My Perfect Weekend

What a great weekend... I got to do what I love to do and that is cook up slow roast pork back ribs with my family and friends. It was a beautiful hot weekend and we had some friends come over for a BBQ and summer cocktails. We made a great summer cocktail using pink lemonade, fresh mint and of course a little vodka. We muddling the mint with ice, added in vodka then some lemonade. Shaking it up and finishing with soda poured over ice. Ah... was that ever refreshing.

But the hit of the night were my 24 hr marinaded pork back ribs. Can you say moist and tender they turned out perfect and everyone loved them. We served them with grilled corn basted with tequila lime butter and broccoli coleslaw with a cilantro chili lime dressing.



BBQ Ribs

Ingredients
Before you marinade ribs remove the membrane on the back side of the rib this will prevent the rib from being chewy.

3 lbs of ribs

48 oz of apple cider

15o ml fresh squeezed lemon juice

Mix together and place ribs in marinade for 4-6 hours.Cover and place in fridge.
Once ribs have marinaded remove from marinade, pat dry with paper towel, then rub barbecue dry rub on both side of ribs.

Dry Rub Recipe

45ml black pepper

45 ml course salt

15 ml hickory-smoked salt

20 ml garlic powder

20 ml onion powder

20 ml celery seeds

10 ml cayenne pepper

300ml brown spice

300ml sweet paprika

Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl by hand.

Place on tray and cover. Place in fridge for 2 to 3 hours.

When slow roasting ribs on a BBQ use indirect heat for the best result. Turn only one side of the BBQ on until it get up to about 325 degrees.

Place ribs on barbecue and spray with apple cider every 30 minutes for 2 hrs. Then baste with BBQ sauce the last 30 minutes. Ribs should be tender and have a little pull to the bone not mushy but firm. Let stand covered with tinfoil for 10 minute before serving and enjoy.

The wine I would choose is Diehl Gewurztraminer 2008. Spicy with floral rosy aroma that subsequently even tasted like a spicy rose.

Vegetable Goats Cheese Terrine

When designing this dish, my motivation was light but healthy crisp clean flavors. I was tired of deep fried or pan seared and coated heavy easy eating food.This dish is a perfect blend of flavors the one and only vegetable goats cheese terrine.

Terrine is a layered stacked dish this one has Yukon potato cake, grilled portabella mushrooms, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomato pesto, avocado, grilled zucchini and goats cheese. The potato give you that meaty texture and the avocados give you the natural fatty flavor we all desire merged with all the other soft flavors ...."Wow" it is not what you would expect.

This dish can be prepared a day ahead of time, all you need is a round 2.5 to 3" mold about 3 " inches high.

Ingredients:
3.oz sliced steamed Yukon gold potato
1.5oz Diced grilled portabella mushrooms pre-grilled in olive oil and garlic then chilled
2 oz small diced marinated artichokes (pre-dice and drain oil off)
1.5oz Sun dried tomato pesto
1,5 oz diced avocado
1.5oz grilled zucchini diced pre-grilled in olive oil and garlic
1 oz goats cheese

Direction:
For the potatoes wash and boil in water until soft. Then cool and slice into thin layers. Portabella mushrooms clean mushroom cap gills out with a spoon. Slice and roll lightly in garlic ,olive oil and salt and pepper to taste, grill and cool. Zucchini slice lengthwise and roll in olive oil, grill and cool. Once all items are cooled dice individually and keep in separate containers. Roll goats cheese out between two pieces of saran wrap and use mold to form perfect shape. Then add all ingredient's in order of recipe then place in cooler for 1 hour. Pop off mold and serve with grilled naan bread and enjoy.

Wine Paring: Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc lite crisp citrus undertones

The Perfect Summer Cocktail

Sitting at the bar of my Restaurant one night, after a few cocktails. I took noticed of the Tea Presses sitting behind the bar not being unused. Of course my thoughts go to thinking how can we come up with a better use of these great looking presses then just serving tea in them. Since Rum was what I was drinking at the time we started with that, then added fresh blueberries and mint right into the press itself, I added some citrus juice and soda water and then pressed the tea press and poured into a chilled glass full of ice and more mint... and a perfect summer cocktail was invented. For those of that want to try this at home:

Ingredients
2 Tb blueberries
6 broken fresh leaves of mint
4 oz citrus juices
2 oz soda water
2 oz Rum or Vodka
Place all ingredients into tea press. Press down at time of serving. Pour over a chilled glass filled with ice and fresh mint leaves.
Please make one and send us your comments on how you enjoyed it.

Design By Desire Catering

Hi to all
Welcome to Design by Desire Catering Blog this is were we can share great food ideas for you to entertain your family and friends whether is it a simple dinner for two or a gala event, we can help you create the perfect evening. We will be posting monthly cocktails recipes and wine parings with all of our food that we design together. We also have a lot of great planning tips at our catering website at http://www.designbydesirecatering.com/ or even if you looking for a catering company we cater from Abbotsford all the way to Vancouver and everything between. A large part of our business is wedding receptions, family reunions, birthday parties and corporate cocktail luncheons and parties. What we have noticed in the last couple of years is a growing trend for at home dinner parties and cocktail gathering. This is fast becoming 60% of our current business. I think people still want simplicity with out all the work but still affordable, we can come into your home set up and clean up and yes we even do the dishes and it was like we were never there. You wake up the next day after you have just entertain 10 or 20 of your friends and you may wake up with a little bit of a headache go to the kitchen to start cleaning up and you kitchen is spotless. What a way to start a new day, now you can sleep for that extra hour instead of cleaning, how sweet is that.

Marcel Pheiffer

Design by Desire Catering