Sunday Gravy with yeah right: An L.A. Story Where The Whole Family Gets to Show Off.

Good morning all. 

Welcome back from the sun scorched, parched, barren earth of Southern California. Heard something about our weather breaking heat records for APRIL in mid March. We hit 97 degrees couple of days ago. 

During this “Climate change is just a hoax” heatwave I’ve also had a large collection of family and friends come out to visit us here in L.A. The reactions to the heat have been mostly positive since many of these folks are from the East Coast and they appreciate excessive abundant sunshine.

Over the span of just a couple of weeks we’ve had my youngest daughter, my favorite niece, her husband, my best friend from Jersey and his ENTIRE family all come to my part of the world to visit and it’s been incredible.

Hectic but incredible. 

I love my family.

The niece is an actual professional pastry chef. She decided she would make croissants for everyone.

How does that work? Let’s find out.

She’s a professional so I ain’t EVEN gonna give you a recipe.

First you need to beat the bejesus out of the butter.

Then you mix the dough.

Fold the butter into the dough.

Shape into a “shape.”

Then wrap in plastic and refrigerate. 

After refrigeration, remove the dough and flatten, fold and flatten again. You’re building layers here.

Repeat as many times as you like. The more layers the better.

Look at the layers! Plus, I got to keep half of this awesome dough for future use!

Next cut into triangles.

Roll into shape.

Yes, all of them.

Then bake them until they look like croissants.

Sorry for not being a little more fucking specific but I didn’t make this and I’m not going to infringe on the proceedings if my ass wasn’t involved with the product.

I was just there to consume them and they were fucking awesome.

We also had cowboy caviar courtesy of eldest granddaughter.

I don’t have her exact recipe but I can give a rough idea.

2 (15-oz) cans black beans, red beans or pinto beans drained and rinsed

15 oz can of canned corn

⅔ cup red onion diced

1 fresh tomato diced

1 jalapeno seeded and finely chopped

2 avocados mashed

¼ cup olive oil

1/4 cup of fresh lime juice

1 small garlic clove minced

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Combine and serve with a sturdy tortilla chip, or you can also use these bad boys.

Which I’m sure you remember from episode one of this season when we made aguachile.

Those tostadas have turned into a frequent guest at the Sunday Gravy table.

As a “Main” course, youngest right made her famous Honey Sriracha Turkey Meatballs.

Recipe courtesy of youngest right!

For the meatballs:

Two pounds of ground turkey

1 cup of panko bread crumbs

2 eggs

1/4 cup of diced green onion

Spices – “I throw in whatever feels good that day but usually garlic, black pepper, salt, onion powder etc.”

Let’s mix them up.

And then roll them up.

“Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25ish minutes.”

Sauce:

1/4 cup Sriracha

3 tablespoon each of soy sauce, honey and rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of fresh ginger – minced

3 cloves (or whatever feels right) of minced fresh garlic

1/2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil

“Get everything in a saucepan, bring to a boil reduce by half and simmer. Usually 10ish minutes is good but just reduce until it’s a consistency you like.

Then I just toss the meatballs right into the sauce”

You may be wondering what I contributed to the effort. In a world class upset, I was in charge of dessert so I made these beauties which you should recognize.

Gochujang Caramel Cookies!

recipe right here.

We also had some brussels sprouts.

Trust me the menu was a group decision! And the group MAY have been very, very baked when the decision was made.

TAJ handled the brussels sprouts.

Take it away, Taj!

“Look I don’t even like brussel sprouts so just leave me alone.

Who says I have to make them?

What if I refuse

Oh very well then.

Get someone to go to a market and procure a mess of them nasty goomers. Rinse them off, trim off the icky leaves then grab dose ugly varmints and cut of their icky tails, 

“Mind you don’t cut yourself Mordicai”

 Now peel off the ugly layers leading to those tender middles. If you see one that looks like it’s rotten, well it’s best to Kristie Noem that sum bitch.

Toss them in some olive oil to coat.

Cook some bacon but only to get the fat rendered because remember that fat is flavour so I must taste pretty good according to that logic. Now crumble the bacon over those little blobs of crappy lettuce and sprinkle liberally with salt (because they are lousy to begin with) and lots of black pepper and all of the saved bacon lard stir together then pop them into a 400 degree preheated oven and cook for 15 minutes. When the 15 is up, rotate 90 degrees (hey is that redundant?) Mix the ugly bastards around a bit and cook for another 10 minutes, start checking as the last few moments they can go from sort of edible to burnt as shit rather quickly.

Season to taste and try not to vomit out your nostrils upon first bite.

“

As you get older your mind starts to think about legacy.

What did I bring to my family? What did they learn? Did I give them lessons that they’ll take with them forever and maybe pass along to their families?

Every. Single. Member of this family can cook. Not just passable cooking, real soulful, from the heart cooking. Three generations strong. 

That works just fine for me. 

How about we sign off this episode with some photos of our group experiences of our get together? In my city. My home. My LA.

Be well everyone and enjoy the rest of your Sunday AND the NCAA tourney.

See you next week.