Recipes for Success

Thank you to everyone who came out last night and made our guest chefery a success! We felt the love and hoped you did too. I celebrated a little too hardy and so the recipes are a bit late going up, and not all at once, but be kind to me! I haven’t stayed up past 10pm in a real long time and last night, we hit the pillow at 2am! 

Here’s the first installment:

Venison Sliders with Maple Mustard BBQ Sauce
Makes 8 sliders or 8 full size burgers 

For the Sliders
1 lb ground venison meat (or beef, pork, veal, turkey or a combination) 
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 T worcestershire sauce (did you know this is made from the tamarind fruit? I just learned that!)
1 T dijon mustard
1 tsp hot sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
Cheese (we used smoked gouda)
Rolls

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl using your hands. Mix until the onions and parsley are evenly distributed, but don’t go too crazy – the meat will start to toughen. Form meat into patties. Grill (preferably) or pan-fry on hot heat four minutes on first side, flip, turn heat down to medium and cook to desired doneness. If you’re adding cheese, do it now.

For The BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup whole grain mustard
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/8 cup Bragg’s apple cider vinegar (its the only brand to buy)

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a whisk until the sauce starts to simmer. Turn heat down to low and stir occasionally for 15 minutes. 

Spoon over burgers and enjoy!

 

 

Tonight’s Menu

For those of you making it out to the Gourmand & the Peasant’s organic beer dinner at Barrette, here’s what you’ll be getting:

First Course
Amuse Bouche x 3
Organic Egg Salad
Mustard Seed Cheddar Cheese
Spring Sprout Salad
Beer: Amber Ale 

 

Second Course
Barley Salad with Asparagus, Peas and Edible Spring Flowers
Beer: Pale Ale 

 

Third Course
Venison Slider with Smoked Gouda Cheese and Maple Mustard BBQ Sauce
Beer: Maple Oat Ale 

 

Fourth Course
Amaretto and Coffee Cookie
Beer: Nut Brown Ale

All Beer is from Peak Organic Brewery. Yum!

 

Here’s What We’ve Been Up To

Where have we been?!

It is in poor taste, I know, to launch a new blog and then disappear for a full week! And, without fair warning, and for that, dear readers, I apologize – we hope you can forgive us ; -)

We were here and loved every relaxing moment.

Also, I had a moment of ethical pause. Prior to leaving, the Gourmand & I went out to a new (to us) restaurant in Park Slope. I was all prepared to write about the experience, except that it was terrible. Well, no. Not terrible. The company was wonderful and the food was good, but everything else about the place made me wonder how they’d managed to stay in business for so long (“Two years, I think…” according to the server.) Excepting that they appeal to an extremely specific slice of lifestyle, I took pause with how little it takes to keep this restaurant afloat.

Notice how I’ve not mentioned the name? Herein lies my dilemma. What is the distinction between education readers and perceived slander by the establishment, who, judging by the enthusiasm of the staff won’t be bothered to look up what anyone is saying about them anyway.

What are your thoughts? Are poor reviews as valuable as good ones or does the silence speak for itself? I’ll have no problem negatively rating my own cooking debacles but for those who make their rent off the endeavour, is it better to give no press at all?