Butter poached Lobster Tails via a Sous Vide

We are Chef's in this house and I bought my husband a Sous Vide for Christmas.  We had been talking about it for awhile now.  The first thing we decided to make was Lobster.  The manufacturer Anova makes a precision cooker for the home cook.  It is pretty neat.  We found a recipe on the Manufacturers website and ran with it.

The nice thing about this unit is you can use any pan or vessel you happen to have on hand.  No special tools involved.  We used my soup pot.

Ingredients:

6 small Lobster Tails
4 tablespoons of butter
pinch of salt

The recipe advised putting the tails in boiling water for 45 seconds and then plunging into ice water to help remove the shell.  I have never tried to remove the shell from a fresh lobster before so I don't know if this step helped or not.  But we did it.

Get your Sous Vide preheating to 138 degree F.

Remove the shells leaving as much meat as possible.

We have a Food Saver so my husband made a bag, inserted the tails, butter and a bit of salt.  He sucked the air out of the bag. (we made sure the lobsters were flat and not right next to each other in the pouch)

Place the sealed sack into the water and set timer for 15 minutes.  Remove the pouch after 15 minutes and serve.  We poured into a bowl with the melted salty butter from bag and ate them immediately

Place the sealed sack into the water and set timer for 15 minutes.  Remove the pouch after 15 minutes and serve.  We poured into a bowl with the melted salty butter from bag and ate them immediately.

Savory Crepes with Sausage and Boursin Cheese

I am not quite sure where we came up with this recipe, a magazine or a food show, but it is and continues to be one of my favorite breakfast crepes.  It is savory with a little sweet from the apple compote.  The combination of the sausage and Boursin Cheese is delicious.

Ingredients:

Crepes - recipe below
Sausages (I get the larger size ones from New Seasons) cooked
1 package Boursin Cheese
2 Apples, peeled, seeds removed and cut into chunks
cinnamon to taste
1/2 cup sugar

Crepe Batter
1/2 Cup Flour
2 Tbs Sugar
1 Egg
1 Cup Milk
1 Tbs butter (melted)
1/4 tsp salt
This Recipe makes about 3-4 of the 10" pancakes or two servings

Use a "10-12" round non-stick skillet or frying pan.

First lightly beat the egg in a medium sized bowl, then add sugar, milk, salt and flour, mix well, melt the butter in the frying pan (or skillet) then while stirring the mixture add melted butter to it, continue mixing until there are no lumps, don't forget to scrape the sides of the bowl.

Once the batter is well mixed, then over medium heat pour just enough batter in the pan to cover the bottom of the pan, cook until the top of it is "dry" then flip the pancake. This takes a fair amount of finesse, as the pancake is large and not very 'tough'.

Get the spatula underneath the pancake and make sure that all around the pancake is loose first, then quickly flip it. After the flip, shake the pan a bit to get the pancake flat

Cook each one for about 30 seconds only after the flip. Slide the finished pancake out onto a dinner plate.

Combine the apples, sugar and cinnamon in a pan and cook till tender

Crepe assembly:

On each crepe include a smear of Boursin Cheese and a sausage, roll up and serve with the apple Chutney on top.

Chipotle Macaroni and Cheese

I have recently acquired a taste for Chipotle Pepper in Adobo Sauce and I am putting them in everything, it adds a smokey and slightly spicy taste to all kinds of food.

My Husband was cooking a Prime Ribeye for dinner and it was a nice sunny end of summer evening, so I decided to make some decadent Macaroni and Cheese to go with it, adding the Adobo Sauce really made the dish, I highly recommend this recipe!  Next time I am going to add more heat with some diced Jalapeno's and perhaps green onions.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter or margarine (we used grass fed butter)
3 tablespoons all purpose flour (organic)
2 cups milk (not skim)  (I was out of milk so I used half and half cut with water)
1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper
2 cups of shredded cheese (I had leftover shredded cheddar and mozzarella cheese)
2 tablespoons of Adobo Sauce

Instructions

Bring a pot of water to a boil; add a generous sprinkling of salt the pasta. When the pasta is almost done but still firm, drain it, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking and set aside. (I cooked one minute under the package instructions)

While the pasta cooks, melt the butter in a skillet or pot large enough to hold the pasta when it's done.

Add the flour and stir over medium heat until the mixture is lightly browned; 1-2 minutes.

Add the milk and the adobo and whisk to remove any lumps and add the salt and pepper.

Cook over medium-high heat until the sauce thickens and starts to bubble. About 6 minutes.

Stir in the cheese and whisk until smooth and melted. Turn off the heat.

Stir the pasta into the sauce and bake in a greased 2 quart dish (or an 8x8 pan works pretty well)

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40-45 minutes until browned and bubbly.