Doughbellies

Doughbellies

Fried pizza dough topped with butter, pasta, and homemade sauce.

The fried dough makes a bowl for the pasta.

Finger food!

Leftovers and football

We are still eating leftovers from the Labor Day get together. Pork with homemade peach mustard BBQ sauce and homemade cole slaw.

But it is also football season, so of course it is time for wings! Tex mex dry rubbed and slow roasted on the grill with mesquite smoke.

Labor Day

Labor Day cookout: Boston butt with peach-mustard sauce ("York, SC Style") or bourbon-and-balsamic sauce (Texas style); Turkeyburgers with chipotle peppers, onion, and garlic; creole cole slaw; Pesto pasta salad; and fresh tomato salsa. (Plus a few things I didn't make)

We had lots of leftover veggies, Tom made veggie soup.
Now we have lots of leftover veggie soup.

Slacker

I have been a complete blog slacker this summer. Not that I'm so good at it anyways, but this summer I keep taking pictures and not actually posting them. So, here is our summer food so far.

The problem with taking so long to post is that I have to remember the dishes! This was a ground turkey, tomato, onion, and mushroom dish. Served over rice. I remember it was awesome, we should have it again soon.

Caprese salad with basil from our yard

Grill food. Grilled chicken and potato, and cucumber salad. The cucumber salad was not grilled.

Breakfast! Fritatta with homemade soft herbed cheese (Tom blended the herbs in, we didn't actually make the cheese), onions, smoked turkey...I'm drooling.

Grandma's homemade tomato soup with everything.

More grilled food...New York strip, grilled corn, and grilled zucchini

Roast beef - from the grill

Dinner from Meg. Mozzarella, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomatoes stuffed this chicken breast.

More caprese salad, with fresh tomatoes and basil!

Fresh Herbs

Chicken and Steak
Our new grill is amazing, new york strip steak and teriyaki chicken.

Fritatta
Made with leftover teriyaki chicken, raw and sauteed onions, and green peppers.

Caprece Salad
Tom's version made with grape tomatoes, shredded mozzarella, fresh basil, red onions, white balsamic vinaigrette.

Tilapia
Grilled tilapia with phillips seasoning, topped with dill butter

Mojito
Enough said.

Crab Norfolk

Crab Norfolk, potatoes and sweet onions, broccoli with chipotle lime butter. We will be having this again.

Clamming

Catching our dinner

We just got back from a short trip to the Boston/Cape Cod area. We went out for an overnight sailing trip and went clamming.

Step 1: Lean over and stick your hands in the mud
Step 2: Pull out clams
Step 3: Steam them
Step 4: Dinner

There is something satisfying about being able to catch your dinner. The appetizer was steamed clams in butter, the main course was pasta in clam sauce. No clam dessert though. I'm sure an Iron Chef could think of one.

Home!

I've been a complete slacker about posting since we have been home. For awhile we weren't eating anything too exciting, just getting caught up from the trip. We did get a fancy new grill, as you can see from all the grilled food.

NEW GRILL!
Best grill ever, it came with an operator.

Deviled eggs
Turkey Burgers

New York strip, grilled sweet onion, grilled potatoes


New York strip and salad

Leftovers! Steak and onions and celery topped with a spicy sauce.

Halibut topped with fried herbed butter, polenta, broccoli with chipotle lime hollandaise

A couple of years ago Tom made fried butter in a test run, but he hadn't had a chance to try it since. He made herbed butter, with parsley and dill, then wrapped it in a wonton wrapper and froze it. Then it was deep fried. Its on top of grilled halibut.

Tiny packets of amazing.

San Diego Bar

Somebody at our hotel recommended we go here for some great beer and food. He was right, we went there twice during our trip and I would recommend it to anybody. Here is night 2...

Buttermilk fried chicken sausage topped with pickled watermelon rind. So amazing.

Mushroom marsala burger
Wild mushrooms/ Marsala and Herb Reduction/ Truffled Swiss/ Garlic Confit

San Diego

Tom and I are in San Diego and had a great dinner here http://www.jsixrestaurant.com/ The pictures will get downloaded when we get home, but I was afraid I would forget what we had! We decided to go with the chef's tasting menu. All ingredients are organic and local.


We started with cheddar cauliflower soup. There is no cheese in the soup, the type of cauliflower is cheddar cauliflower. We think it was made with heavy cream and mixed stock. Topped with sourdough croutons and beautiful chives.


The main course was a seafood dish. Black cod, squid, and shrimp in a broth and topped with fennel salad. The broth had a hint of lemon and balsamic vinegar. We don't know how they got the black cod cooked without breaking it! And the seafood was served with incredibly good gnocci.

And wine!!!




For dessert we had options, Tom got the dark chocolate gelatto while I got the strawberry gelatto. They were served in huge glasses and it was so good, but I couldn't finish it!


We decided to do the wine pairings with the tasting menu, and each wine really compliment the dish. JSix was fantastic and we would definitely go back and recommend it.

Surgery

Tom had surgery and knew he would be unable to cook much for awhile. He prepared...

Cole Slaw
Blogger has made my pictures turn sideways and I can't get them to go back to normal. So, sorry about the head tilting. This is cole slaw with red and green cabbage, onion, olive oil, vinegar, and mustard.

Pork
Since Tom would want to eat and not want to cook, he made himself a boston butt. Dry rubbed and roasted in the oven for a lot of hours. Our grill is on the way, next time he will be able to slow cook this overnight on the grill.

Surgery - Part 2

Omelette
Tom used his pork butt to make breakfast for himself every morning. Red onion, pork, and Colby cheese.

Bacon and Eggs
When he wanted a change he made bacon and eggs with an english muffin.

Chicken and Pasta in cream sauce
Tom made a light alfredo sauce with balsamic, red onion, red pepper, and sundried tomatoes. It was smoky and sweet.

Old Standby
This is one of our favorite easy meals. Mac and cheese with artichoke garlic chicken sausage. And Caesar salad.

Chili Party!

Tom's aunt and uncle have a chili party every year. They live about 7 hours away, so this was my first chili party experience. We make the chili, you bring the beer. They expect 50-100 people.

The night starts by cooking all the chopped veggies. Celery, onion, lots of peppers, and garlic. This is done outside in a huge skillet. I think it was 5 batches of cooking for all the chili.

This is the prep bench outside. The veggies are cooked in olive oil for the veggie chili and bacon grease for the others.

Kitchen table, the guac bowl is in the back, and 2 apple pies are being made.