What makes this a steakhouse?

Ryan and I have walked by this steakhouse so many times.  He was always curious, but we never went in.  Being a vegetarian, I am not too into steakhouses, but I know I can usually find fish on the menu, especially when this place is only a few steps from the ocean.  There are many places that serve steak on the island, but I wanted to know what makes this restaurant call itself a steakhouse.  Let’s find out…

 

Welcome to Marcelino’s Steakhouse.

It looks really cute inside.

Step #1 for a steak house would be to offer a variety of steaks.  I love that this menu came in Portuguese, English (with a British flag mind you!), and German.

While we were waiting to order, I spotted some local Azorean pineapples.  They are much smaller than Hawaiian pineapples.  I knew this meant there would be pineapple on the menu for dessert.

Out came the goat cheese.

Bread, too.

Then it was time for the main event.  If meat freaks you out, SKIP this section.  I had to take pictures of this, despite being grossed out over the meat.  Ryan’s steak au pov was prepared table side.

 

First came the butter.

Then some flame and a little, ok, a lot of pepper.

I apologize for the blur, but I think this waitress was not used to people taking pictures while she cooks, so I was trying to stay out of her way and let her do her thing.

There we have the steak.

Next came the sauce.  I think she melted down fat, actual lard.  

Then the steak went back in and more pepper followed.

Here it is, ta da!  I am guessing this is what made this an actual steak house.

It came with rice, potatoes, and veggies.

I love how the side dish plate matches up to the round dinner plates.

I was correct about my choices.  The fish I wanted, which was grouper, they did not have.  Instead, I went with the abrotea, which almost always comes fried, lightly, and it is very good.  I like this because it is easily portioned for me.  I always take the second filet home with me.

Nice and golden!

Look at this cute and funny looking fork.

To end the meal, we ordered some meia de leites.

Then, we could not resist the pineapple flambé.  I was shocked by the 7 euro price, but then Ryan reminded me of this:

The extra cost is of course due to the shots of alcohol added to the pineapple.  So, we ordered 1 to share.  This is fresh Azorean pineapple.

After the alcohol went in, she put in orange peel and grated it with a fork for added flavor.

To me, this looks like the lava inside of a volcano.

Here we go!  It was delicious.  I admit, it costs to much, but you don’t get these experiences handed to you often, so I am happy to splurge a little while I have the chance.

So, there you have it, an Azorean steakhouse.

QUESTIONS:  What is your favorite way to eat steak?  If you are a vegetarian, totally disregard my disgusting question!  Have you ever had your food, steak or other, prepared tableside?

Lasagna-thon, From Scratch

I am not 100% sure what we were thinking when it came to making our From Scratch Weekends meal for this week.  We decided to go with lasagna.  Sounds easy enough, right? 

We have made lasagna at home before, but used store bought noodles ands store bought sauce, so this was our time to do every part from scratch, or as close as we could get to scratch.  We started off by preparing some bread.  What is a classic Italian meal without Italian bread, right?

This recipe called for wheat bran and the closest I had was oat bran, so I made the substitution.

Here it is, ready to go in the bread machine.

When the machine was done kneading, it was time to remove the kneading paddle and…

add the sesame seeds.

Here is the finished product.

 Ryan did the slicing for us to have a little taste.

It was delicious.  We actually made this a day in advance to save us some time on Sunday.

 

Then began the real fun.  Here are the recipes for the lasagna dish, complete with homemade noodles and sauce.

 

 

 

I started with the roasted veggies.  I had limited selection on veggies and these were the best eggplants I could find.

 

 

Here they are after the roasting.  While this was in the oven for 40 minutes, we worked on the other components.

  

Ryan began working on the sauce.  Here you have the basics.  If you have taken a cooking class before or just like to cook a lot, you will know this as mirepoix, which is carrots, onion and celery.  This is a common base for many items, mostly stocks, soups and sauces.

The last time we skinned and deseeded tomatoes, we did it this way, instead of the boil method.  The roasting winds up giving it a smoky flavor. 

Once the skin starts to crack, it makes it very easy to peel off.

 

Here is the sauce once the tomatoes were added.  We did add 2 TBSP of canned tomato paste here because there was really no way around that.

 

By now we were about 2 or so hours into the lasagna-thon, and we couldn’t hold out on getting to the bottle of wine.  This is a green wine from mainland Portugal.

 

After a few sips of wine, we started back up again.  Now it was time for the pasta.

Our nextdoor neighbor gave us these eggs from their chickens, so we thought this would be a great time to use them.

I swear to you know who, this is not as easy as the recipe and instruction book makes it sound.  It is always so dry and then when we add more liquid, it is always to much.  If you have perfected the Kitchenaid recipe, let me know! 

After TOO much time messing around with this dough and the extruder, we FINALLY had some success.  I say some success because I do not think the noodles were supposed to split down the middle, but they did.

 

Here are the noodles, ready to be boiled.

Getting them out was a little tricky.  They kept slipping out of the tongs.

The last step was the cheese filling.  The ricotta and parmesan were made into the filling. 

We used the block cheese and shredded this ourselves.

Then I shredded the mozzarella, which was also used in the layers of the lasagna.

 

Finally, finally, finally, we were ready to layer the ingredients and get this in the oven.

 

 

 

Here we are, ready to go.  Now from this point, we still had 45 minutes of baking in the oven, and then 15 more to cool.

 

Here we are at meal service.  Oh yes!  Just a SHORT 5 hours after we started making the lasagna, we were ready to eat.

Here is our meal, in all it’s glory.

 

My dinner plate.

Well worth it.  Probably the best lasagna I have ever had.  There are tons of leftovers, both in the fridge and the freezer.

 

Although this meal was delicious, and worth it, I am not so sure I will spend 5 hours making lasagna ever again.

There you have, Lasagna-thon, From Scratch!!!

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever made lasagna from scratch (not just this much from scratch, but with store bought noodles and sauce)?  What is your favorite kind of lasagna?