OND = FML

Work is getting busier and busier by the day. This is good for my wallet but bad for my cooking at home. For those that don't know what OND is, it's October, November, December. This is the time of the year that can make or break you. I've been working more and more hours, and when I get home I'm not in the mood to cook. Unfortunately Sundays when we go  grocery shopping we buy produce and meat thinking we will get back on the cooking at home wagon. So today I made myself cook a simple 10 minute meal. Unforgivably all our produce went bad. We thought it could go two weeks. We were wrong; so, we had to skip a vegetable for this meal. The kids in us were over joyed, the hard working adults in us just didn't give a fuck.

So this was a really simple meal. Sunday we bought thin pan fry steaks. I love this cut of meat. They are easy to cook, usually have a little extra fat (I'm a fat kid in disguise after all), they taste great and you get to feel like a giant eating tiny little steaks. Season both sides of the steak with sea salt and fresh ground pepper and you have perfectly seasoned, tiny steaks. Cooking these are the easiest thing. In a cast iron skillet, add a small amount of oil (just enough to keep the steaks from sticking to the skillet), turn the heat on medium/high and wait for the pan to get hot (you when it's ready when the oil starts to smoke a little). Throw the steaks on the pan and cook two minutes for the first side, then take the skillet off the heat, flip and cook for a minute. Yes take the skillet off the heat, it's cast iron and keeps heat for a while, and yes two minutes on one side and a minute the other side. These are thin steaks; any more time and you will overcook them. They came out perfectly medium rare, actually more on the medium side. If I have to tell you how to cook the Mac and Cheese from a box that I had with the meal- then stay out of the kitchen, because you are useless.

As I said, it's OND, and that means in the middle of the day of showing wines, your company can sell out of a wine and you may not get it back for a few weeks. So what do you do with this wine? Well, drink it after a long, grueling day of selling wine. Besides you might as well sell what you got. My job rocks. I can't imagine do anything else. Come on- I get free wine all the time and usually have something open at my house. Today's wine is from Down Under. It's a big, full bodied, jammy Shiraz from Stalking Horse in the McLaren Vale. This is a very small production, single vineyard wine. Less then 1000 cases are made each vintage. This wine has a nose that smells like a hug of dark fruit, bacon (mmmm bacon), and grilled meat. The palate doesn't disappoint with its rich, velvety, meaty, spicy plum goodness. Every sip will make you want more. This wine will make you revisit Australia's wine industry.      

French Wine and To Much Food Makes for Happy People

I know it's been a while since I last posted. I've had the flu, then the next week didn't get a chance to grab anything fun to cook,and last week I had a wine tasting every night after work. Finally this week I wasn't going to disappointing my fans. I bought baby brussels sprouts, gnocchi, lots of cheese and turkey thighs. Noel actually picked out the thighs at first I didn't want to get them, to be truthful at first this meal was going to be with a ham steak but the thighs needed to be cooked. Let me tell you I am so glad I made the thighs instead.

In just over a month the Foodie's Holiday is upon us. I love Thanksgiving, my two favorite things get front and center attention, food and wine!! This year Noel and I drive down to Maryland to have Thanksgiving with my family. The last time we had Thanksgiving there, Noel and I cooked a great meal, but I did almost burn down the house. This time I have had two years to practice my cooking and my skills of taking greasy things out of an oven. I am so excited about this meal, so excited that I am already looking at recipes to make. Thanks to Fall Day I already know the stuffing I am going to make. The other day I was looking at recipes online for some more side dishes and found Pan-Roasted Brussels Sprouts Gratin with Shallots and Rosemary. Everyone is going to want to eat at my parents house this year!!


So all day long I have been thinking about how I wanted to cook the Turkey Thighs. Finally I came across the perfect seasoning. Grey sea salt, little black pepper and saffron, saffron makes everything better!!
What You Need:
2 Turkey Thighs
tablespoon grey sea salt
tablespoon black pepper
3 pinches of saffron
tablespoon of canola oil

Pre Heat the oven to 350. Coat the thighs in the oil, salt, pepper and saffron. Place the thighs in a casserole dish and cover with tin foil. Throw them in the oven and cook until the meat thermometer reaches 175. This is going to take over a hour, so flip the thighs half way, and after a hour uncover the thighs so they can brown. These came out so good and perfectly juicy. This may be the way I even make the turkey at Thanksgiving!!

After I flipped the thighs I started the Brussels Sprouts Gratin. This was fun to make but I didn't have enough brussels sprouts so it came out really cheesy.
What You Need:
1 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts
2 shallots
4 tablespoons of butter
salt
fresh ground pepper
1 1/4 cup Gruyere
1 1/4 heavy cream
1/4 tablespoon fresh nutmeg
1/4 tablespoon cayenne
3/4 cup panko
1/2 cup grated parmigiano
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

Pre heat oven to 375. In a dutch oven over medium heat melt the butter and cook until brown. Take out a tablespoon and put in a bowl. Add the brussels sprouts and shallots and cook until slightly browned (about 6 minutes). Remove from the heat. In a sauce pan add the heavy cream, the gruyere, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt. Cook until the cheese is melted (make sure not to boil). Add the sauce to the brussels sprouts making sure to mix it all together. In a bowl mix the panko, parmigiano cheese, a pinch of salt and the remaining butter. Mix all together and put it on top of the brussels sprouts. Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

As the brussels sprouts and thighs were cooking I started the water for the gnocchi and the cheese sauce. I found a real easy recipe online for a cheddar cheese sauce. The gnocchi only takes about three minutes to cook so its best to start the sauce first.
What You Need:
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. When it's all melted take off the heat and mix in the flour and seasonings. Gradually mix in the milk whisking so they all blend well together. Over a low heat, constantly stirring heat the milk until it has thickened. Add the grated cheese and cook for five minutes or until thick. Add to the gnocchi and serve.

This was a great meal. Everything came out so good!! The turkey was perfectly cooked, the brussels sprout became a wonderful cheesy side dish and the gnocchi was fantastic. But there was way to much food for just two people. Next time I'll need at least four people to help eat all this food.

The Wine:
Even before I knew what meat I was going to have with the meal I knew what wine I wanted. Loire Valley is my most favorite wine region in the world. They are really known for their whites, but in my opinion their reds are the best of the best. The number one grown red in the valley is Cabernet Franc, and the best comes from Chinon. I picked up a bottle of Jean Dumont Les Mureaux 2009 from Beacon Hill Wine and Gourmet in Melrose. This family owned vineyard has vines that average in age of 35 years. The wine has a deep ruby color with well balanced ripe fruit, herbaceousness and round tannins. This was a perfect wine for a perfect meal.

Fall Day Ends With Stuffing and Pie

Today was Fall Day. Thank you Rachel for making this event! It was so much fun. We went apple picking. Yes I went apple picking again, you don't own me. This time Noel and I did not buy a bag but Mikey bought three so we helped him fill a bag. We went to Shelburne Farm just down the road from Honey Pot. It was a really a nice place, small and the trees weren't big enough to climb but it did have a bouncy house and a llama. What's better than a llama?? The trees were very full and there was a lot of fruit close to the ground so the lazy people of the group, and I will confuse I was in that group, we were able to quickly fill our bags. After we got our fill of apple picking, apple donuts, pumpkins and the llama we went back to John and Mikey's house and had an apple party. We played apples to apples, there were fresh apple juice, apple cocktails, Rachel made an amazing double butter apples pie, John made a Brown Betty that sadly I didn't have room to try and I made a corn bread, apple, sausage stuffing thing.

Before we meet up with everyone Noel and I had to go grocery shopping. We hadn't done a Russo's trip in two weeks, and we weren't sure by morning what we wanted to cook for the apple party. As we strolled through Russo's our dish slowly came together. We saw red onion and we just knew that was important. We thought we might wanna use a yellow pepper, but in the end we didn't use it. Noel was very adamant that we use celery, and of course we already had apples from when we went apple picking last month. By the time we got to Shaws we were arguing how we we going to put it all together. We settled on Jimmy Dean's Premium Pork Hot Sausage, and corn bread, not pre-made cornbread but a mix to make our own. When I started to make this I still wasn't totally convinced it was going to taste any good. Boy was I wrong, Noel and I are now planning on making this as our stuffing Thanksgiving Day!!! Get ready Dad and Katie it's going to blow your mind!!

What You Need 
1 red onion
1 stock celery
1 package Jimmy Deans pork hot sausage
1 apples peeled and cut into small slices
1 small block of cheddar cheese cut into cubes
1 package cornbread mix
1 table spoon canola oil

On the stove top under medium heat add table spoon of oil to a dutch oven. Cook the onion and celery for about five minutes. You'll know when it's ready, the smell will be intoxicating. Add the sausage and cook until browned. By this time make the batter for the cornbread. Just before the sausage is cooked add the apples and cook until the sausage is done. Take off the heat and add the batter and cheese making sure to mix it all up so every part has touched the batter. Follow the baking instructions for the corn bread, mine was 400 F for 18 minutes. When it's done take it out and let it sit at least five minutes to cool, plus you want the oils get to get soaked up by the cornbread. I took a small amount and tried it worried that I had just made a gross mess, but WOW, Noel and I came up with an instant hit!! It's good enough to be a meal but will also make a great stuffing.

The Drinks
Mikey came up with an apple cocktail that was out of this world. I have just got over a nasty flu cold thing so I only had a sip of Noel's but boy was it goooood. He better make these at his awesome Halloween party. He made fresh apple juice in his juicer. In a glass that had a sugar/cinnamon mixture on the rim he added fresh apple juice, bourbon, caramel vodka and ginger liqueur. They were.... AMAZING!!