Cherry Almond Yeast Bread

Last night as Tony and I were finishing up watching Shameless (if you don’t watch that show, you really need to DVR it!) he looked over to me and said “you made some really good food this weekend.”

Well that’s music to my ears because Tony doesn’t like half the stuff I make.  Like Chicken Tikka Masala, Zucchini Meatball Subs, and Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili.

We did go out to eat on Saturday though.  We usually go to a place called Nozumi in South Barrington.  However, we pulled up only to find out that the restaurant is closed and will soon become a Wok n Fire restaurant, which Mara says is a local chain.

So on to Plan B.  A new sushi place opened up in the town next to us, so we decided to give it a try.  My first thought was “why is it 12:30 and we are the only ones in the place.”

I never get the raw shit.  I got two appetizers for my entrée.  This was both breakfast and lunch.  I got the bacon wrapped shrimp and asparagus and the agedashi tofu.

I loved that the dipping sauce for the tofu was on the side.  Tony reached over and took one bite and immediately regretted that decision!  I love it though.  Tony’s plate:

He couldn’t have been happier.  He said the fish was super fresh, and they had one of his favorites, fatty tuna.  He made me try just a bit, and much like the tofu for him, I most certainly regretted that decision and immediately put a garnish of orange in my mouth to get the taste out of it.

By dinner time we both looked at each other and didn’t feel like the roast we had planned so lucky me, I just happened to have pizza dough in the fridge from last weeks deep dish pizza, so I made a thin crust pizza using what I had on hand – deli roast beef and green olives. #partypizzaSaturday!

When Tony went to the store to pick up steaks for dinner Friday, I looked at the sale flyer and said “can you pick me up a pork shoulder?”  It was only .99 cents a pound people!  I am going to post the recipe for this later this week, but again, yesterday this was my breakfast and lunch, so I splurged and made a Carolina pulled pork grilled cheese on marble rye with 50% Cabot reduced fat cheddar cheese.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of this show called Wisconsin Foodie.  It comes on Channel 11 in the Chicagoland area.  Saturday morning they were at a farm and a food truck was supplying the food for the luncheon.  One of the chef’s on the food truck started talking about his third place finish at a grilled cheese contest.  He said he made homemade yeast bread with door county cherries and paired that with a Wisconsin cheddar cheese.

I was immediately intrigued.  I’ve had olive yeast bread before, but I loved the idea of having a slightly sweet yeast bread to make a sandwich with.

Longtime readers know I make my SIL her lunches every week.  She’ll stop by on Sunday’s to visit and leave with a weeks worth of lunches.  About six months ago I think I sent her home with one of my Artisan loaves of bread, and her son and grandson look forward to the bread every week.

That loaf above is half of the recipe.  Since fresh cherries aren’t available yet, Tony had the great idea to buy frozen cherries.

I thawed one cup of cherries for about an hour, then quartered them.  I took the second half of the bread dough, put the cherries on top and then kneaded it together – it was kind of hard because the cherries were very liquidy (not a word, but I am using it!) but I finally got it together.  I decided to top it with an egg wash and slivered almonds.

This was delicious.  You mind wants to think that this is going to be sweet, but it’s only slightly sweet when you hit the cherries.  Imagine this bread as a turkey and goat cheese panini?! #winning! (I think Tony might have thrown up in his mouth at the idea of that sandwich!)

So last night we had the roast that was planned for Saturday.  It had a nice fat cap on it, so Tony cross hatched it, and I just added minced garlic, salt and and pepper to it.

All the roasts were huge at the store, so we had them cut one in half.  Plenty for dinner and leftovers (for me) later in the week.

125 is the magic number for rare meat.  On the side I made my spring time risotto with carrots and edamame – I almost forgot the green apple until Tony reminded me.  I added it last minute and it still had a bit of crunch to it.

A delicious way to end a weekend!  Thanks for a great weekend Tony!

Tony has been toying with the idea of me selling my salsa.  I have two signature salsa’s = my baja fresh salsa and my grilled cherry salsa.   I have an idea of coming up with a bunch of grilled fruit salsas this summer, but obviously we have no idea how to even get started.

Well, we ran across a guy at our local grocery store who was selling his hot and mild giardiniera.  You can check him out at www.ChicagoJohnnys.com.

Not only is this the best giardiniera I’ve ever tasted, he had a wealth of information about jars, and manufacturers and labels, etc.  He said if I ever had any questions just to shoot him an email.

Here’s my question.  Would any of you buy my salsa?  I know only a handful of you have even tasted it, but just wanted to get a general idea of any interest.  I have ideas to make grilled peach salsa, grilled orange salsa and even a grilled watermelon salsa!  (these sound good in my head, but we’ll see!).

Alright, it’s an icky rainy day today, but I guess I still have to go to work.  It’s always so nice to sleep in on Saturday and Sunday!

Happy Monday!   Make it a great day!