Beltane and Betting

Today is the Kentucky Derby, and I married a Kentucky boy, so it's bigger than most holidays. For the first time ever (for me), we've got actual money on a few of the horses. I used my hubby's traditional method for selecting the winner... "which name would look best on a Derby glass?" He used statistics, records, and winning percentages. Ha! We'll see who does best. Anyway, back to food... the Grill Geek feasted on toast with fried eggs, bacon, and hollandaise sauce for breakfast. I had toast with almond butter topped with dried cranberries. (It was a busy morning for me and I have a chest cold...)

After such an insufficient start to the day for a hobbit, I was naturally half-dead by noon. Our official Derby Day lunch is Kentucky Hot Browns. My allergies prevent me from following the original recipe. Oh, well, I'm getting used to getting creative. I tried one slice of Ener-G Foods tapioca bread and one slice Food For Life white rice bread, to see which was best. I vote for the tapioca bread... better texture... neither contributes flavor here. Deli turkey, fresh tomato, and bacon were straight-forward. (I hope... I realize now that the Grill Geek probably doesn't realize that deli turkey has ingredients.) And then... the sauce. Heh. I was going to go ahead and find out whether cooked goat milk is ok for me. Because sometimes, for some people, that actually makes a difference. I found a simplified recipe that I planned to follow.

But I forgot to scale back the butter portion for just two servings. I thought that wouldn't cause a problem. Because I have almost no experience with white sauces, so I'm a complete idiot.
I started very slowly adding the milk, as instructed, and the whole thing seized up. "Curdled" isn't quite the right word, but... funkified, separated, and glop don't net many google results. I looked for ways to save the sauce, finally decided it couldn't be done, and used some leftover hollandaise instead.

It was much too tart... but I still ate every morsel.

Dinner was a sad affair, due to what happened right after the Derby... we were cheering for Eight Belles and our hearts (especially the Fairy Child's) were broken. It was delicious, though.

Grassfed rib steak, Sidedish (with local yellow squash), corn on the cob, and a chopped tomato.



Last night was our Beltane feast. Food is still the main way we celebrate anything, so despite not feeling well, I was determined to make some sort of seasonal/symbolic meal.
Grilled rum-buttered shrimp (grilled for the fire element, can't have a real bonfire with kids around), asparagus (cuz... well... it's shape), fresh spring greens (because it's spring), and fresh, local zucchini (because we had it). The kids also had strawberries because berries are a spring thing and red is the color for Beltane. I had to abstain, as I seem to be sensitive to all but the local strawberries, and I didn't get any in our Greenling box this week.




This was Thursday night's dinner... local pork sausage, Italian style. Yum. I recently had some fancy French sausage made with duck and pork, almost twice as expensive, and it tasted almost exactly like this. I think I'll just buy local from now on. :-)