Ribs Recipe

 Can we take a moment to appreciate. just how nicely my local butcher (which is conveniently called The Local) wraps your meat purchase in beautiful crisp brown paper and string.   Just like old school Ireland! I love it.

We made the barbeque marinade ourselves! A nice little mix of olive oil, soya sauce, barbecue sauce and grain mustard.  And a little siracha pepper for HEAT!  I need my heat :)

How great does the marinade look slathered all over the lovely meat?!

Also, such a novelty to be cooking on the grill on the top shelf of the barbecue compared with straight on to the grill.  The tinfoil is there to catch the drips of fat from the meat/sauce so as to prevent fire/flare ups.

So that was the plan!  But does life always go to plan?! Heck no!

15 minutes after putting the ribs on the grill the propane ran out!!!

So a quick switch up was made, I transferred the meat to our 1970s oven (ugh!). I put the quinoa on to boil, stir fried the veg and ta-dah!

Thanks be to the Universe...it did not turn out too bad at all in the end.

Back to the Future

It has NOT been a good week in terms of home cooking for this household.  Having no food in the fridge was obviously key to this issue but also: Because Fantasy Fest!  We ate out a lot this week.  

And while this was obviously pretty enjoyable (and yummy etc etc), I am happy to report we are getting back to normal.  And it feels good.

Did a supermarket shop this morning and the fridge is now fully stocked with lots of good food for the week ahead - in particular the freezer is now full of proteins.

So tonight it was a celebration in style of home cooking.  Steak and lobster claws! Woohoo!

And doesn't it look good!

On the side, a little bit of garlic dipping butter for the lobster, and barbecue sauce for the steak, it was delectable perfection.

Barbeque Tales Part 16 - Whole Fish (no fish basket)

For some while now it's been a dream, and we have been talking a lot, about cooking a whole fish at home.  Every time one of us orders a whole fish (e.g. El Siboneys or Bagatelle most recently), excuse the pun, but it has whet the appetite even more to try it out ourselves at home on the grill.  

We've talked about landing a fish on White Street Pier, bringing it home, gutting and cleaning it as best we can and throwing it straight on the grill. We've talked about next time we are out on a boat and maybe catch something with a nice weight to it, that rather than getting it cut into two fat fillets, instead we ask the first mate to gut and clean it for us.  These two options aside, Patrick was in Wynn Dixie getting some hurricane supplies (next post on Hurricane Dorian coming up!) when he saw these fine fellas on sale.  So he got two!

Yellowtail Snapper!

Stuffed with garlic and lemon, and with an olive oil and seasoning rub

Yellowtail Snapper tossed on to the grill!

We decided not to use the fish basket this time round to try get a crispy seared skin.

Ta-da!

I nipped around to Faustos to get two lemons for the fish and while there I got some cous cous as a side.  Not something we had done before, it was new and different.

Result!

Well this picture paints a thousand words right?!

Lessons for next time:

1. A little more seasoning on. Spice it up a little more - maybe a blackening rub on the outside.
2. Salt! Definitely need to salt the skin to help the skin crisp up more.
3. Again for the desired crispy skin; blast the heat up for the last minute on either side
4. Might try a different side next time also - quinoa might be even nicer than the cous cous!

Barbecue Tales part 10 - Pork Chops

Even though El Siboneys was calling out to me I decided I would do another day of cooking at home.  I love the novelty, and the difference of cooking outdoors on a barbecue compared to cooking at home in Ireland. And it always tastes good so absolutely no regrets.  Although I must say the lure of El Siboneys is so strong!!! Particularly because I live so near it, and omg the smell that emanates from their building as you pass...holy hell it's good!

Anyway! Pork it was!
First I prepped the pork by putting a generous lather of olive oil on it and then a lovely garlic meat rub.  At this point I also prepped the vegetables - garlic, tomato, carrots and broccoli and butter into a little tinfoil tent.  I decided to try grilling green pepper separate rather to all the other veg.

I then immediately put the wild rice on to cook.  The base for wild rice is brown rice - it is brown rice, seasoning and some veg (tomato etc) - and because of this it does need a good amount of cooking time.  A lot longer than if it was white rice.  It takes approx. 25 minutes and 5 minutes sitting time to cook according to the directions on the box which I don't really follow.

And yes I know my stove looks like it comes from 1982.  Kind of embarrassing I know.  Cousin Kasey has suggested to me that I do a blog post about the difference between Irish kitchen appliances and US appliances and all of my appliances are soooooo much better/nicer/bigger here in the US...except for this awful stove (or cooker as we would call it in Ireland)

So there we have the pork chops cooking away on the grill, plus the tinfoil tent of veg on the right.

It was very hot today and as I cooked, the sun was beating down on the back of my legs and I could feel perspiration rolling down my back.  Lol! Nice, Amy, real nice. Bet you're enjoying hearing this.  On one hand, totally gross I know but on the other hand, I have to say - I relished it.  Again so different to Ireland!

I apologise, this food/plate does not really look the best.  In real life it (a) looked so much more attractive than this and (b) most importantly, tasted amazing!  Really really tasty.  I had not cooked pork before as you will know if you have been following my "Barbecue Tales"  blog posts and it was nice that this went so well.  Pork can sometimes be difficult to cook, in a matter of seconds it can go from tender, tasty and moist to tough as leather  But this tasted so nice that pork will definitely be going on to the home cooking rotation/grocery shopping list.

Home made Pork and Cheddar Quesadilla

Today I had a craving for quesadillas.  Reason being is that I went to my bank to lodge (or deposit as my American compadres say!) a cheque (check!) and it is directly across from Bad Boy Burritos.  Bad Boy Burritos is pretty popular here in Key West and I really don't know why.  As far as I can tell they should drop the Boy and just call themselves Bad Burritos.  Aside from their Quesadillas!!!  OMG their duck quesadillas are divine. 

So I was craving a duck and cheese quesadilla.  But I also didn't want to spend any money on food. Lol.  I sound stingy (or cheap as the Americans say).  No seriously, there is a ton of food in my fridge at the moment, it would be a sin to eat out.

So I went home and pulled out some pork from the back of the freezer and stuck it on a pan - low and slow to keep it soft and moist.

Mmmm!

I then placed a tortilla on a large pan.  Sprinkled the tortilla with shredded STRONG cheddar cheese. And then the pork.  Topped with another tortilla, I flipped it over in the pan.

I don't actually know if this is how you make a quesadilla but look it worked for me today!

Yum

Yum

Yummmmmm

Thai red curry

A friend of ours who lives in Thailand stayed with us a few weeks ago.  He left behind some great thai ingredients in our cupboard.

So with all of the above...

...I turned it into all of below

Served with Jasmine rice it was divine!