Monday, February 8, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 02-07-2021: Sesame Beans, Premium Cocktail Cherry, Meatloaf Family Dinner

 1. I try to limit my trips to the grocery to store to once every 7-10 days. I stocked up a bit this morning. Primarily, I was hoping to find a pound of fresh green beans. Christy would be serving meatloaf tonight for family dinner and I really like green beans with meatloaf. I'd also found a recipe for sesame green beans and I wanted to try it. To my delight, Yoke's had 'em!

The recipe is simple. First, I snipped the ends off the beans. Afterward, I made a mixture of sesame oil, olive oil, honey, minced ginger, and minced garlic. On a baking sheet line with aluminum foil, I spread out the beans, drizzled them with oil, salted them, and roasted them in the oven for about ten minutes. While they were roasting, I toasted a batch of sesame seeds. 

After ten minutes, I coated the green beans with the garlic-ginger-honey mixture and then roasted them for another ten minutes. Once out of the oven, I put them in a pyrex container and dumped the sesame sees on the green beans and made sure the green beans were all coated.

2. I also volunteered to mix tonight's cocktails. I decided to mix us each a Manhattan. Readers of this blog might remember that a week ago I purchased a bottle of Dark Basil Hayden Rye Whiskey, a blend of rye whiskey, port wine, and Canadian whiskey. To me, it's a less spicy rye. So, I wondered how it would work in a Manhattan. I also decided try out a premium cocktail cherry and earlier in the week ordered a jar of Peninsula cocktail cherries online. I don't know anything about cocktail cherries, but thought it would be fun to try out something different from the maraschino cherries available at Yoke's. 

I think it was a good move! Christy, Carol, and Paul said they enjoyed the cocktail and, maybe half kiddingly, told me that the premium cherry made a difference!

3. We had a very comforting family dinner together tonight. Christy prepared what's called a Billionaire Meatloaf (it's a recipe once served at a wealthy person's social gathering) and she made a delicious potato and cheese dish to accompany it. Carol prepared a delicious broccoli salad, I contributed sesame beans, and Carol and Paul cracked open a bottle of Merlot. We ended our meal with a slice of Christy's homemade cherry pie with ice cream and, for old time's sake, we each enjoyed a Stinger, an after dinner drink that's been around our family for many years. 

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