Pirate Party

Many moons ago, my mom's side of the family met up for the annual summer fam-jam.

I posted pictures from the Baseball themed dinner but just realized that I never posted pictures from our pirate-themed night!

We put up some pretty good competition and had a lot of fun getting decked out in pirate gear while slicing, dicing, roasting, tossing, spearing and baking our dinner items.

My sister and her boyfriend manned the BBQ and created delicious terriyaki chicken shish kebabs. They disappeared pretty quickly.

We bought a bandana for everyone, eye patches, swords, pistols, hooks, and other pirate paraphernalia to get everyone into the spirit. We even made name-tags so that everyone could get into their pirate character.

One of my favourites was the "Dead Man's Chest" - a tomato cobbler with blue cheese biscuits. I thought the name worked well because the cobbler looked almost skin tone and once you dug in you got to the red tomatoes.

The recipe for this great side can be found at the end of this post.

For our main we went with a pork tenderloin that we roasted with apples and sage.

I should've gotten a better picture because it doesn't look all that tasty in the one above.

We went with a roast KRAKEN (spelling error in the label, apologies) as pork tenderloin doesn't sound all that pirate-like.

Our other two sides were "Peg-Leg Kebabs" (the terriyaki chicken ones I mentioned) and "Sea Shells with Algae" (pasta shells stuffed with cottage cheese and spinach and baked with pasta sauce and melted cheddar cheese).

There was a lot of food and it was a weekend of good eating.

Tomato & Blue Cheese Cobbler

(aka 'Dead Man's Chest')

(From marthastewart.com)

Ingredients

• For the filling
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 3 pounds cherry tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• For the biscuit topping
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Coarse salt
• 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (2 1/4 ounces), plus 1 tablespoon, for sprinkling
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, plus more for brushing

Directions

1. Make the filling: Heat oil in a large high-sided skillet over medium heat. Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Let cool.
2. Toss onion mixture, tomatoes, flour, and red-pepper flakes with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and some pepper.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the biscuit topping: Whisk together flour, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or rub in with your fingers until small clumps form. Stir in cheese, then add cream, stirring with a fork to combine until dough forms. (Dough will be slightly sticky.)
4. Transfer tomato mixture to
   a 2-quart baking dish (2 inches deep). Spoon 7 clumps of biscuit dough (about 1/2 cup each) over top in a circle, leaving center open. Brush dough with cream, and sprinkle with remaining tablespoon cheese. Bake until tomatoes are bubbling in the center and biscuits are golden brown, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack. Let cool for 20 minutes.