A Spanish influenced salad, made with Serrano ham, the bowl is made from the ham baked in the oven wrapped around a ring mold. The salad of arugula, red peppers is dressed with a lemon vinaigrette and topped with Manchego cheese and some of the raw Serrano ham.
The steak is a simple Canadian AAA strip grilled and served with lemon roasted potatoes and maple syrup baby squash.
Braised ox tail with balsamic vinegar and tossed with bucatini, a perfect winter dish.
I think I’m going to like this wine…
This is pretty tasty as sodas go, and is also great as a braising liquid.
Birch Root Beer
My first try at making a brisket, it was OK, it needed longer than the 6 hours I had it on the BBQ for. I also need to get a proper smoker box to make the smoking more consistent.
Smoked BBQ brisket
Smoked BBQ brisket
This isn’t super creative, store bought roasted chicken, Knor chicken bouillon cube, some fresh vegetables and the special ingredient, my wife’s garlic chive noodles, I took the liberty to deep fry a bunch of the noodles which made the garlic chives totally pop. Very tasty, the thinner the noodle the better they are to eat and the longer they last.
Some deep fried noodles…
Roasted and grilled vegetable lasagne, roasted peppers: yellow, green and red (although roasted green peppers don’t seem to add much), grilled egg plant and zucchini along with homemade tomato sauce and whole wheat noodles.
Clams in tomato sauce, I also added some Whole Foods red pepper tapenade which is viciously hot, but complemented the dish, although next time I’ll use a little less for wife’s sake. The clams were served with spaghetti and garlic bread. The bowl in the background has some roasted peppers for dinner tomorrow.
Some very meaty ribs, braised in a molasses based sauce, which when reduced makes an excellent BBQ sauce. The ribs were finished on the grill for 30 minutes and mopped with the reducing sauce.
The gravy
Pretty simple, Oktoberfest sausage from St. Jacobs over charcoal done low and slow. The sausage are from two different vendors (sadly I can’t remember the names, next year I’ll take notes.) My mother in-law also made potato salad and a green salad, we also had pretzels.
After a great day visiting St. Jacobs market, everything on the plate comes from the market, peas and carrots (these were the best peas I’ve ever had) rustic mashed potatoes and a grilled rib-eye. Simple, delicious, outstanding, worth the trip and a very reasonable priced dinner. Wine for the dinner was J. Lohr 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon