Marco Island Eats

Because of the threat of Hurricane Ernesto, many of the restaurants on Marco Island were closed, but we made due.

Pit stop at Steak 'n Shake on the drive down


Across the street from the hotel we found a small sports bar.


Rookies Dijon Horseradish Beef Sandwich


Craig checks out the wine list at Campiello's Restaurant.


We ate at Kurrents Restaurant at the Marriott two nights. On top of the great food, they offered valet parking (which saved us from running thru Ernesto's rain).

Dumpling Appetizer (the Wasabi Cream sauce was amazing... or as our waitress kept saying, it was "to die for")

The restaurant was pretty dark, so unfortunately most of my photos didn't come out very well. This was one of my entrees - it was their take on a Bento Box... each compartment had something different to taste - included tuna, shrimp, scallops, and the top right corner is Lobster Mac & Cheese!!

A few days away...

Gone Fishin' (well, not really) ... but see ya'll in a week!

Burgers & Zin

A great combination - burgers and zinfandel. Tonight I added minced and sauted onion, garlic, and red pepper to the meat.



Served at the best table in town...


Yum.

Maple-Nut Scones

I had made these scones once before, a few years ago. I came upon the recipe again and decided to give them another try. Pretty tasty.

CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE



Maple Nut Scones

Ingredients
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons walnuts, chopped

2 cups flour
½ cup butter or margarine, firm
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk

Directions

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Mix 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 tablespoons finely chopped nuts; reserve.
- Cut the margarine into flour, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, baking powder, and salt with a pastry blender or two large knives in a large bowl until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
- Stir in a ½ cup of toasted nuts.
- Stir in maple syrup, egg, and just enough milk so that the dough leaves the side of the bowl and forms a ball.
- Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface; gently roll in flour to coat.
- Knead lightly 10 times to coat.
- Pat or roll into an 8-inch circle on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
- Brush with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar nut mixture.
- Cut into eight wedges but do not separate.
- Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Immediately remove from cookie sheet; carefully separate the wedges. Serve warm and enjoy!

English Muffin Pizza

One of the perks of working from home - homemade lunch. Today's delight, toasted english muffin pizza...

Eggplant Rollatini

For some reason making Eggplant Rollatini has always given me a bit of trouble. Not sure if it was the full moon or meteor shower, but it turned out fantastic tonight. Thin sliced eggplant lightly fried and then rolled around a mixture of ricotta & romano cheeses and fresh herbs.

Here are the rolls almost ready to be baked...


Add some chianti - Yum.


A few day old roll made for a great piece of garlic bread (no chance of vampires here tonight!)

Pucker-licious

After seeing multiple recipes for Key Lime Pie on Food Network this past weekend and then finding a bag of Key Limes on sale at the market, Craig and I decided it was fate and we needed to make one.

We picked a recipe from Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) - her recipes have never steered me wrong in the past. This recipe was fairly easy. First you pre-bake a graham cracker crust and then fill it with a key lime custard and freeze. She garnished it with whipped cream, but we decided to skip that this time.

Here is our crust ready to be baked.


The recipe calls for 3/4 Cup lime juice. Using tiny key limes it took about 20 of them to get the required amount of juice and zest. Here are some of the remnants


Finished Pie...


Click Here for Printable Recipe

No Bake Key Lime Pie
Copyright, 2002 Barefoot Contessa Family Style

Ingredients

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
6 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons grated lime zest
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 to 5 limes or 20 key limes)


Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- For the crust, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter in a bowl. Press into a 9-inch pyrex pie pan, making sure the sides and the bottom are an even thickness. Bake for 10 minutes until firm and golden. Allow to cool completely.
- For the filling, beat the egg yolks and sugar on high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment for 5 minutes, until thick. With the mixer on medium speed, add the condensed milk, lime zest, and lime juice. Pour into the baked pie shell and freeze.

When life gives you too many ripe bananas...

Banana Bread



CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ingredients
5 Tablespoons butter
½ Cup sugar
½ Cup light brown sugar
1 egg + 2 egg whites
1½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1¾ Cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ Cup half & half or cream
¼ - ½ Cup chopped nuts (walnuts, macadamias, etc) -> Next time I'm going to leave these out.

Directions
- Preheat oven to 350º. Spray bottom only of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- Beat butter in large bowl on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add sugar and brown sugar – beat well. Add egg, egg white, vanilla, almond extract and beat until well blended. Add mashed banana and beat on high for 30 seconds.
- Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in medium bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with cream – ending with flour mixture. Add nuts to batter and mix well.
- Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake until browned and toothpick comes out clean from center – about 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Cool bread in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread and cool completely on wire rack.

Pecorino & Sage Biscuits

My neighbor gave me a beautiful sage plant yesterday. She assured me she wasn't going to use it and she knows "I-talians" do. I took it in exchange for some of our tomatos.



I decided to use some of the sage today and came up with Pecorino & Sage Biscuits. I started with my Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe and added about 1/2 Cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese and a couple Tablespoons fresh sage.



In case you were curious, tonights tomato dish was angel hair with tomato, basil & garlic.

Fried Green, I mean Red, Tomatoes

We still have tomatoes coming out of ours ears, so I've been trying to be creative in using as many as I can. Here's a take on fried green tomatoes.

Home grown tomatoes thick sliced, dipped in egg, and then coated in a mixture of seasoned breadcrumbs, panko breadcrumbs, and grated cheese. I sprinkled with garlic powder and salt before lightly frying in olive oil.





Craig made the addition of ranch dressing (which by the way he made from scratch!)

Cupcakes

Boxed Golden Butter Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Stuffed Bread

Stuffed with whatever was in the fridge...



Pepperoni
Mozzerella
Peppers & Onions & Garlic (all softened in some olive oil)
Garden Tomato Slices





Just like our recent pizzas, baked outside on the grill.


Mmmm, gooey. Guess there's no skipping the gym tomorrow.

Summertime Food

With temperatures close to 100 almost every day, I've been doing everything not to heat up the house and cook inside. Thank goodness for coldcuts and tomatoes from our garden!

Website Changes

Hi all. This morning my blog was hit with Spam. And when I say hit, I mean over 200 bogus comments left trying to get readers to click a link to a Poker website. Argh! I went through and tried to erase as many as I could. I was hoping not to have to do this, but I've decided to change up the format of the site. All comments will be reviewed before being posted (which essentially means they will not show up immediately). Sorry.

Skirt Steak Tacos

Thursday Dinner - Skirt Steak Tacos
Simple, but good. I marinated skirt steak with onion, garlic, cumin, lime juice, salt & pepper for a few hours. After all the other taco toppings were ready we threw the steaks on the grill for a few minutes on each side and then thinly sliced.

BYOB @ Solstice

Last night, Solstice Kitchen & Wine Bar had a BYOB night. For a mid-week break we decided to make reservations and check it out.



We took two selections with us - Passalacqua Sauvignon Blanc and a Lesec Chateauneuf du Pape. Both were fantastic.

Passalacqua Winery ~ Sauvignon Blanc ($16)
We picked up this bottle the last time we were in Sonoma. As we remembered, it was light, clean & crisp. A great nose with lots of fruit (grapefruit-lemons-limes) and just enough acidity.

Lesec Marquis Chateauneuf du Pape ($30)
Shows a lot of what's great about Chateauneuf du Pape - dark garnet color, substantial tannins, and a finish which is quite satisfying.

Some random photos from the night...

Amuse Bouche: Miniature Tomato Salad in a Phyllo Cup


Heirloom Tomatoes with Pesto


I love that they present their dessert menu on a CD case (I got their amazing fresh donuts - as usual)


S and I ~ Full & Happy

Sunday Gravy

Since our garden has been pumping out tomatoes faster than we can eat them, I decided to make a big pot of gravy from scratch (my normal "from scratch" uses canned tomatoes).



I started by skinning them. For me, the easiest way is to make a small "x" on the bottom of each tomato, blanch them for a minute in boiling water, and then toss into a pot of ice water to cool completely.



Here is a closeup. You can see how the skin just pulls away.



Once peeled, I cut and seeded the tomatoes and heated them with a little olive oil and garlic.



This is where my photo shoot ended. Once the tomatoes softened and cooked down a bit, I blended them until smooth and made gravy as I normally would with canned sauce.

Fourth of July

A few photos from our trip to Virginia.



To start off the weekend R made us some of her famous frozen mai tai's





Meanwhile, Filly snoozes waiting for Ed to get home.


Filly searched up and down when we first arrived trying to find him, but he wasn't home. When he finally did arrive she went nuts.


For dessert, Rebecca made some very cool individual cheesecakes. I helped decorate...


The best part of helping...


Cakes in progress






Another fantastic drink from Rebecca's blender - blueberry daquiri


On Sunday we just relaxed outside with some frozen drinks and antipasti...


THANKS GUYS FOR A GREAT WEEKEND!!!