Our Namesake

There are so many dynamic food duos, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, strawberries and chocolate, wine and cheese I could go on but during the summer months nothing rivals crabs and corona!!  For our second anniversary we spent a long weekend in OCMD where the crabs are as plentiful as the coronas and did our namesake right.

Nothing beats a night at the beach, sitting outside, crack'n crabs, sipping coronas and spending time with good people...thanks Martiak's!!

That same weekend we made a trip to Dogfish Head Brewery http://www.dogfish.com/ in Milton, DE and the BrewPub http://www.dogfish.com/restaurant/index.htm in Rehoboth Beach, DE both within about an hour of OCMD, well worth the trip particularly on a rainy day at the beach. The beers were great, my favorite was Namaste and my least favorite was the 120 minute IPA.  The food was pretty good, typical bar food...next time we'll have to try their spirits.

On our way back from the brewery we just so happened to come across Frenwick Wine Cellar http://www.fenwickwinecellars.com/and had to stop.  Nothing there blew us away but it wasn't bad.  Definitely worth the trip on a rainy day at the beach.

We had to fit in a sunset at Fager's Island and an orange crush (or two), if you haven't done either you have to do both, together or separate just make it happen!

Fager's Island Sunset

Orange Crush, a drink that originated at Harborside Bar & Grill http://www.ocharborside.com/ and as they say is "often imitated but never duplicated" in several bars in OCMD.  The key...freshly squeezed oranges!!

Orange Crush Recipe
1 1/2 oz smirnoff orange vodka
1 1/2 oz triple sec
juice of 1 freshly squeezed orange
top it off with sprite or 7up
Serve over ice with an orange slice as garnish.

For a step by step video on how to make an Orange Crush the Harborside way check it out: http://www.coastal-fisherman.com/video.cfm?v=7584FE4C-5056-9F21-09A57498C895A3B4

Take 95 North to Paradise

Whenever we or my in-laws down the street, Kelly and Drew have mutual friends in town for the weekend, Sunday usually concludes the visit with brunch somewheres before company leaves town. A recent weekend ended as such, with our friends (basically honorary brother and sister to all of us) John and Marisa sticking around for Richmond’s favorite late-morning meal before heading back home.

The venue was decided in the sunroom unbeknownst to me whilst I lay well hungover in the living room. Kitchen 64 (http://www.kitchen64.com/hen64.com/) was the all-but-unanimous choice. Having never been a fan of their brunch menu, I’d have voted for 7-11 taquitos over our destination, but he who nurses a headache shant receive a vote in this house. With head throbbing, stomach rumbling, mouth grumbling, and face scowling, I apprehensively left the confines of my uncomfortable, though un-opinionated couch to drive to a restaurant I didn’t want to patronize.

Upon arrival I sat and scanned the menu as I’d done several times before, hoping as I’d hoped before to find something palatable. Having for some reason resigned myself to thinking only the brunch menu was being served, I again came up blank, sighing loud enough to be noticed.

“You know they’re serving lunch right now too diva.” Jamie mentioned with just a hint of the kindest sarcasm.

I reopened the menu and turned to the sandwich page. There, at the bottom of the section, I accomplished something Bono never could. I found what I was looking for…the 95 North.

Much better than anything Mathew Modine could get for $10 a la Full Metal Jacket, this elegant work of art is a site to behold, then consume for a man of any degree of sobriety. However if Kitchen 64 was my restaurant, I’d market this sandwich as the most effective of hangover cures the world over. Lying open-faced in perfect symmetry, a soft, warm sub roll plays the part of a king sized mattress for the stack of fresh beef resting atop it. The meat is blanketed with melted cheddar cheese and cole slaw, while throw pillows played by, wait for it; french fries adorn the bedspread. These are in turn topped by a sprinkling of diced tomatoes.

A tear rolled down my cheek as the creation was placed in front of me. As delicious as it was beautiful, I tore into it with knife and fork as my divaness precluded me to, until I’d taken enough off the top for a manly “pick the damn thing up” photo-op. I swallowed every bit of the sandwich with a smattering of pride as a chaser, knowing now the wonders of Kitchen 64 and their exquisite 95 North.

Carl's Frozen Custard

On a monthly date with Krissy and Sara, Kelly and I met them for dinner in downtown Fredericksburg at Kybecca Wine Bar http://kybeccawinebar.com/.  It was a cute little place and the food was delicious however over priced for the portion size.  They offer a tapas style selection so we shared a couple of their small plates including, the Ravioli Frito in a Bison Marinara, hummus and sweet pepper plate, house marinated olives, lentil salad, fried green tomatoes & a spicy aioli (sriracha maybe?) and the 4 cheese platter. My favorite was the cheese platter, specifically the Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor chèvre, so good!  Oh and we shared a bottle, or 2 of La Playa Sauvignon Blanc also very good!  In my opinion the other plates were decent as well but forgettable.


We decided to forgo dessert at the wine bar and headed over to Carl's (not a hard decision AT ALL!!) for some frozen custard.  Not just any custard but some of THE BEST!!  Even PBS and the Food Network has featured it as such. It's just so simple and creamy and good....it was just as amazing as I remembered!!!


http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?attrid=16449

Thanks to my lovely ice cream model and friend Sara.

Flavors of the 4th

We really embraced the All-American cookout this weekend, I mean we did it all, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon, potato chips, chicken wings (do they count?  they were grilled?), beer, I'm sure there was more as Zach typically cooks for a small country but there were 2 especially festive treats that we featured for my second favorite holiday ever...scones and cupcakes, yes rather non-traditional but red, white and blue so they counted.

For our Independence Day brunch Zach made chocolate chip scones and blueberry/cranberry scones (amongst a smörgåsbord of other things), the later being much more festive as they are appropriately representing our nation's colors and therefore pictured below.

SCONES

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

2 C flour

1/2 C (stick) butter

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 C sugar (replace with brown sugar for chocolate chips)

2/3 C buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 C chocolate chips, fruit, whatever

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and place rack in middle of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.  Stir in the chocolate chunks (or chips). In a small measuring cup whisk together the buttermilk and vanilla extract and then add to the flour mixture. Stir just until the dough comes together (add more buttermilk if necessary). Do not over mix the dough.

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches (3.75 cm) thick. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 4 pie-shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Make an egg wash of one well-beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk and brush the tops of the scones with this mixture. Sprinkle the tops of the scones with a little of the sugar.

Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 8 scones.

Revised recipe from: http://www.joyofbaking.com/SconesChocChip.html#ixzz0t7c6VRv8

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!  What birthday is complete without cupcakes? 

I have to give Marisa credit for this one, she suggested the red, white and blue cupcakes...all you do is get a white cake mix, divide it into 3 bowls and dye one red, the other blue and leave one plain, spoon one of each color in the cupcake liner and mix it up with a toothpick.

We topped it with a buttercream frosting.  I just used the recipe from the powdered sugar bag (below) and topped it with blueberries from the Forest Hill Farmer's Market we picked up that morning http://www.themarketumbrella.com/ and strawberries.

Buttercream Frosting

1 - (1 lb.) pkg. powdered sugar (approx. 3 3/4 cups)

1/2 cup - butter or margarine, softened

3 to 4 tablespoons – milk (I used whipping cream)

1 teaspoon - vanilla

Combine in large bowl, with mixer at low speed, confectioners' sugar, butter, milk and vanilla.

Beat at medium speed 1-2 minutes until creamy. If desired, add more milk until frosting is spreading consistency.

Makes enough to fill and frost 2-layer cake, 13x9x2-inch sheet cake, or 24 cupcakes.

Best Summer Herb...Basil

Our friends Brendan and Krista gave us our own potted herb garden as a house warming gift...nothing beats fresh herbs in your cooking!!!  We were so excited about it and had committed ourselves to nurturing this garden paying particular attention to the basil in order to fully benefit from it in the kitchen. Now I've been successful in the past with growing basil but considering my recent run with gardening (epic fail) we weren't expecting much. BUT with a lot of watering and google gardening advice our little basil plant is doing very well.

So well that we've already been able to enjoy it.  With our first harvest I made an awesome caprese salad (caprese salad is so easy it's always awesome), so fresh, so delicious, perfect for the summer.  I just stacked tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella, drizzled some olive oil on top with some salt and pepper and done.  You can always add balsamic vinegar but I wasn't feeling it.

I hope I am not getting ahead of myself but this looks like it's going to be a good basil crop, enough so that if you have any recipes using lots of basil or recommendations for preserving it I'd love to hear from you!

The "FIRST" beat goes on...

I guess Zach's recent post made him reminiscent of our FIRST date.  Last night he brought the India Garden http://www.indiagardenonline.com/ home to me, he made Chicken Tikka Masala  without http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPCwH8uJawA the chicken and Veggie Samosas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUA4g874WUs  with Raita (recipe below).  It all was fantastic but still trying to figure out where the vegetarian meal came from...for those who know him it's very out of character.

(Three posts later I think we have beaten the dead horse that is the FIRST reference, I promise, it ends here.)

RAITA 

(Zach typically makes some version of the recipe below, the chemist in me is learning to embrace his less than precise approach to cooking)

Ingredients

2 cups low-fat plain yogurt

1/2 cucumber, grated

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1/4 teaspoon red chili powder

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1.  Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Let them sit pretty in the serving dish (preferably glass) getting chilled for half an hour or so.
3. Sprinkle a bit of cumin powder& red chili powder on the top to add a riot of colors to the dish just before serving.
4. Serve as an accompaniment to Indian dishes.

The Beauty and the Scamp(i)

Since we’re talking about FIRSTS, I feel I must interject a FIRST culinary story of my own, so long as I don’t have to keep capitalizing FIRST.

For our first date, I took Jamie to the India Garden Restaurant (http://www.indiagardenonline.com/) in Blacksburg. This was very out of character for me, but I figured the choice would prove me to be unique; you know, one-of-a-kind—a complete bad ass. It did. She liked the Indian experience, probably not as much as I love Indian food, but well enough that we’d visit many times in the future. Whether it was the curry or just my sheer awesomeness, she agreed to see me again. But this time, this time I planned on cooking for her. I needed to further impress the one they called Jamie, so I fell back on the only dish I really knew, shrimp scampi.

I’d begun my training in the scampi arts down the road from my childhood home, at the Gorman Culinary Institute (my friend Jeromy’s parent’s house) back in my adolescent years. Mr. and Mrs. Gorman cooked often and well; the latter trait being one my household didn’t so much possess.* One day, after yet another extraordinarily prepared dinner down the road; my first taste of shrimp scampi, I sat comatose in a state of euphoria. I’d had shrimp before, but it was usually fried. What was this new way of cooking? And what was that new flavor still radiating from my mouth…for hours? It was that fateful day I began an undying affair with garlic—a wonder drug deemed taboo in the Jahn house of my childhood. To this day I don’t know why. Oh, and I also learned how to cook shrimp scampi.

Having now a half decade of scampi experience under my chef’s hat, I was a seasoned veteran. Knowing my sidekick garlic would never fail me, I stood undaunted at the counter and commenced the creation of a masterpiece.

Note: pictures used are from a technical writing project back in college, don’t ask. I just wanted to prove I didn’t actually document our first at home date…psycho.

I placed all my ingredients before me and proceeded to cut, chop, season, and pour when necessary.

Some stirs and shakes here and there.

A beautiful layout on the plate. Add garnish. And…

Heaven.

Years later we were married. Did the first scampi experience have anything to do with that? It’s been requested countless times since. So you tell me…


*MOM DON’T READ THAT WRONG, YOU’RE AN AMAZING COOK.