We have been on vacation, so have not had any formal Monday Night Dining moments. But we have been asked, what we do on other nights of the week. I will admit that Friday is take out night, and we usually get food from one of our favorite places. Tuesday is a big cooking night, to make lunches for the week. Wed and Thurs are rehearsal nights, so mostly we grab a lunch from the fridge, but on weekends and holidays, we try shit out. We test recipes, that may or may not show up on this blog. So this post is just going to be a sampling of a few things we are working on.
The first recipe, I want to mention, is from Ted Reader, Planked Cod Cakes Encrusted with Scallops. I am a huge fan of cod cakes ( I think they are in my veins), so changing them from the traditional style, always concerns me. these were amazing!!! Good cod, with a smoky flavour and of course the lovely crust of scallops on top…. That’s good eatin’. We served it with rice and grilled asparagus.
Before our last post, we tested many new Mexican dishes. A few were served, but one that did not make the menu was our homemade chicken tamales. Without someone to show us, we were not sure of the texture that the dough should be. The first attempt was good… the second was much better, but now we know the trick, so next time they should be amazing. The chicken had a nice heat, from toasted chilies and the flavour of the corn husks is so pleasant.
One of my absolute favorite times of year is when the garden finally starts to yield up its bounty. We have now had the garden in for about 7 weeks. Mostly we have been having leaf lettuce and spinach. But now we have harvested our first head of romaine and some lovely choggia beets. Below you can see the garden when it was planted vs. now and a couple of dishes we made with our beautiful beets and lettuce so green you can hardly believe it.
Now summer is the time for fun. We love summer drinks, and we love setting things on fire. So how about Saganaki with a watermelon keg filled with a vodka/watermelon puree drink. I actually paired the saganaki with Great Lakes Brewery, Pompous Ass EPA, but it’s hard to resist a watermelon full of booze. Amber and Jesse did the watermelon, Shawn seared the cheese and I set the whole thing on fire!!! OPA!!!!
One of our favourite cuisines is Greek. As a treat on our vacation, we decided to get out the rotisserie. We had spit roasted lamb, with Greek potatoes roasted with tomato and the first swiss chard from our garden sautéed with mustard seeds and lemon. The potatoes are a favorite of ours. The lamb was a perfect medium rare, but the star of the show for me was the swiss chard. The freshness and the greenness of it was amazing. There’s just something about picking something that you grew and serving it within an hour of the harvest.
This has just been a little sample of some things we have tried out over the past little while. Some will make it to Monday Night Dining, some will get voted off the island and others will show up in a new form, as we continually tweak our menus. So we sign off, as I watch Mr Quackers and her little ones hanging out on the swim ladder, and a beautiful sunset.
Mmm…your lamb with the swiss chard… can we try that some Monday? I’ll bring the Pompous Ass (or vodka or something else).
We have lots of swiss chard coming along. Strangely finding lamb here was the hard part….