All the rain this summer (?) got Donna and I hungry for some comfort food. One of our favourite comfort food is Lasagna. We are not Italian but have grown to love Italian food especially the classic casserole, lasagna.
I have been making this for years and our older kids in Canada, Steve and Wendy, always make me make it when we visit them during vacation. I think the key to most pastas is in the sauce. I start my sauce by browning some Hamburger and then setting it aside while I saute, in order, Onions, Garlic, Green Peppers and Mushrooms. I seasoned as I went with salt and pepper and once the veggies are done I season that mixture with Thyme, Basil, Oregano and some Hot Pepper Flakes. I then added the hamburger back to the veggies and seasoned again. I used store bought red sauce to complete my sauce. The rest is pretty straight forward with alternating layers of sauce, noddles and cheese -Mozzarella, Ricotta & Parmesan. Into the oven covered with foil for 35 minutes, uncovered for an additonal 15 minutes and wait time for another 10 minutes then serve.
The resulting dish was good, if I do say so myself and I just did. LOL. I think it was good because of the different flavours and textures in the dish. Although the dish is fork tender, there are different textures within the different layers, the creamy smooth ricotta versus the denser noodles versus the melted mozza and parm cheeses. The tastes of the classic savory Italian spices, the sweet & heat of the red sauce, the tang of the ricotta cheese and the oregano flavoured mozza cheese. A great mixture of flavour and texture differences. A great homemade casserole.
Come on over the next time it rains we can do it again. Wait with all the rain this summer, I could be making this every night LOL. Come on over anyway.
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We had supper Saturday
It was Saturday morning and I was up before Donna. I was checking Facebook and I updated my status with “I am going to cook breakfast for Donna, what should I cook?” Within what seemed seconds, Facebook friend and co-worker Stephanie suggested Baked Eggs and provided the link to the NY Times site. Thanks Stephanie. I clicked on the link and it provided a straight forward recipe on a version of Baked Eggs in a video. 
We turned the ramekins over after running a knife around the inside edge to release the Baked Egg goodness. The bright red colour of the Tomato slices came to the top make the dish more appetizing. I thought the dish was a success because of the mix of flavours and textures. The Baked Eggs were still hot from the oven as we bit into them releasing the soft sweet yolk over the tomato and slightly salty bacon. The Basil flakes and parm cheese flavours were there but mild. The addition of Hash Brown pieces into the egg mixture brought interesting textures to the bite. The hash brown also soaked up the egg mixture changing the taste to include a creamy potato flavour with some crispy bits from the outside of the hash brown.
Ryan and I got to spend Friday in New York City doing some touristy things. We started our visit out by getting a personal studio tour of the Howard Stern Show, then a tour of Times Square including a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe, a visit to BLT Prime (more on that later) and finally a comedy show at Ha! It was a great father-son day. You can see the photos of the Stern Studio tour at 
The Chicken Wings were good but not great. The Medium Sized wings arrived quickly from kitchen despite a large crowd on a Friday afternoon. The skin was not crispy but cooked thru. A little more cooking time could have done the job here. The wings come spicy or BBQ but we stuck to trying the spicy and they were Spicy. The first bite put the heat in you mouth and it stuck around even after you swallowed. Not really a flavourful heat but just a burn. Once the burn died down, you did get a good chicken taste. The celery was fresh and crisp but two different sizes that was a little weird for me. The “White Blue Cheese” dressing had obviously made hours before because all the cheese pieces were at the bottom of the container. Once I fished out a piece of cheese, it was pretty bland and missing of the tang that a good blue cheese has. The cheese did cool some of the heat from the sauce so it was OK. The wings were big enough that it made a enough of an appetizer for Ryan and me to share.
For Father’s Day, we organized a Burger Buffet. This allowed us to have a home-cooked meal with the family and to have some fun preparing the meal. 
We started with a bunch of 3 oz 100% beef burgers. We used smaller patties so that that the boys could double up on the patties while Donna and I could go for one and all would be satisfied. The rain stopped long enough for me to fire up the BBQ to cook and get some grill marks on the burgers.
While I manned the BBQ, Donna sauteed some Onions in some olive oil. A slow saute got the onions nicely caramelized. That made the onions soft and sweet.
I had full intentions to capture photos of the burgers but everyone was so hungry, the boys had theirs half eaten by the time I finished the second set of burgers off the grill.
It was a rainy Saturday when we decided to have a roast for supper. The unseasonable cold and rainy weather made this June feel like March or April. We shopped at our local Giant and picked up a five pound Standing Rib Roast, red potatoes, carrots, parsnips and turnip. These all sounded like fall vegetables but the thought of a roasted dinner made sense with the weather.
The Standing Rib Roast slices were amazingly tender, almost fork tender. The taste of the meat was amazing as well. It had picked up the flavours of the wine, veggies and herbs while maintaining the core roasted meat flavour you know from a great roast. The potatoes were perfectly roasted with a baked potato flavour inside and a nice potato skin taste when you bit into the roasted skin. The small diced veggies were roasted enough to give them a nice canalization and a roasted taste. We added some A1 sauce to match with the medium to medium-rare meat slices. The A1 Sauce matches well with roast, potatoes and veggie sweetness and roasted flavour. A big success.
A great entrée, deserves a great dessert in my mind. So I created a Standing Ovation Sundae. To do that I cut up some Fresh Strawberries, mixed in some Splenda and some Grand Marnier. While the strawberries marinaded, I cut up a Banana into thin disks. Into serving bowls, I placed scoops of Phillies Grand Slam Ice Cream and three Ladyfingers. The bananas slices were placed on the ice cream and ladyfingers and in turn the strawberries are place on the bananas. The syrup from the berries and the Grand Marnier was poured over the ladyfingers.
It was a special treat for me tonight as Ryan, Robbie, Donna and I ended up at the same restaurant at the same time. This time is was Ota-ya in Lambertville. We have gone for there before for the teppanyaki but that was booked up already so we ate in the main dining room. Donna and Robbie ordered the chicken teriyaki, Ryan the beef teriyaki and I got mixed seafood teriyaki.
The teriyaki dinners come with Miso Soup and a House Salad. Since Ota-ya is a BYOB we purchased some Asahi beer at Welsh’s liquor store to go along with the meal. The House Salad comes with Ginger Dressing. The aroma of the ginger is fairly pronounced but fairly mild to taste. The fresh veggies in the salad crunched and contrasted nicely to ginger dressing. This is the one salad that Robbie and Ryan both gobble up. The Miso Soup was very pleasant with small dice of tofu, scallions and seaweed. The miso broth was light and slightly salty. The floating bits of tofu, kelp and scallion contrasted nicely in texture with each other making the miso soup a success.
Donna and Robbie’s Chicken Teriyaki came with large portions of chicken covered in a thick teriyaki sauce and some stir-fried veggies. All the dinners came with steamed fresh rice on the side. Donna described her chicken as moist, flavourful and sweet. The veggies were crisp, well cooked and very tasty. I think well cooked veggies are a mark of a good restaurant so I was surprised they were good here. We asked Robbie his opinion, he nodded and kept eating. Another good sign LOL.
My Mixed Seafood Teriyaki arrived last and it was a very fine presentation as you can see in the photo. Plentiful Shrimp, Scallops and Lobster along with the same stir-fried veggies and rice Donna, Ryan and Robbie got. The seafood were gently grilled leaving some nice char marks and flavour. I prefer Atlantic Lobster to Caribbean Lobster, but these tasty southern morsels matched well with the teriyaki sauce. The dense bay Scallops had a nice mouth feel and a sweet taste that matched also with the sauce. The Shrimp were flashed grilled keeping that sweet shrimp and texture you want in shrimp.
light smokey taste from the grill. Once the ribs were done Tom switched the classics; Burgers and Dogs. Both were great but for some reason you weren’t suppose to put ketchup on the dogs, it was ok on the burgers but not the dogs. The BBQ featured only Sabrett hot dogs which they felt were the best dogs in the USA. I am a Nathan’s fan myself but the Sabrett Dogs were very good. They had a nice snap when you bit into them and a pleasant spice mixture in the meat of the dog. Not sausage spicy but flavourful enough to be a great dog.
A nice surprise was some Breaded Eggplant that one family member brought in from New York City. Poker buddy Pete explained that this eggplant only grows in Italy and every year the relative brings it. Pete suggest that I eat it without the red sauce to really taste the eggplant. I did and sure enough it was good. I normally steer away from eggplant regardless of preparation but when Pete said it was special I knew I had to try it. Either way I would get something to write about. It was a good recommendation. Eggplant, to me, has almost a metallic taste and can be tough if you get a thick slice. These slices we thin with a light breading. The taste was sweet with almost a cold cut density to the flesh. It was good and I would have ate more but they disappeared by the time I got back the table. I didn’t try the pull pork but it looked and smelled great.
A classic Italian Salad is Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzarella. The picnic’s version was really special because of the two varieties of heirloom tomatoes and some really fresh basil leaves. The mozza was obviously fresh from their taste but aroma coming off the giant basil leaves and tomato. You could smell this dish from across the room.
Another treat were the Deviled Eggs made by local Chef Gary from Dish Catering. Gary catered my 50th Birthday Party so I knew these would be good. They eggs were seasoned with mustard, cayenne and paprika giving them some heat. Not to much but a good match to the mayo and egg yolk base to the egg filling.
Having just come off our 
Reno now runs the family pizza business in Ringoes, NJ taking over from his father Frank. Not that we didn’t have enough to eat already, Thom started to grill some Sicilian Pizza that Reno had made earlier that day. I am more of a thin crust pizza fan myself but I had to try it. Glad I did. the grill had heated the crust nicely but the biggest impact was on the melting of the cheese, basil, garlic and homemade tomato sauce. I restrain myself in eating only one piece, cause my MD is reading the blog now so I gotta watch what I eat or at least what I right. LOL.
New Facebook Friend and Poker Buddies Pete and Stella’s daughter Geri made Spinach and Strawberry Salad. This was a refreshing break in the heat of the day. The lightly dresses greens were a nice contrast to the sweetness of the berries. I helped Geri pass the salad to her family and got to meet more of this great family. It was a lot of fun.
Of course a bunch of us player poker for part of the picnic but the most interesting game was a version of Lawn Bowling from Finland. The idea was to knock over the different wooden markers with wooden cylinder until you get 50 points exactly before the other players. Ryan and I tried it and it was a lot of fun. Ryan later partnered with Poker buddy Tony and they almost won. I can see why it was a popular game and great for picnics. 
Tonight Donna cooked up one of my favourite comfort foods – meatloaf.
Once I got home, I prepared a marinade of garlic, teriyaki sauce and ground black pepper. I let the steaks soak for about an hour in the frig and then brought them out to raise to room temp just before grilling time. While the steaks were soaking, we took a package of those almost bit-sized potatoes and coated them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and crusted garlic. In a double layer of foil we place the potatoes and half of a sliced onion. The foil poach was placed in the hot grill (500 F) on the top rack. About 20 minutes after the potatoes went in, we started grilling the steaks. We like our steaks medium rare, which to me means pink in the middle with little or no blood, so I did my usual 12 minute grilling plan that I have been doing for years. It’s pretty simple; grill 4 minutes, rotate the steak 90 degrees for 2 minutes, turn over grill 4 minutes, rotate 90 degrees for 2 minutes and rest the steak for 5 minutes. The rotation give you those nice grill marks on the steak and a 1-inch steak at 500 F for 12 minutes should give you medium rare. And sure enough it did.
