Father's Day Food

Happy Father's Day everyone!! This is Kyle's first Father's Day with a baby "on the outside" and we've been celebrating all weekend! Unfortunately, we are out of the tournament for softball, so he won't get to enjoy that part of life, but the next season starts in less than a month. Kyle also finished his first quarter in culinary school officially yesterday after submitting the final exams for his online classes. One of his "exams" was a finished menu for his Management by Menu class...can you say drool? As I mentioned a while back, he and our former business partners (whom he has known since kindergarten) are about to take over an Italian restaurant and do a bit of a (major) face lift! This has been a fabulous brainstorming project for me as well because they will be completely revamping the inside decor! Can you say Olioboard anyone?? I think this would make a FABULOUS community challenge, and I'd even be willing to sponsor it!
Anyway, back to Father's Day/end of quarter culinary festivities!
Friday night Kyle made dinner on the grill! We had Lamb and bell pepper skewers with a mango kiwi glaze, grilled plantains, and sauteed broccoli. The lamb was cut into cubes from loin chops, SUPER easy, and put onto rosemary skewers. You should never be afraid to try out new meats and even fruits on the grill!

We used a charcoal grill and cooked the lamb to medium rare ( I personally believe cooking it more than that is not acceptable!) Pair with your favorite red wine (or a beer!) and enjoy on your deck!

Saturday we tried out our local farmer's market. I love shopping local, organic, sustainable, and actually getting to talk to the people responsible for producing the food we put on the table! Some of the farms even brought photo albums showing you their land, animals, employees, and crops! How cool is that!? Dablet decided to try and look "farmer chic" and we came home with all kinds of goodies!

1-Dablet! 2- Kyle and Dablet walking to the market

The flowers were really the whole reason I wanted to go! I LOVE fresh flowers, and I could not be happier with this bouquet! We ended up buying blueberries, red, white, and blue potatoes, fresh uncured garlic, onions, NY strip steak, fresh Chorizo, fresh spinach fettuccine, homemade ravioli stuffed with sweet potato and ricotta (YUM!), and fresh sourdough and challah bread! Oh, and Kyle got a blueberry and cream cheese danish for breakfast. I think this will be a new Saturday tradition!!

Sunday morning brings lounging around in PJs and eating chocolate chip pancakes! It took me a while to create the perfect way to make chocolate chip pancakes to produce perfectly melted chips and no melted chocolate on your pan! 

Step 1) pour your batter, once you have bubbles that are almost staying open on their own, proceed

Step 2) Place your chocolate chips, keeping slightly away from the edge and pressing gently into the batter

 Step 3) cover the chips mostly with a thin layer of batter by this time they'll be cooked through

Step 4) Flip and allow to "puff up" and finish cooking!

Finished result! 

While she didn't get to have the chocolate chip pancakes, Dablet did partake in pancakes with some mixed fruit puree! 

Check out her bib! It says "Click 'like' if you think I'm cute"!! She also has one that says "I'd rather be blogging"! I think it's great that social media has gone to baby apparel, and let's face it, she would rather be blogging!

Enjoy your Sunday!