Celebrating Anniversaries

It just so happens that today, I am celebrating two different anniversaries! First and foremost, my husband and I have been married for 1 year today! It is so hard to believe that it has been a year since we walked down the "aisle" in the mountains and committed ourselves to each other for the rest of our lives. I wouldn't change ANYTHING about this first year.

Ryan is possibly the most supportive husband a woman could have. He has supported me through it all...full time job, marathon training, house work and my favorite new hobby, KettlerCuisine! He was the one that encouraged me to start the blog on that fateful Spring day.

Speaking of a "fateful Spring day," it has been 6 months today since I officially launched this blog. I know it seems silly to launch a blog on April 1...think about it, April Fool's! However, it has been a lot of fun to keep alive. Friends and family are always asking me about how the blog is going and what they should expect for the future. Well, I can't give all of my secrets away!

Since Ryan is the center of my life and my second love is cooking, it seemed only natural to come up with an over-the-top Anniversary meal that we could plan and cook together. We decided on extending the celebration a day early so we could enjoy more time together.

Lobster!! That was the star of the show last night. We wanted to think of something easy enough that we didn't have to stress over, but delicious enough that would be memorable. 

Desert was taken care of, we had the top layer of our wedding cake that has lived in our freezer since last October 1. My father contributed a nice aged bottle of Tawny Port, and we completed the meal with two sides, one of which is from the blog - Caramelized Pancetta and Fennel Salad.

Lobster Tails

No recipe today, but instead, some tips about our first experience handling and cooking lobster. We tried to find live lobsters, but decided against this once we knew we would have to face the inevitable killing! We settled (which I say lightly because they were amazing) for lobster tails from Whole Foods. I was intimidated!! I had never cooked lobster and it is quite pricey...so there was a lot of pressure to not screw up.

Ryan did his usual Google search for tips on cooking lobster and found some other cooking blogs online. The best bet was to broil them with melted butter on the side. This just further claims my theory of "seafood is best with nothing on it!" These tails were great - no fishy smell at all.

I only made one cut down the center of the tail, but I would suggest making two cuts (discarding the cut shell pieces). Then use your finger, being careful not to cut yourself on the shell, to separate the "meat" from the shell on both sides. The meat should then easily pull away and rest on top of the shell.

Most recipes call to brush the lobster meat with melted butter before cooking, but I did not do this. I simply placed the tails on a foil-lined baking sheet and broiled on high for 5 minutes. That's it!! Our tails were between 4-6 ounces each. If you get smaller ones, reduce the cooking time and visa versa.

Overall, it was a great anniversary. We started the day with a trip to Whole Foods (for our dinner ingredients) and favorite beer store, Bottle Revolution. We had to find some good beer to put in our cute new coozies from Cass and Mike!

We then sat and watched the amazing video that my cousins made from our wedding and the recording of our ceremony (while I sobbed). And finally, we turned on some beach music, (my personal fav - only Southerner's can understand this one) and re-lived our first dance, which started with a choreographed shag (again, only Southerner's can understand this)!!

We ended the night with our amazing meal:

• Lobster tails with melted butter
• Blanched asparagus, oscar style
• Cheddar and jalapeno stone grits
• Caramelized pancetta and fennel salad
• Wedding cake and aged Port

Happy Anniversary to the Kettlers and to Kettler Cuisine!