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A Moveable Feast: Cocktail Time

June 20, 2017 By Holly 5 Comments

As some of you may know, Lane and I have the wonderful privilege of being part of an amazing group of friends and colleagues that also love food and cooking. Almost two years ago, two of those dear ladies started a rotating dinner party that we take turns hosting and cooking and it has been just so much fun. Each quarter the ten of us gather for a multi-course, home cooked feast. The evenings are always filled with the best food and cocktails and hours of great conversation and laughter. Lane and I hosted our first dinner last March (check out the menu and list of recipes here!) and last week, it was our turn again. This time we decided to tackle an eight course Southern themed menu and boy was it a good time.

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting the recipes and full menu here on With Two Spoons. We are so excited to share it all with you! Some of the recipes we developed or adapted ourselves and few others we left to the recipes of foodie icons like Ina Garten, Deb Perleman, and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. At the end of the series you’ll have a full menu ready and waiting if you are looking to host your own Southern inspired party.

As many good parties do, we started with cocktails. In the interest of keeping things simple, we chose to serve a signature drink for everyone as they arrived and then switch to wine and prosecco (one red, one white, one sparkling!) for the rest of the evening. Our cocktail of choice for this party was the amazing Bourbon Tea from Garden and Gun Magazine and the Apiary event center in Kentucky.

The base of the drink is a simple syrup made with lemon, orange, ginger, cinnamon and mint. A small amount of this flavor filled syrup is poured over ice and then bourbon and an ounce of elderflower liquor (like St. Germain) is added. Top the whole thing with a splash of ginger ale and you have a simple southern drink that everyone will love. A word of caution: these cocktails are meant to be savored so go slow!

Find the recipe (and lots more Southern goodness!) at Garden and Gun magazine, here.

We’ll be back on Friday with this week’s Good Food Reads and next week our moveable feast continues with one of our main courses.

Asian Chicken Salad with Grilled Vegetables

May 30, 2017 By Lane 32 Comments

My teenaged daughter. Don’t you love when a post starts with “my teenaged daughter”? I’m sure all of you with teenagers know what is coming next. My teenaged daughter has a complicated relationship with food. Loves all sweets, but historically she’s much more picky when it comes to food with any nutritional benefit. (Read on to learn all about where we went wrong with teaching her to eat!) So when she recently found a salad at a local restaurant that she liked, I raced to recreate it so she could eat it at home. And although it’s not exactly the same, Asian Chicken Salad with Grilled Vegetables was a hit with everyone, but especially with my teenaged daughter. #momwin

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Instant Pot Korean Inspired Pulled Pork

April 18, 2017 By Lane 64 Comments

I know you’ve already heard about my great love affair with the Instant Pot. I’ve gone and on about the magic of this kitchen appliance and as summer is coming I’m even more excited to have a great way to cook without having to turn the oven on and heat up my house. But so many people are asking me-what are you actually making in it? Certainly a good (and easy) way to start is my Instant Pot Chipotle Black Bean Soup (it’s even vegan), but if that isn’t your jam-then may I recommend what we’ve been eating on repeat? Instant Pot Korean Inspired Pulled Pork. (I DID include instructions to make this in the Slow Cooker/Crock Pot as well-just scroll all the way to the bottom.)…

Carrot Ginger Soup with Coconut Shrimp

February 19, 2016 By Lane 1 Comment

This Carrot Ginger Soup with Coconut Shrimp was course number 3 in our epic dinner party. (P.S.-don’t worry if you’re having a hard time following along with our dinner party menu reveal, I promise to post the entire menu in order, with links, in a few weeks. And if you just can’t wait, it was already posted on twitter so you can check it out there!). We knew we wanted a soup course to follow our Pomegranate, Squash and Apple salad. While we were initially dreaming up plans for our blog we had a lot of “business” lunches at Lakeshore Grill at Macy’s in Ridgedale (which has been totally redone, and if you haven’t checked it out you definitely should!). Their summer soup was a carrot scallion soup that was so good, I would order it for lunch and then order a cup to take with me to my evening shift at work. Looking around the internet for a soup that would be similar to this one, brought us to this Carrot Ginger Soup with Coconut Shrimp from Food and Wine. Holly made the soup first, and interestingly enough, this soup is not really similar to the carrot scallion we loved-but it is fabulous in its own right, so fabulous that we decided to add it to our dinner party menu. Sometimes you find exactly what you need, exactly when you need it!

I first made this soup for some friends while up at my cabin. My friends loved it and the soup was given rave reviews. This soup is creamy and bright, with a hint of heat that is well balanced by the coconut shrimp. It is ridiculously simple to make and yet tastes complex. We served our soup not only with the coconut shrimp, but also with a peanut-cilantro gremolata. So delicious, your guests will thank you!

And if anyone has a recipe for a good Carrot Scallion soup, please let us know, we are still looking!

Carrot Ginger Soup with Coconut Shrimp

This a simple yet elegant soup that tastes impressively complex. I personally think that the soup tastes better after sitting overnight, however it can be eaten right away if you just can't wait!

Course Soup

Author Food and Wine (contributor: Corbin Evans)

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil divided
1 medium onion diced
3/4 pound carrots diced
1 Tablespoon ginger grated
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 cups chicken broth
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons lime juice
2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
1 Tablespoon creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon asian sesame oil
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup light coconut milk
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 Tablespoons cilantro chopped
3 Tablespoons salted peanuts chopped
16-30 large shrimp peeled and deveined
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Instructions

Heat 1 Tablespoon olive oil in a dutch oven until shimmering.
Add onion and sauté for 4-5 minutes until onion is softened.
Add carrots, ginger, and crushed red pepper, and sauté for 6 minutes.
Add chicken broth and bring mixture to a boil.
Turn heat down and simmer the mixture for approximately 20 minutes until the carrots are tender.
Take dutch oven off of the heat and add in soy sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, peanut butter, and sesame oil.
Using an immersion blender (or you can transfer the soup to a conventional blender), puree soup until smooth.
Add skim milk and coconut milk.
Season to taste taste with salt and pepper.
You can eat the soup immediately, or refrigerate overnight and plan to eat the next day.
When you are ready to eat the soup, reheat if not eating immediately.
Preheat the oven to 425ºF.
Thaw the shrimp if frozen.
Combine the shrimp with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil until lightly coated.
Roll shrimp in sweetened, shredded coconut.
Spread the shrimp on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
We sprinkled an additional Tablespoon of coconut onto shrimp on the baking sheet.
Roast in the oven at 425ºF for 5-8 minutes keeping an eye on the shrimp to ensure it it is pink but the coconut is not burning.
Combine the chopped cilantro and chopped peanuts to form the gremolata.
Ladle the soup into bowls, top with gremolata and serve with shrimp.