Earl's Jerk Chicken!! (you are welcome)

Earl’s Jerk Chicken-

In blender: garlic, scallions, Scotch bonnet peppers, onions, soy sauce, add salt & pepper to taste

Browning or caramel for color.  1-3 lbs of whole chicken, breast, and/or pieces.  Use your judgement with the amounts of each ingredient.  Don't be scared.  HA!

Marinate chicken in Earl's concoction for at least 24 hours.

Bake in 350 degree oven for about 1.5-2  hours or until chicken is done.

For gravy- (optional)

Scotch bonnet peppers (optional) and juice from pan thicken with flour or corn starch.

So if you really know me, you know I love me some authentic Jamaican jerk chicken.  YUM.  YUM.  Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to vacation in Jamaica and blessed enough to meet a fantastic man and chef, Earl!  And this Earl certainly does NOT have to die.  Almost every day at RIU Negril on the beach, Earl would set up shop in his hut and serve up the meanest jerk chicken I've had in a while.  Earl, himself is the sweetest, cutest, older Jamaican man I have ever met.  OMG.  Love him.  And his awesomeness shines through in his cooking.  Some days, he would serve rice and beans or plain old white rice with the chicken and maybe some bread.  If you didn't get your fair share early in the afternoon, you'd be bumming and miss out because Earl's food goes fast, MON!  Soo tender, juicy, tasty, and spicy.  Oh.  And there were two bbq like sauces to slap on top of your meal but I thought the meat was just fine naked.  An attempt will be made by yours truly to make this recipe but I am positive it will not even compare to Earl's.  He's magic. 

Thanks to two amigas (you know who you are) for passing along the recipe and the photo of the masterpiece below. 

Ode To One Of The Best Sangies!

Bliss on mountain bread
bacon, lettuce, tomato
total perfection

Sur La Table...Natick, MA

For Christmas, my sis-in-law gave me a two hour, four course, fabulous French Bistro Classics cooking course at Sur La Table.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  I really didn't know what to expect at first, as this was my initial cooking class.  It turned out to be fun, informative, tasty, and educational.  Chef, Tim Doherty instructed the course in a manner in which I found very funny and entertaining.  He managed to keep my attention so he definitely deserves credit where credit is due. 

The class was held in the rear of the Natick Sur La Table.  The good sized tidy kitchen set up was pretty damn cool and included every little gadget, burner, oven, pan, pot, accessory, appliance, etc; you can imagine.  Right when you walked through the glass doors, there were twelve stations set up with cutting boards and ginormous knives for the culinary students.  Word. 

As you may have assumed, mostly women were in attendance with the exclusion of one dude, who we found out at the end of the evening, was from France.  How ironic.  We were invited to be hands on at various times throughout the evening, with such duties as peeling and chopping some veggies and preparing our cheese souffle dishes with Parmesan cheese.  For the rest of the class, we mostly listened and watched as the chef did his thing. 

Chef Doherty started his lesson with the making of Beef Bourguignon which is a classic French stew made with beef, onions, carrots, thyme, garlic, red wine, etc.  Delish.  After prepping the main dish and letting it finish in the pressure cooker, he moved onto the French onion soup recipe (Soupe a l'Oignon).  And I am totally including shallots and leeks in my next batch of deliciousness.  Topped with the thinly sliced baguette and grated Petit Basque and Gruyere cheese.  YUMMO!  Letting the soup simmer, the chef taught us how to whip up a cheese souffle which I was not the least bit crazy about.  As you know, I dislike the apparent taste of eggs and the souffle tasted like mildly cheesy eggs.  Uck!  Well, you can't like everything.  Three out of four ain't bad.  Which brings me to the final recipe we observed being put together. 

The dessert and final concoction of the evening was Vanilla Creme Brulee.  Lots of cream, sugar, vanilla bean, and egg yolks with a candied coated, crunchy outside.  Freaking fantastic.  Some of the brave class members even torched their own treat. 

The best part was seeing everything being prepared and cooked and then enjoyed.  The chef taught me some more time management skills, what to cook first, when to add garlic to the frying pan, how to get the onions sauteed just right.  Multiple cooking methods which I thought I had mastered.  The most valuable thing I learned was that we should all be rinsing our eggs off before we crack it open on a flat surface.  It's not as easy as it looks but practice does make perfect. 

I have already researched future cooking classes at Sur La Table.  They offer everything from baking cupacakes to tapas making to four course dinner menus to bread making to pasta classes, on and on.  I am totally looking forward to dragging the hubs to a Soul Food class in the next couple of months.  OMG.  I just love food and the making of spectacular dishes!!!  Totally check out their calendar if you love to cook and care to embrace a new experience!
http://www.surlatable.com/browse/storeCalendar.jsp?storeId=105&&offset=1

Isabella, 02026

The other evening, the hubs and I visited with some great friends and their families.  After hanging out for a bit, I was famished.  So we headed out on our way overdue date.  Fabulous evening.  Isabella in Dedham Square, next to the Community Theatre is one of my fave places to dine and it is located in my hometown.  The restaurant has been in existence for about fifteen years and the one of the chefs is a DHS graduate.  Go Marauders!!  HA!

The best part of going to Isabella is getting to see on of my favorite people, my bff's auntie!  Luckily for us, she was working on her off night.  We were blessed with auntie as our awesome waitress.  And she hooked us up with a big table in the corner.  Oh, the little things I tell ya!  

We started with Chianti for me and a soda for the hubs, accompanied by some oh so fresh and warm rolls served with a hummus like dip made with chick peas, garlic, peppers, olive oil, and grated cheese.  YUM!  For a salad, the hubs was dying for the iceberg wedge salad so needless to say we put a hurting on it.  OMG.  Smoked bacon, tiny red and yellow tomatoes, red onion, Ever's bleu cheese dressing.  The portion was huge, crispy, creamy, just fantastic. 

As an appetizer, we decided on the steamed P.E.I. Mussels made with Pinot Grigio, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, garlic butter, served with some fire grilled pieces of bread to dip into the scrumptuousness on the bottom of the overflowing mussel dish.  Delish is an understatement. 

For my main entree, I decided on the Asian braised short ribs which I had devoured last month when I dined with an amiga.  YES.  They are that good.  And it's not like the menu is not diverse.  It has so many great options for every type of taste and they do change up the listings on a regular.  I just had to have the ribs AGAIN.  Soft roasted corn polenta, stir fried bok choy, and braising jus.  Mouth is watering right now just thinking about my leftovers.  Nuff said.  The hubs ordered and very much enjoyed a huge platter of seafood.  The dish was called Bouillabaisse and consisted of mussels, scallops, shrimp, calamari, salmon, tomato fennel broth, crostini and sambal aioli.  As you know if you have been following along with my shenanigans, I am not a seafood kinda girl but I was surely impressed by this mountain of sea creatures. 

Of course we had to share a homemade warm Belgian chocolate cake with caramelized milk sauce and vanilla bean ice cream served with berries.  Decadent.  We washed our dessert down with two of the best nutty Irishmen hot coffees topped with thick, sweet whipped cream.  Come on.  You know you want to check out Isabella asap. 

The restaurant is a good size with an open kitchen which I love.  The bar was built up to a larger scale and it is a great place to catch a drink, lunch, or dinner.  The staff are wicked friendly, efficient, and attentive.  The portions are sizable and the prices are reasonable.  I heart Isabella and I highly recommend it! 

Jamaica MON!

It's been quite a long time since my last blog bliggity bliggity blog.  And I sure do apologize and hope that you will continue to follow along on my food journeys with me.  Because of the holidays, it has been crazy busy so I haven't had a chance to gather my thoughts enough to write up a blog.  Christmas and the Eve were awesome and I felt completely blessed to be able to share them with my families on both sides.  The food and drink were flowing per usual and Santa was also very good to me this year.  Bonus!!!

For the New Year and a girlfriend's birthday festivities, I decided to finally indulge in one of my dream vacations.  Jamaica!!!!  MON!!!  And it was all that I had hoped for.  Fun in the sun.  Beautiful weather.  Gorgeous beaches and pools on the resort.  Magnificent sunsets. Reggae music blaring making you want to shake your booty.  Meeting new friends from all over the world.  Learning a new culture from Jamaican natives.  Sharing laughs along Bloody Beach.  Drinking Red Stripe and Jamaican rum punch like it's going out of style.  The aroma of ganga in the warm air.  Admiring as dudes cook FRESH lobsters and crabs in the most simple but delicious form at Don Fresh Lobsters (donfreshlobsters.com) on the beach.  Enjoying food galore at the many buffets and various other joints in Negril.  Jerk chicken, rice and beans/peas, greens, and bread was my absolute fave dish.  Sipping on coconut water right from the fruit.  Sampling soursop drink which was the bomb. Attending a soccer game where a whole village gathered.  Crazy!  Jamming in clubs.  Getting some color.  Talking some smack and trying to learn a bit of Jamaican slang.  Patois or Patwa is not the easiest language to pick up on but I sure did try.  Ha!! 

It was almost as if I was a child again.  I had so many questions about every little thing and our new friends were more than eager to educate.  I love learning about various cultures and enjoying new cuisines.  It was absolute Heaven on Earth for one week straight.  Ahhh! 

The natives of Jamaica are so friendly, inviting, cordial, animated, funny, generous, and overall fun to be around.  In several ways, their culture and hospitality reminded me of my own Irish heritage.  There are many beliefs in common, the personalities of the people are similar, the laid back, not in a rush kind of mentality, and even the unbelievably gorgeous landscape including the roaming livestock .  Almost every view in either country is breathtaking.  Ocean and green hills for miles. 

There is no way to narrow it down to one reason of why I love Jamaica.  The people, the country, the food, and the drink are four obvious ones.  I could go on for days about my once in a lifetime vacation that I will never ever forget.  Actually, I wish I had some of Earl's jerk chicken right now.  Thank God I am fortunate enough to have experienced such a glorious holiday at this time in my life.