish Hen. Leave it to my girl Giada De Laurentiis to have an amazing way to make this meal. It had a citrus and olive oil rub all over it and it roasted in a chicken stock and sherry liquid with cranberries in it. Then when the hens were done you took all the liquid and reduced it down to make a sauce to put drizzle all over.  Here is a link to the recipe!!

We made the hens per the recipe and then we also did steamed veggies and wild rice with it. It had an amazing citrus flavor and it almost had a holiday feel to it with the cranberries and citrus. I thought it tasted super fresh but when Richard said it reminded him of the holidays, it immediately clicked in my head as well. It had such a bold punch of flavors and went perfectly with the rice and veggies. I would certainly make this dish again and recommend you give it a whirl as well.

Yum!

Wide Shot