Monday, December 5, 2011

Weekend in Food Heaven

Happy Monday!  I hope all my fellow blogland friends had an excellent weekend.  Mine was spent Christmas shopping, eating, watching football, eating, cleaning out my closet, eating, and wrapping gifts.  Did I mention eating?

Friday evening, Bradley and I shared a fabulous date night at Cork Bistro in Park Circle.  Never disappointing, Cork was right on point for both of our appetizers and entrees.  To start, I chose my favorite, Local Tomato & Fried Mozzarella Caprese.  Bradley had a cup of the Tomato Bisque and it was rich with flavor and warmth!  For our main course, I chose the Buttered Crumb Fresh Catch of the Day {which happened to be Black Grouper} and Bradley selected the Cognac Flambeed NY Strip Steak.  O.M.G.  One of the best meals I have had in awhile!







The NY Strip (pictured left) was cooked to perfection at a temperature of medium rare, and served with baby bella mushrooms, arugula and pomme frites, roasted garlic, pecorino cheese, and port wine reduction.  The Black Grouper (pictured right) was complimented with parsley potatoes, and baby green bean, tomato & cucumber salad.  The buttered crumb outer layer had a perfect crisp.  Of course, I had left overs for Saturday lunch as well :).  Most restaurant meals do not reheat well in the microwave, but this one tasted as good as the night before!

In honor of all the football games on Saturday, Bradley wanted to make his favorite dip to munch on all day. And we did just that...ate it all afternoon!  I introduce to you the best cheesy beef dip ever:


Ingredients
1 lb. hamburger meat browned (we used venison)
1 block of Velvetta Cheese
2 cans Rotel with Chiles, Cilantro and Lime

Let simmer in crockpot until all is melted.  Serve with Tostitos Scoops!
How's a girl supposed to Christmas shop after this yummy goodness?

On Sunday, I put on a big pot of vegetable soup and let simmer for about 7 hours.  This was a nice treat for the semi-fall weather we have been experiencing and a great way to get a healthy dose of veggies!  I did not have a particular recipe I wanted to use, so I used my imagination and included a hodge podge of vegetables and broth.






Ingredients
Fresh green beans cut into thirds
Fresh okra cut into thirds
Peeled, diced potatoes
Purple onion, sliced into slivers
Minced garlic
Can of lima beans
Can of whole kernel corn
Large can of petite cuts tomatoes
Large can of tomato sauce
Box of vegetable broth
Half box of chicken broth
Water
Black pepper to taste

In a large pot, add onions, garlic and a little vegetable broth.  Simmer on low until onion is translucent.  Then, add all vegetables, tomato sauce, and broth.  Simmer on low for 6-7 hours adding water every 3 hours.  Top with black pepper to taste.
{The only thing I would do differently is cook the potatoes and green beans before adding them to the pot.  It seemed to take forever for the potatoes to become soft and the green beans never did.  It is still good, but if you like soft vegetables, I recommend boiling them ahead of time.}

There is no possible way that I did not gain at least 5 pounds this weekend. Ooops!  Just another reason to work out extra hard this week.

What did you spend your weekend doing?

3 comments:

Christina said...

Never been to Cork, but that looks GOOD!! Glad you had a great weekend.

Sarah said...

Oh-my-gosh girl! You are making me so hungry!! I'm a sucker for chips and cheese dip so I'm gonna have to make that. I don't usually put meat in mine but it looks delicious! Glad you had a deliciously great weekend :)

Carly Messmer said...

That dip looks incredible! I have a friend who makes something similar for parties and it's always the first thing gone!

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