Dinner - Coq Au Vin Fondue

One of our favorite places to eat is Melting Pot....but boy can that add up!!  We like their fondue that uses broth - Coq Au Vin - to cook the meats and vegetables.  We also like the chocolate fondue - the half dark chocolate, half white chocolate one.  Here's pictures from a Melting Pot we went to on our trip to Memphis.

So, for Hannukah, my husband bought me two Cuisinart electric fondue pots. I looked on line for a recipe for the Coq Au Vin fondue they use at Melting Pot.  I didn't try the chocolate fondue - this time.

Here is the recipe for the broth -
3 1/2 cp vegetable broth
3/4 cp burgandy wine
1T crushed garlic
1 cube of Knorr vegetable bullion
some salt and pepper

That's it.  I doubled it (to use both pots) and cooked it initially on the stove top.  Once we were ready to eat, I put it into the pots and heated them to a boil right there on the table.  WOW!!!

I cut up steak, chicken, peeled shrimp, cut up broccoli and carrots and also put out mushrooms.

I also put three sauces on the table.  You can use whatever you like.....blue cheese dressing, horseradish sauce, bbq sauce.....whatever.  I put out mustard sauce from Sunset, sugar free teriyaki by Seal Sama,   and an amazing new sauce I found at work....Bronco Bob's Smoked Bacon Chipotle sauce.

We just put the vegis just right into the pots and poked them out with our forks as we wanted to eat them.  We used the fondue forks for our meats.  What an incredible, healthy supper we had!  We will FOR SURE be making this again.

The broth was SO amazing, even more so now that meats and vegetables has been cooked in it, that I saved it to make soup out of the next day.  You'll see that soon.....yum!

Dinner - stir fry

Nothing takes the place of the family sitting down together to eat supper.  I just love all eating together and laughing and talking.  Our kids are amazing and I just marvel in our family all the time. Ok - maybe not all the time....but a lot of the time.  Sometimes I forget to marvel - shame on me.

Here's a dinner I like to make - very simple stir fry.  I cut everything pretty chunky so that people can easily avoid vegis that don't like.  This dish changes a bit every time - depending on what I buy that day which also depends on what is on sale.  I cook the vegetables separately (starting with the "hardest" moving to the softest/thinnest.  Hard ones take longer to cook - such as carrots, broccoli ending with pea pods, sprouts), then cook the meats.  I put them together at the end when I add the soy sauce, garlic, some kind of sweetener (agave, honey, brown sugar - whatever I feel like at the time), some rice wine vinegar and finally just a bit of sesame oil.  I believe this is the ingredient that make all my stir frys rock.  It just brings that special chinese restaurant smell to the dish.

This one has carrots, broccoli, onions, and pea pods with chicken.

Restaurant review - Thai Noddles Cafe Libertyville, IL

I found this restaurant on Yelp.  It was fantastic.  The service was nice. The restaurant was bright and cheery.  One nit-picky thing....the vents had layers of dust on them....yuck.

Everyone liked their dishes - 3 of the 5 of us got chicken pad see-ewe.  Wonderful noodles and nice amount of chicken and broccoli.  Our middle one had....one guess for my regular readers....you're right.....fried rice.  She said it was good....not the best....but very good.  Means a lot coming from her - for sure!!

I had a GREAT dish.....Woonsen Tom Yom Soup.....SOOOOOOOO tasty!!  I will definitely be going back.  The broth soup was sweet and spicy. With this dish it's all about the broth.  Chicken - nice amount, but bit more would have been nice, glass noodle - yum, sprouts - crunchy, ground peanuts - peanutty, but the broth.....oh the broth.  Perfection.  If I could make something like this....I would be SO happy.  Someday......

Dinner - Passover

Passover is now over.....bread anyone?  I thought I would share with you some recipes.  What I find interesting about Judaism is the fact that the culture (language/slang, food, humor, etc.) is so entwined with the religion that a lot of people consider the culture to be the religion.  But enough about that delicate subject....onto the food......

I have my "signature" Passover dish is charoset.  Charoset is made to symbolize the mortar used to bind together the blocks of the pyramids the Jews built for the Egyptians.  I use half red delicious apples and half granny smith.  I peel the apples, but like to leave on about 25% of the peel.  This gives a nice color and texture to it.  I had a total of about 30 people eating this and had left over - I used 11 of each type of apple. The cut them up and grate them in my food processor.  Then I grind up walnuts....to about a sand texture. I add the ground walnuts to the grated apples, add some cinnamon, some Mogan David concord grape wine and for the secret ingredient that I will share with you (as symbol of my gratitude for you reading my blog).  The honey from Kurt's bees.  Our friend in Madison, WI - Kurt (and hi Rita!!) - keeps bees and harvests the honey around the start of September.  We have been there before to help in the processing of the honey.  His honey is processed with love and he keeps his bees with love...and it comes through with the honey.  Sure....any honey would be fine....but I believe this is what puts my charoset over the top.

 This is carrot souffle I buy from Dorfler's  - a butcher in our area.  Sweet with a crunchy top. Yum!!!  They just make the most delicious carrot dish that there is no need to try to even duplicate it.....if it ain't broke.....

 This is kishke.  Oh dear kishke....kishke, kishke, kishke.....how I love you.  Can't even find the words to decribe kishke.  If you have some, please add them as a comment.  I don't know how to make it but this is a "log" made mostly of vegis.  We buy it from Elegance In Meat, in Northbrook, IL.  Again....if it ain't broke.  No need to learn how to make this one either.....

Ok....this is my passover nemesis. BRISKET!  It's so easy - I hear that from all my customers at Sunset.  Each person has their own version.  This is my mom's.  I will write about my own brisket adventures lower down here....but let me share this one with you....so you see what works.

Her recipes was based on "Divorce Settlement Brisket".  I kid you not.....she told me that name, I goggled it, and here it was.  OK....here's the recipe, but with her changes......

1 brisket, 7 pounds

3 cloves garlic, sliced in slivers

salt

Freshly ground pepper

Paprika

1 3/4 cup chili sauce

1 c honey

1 envelope onion soup mix

1 T soy sauce

2 pounds potatoes (Russet, Yukon Gold) peeled, halved

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Trim some fat from the brisket. Make small slits with a sharp paring knife all over the brisket; insert the garlic slivers. Season all over with salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Place in a roasting pan.

Heat chili sauce, honey, soup mix, and soy sauce in a saucepan over medium heat. Pour over brisket in the roasting pan. Seal tightly with aluminum foil.

Cook 4 hours. Add potatoes for last hour;remove foil for last 30 minutes.

So here was my brisket....tough as shoe leather my family said.  What I did.....

2.75 pound brisket

5 cubes of garlic (the frozen Dorat kind I like) - pressing into slits on the meat

All these next ones sprinkled on top of the meat -

1 packet of dried onion soup

1/4 cp brown sugar

10 shakes of Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup of ketchup

In the pan....1/2 cup water

yukon gold potatoes - whole

cut up sweet potatoes

Sealed with tin foil and baked at 350 degrees for 2 hours....and AWFUL.  Sure the potatoes were delicious....but that's it.

And now time for full confession - this was my second attempt.  My first attempt to make brisket got SO burnt that if I broke (yes broke) it apart, I probably would have found a diamond in there.

Conclusion....I was not meant to make brisket. Period. End of story.