Homemade Applesauce

Posted on | April 21, 2010 | No Comments

Here’s a quick recipe we did last night. This is the best tasting applesauce I’ve ever had.

Recipe: Homemade Applesauce – TKD

Ingredients

6 Apples – Peeled, cored, chopped
1 cup water
1/4 cup Splenda brown sugar
1 t Cinnamon
1t Nutmeg
2t Vanilla Extract
1 oz Brandy
1/2 oz Gran Marnier

Instructions

Peel, core and chop the apples.
Put in a large pot or dutch oven.
Add the remainder of the ingredients. Can use as an apple pie filling as well. Great on ice cream or in yogurt.

Quick Notes

Adjust the sugar based on your prefrences and the sugar content in the apples you use.

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Crab Cakes and Lobster Tails

Posted on | April 11, 2010 | No Comments

This one is AWESOME. We picked up two small Lobster tails from Harris-Teeter. This is a real simple and very tasty way to prepare the Lobster. Steaming the lobster with wine improves the sauce as the juices of the lobster will go into the wine and not be lost. This would probably be even better with a whole lobster.

The crab cakes, the best I’ve had yet, come from a Paula Deen crab cake recipe. I’m not a huge fan but she does know how to cook a crab cake. They are best if done with Dungeness Crab. Get them to steam it for you ahead of time. We topped ours this time with a Remoulade. The recipes are below.

Recipe: Lobster in Tarragon & Wine Sauce

Ingredients

2-4 Lobster tails
1 cup White Wine
2 T Butter
1 T Tarragon – Dried
1t Parsley
Salt to taste

Instructions

Pour wine into pot. Put in steamer basket. Boil the wine. Add the lobster tails. Steam them for 5-7 minutes. Remove the lobster. Add Tarragon, Parsley and Butter to the wine in the saucepan. Reduce liquid. I cut the lobster tails into medallions and serve with the sauce on top.

Remoulade Sauce: The quick & easy way

Ingredients

1 cup of Mayonaise
1 tsp Dry mustard
1 tsp Crushed Garlic
2 tsp Sweet Pickle Relish
2 tsp Capers, chopped
1 Tsp Parsley, dried
1 tsp Anchovy Paste

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix. Refrigerate for 2 hours if you can.

Quick Notes

It’s great to make a Remoulade from scratch but you may want to try this for a quick way without a lot of the hassle.

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Category: recipes, seafood, shellfish

Pig Roast with the La Caja China

Posted on | March 7, 2010 | No Comments

Well, the pig roast was a success. We used our model #2 La Caja China roasting box to cook the pig. This was our second time using the box and we had much better results. I took pretty good notes this time and will pass along what we’ve learned.

We started with a 54# pig that we purchased from Central Meats in Chesapeake VA. Thats 54 pounds with the head and hooves still on. Central Meats butterflied the pig for us also. If you go for a smaller pig, you’re mostly paying for bones. Go up to a least 50# and you’ll have a much better result.

We cut off the head and hooves. The night before the party, we injected the pig with a mixture of Pineapple juice and Mojo (recipe). It was then covered with a homemade rub called Magic Dust. See the Magic Dust Rub recipe.

Beware though: The instructions on the La Caja China box (at least mine), do not match the instructions in the worksheet. Follow the worksheet and start out with a full bag of Kingsford charcoal. If you use cheap stuff, it won’t burn as long so you’ll end up not saving any money. I used 3 large 18# bags of Kingsford for this pig.

For more info: Download our completed worksheet for a pig roast. This is the complete timeline and temps for our pig. Note that the pig was at 67F when we started and the outside air temp was 60F. It took 4 1/2 hours to cook. Here’s a link for a blank worksheet.

We put a bottle of our North Carolina Sweet & Sour Vinegar Sauce (recipe link) for people to put on the pork as well. It’s a mustard based vinegar sauce that is really tasty. Make up a bottle for BBQ.

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