St. Patrick's Day with Colcannon

So we have been totally slacking on putting up blogs, I'm sorry. Life happens, and by the time I remember I have taken pictures for the blog it's about 2 weeks after the fact. So yeah, that's what happens.

So let's start with St. Patrick's Day. Can't say Mike and I are the typical, go out and drink green beers type. We aren't ones to party on a regular basis, you can usually find us on a weekend watching a movie all cozied up on the couch rather than out at a bar. And of course St. Patrick's day is not something to be out in necessarily, depends on where you are I suppose. Though people watching is hilarious. I think that is one of our favorite things to do. Going to Walmart alone is a trip and a half for that. But holidays where people promote drinking - you're bound to find something hilarious on the streets.

a little potato love

So typical cuisine for March 17th is corned beef and cabbage. Well Mike and I did an adaptation of that, we did pork instead, a tenderloin. Then did colcannon for the potatoes and cabbage. I think this is one of my new favorite ways to eat potatoes. Bacon, potatoes, and cabbage. It's your starch and veggie all in one.

Colcannon is quite simple really. Bacon, cooked down (they say about 3 slices - I would say use 6, but that's me and I love bacon. We used bacon bits - the real kind by Oscar Mayer, then 1/2 a head of cabbage chopped up and cooked down in just a little water in the microwave (on stove top if you prefer). Then you make mashed potatoes. Potatoes, milk, and butter. Mix everything together once done and then taste and salt and pepper as needed.

I of course love making mashed potatoes from scratch let alone from red potatoes (one of my absolute favorites). So see, colcannon is not hard to make. Just cook everything and mix together. Much like you would with corn and potatoes and gravy.

For the pork, we rubbed it in some garlic sea salt and pepper. Mmm, trust me that Hyvee Garlic Sea Salt is sooooo yummy! Who said store brands suck?

Look at that fabulousness! It was delicious for sure. Of course 9 times out of 10 anything we make is pretty good. We cooked this baby at 350 degrees for about an hour I believe. Pork has to be at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for doneness. Pork is allowed to be a very very light pink inside though - unlike chicken or poultry.

 So this was our dinner, was quite tasty. Pork was cooked just right and the colcannon I think was Mike's favorite piece. I still think it could have used more bacon. But everything could use more bacon.

Now go out and cook! (with more bacon!)

Redneck Coq Au Vin aka Goose Stew

Well here is our other delicious recipe. As you all have found out, Mike hunts. He hunted a lot this week. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. That's a lot for him in one week.

So Monday he went out with his buddy Cameron and went hunting for geese. Well they sure found them.

They got the daily limit each before 9 am. WOW! As you can see, he's a happy hunter. If you look really close you can see the lone duck they shot in between the middle geese. Cameron's connection paid off. In the end I also reaped benefits from this because I got to enjoy the food that comes from the hunt.

Cameron has a recipe for goose that he and his wife said was good. So if Jaime says it's good, I guess I can trust that because a lot of women seem to shy away from wild game.

From what I was told about this recipe, it sounded pretty good, it would marinate the meat overnight and then slow cook it for 8 hours. Simple and hands free. My kind of cooking as of late. I'm falling more in love with my slow cooker and bread machine. Makes cooking and baking easier.

So Tuesday night we enjoyed goose stew or as a friend aptly named it, after Mike and I had been calling it "Redneck Boeuf Bourguignon " "Redneck Coq au Vin" since it has a bird/fowl in it as the protein and not beef. Though i must say the meat looks close to beef than chicken when cooked.

So what did we do to create such a dish? Well Mike took the meat and marinated it in Jack Daniels and Worcestershire sauce overnight (flipped once). Then the next morning my job was to mix the packets and beer and add the goose to the crock pot and set for 8 hours.

So I took one packet of brown gravy mix (like McCormick's) and one packet of onion soup mix (that recipe starter stuff that can make onion dip too) and then whisked into a large (thinking 24 oz bottle) of Budweiser beer.

Mike said he wanted to use Guinness but couldn't find just A bottle/can of it, so he went St. Louis style and got Budweiser.

I then whisked the ingredients together and then added the goose meat and discarded the marinate. Set the crock pot on low for 8 hours and promptly drove myself to work while Mike was out duck hunting that morning. (No real luck Tuesday for hunting - got 2 ducks which he let Andrew have since he hadn't been out until Tuesday for the season).

So when I got home, Mike had literally JUST gotten back from hunting, still had Goose (the dog) with him.

He was starting to work on potatoes and onion. Of course I walked in and had a bit of a sinking feeling about this "stew" we were making. It smelled a lot like our botched attempt at boeuf bourguignon that we had done in the crock pot a few months ago (it was absolutely TERRIBLE). It smelled the same and was a bit worrying to me. It smelled good but smelled the same. So when it came time to eat, I was, understandably, a bit leery about the taste. Come to find, it tasted fantastic - to me. It was good. It was not gamey tasting at all to me, didn't taste like chicken folks. It tastes like goose. Mike had cut up some onion and potatoes and we placed that in the crock pot, after taking the meat out - leaving the juices, and cooked those for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours while we ran around and took Goose - the dog - back home.

We served the goose and potatoes and onions with homemade white bread that was buttered. Mmmm perfect for sopping up the juices.

Of course did I take a picture that night? No, grr. I just ate some for lunch too and forgot to take a picture, so here is one I took when I got home.

So go out and cook something new guys. You can use this recipe with any protein source you like, quite honestly. It doesn't have to be duck or goose, though I am thinking I will thaw some duck meat and do this with that.

RECIPE:
Goose Stew aka Redneck Coq Au Vin

1/2 goose breast or whole breast, sliced - can't really tell you how much he used - was plenty
1 cup Jack Daniels Whiskey
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

Marinade meat in whiskey and Worcestershire sauce overnight, make sure to flip at least once.

1 pkt onion soup/french onion dip mix
1 pkt brown gravy mix (like the kind by McCormick)
1 (24 oz) bottle Budweiser beer/Guinness

Add packets and beer to crock pot, whisk to blend well. Add meat, discard marinade.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

You could put the potatoes (we used red) and onion in the crockpot at the same time and not worry about it.

Whiskey Tango Steak Night!!!

Ok so maybe just Whiskey in the steak marinade, but YUMMMMM! When Mike and I are high fiving each other over such a great dinner you know we have a hit on our hands.

Again, another creation from the "big book of food." The Roomie decided steak over lamb and boy it was a good choice. So the menu for the night was:

Sirloin steak
Mashed Potatoes
Grilled Veggies
and a Mushroom Gravy

But let's embellish a little. That menu sounds like a pretty basic mid-western meal. Well you may be right but damn meat and potatoes is just a good way to go.

So here is the revised menu so you can start drooling like we did.

Sirloin steak marinated in a whiskey brown sugar marinade served with a baby red potato mashed into a heavenly smash with garlic and butter with a side of grilled California mixed vegetables with olive oil and garlic herb seasoning with a great side of mushroom gravy to serve on top of the steak and potatoes.

So now then you ask, what does this look like???? Well I am guessing you are salivating. Too bad these pictures aren't scratch and sniff, oh man you should have smelled this. The steaks only needed an added salt and pepper (light) to spice up the marinade for grilling.

So to start we marinaded the steaks in this fabulous whiskey marinade (we even bought cheap whiskey - McCormick's for $5 - tasted great! You are welcome to use Jack if you prefer). Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup whiskey (your choice to go expensive or go cheap - we couldn't tell the difference)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 Dijon mustard
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
ground black pepper to taste

Stir together whiskey, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, green onion, brown sugar, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Add to chosen meat - sirloin steak in our case. Marinate over night or at least a couple hours. (We marinated over night)

Marinated Steak - just started grilling

From there we started making the mushroom sauce/gravy.

The mushroom gravy we cheated a little bit and used pre-made beef gravy and added some ingredients.

So we took this "savory beef" gravy. The gravy on its own is not that tasty. So we checked out the recipe for mushroom sauce from the "big book of food" and added white cooking wine (instead of white wine as stated in the book). We then cooked down mushrooms and browned them with some green onion.

freshly cut white mushrooms: courtesy of
Mike the ninja knife master

DON'T CROWD THE MUSHROOMS ;)
or they won't brown

So now we add the mushrooms and onions to the gravy.

Thickening process

Started cooking after browning mushrooms

We ended up having to make a roux (Mike made - I do not have the patience, when I thicken gravy I use cornstarch. He says that doesn't taste quite as good. I am sure he's right.)

Here is the gravy after adding the blonde roux.

YUMMY!

Of course we also added salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic powder and the white wine. Roomie didn't care for the rosemary and, therefore, didn't care much for the sauce/gravy. But Roomie liked the steak, taters and veg.

We cheated on the taters since neither of us wanted to boil and mash (even though that's probably my favorite way to eat taters).

Can I just say though, these didn't even need butter added. It's an "add boiling water" and wait 5 minutes potato mix. Just yum!! I was shocked for a potato flake mix. Definitely recommended.

So by this point food is starting to come in from the grill.

Steaks ready to come in - veggies in the foil

Can we eat now?

Steaks smelled AMAZING when they came in. Was so ready to eat at that point. So Mike got plates out and we dug in.

The veggies came in and looked great.

Now to eat and show off the skills of cooking.

My steak was done more medium rare/medium while the rest were closer to medium/medium well. Still so so so delicious.

We will definitely make this again. Maybe next time we will mash our own potatoes and make our own gravy but in the mean time this did a great job of satisfying our hunger.

Grillin' Time

Tonight we grilled out. Despite the weather having difficulty making up its mind to rain or not.

It held off enough that we could definitely grill out.

The menu tonight was:
--jalapeño and pepper jack burgers
--grilled onion rings
--grilled peach quarters
--German potato salad
--fresh fruit salad.

Big menu, yes. Delicious, yes.

This morning we headed out to find the fruit we wanted to use. We went to the local Italian market and got pineapple, kiwi, cantaloupe, and strawberries. We then ran around town trying to find onion which, for whatever reason, was impossible to find loose yellow onion. So back to the market we went after purchasing the bacon, vinegar and beef.

Mike of course did most of the vegetable and fruit chopping, he has a new knife now that is specifically for vegetable chopping. He started to get the hang of it. Still a bit unsure of the new knife as it is a different style than a chefs knife.

While he prepared the fruit salad I began preparations on the potato salad, which I have no recipe for. It's just something you watch generations of family members make and you just know by look and taste. A little of this, a pinch of that, a squirt of this.

Basic recipe is:
5 lbs potatoes (mom uses russet, we used red)
1 small bottle cider vinegar
3/4 pkg bacon, diced
1 onion diced
Spicy brown mustard
Garlic powder
Cornstarch or flour for thickening

Boil and peel potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces.

Fresh boiled and cut up potatoes, red potatoes. Easiest to peel after boiling. Skin peels right off with your hand.

Cook bacon and onion down until bacon is slightly crisp and onions translucent. Then add a nice squirt of spicy brown mustard, dash of garlic powder and then add a healthy portion of cider vinegar. After that, mix in watered down flour or cornstarch to mixture until thickened slightly.

Vinegar/Bacon/Onion sauce

Slice up boiled and peeled potatoes into bite sized pieces. Pour vinegar mix on top. Put in oven at 300 degrees for up to 40 min and then serve.

German Potato Salad fresh from the oven

The burgers were pepper jack cheese, shredded up, dice jalapeño and then an egg for binding purposes as well as worstershire (sp?) sauce and basic seasoning.

Action shot, Mike's favorite

Grilled peaches had a dash of sea salt and the grilled onions were seasoned with Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and a squirt of olive oil.

Grilled peaches, white peaches, surrounding the grilled deliciousness of onion

All in all it was a great dinner. As usual. Had a minor injury prepping the peaches. The pit was not cooperating and so in my desperate attempt to quarter this peach I had the misfortune of the knife slipping and cutting my finger. (picture included. There is blood)

Injured finger, right ring finger

everything is better with a band-aid

So despite the injury and stubborn peach we had a successful dinner with juicy and flavorful burgers, hot potato salad and delicious fruit.

Yummy!!

Now we are both stuffed to the brim and going to digest while watching a movie.

Final Product, fruit salad included here, on top of the peaches. YUMM!!

What we do

We are Mike and Sarah. We love to eat and cook. So we decided we should start a blog of the things we cook together. We find that we make some pretty awesome food when we put our heads together and put the idea to work.

This is where we will clue you in on what we do. Cooking and ideas. We will even include recipes where we can and as long as we remember to. ;) we are busy so if there is a lag in posts that would be why.

So to start off our recipe/cooking posts we made roast Monday. Oh so delicious. Tender, juicy and the spice mix Mike created at the farmers market was spot on. Smoky, flavorful and a little kick at the end. We enjoyed that with green beans that had a garlic herb spice (also from the farmers market) then we had the potatoes, carrots and onions from the pan we roasted in. Just a fantastic dinner to the end of a holiday weekend.

Mike did all the chopping, that is probably his favorite part of cooking. He has excellent knife skills. I help out with what I can, giving the temp and time things should cook as well as helping prep things that he isn't currently chopping up ;)

When all is said and done we end up with a fantastic dinner. We also then have a dinner where we sit on the couch and high five each other for a job well done as well as moan about how good it was and the fact that we ate too much. Ha! In the end we have enjoyed ourselves and look forward to many more food adventures. Here is our roast and veggies.