if you follow my ‘that looks good’ board on Pinterest you will mostly find things that appeal to me for two reasons. The ingredients and the photo. Of course the photo. If the picture is bad and there is a total lack of styling and there is ugly text you can just forget it. So, really the fact that I pinned this at all is a total laugh. I pinned a recipe for a Big Mac. That’s right. Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. I used to torment my parents from the back of our VW Rabbit singing this song as they drove my friends and I to camp. TORMENT. We didn’t even go to McDonalds often-only the occasional burger if my parents were going out for dinner somewhere fancy or we’d pick up nuggets on the way out of town in our motorhome. 
But, the reality is this. For all the finer foods that I love I also really like some of the dodgiest ones too. Home. Made. Big. Macs. We usually use turkey but I went ahead with beef. Delicious. I don’t like sesame seeds and I figured we didn’t need ten buns of bread so I chose slider buns and used two bottoms-one for the bottom and one for the middle to get that authentic Big Mac thing going on. I made the special sauce too instead of picking up some thousand island dressing. It was just so good. Sharp cheddar instead of American cheese. Pulling out all the stops here. Sliced spicy McClure’s dills I got in a pickler bucket from my sister for Christmas. That’s another story. Z insisted on wrapping one up so it would come out of the paper all squashy and real. That was the picture I liked best. I baked some restaurant style fries in the oven and we just went to town on that stuff. Seriously, I’d make this for guests and they wouldn’t be sad about it. Pinterest for the win on this one. Accessible things because you have a veritable encyclopedia at your fingertips.
Crêpes
This week I’ve kind of been a disaster. I’m not sure exactly what I was doing when I made the menu for the week… side note…today I went on a free Menchie’s run (It’s National Froyo Day and they gave away 6oz for free) and I got laughed at for making a weekly menu for dinners. Let me tell you something. I like going to the grocery store as much as the next person but I have a system for getting it done in one go because I don’t have the time nor inclination to go after work. Here’s how it goes.
- I open up the pantry, fridge and freezer and see what’s in there. Is there anything I ought to use? What could it be part of?
- Is the any cookbook or Pinterest recipe calling me?
- Is there a variety of meats including a meat light night?
- Is that time on Sunday for a long cooking dish?
- Do all the dinners transform into lunches?
Once I’ve gone through those things and listing what I need to make them I fill in breakfast items and items to round out lunches and head to the store. The whole thing takes an hour or two from blank paper to back in the door with bags in tow. As I’ve said before we cook roughly 5 nights a week and I don’t get too many complaints. I also pack lunches while I get together my breakfast in the morning for myself and Z. We are lucky to be able to eat together almost every day. 
Anyway, back to dinner. I’ve been a bit of chaos this week, not the right dinners to achieve lunches in a quick easy way and no bread for sandwiches either. But I did manage one good one-out of one of the cookbooks for this year’s 52 Cookbooks challenge. The book is Crêpes by Lou Seibert Pappas and is a single topic volume all about the delicious thin pan-fried cakes. There are lots of options and varieties along with a big variety of fillings-very accessible to a home cook. I realize most people wouldn’t necessarily have a crepe pan but I think any non-stick skillet would work ok. The benefit of a crepe pan is low sides for the flip. Last night I made regular old crêpes out of regular flour. They turned out pretty well, thin with a bit of tender chew-I couldn’t get any golden bits for some reason-my stove can be touchy but they were fairly well done. I filled them up with a lovely bechamel turned mornay sauce with shredded gruyere and diced country ham. I served them folded alongside arugula dressed in a nice acidic capery vinaigrette-the salad cutting the richness of the dish. It was a yummy dinner and it made for a great lunch too. Good on that-twice!
Brown Derby Lounge aka What I did on ‘Big Game’ Sunday…
so, let’s just say I was born in Seattle and lived there until I was almost in high school (Go Seahawks!) and moved to Denver after college and Z was born there and lived there for about 25 years (Go Broncos!) and maybe, just maybe, we don’t care about watching football. We decided we didn’t even care if we watched the commercials. So, finding out that the parks (as in Disney parks) would be less than busy and it was the first warm day in weeks (hello 85, welcome back!) we headed out to Hollywood Studios. Before joining some recent South Africa to Orlando transplants to ride the rides we stopped in for lunch at the new Hollywood Brown Derby Lounge. It is a tiny little patio lounge serving a small menu of tapas style food and cocktails alongside two fun non-alcoholic drinks. We both ordered one of these drinks, the Mimi Kaboom. I guess Mimi is a ‘citizen’ of Hollywood Studios who fancies herself an actress. Her namesake mocktail is made of lime, agave, pineapple and fresh mint along with a few soda bubbles. It was really bright and refreshing and I really enjoyed it. At $4.49 for a glass it carried the Disney tax but for a mixed drink sans alcohol I thought it was pretty good. We ordered two items to share-a plate with two fairly good sized sliders, one Wagyu beef with avocado, bacon & gouda and one chorizo and Manchego. I liked the beef quite a bit better because I don’t care for warm Manchego but both were tasty. The real piece de resistance was the Charcuterie board. It was about $20 but was probably really enough for 3-4 people who were just there for a snack and a cool drink. It had almost too many items on it. Two small pots of ‘meats’, one a faux gras that was a whipped creamy chicken and one of duck rillettes. Z liked the chicken but it weirded me out with it’s smoothness. The rillettes I found tasty and savory on the small buttered toasts they provided. There were also three cheese selections, a goat, a blue & a brie. The blue was really nice-salty and earthy. The brie had truffles embedded which I don’t love-but it was triple cream and very dense. The goat was unusual, a hard cheese that was tasty. There were four cured meats as well, a serrano ham-good. A salami picante-nice and chewy, salty. A Chorizo (Spanish style)-Loved it. And then a creepy (to me) Salami Toscano-way too earthy and cellar like for my tastebuds but Z liked it a lot. He is way easier going about weirdly textured things than I am. I’ll try them-once. Again, it’s a fairly huge board and would, I think be better for a couple more people.
There are only about 12-15 tables and due to the park being fairly empty we were able to snag a table when we walked in. I think normally you would have to have a bit of luck on your side not to wait if you wanted to eat here. They don’t take reservations and it is genuinely tiny. As you can see, lots and lots of tastes. It actually wore me out by the end. I would enjoy slightly less options. There were other menu items I’d like to try, a famous Brown Derby Cobb Salad and mini-dessert flights along with duck confit tacos. Yes, please.. Oh, I almost forgot, there were also some really delicious bread and butter pickles. They were so good with the goat cheese. I’m going to have to make some of those. This is not quick service-so if you are jonesing to go on rides, it probably isn’t for you. I’d say our lunch took around an hour or so. But, as a nice way to spend Superbowl Sunday afternoon? I’ll take it. So, sorry football fans. I hope we can still be friends.
Shutters
We went out for a surprise (although not for the birthday boy) birthday dinner last weekend. Our friend set up his own party and invited us out to dinner but didn’t say where we were going. He got some good joy out of making me stew and making the surprise be on us. Knowing how I google menus and pre-think restaurants he would randomly dangle the carrot throughout the week, asking if I was nerved up not knowing where we were going. I lived through it, barely. As it turned out we ate a a table service restaurant at the Disney Caribbean Beach Resort called Shutters. They said that it was island style food but we didn’t get that too much. There were a few nods to that culture-boat drinks (mine had a magical light up ice cube that gave me endless joy) and shrimp with plantains and some meat pie style empanadas. But oddly, no jerk and not much in the way of spices. Although there were some kicken spicy sweet chicken wings. I had some mahi tacos with mango salsa, all of which I enjoyed. The salsa didn’t have heat but a tasty sweetness and there was crunchy cabbage slaw. Z had steak with chimichurri with some type of boniato puree-more South American than island-inspired but it was flavorful and similar to tacos he really likes during Food & Wine. Our party was loud and full of laughter. We had fun hanging out with friends and meeting and getting to know some new folks. After our dinner they brought out a big goofy-cookie and Disneyfied cake for the table. Fun times!
The Ravenous Pig
We just had the most delicious lunch. It was just so good. We went out to a few shops afterward and I still had things I wanted to say. I also figured I ought to write it down while it still rings in my mind. The Ravenous Pig is a much acclaimed local and semi-seasonally inspired restaurant in Orlando. The owners also own my favorite local restaurant, Cask & Larder. The Ravenous Pig is styled as a gastropub serving up delicious and thoughtful food alongside masterful cocktails and beers. The chefs have been nominated for James Beard awards as well as best new chef by Food & Wine in 2012. This is actually only the second time we have been to the restaurant. The first being waaaaaay back in 2009 on our 1st anniversary, and if I remember correctly, the first meal out after Z’s liver transplant. Today was actually his 5th anniversary of the transplant and I happily responded to an email for today’s once a month pig roast and having made a reservation on Open Table. It worked out well to celebrate transplanitversary. Once we were seated Z ordered a Coke and I quickly weeded through the cocktail list and ordered a Gin & Jam. Oh. Em. Gee. It was ginny and filled with home made clementine rosemary jam. It was sweet and I had to totally restrain myself to not to chug it down in a long satisfied slurp.
This month the food was modeled after a French country roast and included heavenly succulent roast pork loin. It was so smooth and densely flavorful. It sat on top of lovely luke-cool new potato salad that was just lightly dressed with a bit of oil and vinegar and a few herbs. It was also piled on a small power packed choucroute (sourkraut en francais) with mustard seeds and warm vinegary sourness. Some highly flavored pork sausage also graced the plate which was swirled with some bitey mustard that had a bit of mustard oil heat and this cool accompaniment called bereweka on the menu. I’ve scouted around the interwebs for this item and it seems to be Alsatian in origin and seems to be in this case, a dark beer reduction chutney that was deeply sweet and raisiny. It paired perfectly with the pork and sourness of the choucroute. Everything was just delicious bites including the tiny little nod to dessert-a little brown butter and almond cupcake-maybe three bites with the wispiest hint of sweetness in an almost all butter frosting. It was so full of flavor that I could hardly believe what I was eating. Oh, and I almost forgot, we had a tall glass of truffle salted shoestring fries that just added salty goodness to the overall pleasure of the thing.
I kind of wonder why it took me five years to find this lunch but I’m really glad we did. It’s not the least expensive thing going but this is the kind of careful and delicious food that I crave and is so worth it.
My Urban Pantry 