A Monk's Kettle Inspiration

Main Course

This dinner was inspired by "Unique Eats," a TV show on the Food Network. The menu comes from Monk's Kettle in San Francisco. This is the first time I cooked without recipes, and I wasn't very impressed with my abilities. The pork chops were brined in beer and apple cider then grilled. The sauce consisted of beer, mustard, and chicken stock, and simmered for the day. Potato cakes were just homemade mashed potatoes with chives and cheddar cheese, coated with panko, then fried in a little oil. The Brussels sprouts were steamed for a few minutes then sauteed with butter, bacon, and shallots.

Appetizer
I wanted to make fried green tomatoes, however local stores do not offer green tomatoes. I went with zucchini instead, and it turned out all right. The sauce was another story. I was unsuccessful in getting it to thicken and ended up just using ranch.







and Finally...
Dessert was a homemade peach ice cream with a praline sauce courtesy of the Neely's (Food Network). The peach ice cream wasn't very sweet. I did like the praline; of course, praline is just pecans and Karo.







My Thoughts
I was disappointed in the overall taste and presentation of the meal. Some items were good individually but when brought together it lack greatness. I was really looking forward to a delicious dinner. It felt like it was coming together wonderfully while I was cooking, but at the end it all started falling apart. To much was going on; I forgot to make the dipping sauce, I was trying to cook 3 different things in one pan, and the ice cream maker was malfunctioning. Anything higher than a 6 is overrating because it tasted like any other weeknight dinner.

I'm a wee bit Irish

I love themes so this being the month of St. Patricks day, I wanted to go with it. I love to decorate! I love being able to use things for other days, for other things, like I found this place setting at the Dollar tree and I can use for another another Chef night. I am so excited to say I bought everything for under $20.00. and everything is microwave safe and dishwasher safe! This the easy part of the day. I love my little leprecaun! And for $10.00 more I was able to get everyone a T-shirt, and they were so gracious to wear.

Okay, food! I made Stuffed Cabbage, corned Beef and Cabbage(vegetables), Nana Dot's Irish Soda Bread, and Irish Cheese Chocolate cake.

The hardest thing for me was, what do I start to do first? I had a lot going on and I like to have things ready to heat up. If I could have the cheese cake done early then that's one thing less I have to worry about. Well, so that is what I started with first the cheese cake. I had never made one that you had to cook. I made two, one cheese cake with premade pie crust and one pie crust I made. The first cheeese cake was with a premade pie crust and it would of been fine if I had made two pies. I had enough pie filling to make two pies. It was not pretty. I had pie filling over flowing. I was at least smart enough to use a cookie sheet. My pie looked like the Grand Canyon! And so what to do? I made another pie. I made my own crust too,with a springform pan. Not quite as ulgy but still had the canyon but not quite as grand. Tasted pretty good I thought! And the first pie I used some whip cream and grated cookie and it looked almost professionally done.

Okay! I lied, I did ask my husband to put the corned beef in the crock pot with one bottle of Guinnes, while I was out shopping. I am sorry, but it was such an easy thing to do, I forgot. But that was the only thing. I over cooked the veggies, I put them in too soon. Carrots, potatoes, onions and what I had left of the cabbage. I seperated the veggies and sliced the corn beef against the grain. I Put the corned beef on a cookie sheet and put in the oven for the last 20 mins under the stuffed cabbage. I liked the corned beef!

I really liked the Soda bread! I was surprised! With caraway seeds, apple cider vinegar! Oh, and I now know what currants are, they are like raisins.

Stuffing the cabbage, there is a trick to getting the leaves to seprate. I was a little freaked out! Steam for 3 mins. And I cooked the meat and rice before I stuffed, that way you can control the grease, and bind with cheese. Or you can stuff with a mixture of raw meats and cooked rice, it make it easier to roll and stuff. I think I could of rolled a little better and made it prettier.
I am pretty pleased, I thought all the flavors went well together and I used only one head of cabbage so it did'nt seem to over power, I needed the luck of the Irish!

Brazilian influenced.

So, I was back in the barrel as the chef du-jour for this week and decided to take inspiration from a Churascuria (brazilian steak house) that i had visited in Beverly Hills a couple weeks ago during the LA Poker Classic - Fogo de Chao.

The concept at this place is simple, you eat until you cant walk! What better idea to model a chef night on?

Well, ok so i DID decide to take it down a notch and just go with some dishes inspired by what i found there as opposed to their "stuff ya to the gills" method.

I started off with a rather simple salad, arugula and baby spinach tossed with a very good balsamic vinaigrette I garnished the salad with tomato and orange slices and served it over red kale and let the crew work on that while i finished dialing in my entree and main sides. (keep em busy so they dont see you sweat!)


I should interrupt here and throw in a little note about Sandy and his uncanny ability to finish a dish faster than any human ive ever met, by the time i got my own salad to the table Sandy's plate consisted of nothing more than an empty orange rind so im fairly certain he enjoyed it, although i have to assume anyone that can eat that fast cant be able to actually taste what he devours. ( i'll take his word that it was good! ;) )


Next up was the combined main course which consisted of a hearty soup/stew of potato's spicy sausage, green onions, sour cream, portabella mushrooms, fontina and cheddar cheeses garnished with fresh chives. I dont have a recipe for this as it was largely made up on the spot and based loosely on a creamy baked potato soup i found online. I thought i came out fantastic
and worked nicely for a chef night as i put it together around noon and let it slow cook in the crock pot most of the day adding the cream and cheeses about 20 mins prior to serving. Maggie seemed to really enjoy the soup and hopefully the remains will provide her with a tasty lunch for the rest of the week.

Along with soup i served bacon wrapped filet mignon and marinated chicken medallions on skewers, personally the chicken marinade i used, i didnt really like but the filet was literally to die for. literally - if it was me and you and the last filet... well... Gladiator comes to mind.












These were served with Pao de Queijo (brazlian cheese puffs) that are made using yucca starch / manioc root. (yah... lets just say the ingredients arent exactly easy to find in Ridgecrest)

These are just a very simple yet delicious parmesan cheese puff. mine came out fairly heavy and i think too dense, having never made them before im fairly certain i made them too big and they were unable to cook and rise thoroughly into the light airy concoctions i enjoyed previously, the flavor however was spot on, so i think my guests were able to get the idea i was shooting for.

For desert, we enjoyed a cupcake TV dinner that Maggie and Olivia made, this was really pretty creative (see the pic) they made some tasty banana cupcakes and decorated them to look like the components of an old fashioned TV Dinner, chicken leg, mashed potatoes w butter and gravy, and the good old diced carrots and peas everyone remembers... they used colored icing and a myriad of candy and caramel to pull off the illusion.

To grade this meal, i guess id give myself a 7 or a 7.5. everything came out pretty close to what i was shooting for, while there were a few shortcomings, its kind of expected when you make something you've never cooked before and your frame of reference for a flavor profile is in your head. But i will let my fellow diners and bloggers do the actual grading.

Thanks for reading!

Brian

Southern Style

For tonight's meal, I wanted to go somewhat Southern. Not that I know anything at all about Southern cooking. I don't. I'm from California. My choice was meat loaf, something I've never made... believe it or not. I searched AllRecipes.com and settled on this meat loaf recipe. To go with it, I chose Whipped Potatoes (modified the recipe and left the skins on thankyouverymuch) and Collard Greens. Again, the greens are something I've never made. For dessert, I made Carrot Cake.

Only real hiccup was with the greens. I misjudged the amount of time it took to prepare, so dinner was about fifteen minutes late.

I'm stuffed.