Restaurant Week 2011

Posted By under Reviews

Last week was Restaurant Week, during which participating restaurants around town put together special three-course meals that cost $35 per person, $7 of which is donated to two local charities.  We seized the opportunity to try some new restaurants and visit a couple of old, special-occasion favorites and decided to make an entire week of it — going out to dinner Monday through Friday.  It was a wonderfully decadent week, but also surprisingly exhausting.  As glad as we are to have had the experience — sampling lots of amazing dishes, gathering inspiration to try in our own kitchen and discovering a new favorite eatery — we ultimately learned how much we really enjoy our lifestyle of planning our menus for the week and cooking and dining at home (except for the part where we have to clean up and do dishes.)  Rather than exhaust all of you with every detail of every dish from the week, we’ll just hit the highlights.  (But with a week’s worth of three (sometimes four) course meals, there are A LOT of highlights.  You have been warned.) Continue reading “Restaurant Week 2011”

Turkey Tetrazzini (with leftover turkey)

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Poultry, Recipes

Now that we have a delicious new way to cook turkey breast and plan to cook turkey a lot more often, we need some good recipes for turkey leftovers.  In the past, we’ve tried to think outside the box when it comes to turkey leftovers — turkey paella and turkey enchiladas, for example — but this time we decided to do something a little more on the classic side.  Turkey Tetrazzini is a classic American dish, but one that neither of us had ever made or eaten.  We found a great recipe for tetrazzini in (go figure) “The Best American Classics” cookbook by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine.  We love the folks at America’s Test Kitchen because they exhaustively test all their recipes to come up with the best possible versions — something we thought would be key to successfully preparing a dish without having any clue how it was supposed to taste.  Turns out that it’s supposed to taste really delicious with surprisingly complex flavors for what basically amounts to a noodle casserole.  A noodle casserole that we will crave with every future turkey breast we cook.

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Smoked Turkey Breast

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Poultry, Recipes

When Dan purchased his smoker for one of the Charcutepalooza challenges, my first thought was that it would be yet another cooking gadget that he would use a couple of times before getting bored with it.  Happily, I could not have been more wrong.  He uses the smoker a lot, for such smoked delights as ribs, game hen and tri-tip.  He also occasionally uses the smoker as a charcoal grill, for that old-school grill flavor.  What I had originally thought was bought on a whim has turned out to be a very worthwhile purchase that has allowed Dan to expand his grilling repertoire.  It doesn’t hurt that the smoker is incredibly easy to use and has achieved near-perfect results each time we’ve used it.  If you grill often, enjoy smoky flavor and have the room and budget for it, the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker is a great investment that we definitely recommend (in a non-sponsored way.) Continue reading “Smoked Turkey Breast”

Seafood Mousseline

Posted By under Charcuterie

It’s that time again, when we document our latest foray into the world of charcuterie.  This month’s challenge is “binding,” which involves using egg whites, gelatin or natural gel from bone stock to adhere ingredients together in a mold.  The technique is used to make pí¢tés and terrines, which essentially are loaves of ground up or pureed meat cooked in a mold.  Once again, this is not something we ever thought we would find ourselves making at home.  But the satisfaction of learning new cooking techniques has been one of the best things about the Charcutepalooza experience.  Thanks as always to the fearless leaders of Charcutepalooza, Mrs. Wheelbarrow and The Yummy Mummy, and an extra special thank you for offering a less sqeamish option for this month’s endeavor — seafood mousseline for the Apprentice level instead of “headcheese, feet or trotters” for the Charcutiere Challenge.  As satisfying as it has been to take on these endeavors and cook outside our comfort zone, I really don’t think I could have handled a pig’s head or feet being cooked in my kitchen.  And I really didn’t want to have to try tasting it.  But that’s just me — I have great respect and admiration for those participants who took on the Charcutiere Challenge — well done!

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The Good Rice

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Rice, Side Dishes

A rice side dish can be a nice alternative to potatoes or pasta.  Early in our home and cooking life, we used to make a lot of boxed rice dishes.  Not that there is anything wrong with rice-from-the-box, but a couple of years ago we decided to cut preservatives out of our diet where possible and try to cook more dishes from scratch.  The boxed side dishes were among the first to go.  We thought we might miss the flavor from those little seasoning packets that come with boxed rice, but then we found this recipe, which tastes way better than the stuff from the box.  We found the recipe on this awesome site, which has tons of great (non-sponsored) product reviews, happy hour recommendations and lots of fun content to browse, especially when you’re working killing some free time.  Back to the rice — the ingredients are simple:  rice, chicken broth, olive oil, butter, onion, garlic and salt — but they turn plain old white rice into a rich and flavorful side dish.  For obvious reasons, we refer to this dish as “The Good Rice.” Continue reading “The Good Rice”

Grilled Branzini

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Recipes, Seafood

We are big fans of Michael Ruhlman and regularly read his food blog, which is where Dan discovered that “branzini” is a really easy and tasty fish to grill.  We’re always trying to work new fish recipes into our weekly menu routine, but it can be difficult because I’m not a big fan.  But we are mindful of the health benefits of eating fish on a regular basis, so we continue searching for good fish dishes — especially ones that don’t involve breading or heavy sauces that cancel out the beneficial aspects.  We have some old favorites (here and here), but this grilled branzini may be the most healthy — and still delicious — we have tried to date.  It is also ridiculously easy.

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Carrot Cake

Posted By under Recipes, Side Dishes

This is our first dessert post here at FoodieLawyer.  We don’t post many desserts because we don’t cook many desserts.  I don’t really have a sweet tooth (salty is my thing), and Dan does his best not to indulge his too often.  But it’s a special occasion around these parts — today is our birthday!  On August 7, 2010, FoodieLawyer came into the Internet world.  We started this blog way back then as a hobby and method of keeping track of recipes we enjoy.  At the time, we weren’t sure we would be able to come up with enough recipes each week or that anyone other than our families and close friends would read our content.

One year and way more regular readers (not related to us) than we ever expected, FoodieLawyer has grown into something between a vocation and a lifestyle for us.  We are humbled by the experience and grateful for the support from so many of you who have come here this past year.  It has been a year of meeting interesting people, documenting amazing food experiences, acquiring new cooking toys, and learning cooking techniques that we never would have considered a year ago.  Through this little blog, we have discovered an even greater appreciation and passion for all things food-related, and we are thrilled to still be here — cooking, photographing, writing — and hopefully inspiring others to do the same.  Happy Birthday to Us!

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