Simple Irresistible Catering

 
You know a company is utilizing social media properly when its posts drive you to make a purchase. This is the case for my sudden impulse to try Simple Irresistible Catering. Because of the business' activity on Facebook and Twitter, I was able to find out that in addition to catering small events, they offer "Take and Bake Meals" that you can order thru the website or come into the shop and grab-n-go.

I checked out the website and it took me a long time to slim my list down of what to try first. I got a half order of the stuffed meatballs, an order of the glazed carrots and a half order of the Italian sausage lasagna. I scheduled to pick them up 24 hours later at the shop and they were ready and waiting for me completely frozen in oven safe aluminum containers. Directions are right on the lid so you can't misplace them when you are ready to heat them up.

During my pickup, Megan, the owner, and I got to chatting a little bit and I found out even more about her ties to Waukesha and her love of food (which we obviously share!). She and her sister have worked at some of the downtown businesses and Megan decided to take the plunge and start up her own business in downtown because she loves the area. She has had great success with catering small custom events and her business is really growing by word of mouth and by those that have attended her events and are planning one of their own.


Ok - let's get into my food. I originally chose the meatballs to serve to my boyfriend and his boys but I just couldn't wait to try them. Sports and tournaments kept postponing our dinners together, and I was getting impatient on trying these, so I went for them all on my own.

I used my new oven to get these heated up and cooked some spaghetti while I waited for these to finish. The oven worked perfectly on convection and the directions were easy to follow and worked perfectly.

The meatballs are almost 2 inches in diameter and smelled heavenly when I pulled off the lid to finish cooking them. I couldn't wait to try her sauce as the only sauce I had on hand was "sugar free from a can." You can't really get more bland than that. I could see the chunky tomatoes in hers and you can see the spices and herbs in her sauce.

I plopped two meatballs on top of spaghetti and covered it with her sauce. I did add a bit more of my own, because I love sauce and then added a little Parmesan to top it all off.

The meatballs were scrumptious! Just the right amount of cheese in the middle of them and tons of Italian flavor. I wanted to eat more but I didn't want to be gluttonous. I chopped them up and mixed it in with my spaghetti and sauce so I had a little with each bite. Her sauce really had excellent flavor - I would buy just that if she would jar it :). And I think two meatballs is the perfect serving size. Some nice sauteed vegetables on the side or garlic bread would have really pulled this meal together but alas, I didn't have any and didn't think to order her Parmesan Garlic Bread  or Garlic & Herb Butter Vegetable Medley. 

A half pan (6 meatballs with sauce) is $9.95 + tax and this would have served my boyfriend and his kids just fine with pasta and garlic bread. So let's add $5 for that and we have a meal for the five of us for around $3 a person. Can you go anywhere and get that good of a deal? Not that I can think of. As an example, we went to Taco Bell with the kids for lunch and it was over $25 for us to eat and we weren't even satisfied with the quality of the food presented to us and the kids were still hungry. Simply Irresistible is homemade by a local business for a great price. I am definitely a fan and can't wait to try her other entrees I ordered.


A little more on Megan and her biz:

Megan graduated from WCTC's Culinary Management Program and is a proud member of the American Culinary Federation.

She doesn't have a specific catering menu because she really enjoys working with the individual clients to provide them just what they want. She does offer all of her take and bake options for catering too!
 

Pin It Tuesday: Butternut Squash Apple Soup

I have become such a fan of Butternut Squash soup this fall and winter. I have made my own, and I have ordered it when grabbing lunch. I decided to take a stab (literally) at making it again and this time adding apple like the one I got from O' What A Nice Day Cafe in Waukesha.
 

Here are my ingredients that I gathered for the soup. This version was derived from a recipe I found on Pinterest, but I altered it a bit to incorporate more of my favorite flavors - sage, red pepper flakes, half & half, hazelnuts & sausage!

Cutting up the squash is always the worst part. I can't seem to find an easy way to do it and my hands always hurt after from the knife. But in the end, I know it's going to be worth it, so I just go for it and pray to not chop off or stab any limbs!

Basically you just simmer apples, squash, onion, some chopped hazelnuts, stock, cider, salt, pepper, coriander together in the pot for 45 minutes. This gets everything tender enough to use your "whipper doodle" (my mom's term for an immersion blender) to blend everything to your desired consistency.

I like a thicker soup so I only added a bit of half & half. But I went a little "nuts" with the sage, hazelnuts, apple sausage from Robert's Specialty Meats. These flavors against the sweet of the apples & squash complimented the soup nicely. I added very few red pepper flakes right at the end, but I think I might add a few more next time.

This is definitely being added to my go to list of recipes!

From the Books Thursday: Meatballs

A few years ago, my boss of the liquor store I used to work at (RIP Fox Run Sentry Liquor) and his wife hosted a wonderful appetizer party and had the liquor store employees over.

Karlyn is an amazing cook/chef and comes up with the most unique appetizers. She made a flank steak with a horseradish sauce, caprese salad bites, cheese & crackers platter, and homemade blue cheese crackers, but what blew me away were her meatballs (*recipe link broke and this was the closest I can now find) with cherry jalapeno sauce. I just had to have the recipe. I have made it so many times, it's almost memorized, but I still want to make sure I don't skimp on an ingredient and always have the recipes.

Since I moved home, my recipes have not been so easy to trace down. They ended up strewn over a few boxes and I was in the process of typing in the tried-and-true into my computer database, when I moved home. We were able to find a similar one online, but I'm still categorizing this under From the Books Thursday as it was in a book at one time!

I double this recipe as it's hard to just buy a 1/2 pound of meat, so I get a ton of meatballs - a good problem to have!

I had to look long and hard to find the veal this year and almost had to go without, but luckily a snowstorm delayed itself about three hours and I could get out on my lunch and check one more store. Yay for that store, as it had plenty of packs of veal.

This time I didn't have regular bread crumbs, but I had some Panko style in the fridge so I was hoping their would be no difference (Ohban Panko Style (to the tune of Gangnam Style!))

Basically, you just put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix it up with your hands - yup get in and get dirty.

Then I lined some pans with aluminum foil and started rolling little 1.5-inch balls. I bake mine off in the oven as I have made a complete kitchen mess frying them in a pan on the stove top. The oven is much less of a mess.

 

I followed my mom's meatball recipe and baked them at 400 for about 10 minutes. I just kept checking them every time I added another completed pan to the oven, and looked for them to begin browning and using a meat thermometer, made sure they were getting to at least 160 degrees.)

The one mistake I made this time was that I didn't flip the meatballs over half way through. This gives them more of a crusty outside and makes them easier to stir in a Crockpot with sauce. They fell apart a bit at my work party, but even the scraps were eaten!

Now for the sauce, I used my mini processor (my new favorite gadget) and chopped up the onions and jalapenos for the sauce (Jeff Dunham jokes started flying around the kitchen about the Jalapeno on a Stick (pronounced Steeek - if you know and love Jeff, watch at the 4:45 mark and you will hear my fave Jalapeno on at Steeek joke!)

I combined everything but the wine together in a sauce pan and heated until it boils.

Then you remove from the heat and add the wine :)  Add any type of red wine you would like but I find Merlot and Cabernet work the best. This Bel Arbor was delightful to drink and you shouldn't cook with something you won't drink.

I put the meatballs in my mini crockpot with the sauce and voila!, delicious meatballs. The sauce has just enough bite to get the tastebuds going but not overwhelmed them.

I freeze at least half the batch of meatballs and use them in spaghetti at a later time, just thawing out a few at a time. However, this time I'll be using the second half of the batch for a New Year's party I'm going to.

Happy Eating!

From the Books Thursday: Stuffed Green Peppers

(As part of attending OnlineBlogCon this week, I have been changing up my blog to a fresher template. Hoping to have it completely done in a week, but let me know what you think of the new color scheme!)

I have decided to start going through my cookbooks (as I have way too many that aren't getting used) and start sharing my adapted versions of the recipes in them.

My mom suggested a few weeks ago that we should have stuffed green peppers and found a recipe in the Taste of Home Favorite Brand Name Recipes 2002 book. We had almost everything in the house to make these so it seemed practical. Plus this is a favorite comfort food of mine.

We didn't have rice, so we used couscous instead.

We also didn't have enough chopped tomato or onion, so I increased the amount of zucchini, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.

There was plenty of filling for the 6 pepper halves the recipe called for and could have had another half or two.

I covered them up and let them cook for 20 minutes. The recipe called for 35, but they looked pretty good already.

Ready for the oven

I sprinkled on some parm and let them cook for another 10 minutes. I opened the oven for a peak, and smelt a slight burning smell and decided they were done. (Recipe called for 20 more minutes).

Right out of the oven with just Parmesan cheese

I pulled them out and sprinkled some shredded mozzarella over each pepper half because my family absolutely loves cheese. We let them sit for 5 minutes and then served them up.

Added mozzarella cheese!

The peppers cut through without a problem and the filling was hot, gooey and delicious.

I served the peppers with a multi-grain bread I made the day before in my family's breadmaker.

I would definitely make this recipe again but this time, I would possibly cut the ingredients back a bit more and add some ground turkey.


Complete recipe from Taste of Home

Taste of Home Vegetable Stuffed Peppers

Waukesha Farmers' Market

Last weekend, my parents and I decided to get up early Saturday morning and head out to the Waukesha Farmers' Market. I had only been to it once before this season, so I was due for a trip. 

The farmers' market runs every Saturday from May to October, 8 am to noon on Riverfront Plaza. If you aren't familiar with the road, it is one block north of Main Street along the river. The road is now closed off completely on Saturdays due to the increased size of the market. If you can find the river in downtown, you found the market. 

We parked at my job because I had to drop off my bike for a bike/bar crawl later that night and just walked over. But if you park in the parking lots by the former antique malls, be ready to donate $1 to a great non-profit organization. Because the antique malls are no longer open, but the property is owned by a private company, they need to instill the parking codes still. Berg Management manages the lots and decided to offer up the lots to different organization to collect funds each weekend. High School activities and athletics have been fortunate to reap the benefits of this collection already. If you aren't willing to pay $1 to park, there is still plenty of free parking throughout downtown Waukesha, you may just have to walk a bit further. 

We started by visiting the two booths on the north side of the river. This leaves room for plenty of expansion for the market. One of these booths was the only booth at the market to have any fresh dill as we found out when my dad was asked by every person walking by where he got his dill. The other booth was a jewelry booth that makes really cool bracelets from license plates. You have to see them to understand but I hope to get one before the market is done this Fall.

Yummy mixes at the Waukesha Farmers' Market

 We crossed the river by Main Street Plaza and headed into the market. The market literally has everything - vegetables, fruit, plants, flowers, bread, meat, eggs, jewelry, soap, honey, clothing and more. And each week its a little different too.

Fresh produce at the Waukesha Farmer's Market

Jewelry at the Waukesha Farmers' Market

We stopped at Decatur Cheese first because I remember trying the cheese at the Fort Atkinson market and it was delicious. We bought some muenster and we found a cheese curd that my mom didn't mind - ranch flavored white cheddar curd. We didn't buy any but it went on the list.

Decatur Cheese at Waukesha Farmers' Market

I was on a mission to get some fresh local produce for a Greek dip (found via Pinterest) I was making for my MKEFoodies picnic the next day (more on that to come next week). I needed cucumbers, dill and red pepper. We found some gigantic cucumbers, mini peppers and of course the dill. My parents got tomatoes, the cheese, pickles, the dill and a mixed basket of onions. The pickles are currently sitting in a crock in the kitchen doing their pickle thing. I can hardly wait to have one!

Local produce at the Waukesha Farmers' Market

I also bought myself a spinach asiago mini bread and my mom got an oatmeal raisin cookie that we called breakfast. I got the bread after having a bite off my friend Carolyn's a few months prior at the market and it was heavenly. The cookie was gone after I was handed just one little piece so I'm guessing no complaints.

Beautiful quilt at the Waukesha Farmers' Market

Some of the local downtown restaurants and shops are setting up as part of the farmers' market as well and I find this a really smart idea. Montecito restaurant had plenty of ooey-gooey desserts that looked delicious, Oh What A Day Cupcakes had a small booth with some of their offerings, The Steaming Cup had tea and coffee available, the Record shop on Clinton brought out some of their CDs and DVDs to sell, Plowshare had a booth with baskets and Key Westconsin serves up breakfast seeing as they are on Riverview Plaza. There may have been others, I might have just missed them.

If you get a chance, I highly recommend checking out this market. On Sept. 8 is the annual Art Fest in Waukesha that closes down Main Street with local artisans on display. Come make a day of Waukesha, enjoy the farmer's market, some breakfast/brunch/lunch and then the Art Fest and come see what Waukesha is all about.

Food at the Waukesha County Fair

For the past eight years, I have worked the Waukesha County Fair with my company Image Makers Advertising. We handle all the marketing for the Fair and I specifically handle/assist with public relations, media relations and most recently social media.

In all those years, I have been through everything at the Fair - extreme heat (2011), rain/flooding (2010), cold (2009) and now drought. With all that we do, we still find downtime to enjoy the Fair while working and some go on the rides, some relax to the great music and I (of course) like to try the new foods. In the past my favorites have been deep-fried vegetables, iced chai tea (I think I had 7 in one Fair), fried catfish, funnel cakes and chicken strips.

Some of my favorites are back and here are some additional food highlights of the Fair.

Catfish Johnny's (look for the guy with the 6 ft. fish next to his booth) - This vendor is a favorite of Justin Williams at Fox6 and when he comes to the grounds, I always take him over to say hi to the workers and owner. In return, Justin gets a huge plate of scrumptious eats. The fried catfish and the hush puppies are excellent. This place is consistently good.

Silver Spur - This place is located just across from the Coors Light Tent on the north end of the grounds and does excellent business all day long. I MUST have their "Bubba's chicken strips and fries" each year at least once. I don't know what the coating is made of, but it is sweet and salty and I just can't get enough. Prices are very decent too!

Mill Street Concessions is the home of my deep fried vegetables. The line is always really long because in addition to vegetables deep fried, they have deep fried cheese - perfect for a Wisconsin event.

Mill Street Concessions - on the left that says Hot Wisconsin Cheese

Anderson's Corn Roast - seriously how can you go wrong with corn on the cob?

Those are my favorites from the past but I hope to try something new each day of the Fair and report back. Some of the new items this year that I want to try are the gator sausage sandwich, bacon-wrapped tator tots on a stick and the chicken salad wrap. If I was a cream puff person (I'm a funnel cake fan), I would definitely try the new Berry Cream Puff in the 4-H Kitchen. I'll have to get a review on that for sure.

I did also see that there is a cheese stuffed jumbo burger, big bacon on a stick, Louisiana crawfish boil, orange chicken, fajitas, jumbo turkey legs, brownie supreme sundae, coffee drinks and cajun cuisine. If you can't find something at the Fair, you are waaaay too picky of an eater :)


There are great admissions promotions to help you save a little at the gates, we have a great Miller Lite Main Stage Lineup this year as well as local entertainment on two stages.


But I love being on the grounds and working with the great Fair Board of Directors in helping the Fair be a success. They are a solid team and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to work so closely with them.

The Fair opens tomorrow at 3 pm and goes through Sunday at 9 pm. Hope you have an opportunity to stop out and try some food, play some games, check out the animals, go on a ride, dance, drink and just be merry.

A Night Out: Miller Park Eats Part 1

We came across these stairs wandering for food!

Some people tailgate at Brewer games, some people wait to eat something once inside the game and some people do both at the same game! If I get out of work early or don’t have to work at all, I love to tailgate and make some yummy chicken brats on my grill with potato salad and brownies and get some tailgate games going.

However, on weeknight games, this isn’t exactly possible or worth the struggle of getting everything together for a quick tailgate because I work in Waukesha until 5. So at the last two games, Tiffany and I indulged in some Miller Park stadium food. Of course there are the traditional foods of the famous Klement’s Racing sausages, popcorn, peanuts, pizza and licorice ropes. But I decided to step out of the norm for the April 23^rd game. Tiff and I walked the 2^nd level concourse in search of something really unique – and we found it! 

Tiff giving Braun attention because he is lonely

Way out in Right field near the jumbo glove and lonely Ryan Braun life-size statue (miss you Prince!)

is a food stand, The Fry Bar, that was serving The Montreal, in other words, Poutine. This snack is not the prettiest looking food to walk around with and definitely messy (4 out of 5 napkins score) but surprisingly, the flavor combination keeps you digging in and wanting more. Poutine is French fries and cheese curds smothered in gravy. Sure it may not sound appetizing, but don’t knock it until you try it. I found the recipe in this JSOnlinearticle from the stadium food contest from 2011. And just a few weeks back, The Waukesha Freeman featured a recipe on making Poutine, so the snack is trending.

Poutine and a Summer Shandy

I was under the impression that the cheese curds were deep fried like the fries, but they were actually fresh, squeaky curds right out of the fridge. To build the Poutine, the concession worker took a generous help of fries and put them in a basket. Cheese curds were sprinkled over them and then the EXTREMELY hot gravy was ladled over the top. The worker suggested that we get plenty of napkins and some forks.

We knew that this wasn’t going to be a walking and eating treat, so we found a nearby high-top table to watch the game and enjoy our treat. Tiff and I each forked a large fry with gravy on it and a cheese curd said “Cheers!!” and dug in.  I was pleasantly surprised. Besides getting my daily intake of sodium in one bite, the very hot gravy actually had great flavor. (I will again say that the gravy is very hot. The concession worker gave us an extra basket to put under so Tiff could hold it without burning her fingers. I think steam came off gravy until the last bite was gone.) The cheese curds, though cool in the middle, had begun to melt because of the gravy and put this into the comfort food category for me.

The Tabletop

The view while enjoying

We gobbled it all up and it’s something that I recommend others to try. This is definitely something to share with a friend as we were both stuffed at the end. Unfortunately I don’t remember the cost, but splitting anything at Miller Park makes it more reasonable. This concession stand also had Olive Oil & Garlic fries and Deep Fried bacon. I thought that those fries really just looked like a greasy mess and too much garlic gives me a headache, so I will probably just try a fry if someone else orders it. I did get to sample the deep fried bacon (thank you friendly worker!).  It’s a piece of cooked bacon that is battered with a light flour mixture and then deep fried. I took a bite of the sample and it was crisp and crunchy. The breading sticks well to the bacon and adds another layer of flavor to the heavenly pork treat. Again, no idea on price, but worth a try. 

Me and the Statue of Brewers Liberty

Check back soon for the post about the treats we tried at the May 7^th game from Food Network stand and Cactus League Nachos. And here is a link from JSOnline about more stadium eats and treats. Until then, Happy Eating!

Maxie's Southern Comfort

 Image from Maxie's Southern Comfort

This place has been on my list since I worked a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis at the Hilton two years ago and got just a small sample of their food. Of all the restaurants that were represented at the event, which was every big name in Milwaukee 2 years ago, Maxie's Southern Comfort stuck out as my favorite. It just was down-home, warm in the tummy, delicious food.

So when my friend Kathy asked me to make a dinner date for us in the new year, I instantly thought of Maxie's. I had a CityTin to use as well so it was a win-win. Kathy agreed to meet me there at 6:30 on a Wednesday night. She got there a bit before me and started by sitting on the small bench by the hostess stand. After she saw 3 tables come in and immediately get seated and then 3 groups asked to go on a list, she quickly got us on the list. She was told it was a 20 minute wait. They don't take reservations but I saw something about 30 minute call ahead if its busy as there isn't much space for people to wait.

I ended up parking down the street as I completely missed the large parking lot across the street from the restaurant but didn't mind the walk as we have had a mild winter so far. When I walked in, I immediately thought "warm and comfy" with the red wall color and dark tables and not to mention the wonderful smells wafting through the dining room. I saw Kathy sitting at the bar and was able to get a spot next to her. We were greeted by an extremely knowledgeable bartender and she walked us through a few of the beers they had available. Kathy chose Anchor Steam and I went with something dark from Abita, although the name escapes me. We were able to catch up a bit while enjoying our beers in frosted glasses (always a treat) and just a few minutes later we were taken to our table.

We were sat at a small table by a window right in the front of the restaurant. The window was a little drafty but after a little bit, I forgot about it and just focused on the menu and conversation. The restaurant is small but I didn't feel crowded by the tables next to us at all. It was a little louder in there but not that you had to talk super loud to have a conversation. And I heard and saw people going upstairs but I didn't ask what was up there at all. Maybe a large banquet room? Another bar? I'll have to inquire more.

Ok - onto the food. Our server came over, greeted us with a smile (always a nice touch) and walked us through the regular menu and specials menu. My friend Kathy had been told we had to try the hush puppies. Apparently we came on the right night as they don't have hush puppies as a regular item anymore and it just so happened to be a special. We looked through the menu a bit more while our server went to get us some cornbread.

By the time the server returned, we had decided - hush puppies for a appetizer, pecan crusted rainbow trout for me and Kathy went with the crab cake platter. He told us he would get the order in and it shouldn't be too long for the appetizer. We started in on the cornbread and my only complaint is that the cornbread was cold and I would have expected it to be room temperature or warm even. Cold was a little bit of a shock to me.

Then the hush puppies came. You could see the different ingredients in them and I like that you know right away they are made there. They were served with a sweet jelly sauce that went perfectly with the savory taste of the hush puppies. I should have saved the sauce to have with my fish because it was just decadent. I have only had hush puppies once before so I don't have much to compare to but Maxie's blew away the others that I have had.

The entrees came and I was very impressed and just took in the aromas coming off the food. It smelt absolutely amazing and I couldn't wait to dig in. My pecan crusted trout was two pieces heavily coated in chopped pecans. It was sitting atop a sweet potato hash with okra and other root vegetables that were sauteed to perfection. The trout was very moist and the pecans were delicious. On the side was an oil and vinegar arugula salad. Everything was so flavorful and it was my first time having okra. I now know how to pair it with other things and having it be a little bit firmer of a vegetable, it complimented the sweet potato well.

Kathy was served two huge crab cakes that were a dark brown color, not something I'm used to seeing but that didn't mean bad by any means. In the middle was their famous "rwb" slaw, creole rice with a ton of tomatoes and sweet potato fries. As soon as she forked into the crab cake, I could see the lumps of crab from across the table and began to salivate. I quickly grabbed a bit and was taken back by just how flavorful it was. I might go to say, this is the best crab cake I have ever had and I have had quite a few.

I think we both made excellent choices and ate as much as we could. I got through 1.5 pieces of fish and Kathy got through a lot of her crab cakes but both of us had a lot of our sides left. They are definitely plentiful with the portions. But I'm not someone that takes home fish or any seafood to rewarm unless its deep fried and even then I'm questionable on it, so I didn't take home the leftovers.

I would highly, highly recommend this place if you are looking for some down home southern style cooking. I can't wait to return and I will definitely tell my other friends and those with CityTins that this is a must-visit for 2012. I think you will enjoy it as much or more than I did. I do believe they have outdoor seating in the summer, so that excites me with our wonderful Wisconsin summertime weather.

They also have nightly specials to take advantage of. We were there on Vino Wednesday with $10 off bottles of wine, but since we were already having beer, we just stuck with that. But some of the specials like the Maxie's Mojito Mondays and the Rac 'n Mac Thursdays are forcing me to return :)

Until my next post, Happy Eating!