Homemade Hibiscus

One night, before attending a play at Dallas’ new Winspear Opera House, we decided to try Hibiscus. We had heard how great it was from friends and for a wedding shower gift, we were given a $50 gift certificate, so we decided to give it a try.

Let me just say, if I could make babies with Hibiscus…I would. It’s that good. It is one of the best meals we have ever eaten, and well, we eat a lot of meals. Everything we had was unbelievable. We had a lump crab appetizer, we each had salads (I had the bungalow, Lane had the wedge), for our entrees I had the short ribs and Lane had a filet. (He says it’s in the top four best steaks he’s ever had.) We shared their famous macaroni and cheese and had their sour cream apple pie with lavender ice cream for dessert. It’s making me salivate just thinking about it.

The only problem with Hibiscus is that it’s really expensive. Let’s just say that our $50 gift certificate didn’t even cover the tip. It was really worth it, but now we have to save up to go. So, instead of dropping lots of moola on dinner there, I decided to re-create our dinner here at home. I went to Central Market and got everything I needed and literally spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. Side note: I am currently reading Laura Bush’s “Spoken from the Heart” book and she remembers her mother spending all day in the kitchen…from 5:30 a.m. to after dinner. I have so much more respect for my great grandmother, whose reality was very much similar to that of Mrs. Bush’s mother’s. Lane’s mom also spends a lot of her time cooking when we come visit and I am so thankful. That’s hard work!

So, the menu for our homemade Hibiscus dinner was:

Appetizer: Crab meat with Avocado, Fresh Horseradish and cocktail sauce

Salad: Hibiscus Bungalow salad with Iceberg Lettuce, Tomatoes, Candied Pecans, Smoked Bacon, Avocado, Blue Cheese and Lite Honey Mustard

Entree: Filet Mignon

Side: Gourmet Mac and Cheese

Dessert: Sour Cream Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream

Recipes:

Crab Meat with Avocado, Fresh Horseradish and Cocktail Sauce

Holy crustacean! Do you know how expensive lump crab meat is! Central Market only offered it in 1 lb. containers. Your options were jumbo lump ($26/lb), lump ($16/lb) or claw meat at ($8/lb). I was blow away. I knew we didn’t need a whole pound of crab, and didn’t really want to pay that much for it, so I decided to come up with something else. Well, long story short, I had a craving for crab, so I went to the Whole Foods down the street where I got 1/2 lb of claw meat for $7. Darn it! I should have gotten it at CM. Oh well. In retrospect, I should have just sprung for the lump or jumbo lump. While it was still delicious, it would have been a little better with the better quality meat.

1 avocado, split in half with the seed removed

1/2 lb. crab meat (spring for jumbo lump if you can)

Fresh horseradish, grated

Juice of half of a lime

Cocktail sauce, to taste

Split the avocado in half and place each half on a serving plate. Fill top of avocado with 1/4 lb. crab meat. Top with fresh grated horseradish and a squeeze of lime. Serve with cocktail sauce. Serves 2. Enjoy!

Bungalow Salad

1/2 head iceberg lettuce, torn

1 large tomato, diced

4 slices Applewood smoke bacon, cooked

Pecans, toasted in butter and brown sugar

Blue cheese, to taste

Honey Mustard Dressing, to taste (the Hibiscus salad is served with a mustard vinaigrette, which I couldn’t find. I should have just made one considering the lite honey mustard dressing I used was very watery.)

Assemble all ingredients and mix. Serves 2.

Filet Mignon (From previous Blog Entry)

Gourmet Mac and Cheese (adapted from Epicurious)

Hibiscus has amazing mac and cheese. It’s just really good. My friend Tamara is also and fan and when she asked for the recipe, they would only tell her the types of cheese needed. So she passed that information along to me and tried to figure it out. Well, while it was good, I forgot to add the cream cheese, so it was missing a creamy factor. Lane loved it and it had a very mild flavor. I think I’ll keep trying (or just get takeout mac and cheese from Hibiscus!)

3/4 pound elbow macaroni

For topping

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups coarse dry bread crumbs

1 cup coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (about 4 ounces)

For cheese sauce

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 3/4 cups whole milk

3/4 cups heavy cream

4 cups coarsely grated cheese (about 1 pound)

(I used about a 1/2 cup each of Port Salut, Parmesean and Mozzarella. For the rest, I used extra sharp cheddar. I should have also used about 4 oz. of cream cheese.)

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. and butter a 3-quart shallow baking dish (13x9 casserole). Fill a 6-quart kettle three fourths full with salted water and bring to a boil for macaroni.

Make topping:
Melt butter and in a bowl stir together with bread crumbs and Cheddar until combined well. Topping may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.

Make sauce:
In a 5-quart heavy saucepan melt butter over moderately low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes and whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, and simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cream, cheeses, mustard, salt, and pepper. Remove pan from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper (put wax paper directly on the cheese sauce surface).

Cook macaroni in boiling water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in colander. In a large bowl stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce. Transfer mixture to baking dish.

Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.

Sour Cream Apple Pie from Simple Recipes

This is pretty tasty. The crust wasn’t my favorite…it kind of tastes like pop tart crust, but you don’t taste too much of it because the flavor of the pie is pretty strong.

1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
3 cups peeled, sliced tart apples (about 1 1/4 pounds of slices)
1 9" unbaked pie shell, frozen or chilled in the freezer for at least 30 minutes (see pâte brisée recipe)

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix together all ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Chill until needed in the recipe.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Beat together sour cream, sugar, flour, salt, vanilla and egg (can beat by hand). Add apples, mixing carefully to coat well.

Put filling into a pie shell and bake at 400 degrees initially for 25 min.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with Cinnamon Crumb Topping. Bake for and additional 20 more minutes.

Let cool for a hour before serving. Serves 8.

Lane was a happy man, post dinner!

Goat Cheese Bruschetta

While this is not a WW recipe, it keeps popping up in my head because IT'S FREAKING DELICIOUS. (Can you tell I'm still having bad cravings???) Anyway, I made this for Lane when we celebrated our one year anniversary with a picnic in the park next to our reception site. Then, loved it so much that I made it three more times but have just gotten around to blogging about it. This is a great finger food for a party or appetizer before dinner. It's really, really easy and just delicious.

Goat Cheese Bruschetta adapted from Real Simple
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 small shallot, finely chopped (I omitted because I didn't have a shallot)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (such as dill, parsley, chives, and basil) (I used parsley and basil, both dried actually.)
8 thick slices french baguette, toasted
2 4-ounce packages soft goat cheese
 In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, vinegar, honey, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Stir in the shallot and herbs.
Drizzle half the vinaigrette over the bread, spread with the goat cheese, and drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette. Serves 8.

Chunky Guacamole

On our honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico, Lane and I often ate at Playa Azul. Not only did they have Nutella Stuffed French Toast (YUM!) but they had the BEST guacamole and mojitos. I came home from the honeymoon and have been trying to replicate it ever since.



Chunky Guacamole
4 ripe Avacados
2 large tomatoes
1/2 onion
handful of Cilantro
2 Tbsp garlic, minced
Juice of 1 large lime
A few pinches of Kosher salt

Directions

Chop avacados, tomatoes and onion into big chunks and add to a large bowl. I use kitchen shears and chop the cilantro over the bowl, trying to avoid the stems as best I can. Add garlic, lime juice and salt. Stir just to mix ingredients. You can add jalepeno if you'd like, I just don't.


Because our one year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks, I just had to post a few pictures of Tulum!

The inspiration...Guacamole from Playa Azul

The view from the bar at Playa Azul.