Art Day

One of the times when I feel most like myself and at peace is when I'm inspired and creating something - food, painting, sewing, etc.  Today I decided to make a painting for my Grandma and some art for my guest bedroom.  Big thanks to my awesome coworkers who gave me the paint, paint brushes, and canvas after my surgery!

For the painting on the right, I got paper doilies and just painted over top of them.  Then I painted the scripture verse right on top of that after it dried.

When my husband gives me roses, I let them dry out and keep them.  I didn't know what I was keeping them for, but just really felt like I should.  Finally it dawned on me, put them in a shadow box!  I used hot glue to glue all the roses to cardboard and then I slid it into a shadow box.  It looks so much better in person.  The glass on the shadow box makes it nearly impossible to take a picture of.

My creative process is quite organic.  I tend to only have a vision or idea; not a strong outline of a plan. I find this to be more fun...just start somewhere and see where it goes.  :)  If the outcome isn't perfect, that's almost more fun.  No stress, just creativity.

Fogo de Chao

Meeeaaaattttt.  I have a profound affection for red meat.  When friends asked us if we wanted to join them at Fogo de Chao during restaurant week, we excitedly accepted the offer.  Fogo is a Brazilian steakhouse on Hennepin Ave in downtown Minneapolis.  The fun of Fogo is that gauchos come around to each table with different cuts of meat including pork tenderloin, ribs, bacon wrapped chicken, chicken legs, lamb, top sirloin, and various other fantastic cuts of meat.  It's a very fun experience.  So many new things to try.  Since we did the restaurant week promotion, it was basically half off.  You get the salad bar, most of the meats (excluding some premium cuts like filet mignon), and dessert for $30 instead of $50 (the regular $50 meal doesn't include dessert).  We had a late reservation - 8:30 pm.  That turned out to be about perfect because we ended up getting some of the premium cuts of meat anyway as it was the end of the night and there were left overs.  Basically this is an all you can eat meat buffet....or a more than you can eat buffet.  We left quite stuffed and brought our desserts to go.  I have to comment on how amazing the key lime pie was.

So I guess this was a last meal of sorts for me.  After my surgery, I decided to visit a naturopathic doctor and get some advice on how to reach my full health potential.  I learned that different diets suit different blood types.  I'm a type A which means I respond best to a vegetarian diet and should avoid red meat.  Of course this devastated me, but I'm excited to embark on this new journey today and see if it makes a difference in my health over the next few months until I see the NP doctor again.

Al Vento

I think we found one of the best brunch places in the city.  Yesterday we celebrated a friend's birthday at Al Vento in south Minneapolis.  It's an Italian restaurant that features a wonderful Sunday brunch buffet spread.  Transcending the traditional American continental buffet, they served the following yesterday:  perfectly cooked eggs benedict, scrambled eggs with veggies, mini chocolate pancakes, various pastries, various salads, smoked meats, cheeses, breads, fresh fruit, and a chocolate fountain.  For $14, you can enjoy all you can eat brunch food.  But wait!  There's more!  For $20, you can indulge in the "boozy brunch".  In addition to the food, you can also enjoy unlimited mimosas, bloody mary's, and screwdrivers.  We were three for 3 hours so you can bet we got our money's worth. 

Midtown Global Market/ East Lake Brewery

A group of us got together with the sole purpose of conquering Midtown Global Market.  Six people, tons of vendors featuring ethnic food, one brewery, one purpose = grab a variety of food and share it so everyone can enjoy trying a ton of different things.  Mission accomplished.  We all got food from different vendors and ended up with a wonderful smorgasbord.  We had a cubano sandwich, bahn mi sandwich, "indurritos" from Hot Indian Foods, chinese noodles, samosa, schwarma, gyro, fried eggplant tacos, Surly cupcakes, and bread pudding.  Unfortunately they had sold out of the camel burgers and roasted BBQ goat.  I was really in the mood to try something totally different.  The food we did get was amazing but I think my favorites were the indurritos and the eggplant tacos.  This is by far the best way to experience the wonder that is Midtown Global Market - go with a group and share. 

Even better than just the market is that there is a brewery inside - East Lake.  We grabbed the food and sat inside the brewery so we could enjoy some drinks with our food.  Thankfully the beer seemed to pair quite well with the ethnic food.  I am not up to drinking yet so East Lake was a perfect choice as they serve two kinds of kombucha.  The blood orange kombucha is to die for.  I did have to sneak a sip of the almond milk stout beer though as I am a huge fan of almond milk.  It was every bit as delightful as I hoped. 

Vertical Endeavors

My husband and brother decided to do some rock climbing at Vertical Endeavors so I tagged along.  Unfortunately I couldn't climb, but they sure made it fun to spectate!  We went to the St. Paul location right off Phalen Blvd.  This place is really huge.  There are so many great things about this place.   There is tons of rock wall square footage with varying levels of difficulty as well as a variety of terrain to practice on.  If you need a break from the rock wall, they have workout equipment for cardio and weightlifting.  They also have several bouldering walls.  You can do a bunch of different climbing tracks and utilize the automatic belay or have a buddy belay for you.  For just $30, you can rent equipment and stay all day.  Since there is so much square footage, you can really climb as long as you want without taking a break.  We've been to the rock wall at REI which is probably taller and members can climb for free, but you get one climb and then you are done for the day.  If you have more stamina, I think it's definitely worth it to go to Vertical Endeavors instead.  Here's the hubby showing off his flag skills. 

Amaretto Ice Cream

So here's the thing.  We got greedy.  The beer ice cream turned out so well that we decided to add a little more amaretto to our next batch than we should have.  We used the same recipe as the beer ice cream, but added 3/4 cups of amaretto (we only added 1/2 cup of beer to the previous batch, but the alcohol content on amaretto is quite a bit higher).  The ice cream didn't quite set up as wonderfully fluffy as the beer ice cream.  But, it is still delicious, just a lot more dense.  I would recommend more like 1/3 c cup of amaretto to get more of the fluffy texture. 

Caribbean Pork Mofongo

When we were in Puerto Rico in December, we fell in love with the local cuisine.  Among our favorite dishes was mofongo.  Mofongo is primarily made of fried plantains.  There are a few ways it can be prepared, but I opted for the "pancake route".  I was so incredibly proud of how it turned out.  It was so easy that I'm sure I'll continue making and tweaking it.  Here's the recipe!

Ingredients

• 3 green/yellow plantains
• 4 slices bacon
• 1/3 onion
• 1 jalapeno
• garlic
•  salt
• pork loin

Process - Mofongo

• Cut the plantains into quarters, add to boiling water, sprinkle garlic powder into the boiling water.  Boil until you can poke a fork through them.
• Cut onion and jalapeno into tiny slices.   Saute with minced garlic.
• Fry up the bacon slices and crush them up.
• Add plantains, sauteed veggies, and bacon to a food processor.  Mix until well combined.
• Form into "pancakes" and fry in the residual bacon grease.

Process - Pork Loin

• Season and salt the pork loin as you want.
• Broil on both sides and then wrap in foil and bake at 350 degrees for an hour.
• Bake at 275 for an additional hour.
• Open the pork and pull it apart.  It should be quite tender now.
• Mix in your favorite BBQ sauce and broil until you get a nice caramelized flavor.

 To serve, put the shredded pork on top of the mofongo.

My mofongo.                                                                   Mofongo we had in Puerto Rico.

                     
                        I didn't quite get the structure right, but the      taste was on point!

Homemade Chocolate Stout Ice Cream

Being off work for several weeks due to having surgery has given me a lot of time to make list upon list to organize and contemplate various things in my life.  One of which was new recipes to try.  We started with a new ice cream recipe.  We used the Southern Tier Choklat beer and made the vanilla base.  Let me tell you it was next level ice cream.  The consistency was perfect - almost like cookie dough.  So light and airy.  Sometimes it gets icy and crystallized, but this was truly perfect.  Enough to make me think we should open an ice cream shop.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• Pint of heavy cream
• Pint of whole milk
• 1 1/4 c sugar
• 8 egg yolks
• 1/2 c beer (could probably use a little more)
• chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt

Process

•  Bring cream, milk, and 1/2 c sugar to a boil.  Stir frequently to prevent burning.
•  Whip egg yolks and 3/4 c sugar together.  
•  Very slowly add half the heated cream mixture to the egg/sugar mixture.  Very slowly while constantly whipping.  
•  Then add that mixture to the other half of the cream and return to low heat.  Heat to 170 degrees.
•  Pour mixture into a bowl and refrigerate for about 24 hours.
•  After base is properly chilled, add the rest of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips.  
• Pour into an ice cream maker and let it churn until it expands and becomes well aerated.  
• Add chocolate chips and pour into freezable containers.  
• Let freeze for at least 2 hours.  

Stay tuned for the same recipe but subbing out the beer for port wine, amaretto, kahlua, baileys, etc.