Lovin on Lunch

Michael. What

I'm actually gonna miss you. Aw, you guys wanna go make out? No

Y'all, Michael has a trip to Costa Rica with a few of his friends

and they go down there all the time fishing. And we're gonna have a special lunch together, precious

So, I think it'd be fun to give Michael a going away lunch

And starting off with some fun, fried brie. One of Michael's favorites are Reuben with my homemade coleslaw

and a side salad with fried okra. And finishing off the perfect takeaway dessert

chocolate chip brownie bars. I don't even want to go now. You can stay home with me

And I can cook some more good stuff for you. Courtney, tell Brandon what you said to Michael at this point

It was so funny. Okay, we're supposed to be out there in five minutes. This one's sleeping up in the bed like a big baby

So I said, Michael Anthony, you get out of that bed or I'm going to hit you upside the head with a ham fork

Somebody said ham fork? That's how Michael finally woke up. He come running in there after that

All she had to do was say ham hock. Get him out of bed

Well, speaking of ham hocking food, I'm going to make you lunch today, Michael

When we're eating lunch, you're still a little touch of the bag lady. She likes to have a complete meal

I pretty much forgot how to cook after I met Paula. And I'm going to start by making this ooey gooey fried Greek

You know, Michael, you have been working the longest hours, and I can't believe now you're finally off

Well, I hadn't really been walking... And you're going to Costa Rica. I hadn't really been working long hours

They're like 60 minutes. 60 minutes. You are so funny. So anyway, I'm looking forward to us having lunch today before you leave

So crack those three eggs in there. I'm going to do a crust using panko

and pecans. And these nuts, I'm just going to run a knife through them

Okay, do I beat these eggs up? Yes, please. Now tell me what kind of fish y'all are fishing for

in Costa Rica. It's the sailfish capital of the world, but they also have marlin, and there's a neat fish

called a rooster fish. And it looks like it's got a big comb on its head

Oh, I heard you talking about that the last time you went. Y'all didn't catch one, though, did you

Okay, now put this in here, the eggs? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can mix this up for me

Okay. And what we're going to do is I'm going to cut our brie into wedges

I've got some tiny wheels. I'm going to just do it like a pie and cut it maybe in eight

And we're just going to drop them real quick down in the fryer

So stick these in the eggs. And then in here. Yeah. All right

Okay. Drop it. Perfect. Yes. All right, so you can take your hands out of my crust, and you keep them in your eggs. Okay

All right, I'm going to have to dip over in here and help you. Well, you're supposed to keep your hands out of my egg plate

I know, I know, I know. Out of my egg plate. So what time's your plane

Soon. Good. He's one of the funniest men I've ever met. And we pull each other's chains all the time

We do a lot of teasing and joking. You know what, Michael

You better be careful because I heard there's some big bad monkeys in Costa Rica

that just run loose and will come up on you and is not scared of you

Who told you that? Susan Green Bubbles. She said she went. And all of a sudden these monkeys just appeared out of nowhere

They got monkeys down there, but they don't chase you. Well, she said they would come up and look at you like

what you do in here. Well, you know what you do there? Yeah, you get your butt out of there

All right, so look at these. That looks better than what I was thinking

Yeah, I know sometimes you think, what is she feeding me? But I've never given you anything bad, have I

Have I? Maybe dangerous, but not really bad for me. Now, we're not going to fry these

but just for a minute. Come on, Bree, pop on up there

Let me do that while you do the raspberry sauce. Yes. Yes

But, I mean, they're almost ready to take up, Michael. Okay. Here I go

Yum! So, I'm going to start with a third of a cup of raspberry preserves

Because I know you like hot stuff Right I going to put some red pepper flakes Uh And a little rice wine vinegar you know to tart it up a little bit And then I thinking a little lemon zest will be good

in it. What did Aunt Peggy call that? The lemon zest. Jest. The jest. It's so funny

She just mutilates the English language. I said, please say it one more time. Y'all

Let me tell you about my Aunt Peggy. Oh, my goodness. She knows exactly what it is in her head

But her translations can knock you on your butt with laughter. Now, here's our sauce

Look, Michael, our brie is just running everywhere. Unbravable. Unbravable. All right, come on over here, Michael

Okie dokie. This is going to be a wonderful little treat. So dig in

So how do we eat this? With your hands and your mouth

Okay. There you go. Mmm

What? Delicious. Do you really like it? Mm-hmm. You know, it reminds me of a grilled cheese sandwich

You know, I'll give anything a try. Oh, Michael. It's delicious. Mm-hmm

And I like to try the way Paula prepares it because I know it's done right

I don't even want to go now. You can stay home with me. And I can cook some more good stuff for you

Coming up next, I'm going to kind of make our own sauerkraut

You don't mind me experimenting with you, do you? No. And later, the perfect dessert to package up, chocolate chip brownie bars

And I know you like those. I love it. All right, so listen

I'm going to do a little twist, Michael. Okay. I'm going to kind of make our own sauerkraut

to put on this delicious turkey Reuben sandwich. So I'm going to take a couple of tablespoons of butter

I'm just using a package coleslaw. And we're going to kind of wilt it down

Yeah. Yeah, and I'm going to put a little bit of vinegar

Now I'm going to put half a teaspoon of sugar. All right, son, we're going to saute this probably for about five minutes. Mm-hmm

And we're going to add a little salt and pepper. You don't mind me experimenting with you, do you? No

Mm-hmm. So you excited about the sauerkraut? Oh, I am. All right, so I'm going to make us two sandwiches

and I'm going to use this beautiful marble dry, and I'm going to cheat and just use a store-bought Thousand Island

Okey-dokey. All right, let me get out the... Let's see, you got the swish, you got the turkey

I got the griddle on. Let's put our sandwiches together. All right

All right. So there's our cheese. Ooh, that's good. Yummy to my tummy

Okay, yeah, put the sandwiches together. And then I got to butter them, Michael

I knew that. Before we throw them on the... I knew that was coming. Of course you did

All right. Does our griddle feel hot? Yep. Okay. It's delicious looking, Michael

Oops, I lost a piece of our cabbage. All righty. That does look great

All right, now I'm going to set this frying pan on top of them

Smash them down? Smash them down, honey. Well, let's get cranking on this fried okra salad, Michael

Now, you just start slicing up three cups of okra into like half an inch slices

and I'm going to chop two cloves of garlic over here. You know, I didn't eat okra when I was little

Are you kidding, Michael? No, and Hank told me the fried okra was called googies

Googies? Googies and cowboys ate them. And I said, well, let me try them

If cowboys eat them, let me try them. So I ate them and loved it. Then I saw my mother cooking them one day

And I said, what are those? She said, well, these are googies. I said, ah, that's okra

Now I'm going to add a fourth of a cup of balsamic vinegar to our garlic here

And then I'm going to add about a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Next, I'll just need a little salt and pepper

All right, now what I want you to do is sprinkle a little buttermilk over our okra

Just enough because we want the flour to stick to it All right I going to put a little lemon zest in our dressing

Make this a little tart, kind of like me. A little on the tart side

Last, just put your okra into the flour, and I'm finishing off with a juice of a half a lemon

Okay, I think we're ready. Just drop it down. And while you're doing that, I'm going to throw our salad together

I'm going to use a mixture of lettuces. Now while our okra is frying, you can take our sandwiches off the griddle, Mikey

Think we could fry this, Alan? I don't see why not. I'm going to put a little salt and pepper on our salad

Perfect. Yeah. I'm just going to dress our salad. Wow. See, this is a pretty nice, healthy little lunch, isn't it, Michael

Looks good. All right. Now for the good stuff. The fried stuff

What we've been waiting on. Our croutons. There we go. Perfect. Let's eat

Let's eat. Mmm. You like it? Good. I'm so glad. Delicious

You might not like it. Mm-mm. Isn't that homemade sauerkraut good? Delicious

Tell me how you like your croutons. That was a neat idea

Mm-hmm. Delicious. Yum. Mmm. Mm, mm. Coming up next, better keep an eye on Michael's bacon, y'all

And you level those off good, huh? Uh, pretty close. Now, you know bacon's a formula

You gotta make sure. And later, a fun drink to wash it all down

I'm just gonna garnish it with a little pineapple. Make it healthy

All righty, Mikey. For your trip, I'm going to make you some chocolate chip brownie bars

Well, let's do it. I can't wait. So, I think you're going to like it. I'll love it

I'm going to use a 13 by 9 by 2 pan because I'm going to make like a stiff batter

This is going to be very, very close to, you know, the double chocolate gooey butter cakes

Uh-huh. And I know you like those. All right, so I'm going to spray this so it'll come out of our pan easy

All right, now, okay. So, Mikey, I see you're measuring a third of a cup of the vegetable oil

and that's going to go in our box of brownie mix. And I'm going to crack two eggs for you

And then you just need a fourth of a cup of water. And I've got your two eggs

And it'll tell you on the brownie box, you know, just whisk by hand, like 50 strokes. Uh-huh

You gonna count your strokes? Well, after you pour this in, right

Yeah. Huh? Yes. All right. Now, I'm gonna get started on the bottom part

I'm gonna start with two sticks of butter and one and a half cups of brown sugar

And I'm gonna pack that down in there good. All right. Now, in this bowl, Michael, what I'd like for you to do right here is measure two cups of all-purpose flour

I can do that. One teaspoon of bacon soda and a half a teaspoon of salt

Okay. And I'm going to start creaming this. And this is going to be real thick

Okey-dokey. And you level those off good, right? Pretty close. Now, you know bacon's a formula

You've got to make sure. and just whisk that together for me

Okay. And if you would, just break me two eggs off in there. And then..

Put them in here? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's creamed enough. It's kind of fluffy

If you would, take this spatula and go around my bowl with me

Uh-huh. So I can incorporate it all. It looks like peanut butter

It does look like peanut butter, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. All right. And then while I'm beating, if you just dump our dry ingredients in

Okay. Maybe not all at one time, but maybe like half. Just a little bit

About half. Okay. See how stiff this is going to be? Uh-huh

Okay. Put it on? Put it on. When we go to pat this what we probably gonna need to do is just of you know run some flour on our hands so it won stick

Okay, press this out? Yeah, we're just going to press that evenly

I tell you what, why don't you reach over and get our chocolate chips? Uh-huh

and I'll work on this for you because it can be tedious

So you just sprinkle these in? We're just going to sprinkle them on top

If you wanted to, you could put a layer of coconut, a layer of nuts

peanut butter morsels. Butterscotch. Butterscotch. You could really just do kind of anything you wanted to do

Uh-huh. Very much like that base. Okay, so just put a layer of chocolate chips on

And then, Michael, we're just going to pour our brownie dough, our brownie batter

Right. On top of that, and we're going to bake it at 350 for about 40 minutes

Just spread them around, you know, make sure everybody gets a bite

If you'll go around and hold that bowl, that glass bowl is heavy

You're getting closer to Costa Rica, baby. and those rooster fish. If you catch one now, I want you to take a picture of it

Oh, I am. All right, baby cakes. 3.50, about 40 minutes. Up next, I don't think these chocolate brownie bars

are going to make it to Michael's friends. Okay, so I need to make y'all three packs, right

Yeah, at least. Here's how I get hungry on the plane. All right, Michael, I'm just eyeballing this

This is some pineapple and some cran raspberry juice for a summer spritz

And it's going to be a great way to wash down those brownie bars, Michael

And now I'm just going to top it with some ginger ale. Then just add a little peach nectar and stir it all together

You can get all these recipes and more at foodnetwork.com. Take this to see what you think

It's delicious. I think it's mighty, mighty good. All right, now, Michael, I'm just going to garnish it with a little pineapple

Make it healthy. Well, I'm going to make it putty. You know, it's important that it be putty

Thank you. You've got to have your little wedge of pineapple

I feel like I'm in Costa Rica. We're getting you ready. You like it

It's good. Good. All right. Look how pretty these are, Michael. you're going to be

popular with your buddies. Look at these, Michael. Oh, those look good

You want to try one before we go to... Of course I do. Let's save that corner one

for me and you. I like the corner ones better. I know you do. How many guys are going to be there

Well, three, I think. Rick and his brother. Okay, so I need to make y'all three packs

right? Yeah, at least. just in case their packs don't make it to them you have an extra one

In case I get hungry on the plane. Beautiful. There you go

Thank you so much. You know, your wife is in the food business. I can't send you off with ugly snacks

That's right. Thank you. All right, there's that corner for you. Oh, thank you

Mm. Pretty good, isn't it? And like I said, you could mix this up, shuffle it up any way you like

You know, I just love spending time in the kitchen with family, especially my husband

He is so much fun. Put him in your man purse. Thank you, thank you

I'll see you when you get back. Bye. Don't let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you

At last, by myself with these friends, life is good