My Barefoot Contessa :)

I have to say I'm pretty luck to have my very own barefoot contessa at home. Now, I have to admit I have no idea what a contessa is - and although emily has explained Ina's restaurant and such to me a million times since she has visited the Hamptons many times, I still don't get it. What I do know? This is Emily cooking. And it smells awesome. And she is, in fact, barefoot. :)

Today, our friends Emily and Josh are coming over for dinner and Emily is cooking from her new cookbook she received from her sister Jessica for Christmas. It's "Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics."

Below are pictures from the experience. :)

This is the log of dough as Emily prepared the parmesean & thyme crackers (more like tasty cookie!) for our appetizer.

And here they are finished! There were two more  -- we ate them. :)

Here is the recipe from Ina's cookbook. This should make you run out and buy the cookbook for sure. :)

parmesan & thyme crackers

makes 24 cackers

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 ounces of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)

1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

First, grind the Parmesan in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

Then, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter for 1 minute. With the mixer on low speed, add the Parmesan, thyme, salt and pepper and combine. With the mixer still on low, add the flour and combine until the mixture is in large crumbles, about 1 minute. If the dough is too dry, add 1 teaspoon water.

Dump the dough onto a floured board, press it into a ball and roll into a 9-inch log. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or for up to 4 days.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Cut the log into 3/8 inch-thick rounds with a small, sharp knife and place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 2 minutes until very lightly browned. Rotate the pan once during baking. Cool and serve at room temperature.

Enjoy! I'll post picture of the unbelievable beef stew and party soon. :)

A Few Days Under Glass

This past week was Children's Pastors Conference at Orpyland. As a Children's Pastor, I loved going to this conference - it was a place I could relax, refresh and learn about new resources, ideas and best practices for ministering to children and families. Now that I work with Sweet Sleep, we were able to have a booth at CPC to tell churches about our work to provide beds for orphans.

Spending a very, very cold week at Opryland meant that we didn't want to leave for meals. And we didn't need to, anyway! Food there is fantastic... A few friends helped me out at the booth - Lauren, Jason and Sam.

Here's Lauren telling people about orphans and rocking her Sweet Sleep volunteer name badge. :)

Next to our booth were our friends from India Gospel League - Kait and Emily. We got to know them while our booths were next to each other at the Orange Conference last April. We love what they do (Em and I even sponsor a little boy from India through IGL!) and we had lots of fun hanging out, sharing ideas for how to do what we do better and enjoying some awesome food.

Here are Kait and Emily from IGL enjoying an awesome grilled cheese sandwich at Findley's Irish Pub. (I call it P.J. O'Flannigans - not sure why - makes me smile, though.)

The sandwich was awesome and oozing beautiful goat cheese goodness. Even comes with tomato soup for dipping. I had this one day this week, too - so yummy! We also consumed a lot of a special soup they had this week - roasted garlic. So. Awesome.

(not great for working a booth - i had to eat equal parts altoids to make up for the garlic!)

But our favorite meal of the week was wine and cheese at "The Library" - it's a really cool place inside the "Old Hickory Steakhouse" in the delta atrium at the hotel... The food at Old Hickory is awesome but our favorite thing to do there is to order a cheese plate. This awesome guy comes by with a cart with cheeses from all over the world. He tells you about all of them with such passion and then builds a plate for you around what you like. Then he tells you what to start with and how to work your way around from mildest to strongest. You also get some fruitcakey bites and some quince paste along with a whole basket of breads and crackers. So amazing! Kait almost cried she was so in love with the whole experience. Actually, I think she did. Another friend now in love with the hotel that we love so much. :) YAY!

Whether you're in town for a visit, or live in Nashville and are looking for a place to get away and feel far from home, head out to Opryland and get away from it all. It doesn't hurt that you can watch it snow outside while wearing short sleeves since everything is under glass... :)

Whiskey Kitchen Redemption

Last night we went to a Predators game with some of Em's friends from Gaylord. It was awesome - sitting in the Gaylord Suite is totally the way to watch the game. :) Free food, drinks and lots of laughs. :)

Before the game, we stopped into the Whiskey Kitchen. I know, I know - it was a Saturday and we still chanced it. But I thought - hey, it's 5:45pm. No one will be there, right? Wrong! No parking anywhere in sight so we parked in front of Radius10 (moment of silence) and hiked up the hill. Every table was full, the bar was full - but we stalked out some folks and sat at the bar. The hostesses said it would be 35 minutes. I almost laughed out loud - that's what they said the last time and we waited for an hour and half... But I must say the folks at Whiskey Kitchen did redeem themselves this time. Not only was the bartender fantastic (a friend from Radius10!) but the pub cheese... Holy cow - you gotta try it. The last time we were there they were out of them and we were sad... but the curds came in from Wisconsin and now I dream of them daily and nightly! Fried cheese curds with a jack daniels mustard dipping sauce. Tasty goodness!

So... Whiskey Kitchen, you're back on the good list. At least your bartender and your pub cheese - I'm still working to forgive the hostesses and their lack of timing and math skills... :)

We May Be Getting Too Old For This

In the past month or so, we've grown quite fond of this new Nashville eatery - the Whiskey Kitchen. Our friend Chad, who used to be the Sous Chef at our favorite restaurant in Nashville - Radius10 (moment of silence), is the executive chef there. Chad created many special moments for us at Radius10 and we were so excited to enjoy his creations at Lime for a few months, and now Whiskey Kitchen.

Our first experience was on a sleepy Tuesday night in Nashville. We pulled right into the best parking spot - right in front of the door - and from that moment on had a fantastic experience.

Last night was a bit different. Since I'm about to be at a conference for Sweet Sleep all next week, I thought we should have date night on Saturday. Some friends that know Dennis from their mission work in Moldova picked him up and took him to the Opry at the Ryman, so we went for a date at Whiskey Kitchen.


We pulled in just as someone was leaving and got that best parking spot again. Things were looking up! The wait, they told us, would be 30 minutes. So we hung around the bar, talked to some friends we ran into, watched the Razorbacks win the Liberty Bowl, and after an hour I went to check out the situation. The place was packed but nobody appeared to be waiting for a table. The hostess said we were next and when I told her where to find us, she said she knew and she'd get us shortly. After another 20 minutes or so I went back. Our name was crossed out and many had been seated after us. When I asked, I got some story about the wrong name being crossed about but we hadn't been skipped and we were next and blah blah. 10 minutes later, we had a seat. We weren't totally cranky or upset, just hungry and missing the fantastic folks a Radius10 who would have never allowed such madness. :)

It was a very happening place, and I'm glad. The last two establishments in that location were not here long. So we are happy for them, happy for chad - and happy that our food, when we finally got it, was fantastic.  Emily had the Hawaiian Pizza and I had the Southern Sliders with chicken. Oh my goodness - you have to try them. 4 biscuits. 4 huge pieces of fried chicken. 3 amazing sauces. I love sauce and these are amazing - some kind of blackberry butter and herbed boursin cheese and some other awesome tastiness. :) We also had some fantastic appetizers - little smokies with jalapenos and fried onions and sweet potato fries with a tasty mustard dipping sauce. Yum. :)

When we finished dinner and I went out to answer my cell phone to find out it was time to pick Dennis up at the Ryman, I got carded when I came back in by a guy who looked 24 with a scarf around his neck. No logo, no name tag, didn't say he worked there - just asked to see my I.D. I said - dude, i've been here for 3 hours. He didn't care. Some sort of under cover bouncer. :)

So while we whole-heartedly suggest you go try this place out, maybe you should join us on a Tuesday around 5. We're just getting too old for this... :)

Ringing in the New Year with Pasta. :)

On New Year's Day, there were no black-eyed peas at the Merryman household - only pasta. :) We love a good pasta and Emily has been craving it, so she created a dish for us. I'm trying to get the recipe out of her for you - but you may have to ask her nicely (or bug her like I am) to give it up. :)

As usual, I made the bread. :) I stuck little slices of garlic all in it because we love us some garlic. :) The pasta was whole wheat (all we eat here) with homemade sauce - consisting of roasted roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes and lots of garlic of course. She also threw in some bacon during the roasting process - we didn't fry it first because it would make the house smell like bacon. Personally, I'd like nothing more. but I understand...  After the sauce roasted and the pasta was cooked, Em poured the warm noodles and sauce over fresh mozzarella balls sliced in half and tossed with fresh basil and italian parsley. I topped it with freshly grated parm. It was super tasty...

Such a lovely way to start 2010, or Twenty Ten, or 2K10 - or whatever we're all going to call it. :)