We had an amazing dinner last night with our family. We moved the kitchen table out onto the porch and the weather, and the lighting, and the food, and the music, and the company were all incredible.
The menu:
Roasted Chicken
Panko and Walnut Stuffed Flank Steak
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Beet Salad
Roasted Carrots
Quinoa Salad
Spinach and Strawberry Salad
Pumkin Pie
So earlier in the day Evan brined the chicken, i wasn't so sure about it, but it ended up making the juciest most perfect chicken i think i've ever had. So, brine the bitch!
In the pot: a cup of salt, 1/2 cup sugar, pepper, dissolve the salt and sugar as much as you can with a couple cup of hot water, then toss in the bird and fill it up with cold water.
Let sit in the fridge for 4-8 hours
ok, then the steak. Jesse gave us a beautiful flank steak from the farmers market that she had, and it was already butterflied i think but that will probably be the hardest part.
We got the recipe from the LCBO magazine, which is actually the best magazine ever. Food and Drink has awesome recipes of things that are in season. But i wish we got cases of beer back from the government instead of just a magazine. There's not a link to it on the internet, but its in the issue thats out now (fall)
So we made a few changes:
#1 since pine nuts were $44.32 per pound at Zehrs, we used walnuts and they tasted great.
#2 The recipe calls for Panko bread crumbs which is like tempura coating. It tasted fine, but i think i would choose a heartier bread crumb next time with more flavour.
#3 one of the steps is to roll the flank in flour before you brown it in a pan. I would skip that next time, it made it too fried or something i'd love to be able to taste the steak more.
So you beat that mutherfucka with a skillet till its 2cm thick. that was fun.
The filling is sauteed onion and garlic which you add to a cup of bread crumbs, half a cup of parmesan cheese, fresh thyme and basil, and salt and pepper.
Cut some pieces if twine, i used 5.
Have the grain of the meant left-to right in front of you
Spread the stuffing all over the top of steak, pack it on. Roll it up away from you real tight, tie the middle and then outwards, evenly spacing the strings. stuff the shit that feel out beck into the ends and make em neat. i folded them in a bit.
great. oven to 375. this is the part where i rolled it in flour cause they said to, and i wish i didn't.
2 tablespoons of oil in a pan and brown all sides (turn for 8 minutes). then into the oven for half and hour and done!
To roast the chicken, we just stuffed its butt with an onion, a lemon, some thyme and basil sprigs and peppered the top. no need to salt from the brining process, duh.
put it in a roasting pan with a bit of olive oil and stuck it in the bbq for about an hour. for the first half hour we covered it with tin foil to make sure she gets cooked all the way through, then the last half hour uncovered for crispiness.
it was amazing...
Salads:
beet and tomatoes with fresh basil and chevre.
boil the beets, cool em, peel em
dressing: olive oil salt pepper balsamic lemon juice grainy mustard maple syrup
baby spinach with strawberries, toasted sesames and feta
dressing = anna's secret
Desert: Pumpkin Pie
use your fav pastry recipe, i can't reveal mine, it was a present.
we just used a can of pumpkin but added fresh ginger and stuff like that. makes a huge difference
And some more shots:
goerdie ironed some leaves with wax paper for the table. so cute.
we listened to...
the best night. xoxoxoxo
these guys balled so hard, they must have been millionaires, check out the mad fur they have.
Geordie crawled down into some caves to work on some underground shit
