Boiled Lobster Tails w/ Herbed Wine Cream Sauce, Corn, & Roasted New Potatoes

Lobster is one of those deals that come about on a whim in our house.  It's something we have on occasion when we're feeling like treating ourselves. 

And why not treat ourselves in an end of the year celebration?  I mean, the world didn't end, so why not celebrate with lobster, right?!

Ingredients:

Boiling Liquid:

2 cups white wine
1 cup seafood stock
2 cups water
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stick, roughly chopped
4-5 parsley stems
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
4 lobster tails
salt and pepper, to taste
2-4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Herbed Cream Sauce:

1 cup reduced lobster stock (reserved boiling liquid)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped

2 cups frozen or fresh corn, cooked

1 lb. new or red potatoes, quartered
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Combine the the potatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Place in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are a nice golden brown.

In a medium stockpot, combine the wine, seafood stock, water, onion, carrot, celery, parsley stems, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, and tarragon.  Bring mixture to a boil and add lobster tails.  Cook for about 6-8 minutes, or until shells are a bright red color and flesh is just cooked through.  Remove the tails and transfer to a cutting board.  Carefully cut each lobster tail in half and transfer to a bowl with 2-4 tablespoons unsalted butter.  Toss in the butter until well coated, then set aside.

Strain the cooking liquid and reserve about 2 cups.  Reduce liquid to about 1 cup. 

In a small bowl, combine the flour and the 1 tablespoon of butter to form a paste.  Whisk into the reduced stock and bring to a boil.  Let mixture slightly thicken, then add heavy whipping cream.  Reduce mixture until it is at desired sauce consistency.  Stir in parsley and chives and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

To plate, mound the potatoes and corn in the center of the plate.  Top with a couple of lobster tail halves.  Then top lobster with sauce.

This was definitely delicious!  The lobster was naturally buttery and the sauce complimented it very well!  Andy has been in the mood for corn lately, so I included that with the simply roasted potatoes and it was both a filling and satisfying weeknight meal! 

How do you like to have your lobster?

French Fries w/ Herbed Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise and I have a love-hate relationship.  I can love her when spread thinly across a piece of bread in between a sandwich.  I can love her mixed in with chicken or tuna salad.  I can even love her when mixed as a salad dressing.

However, where I draw the line to loving her and start hating her, is when she's used as a dip - such as aioli (which is basically a garlic mayonnaise).  When she's hidden, she's fine.  But when she's just out in the open, I get kinda weird.  I know, makes no sense. 

But homemade mayo.  Now that's a different story.  It doesn't quite possess the "weirdness" that I'm afraid of.  It's a whole other breed of sauce to me.  Mixed with a few herbs, and all my fear suddenly goes away.  I can fearlessly dip fry after fry in the stuff and be okay.  Well, somewhat okay.  It's still mayo, at the end of the day, and we've got to watch our portions! 

Anyway, this one's a keeper, even for the mayo-haters out there!

Ingredients:

French Fries:

2 russet potatoes, battonet (1/4" x 1/4" x 2")
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Herbed Mayonnaise:

1/4 cup spinach leaves, stemmed
2 tablespoons shallots, chopped
1/4 cup parsley leaves
1/2 tablespoons dried tarragon
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon mustard
1 & 1/2 cups vegetable oil
 salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Toss the potatoes in olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 25-30 minutes, flipping the potatoes once or twice in between.

To make the mayonnaise, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil.  Add the spinach, shallots, parsley, and tarragon.  Boil for about 2-3 minutes, or until leaves are wilted.  Drain the herbs and run under cold water until cool.  Squeeze out excess moisture.  Chop the herbs finely.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until lighter in color and slightly thickened.  Whisk in red wine vinegar and mustard.  Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the vegetable oil, being careful not to add more until the previous amount is fully emulsified.  Continue until all of the vegetable oil is incorporated.

Stir in the finely chopped herbs and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve the french fries along side the herbed mayonnaise or condiment of your choice! 

This mayo is good enough that I put it on sandwiches, hot dogs, french fries, whatever!  For a mayo hater like myself, it does just the trick!

Hope you guys have a great weekend!

Herbed Pork Noisettes w/ Red Wine Sauce

How was everyone's week?  Hope you're glad it's Friday, because I know I am!

It was sausage week at school and my group was tasked with making Andouille and Hot Italian Sausages.  They. Are. The. Bomb. Gonna have to start making sausage at home because it's way easier than I ever thought it would be!

Anyway, I've got a tasty pork tenderloin recipe for your guys today!

This is pretty simple and you could definitely play with the rub ingredients, but I happened to have tons of herbs from my garden, so I decided to use those and some simple salt and pepper!  No need to be fussy to be tasty, right?!  One of the guys in my class brought a bunch of tomatoes from his garden to give away to the class, so I put those to use in a simple and refreshing tomato and zucchini salad as a side.  After all these hot days, I'm trying to turn on the stove as little as possible so a cool side dish sounded perfect!

Ingredients:

1 lb. pork tenderloin
1 tablespoons fresh sage, minced
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

Red Wine Sauce:

1/4 cup onion, minced
1 cup red wine
1 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper, to taste

Trim the pork tenderloin of any undesirable fat..  You want to have a little to keep the loin moist, but not too much.

You'll probably want to make your sauce first since it will take longer than your pork.

In a medium saucepan, saute your onions under medium high heat in a little bit of olive oil.  Once the onions are slightly softened and translucent, add the red wine.  Reduce the mixture to a syrupy consistency, about 1/4 cup or so.  Add the beef broth and reduce again until about 1/2 cup remains.  Mount (stir in) the sauce with butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Keep warm until needed.

In a medium bowl, combine the sage, oregano, salt, and pepper.  Place the spice blend on a flat plate and spread evenly.  Place the loin on the plate and roll in the spice blend until fully coated.

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Heat a large oven-proof saute pan under medium high heat.  Add the olive oil and heat until shimmering.  Place the pork tenderloin in the pan and sear for about 3-5 minutes on each side (depending on the thickness of your cut).  Let the loin rest for about 5 minutes before slicing into noisettes (small portion of meat that originates from a rib about 3/4 inch thick).  Drizzle the red wine sauce over the slices and serve alongside a refreshing salad of vegetables or starchy side!

This is definitely another winner in our book!  If Andy's happy, I'm happy!   Hope you guys have a great rest of the week!

Herbed Ribeye Steaks

I've been a real carnivore lately.  I don't know if it's my current workout, the heat, or whether the meat in the meat department looks especially tempting - but we've had some steaks at least once a week for the past couple of weeks. 

These ribeyes were so easy and tasty, I knew I had to share them with you guys.  If you have an herb garden like I do, just pluck your favorite herbs, throw in some garlic if you'd like, and you're on your way to meat heaven.

Ingredients:

2 ribeye steaks
2 tablespoons herbs of your choice (I used rosemary, thyme, and sage), finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil

In a small bowl, combine the herbs, garlic, and olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  The herbs should be dense like a paste so you can spread them on the ribeye. 

Heat a grill or cast-iron skillet (it was way too hot outside to be grilling) to medium high heat.

Spread the herb mixture on both sides of the steaks.  Cook steaks to desired doneness.

And bam, a fantastically easy steak dinner in no time!  You can even deglaze the cast iron skillet (if you didn't choose to grill, of course) with some red wine and beef stock to get a fantastic sauce.  Let it reduce until slightly thickened and then mount it with a pat of butter - pour the sauce on top of the steaks to take them to a whole other level!

Hope you guys are still staying cool - we're expecting temps in the high 80's this week (which is a MAJOR change from triple digits!) - so hopefully we can enjoy the outside while we can =)  Have a great day guys!

Radishes with Herbed Butter

Happy Wednesday guys!  It's mid-week and I'm definitely anxiously awaiting for the weekend to arrive!  I need it!

Now, it's kinda late, so I'm gonna post something rather quick.

Radishes are one of those things I can take or leave.  They're okay, but I think besides their somewhat peppery taste - just don't do anything for me.  But add some butter (that's been laced with garden fresh herbs), and we have a different story.  A quick and easy snack - or even a snappy appetizer in a pinch for a dinner party.


Ingredients:

1 bunch of radishes, cut in half
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
small handful of fresh herbs (parsley, cilantro, oregano - whatever you prefer)
salt and pepper, to taste

In a small bowl, combine the butter and herbs of your choice - I think I went with some cilantro here.  Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

You can be fancy and put the butter in a pastry bag to top the radish halves, but I went old fashioned and just slathered a bit on with a knife. 

And voila, instant snack.

And really, the herbed butter can go on practically anything you put butter on - not just radishes!

Have a great rest of your Wednesday, even though there's only about an hour left of it!

Don't forget, if you have a CSA or Farmer's Market haul you'd like to share - e-mail me at mtlabor85@yahoo.com and I'll include you in the roundup tomorrow afternoon!

Herb-Braised Chicken Halves

What a weekend!  It seems that we'll be able to check out our potential wedding venue next Tuesday!  We're pretty sure this is THE one!  We had breakfast at Toast on Market, which happens to be right next door to the venue... so we just walked around it a bit, and you know, I just got that feeling.  That it was the right choice.  Am I crazy?  Or do I just have that wedding-planning bug?  Either way, the fact is... we're so close to settling on a date, a venue... which means that this wedding is sooooo gonna happen!  Not that I didn't think it was, but you know, the more that is set in stone, the more real it all feels!

And we committed to a photographer this weekend too!  It's my friend Adam who does some awesome work, and he's cutting us a great deal, so it was extremely hard to resist! 

So our tentative date is April 28th of next year, so hopefully we'll be able to book that date next Tuesday when we check out the whole place!  Cross your fingers!

I sound like an elated school child don't I?  I just can't help it!

Anyway, let's talk chicken.  A while back, Sommer, over at A Mama With Flavor, posted a recipe about how she cooked a chicken in a dutch oven.  I'm sure this is somewhat common, but to me, it was a totally new way of cooking chicken.  I was quite intrigued.  Especially since my favorite part of a chicken is the crispy skin!  This would have no crispy skin, but it would definitely render a tender and moist chicken, that rivals even the best of the crispy-skinned chickens that I've cooked!  So thanks for planting that seed in my head Sommer, because I finally took the plunge and cooked a chicken in the dutch oven, and I quite possibly may never go back to the regular roasting method again!

Ingredients:

Didn't want to get all that chicken juice on my new cutting boards!

4 lb. whole chicken
salt and pepper, to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 celery ribs, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup madeira wine 
3-4 cups chicken stock
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
5-8 sage leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Pat chicken dry and sprinkle both sides with salt.  You can be somewhat generous, but don't overkill here.  Place chicken in glass bowl or dish and cover.  Refrigerate for at least 6-8 hours.

Take chicken out of refrigerator and wash off salt.  Pat dry.

In a large dutch oven (big enough to fit the whole bird and cover it) under medium high heat, add olive oil.  Add chicken and sear until both sides are a golden brown, about 10-15 minutes total.  Remove chicken and set aside.

Add garlic, celery, carrots, and onion to dutch oven.  Cook until vegetables start to soften, about 5 minutes or so.  Stir in tomato paste and cook for another minute.  Add madeira wine and cook until it is reduced by half, about 5 minutes.


In a small bowl, combine butter, sage, and thyme in a small bowl.  Spread the butter mixture underneath the skin of the chicken and on top of it.  This will ensure good flavor throughout the meat and keep a little moisture too.

Carefully place chicken back into dutch oven and pour about 3 cups of chicken stock into the pot.  Cover and place in oven.  Roast for about 1 & 1/2 hours or until chicken is white throughout. 

Carefully remove chicken from pot and let rest on cutting board for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring liquid from pot to a boil on stovetop.  Remove about 1 cup of the stock and mix it with the flour in a small bowl.  When flour is dissolved into stock, slowly pour back into dutch oven.  Whisk until mixture has thickened slightly.  Strain the vegetables from the pot, and at this point, you can either save them, throw them out, or use them as a side.  I don't like wasting things so I just served the vegetables alongside our chicken. 

Cut chicken in half and serve alongside vegetables or chosen side.  Spoon gravy over top, if desired.

Seriously, this was a great idea.  The meat was probably the most tender I've ever had, and the flavor was just amazing!  Definitely try roasting a chicken in a dutch oven if you get a chance!  Enjoy guys!