Doesn’t get much better.

On Friday I posted about my favorites and one of my favorites was a brie appetizer that I mentioned I might be enjoying on the porch with wine.  Well, brie happened and so did wine but I didn’t end up making the appetizer that I posted.  You see, I swung by Whole Foods and picked up a brie that was too good to mess up.  So I simple paired it with some sundried tomatoes, dried apricots and rosemary lentil crackers (also from Whole Foods).

So delicious.  We also toasted with champagne to celebrate life in general.

For dinner, mahi for her and a ribeye for him.  But the real star of the show was the bacon-wrapped bundles of homegrown green beans.

I cooked the green beans in boiling water for about 8 minutes then drained.  While the green beans were cooking, I cooked the bacon on the stove top (but not until it’s cooked through!).  Take 6 or 7 green beans and wrap with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.  Place in a dish and pour over a butter, brown sugar, soy sauce and garlic mixture.  Bake.  Take in the amazing smell.  Devour.

Those green beans were insane.  Salty sweet tender green beans.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Bison Burgers

Happy Monday and welcome to a new week!  Yesterday we found ourselves thinking about dinner before we even had brunch (typical).  Big Guy was craving burgers so we headed to Whole Foods to gather a few ingredients (I headed to TJs afterwards to get all the produce I needed for the week).  It was between beef and bison and we went with the new-to-our-kitchen choice of bison.  We’ve both had bison multiple times and we really enjoy it but for some reason we’ve never cooked with it on our own.  We also picked up some cheese – a sheep’s milk cheese.  We were browsing the cheese counter and the guy behind the counter asked if we needed any help – I responded with “What goes well with bison?” and this is what we ended up with.

That’s right, $27 a pound and worth every penny.  I can’t even pronounce the variety but it melts beautifully on the grill and is a mild-tasting cheese.  A crowd-pleaser, I’d say.

I ate my bison burger naked (without a bun).  The burger was unbelievable – we simply mixed the meat with fresh garlic, salt and pepper – that’s it.  It doesn’t need anything else – well, except expensive cheese.  Super moist and not at all dry.  Served alongside sauted brussels (garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper) and a fresh fruit salad.  The fruit salad will be making more appearances this summer.  So refreshing.  Sweet strawberries paired with watermelon that get a burst of flavor from fresh basil confetti and cracked black pepper.  Superb.