11.01.2011

Saturday BBQ Lunch.1

That's right I said it BBQ. I had Joshua go to Whole Foods and buy us a 5lb. Boston Butt! The largest chunk of meat I have ever cooked in my life. Which I also helped cook and touched it- which should be a surprise to those who know I have a bit of an aversion to meat.
Whole foods has the best hunks of meat! Our butt had pretty much no fat on it and cooked beautifully!

We had some friends over from Epic Life Church on Saturday and Joshua and I wanted to make it super yummy and special.

We got up at 5am and Josh rubbed the butt :) with a spice mixture I made and we put the butt in the oven. Then we ran to the farmer's market for some roasted peppers and cheese. Since our friend Andrew commented on one of our mac & cheese posts that he wanted me to stop posting about food I told him he could just come over and actually have some, therefore we felt the mac & cheese needed to be on the menu.



The hubs and I made everything from scratch, except the pasta.

We had an apple, pear, asiago salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing
             gouda, pecorino, and roasted peppers mac & cheese
             brioche buns
             homemade bbq sauce
             boston butt shredded pork
  and for dessert a truly scrumptious homeade chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting drizzled with chocolate ganache (will show this in another post- it's a beaut!)


Our friends brought the wine, beer, coke and Seattle brought the sunshine. We had a really good time sitting on the floor and rolling through random topics. We really like having people over and just relaxing over something tasty.

Overall it was a truly relaxing day. I though Joshua and I might get stressed at each other but we actually had a lot of fun and goofed off while doing it. We were really proud of ourselves
And later that night we even went out for Halloween and stayed out til 3am :)

Apple, Pear, Asiago Salad Recipe:

2 honeycrisp apples; chopped
2 bartlett pears; chopped
handful of chopped walnuts
handful of asiago cheese
lots of mixed greens- we get the one with herbs in it already!
S&P
for the dressing: make this right beforehand or 1-2 days ahead and put in sealed container in fridge
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. brown sugar
2 small cloves garlic; minced
1/2 tsp S&P
3/4 cup olive oil
shake together well




Brioche Buns:
I will never NEVER go back to regular hamburger buns after these. They are beyond ridiculous. They look so pretty and golden and aren't dry or crumbly. they soaked up the bbq sauce and just really, in my opinion, made the sandwich spectacular!

makes 8 buns
3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
3 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
preheat oven 400 degrees F

1     combine one cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy (about five minutes)
2     beat ONE egg
3     in a mixer bowl whisk flour and salt. Then add butter and mix in with hands- until crumby
4     using the dough hook stir in yeast and the beaten egg
5     then place dough on well floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes
      (this dough requires less flour than most breads so add as little flour in this process as possible, it's
okay if it is a little tacky)
6     make dough into a ball, place it back in the bowl and cover.
7     then allow dough to rise to double its size 1 1/2- 2 hours
8     once it is doubled remove from bowl and place on cutting surface and cut into 8 pieces
9     then roll each piece into a ball and place on a parchment paper on a cookie sheet
10   then cover it with a towel and let rise another 1-1 1/2 hours
11   beat ONE egg with 1 tbs of water and, using a pastry brush, brush each bun with mixture
12   place in oven and bake for 15-18 minutes, tops should be golden brown

to serve you can cut the buns in half horizontally and brush cut halves with olive oil and bake cut side down on a cookie sheet for a few minutes to make them toasty and warm!



BBQ sauce, meat, and cake recipies will be in posts .2 & .3!

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