Steak Diane

Bev had gotten a couple of rib eyes out of the freezer and decided she wanted Steak Diane (because of the flambé I suspect) so we began looking at recipes and settled on the one from Food.com.  Per Wikipedia - “Steak Diane is an American dish of a pan-fried beefsteak with a sauce made from the seasoned pan juices, generally prepared in restaurants tableside, and flambéed. It was popular in the middle of the 20th century, but was considered dated by 1980.”

Bev’s favorite steak is a filet and her least favorite is ribeye because of the amount of fat in them so I decided to see if I could help this by trimming the outside and removing the big fat layer between the two muscles.

Smothered Pork Chops

We made this dish once before but I apparently didn’t blog about it, as it was nowhere I could find it.  Since we considered it one of the best we’ve ever eaten, I wanted to be sure I documented it this time.  The recipe comes from Tyler Florence and is reproduced here.

2014 Blogger Party – Antipasto Salad

This will be my last post from our blogger party and I’m only doing it because it ended up so differently from my original plan and I had a learning experience.  The plan was for me to make the antipasto on Saturday morning using a recipe from Epicurious.

I had already made the vinaigrette and assembled the other ingredients:

2 medium red onions (which I ended up forgetting to use)

4 hearts of romaine, torn or chopped

2 (8-oz) jars roasted red peppers, julienned

4 (6-oz) jars marinated artichoke hearts

2 cups pepperoncini

2 jars brine-cured olives, different kinds

1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved

2 lbs provolone, 1/4" julienne

1 lb pecorino, shaved

2 lbs salami, 1/4' julienne

1 ½ lb cappicola, sliced thin, rolled and sliced

1 ½ lb prosciutto, sliced thin, rolled

1 container anchovies, served on the side

Post-Blogger Party Breakfast

As in the past, we provided lodging for the blogger party attendees who traveled too far for it to be a one day event and in this case three couples stayed with us and one stayed with Bev’s sister, Pat.

For this trip the Hofer’s had asked, via email, if they could provide breakfast for the overnight guests.  Once before they had stayed two nights and laid out a delicious gourmet dinner so I nearly injured my two typing fingers trying to reply so quickly with a resounding yes to the breakfast offer. 

The menu was:

Mimosa’s of orange juice and Prosesca

Triple Cinnamon Scones (provided by Penny the scone queen)

Oven fried bacon, imported from Nueskes in Wittenberg, WI

Corn cakes (a Hofer family tradition)

Blueberry maple syrup and homemade butter (yep, they made it on site)

Scrambled eggs with mushrooms

Mixed fruit of strawberries and blue berries

Lots of coffee

Blogger Party 2014 – Let’s Eat

The 2014 version of our blogger party is now in the books and it seemed to be a big hit – I’m sure I had a good time.  This year’s event took place on June 7, 2014 at our "Almost Heaven South" dock on Tellico Lake with 23 folks attending.  With the theme of an East Tennessee Italian Fest and the menu built around a pasta bar, we decided to also eat it European style with several courses spread out over the afternoon. 

I didn’t even take my camera to the dock so I’m in hopes that those who did will do a post on the event and the dishes they provided.  David & Laurie sent me their shots so I’ll use them here.

We began visiting and eating a little after 1pm with appetizers of Frutta di Mare - Cold Seafood Salad (Stu & Sandy Hoffer), pizzas cooked on a ceramic cooker (John & Anna Mae Makela), and antipasto salad (Dave Scott & Larry - mostly Dave with a separate post coming).

Blogger Party 2014 - Bolognese Sauce

As you may recall, the theme for this years party was an East Tennessee Italian Fest and the menu was built around a pasta bar thanks to the suggestion from Dave Scott.  My primary contribution to this effort was a Bolonese Sauce using the recipe from Ann Burrell, which I had last made four years ago.

The sauce takes about five hours to make and is based on a philosophy of slowly enriching it with layers of flavor.

Bolonese Ala Ann Burrell

Fixing A Steep Bank

We have a small area beside the house that is steep and shady making it hard to grow grass and mow, so we decided to do something else.  Since Bev is always looking for new places to put plants (she can’t control herself at a plant sale), we decided to terrace it using the common wall stones in use today.  I forgot to get a shot before we began, but this is what it looked like early on.