First Dinner of the Year

For the first dinner I grilled some salmon in a maple, orange juice, brown sugar, and rice wine vinegar. I took the left over marinade and cooked it down on the stove to make a nice sauce for the salmon. My new rice cooker made some great basmatic rice and I grilled some asparagus with soy sauce and garlic and threw some toasted black sesame seeds on top.

Happy New Year!

New Year's day serious breakfast sandwich

You know how you are really hungry (among other things) after New Year's Eve. Well, this is what cured me: toasted baguette with cheddar cheese, roasted grape tomatoes, spring salad mix, two scrambled eggs, cucumber, and some turkey bacon (optional).

New Year's Eve Little Bites of YUM

For a low key New Year's at a friends house, I made some little bites of Yum.

1. Grilled a small filet minion (just salt and pepper). I roasted red pepper, grape tomotoes and some garlic the night before. I made a roasted red pepper sauce with the red pepper mayo and some asian garlic pepper sauce for a kick. The roasted garlic was combined with rosemary and lemon and EVOO for a slight marinade/sauce for the filet. To assemble the bite I sliced up my baguette (from Rous Cler of course), spread some red pepper sauce, added a nice leafy green, the filet with roasted garlic and on top was a roasted grape tomato.
2. For the other plates I did a combo of green onion sliced long ways, avocado, cheddar cheese and grape tomato.
3. I also whipped up some stuffed mushrooms. The basic chop up the tops with some garlic and onion and add some herbs, butter, bread crumbs, fresh parm, and mozzarella.
4. Not shown is a artichoke dip I made. I usually make the one that is basically mayo parm garlic and artichokes. This time I tried a new recipe with some great northern beans. It was very good but not quite the same richness of the usual. I will post the recipe as an amendment.

This post dedicated to Lousious who went to kitty heaven that night.

leftover turkey with some killer gravy

So after a delicious turkey at my sister's for Christmas, I managed to bring some back to my house and make some turkey and gravy over biscuits that turned out really well. For the gravy I just did a traditional rous (equal parts butter and flour) cooked until it turns color, stirring constantly and then added some broth, thyme, salt and pepper and a penzey favorite mix that has sage and a few other things in it. The biscuits I have to confess were just Bisquick.