Some dishes from the past 2 weeks!
Homemade beef burgers. They shrunk on me QUITE a bit, but you still had a decent bite. I top mine with ketchup, mustard, guacamole (homemade), a hot sauce of sorts, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and pickle (homemade as well). When I think about it, wiith the size of the bun, meat maybe made up 15% of the actual bite lol. That was 2 Sundays ago.
And the same thing, but with chicken thighs; I made one deep-fried and the other grilled (the pic is the deep-fried one). I remembered why I don't buy thighs, when I was cleaning them; they have SO MUCH damn fat and they are a PITA to clean and prep for cooking. I will stick to breast going forward. In this guy, I omitted the ketchup and mustard, added a sundried tomato and Beechhouse sauce (despite what it looks like, it is NOT a mayonnaise-based sauce; it is a concoction by a local burger place and they gave us extra. It's garlic-based, with finely-minced carrot and something green in it. If there is anything dairy in it, it would be yogurt, but it sure doesn't taste like it lol). Quite delicious.
Homemade (not by us) pork sausages and homemade (not by us lol) Lamb Spiedini. Both are made in-house by my wife's uncle (who owns a butcher shop). The sausages lost a ton of fat, so they weren't greasy or full of nasty chunks (like most store-bought sausages are) and the spiedini were absolutely delicious; just put a bit of Montreal Steak Spice on them.
And Lombardian dish #17, Luccio alla Mantovana (Pike, Mantuan-Style). I caught 2 pike last weekend and made the smaller of the two, for my wife and I. Basically, you get a huge roasting pot, fill it with water, chop up some carrot, celery, onion and parsley, the add some salt and white wine and let that cook for 45 minutes-an hour. Then you take your pike (cleaned and scaled, of course) and dunk it in, to cook for 30-45 minutes. Once done, you let it sit for another 10 minutes (at least) and then remove the pike, peel the skin off and break the meat into smaller pieces, removing any and all bones. Once that's done, you make a sauce, of butter (not much, about a tbsp. at the most), minced anchovies, minced garlic and minced parsley, plus salt and pepper to taste. Mix that well and then pour over the pike, allowing to sit for at least an hour, but up to a day. While it's sitting, make polenta lol. This was SO DELICIOUS, it would be a hit at parties as a first course. Despite being a smaller pike (1.47 pounds. We don't keep anything under 1.25 pounds or above 4 pounds), there was a ton of meat left over, so I have it for lunch today as well
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Nothing like catching your own meat (the Pike), growing your own vegetables (parsley and garlic) and then putting them together to make something wonderful