Meathead Brothers

More from our adventure at Brookgreen Gardens...

Giant grasshoppers, as big as your hand!

beautiful butterflies everywhere

Pablo is very curious about the platypus

say cheese!

After we had exhausted the gardens (or rather the gardens exhausted us...) we were hungry for a late lunch.  We found a great sandwich place called Meathead Brothers, serving Philadelphia-style deli sandwiches. Some of their sandwiches are very traditional, while others are a bit more unique. All made with fresh ingredients, a lot of which are locally sourced.

One of their more popular sandwiches is the Italian Stallion...ham, salami, and capicola on thick Italian bread served with provolone, lettuce, tomato, and onion.  Their Carolina Sweetie has sweet sausages with sauteed peppers and onions on a toasted Italian roll.  The Smoked House Hoagie has smoked turkey, applewood smoked bacon, and smoked gouda. Or how about the Gobbler Panini with turkey, stuffing, swiss cheese, and cranberry sauce!

There were so many delicious sammys to choose from! But we finally settled on Its Got Meat and Meathead's Reuben. Its Got Meat was piled high with, well, meat! And lots of it!  Roast beef, turkey, and ham plus applewood smoked bacon, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, all piled high on thick Italian bread. And it came with truffle fries! Great meaty sandwich with some earthy rich fries!

The Meathead's Reuben...corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing served panini style on marbled rye bread. (Am I the only one who thinks of Seinfeld when I hear "marbled rye"??) I had garlic fries with my sammy. I wouldn't say Reuben's are my favorite deli sandwich but I do enjoy a good one. And I have to say this was probably the best Reuben I've ever had! A definite winner!

It was an interesting treat getting to chat a bit with the owner as well! A vibrant, sensible down-to-earth kinda guy trying to make a living making good sandwiches with local products! Will definitely be back!

Pablo approves!!

Pablo gave Meathead Brothers 4 ants!

***UPDATE*** Literally the day after I posted this, I found out that Meathead unexpectedly closed up shop, apparently for good! I'm not sure what happened but they will be missed!

Doner Bistro and Waterford Fair

It was my birthday a couple weeks ago.  The big 3-3.  Woohoo.  Anyway, my mom took me out to the Waterford fair and to lunch that day to celebrate.  The fair exhibits lots of historical/colonial crafts as well as Civil War re-enactments and such.  There's always lots of neat things to see and do there for the whole family.

 

After wandering around there for a couple hours, we decided it was time for lunch so we ventured into Leesburg looking for a place to go.  I remembered seeing a place back in August when I ran my 10K.  Right at the finish line there was a little interesting looking German bistro.  Let's go check it out!

my mom and I taking a picture of ourselves

weird, right?

Its an odd little sort-of-fast-food-cafe kinda place called the Doner Bistro. Apparently "Doner" is a traditional Turkish dish of meat cooked by turning (like on a rotisserie) served on a platter with rice. Then somewhere along the way a Turkish guy living in Germany decided to change the dish and serve the meat in a flatbread with sauce, similar to a gyro. So its kind of Turkish meets German meets Greek, all combined onto one plate. Their menu also offers falafel, bratwurst, and currywurst. French fries on the side were served with curry ketchup.

ooh a fancy chandelier

we ate outside next to the Mighty Midget Kitchen

My mom chose the bratwurst which you could order with or without the bun.  It seemed to be a decent brat sausage on crispy bread, juicy and savory. The fries were crispy and well seasoned and had a fresh potato flavor.

I ordered the currywurst.  While it was tasty, I have to say I was a little disappointed.  I'm even more disappointed now that I've seen their website.  Basically what I got was a fancy German corndog...a long sausage of some sort wrapped in a fried batter.  There was no curry flavor except when I dipped it in the curry ketchup which was yummy and interesting.  And now having looked at their menu and pictures of the currywurst on the website, I'm left wondering exactly what was I served?? Because what was on my plate was nothing like their pictures or their description of the currywurst.  In fact theres nothing on their website that even comes close to matching what I ate. 

Its a mystery.  One that, should I ever go back there, I will definitely be inquiring about.

Cornbread Stuffing and Turkey Treats

For Thanksgiving this year, I got to make stuffing for the first time (other than StoveTop from a box).  I searched out many recipes until I found one that I liked at allrecipes.com called Best Ever Cornbread Stuffing.  Actually the recipe called for a pound of sausage but I left that part out. 

I made cornbread from a mix the night before and let it sit out over night to dry out a little. And actually it was honey cornbread so it had a little sweetness to it.  Then the next morning I cut it up into small chunks and combined it with potato bread soft bread cubes.  In a skillet set on medium heat, I sauteed one whole red onion chopped (there were many tears) and 2 cups of chopped celery with a little bit of butter for several minutes until the onions started to become crisp tender and slightly translucent.  Then I added about 2-3 teaspoons of freshly chopped sage. Nice fresh savory piney smell.

 To the bread cubes, I lightly mixed it with 1/4 cup of melted butter to moisten, then added the onion mixture as well.  In a separate bowl, I whisked together about 14 ounces of organic chicken broth and 2 eggs, then also poured that into the bread crumbs and gently mixed together.  The entire batch of bread crumb mixture went into a 9x13 baking dish and covered with foil.  Then into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, I removed the foil and put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes to lightly brown the top.

 My whole family loved it!! This is definitely a "keeper-recipe".  If you want to check out the original recipe go to www.allrecipes.com and look up "Best Ever Sausage Cornbread Stuffing". 

I also made turkey rice krispie treats to give as gifts for a few friends and family.  They didn't turn out as nice as the ones in this picture and they were definitely a little bit of a challenge to put together.  Their recipe calls for peanut butter to attach the head to the body but in my family there are a few peanut allergies so I used chocolate frosting instead that was safe for them to eat.  They are very messy to make and to eat but they are a fun treat for the holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving Turkey!!

I truly have a lot to be thankful for today.  I have an adoring husband who takes very good care of me and a big family full of moms and dads and in-laws and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews that I get to see on a regular basis.  Plus I have several very close friends who are like family to me that I can trust and that trust me. They are all a huge part of my life and they are people I know I can rely on and I know they love me too.  I am very thankful for all of that because I know there are not a lot of people in this world that can say that. But thats the power of Jesus in our lives.

Two of my nieces and my nephew

I am also very thankful for the abundance of food we had on our table this evening as I know there are many people in this world who don't have that either.  And all the food we had was so yummy too!! I felt very honored to be able to make the turkey this year for my family. I've only made a turkey maybe once or twice before in my life. This time however, we wanted to do something a little different...a little more conscientious.  We decided to get a fresh turkey from a local farm.

My family pigging out

This local farm is called Haskins Family Farm, located in Middletown, VA.  They frequent our local farmers markets here in Loudoun County so they were easily accessible and they were very helpful as we had many questions, never having gotten a fresh turkey before and not really knowing what to expect. We ordered the turkey about a month ago and then Wednesday met them at the farmers market location to pick it up, freshly processed and packaged.

turkey still in the package

This morning I opened the package and pulled out the turkey.  If you've never gotten a fresh turkey, be prepared to still see a little blood here and there and of course you may have to pull out the giblets and the neck yourself.  Thankfully these folks did remove the giblets for us and put it in a nice little bag but the neck I did have to remove myself.  It was pretty gross I have to admit.  I don't have the strongest stomach for that kind of stuff but I just kept telling myself..."don't think about it, you have a job to do!"  And I kept trudging forward.

neck (left) giblets in bag (right)

But I then gave the turkey a nice cool bath in the sink and gently dried her off with paper towels.

just got a turkey bath

Then it was time for the actual cooking preparation.  I set the turkey, breast side up, on a rack in the roasting pan.  I then tied her legs together with twine to keep them in place and massaged her all over with extra virgin olive oil, inside and out.  It does make a difference having extra virgin olive oil.  It doesn't have to be an expensive kind but the "extra virgin" part means its already a better quality olive oil.

getting a massage

Once she got a nice oily massage, into the oven she went at 325 for about 4 hours.  I basted her with fresh olive oil about every half hour to 45 minutes or so throughout the cooking time.  When the last hour arrived, she received a foil tent to make sure her skin didn't brown too much.  The recipe and preparation was simple.  The flavor was savory and juicy.  The texture was moist and practically falling off the bone when we carved it.  Everyone was raving about it! I was so proud!  :)

Oh yeah...don't forget to support your local farms!!! Its good for them and you!

P.S This is my sister-in-law's (Heather) cherry white chocolate cheesecake pie.  It also was very yummy and looked so pretty I just had to take a picture to share with you!