Boiled Shrimp, veggies and LandShark beer. / Gary McCracken/gmccracken@pnj.com
Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to a friend’s house for family dinner. My friend’s mother and I are so alike that there might have been some baby-switching at the hospital. She goes above and beyond on every occasion. You will never find yourself eating frozen lasagna or delivered pizza at her table. Fresh-grated parmesan — never Kraft — tops her homemade marinara sauce, and fresh-from-the-garden — never frozen — vegetables are served alongside slow-grilled, center-cut steaks. The table is always set with beauty in mind. From fresh flowers to warm candles and modern flatware, it’s like a picture from a magazine.
Once dinner was wrapped and the plates were cleared, my friend told us that it was now time to earn our dinner. With a gleam in her eye and a very large beach/boat party planned for the next morning, I saw a lot of packing and lifting in my future.
Whole Oven-Roasted Rainbow Trout with a crabmeat stuffing
Whole Oven-Roasted Rainbow Trout by Chef Billy Ballou – Whole Oven-Roasted Rainbow Trout Stuffed with herbed lump crab. Served with roasted root vegetables and finished with herb compound butter.
Whole Oven-Roasted Rainbow Trout by Chef Billy Ballou
3/4 cup diced red bell pepper
3/4 cup diced red onion
3/4 cup diced celery
1/2 cup sliced green onion
2 tbls minced fresh thyme
2 tbls minced fresh basil
2 tbls minced garlic
4 tbls unsalted butter
1/2 cup white wine
1 each lemon (juiced)
1 pound lump crab meat
Rainbow trout:
4 each 11oz whole cleaned Rainbow trout
1 each fresh lemon
4 tbls olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375. First what you want to do is take a medium saute pan and cook the onion, fennel, pepper, celery, garlic and butter til translucent which will take about 5 minutes. Then take your white wine and deglaze the pan, let cook for about 1 minute then remove vegetable mixture and let cool. Once cooled mix remaining ingredients with the lump crab. Once the crab mixture is done take your trout and lay the skin side down and season with salt and pepper and a little olive oil. Then take about 1 1/2 cup of crab mixture and stuff the trout. Once that is done that your stuffed trout and place it on a grease sheet pan and bake it for about 12-15 min, or until skin is nice and crunchy.
Strawberry Cobia Salad from the Good Grits cookbook
While making one of my many pilgrimages to the Sweet Home Farm cheese shop in Elberta, Ala., I finally stopped at the giant strawberry that I use as a landmark.
Turns out the big strawberry is a true sign of what was growing at B.J. Farms — giant strawberries, sweet and delicious. It occurred to me to use them in a salad with Sweet Home Farm blue cheese and the excellent cobia that were running off the beach.
The great thing about this dish is that most of the major ingredients are fresh and local — except the bacon, of course, which, as everyone knows, comes from hog heaven. (more…)
Left to right: Shannon Reeves, Melissa Martin and Ashley Warren help pick out wines. Photo by Katie King
Written by -Melissa Martin - Special to the News Journal
This is the first time since I have been engaged that the wedding details are causing insomnia. I want to take the time this week to talk about tonight’s — I mean, this morning’s — reason for sleeplessness.
The wedding rehearsal dinner is an opportunity for the bride’s and groom’s parents to meet and have a good time. This sounds simple enough, but if you have a large wedding party and a lot of people coming from out of town, it might be hard to find a venue that fits your budget and the number of guests attending.
We have more than 65 guests attending our rehearsal dinner, and they are coming from all over. Even though the rehearsal dinner is traditionally planned by the groom, since I am an event planner and a bit of a control freak, I agreed to knock it out myself. Even though I do this for a living, there are a lot of details involved, especially if you are renting a venue and hiring an outside caterer. Hopefully this week I can leave you with a few tips that will make planning your own rehearsal dinner much more stress free.
Downtown Pensacola has many beautiful restaurants and venues perfect for hosting a rehearsal dinner. No matter where you book, these tips that I’m offering hold true. My fiancé and I have kept all our venues for our wedding weekend local to downtown because of its romantic charm. Due to the number of guests attending, we have rented a large venue on Palafox Street and we’re having the dinner catered by the same local restaurant that is catering our reception. (more…)
Overripe bananas are perfect for this chocolate chip banana bread by pastry chef Trina Confuscione of The Fish House. / Katie king/kking@pnj.com
Springtime always pulls me toward fresh fruits and vegetables when cooking and baking. This year, I am finding it hard to find what I want because the produce is not ripe enough or the price is too high. I have been going to the market almost every day to try to find the best product rather than buying it all at once and taking my chances that I will get around to using it before it spoils.
There is, however, one item I always buy no matter what condition they’re in, and that’s bananas. Whether we get around to eating them before they turn does not matter, because I freeze the overripe ones, and when I have some left over, I make this chocolate chip banana bread.
This recipe makes two 9-by-9-inch pans, so I freeze one for later use unless we have company; then I keep one out and one in the refrigerator. This is a great snack bread and is rich enough to have as dessert. I like to eat it warm, so I heat it in the microwave to let the chips melt. I use dark chocolate in mine, but you can use any kind you have on hand or none at all. The nuts can be omitted, as well. Just keep ripe bananas in a freezer bag until you are ready to thaw.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
6 overripe bananas (mashed)
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter two 9-by-9-inch square casserole dishes. In a mixer, cream together shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time. Scrape the bowl, add mayonnaise and bananas and mix well.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, then mix into batter until just incorporated. Fold in the chips and walnuts by hand.
Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely if you are removing from pan. Keep wrapped airtight.
Clockwise from lower left, Chefs Irv Miller, Frank Taylor, Gus Silivos, Dan Dunn and Jim Shirley work together to put the finishing touches on their dessert, goat cheese and ricotta-filled crepes with caramelized peaches and spiced candied pecans. / Bruce Graner/bgraner@pnj.com
Sunday night, about 100 foodies packed the Global Grill, 27 Palafox Place, for a special dinner by the Pensacola Celebrity Chefs.
The five chefs — Frank Taylor of the Global Grill, Irv Miller of Jackson’s Steakhouse, Dan Dunn of H2O, Jim Shirley of The Fish House and Gus Silivos of Nancy’s Haute Affairs — presented the dinner as a dress rehearsal for their June 28 dinner at New York City’s prestigious James Beard House. Dedicated to celebrating America’s diverse culinary heritage and future, the Beard House is considered the stage for America’s finest chefs.
The honor comes at a price: The chefs must cover all of the expenses, including travel and all the food that will be served, including shipping costs for local ingredients.
“You have to check the Grits a Ya Ya,” Shirley joked.
The five chefs felt the trip was worthwhile to promote Pensacola tourism and cuisine. Proceeds from Sunday’s dinner will help defray the expenses.(more…)
Strawberry margarita made by Erin Moore of The Fish House. / Tony giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com
With spring upon us, it is now time to lock away the whiskey and allow your taste buds to blossom. Tequila, with its range of classifications and varieties, not only lends itself to endless mixed drink combinations, but countless memories of “fun in the sun.” Tequila was North America’s first distilled drink and its first alcohol produced commercially. It was initially called mezcal wine after the conquest that brought the Spaniards to the New World in 1521. After several monikers, tequila arrived at its name from Tequila, a small town in a valley in Jalisco, Mexico. The word tequila is said to mean “the place of harvesting plants.”
The meaning of tequila is fitting since after the American Revolution, Prohibition and World War II, tequila’s popularity grew so fervently that regulatory agencies were put in place for the spirit. (more…)
