Six days of food and fun- wish you all could have joined us
We had so much fun. Kauai may never be the same.
Joe, I will post the Laarb menu in T&T. A table-full of many flavors, so much fun because it is a do-it-yourself meal where bowls are passed around the whole time and the interaction is as much fun as the food is.
I've never posted the stuffed Ahi recipe because I don't use a clear cut recipe for the stuffing- I don't have a clue what amounts I use and sometimes I change the ingredients. For this particular meal I used fresh crab (the refrigerated, canned kind from Costco), homemade Aioli, chopped onion, capers, Kalamata olives, fresh Wasabi root and most likely I sprinkled in some additional things I can't remember. I got some perfectly beautiful Ahi "steaks" ( I got lucky at the fish market), cut pockets in them, stuffed them and just peppered the Ahi, no further flavoring needed. I heated olive oil and butter in a cast iron pan, seared the stuffed Ahi quickly then turned down the heat and covered for a few minutes to finish the fish. Richard wanted pickled ginger with the fish and it was a good suggestion so on the plate you see the pink pickled ginger on the side along with green beans sauteed in a little oil and chopped onion and leftover Coconut Rice from the Laarb dinner- it matched perfectly.
Tim concocted gorgeous milk chocolate Creme Brulee- he is quite the astonishing dessert maker, not afraid to take on the most difficult things. I believe he would have constructed the Eiffel Tower out of Puff Pastry if we would have asked him to...and it would have been the most gorgeous thing ever made, worthy of the international pastry contests. Creme Brulee was my request- I didn't want him to spend a whole day in the kitchen when the beach was calling.
Richard made his red cabbage- another request from me. It was fabulous and paired perfectly with the sauerkraut and pork roast even though we doubled a main ingredient on one plate (cabbage.) As you all know, he is quite the cook. He restrained himself and let me do most of the cooking but at any given moment he could have swept me out of the way and created feasts for the gods.
One night we made a nice green salad and my Husband Kriss, the grill cook, grilled veggies with a chile-infused oil (zukes, yellow crookneck, red sweet pepper, garlic, onions, asparagus, mushrooms) which were placed on the greens and a nice piece of grilled salmon laid over the top. This is my personal favorite kind of meal.
I've been reworking a chocolate chip cookie recipe for several weeks and hit the final version while Richard and Tim were here. They were eager taste testers and all of us could be found at various times of the day and evening at the box of cookies sampling just one more. I made a glaring baking faux pas on a batch I made just before they came- something I haven't done for a long time. I put 1-1/2 POUNDS of butter in instead of 1-1/2 CUPS. I was relying on my brain to remember the recipe because I have made it so many times lately. Bad brain. Well, the cookies were delicious but spread too much- like tuilles. Everyone gamely ate them anyway and I made another batch, cutting the butter back but because I liked the extra rich flavor the butter gave, I went to 1 lb of butter in the recipe and that was the final tweak I needed. It was fun to "hit" it when Richard and Tim were here.
A good time was had by all. I encourage all of you to meet up whenever you can- it is Too Much Fun!
