Arrrrr Matey

Over the weekend Noel and I cleaned the apartment and I found a cook book that I totally forgot we even had, Seduced by Bacon by Joanna Pruess,thank you Mikey. If you read my first post you would know that I LOVE BACON!! So I went through the book and found a few recipes I wanted to try. The first one that caught my eye was on page 105; Jamaican Jerk Shrimp, Mushrooms and Tomatoes. I couldn't wait to try this out. Just a few weeks ago I bought some really nice Jamaican Jerk seasoning rub; Busha Browne's I think I only paid about $5 for it at my favorite store ever, Russo's Market in Watertown, MA. When I got it I knew I needed it but I wasn't sure what I needed it for. Well obviously it was for page 105 in this book!!

So this recipe is wicked easy to do. Cut up about half pound of BACON in half inch strips. I used the double smoked bacon that Noel and I get every week at Russo's. It's so good but a little pricey, I am sure that regular thick cut bacon would work. Dice a large yellow onion, four ounces of shiitake mushrooms destemmed and thickly sliced. So need a side note and there will be a lot of these in posts to come cause Noel does not like mushrooms, Noel doesn't like a lot of things, she is a WICKED PICKY EATER! So I used less than four ounces of mushrooms and it still came out fine. Back to the meal you are going to need two large garlic cloves, minced, two pounds jumbo shrimp. Now I used pre-cooked from Shaws but that was because they didn't have raw jumbo shrimp. I hate the store in Lower Allston but it's close to my apartment and most of the time it's adequate. Now the next ingredient is Rum, that's right I know this is "the love of wine and cooking" but sometimes and, I can't believe I am saying this, but sometimes you don't need to cook with wine. Noel had seen the Kraken black spiced rum in a store looked it up had ever since wanted to try it out so we went to a few of our local liquor stores and finally found it at the Wine Emporium on Columbus Street in the South End. It's actually reasonably priced rum and tastes pretty damn good, plus it has an octopus on the bottle and looks like the kind of bottle Black Beard would have drank from. Again, back to the recipe. Finish up with a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes 3 teaspoons of Jamaican jerk paste, one teaspoon fennel seed (this recipe was great it allowed me to buy yet another spice for my kitchen. I LOVE when that happens) salt and fresh ground pepper and last quarter cup of fresh chopped cilantro. Oh how I LOVE the smell of fresh cut cilantro!!

Now time to cook. First take a shot of rum. Why not, it's been a long day hasn't it? You deserve a quick shot of rum. Take the bacon put it in a heavy casserole (I used my new favorite thing ever, my dutch oven) and over medium heat render half the fat. In words of Homer Simpson "agagagagaga bacon fat". After you have drooled over the bacon fat, add the onion, mushrooms, and garlic and saute until onion is slightly colored and make sure to stir this so nothing burns. By this time your kitchen smells great!!  Add the shrimp over med-high heat and cook until pink on both sides turning over often. Now take another shoot of rum..... come on, why not? This is why we cook isn't it? Pour the 1/3 cup of rum and scrape the browned bits. Cook for about a minute or two just long enough to slightly reduce the liquid. Stir in the tomatoes, jerk paste, fennel seeds, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Add in the cilantro and simmer for five minuets. Now your whole house should smell amazing!!

I served this with rice noodles to give it a more interesting look, and a quick brussel sprout/bacon mash. This is so easy to make. Cut up bacon in small pieces, render some fat off, add diced carrots and let cook for two maybe three minuets just enough to soften the carrots a little. Add the diced onions, diced celery and a little minced garlic and cook just until you can start to smell goodness. Now add the diced brussel sprouts. Cook for about five minuets and just before you think they are done I like to cover and let them steam for another minuet or two. This is an awesome side dish that I like to put with everything.

Since I cooked with Rum this time and not wine, I made a rum drink to go with our meal. This one was not only easy but quite tasty. Two ounces rum, one ounce amaretto and a splash of coke. When it comes to mixed drinks, I eye ball everything. An ounce is about a two second pour.

Serve the Jerk Shrimp and sauce over the noodles and plate the mash. Viola a meal that pirates and land lovers can both enjoy.
   

Hello is there anyone out there???

Ok so my wife Noel says I should start a blog. At first I thought who cares what I have to say. Then I asked a few people what they thought and they said do it. So here we go.......

There are two things I love to do in life. Drink wine and cook. I work for a great wine distributor in Massachusetts. I have a love for all that is wine. In the five years since I started working in the industry I have learned you don't need to pay a lot to enjoy a great bottle and that most people that buy expensive wines don't know what they have in the bottle. So I like to specialize in everyday quality wines, wines that have a Sunday to Thursday price but have a Friday and Saturday night taste. One of my all time favorite wine is only $12.99 a bottle Viu Manent Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile.

As for the cooking side Noel and I have been stepping up our game.We live in Beacon Hill Boston and our rent is a bit on the high side so we don't always have money to go out and enjoy the local restaurants, so we went out and bought all kind of pots, pan, dutch oven, spices, herbs, salts, peppers ect, ect, ect. Our kitchen may be tiny but we have everything we need to be our own chef. We could use a dish washer!!!!

Now tonight I have tried for the first time a meat loaf. It's the perfect comfort food. Last night I started by making my own pasta sauce. It's so F-ing easy to do and cost half as much as store bought sauce. A can of diced tomatoes, large can of ground tomatoes, small can of tomato paste, half a bottle of wine (I like to us Italian wine in my tomato sauce a cheap chianti works great!!! This time I didn't have one so I used a nero d'avola which is a great wine from Sicily dark fruits and sweet tannins.),half a carrot shredded (helps cut the acid of the tomato) herbs, pepper, a dash of salt.....careful with the salt its easy to add but impossible to subtract or so I found out the first time I made a tomato sauce. So this only takes about 20-40 mins to make. I made it a day early because the sauce taste better the next day.

So today I took my ground beef/pork mixed it with two sweet Italian sausages, a cup of tomato sauce, one egg, herbs, and  bread crumbs (again I made these myself. Easy to do and again cheaper than store bought. Just take bread cut into cubes blend in some herbs and let sit out.) and mixed them together in a bowl. Then I cooked up chunks of bacon.................... Ok lets take a minuet and talk about bacon.

I F-ING LOVE BACON. I love bacon. Have I told you I love bacon??? It is not a meat its a seasoning!!! I would stuff bacon in bacon. Noel and I do not buy regular bacon. We buy double smoked bacon that has not been cut into tiny, skinny, useless slices. We get a BIG SLAB of DOUBLE SMOKED BACON. Did I tell you I love bacon???? There is nothing that could not be better with bacon. So you take this bacon and you can cut it into small cubes. You take a cast iron skillet and melt the fat off the bacon usually takes 5-10 mins and you have the start to bacon HEAVEN    

So this time instead of cutting it into small cubes I cut it into two inches by one inch rectangles. I cooked it just enough to sear them. Then I took about 10 asparagus in a big bowl, mixed it with olive oil, salt and pepper, then put them in the broiler. **SIDE NOTE** Noel hates, HATES, she really hates, I mean she dis-likes when I use the broiler. I like it!! As I said I live in a wicked small apartment in Beacon Hill. We don't have a back yard, we don't have a front yard and the roof, I WILL NOT GO ON OUR ROOF so we don't have use of a grill. The broiler is the closest thing to a grill!

Ok back to the meat loaf. So after roasting the asparagus for about 10-20 minuets I took them and cut them in thirds. Then in a loaf pan I filled half of it with the meat mixture (not to be confused with what they use at Taco Bell) then put a layer of the YUMMY DOUBLE SMOKED BACON....did I tell you I LOVE BACON??....then a layer of the roasted asparagus and filled it with the rest of the meat mixure. I topped it with a few chucks of yes you know it double smoked bacon and coated it with my tomato sauce. I then stuck it into the oven at 350. Now when I looked this up online it said 45 minuets or 155 degrees. Lucky for me, Noel and I have had made sure that we have everything we need to make us our own CHEF so we have a meat thermometer it took longer than 45 minuets to cook this loaf. I then let it sit for a while before we cut into to it.

This was my first Meat Loaf. There are a lot of different things I would have done (this happens every time I cook something new!!). It came out well but as Noel said it smelled like cat food. It did however taste better than it smelled. I could have used cheese, not used asparagus, used garlic, added wine to the "meat mixture" it's endless.......

So after previewing this post a few time I realized I didn't talk that much about wine.Any fuller body red wine would have paired well with meat loaf. Tonight I drank a Viu Manent Single Vineyard Cabernet.  I love this wine. This is about a $19 bottle and let me say it does not disappoint!! I adore this vineyard and it's not just because I am going to Chile the first week of May to visit this vineyard. Chile has a great climate, good soil, long growing season which all help in making great grapes. Great grapes help make great wine and take that the value of their currency is low makes for great wine at an even BETTER price!!!

So this is my first post. Now I can't promise all the post will be about wine and food. Some post will be mostly what wine I have drank and some will be about what food I cooked. Just remember I love cooking with wine sometimes it even makes it way into the food.