Hey, hey. I started this post on the drive home from Florida yesterday but then I got car sick and had to close my computer and forgo what could have been many hours of work and productivity. Oh well.
You may be wondering how I was able to work in the car. Well, we brought my mom back to Charlotte with us! My parents have not been excited about Finn and I making the drive solo so my mom planned to come home with us and hang for a while. It ended up being a 10-hour trek so I was grateful to have her along for the ride.
We had such a wonderful time in Florida. I’ll share a few more trip photos in another post this week but for this one I wanted to talk food. My dad spoiled us planned out a whole week of meals. He cooked really great (and some were pretty involved!) dinners every night. I made sure to take photos of all of them because I knew you guys would enjoy seeing them for meal planning inspiration. Get ready because I have six delicious dinners to share with you!
STEAK NIGHT
Our first night was steak night. My dad cooked ribeyes in the sous-vide and then seared them on the grill for color and a crust. He’s been playing around with all different methods of grilling since he’s currently only allowed to have an electric grill on his balcony. This was my first time having sous-vide steak and I loved it! The steak was so tender. We had rice and salad on the side.
FISH MARKET NIGHT
On this night my dad grilled tripletail that he picked up at his favorite local fish market. It was our first time having tripletail but my dad decided to give it a try when the market owner said it was one of his personal favorites. Tripletail is commonly found in the Gulf of Mexico and is a white, firm, meaty fish. It’s considered by many to be equal to (and even better than!) grouper and red snapper. We all enjoyed the tripletail. I found it to be mild and meaty…very reminiscent of grouper. It held up well to grilling.
We ate it over polenta with squash casserole on the side. I don’t have my dad’s squash casserole recipe but here’s a link to one I shared a couple of summers ago!
SPAGHETTI NIGHT
Spaghetti night is a good night! My dad made homemade meatballs and homemade marinara sauce. We ate them over thin spaghetti noodles with some shredded parm. The meatballs were a mix of ground pork and ground beef.
SHRIMP TACO SALAD NIGHT
This is one of our family favorite entrée salads. You can find the recipe on my blog! 🙂
EMPANADA NIGHT IS MY NEW FAVORITE NIGHT
You guys…my dad made empanadas completely from scratch…the filling, the dough, the sauce…and it was SO SO GOOD!
Here are the details…the inside was a shredded chicken mix and the sauce was a cherry mango. The sweet and savory thing happening here was to die for and don’t even get me started on the pastry. This was such a fun and different dinner for me. I just can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it!
And my mom steamed artichokes for us to have on the side. Maybe not the most traditional empanada side dish but it was a great dinner in my book.
PIZZA NIGHT
My dad saved his homemade pizza for our send-off dinner and it was what dreams are made of. He calls this one his copycat Mellow Mushroom crust. Look how beautiful it is! He did half pepperoni and half sausage and used a big ol’ block of mozzarella and layered it on thick.
Guessing y’all want a homemade pizza tutorial from my dad? 😉 My mom and I had a discussion in the car yesterday where I shared how much of a game changer it would be if my dad contributed one recipe per week to my blog. I know I’ve been talking about this for years but I’m going to make him a business proposition he can’t refuse, haha. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
QUESTIONS
Can you read, work, be on the computer in the car?
Which of these dinners would you pick if you could only choose one to eat?
These meals all look delicious! What a treat to have somebody else be doing the cooking for a few days and your dad seems like such a great chef. The shrimp taco salad, spaghetti and the pizza would be my top 3 (couldn’t pick just one!).
Glad you had your mom for the long car ride home. Thanks for the meal inspiration!
The empanadas sound SO good!!! And I really want his pizza recipe ??
Those all look yummy! I couldn’t pick just one. Would it be possible for that empanada recipe to find its way on a future blog post? 😉
Would LOVE the empanada recipe!!!
Yum! Your dad is such an amazing cook! Your mom is a lucky woman! If I had to choose, I’d pick either the fish market night or the steak. But everything looks so good! And if I wasn’t celiac, I’d choose the empanada meal!
I’m so happy you got to have a nice getaway with lots of good food! I am curious about the pizza crust. Is he using leftover sourdough starter? I’m after recipes that use extra sourdough starter constantly!
ummmm, def need the recipe for those empanadas!
Those empanadas look to die for! Would love a recipe.
These look so yummy! Thanks for sharing!
-Kate
https://daysofkate.com/
Those dinners look delicious! I would definitely love the pizza tutorial, that crust looks awesome!
Yum to all of these! Definitely going to add the strip taco salad to the dinner plan this week…looks perfect for a hot summer night!
And I don’t hand the bandwidth to try empanadas but I sure would be psyched if someone made them for me! 🙂
your dad, though! all of this looks so incredibly delicious. when i randomly show up at their door on your next trip… just to eat… don’t be surprised haha!