Decided to invite quite a few friends over for dinner last night. The invite wasn't sent until Thursday so with the short notice, most of the people already had plans and could not make it. The five that did attend were our absolute best friends so sometimes less is more, and this was one of those cases. Since it was a small group I decided to do something special and it turned out to be an epic meal. I wanted to showcase some of the sausage I've made and treat people to a really nice meal. We had an appetizer plate with sausage & cheese, some top-shelf steaks, stuffed Portabella mushrooms, home made sourdough rolls, more sausage, and a nice salad. To save myself from typing the word "homemade" a dozen times, all of the sausage, the bacon that was used, and the rolls were all homemade. The rolls were made by one of our friends as a table offering.
Appetizer plate. From left to right: Andouille, beef Summer sausage (got the recipe here), sliced cheese (DUH!!), garlic and green onion Summer sausage (my recipe), basic Cajun sausage (my recipe).
Small Portabellas with stems removed and cleaned out
Add bacon that's been lightly fried and chopped up
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
Topped with diced green onions
Thick cut USDA Prime NY Strips....God I love my butcher :-)
Lightly brushed with olive oil and a nice shot of blackening season
Steaks on the grill. The sear burner will go to 1100* so I flash blast both sides, move steaks to the center, lower the heat on the sear burner, light the left burner, and leave the center burner off. This will allow the steaks to continue cooking with "indirect" heat.
'Shrooms on the left burner
A platter full of steaks and my TX Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage. Got this recipe in the sausage forum posted by another member. My take on this one will be posted later
Cross section of the sausage
Sausage sliced and ready to serve. OMG!!! This sausage was SOOO good!!
'Shrooms done. The one in the center cratered but overall they were a huge success. Everybody loved them
Money shot
This was a truly outstanding meal. My wife and I do a lot of entertaining. It's not uncommon that we will serve 60 to 80 people at a time and have served as many as 100. We have prepared literally thousands of meals for our friends but this one goes down in the history books as one of the very best. During dinner however I came to a realization that I'd like to share. These were our very best friends in the world and it'd been months since we had seen them. Looking back over the past few months there was no excuse for this much time to have gone by without reaching out to them. It was a travesty that this had happened. We have all ridden hundreds of thousands of miles together on the motorcycles, shared hundreds of meals, taken vacations together, and traveled abroad, etc. I've come to accept the fact that I'm on the down side of my time on this beloved earth. I've been here longer than I have left to be here, have been truly blessed in my lifetime, and am now avowed that I'll never allow that much time to pass without seeing the people in our lives that are truly special. The best things on earth are the ones we create and are made even better when shared with the people we love. Never again will I miss an opportunity to spend time with these people because once that time is gone, you'll never get it back. This meal was that epic to me and has forever changed my outlook on what's really important.
I'm done for now :-)
Robert
Appetizer plate. From left to right: Andouille, beef Summer sausage (got the recipe here), sliced cheese (DUH!!), garlic and green onion Summer sausage (my recipe), basic Cajun sausage (my recipe).
Small Portabellas with stems removed and cleaned out
Add bacon that's been lightly fried and chopped up
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
Topped with diced green onions
Thick cut USDA Prime NY Strips....God I love my butcher :-)
Lightly brushed with olive oil and a nice shot of blackening season
Steaks on the grill. The sear burner will go to 1100* so I flash blast both sides, move steaks to the center, lower the heat on the sear burner, light the left burner, and leave the center burner off. This will allow the steaks to continue cooking with "indirect" heat.
'Shrooms on the left burner
A platter full of steaks and my TX Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage. Got this recipe in the sausage forum posted by another member. My take on this one will be posted later
Cross section of the sausage
Sausage sliced and ready to serve. OMG!!! This sausage was SOOO good!!
'Shrooms done. The one in the center cratered but overall they were a huge success. Everybody loved them
Money shot
This was a truly outstanding meal. My wife and I do a lot of entertaining. It's not uncommon that we will serve 60 to 80 people at a time and have served as many as 100. We have prepared literally thousands of meals for our friends but this one goes down in the history books as one of the very best. During dinner however I came to a realization that I'd like to share. These were our very best friends in the world and it'd been months since we had seen them. Looking back over the past few months there was no excuse for this much time to have gone by without reaching out to them. It was a travesty that this had happened. We have all ridden hundreds of thousands of miles together on the motorcycles, shared hundreds of meals, taken vacations together, and traveled abroad, etc. I've come to accept the fact that I'm on the down side of my time on this beloved earth. I've been here longer than I have left to be here, have been truly blessed in my lifetime, and am now avowed that I'll never allow that much time to pass without seeing the people in our lives that are truly special. The best things on earth are the ones we create and are made even better when shared with the people we love. Never again will I miss an opportunity to spend time with these people because once that time is gone, you'll never get it back. This meal was that epic to me and has forever changed my outlook on what's really important.
I'm done for now :-)
Robert