Mom's Day

Here's a picture of Mom with the spread. Sorry it came out a little blurry, Mom! (click the picture to see full size)

















Happy Mother's Day!!! I hope all you moms out there had a great one and all you kids out there at least called your moms! Me? I trekked it to Brownwood with Seth and Lucy to make a lovely lunch for my mom, but let's start with yesterday:

Uchi, again, was a blast. I told Jay I was going to have to take off a little early since I was heading out of town. He was totally cool about it and said it wouldn't be a problem. So I got to do a few new and different things. I made the spicy krab mix again, but before I could do that, I had to make the spicy mayo. I also made fish sauce and ponzu sauce. I finished the day off with an old favorite: yucca chips. I filled a box of those and headed out.

We rolled in to the BWD to find that mom had prepared an excellent dinner of pork tenderloin, spinach salad with avocado and strawberries, and good ol shells n cheese. Mmmmm!! It was tasty! That was followed by a piece of yellow cake with chocolate icing and strawberries and whipped cream while we watched UFC 113 - great fights btw. This morning Seth was kind enough to prepare a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs (with help from sous chef Lucy!). A great start for the day.

Now to the lunch: First, I pounded out the chicken breasts to an even thickness so they could cook uniformly (and quickly). Then I rubbed them with fresh chopped rosemary, salt, pepper, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil and into the fridge for 3 hours. I tossed fingerling potatoes with bacon grease (from breakfast), salt, and pepper and roasted them for about an hour (which turned out to be about 15 minutes too much). I sliced eggplant, zucchini, onion, red bell pepper, and yellow squash (from PawPaw's garden), brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled them with salt and onto the grill - they were finished with a light brushing of balsamic vinegar before hitting the table. The steaks were grilled with straight up S&P. Nothin else. Now for the sauce. I minced a couple shallots very fine and sauteed them in butter. Once slightly browned, I hit the pan with some red vino. Reduced by about 75% and added the demi-glace (cheaters demi from Central Market - basically concentrated demi-glace to which you add hot water, but it was recommended by Chef Porter and was very good). I reduced this a little farther and finished with a little butter for richness and gloss. I did stray from the traditional Bordelaise in that I did not add diced bone marrow. Maybe next time.

Overall, I would say it was a great lunch. I will definitely try it with the bone marrow next time, and I'll probably use strips or ribeyes instead of sirloin, but everyone really seemed to enjoy it, so I guess not too many adjustments are necessary.

This is the final week of classroom classes for this block!!! I take my ServSafe exam in the morning. Then Sanitation final on Tuesday. Off Wednesday. Basic Cookery Quiz #2 Thursday. Basic Cookery Final Friday. It's going to be a busy week. I also have what could turn out to be a VERY exciting meeting tomorrow that could result in some even more exciting news - I'll keep you posted on that. That's it for now.