October: A suprise

This month was a surprise all around. When I first read the menu from the charming Gal #1 I was hesitant to say the least. Pork...cherries....brandy sauce....oh boy. I do not eat pork, hardly ever. And cherries are my Mr. Gal #3's favorite fruit, my least. So we were in for a interesting turn of events to say the least. But here follows some things I learned while making this menu and some tips I have for those to make this surprising feast.

Here we are trussing the seasoned pork...not as hard as I thought. I googled a video on how to truss and vaala! We have a perfected seasoned and trussed center cut pork loin!

 The directions said this would make a difference in cooking the meat evenly and keeping it tight, and it did! When it came out it looked awesome and smelled super! (Even for pork!)

Next up after the meat was started was the potatoes. I love mashed potatoes but had some doubts about how much garlic was going in the mix! But we followed directions and wound up with awesome garlic mashed potatoes that have been requested again already!

 Ingredients...

 Dad cut and washed the potatoes, it is important to cut them to the 1-inch cubes, you will need them that small to absorb the liquid in the cooking process! Also after they have cooked and you remove them from the heat, let them sit while you get some other things ready, that way they have time to absorb the liquid because it will look soupy if you don't!

And now for the sauce, that is now replacing cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, per request of Mr. Gal #3.

 Ingredients....brandy and all!

 Cooking the onions....very important you let them get golden brown, they are too strong in the sauce otherwise. They were perfectly browned and added a richness to the sauce, not an overwhelming onion flavor. However, if you have medium to large onions, just add one.

 Cooking away! A suggestion made by Dad, the author of the sauce, is to cut the chicken stock down by half. This will allow the sauce to become syrupy more quickly and taste the same. Our sauce never did become quite syrupy because of how much liquid there was. Don't underestimate the cooking time if you are going to use the 3 cups of chicken stock...ours was on the stove for 25 minutes!

 The final meal....

And dessert came after.

 

This was a wonderful end to the meal. Light and sweet it made for a nice refreshing dessert after a hearty meal. The salad from the menu is missing from this update because it was forgotten in the making. However, there will be a short part 2 to blog on the salad being made for the leftovers of a surprisingly wonderful meal. With all the reservations I had about making it I was blown away with results. Mr. Gal #3 is giving the main course a 10!! Not easily achieved, awesome job Gal #1! Thumbs way up!

October 2010 Menu

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad w/ Warm Cider Vinaigrette  (serves 4)
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Mrs. #1:  "I expect resistance on this one.  Be open-minded.  I've already made this and it's absolutely wonderful. Customize it for those "Misters" who are fussy eaters. This is also probably the most labor-intensive recipe in October's menu.  Plan ahead.
Pepper-Crusted Pork Loin w/ Cherry-Brandy Sauce (serves 6)

Mrs. #1: Chosen because I can make it 24 hours ahead.  Always a winner with me!

Garlic Mashed Potatoes (serves 6)

Mrs. #1: Chosen because I've never tried this!  Looking forward to this one.

Roasted Garlic Green Beans

Mrs. #1: Easy!

Poached Pears w/ Raspberry Sauce

Mrs. #1: Yummy and healthy!

A HOT September

Well this menu was a very expected hit. Everything yummy and homey was expected from a fantabulous menu created by Mr. and Mrs. Gal #2. Everything was perfectly enjoyed and went great with our first Football Saturday together in a few years. However, here is my caution. Wings are meant to be made by experts and BW3's only.

 And here's why....

 Excited, but why do you have to separate the wing joint and tip? Let's save time and not.

 Here we are doing our spices coating...looking good (for now).

 Ryan makes his appearance in the kitchen to help!

Here comes the frying part, frying from one recipe and ingredients from another lead to....

Splattering and impromtu frying....which means...

 A wing disaster. Negative points for Gal #3 here folks.

But what I have observed from several cooking attempts and failures, one dish disaster does not ruin a meal. You can have a lot of success in other dishes and have one that needs a retry. So here follows what was most enjoyed from this menu for its taste and disasterless-ness.

FIRST PLACE:

The prep for the mac'n'cheese was not hard at all and made the grater of the gruyer cheese very happy!

We tried the tomatoes on half, but ended up discarding them. It was too "not mac'n'cheese" for us but super enjoyed this dish! This will be replacing the blue box.

RUNNER UP:

 The potato wedges smelled AWESOME and made the anticipation to eat them even greater. This will be a rerun at the #3 household. 

And the FINALIST:

 Ingredients for a most yummy dessert (minus very tricky fillo dough). I made this first and it turned out very well and was a highlight to the end of the wings saga.

The end result. I had lots o'filling and made them to freeze.

*note: do not freeze after baking, the fillo dough does not hold up well when reheated*

 Overall a very good meal, the wings will be a retry at the #3 house and will be posted as a follow up when attempted again. We enjoyed eating the sides of this meal and will give this an overall 8.5 out of 10! Nicely done Mr. and Mrs. Gal #2! Keep up the good recipes! Looking forward to hear from Gal #1 for next month. *Note: will not attempt wings again for 6 months*  =D

Our September

Several days before the menu I prepped the dessert:

 The filling was very easy to make!

 I was pretty nervous about working with the phyllo dough ... but it wasn't as hard as I was expecting. My biggest issue: the dough dried out very quickly despite a damp paper towel.

 I cut the filling recipe in half and still had enough to make 2 apple strudels! Here they are ready for freezing.

 The day of the menu! The hubster helped me cook =D

 Mr. Two cutting potato wedges

 My mac and cheese prep

 The potatoes and macaroni cooking away!

 Mr. Two making the honey BBQ sauce

 Our "boneless wings" aka. cut up chicken breasts!

 The chicken marinating in the buttermilk and chili powder. I nixed cayenne pepper since neither of us are hot/spicy food fans.

 The finished wedges! Delish!!

 The finish mac and cheese ... I did mess this up. But I don't know if Mr. Two would have liked it either way...? Bummer!

 Our entire menu! Overall, it was a keeper.

 Finished wings and sauce =)

 I thawed one strudel and was prepping it for baking.

 The finished dessert. It was super sweet but very good!

This is the first time Mr. Two has helped in the preparation and cooking of a cooking club menu! But since he had a lot to do with the choices, I thought it was only fair that he got in the kitchen. We had fun cooking together!

Overall this was a keeper menu! We really liked everything sans the macaroni and cheese. Unfortunately the blue box has taken over our taste buds and expectations and the homemade stuff isn't the same. After some double checking ... I also realized that I was off on the seasonings. I'm not sure if it was the halving of the recipe, the extra cook in the kitchen or that I was just reading off the wrong recipe, but there was a reason I was tasting too much nutmeg in that mac and cheese! Oops.

The chicken wings were great! Pretty easy (a little messy) and tasty. I was worried about the sauce, but we both really liked it!

My favorite thing was Mr Two's potato wedges; yummy! They got nice and crisp outside, and the rosemary was awesome.

Dessert was also good. I did things a little differently and made it up several days ahead and froze it, uncooked. I let it thaw on the counter for about ... 30 minutes and baked it. It is very sweet though! And that is coming from a gal with one major sweet tooth. We paired it with vanilla ice cream and ate it up pretty quickly.

I think I would change one of our starches for something fresh and bright, a fruit or veggie dish, and then the menu would be perfect. Mr. Two disagrees and heartily liked the lack of veggies. ;-)

And we did watch football with our meal! Welcome autumn.

September 2010 Menu

I have three general impressions of September's menu.  The first and most impressive is that it was a hit with the guys.  No moaning and complaining and several compliments.  Refreshing.  The second is that although I wouldn't necessarily label this menu "labor intensive" I felt like I used every dish, pot, pan and utensil I own.  Mr. #1 came in after two dishes were finished and declared a half time so he could clean the kitchen.  (He's nice like that).  Lastly, I have to start remembering to look at servings/portion sizes.  I am still in the "cook for a crowd" mode and there's always too much food!

I made the dessert first.  Discovered I'm not a fan of phyllo dough.  The menu clearly indicates "frozen phyllo dough."  But I'm here to tell you that phyllo dough is only meant to be used in a thawed state.  I managed to piece it together - but I was not using "sheets" - I was using "strips."  Skinny strips at that.  It is rather forgiving, however, and I used the butter as my glue to hold it together.  Once I had my "sheets" prepared, I looked at my filling and thought..."there's no way all that will fit."  I was right.  About 1/4 of the filling ended up as compost.  You will see from my photos that the front view looks picture perfect, but when you move around to the back - there is leakage.  :)  I did put the glaze and cinnamon on when it was out of the oven, but declined to add more powdered sugar.  It was definitely sweet enough. It has a nice autumn flavor and the phyllo dough has a texture I enjoy.  I don't know how the menfolk like it yet - they are too full from the other dishes.

Next I made the macaroni & cheese.  I didn't have quite enough gruyere and too much cheddar - but the ounces worked out.  I was skeptical about putting tomatoes on top, but that turned out to be my favorite flavor of the whole menu.  Son #1 was positive about the flavor, not too keen about the texture.  He likes "smooth and creamy."  Because I had baked it first and it sat for nearly 1/2 hour while everything else cooked, it may have cooled off too much.  Mr. #1 was definintely a big fan of this.  Note: Like many of Barefoot's recipes - I cut back on the salt.  This one calls for 1 tablespoon!  I used about 1 1/2 tsp.

Chicken wings w/ barbecue sauce.  Easy preparation!  Overlooked "turmeric" on the ingredient list, so would be interested to discover what that adds to the taste.  Also wasn't prepared to purchase "creamed honey" because of the expense, so I cut down the tablespoons to 2 and used regular honey.  Again, this was a hit with the guys...they would like to have it again.  And contrary to my earlier comment - there wasn't a whole lot of these left.  They went fast!

Son #1 made the potatoes.  They have good flavor and great aroma while baking.  The unanimous comment about this recipe is that with the macaroni and cheese - potatoes could have been given a miss.  I agreed with this comment - especially for the crowd we had (three!).  But I would keep the potatoes if serving a crowd or having a football party! 

Thanks for the tasty treats Mr. & Mrs. #2!  Touchdown!