We love to celebrate!

Who doesn’t love to celebrate? Who doesn’t love to celebrate with a lobster meal? I certainly think celebrating with lobster is the best way to celebrate! 🙂

Sunday was the BF’s bro’s birthday so we, of course, celebrated with you guessed it – lobsters! And clams. And cheesy taters. And ice cream cake. And wine! Oh how I love birthdays!

Happy birthday, Dave (on the right).

They weren’t just any lobsters either, they were 2-pound live lobsters! It was a fun evening – rustic style in the garage.

I think Deano is a little jealous his big brother’s birthday falls during clam season (Dean’s favorite season), however, he still gets to reap all the deliciousness!

Hello there, pretties.

These lobsters we’re insanely big. I could barely finish the tail! It was a lovely meal that had a sweet ending – ice cream cake. For the past few years, I have been expected encouraged to make ice cream cake for all birthdays. I am not one who likes to disappoint, so I delivered a delectable end to the feast. Unfortunately, I couldn’t snap any photos because the cake was instantly devoured and slurped up! Feather. In. Cap.

The ice cream cake is a 3-day process that I will share with you one day!

What is your favorite way to celebrate?

Happy Monday (ugh)!

Chicken ‘rollatini’

In an attempt to use what was on hand, I created a quick, and now go-to, healthy chicken dish.

All you need is:
Chicken breasts
Italian-style bread crumbs
Cream cheese (I used FF)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Freshly grated parmesan cheese
Red pepper
Fresh basil
Garlic
Crushed red pepper flakes
Salt-free garlic powder with parsley
Drives chives

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What’s your go-to ‘all ingredients on hand’ favorite meal?

GO BROWNS!

Grilled pizza: A summertime fav

We all have those foods and beverages we love to eat and drink during certain seasons: Hot apple cider in the fall, homemade soup in the winter, a crisp summer salad, etc. For me, I love grilled pizzas in the summer among other things. It’s cheap, simple and fun to make.

Prepping ingredients. Don't mind our wood countertops (we're renovating!)

On most trips to Trader Joe’s during the warm months, I stock up on TJ’s wheat pizza dough (to the dismay of the bf) and TJ’s pizza sauce. We like to knead to dough out to make roughly 4 flatbreads. Since everyone likes pizza their own way, this makes pleasing bellies quite easy.

I like my pizza with a ridiculous amount of sauce, black olives, banana peppers and what other fresh veggies we have on hand. The bf on the other hand likes more cheese than sauce and always changes things up from BBQ chicken to Lou’s sausage on his pizza (which I always end up eating.)

An easy and delicious summer meal.

Since we were fresh out of sausage, he made garlic bread (it was amaze) and an onion and mozzarella pizza. As always, the pizzas were messy tasty. I hope we manage to grill some pizzas before we’re bundled up inside during hibernating months. Can’t it be summer forever??

What are your favorite seasonal foods?

Here fishy, fishy, fishy

Ahh, fishing.

Those who know me, know I love to go boating and fishing. It’s basically what my family, the boyfriend (who I’ll refer to as Dean, because well, that is his name) and many of my friends live for all year round. We all have to endure all the bull sh*t of living in Cleveland during the winter months, so it at least gives us a glimmer of light at the end of the long, snowy tunnel.

My favorite fishing trip of the season so far took place when Dean’s dad took us out for a Friday excursion (talk about a nice day out of the office). Dean’s two college friend’s joined us, one visiting from San Diego one hailing form Westlake, Ohio. As always, Ranger Randy was in tow.

Dean, Jeff and Bryan and a walleye. And Ranger peepin' through on the swim platform.

We may not have limited out on walleye, however we did enjoy great company, summer tunes, cocktails and the sunshine. Jeff and Bryan reeled in a few walleye and a steelhead while I had the honors of bringing in the monster steelhead of the day. Catching a steelhead isn’t like catching anything else on Lake Erie; they run (swim) far and fast from the boat, jump out of the water and spin until they can manage to spit the lure out of their mouth. It can be tough but they eventually become exhausted and give up the fight. Of course, there was no pressure from the guys to not lose this fish.

Come on fishy...

After 20 minutes of battling what felt like a small shark, I got the bad boy onto the boat. The sucker weighed in at almost 10 pounds! My left arm wanted to fall off and it was quite sore the following day.

Jeff and I with the catches of the day. The steelhead in my left hand.

Since there were some out-of-towners visiting, we decided to have a walleye fish fry that Sunday evening at our place. We stunk up the garage, jammed to tunes, drank Paisano and enjoyed the freshly caught Lake Erie fish.

Here’s the best evah recipe for fried walleye:

Serves 4
2-3 pounds walleye filets
6 eggs
Flour
Panko breadcrumbs
Canola or vegetable oil for frying
Sea Salt

Completely dry the filets with paper towels. Dredge the filets in egg wash, flour and then breadcrumbs. Drop into your bubbling oil for 5-7 minutes depending how big the filets are and how crisp/dark you like your coating. Remove and salt generously with sea salt. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, the fish was devoured so quickly I didn’t have the chance to snap a photo. This recipe is so simple, yet so delicious.

What is your favorite way to eat fish?