Eggs Benedict
Nothing super special today to post but the making of eggs benedict this morning. I made it “Southern Style” by using toastinstead of an English muffin and used smoked bacon instead of Canadian bacon.
I put some heat in the hollandaise sauce by making it with Pickapeppa sauce.
I like mine better. 🙂
Grilled Shrimp Salad
It’s a beautiful day in Downtown Disney and we need someplace quick but healthy to eat at. We end up in Wolfgang Pucks restaurant which is in the middle of Downtown Disney but on the back-side, by the lake.
We are seated at a corner table with a wonderful view of the lake on two sides. It is bright and sunny, a balmy 75 Farenheiht, and I want something light so I order the Grilled Shrimp Salad.
My salad comes out quickly and is very fresh. It has two beautifully cooked carmalized onions on top, with thin slices of cucumber, and six shrimp. The shrimp are cooked perfectly as well and are spiced just with just enough sear on them. The lettuce is crisp and I really enjoy the light dressing.
I am not a “salad guy” normally but really enjoy the shrimp salad and would order it again given the chance. I suggest you try it out.
Salmon Flatbread
Recently I have been making flatbreads with a few low-fat toppings because they are quite tasty without expanding your waistline. I made a smoked salmon flatbread the other day for a private Super Bowl Party (my wife and I both had colds; therefore, no guests) and ended up making it again for a following party the next weekend. Both times there was little to no flatbread left, a good sign!
Ingredients
Caramelize the Onions
Slice the onion
Heat a skilled on high
Add the olive oil and butter to the skillet
Add the onions
Salt and pepper to taste
Stir once they start to sizzle
Continue to cook on high until they start to brown on all edges (about 10 minutes)
Add the red wine vinegar (careful, it will splatter)
Reduce heat to simmer and let reduce for about 10 minutes, stir to prevent burning
Flatbread
Roll the pizza dough onto a greased cookie sheet
Place in the oven on 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 minutes (make sure the oven is pre-heated)
Remove from the oven
Put it Together
Spread the lettuce onto the flatbread
Sprinkle the onions over the lettuce
Sprinkle the roasted garlic over the lettuce
Tear the salmon and sprinkle across the top
Crumble the cheese and sprinkle across
Salt and pepper to taste
Add 6 thin slices of lemon across the top
Cooking
Place the flatbread back into the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are brown
Remove and serve
Inside by the Grill
I had a nice dinner at the Flying Fish in Disney World’s Boardwalk area the other night. If you have never been there, you do not need tickets to enter the Boardwalk area. They have a few restaurants and several performances you can watch along the way (jugglers, etc.) It reminds me of a small Atlantic City Boardwalk, but cleaner.
I had eaten at the Flying Fish a few years ago and enjoyed it, but was not over excited to return (unlike Jikos which I go to every year.) As it turns out, it was worth the wait as Flying Fish now has very good entrees and I cannot wait to go back.
I sat at the bar which allowed me to enter and grab a seat within ten minutes. Most Disney World restaurants have a weeks waiting list so I was happy to get right in! I had the Cheese Sampler ($16) to start, with the Leek Soup, and then the Grilled Salmon with Vegetable Ragout ($unknown).
Salmon with Vegetables
The cheeses on the Cheese Sampler were small in portion but were accompanied by raisins, honeycomb, and Bermuda onion compote. Overall I wished there was more cheese to consume but enjoyed it a lot. It was plenty of cheese for two as a light appetizer. The honeycomb was especially tasty when paired with one of the harder cheeses.
The Leek Soup came out next and had a lot of depth to it. You could taste the leeks but they did not overpower the soup. It reminded me of a French Onion soup without the heavy cheese. I will order it again in the future.
Against the servers suggestion I opted for the Salmon with Vegetable Ragout. She does not like the vegetables but I found them quite good. They included a mix of small potatoes along with other root vegetables and were earthly but not overpowering. The salmon was grilled perfectly and left me completely full, but not stuffed.
I was too full to order dessert but may try some in the future. I really enjoyed the visit and cannot wait to go back.
Tuna Melt
I don’t have much time for lunch and after spending ten minutes looking for a parking place, I end up at the Market Street Cafe in Celebration, Florida. The restaurant looks like an up-scale diner and their website claims as such with “Market Street Café is an upscale diner concept that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days per week. Breakfast is available all day” as the description. It is clean, not too loud, and pleasant.
They are busy, with almost every table full at Noon, but we are quickly seated in a booth. I place my drink order of unsweetened tea and also order the Tuna Melt on Rye ($7.95) sandwich. My food arrives quickly and looks delicious. My sandwich comes with a side of cole-slaw and the bread looks nice and grilled.
The menu describes the sandwich as “Tuna salad on grilled rye toast topped with tomato and cheddar cheese” and it is pretty spot-on. The tomato flavor shines through and the cheddar cheese has a nice bite to it. The rye bread is flavorful, but not too overpowering, and all of the flavors work well together. My only complaint is the sandwich is a bit too greasy for my tastes. I prefer a light tuna sandwich and this one is on the heavy side. Regardless, tastes good and the cole-slaw is a nice pairing.
Overall I was satisfied with the meal and I ate only half of it to keep the calorie count down. In the future I may try the Turkey Club without bacon.
Homemade Pancakes
I grew up making pancakes from a very early age. My father used to take me camping, on Petit Jean Mountain and we would make pancakes on an old Coleman Gas Stove.
I can still remember my dad having to pump the gas chamber with a steel rod seemingly forever, to build enough pressure to last for the cooking sessions. We would make the packages out of Bisquick which only required us to add eggs and milk.
Fast forward thirty plus years and I still make pancakes using Bisquick. The other day I asked myself, “why do I continue to use this pre-mix? What is so special about it?” So, I decided to make pancakes from scratch.
I searched the Internet and found the recipe below which I modified slightly. In the end, the pancakes turned out much lighter than anything I have made from Bisquick, regular or low-fat. I made these several times now and do not plan on going back to a pre-mix. I do not have a negative attitude towards Bisquick, but it will not be used in my pancakes any longer!
Ingredients
Prep
Mix the ingredients in large bowl until smooth.
Cooking
Heat your griddle to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add one small slice of butter on each section of the griddle you plan to cook a pancake on.
Use a small glass to fill with batter. Slowly pour enough batter onto the griddle to form a disc 4″ across. Repeat this step for each area on the griddle.
Wait until bubbles form in the middle of each pancake and flip, once.
Wait 20-30 seconds and remove each pancake from the griddle.
Plating
Melt 1 stick of butter and set aside for people to pour over their pancakes. Form a stack of pancakes (2+), top with melted butter and syrup. Enjoy!
Lemon Chicken
Forbidden Garden opened in West Little Rock after the Forbidden City in Park Plaza Mall shut-down. Since they do not have a web-site, I do not know why they shut-down in Park Plaza Mall only to re-open in West Little Rock (under a different name.)
When I was younger I always enjoyed Forbidden City and had fond memories of their Lemon Chicken. It was very cold for Arkansas the other night(37 degrees Fahrenheit), and the place did not look very warm given the size, but the reviews at Urban Spoon rated them a 95% so my wife and I gave them a shot.
We sat at a table as close to the back as possible (it is very small,) and waited to place our drink order. We waited, waited some more, and waited some more. They apparently only have one waiter and he was struggling to serve the sixteen or so people at once. After about fifteen minutes we were able to place our drink order.
The menu has your typical American-Chinese fare of dishes which have been around since the 1970s. Crispy beef, twice cooked pork, egg-fu-yung, egg drop soup, etc. I was not inspired by the menu but fondly remember the Lemon Chicken being tasty and ordered it, along with the twice-cooked-pork, soup, and some appetizers (after waiting another 15 minutes to place my order.)
Egg Drop Soup
The Egg Drop Soup and Hot & Sour Soup arrived quickly with our egg-rolls and chicken wings (you can add soup and appetizers to any meal for $2.75.) My egg drop soup had a decent amount of flavor with light and fluffly egg whites throughout. I had to add a little soy sauce to it but finished the bowl.
I tasted my wife’s Hot and Sour Soup and it was completely flat with the taste of canned beef broth and absolutely no spice or flavor. We were able to find only one chili-flake in the entire bowl. I have had better soup at buffets.
The egg rolls were heavily fried but not greasy and had plenty of vegetables in them. They were not the most flavorful things I have tried, but they were okay. The chicken wings were very over-battered and after one bite I set them aside.
Beef Skewers
The appetizers came out next which consisted of their Beef Skewers and Crab Rangoon. The beef skewers came with a mini-hibachi grill, fueled by sterno, and was really cool looking (it also helped to warm us.) The beef had a BBQ glaze on it and was quite flavorful. I really enjoyed them.
The crab rangoon were made from very thick fried wontons, but had cream cheese in the middle which tasted good. I liked the beef much more than the wontons but was happy overall with the appetizers.
We received a second order of soup and appetizers by mistake after waiting for thirty minutes. The waiter was nice and left the food but we did not want to eat it (as we were getting quite full by this time.) Our entrees finally showed up after about an hour of waiting.
The Lemon Chicken is made of chicken breast(s), battered and fried, and covered in a thick lemon sauce (it looks like the lemon sauce you fill pies with.) It looked tasty but the chicken was very thin and dry. I believe they pounded it too thin before battering it. Thin chicken takes very little time to cook and they must have left it in the fryer for several minutes. The sauce reminded me of pie filling and left my fond memories of lemon chicken in shambles. I will not order it again.
My wife’s Twice Cooked Pork looked good and tasted even better! The cabbage was tender with plenty of flavor and the vegetables all looked fresh cut. The pork was tender and the entire dish was quite flavorful. We both enjoyed the pork and would order it again given the opportunity.
Our total bill, with sake, was less than $70 and left us plenty full by the end. In order to review the dinner I ordered much more food than I normally would, but it still ended up being very reasonable in price.
The waiter and other guy at the front counter are very friendly and seem nice, but they are grossly understaffed. I wish they had taken the chance to re-open as an opportunity to update their menu, but alas this is not the case. They seem to try hard but they really need to update their food to match the evolving tastes of many Americans. Even the chain restaurants have done this and Forbidden Garden needs to do it as well, for me to go back at least.
Oysters Rockefeller
The story reads that Oysters Rockefeller originates in a restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana. Although the original recipe does not contain spinach, the version I came up with the other day does and tastes mighty fine. I really enjoyed it, as did my wife, and some friends we shared the results with.
Ingredients (Makes 12)
Preparation
The Roux
Putting it together
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